 
## A GLITCH IN THE SYSTEM

ADAM AUST

Copyright © 2016 Adam Aust

All rights reserved.

For Muggs

"There comes a moment when the image of our life parts company with the life itself, stands free, and, little by little, begins to rule us."

-Milan Kundera

"A wise man . . . proportions his belief to the evidence."

-David Hume

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

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KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

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A FEDERAL AFFAIR

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CODA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

### ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sincerest thanks to Maggie Astolfi, Rodrigo Fuentes, L. McCartney, and Matthew Sullivan. Your keen insights made this a much better work.

### 1

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Tears trembled at the corners of Angela Gianni's aching, bloodshot eyes, but she refused to let them fall. _This isn't over yet_ , she thought, glaring at the tiny mounds and divots in the white cinderblock wall opposite her. The air was thick and stale here, but she kept inhaling it deeply. Her labored breathing was all she could hear in the isolation of her new quarters, where she'd been taken while the investigation intensified.

Strobing images of the lifeless body in her back room and tactile hallucinations of blood on her palms trammeled her thoughts.

_There was so much blood_ . . .

She scrutinized her hands for residual traces.

They'd seemed easy enough to clean at first, but after she left the house she'd more than once noticed dried flecks under her fingernails. Now, at least, her hands looked completely unsoiled. She dropped them to her lap and returned her gaze to the wall.

What the hell happened with Oliver? Someone else had to have been there. That's the only way it could've happened.

She felt the side of her neck for scabs. Nothing there.

Maybe not. But then how . . . ?

She drew her knees to her chest, encircling them in her arms. The rough, gray wool of the blanket scratched her yoga pants as she shifted on the cot.

Samara and Mark were still out there somewhere. Maybe alive. Maybe even together. But nobody was looking for them now. There was no apparent connection between them and Oliver, and Oliver was the sole focus of the investigation, despite the incidents leading up to his visit. None of it made sense.

Angela rested her forehead on her knees and rocked gently back and forth.

Though she'd been moved several times in the last few hours, she knew she'd be allowed to rest here for the night—if she could manage to fall asleep. But with her mind endlessly looping obtrusive memories, straining to extract figments of constructive truth, she knew that was unlikely.

Then there was the question of what would happen tomorrow. And the day after. She couldn't go back home, not for a while. She knew that as soon as she was escorted away. But what would come next? It was the first time she felt unable to form even a premonition about the future.

She couldn't talk to anyone again until morning. That much was self-evident. And while she initially welcomed the silence of her newfound solitude, and with it the chance to process all that had happened, the unnatural stillness of the room had a certain maddening effect that she was just starting to appreciate.

Still rocking, she squeezed her legs tighter and lifted her head, exhaling forcefully through pursed lips.

_You can do this_ , she told herself. _It's just a matter of time until the truth comes out_ . . .

### 2

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

Angela gazed into Mark Newsome's glinting, gray eyes as the waitstaff cleared the table. He had taken her to Tête-à-Tête, the most exclusive French restaurant in town, where dining was both an experience and a statement. The restaurant's décor was royally extravagant; the food was elegant and nuanced, unquestionably the best fare that Angela had ever tasted; and only society's most elite seemed capable of getting a reservation. She couldn't fathom how expensive the meal must have been.

She reached her hand across the table and he took it, squeezing gently. _That's what a man's hand should feel like_ , she thought. Mark was urbane, fit, and oozed vitality, despite being mere months from his fiftieth birthday. Having experienced his magnetic charisma multiple times now, and having seen the gliding ease with which he bent the world to his will, Angela felt certain that Mark's ascension to Chief Marketing Officer at Paulson Omnigroup had been inevitable.

When the check arrived with two complimentary boxes of Tête-à-Tête truffles, Angela felt like she was being unwillingly roused from a dream. Though full, she could have eaten another few courses. And while she didn't interact with the aristocratic diners surrounding them, she was not yet ready to relinquish their company. Nonetheless, she and Mark rose from the table and walked casually out the front door past the maître d, who wished them a pleasant evening.

