Pro Bono

Chapter 13

13

C harles Warren drove Vesper Ellis to the beach at the foot of State Street in Santa Barbara and left her there. She took off her shoes and walked along the beach toward Montecito, lay down on the sand, got some of it in her clothes, and then walked back to the foot of State Street and then to the train station about two blocks away. She bought a ticket and took the approximately ninety-mile train ride from there to the train station near the Burbank airport, and then took a taxi from there to her house in Encino. When she got home, she left the sandy clothes in the laundry basket and took a shower, dressed in comfortable clothes, and used her house telephone to call Tiffany Greene. After that, she called Charles Warren’s cell phone. What she said was in the script that Warren had written.

He answered, “Charles Warren.”

“Mr. Warren, this is Vesper Ellis. I just checked my messages and found your calls.”

“Mrs. Ellis? I’ve been going crazy waiting for you to call. Are you all right?”

“Well, yes. I think so, but I seem to have lost a couple of days.”

“Lost them? What do you mean?”

“I woke up this morning lying on the beach in Santa Barbara. I didn’t know where I was at first, but I got up and I walked a little, and found myself in sight of the harbor, and recognized it. I don’t know how I got there. I still had my purse, wallet, and keys—thank God—but I must have lost my cell phone somewhere. I looked for my car, but I never found that either. I remembered the train station was just a block or two up from the beach. My husband and I used to take the train from LA once in a while and rent bikes. I took the train home.”

“The kidnappers left you in Santa Barbara?”

“What kidnappers?”

“When you disappeared and nobody could reach you, we were sure you had been abducted.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“I’m not really getting this. I had a completely different impression. Is it possible that someone gave you something? Put something in your drink?”

“I’m starting to think I know what happened,” she said. “Since I noticed problems with my investments, I’ve been very upset and anxious. I couldn’t sleep, and had to take some pills. The day I went to your office I took an antidepressant. That night I took another sleeping pill. I’m thinking I may have had an interaction between the medications. I had one right after my husband died, but I didn’t think I’d taken enough of the sleeping pills to cause that again.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m at home.”

“Stay there. I’ve got to call the police detective who’s been running the search for you. And don’t take any more medicine of any kind.”

Warren ended the call. She had deviated from the script only a couple times, but what she’d said sounded genuine. He called Detective McHargue’s number.

“Sergeant McHargue.”

“Sergeant, this is Charles Warren,” he said. “I’ve just had a call from Vesper Ellis. She’s home, and she insists she was never kidnapped. She’s been non compos mentis for days, apparently because of a prescription drug interaction. She took sleeping pills for multiple nights and then an antidepressant and woke up two days later on a beach in Santa Barbara. She made her way home by taking the train.”

“Mr. Warren, I have an emergency call on another line. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” McHargue hung up.

It was over an hour before McHargue called back. He said, “When you called, there was an officer heading for my door with the recording of Mrs. Ellis’s call with you. I listened to it and so did two other detectives, including my captain.”

“What did you think?”

“So far we all think it was a lot better than getting a ransom demand and then having to go see a body, which is how I was afraid this one might go.” He paused. “We’ve got some officers on the way to her house to bring her in for an interview.”

“I guess I jumped to the wrong conclusions after she disappeared, and my mind fitted everything else I learned into that story, so it’s my fault.”

McHargue said, “But you weren’t wrong that something was off. You picked that up right away, and you were right to call.”

“Right now, I’m embarrassed, but I’m mostly relieved that I was wrong. And there’s a lot more to be relieved about. She was lucky nothing happened to her while she was wandering around in that state and ending up unconscious on a beach at night. Anything could have happened.”

“True,” McHargue said.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“You’re coming to the station?”

“I’m the only lawyer she has, so it’s my job.”

Warren left for police headquarters as soon as the call ended. This was supposed to be an unthreatening police interview of a woman who had been assumed to be a crime victim, but had just revealed she wasn’t. The cops were aware she was probably in a vulnerable mental and emotional state. But he knew that, because of the deception, this interview could easily turn into something else.

When he arrived at police headquarters, Vesper Ellis was already there. He was directed to an interview room where Detective McHargue was sitting with her.

McHargue looked up when he came in, and said, “Ah, Mr. Warren. Do we proceed or do we call it off?”

