Chapter 19
Callum
By the time Avery texted that she would explain when she saw me on Monday, it was after two in the morning, and I had never wanted to get in a car more in my life.
That was the problem with power, or one of them.
There were very few practical barriers between a man like me and the thing he wanted to do.
If I wanted to go to Avery’s apartment, I could.
If I wanted to put a security team on her door, I could.
If I wanted to buy the building, replace the lock, tear open the city, find the person who had left that photograph on her desk and make him regret ever learning to hold a camera, I had the money and the reach and the kind of anger that made bad ideas feel like moral obligations.
Instead, I sat in my study with my phone in my hand and did nothing. I did, however, call Benjamin, because restraint had limits and mine ended at suffering alone.
He answered on the first ring. “If you are calling to ask whether I think you should drive to her apartment, the answer is no.”
“I hadn’t asked.”
“You radiate intent through cellular networks.”
“She said she’ll explain Monday.”
“Then she will explain Monday.”
“She’s up to something.”
“Obviously.”
“You know?”
“I know Ms. Hale well enough to understand that being told to sleep during a crisis likely had the same effect as handing her a flare gun in a library.”
I dragged a hand over my face. My study was dark except for the green-shaded lamp on the desk and the city glow beyond the windows.
Papers from Hartwell were spread out in front of me, but they had become irrelevant the second Avery’s promise appeared on my phone.
“I should have told her about the first photo.”
“Yes. You should have.”
“Thank you, Benjamin.”
“You’re welcome. I assumed you had called for pain.”
“I called because we need a private investigator.”
“No,” he said.
I blinked. “No?”
“No, you are about to say you will use someone discreet and boring from Tom’s list. Then I will remind you that Tom thinks private investigation means a retired police detective with orthopedic shoes and a fondness for carbon copy invoices.
Then you will tell me you are not calling Ryan.
Then we will waste twelve hours rediscovering desperation before you call Ryan anyway. ”
I stared into the darkness. “I am not calling Ryan. Ryan is not a private investigator. Ryan is a liability.”
“Ryan is exactly what we need.”
“Ryan once acquired a minister’s deleted emails during a charity auction.”
“Incorrect. He acquired proof that a minister had failed to delete his emails during a charity auction. These are legally distinct in the swampy moral universe where Ryan lives.”
“I hate that you admire him.”
“I don’t admire him. I respect tools. Some tools are hammers. Some tools are lock picks. Ryan is a glitter-covered crowbar with a wireless plan.”
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.
Ryan Morrison had begun as a friend of a friend.
Graham Ellery had used him during an ugly shareholder fight ten years ago, then passed his name to me with the warning, ‘Do not call him unless you want the whole truth and can afford the invoice.’ I had called him once, years ago, when a subcontractor tried to hide a bribery trail behind three shell companies and a golf foundation.
Ryan found the money, the mistress, and the condo in Aruba.
He was brilliant.
He was intolerable.
He was, unfortunately, necessary.
Benjamin waited in silence, which was somehow worse than if he had gloated.
“Call him,” I said.
“I already sent him a summary.”
“Of course you did.”
“An efficient assistant anticipates surrender.”
“I have not surrendered.”
“You were about to.” I heard keys clicking on his end. “He’ll call you in five minutes. Try not to sound rich and wounded. It excites him.”
He hung up.
Ryan called in two.
“Callum Rowe,” he said when I answered. His voice was smooth and faintly amused. “My favorite billionaire with a structural-integrity complex. To what do I owe the horror?”
“I need information.”
“No, you need therapy. But information is easier to invoice.”
“Benjamin sent you the summary?”
“He sent me the appetizer. I assume you providing me with the entrée, dessert, and a tasteful little glass of panic.”
I looked down at Grant Vale’s card on my desk.
I had placed it there earlier like an enemy I could keep contained by refusing to throw it away.
“A man named Grant Vale came to my office. He’s from Meridian Strategic Risk.
He came with illegal surveillance and the threat of extortion if I didn’t drop the Hartwell contract. ”
“Names I like. Crimes I like less. Who’s the woman?”
My hand tightened on the phone. “Avery Hale.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
There was another pause, and when Ryan spoke again, the laughter had gone entirely. “Then send me everything you have.”
“I need a private investigator, Ryan, not a hacker.”
“Private investigators sit in cars taking pictures of men leaving motels. I don’t take photos, darling. I download them.”
“No.”
“I’m joking.”