As the valet retrieved Mark's car, Angela could feel the envious, searching stares of the proles passing by. It was fun to watch their not-so-furtive attempts to guess who Mark and Angela were among the Tête-à-Tête gentry. To amuse herself, she stood poised on the curb as though she were being photographed on a red carpet entryway, and she got into Mark's Mercedes slowly, as if to show the world that time itself moved at her discretion.

Mark and Angela pulled away from the restaurant and drove back to Angela's house in blissful silence, leaving Angela to ponder how best to consummate the date. She wanted to encourage more evenings like this, but she didn't want to break character and let Mark take the lead tonight. That would be too much of a concession. Maybe she would pour him a drink, sit him on the couch, and dance for him as she slowly undressed. She would let him soak in every inch of her, and she would adapt her movements to his reactions, to those little unspoken signs that his desire was piquing when she moved a certain way or revealed those swaths of skin that unexpectedly and disproportionately raised his pulse. A guided tour of her meticulously crafted physique could be a nice departure from her dominance, and it would be a subtle way to show her gratitude without undermining their dynamic. Then she could conclude in more typical fashion.

They turned right onto her street and cruised up the hill toward her house. She looked over at Mark, who was peering at her thighs with saccadic glances when the streetlights temporarily lit them. She uncrossed her legs, put both feet on the dash between the driver's and passenger's seats, and slid the bottom of her cocktail dress toward her hips.

"You should be able to see them better this way," she said.

Mark smiled.

"Don't crash, but don't stop looking either. I like the feel of your eyes on my skin."

Mark stared longer and more deliberately, taking only quick glances at the empty road in front of them as a primordial part of his brain began to take over. He almost didn't notice how near they were to her house until she retracted her legs, one at a time, and slid her dress back into place.

"We're here. Why don't you focus on pulling into my driveway without destroying my mailbox, and maybe I'll let you see more when we get inside."

Redirecting his attention, Mark turned into the driveway, sweeping his headlights across the yard and front steps in the process.

"What the . . . ?" Mark said, realizing what he just saw.

Angela, who had been soaking up Mark's attention and getting herself into character for the performance she was about to give, didn't notice anything until she saw Mark's reaction. But looking toward the house, she saw a sobbing woman sitting on her front steps surrounded by luggage. The woman, hysterical, raised her head between a pair of heaving shoulders and stared straight at the car with two swollen, irritated eyes pouring tears over her prominent cheeks.

"Samara?" Angela said.

### 3

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

There was no clock in the room, and Angela didn't have her phone with her. It could have been 11 p.m. or 3 a.m. She lay on her side on her cot, mesmerized by the translucent dust motes floating fluidly past one another in the column of faint, silver light from the window. Her body ached. Laying on her back or side hurt her neck. Laying on her stomach hurt her back. Her meandering thoughts would ordinarily have presaged sleep, but soreness consumed her, keeping her awake.

She thought back to the last time things were normal, the last day she wasn't worried about Samara or Mark or Oliver—or whoever sent those strange messages.

She could almost feel the stiff leather biting into her skin, like it did that day as she stared down the length of her smooth, extended leg at the black, stiletto-heeled shoe gripping her foot.

It had been the management consultant's first session, and she hadn't yet determined the secret things that excited him. Like most clients, he'd shared some basic desires over the phone before his visit. But, like most clients, he'd almost certainly held back. She knew unearthing his true yearnings would take time, but, at that moment, she could only experiment and make mental notes.

"Lick," she'd commanded him, as he genuflected in front of her.

"Yes, Miss Angelique," he'd said obediently, then began to inch forward.

_It's too bad we never got a follow-up session_ , she thought, half-smiling at the memory.

Afterward, after listening to the consultant's sedan accelerate and disappear, she'd removed her stilettos, changed into shorts and an old t-shirt, and began cleaning. It was her ritual when the last client left: performance garb, off; casual clothes, on; then cleanse and disinfect all props, staging areas, and anything else within sight. Although it was a rental, she'd kept her bungalow spotless. And although she only saw clients in the back room, she'd often cleaned the whole house before stopping. She could almost hear her late grandmother's voice when she scrubbed: "A home is a reflection of the homemaker; a filthy home means a filthy life."