Warren said, “What do you think, Mrs. Ellis? Are you physically and mentally up to answering questions about your experience?”

“I’m okay,” she said.

McHargue said, “Good. You’ve told Mr. Warren you don’t remember any kidnappers. Does that mean that you weren’t kidnapped, or you just don’t know?”

She hesitated. “I don’t remember anything about kidnappers. There are some other things I also don’t remember—how I got from one place to another, why I wanted to, what happened to my car and my phone.”

“When you dropped out of sight, police did a welfare check at your home, and your cell phone was seen through your dining room window. Since nobody who knew you thought that it was normal for you to leave without it, a search warrant was obtained and served to your attorney. Your car had been found at the Los Angeles airport, so it was towed and searched for evidence of foul play.”

“I’m so sorry to put everybody to so much trouble, and waste your time.” To Warren, she seemed genuinely sorry.

Only a couple times did he advise his client that she didn’t have to answer questions. Once was when McHargue asked her to explain the effect of the prescription drugs. This was the bit of information he and she most wanted on the record, and she looked good answering it. She said that she thought she must have had a bad drug interaction, because she’d had one years before with the same two prescriptions for antidepressants and sleeping pills. It had happened right after her husband died. She said she had been anxious and unable to sleep again last week when she’d discovered money had been disappearing from her investment accounts. The discovery had brought back some of the depression of losing her husband. The money that they’d saved and invested together felt like one of the last vestiges of him. She had been careful not to take as much medicine as she had years ago, but the reaction felt about the same.

McHargue said, “I know you must have thought you’d driven to Santa Barbara, but you couldn’t have. Do you remember the trip now?”

“No.”

“How did you get back?”

“I took the train.”

“Do you remember the number, or the time, or anything?”

She lifted her purse from the floor and set it on the table in front of her. “I don’t, really, but it should be on the ticket.” She rummaged around in the purse for a few seconds. “Yes. Here it is.” She held the ticket up and said, “It says—”

McHargue reached out. “Mind if I have a look?”

She handed it to him. He examined it and said, “Do you need it for anything?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. He put it into his notebook like a bookmark.

“And how about the two medicines you took?” he said. “Do you remember their names?”

“I always pronounce the names wrong, but you can read them off the bottles.” She dug into the purse again and brought out two pill bottles, one of them clear brown plastic with a white childproof top and the other opaque white with a blue childproof top. Both had the same doctor’s name and the same prescription date three years ago.

He examined them, read the labels out loud, made some notes on his notebook, and then used his phone to take a picture of each label, and unscrewed the tops to look inside, then handed them back. He looked at her and then at Warren. He watched Warren as he said, “Would you be willing to take a blood test?”

Warren said, “That isn’t something you have to do.”

“I suppose not, but shouldn’t I? In case there’s something wrong with the pills?” She looked at McHargue. Where do I go for that?”

“There’s a phlebotomist on call for alcohol and drug tests. He’d come to you.” He looked at Warren.

Warren said, “Mrs. Ellis isn’t exhibiting any symptoms now, and it’s been at least twenty-four hours. The drugs are probably out of her system.” He said, “Mrs. Ellis, it’s up to you.”

“Let’s do it,” she said.

All three got up. Warren and Mrs. Ellis followed McHargue out and a female police officer went with her to have the test. Warren and McHargue went back to sit in the hard plastic chairs by the table, which was empty except for her purse. Warren was more aware than ever that the cameras high in the corners of the room were still running, recording nothing but a lawyer and a cop sitting in uncomfortable chairs.

About fifteen minutes later Vesper Ellis was returned to the interview room. Warren could see she wasn’t irritated, scared, or sick, but she was clearly getting tired, and that was not a condition he wanted her in during a police interview. He said, “Detective McHargue, if you don’t have any more questions for Mrs. Ellis that need to be answered tonight, I’d like to take her home.”

McHargue said, “I think that’s probably a good idea. Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Ellis.” He stood and walked to the door to hold it open for them to leave.

They left the building and walked to the visitors’ lot, and then got into his rental car. He started the engine and she looked in his direction. He held his index finger over his lips and immediately said, “You did a very good job of letting the police department know what really happened. I was a little worried that you might not feel well enough after your ordeal, but it was fine.”

