But he didn’t seem angry, or even upset. He seemed resigned. “Aunt Maddy don’t want us no more?”
“Don’t think that, MJ. I didn’t even ask her yet. But I’ll do it tonight, I promise.” Even as I said it, I wondered if it was a promise I could keep. I was supposed to be driving down to LA to meet with Jake’s boss. I’d called on the way to MJ’s school to tell them I was running late, and we pushed the meeting to late afternoon. Then I looked over at MJ and realized I needed to reorder my priorities. Jonah and Amelia were dead and MJ was alive. The meeting could wait.
Chapter 46
I dropped MJ at Tim and Richard’s house without stopping in and drove directly to my aunt’s house. I found her in the kitchen chopping carrots to add to a chicken, which was sitting in the roasting pan.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “I thought you were meeting with the FBI today.”
“I rescheduled. We need to talk about MJ and Sofia.”
“Why? What’s happened? Are they okay?”
I took her worrying as a hopeful sign. “They’re fine. Sort of. Long story short, they need a new place to live.”
Aunt Maddy didn’t immediately say yes. But it took less arm twisting than I thought it would. First, I had to point out the odds of MJ and Sofia getting a great foster home three times in a row were astronomical. Then I reminded her even if Maria did regain custody, which was not guaranteed, it didn’t mean she couldn’t maintain some sort of relationship with the kids. I pointed out she had told me Maria had been friendly to her when she supervised their visit. There was no reason to think she couldn’t work something out with her as I had with Tim and Richard. And when Aunt Maddy asked what would happen if Maria refused, which I had to acknowledge she had the right to do, I promised I’d get Alex to convince her. Then I reminded her Alex was the one who said MJ and Sofia would be better off living with us.
I didn’t know which one of my arguments persuaded her or if my arguments had no effect and she was just feeling guilty. Or maybe it was seeing Sofia again last week. Whatever it was, Aunt Maddy agreed and that’s all I cared about.
I immediately texted MJ the good news, then called Tim and told him too. He invited my aunt and me over for dinner tonight. The roasted chicken would have to wait.
But the FBI waited for no one, apparently.
Chapter 47
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Roberto Diaz called me while we were eating dinner at Tim and Richard’s house. I figured if he was calling it must be important, so I excused myself from the table and took my phone outside.
“Is there any way we could meet tomorrow instead of Friday?” he asked.
“Probably.” I had a court appearance scheduled for tomorrow. It was my final status meeting for Janelle. But I was sure if I called her and told her I couldn’t make it, she could easily find an associate at her new law firm to take my place. “Why?” I asked. “Did something change?”
“A little birdy told me the SEC’s going public with their investigation into your husband’s former firm this week. I want to make sure we have our ducks in a row before it happens.”
“But I thought Brian wasn’t involved with the Russians.” That’s what Jake had told me.
“He wasn’t,” Agent Diaz replied. “We believe his death may have been a suicide. The medical examiner found no evidence of foul play, and if Sullivan knew the SEC was closing in on him, it’s possible he would’ve wanted to end things.”
“Then why the rush?”
“Because if we’re going to end up in a turf war with the SEC, we want to be able to say we have an active investigation too.”
Agent Diaz was shorter than I’d imagined he’d be when we spoke on the phone. He was about my height, but broad and muscular. That was apparent even though he was wearing a suit. The buttons on his white shirt were strained at the chest, not the belly, and I wondered if he’d been a wrestler in his younger days.
Agent Diaz led me into a generic conference room whose wall of windows overlooked the 405 freeway. At this hour the cars were still moving. If we kept this meeting short, I might be able to make it out of the city before the freeway turned into a parking lot.
We sat down at the end of a long conference room table where a laptop was already sitting open. “May I see the flash drive?” Agent Diaz asked
I pulled the flash drive out of the zippered compartment of my purse, but I didn’t hand it over. “Can you tell me a little bit about your investigation? Obviously, I’m not asking for anything classified.”
Agent Diaz glanced down at my clenched fist where the flash drive remained, then back up at my face. He kept his expression neutral. “What would you like to know?”
“Jake told me you shut it down after Jonah was killed.” I assumed Jake had told his boss about our conversation on my aunt’s patio and that I refused to give him the flash drive. Presumably, that’s why Agent Diaz asked me to bring it to our meeting today.
I had no reason to distrust Agent Diaz. But when I woke up this morning, it occurred to me the timing of the supposed imminent announcement from the SEC seemed awfully convenient. Was I being paranoid? Maybe. But when I checked all the business news sites, I didn’t see any mention of Brian Sullivan or the management firm. After learning Jake had lied to me for years, his boss concocting a story about an imminent SEC announcement to get me to hand over the flash drive didn’t seem so farfetched.
“We had to shut it down,” Agent Diaz said. “The Russians thought they’d killed Jake and we wanted them to keep thinking that.”
“I understand that,” I said, “but why did that mean the investigation had to end? Couldn’t you just send in another undercover agent?”
Agent Diaz stared at me for several seconds before he replied. “Ms. Hughes—”
“Grace,” I said. “You can call me Grace.”
“Call me Robert. And let me say how very sorry I am for your loss. What happened to your family was a tragedy.”
I swallowed hard and pushed aside all thoughts of Jonah and Amelia. Now was not the time. “Thank you.”
He looked down before he answered, as if weighing his words. “There are a lot of factors that go into investigative decisions. We have limited resources.”
I stayed silent and stared at him—a trick I’d learned from Dr. Rubenstein.
“We don’t want to expend our limited resources on low level players,” he continued. “The goal is to take down the entire organization. We want to decapitate it, not just nip at its tail.”
“I know. Jake told me.”
“Then he must’ve also told you we couldn’t move forward without a source on the inside.”
“I understand that, but why not send in a new agent? The Russians still needed someone to launder their money.”