On her way to Hermosa Roast, the neighborhood coffee shop, she'd texted Samara Ryland: "You going to tell me about this new guy, or what? There may be some vino in it for you, if you come over tonight."

Samara stopped by that evening.

Kicking off her wedge sandals, and shoving the chartreuse, orange, and pink throw pillows aside, Samara sat with both legs tucked under her left side and her right arm outstretched along the backrest of Angela's L-shaped couch. She was tall and lithe; her soft, dark-olive skin seemed to glow against the beige leather upholstery, leaving only her pronounced, freckled cheeks and thick auburn hair in full focus.

Angela brought in two glasses of red wine, set them on the slate coffee table, and sat opposite Samara. "Spill it. How'd you meet him?"

"When my sister was in town a few weeks ago," Samara began, lifting her glass and pausing to sip from it, "we went out for drinks. Preston—the guy—was sitting a few seats away, typing some emails on his phone after meeting with a client. He's a lawyer, by the way.

"Anyway, he was drinking some kind of rare vermouth, and the bartender poured me one by accident when I ordered a port. I took a sip and loved it, so I ordered a few more. But the bartender was an idiot and put all of my drinks on Preston's tab. So when he went to pay, he saw that he had been charged for almost twice as many vermouths as he'd ordered. The bartender recognized his mistake and pointed out that I had been drinking the same thing. Preston came over to find out who this other mysterious vermouth aficionado was, and we hit it off."

"I never would have pictured you with a lawyer, especially one named Preston. Does he know that you . . . ?" Angela asked, hesitating.

"Of course not. I'm not _that_ stupid. Besides, even if I wanted to tell him, I was with my sister when we met. So I gave him the same line I give everyone else: I'm an aspiring actress, but I teach private yoga sessions to pay the bills."

Angela cocked her head.

Samara mimicked her and scowled playfully at Angela through the tops of her eye sockets. "Jesus, Angie. I can just see him for a while and then come up with some excuse to break it off. Or maybe I'll figure out a way to make it work."

"Eventually he'll figure out what you do. And that'll end everything, probably in an ugly way."

"Maybe. Or _maybe_ I end up liking him so much I quit my side job before he finds out. Maybe I actually become a private yoga instructor, Preston and I get married, and we move to the valley and have a bunch of kids. Ha!" Samara said, smiling.

Angela rolled her eyes.

"Like you're one to talk. How is this any different from your situation?"

"Mark started as my client," Angela said. "He still is my client, actually. So there is no risk of things blowing up because he finds out I'm a domme."

"Yeah, and he's married," Samara replied. "So there's no risk of it turning into something great either. Real storybook potential there, Angie."

"You're hopeless," Angela said.

"We'll see."

Angela rolled to her back on the cot. She folded her pillow widthwise and shoved it under her neck, but it quickly lost its shape. Grunting, she speared it with the crown of her head. A sharp twinge shot up the side of her neck.

Easy, Angie. At least you have a pillow. Things could always be worse.

She wondered if Samara was getting any sleep tonight. She had to have lost a lot of blood, and her hand was probably still throbbing. She was probably tied and bound, too—if she was even still alive.

Tears blurred Angela's vision as she grabbed a handful of blanket and squeezed.

### 4

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

"Looks like I'm going to have to call it a night," Angela said, still sitting in the passenger seat of Mark's Mercedes. "Sorry."

"I understand," he said.

She kissed him, exited the car, and walked toward her weeping friend.

"Sam, are you OK? What are you doing here?"

"It's Preston. . . . You were right, Angie. You were right." She could barely finish the thought.

He found out.

"Let's get you inside. We can talk more there."