At first, she looked at him as though she thought he might be deranged, but then she seemed to realize he was talking to an unseen microphone that might not exist. He went on, “I know some of the details are still vague, and that there are periods that you don’t remember well. But I’ve read that sometimes memories return and can sharpen and come into focus over time. If anything like that happens, you should let me or Detective McHargue know right away. Even if it’s a small detail.”

“I will,” she said.

After a few minutes on the Hollywood Freeway he said, “I’m hungry. You must be too.”

“Starving. You know what I’d really like? A hamburger.”

They took the Ventura Boulevard exit and pulled into the driveway of In-N-Out and drove away with a big bag of food.

He drove her to her house, walked her inside, and went through the house to be sure it was still empty and safe. Then they went outside onto the patio and sat at one of the long tables to eat their hamburgers. He said, “Are you all right?”

“I’m tired,” she said. “I figured they’d want to test my blood, so I took a quarter pill of each kind. It should be just enough for traces to show up.”

“Are you sure that was a good idea?”

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, but it’s done. I assume what you were saying was because you were afraid your car was bugged?”

“Right. Sometimes when there’s a kidnapping, they bug the phone that they think will get the ransom call. I don’t think they bugged my rented car or your house, but they clearly bugged my cell phone. When they believe they’re trying to save somebody’s life, and they’ve got a bunch of warrants for searches and electronic surveillance, they might have bugged anything.”

“Isn’t what we say to each other under attorney-client privilege?”

“Yes. All it means is that it can’t be used to prosecute you. But at this time, I think what they really want must be to be sure what’s going on. That’s what we want too. If they understand that you’re not in danger, and you’re not doing anything illegal or unethical, they’ll leave us alone until we need them.”

“Good. I’m exhausted, with everything that happened and the interview and the medicine. The food was great, but now things are catching up with me. I just hope I can calm down enough to sleep.”

“If you’d like, I can stay until you wake up in the morning and you’re sure the medicine is all out of your system.”

“That’s sweet of you, but—”

“It’s the least I can do, after what you’ve done in the past day or so to clear things up.”

She said, “You know, I think I’ll take you up on that. There’s a guest room upstairs near mine.”

“I know,” he said. “I was here when they searched your house.”

“Come on, then.”

As they were climbing the stairs to the bedrooms, she said, “The bed in the one on the right has the best mattress.”

After she was settled in the master bedroom he made the rounds of the house, checked every lock, and studied the street and nearby yards for activity. Then he set his phone’s alarm to wake him three times during the night so he could check again. He had not forgotten that Copes and Minkeagan had not stopped being professional criminals.

He didn’t hear Vesper Ellis moving around until seven A.M. He got up, showered, dressed, and went downstairs. She had made him a breakfast of eggs Benedict that could have come from the restaurant of a good hotel and served it on a set of dishes in a modern pattern. He said, “This is wonderful, and it wasn’t necessary.”

Vesper Ellis shrugged. “I heard the shower and figured you’d be hungry. I used to entertain a lot, so my head is full of recipes I hardly ever use anymore. It was kind of fun to cook something nice again.”

“It’s great. Thank you. I hope you’ll cater my disbarment party.”

“It depends on how many friends you have. I don’t want any big jobs.”

After breakfast he helped clean up and put the pans and dishes in the dishwasher, stripped the sheets off the bed in the guest room, then said, “Quick question. Do you ever meet with the advisors who handle your accounts?”

“No. My husband did at least a couple times, but those accounts were started a few years ago, so I’m not even sure the advisors are still the same people. I’ve never seen any reason to ask for a meeting. They would call me about once a year and suggest it, but I sensed a sales pitch, and I was still busy running a small business and trying to hold on to my sanity.”

“Not surprising,” he said. “I’m going now. I’ll be in touch, probably with other questions. If a day goes by when I don’t call you, then call me. I want to be sure you’re okay. And call me right away if any of those investment companies contact you.” Then he added, “If you see either of the two kidnappers, even from a distance, call even faster.”

“I will,” she said.

“When you do, don’t forget that both of our phones still might be tapped.”

On his way to his condo building, he called his car dealer to have his bullet-damaged car towed to their shop for repairs. Next, he drove to the car rental agency to trade in his rental car, because his new associates Copes and Minkeagan had seen it. He replaced it with a black Honda. The car didn’t look fancy, and it wasn’t large, but it had good acceleration and maneuverability, and tinted side windows. He hated driving with tinted windows, but he liked not being easy to recognize. He stopped at an electronics store on the way to work and bought four burner phones with cash.