“Are you?”
“Mostly. Relax. I’m a digital forensics consultant. I find what people were stupid enough to leave behind. I do not create new felonies unless deeply provoked and personally bored.”
“Ryan.”
“Give me names, vendors, domains, invoices, photos, file names, timestamps, and any phrase that sounded like a person trying too hard not to say blackmail.”
“You’ll have it in ten minutes.”
“Good. And Callum?”
“What?”
“If someone put intimate material of your girl on a table and asked you to trade a civic contract for silence, this is not a photography problem. It is a pipeline problem. Find the pipe, and you find the hand that turned the valve.”
For once, I had nothing to say.
Ryan exhaled softly. “There. I was profound. That costs extra.”
Then he hung up.
An hour later, Benjamin arrived at my house at three-thirty with coffee, two laptops, and a garment bag over one shoulder because he apparently planned to change for work in my guest suite. By four, we had sent Ryan everything we could send.
By six, Ryan sent back his first message.
Ryan: I’ve got a couple names. Also, your enemies are both dramatic and cheap, which is my least favorite combination.
Benjamin read the message over my shoulder. “Cheap is promising.”
“Why?”
“Rich criminals outsource better. Cheap criminals leave receipts.”
By Saturday afternoon, the receipts had started to appear.
Grant Vale’s firm did not invoice Lang directly, because even cowards understood letterhead.
It invoiced Rookline Advisory, a ‘strategic communications consultancy’ with an address in Delaware, a receptionist in no known universe, and two directors who also happened to sit three layers down in Lang’s family office structure.
By Saturday night, Ryan had linked Rookline to two prior bid disputes where competitors had withdrawn after anonymous reputation campaigns.
By Sunday morning, he had identified the drone vendor, but not officially, of course.
Officially, a boutique aerial cinematography outfit called Skylark Media had been hired by a cultural nonprofit to capture ‘skyline and civic renewal B-roll’ for a promotional package that did not appear to exist. Unofficially, Skylark had been paid through Rookline, advised by Meridian, and scheduled over Rowe Tower on the same night Avery and I had been reckless enough to believe forty-seven floors and glass meant privacy.
I read that part twice. Then set the tablet down before I broke it.
Benjamin, from across my office, did not look up from his laptop. “Do not destroy the hardware. It has evidence.”
“I know.”
“I am saying it because your hands look like a problem.”
“My hands are fine.”
“Your hands are thinking about destruction and murder.”
By Sunday night, Ryan had the beginnings of the evidence we needed to potentially subpoena some people and make a judge listen.
“Lang is in this,” Ryan said as he appeared on my laptop in a black sweater. He looked too young to be as dangerous as he was and too amused by danger to be trusted with normal conversation. “Your man Vale is the glove. Rookline is the sleeve. Lang’s people are the hand.”
Benjamin, sitting beside me, made a note. “That metaphor will not survive legal review.”
“It wasn’t for legal. It was for the emotionally constipated billionaire.”
“I am emotionally selective,” I corrected.
“Sure. And I’m a misunderstood librarian.” Ryan leaned closer to his camera. “The good news is they got lazy. The bad news is they got confident. Confident men are sloppy.”
“What do you have on Vale?”
“Prior patterns. Two settlements sealed tighter than a nun’s diary. One former associate who left Meridian and now teaches yoga in Vermont, which is either healing or witness protection with incense. Basically, I’ve got enough on him to make him deeply unhappy if Tom knows where to press.”
“Tom will do what he needs to do,” Benjamin assured him.
“And Lang?”
Ryan smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile.
“I got dirty, dirty shit on Lang.”
“Define dirty.”
“Bid interference. Shell payments. Coordinated rumor campaigns. A consultant who appears every time Lang loses something expensive and disappears every time they win it back. Also, a city council staffer with a gambling issue and a Rookline invoice coded as ‘community access strategy,’ which is either bribery or the worst euphemism ever created.”
“Admissible?”
“Some. Discoverable? Very. Terrifying in a demand letter? Delicious.”
“Get everything together and send it all to me by tomorrow morning. We’re going to bury them.”
* * *
I got to Rowe Tower before six Monday morning and found Benjamin already at his desk.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Emotional stability?”
“No.”
“Excellent. I brought enough coffee then.”
By eight, Dana had arrived with a legal pad, a black blazer, and the expression of a woman ready to remove organs alphabetically. Tom came in pale but purposeful, which was the most useful version of Tom.