Arms full, it took both of them to carry Samara's luggage up the stairs and into Angela's bedroom. They moved to the couch in the den, where Angela suggested they'd be more comfortable, and Angela retrieved a bottle of cabernet sauvignon from the kitchen.

"Sam, I understand you coming over to talk," she said, uncorking the bottle, "but why are you here with half your wardrobe?"

"I moved in with him, Angie! That's how fucking stupid I am!" Samara erupted into sobs.

Angela slid down the couch and hugged Samara from the side, massaging her shoulders. "OK, OK, just take a breath. I didn't know. I haven't seen you in months."

"I'm . . . sorry . . ."

"Listen," Angela continued, "why don't we just watch TV and have some wine for now. We can talk about everything in the morning, when you've had a chance to collect yourself."

"OK," Samara managed.

Angela poured two large glasses of wine.

They drank fast and fell asleep an hour into the on-demand movie Angela rented, which was over when Angela came to. She nudged Samara awake and, as they both rose to retire to the bedroom, Angela saw a reddish-purple stain on the couch where Samara had been sitting. Angela clenched her jaw and took a forceful breath.

Samara, registering both the stain and Angela's changed demeanor, apologized profusely.

"It's OK," Angela said. "There's nothing we can do about it now. Let's just go to bed. I'll take care of it in the morning."

Angela shepherded Samara to the bedroom, taking one last glance at the couch before leaving the den. Samara disrobed, save for her underwear and t-shirt, and tumbled into bed, falling asleep in seconds.

Wandering back to the den, Angela fumbled at the stain with a wet paper towel. But it was no use—the stain had set. She shook her head, flipped the cushion, and went to bed.

Angela awoke before Samara, who, judging by her heavy breathing, wasn't going to be up anytime soon. Angela took the opportunity to buy some hydrogen peroxide for the couch, and to get coffee and breakfast for Samara and herself while she was out.

Returning to Samara's still-heavy breathing, Angela dropped the coffees and breakfast sandwiches on the kitchen table, grabbed a few paper towels off the roll, and headed for the den with the hydrogen peroxide.

This better work.

She flipped the cushion and dripped the peroxide on the splotch of wine. It fizzed violently, raising her hopes that it was penetrating the leather. But when the effervescence stopped, the stain stared back at her unchanged. She dabbed it with a paper towel, but the cushion was still the same reddish purple, and the towel was still white. She sighed and poured more hydrogen peroxide on the stain. No luck. She tried again. Same result. "Shit," she said aloud.

Samara often imposed on people, and she could be careless. And now, despite that she had all but abandoned Angela for the past two months, it looked like she wanted to move in.

Angela stared at the stain.

Samara had always supported Angela, though—through Angela's father's untimely death, then her grandmother's. (Angela's mother died giving birth to her.) Her father and grandmother passed within months of one another, between Angela's sophomore and junior years at U.C.L.A. She probably wouldn't have graduated if Samara hadn't been around to keep her sane. She owed it to her to at least be patient now.

Samara emerged from the bedroom just as Angela was throwing away the used paper towels under the kitchen sink. "I was _out_ last night," she said. "Sorry for being such a train wreck."

"Sounds like you had good reason to be upset. Want to have breakfast and tell me what happened? I got us some food," Angela said, pointing to the items on the round, wooden table.

"Sure, thanks. Smells good."

The women, both hungrier than expected, devoured their croissant sandwiches and sipped their coffees.

"Charlie has the best coffee," Samara said.

Charlie was the proprietor of Hermosa Roast, the neighborhood coffee shop.

"Yeah, the chains always burn theirs," Angela agreed. "Charlie makes every cup at the right temperature. I hear he's really particular about the beans he uses, too. I think he gets them directly from a farm in South America. You can really taste the difference."

"Yeah," Samara agreed, staring out the window and returning the room to an awkward silence.

The coffee was hotter than Angela preferred, but she kept sipping it to keep herself occupied until Samara began to talk. The wait was longer than expected.

"Angie, I don't even know where to begin," Samara said, finally. "He was great. Everything was great."

Angela took another sip of coffee.