He was still at the office before ten. The first thing he did when he arrived was to check on the cars he had tracked with AirTags. The two cars that usually went to work at financial firms were parked where they usually were during business hours. The Lamborghini that was usually parked behind Patrick Ollonsun’s house was on the road. At this moment it was moving along Route 1, heading north along the coast past Malibu.

The tags he had installed on the cars had been a sensible move when he had still thought one of these men had arranged to have their client kidnapped. It made less sense now that he believed they were nonviolent white-collar criminals engaged in long-term, gradual embezzling.

As he closed the laptop, he heard Martha’s key slide into the lock and then turn. He remained seated behind his desk rather than startling her by standing up. Martha entered the office with Alan the dog, saw Warren, and said, “Good morning, Charlie. You’re here! I was planning to get in touch with the police to find out where you were being held so we could consider bailing you out.”

“Consider?”

“I might have had to save up. It could have taken weeks. I’d still have to get my hair done, get manicures, clothes, and so on. It all contributes to the tone of the office.”

“I get it. I just didn’t have anything to report until after hours. Next time I’ll call and wake you up. If I do, answer the phone, because I really might need bail.”

She stopped and stared at him. “You’re serious. What’s going on?”

“As of right now, Vesper Ellis is alive and free. There were no kidnappers. I just misunderstood, jumped to that conclusion, and involved the police. She still has the theft problem. Have we heard from the financial companies that hold her accounts yet?”

“Three have frozen her accounts and written to tell you so. Two have answered to say they can’t do that without confirmation from Vesper Ellis that it’s what she wants.”

“Founding Fathers Vested and Great Oceana Monetary?”

“Correct.”

“Thank you, Martha. When I get around to it, I’ll ask Vesper to give them a call, or maybe even bring her to their headquarters.”

“I thought you’d be in more of a hurry.”

“I think that they’ve already placed a hold on any transactions. They know from my letter that they’ve got a problem, and therefore liability, and the obvious way to keep it from getting worse is to freeze Vesper Ellis’s accounts. They might have strategic reasons not to let me know they did what I asked, but I’m betting they did it.”

“Okay. I’m glad you didn’t lose our new client. Congratulations.” She went to the reception desk in the outer office, patted Alan’s head, and started paying attention to her computer.

Warren closed his office door, then unwrapped, assembled, and charged all four of the burner phones. He picked one and dialed the number of Copes’s phone. He was still afraid that Minkeagan’s call might have been picked up on a tap, but Copes hadn’t called him.

When Copes answered, Warren said, “I’m calling from a burner phone, and I’ve got two for you and your friend. Where do I go to get them to you?”

“You don’t have to. We’re less than a mile from your office. We’ll drop by and get them now.”

“Call me when you drive into the lot. Park near the elevator and wait. I’ll be there soon,” Warren said. He ended the call and went back to work.

When the next call came, he went down the hall to the elevator and pressed the down button. He arrived at the B level, and when the door slid open, Copes and Minkeagan stepped inside. He held the Close Door button, handed each of them a phone and charger, and said, “Use it to call me or each other. Nobody else. I set them to automatically dial. You’re One, you’re Two, I’m Three.”

“What about the guns you took?” Minkeagan said.

“You agreed you won’t break any more laws. It’s illegal for you to possess firearms in this state, and they wouldn’t help us claim the money.”

Minkeagen’s eyes seemed to turn icy, but Copes said quietly, “Let it go.” But then Copes looked at Warren. “For now.”

Warren pressed the button for six, and the elevator began to rise. “Throw away the phones you’ve been using.” When it stopped, he pushed the B button and got out. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to see the papers.” The door closed again and the elevator containing the two men headed back down.

Martha looked up as he entered, and said, “Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m going to try. I’ve told you the important part, which is that Vesper Ellis is alive and well. The main carryover problem is that I dragged the police in right away and persuaded them that it was a kidnapping. Now, among other things, I’m trying to keep the police on our side after I wasted their time and tested their trust and strained my credibility.”

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

“If you know specifics, your legal situation will be drastically worse than it is now. Women’s prisons are better than men’s, but still no place that you want to be. I wouldn’t be your friend if I were to drag you deeper into this.”

