“Do not underestimate her.”
“She must have a weakness.”
“It depends what you consider a weakness. She’s incapable of caring about anything except her goal. She likes to hurt people, and she won’t hesitate. You can’t reason with her. She’s manipulative and a liar. She has a wicked, hair-trigger temper-though I’ve heard she’s worked to control it. Our dad always said her temper would get her killed.”
“Thank you.” Sean rose, then turned back and said, “How is it personal with Jon?”
“Bobbie killed the woman Jon loved.”
“And she killed the woman you loved.”
Swain leaned forward. “That’s why I’m helping Jon, even though he turned his back on me years ago.” He called, “Guard! I’m ready.” He said to Sean, “Remember. You promised to protect my son. I’m holding you to that.”
THIRTY
Lucy took a few moments to compose herself before returning to the conference room. The group was adding her information to the timeline for Victoria Sheffield.
Lucy skimmed through documents related to Sheffield’s original case, completely bored by the White Collar unit’s methodical report, until she got to the bottom line and saw that the studio that had brought the case to the Feds estimated they lost over six million dollars on one movie alone.
Studio One was familiar to Lucy. Where had she seen that name before?
She had started going through her papers when her cell phone vibrated with an email message. Noah read his phone at the same time. It was from Sean.
Lucy glanced at Noah. His jaw was clenched so tight she saw a small vein throb at the top of his throat. He stood, and said, “You’ll have to excuse me for a moment.” He didn’t ask Lucy to join him, so she remained where she was.
Sheffield’s communications were rather generic, and listed from most recent to oldest. Lucy turned to the back of the packet and scanned the messages that came in prior to December 23. A full year before she disappeared, Sheffield wrote to her supervisor, Marty Strong.
Lawyers! That’s where she saw Studio One. They were a client of the law firm Jon Callahan worked for. That was Sheffield’s connection to Spruce Lake and her connection to Jon Callahan.
It didn’t explain why she switched investigations midstream from intellectual property theft to drug running, but it was a place to start.
She wanted to say something, but the computer expert was continuing his presentation about the data analysis. He felt that none of the messages supposedly sent by Sheffield after the twenty-third were actually from her. Marty Strong disagreed.
Noah stepped into the room. “Brian, Ms. Hart, may I speak with you?”
Candela and Hart followed Noah out. What was that about? There were murmurings until the trio returned less than two minutes later.
Hart said, “Tara, Marty, Dale-you stay. Everyone else, you’ll have to be excused for a few minutes.”
Lucy rose and gathered her notes. This had to do with Sean, she knew it, and he was in trouble.
If anything happened to him … her life would be empty.
“Lucy,” Noah snapped, “where are you going? Sit down.”
Lucy sat, startled by Noah’s tone, and a bit irritated. Hart said, “I was referring to my unit.”
When all but the seven of them had left, Noah said, “Sean Rogan is a principal at Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid, which is a security firm with high-level government clearance. They do quite a bit of work for different agencies, primarily Homeland Security, the DEA, and the FBI, and have several former law enforcement officers working for them, including Lucy’s brother Patrick, who was a cybercrimes cop in San Diego.” Noah turned on the speaker phone. “Sean?”
“I’m here.”
“The room is clear. There are seven of us-Lucy, myself, the SAC Elizabeth Hart, ASAC Brian Candela, and Agents Marty Strong, Tara Fields, and Dale Martinelli.”
“Your need-to-know team is quite large,” Sean said over the speaker.
Hart spoke up. “With all due respect, Mr. Rogan, I didn’t want to agree to this conversation at all, but Agent Armstrong convinced me to trust you. Please get to the point.”
“Certainly, Ms. Hart. Agent Sheffield visited Paul Swain in prison on December twenty-third. I read the report, and it said that Agent Martinelli was part of the task force, so you’re probably familiar with the Swain sting.”
“Correct,” Hart said.
Strong interjected, “Why would she meet with a known drug dealer? Victoria worked white-collar crime.”
“She went to Swain because in the course of her investigation of pirated DVDs she uncovered something bigger. Swain wasn’t as forthcoming about what it was. I was hoping you’d all know why she was meeting with Swain, what she was doing in Spruce Lake, and how long she’d been involved with Jon Callahan.”
Silence, this time of the stunned variety.
“You’re pulling this out of thin air!” Strong finally said.
Martinelli said, “She wasn’t even an FBI agent six years ago during the sting. How would she know Swain or any of the people in Spruce Lake?”
“I know how,” Lucy said.
Everyone looked at her. She hesitated, not liking the attention.
Sean said over the speaker, “Shoot, Lucy. What do you think?”
“Agent Sheffield was undercover investigating the theft of intellectual property from Studio One. When I read her messages about meeting with the lawyers, it clicked. Studio One is a client of Jon Callahan’s law firm in Montreal. They specialize in intellectual property, copyright, and other business matters. If she met with the lawyers, one of them could have been Callahan.”
“That’s a long, convoluted stretch,” Strong said.
“It’s the only connection she has with Spruce Lake,” Lucy said. “And it would explain the photo of her and Callahan.”
“Why would she get involved with a drug case without running it through the office?” Strong said.
Candela said, “Victoria was a good agent, but she had a history of acting without thinking.”
Strong slapped his hand on the table. “That’s not fair, Brian! We gave her a lot of leeway with this op because it was fucking movies!”
Martinelli said, “The Sacramento FBI office recently had several large stings taking down three separate pirating operations totaling more than one hundred million dollars. All the same signs were here. She might have thought she could bring us something bigger.”
“Not on her own,” Strong insisted. “Not like this.”
“Are you too close to this?” Candela asked quietly.
Strong took a deep breath but said nothing more.
Hart said, “Our emotions are running high. Victoria was extremely bright, but she also was a maverick. None of that matters right now-we will find her killer. As far as I’m concerned, we’re investigating the disappearance and murder of one of our own people. No judgments until we solve this thing. Is everyone clear?”
Everyone nodded their assent. Lucy felt ill, the mantra,