"He was smart and funny . . . . He took care of me. Living with him was so comfortable and easy. I was barely working because, well, I didn't need the money. Everything just felt right."

Samara's hands plunked onto the table and her gaze followed them downward. She took several emphatic breaths before continuing.

"Anyway, Preston and I apparently share clients," she said.

"What?"

"This guy I see once a month or so, I guess he is also Preston's client."

"I don't understand."

"Preston was out entertaining him, and he—the client—gave Preston my work number and told him to call me. I obviously don't give out my real name, so Preston had no idea it was me he was dialing. My work phone rang—the phone Preston didn't know about—and I recognized his voice instantly. As soon as he realized who was on the other end, he hung up. And he wouldn't answer when I called back."

"And?" Angela said.

"He was trying to hire a fucking hooker, Angie!"

"Wait, are you telling me _you_ broke up with _him_ because he tried to hire you? How do you know he wasn't calling for his client?"

"The client he was with had no problem calling on his own a hundred times in the past. Anyway, it wasn't exactly me who broke up with him. I would have, don't get me wrong—I won't tolerate cheating—but he beat me to it. He came home furious, yelling about how I lied to him and how I put him in an awkward position with his best client. Like this was my fault. Unbelievable!"

Angela paused to consider Samara's story.

"Oh my god, you think this is my fault, too!" Samara said.

"I didn't say that," Angela said. "I'm just thinking, that's all. It's terrible he was trying to hire an escort, but Sam, you did lie to him, and you have been lying to him for a long time. In his eyes you _have_ been cheating on him. I can understand why he got mad."

"I was working, Angie, not cheating. There is a big difference. _He_ was going behind my back because I apparently wasn't good enough for him. I was just trying to make a living. I figured of all people, you would understand."

Samara turned her head and stared out the window, then started to cry.

"Go ahead, Angie," Samara said. "Say it. Say you told me so, and that I should have known things would turn out this way."

"I didn't say that, Sam. It's just a complicated situation, that's all."

"Whatever. He's a slimy bastard, and I should never have trusted him. Fucking lawyers."

Several moments passed in silence.

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened," Angela offered. "It sucks he went behind your back like that. What do you want to do?"

"What do you mean what do I want to do?"

"Do you want to try to make it work? Do you want to just be done with this and put it past you?"

"Jesus, Angie. It's been like half a day. I have no fucking idea. Can't I just get a moment to wallow before devising my plans for the future?"

"Of course," Angela said. "Sorry."

Samara stood and went to the bathroom.

Realizing Samara's situation would take a while to sort out, Angela canceled her upcoming sessions for the week. She sent Mark a separate text message: "Wanted to let you know that those legs you kept staring at last night aren't finished with you yet. Keep imagining them and you will see them again soon. XOXO."

Mark responded almost immediately: "Ready whenever they are, Mistress "

Samara reentered the kitchen just as Angela put down her phone.

"I have to go back over there to get the rest of my stuff," Samara said.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"It's fine. He's at work now, so there shouldn't be any problem."

"Want me to go with you?" Angela asked.

"No, I don't have that much to grab. I mainly just had clothes over there, and you already helped me carry most of those," Samara said, forcing a smile. "I should only be gone an hour or so."

"OK. I'll be here if you need me."

"My phone's about to die, so I'm going to leave it here to charge." Samara handed Angela a piece of paper. "Here's the number for Preston's landline in case you need to get a hold of me. See you in an hour or so."

"OK. Good luck. If you change your mind, I am happy to meet you there."

"Thanks, Angie," Samara said, turning to walk out. Instead of leaving, though, she turned back. "Angie, I . . . I can't thank you enough. For everything. I know I'm not the easiest to deal with right now. And I'm so sorry I disappeared on you. I honestly don't know what I would do without you."

Angela stood, and the women hugged before Samara left for Preston's.

When Samara was gone, Angela found a leather treatment shop ten minutes away. She grabbed the sullied cushion and walked out the front door, leaving it unlocked in case Samara returned early.