“What gave you the idea you’re my friend? I’m an employee.”

“The employee thing is not a good defense. But let’s move on to today’s issues. We need to get back to work on Vesper Ellis’s problems. What I think we need to do is get the paperwork ready to file the lawsuits against Great Oceana and Founding Fathers. We can fill in everything but the date. I’ll write the body of each suit today. I’ll include the specific withdrawals and transfers approved by her husband after he was dead, and the misstatements of values and prices and so on that I flagged in the monthly reports from both companies.”

“What can I do?” she said.

“Look for anything in the reports that I missed. Remember the statute of limitations. There’s no point in digging up any felony more than three years old, or misdemeanor more than one year old. We’ve already got enough to prove this wasn’t some normal set of mistakes or a couple faulty procedures. It’s a pattern of theft, but I don’t want to miss any dramatic examples.”

“Right. What about the other companies?”

“We’ve narrowed the problem down to two of the five companies, so we can just put the other three sets of reports in the safe and return them to her later.” He paused. “Am I forgetting anything?”

“Not that I know of, except that as soon as you file suits against two big firms, there will be plenty of work to keep us busy.”

“Right. So let’s do as much as we can in advance. Conference adjourned.”

By the end of the business day, the two lawsuits had taken something like their final form. Warren inserted statements in several appropriate places that the list of acts included in the suit was not exhaustive, and that it was the responsibility of the fiduciary entity to produce timely and accurate accounting for all investments.

When this stage was reached, it was already past working hours, and Martha had left. He was just preparing to follow when he heard the ring of the phone on Martha’s desk. He looked at his phone and pressed the lighted button. “Charles Warren and associates,” he said.

A woman’s voice said, “I’m calling from Great Oceana Monetary Fund. Mr. Foshin, Vice President for Legal Matters, would like to meet with Mr. Warren.” Warren prepared himself to enter the unreal back-and-forth that often happened with these calls.

“This is Charles Warren. When would Mr. Foshin like to meet?”

“If possible, sometime tomorrow, or if that’s too soon, the next day.”

“I have an opening at ten.”

“Oh, I’m afraid ten is already taken for a meeting.”

“That’s too bad.”

“This is something that was arranged long before he received your correspondence. There are twenty attorneys attending, and some of them are flying in from our offices in London, New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, Bangkok.”

Warren had known how big Great Oceana was before he’d ever heard of Vesper Ellis. The fact that the woman was trying to use this intimidation tactic made him realize he had struck a nerve. Warren said, “Okay. Why don’t you give me some times when Mr. Foshin can come to our office?”

She was taken aback. “I …” She paused. “Let me look.” She went silent again as though she were looking at a schedule. “That meeting is expected to keep him busy until one, and he’s got to make a plane at four, meaning his driver will have to pick him up here at two, the way the airport has been.” She was about to make the case for Warren going to their giant offices, where they would have a chance to surround and overwhelm him with a mob of lawyers.

“Well, okay then,” Warren said. “I guess maybe we’ll have better luck another day, possibly after the lawsuit has been filed and the Great Oceana legal staff has had a chance to go over it. He might prefer that.”

“I’m not able to comment about substantive legal matters. Let me just check with him. Do you mind being on hold while I do that?”

“You can call me back. I won’t be leaving the office for ten minutes or so.” He hung up. It wouldn’t be ten minutes. He estimated five. It was three. “Hello?” he said.

“Mr. Warren?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Foshin asked me to convey his sincere apologies for the inconvenience, and to ask you if you would please come to the Great Oceana Monetary Offices at one tomorrow. That would be a full hour before he has to leave.”

Warren was tempted to say he was too busy to do it, but he had made his point. There was no question that Foshin had either been listening to the call or a recording of it. He also had calculated that this was not the stage in the process when he should enrage the opposing attorney. “I can arrange to make it,” he said. “You can tell him I’ll see him at one.”

Things had gone as he had planned. A complaint sent in from a client about her account would usually be stuck in the office of her financial advisor, probably forever. A letter from her lawyer who made no secret that he was preparing a lawsuit had kicked the matter straight to Legal.

He used his desk computer to let Martha know that he had a one o’clock appointment at Great Oceana’s offices, saved the drafts of the two lawsuits, and put on his coat, then placed the burner phone he had programmed as Number 3 into his pocket, locked the office, and took the elevator down to the level where he had parked the rented black Honda. He began to anticipate the traps that could be laid for him—to make it appear that he was offering a chance for the company to buy his assurance that this case was not going to the police, or that his purpose was extortion. As he drove toward his condominium building, his phone rang.

“Hello?” He was wondering which it was: Detective McHargue, one of the two old convicts, or the lady from Great Oceana calling his cell phone just to let him notice that the giant conglomerate could get the number.

“Charlie, this is Vesper.” Somehow the level of familiarity seemed to have ticked up, he thought. She had the right. She’d spent hours lying for him to the worst possible audience, police detectives. She said, “Where are you?”

“In the car, driving home.”

“Would you mind stopping at my house? I think I need to talk to you.”

She had remembered that his phone had been tapped, and so had hers, and neither had been told that the taps were gone yet.

“I’ll be right over.”

“Thanks.”

When he arrived in her neighborhood, Warren took a slight detour to circle two blocks away from the Ellis house. At each corner he stopped and looked up the street to see if there was anything odd going on. He hoped that Copes and Minkeagan had not broken their agreement to stay away from her.

He had thought they would be smart enough to keep their word, but hadn’t forgotten they were criminals. He had looked up their trial records in the Nevada criminal justice system. Minkeagan had been convicted of a string of armed robberies, which was bad, but Warren had noticed that the prosecutors had thrown in a lot of things that were incidental to those crimes—car thefts, firearm infractions, assaults, and so on. It had the look of a law enforcement system that was pretty sure the things he hadn’t been caught at were serious enough, so they’d wanted to keep him locked up forever. Copes had been the leader of a crew that had been captured in a warehouse he’d owned that was full of loot from hijackings and burglaries, including two in which a person had been killed. They hadn’t been able to prove he had been involved in any of the acts of violence, but he’d still gotten a long sentence.

He thought about Vesper. She was unusual, a person who’d had money disappear from her accounts at big financial institutions and gone to a lawyer about it instead of first wasting a year going through the Byzantine procedures for “disputed statements” while time ticked toward the statute of limitations deadline, when her rights would disappear. By now, not only the institutional hierarchies of two companies, but the people they paid to keep things like this from happening, knew she’d caught them.

He moved in a block closer and only made it to the first stop at Vesper Ellis’s street. There was a man sitting in a sedan on the opposite side of the street from her house, where he could face away from it and watch it in his rearview mirror. Near the other end of the block was another man in a car parked on the same side of the street as the Ellis house, also able to watch the house in his mirrors.

Were these cops doing surveillance on Vesper? Were they private detectives working for one of the financial companies he had threatened to sue in her name? He’d hired detectives for suits himself a few times.

To these thoughts were added the question of whether the phone call from the Vice President at Great Oceana had been a genuine attempt to head off trouble by a having a frank and open discussion with a possible plaintiff’s attorney right away. It might have been simply a ploy to be sure that they were tying up her attorney so they could get her to accept a low settlement.

He kept going around the block, parked, and then looked at his phone. The sun was nearly down. He had worked late, and he’d stayed even later for the idiotic phone call from Great Oceana. Driving into the Valley had taken time. The weather app said that sunset tonight was 8:14. It would be dark soon. He sent a text message to Vesper, “Slight delay. I’ll be at your back door in fifteen minutes.”

Warren waited until the sky was dark, and then walked around the corner to the side wall of her yard, where he could not be seen from the street in front of her house, walked across the back lawn to her door, and knocked. She opened the door immediately, he stepped in beside her, and she closed the door and slipped the dead bolt.

“Hi,” he said. “Have you noticed the two guys in cars at the ends of the block?”

“That was what I wanted to talk about, but I didn’t think it was smart to do it on our phones. Who do you think they are?”

“I guess the most likely theory is that they’re police officers. If they’re not, my next guess is that they’re private security people hired by Great Oceana Monetary Fund.”

“Why?”

“I got a call an hour ago from a woman arranging a meeting with me for her boss, the head of their legal division. It might mean they’re checking you out in preparation for a lawsuit, or leverage tactics.”

“What are those?”

“To make you an offer that just amounts to giving you back your own money immediately in return for signing a nondisclosure agreement, a promise never to sue them, and so on. But you have to sign right away or they’ll be forced to file countersuits and bad-mouth you to the credit bureaus, and on and on.”