The shopkeeper confirmed that he could fix Angela's cushion, although she would have to leave it overnight so he could properly treat it. She filled out some basic paperwork, and he handed her a ticket, which she was instructed to present when she returned the next day. Happy with how painless the process was, she left and headed home.

Samara had not yet returned, so Angela decided to clean while she waited. The back room was spotless because it had gone unused since Angela's last cleaning, but the kitchen and den needed her attention. She grabbed her supplies from below the kitchen sink and got to work, starting with the den.

She cleaned meticulously and precisely, not stopping until each room looked exactly as it had before, except for the missing cushion in the den. As Angela reached up to wipe away the thin layer of sweat on her brow, she noticed the time—Samara had been gone for almost three hours.

She grabbed her phone and dialed Preston's landline. It rang four times when a man's voice answered.

"Hello," Preston said.

"Preston?" Angela said, confused. "This is Angela, Samara's friend. Is Samara still there?"

"Angela, I don't know if she told you, but we broke up last night."

"She did—and I'm sorry to hear that—but she told me she was headed to your place a few hours ago to pick up the rest of her stuff. Is she still there?"

"I haven't seen her since yesterday."

"Maybe she came by and got her stuff before you came home?"

"I've been home all day, and like I said, I haven't seen her since yesterday. Her clothes are gone, but she still has some of her stuff here. I don't think she snuck in while I wasn't looking."

What the hell?

"OK. Thanks anyway. Bye."

"Bye."

Angela looked out the front window to make sure Samara's car was not still parked on the street. It wasn't.

### 5

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

The lights came on throughout the hallway. Angela had officially stayed up all night. She couldn't say for sure when she'd emerged from the hypnagogic slurry of images, sounds, and emotions that suffused her mind through the night, but her thoughts seemed clearer now, well delineated.

Maybe I fell asleep after all . . .

But being in full command of her senses again had its downsides. The stiffness in her back and neck was intensifying, and her head was starting to pulse. And she was starving. She couldn't remember the last time she ate.

She stood to inquire about breakfast, but before she could utter a word down the corridor a plainly dressed man appeared with a tray of scrambled eggs, toast, yogurt, coffee, and orange juice. He passed the tray to her and walked off without a word.

He must not have had his coffee yet.

"Thanks," she called down the hall.

She didn't remember him from the team of investigators, but he could have joined after she left last night.

With a full team working around the clock, they should be able to piece everything together soon.

She devoured the eggs and the toast, the juice and the coffee. But she still had an acute, visceral reaction to yogurt, so she left that untouched.

She lowered the mostly empty tray from the cot, but paused with the tray hovering inches from the floor, as if someone had frozen time at the moment just before her release.

Preston is full of shit, but why would he bother with the others? There has to be a reason . . .

She let the tray drop, and the plastic clapped against the concrete, toppling the yogurt container.

I should have just gone with her to get the rest of her stuff. What the hell was I thinking?

Samara had been Angela's closest friend since freshman orientation at U.C.L.A., though now they were bound more by their shared history than by common interests or similar perspectives. Angela often wondered if they would even be friends if they had first met as adults. But that didn't matter now—their momentum kept them together.

While Angela was understated and deliberate, Samara was overt and free spirited. She was always chasing those serendipitous opportunities that materialize in abundance for beautiful women yet remain conspicuously elusive for everyone else. During sophomore year of college, Samara got herself and Angela hired to work as "roving models" at a black-tie corporate event. Their job was to dress elegantly, but suggestively, and to wander the cocktail area making small talk with interested male guests, earning significantly more per hour than two undergraduate psychology students could expect to make elsewhere.

It didn't take Samara long to identify the alphas in the room, or for them to start proposing ways for Samara to earn extra money after the event. When the house lights went up Samara was arm-in-arm with a prominent Japanese auto executive, en route to his sumptuous presidential suite for a one-hour tryst to cap off the evening.