“Would the company really do that?”

“Threaten you? If they thought it would work, sure. Would they go through with whatever they threatened? Almost certainly not. They have too much to lose if they got caught at it and it hit the news organizations or the SEC or the FBI. I assure you, I would do everything in my power to make sure all of them would hear all about it. But those two men could be anybody.”

“What should I do?”

“What I recommend is that you pack a bag, leave some lights and a television on timers, and activate your alarm system as you go out the back door with me. We’ll sneak through your neighbor’s yard to my car, and you can spend the night at my place.”

“Is that necessary?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “If they’ve come to do you harm, yes. If not, it’s just a brief change of scene. It’s pretty peaceful. I don’t live in a fraternity house or above a bar. It’s a three-bedroom condo on the second floor of a very secure building.”

“Can you give me a few minutes? I have to make some decisions about what to take.”

“Of course.”

Vesper disappeared up the stairs and Warren went to the front window and moved the curtain a quarter inch to look at the street. The two cars were still there. As he looked at the one near the right corner, another car pulled up behind that one, and as it did, the newcomer’s headlights illuminated the reflective license plate for a moment before the driver turned them off. The car that had been parked turned on its lights and pulled away.

Warren looked to the left corner. As he’d expected, he heard another engine sound and he caught the sight of another car arriving and the one he’d been watching pulling away.

A minute later he watched Vesper coming down the stairs with the strap of a leather bag on her shoulder. “What were you doing?”

He said, “Watching the changing of the guard. The two who were here when I arrived were just relieved by two others.”

“You never stop, do you?”

“If you think somebody’s watching you, it’s always a good idea to watch them too. I don’t think these people are police.”

She set down the bag, went to the living room, and plugged a timer into the wall outlet, set the on and off times, plugged the television into it, and used the remote control to turn it on to a 24-hour cable news station. She set the living room lamp timer to remain on for the evening and switch off ten minutes after the television at 12:40 A.M. and turn on at 6:10 P.M.

He stepped toward the stairs, but she said, “I already set the bedroom and bathroom ones.”

“Then you’re ready to go?”

“Yes.”

He picked up her bag, walked to the back door, and waited. She punched in the code on the alarm control panel to arm the system, they stepped out, and she locked the back door with a key. They walked into the darkest part of her backyard, in the shadows under the tall oak trees, and stopped at the back wall.

Warren squatted and held his hands at knee-level with the fingers laced. She stepped into his hands, straightened her leg as he stood, and pushed down with her arms to help lift herself up onto the top. She sat on the wall, swung her legs to the other side, and then turned her body and lowered herself to the neighbor’s lawn.

Warren set her overnight bag on the top of the wall and she took it. He hoisted himself to the top of the wall, went over, and joined her. He took her bag and they walked quietly along the side of the neighbor’s house to the front lawn. His car was fifty yards up the street where the neighbor wouldn’t see it. They walked there and got in. “You’re so good at that,” she said.

“Maybe if I don’t succeed in getting your money back, we’ll give burglary a try,” he said. They hurried down the street to his rental car, got in, and drove off. After he had gone a few blocks, checking his mirrors every few seconds, he said, “Are you hungry?”

“Sort of. Nothing urgent.”

“Have you been to Honfleur?”

“The French town?”

“The restaurant.”

“No,” she said. “And I really don’t feel in the mood for spending two hours in a fancy restaurant. I feel like hiding.”

“That’s the plan. But stopping there on our way to my place takes about the same time as it does for them to pack a take-out order.”

“That sounds better.”

He put his phone on speaker so he could drive while they ordered. When they reached the restaurant, he left the car running while he hurried inside and came back with a large brown bag. He put it on the floor behind his seat and drove on. It took a much shorter time to reach his building. He pulled into the gated lot, and they were inside his condominium in another minute.

He set the bag on the kitchen counter, and Vesper Ellis stepped closer to it. “I’ve been smelling this in the car and it was making me hungry.”

“The food has been fine when I’ve been there.” He washed his hands at the sink and began to bring out silverware and plates and glasses.

“That’s comforting. You have a pretty pleasant lifestyle.”

“If you knew the truth, you’d feel sorry for me. Being a lawyer is spending your days in an office writing that horrible legalese that everybody else complains about and then driving home to spend your evenings finishing the work you couldn’t during the day. The rest of the time you argue or plan to argue.”

She stepped in and began to help him bring plates, silverware, and glasses to the table. They worked smoothly and easily together, so in a few minutes the dining room table was set and they were opening the bag to serve the dinner they’d brought.

She said, “This is such an odd contrast. The past few days are some of the most frightening in my life. Realizing I’ve been robbed, then being kidnapped, then saved, then being interrogated by the police, and now having suspicious men watching my house.”

“I know it’s been bad,” he said. “But all you need to do now is to be safe and not be available to people who might wish you harm. I’ve frozen all your investment accounts, so nothing is being stolen right now. By tomorrow afternoon we should have a better idea of how the Great Oceana Corporation intends to handle the situation they’re in. If it’s satisfactory, we’ll get it in writing and concentrate on Founding Fathers.”

“You make it sound so clear and simple,” she said.

“It usually is if you can prove you’re the victim of a crime,” he said. “That’s the advantage of living in a country governed by laws.”

“No argument there,” she said. “But what I learned in this is that while we’re waiting for that process to take effect, anything can happen, and a lot did. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.”

“I know that’s a terrible feeling,” he said, “but we’ll just stay alert, try to bring the law to bear as fast as we can, and hold on.”

They finished their dinner and cleared the table. He picked up her overnight bag and led her into a hallway and past a row of doors. “This is the main bathroom. There’s also a private one off each of the bedrooms. These two doors on the right are the two guest suites. You can pick the one with a color you like or that has the best bed or feng shui or view or whatever. This door on the other side is my office, and beyond it is my room.”

“You choose.”

He went to the second room, opened the door, and turned on the light.

“This one looks great.” She reached for her bag, but he stepped forward with it and set it on the bed. “But I’m curious. Why did you pick this room?”

“Somebody looking for you would go to the closest bedroom first, and this way we might hear him go in. And this room is closer to my room, so I’d be able to help you if I had to. There are towels and the usual sorts of toiletries and things in the bathroom, if you forgot anything. I’ll be working at the kitchen table for a while, so don’t hesitate if you want a snack or anything.”

“Thanks,” she said. “It’s been a tiring few days. I think I’ll take a bath and try out the mattress.”

“Okay. Sleep tight.” He went to the table where his laptop was lying, took off his sport coat, and hung it on one of the chairs with the shoulders fitted over the chair’s back.

Vesper turned and went back to the bedroom suite he had chosen for her and closed the door. She sat on the bed and let her mind work its way through the few days since the moment when she had opened her car door near Charles Warren’s office and the two old kidnappers had pushed her in and then climbed in after her. There had been days of contemplating her death in the boarded-up room where she was being held. Then the door had swung open and the person she saw standing there was Charlie Warren.

From that moment on, the terrifying predicament she had been in had changed into something entirely unexpected and surreal. Within hours, she had been drawn into inventing, presenting, and providing evidence for a giant lie to the police. It felt like a dream. Not only was everybody else acting on motives that were brand new, but she was doing things to help them that she had never believed she would do.

She had read that people in very stressful situations were sometimes prone to mental states that seemed to outsiders like temporary insanity—identifying with their captors, even joining them, or having complete changes in their personalities. She felt sorry for them. They’d seen their normal protections to be mere assumptions that they wouldn’t be harmed, not actual barriers to harm. A small voice deep in their brains suddenly grew loud. “This isn’t working, really never worked, and wasn’t real. I’ve got to do something else.”

Vesper’s shock seemed to shake loose some things she had become attached to. She had been mourning her husband George for too long. On the afternoon when Charlie Warren had come to free her, a lot of facts had suddenly become visible to her, and one of them was the realization that she was thirty-six without ever having been thirty-three, thirty-four, or thirty-five. This was a lot to take in at once.

She began to unpack, taking each article of clothing out and hanging it up in the closet so it wouldn’t wrinkle, taking toiletries into the bathroom and arranging them in their usual order on the counter, taking her shoes out and setting them on the floor, socks and stockings and underwear in the top two drawers of the dresser. She reached into the bag for sleepwear to lay out on the bed to put on after her bath, a pair of charcoal gray flannel pajama pants and a blue pullover football shirt.