As Samara and her suitor were exiting, the man's colleague, Hiroshi Watanabe, approached Angela. Call him "Hiro," he said; Samara suggested they follow her and his colleague back to the hotel, he said. He made clear this was not an offer for sex, having been forewarned by Samara that Angela would sharply reject any such offer. But rather it was an invitation for drinks and conversation in the hotel lobby while they waited for their respective companions. Divining that Samara wanted her nearby in case something happened, Angela reluctantly accepted.

Hiro was older—probably a contemporary of Angela's professors—but he was a superb conversationalist and was charming in way that transcended their generational differences. He listened intently and made Angela laugh. He assured her his colleague was harmless: "He just has a soft spot for tall American girls. Your friend will be perfectly fine."

He explained that in Japan people tended to be more liberal about sex, and that what was happening upstairs was normal for both he and his colleague. Angela was skeptical but intrigued, and Hiro was amused by her curiosity. She asked question after question, and, when her blood-alcohol level had sufficiently risen, she asked Hiro about his personal escapades. His smile widened as he matter-of-factly described his experiences acting as a "submissive" in role-play scenarios with various dominatrixes.

"You pay for that?" she remembered asking. "And you don't even get to have sex?"

"Yes," he had replied evenly. "And no. While the entire interaction is sexual in nature, there is no actual sex. Just a consensual power exchange—but that can be much more interesting. Sex is such a fleeting thing."

She couldn't remember the dialogue that followed, but she would never forget walking into Hiro's room and earning her first $400 as a domme. She was unimaginative, awkward, and apologetic—the opposite of what she was supposed to be. But Hiro was understanding. He never broke character, though he had fun watching her struggle. And he must have been sympathetic, because when Angela asked for another session, Hiro agreed, provided she would wait a month until he was back in town. It was the strangest mentor-mentee relationship that Angela had ever known, but she and Hiro saw each other regularly for several years.

Soon after Samara's night with the auto executive, she'd been convinced to audition for a role on a daytime soap opera. She didn't get the part, but she was inspired by her recruitment and dropped out of school to pursue an acting career, moonlighting as a high-end escort to finance the endeavor. And she'd been at it ever since. She spoke openly about the acting, but talked only to Angela about her true source of income, telling everyone else she was a yoga instructor. She had also refused to date anyone until she was "established" in Hollywood, and for years she had strictly adhered to this commitment, which had made the Preston situation all the more curious to Angela.

Angela snapped back to reality. Thoughts of the chaos at her house the previous night infused her mind: palpitating red and blue flashes on her lawn; throngs of anonymous neighbors, stupefied, watching from across the street, speculating about what had happened and sending serial photos of the scene to their friends and family. Afraid and confused, and too embarrassed to look up while she was walking, Angela could barely lumber her way down the front steps to the car.

Shit, Samara, what happened? And what's the connection between you and a dead, middle-aged man you never met?

### 6

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

Angela walked to Hermosa Roast and to the beach, but saw no sign of Samara at either place. She went home and grabbed Samara's phone, which was now fully charged, and swiped it to gain access. Luckily, Samara didn't have a password. Angela dialed Samara's sister, Nicole, hoping that Samara had contacted her, but Nicole hadn't heard from Samara in a week. She didn't even know Samara and Preston broke up.

Angela went back to the beach, to the pier, to Hermosa Roast, to Samara's old apartment building, to any restaurant or bar she could remember Samara talking about, and then she drove around aimlessly hoping to find Samara walking down a random street. Nothing.

Marching into her bedroom, Angela stared at the pile of luggage she helped Samara lug in the night before. She needed a clue, something—anything—to help guide her search. She felt bad doing it, but she started rummaging through Samara's things. The first bag was packed with gym clothes and other casual garments. The next was all shoes. _No wonder it was so heavy._ In the other bags she found dresses, miniskirts, shirts, hangars, underwear, bras, leggings—nothing useful. Angela glowered at the luggage and sat on the edge of her bed, frustrated. "Fuck," she said aloud.

She looked at her dresser and noticed an unfamiliar black makeup bag on top, which must have been Samara's. Angela rose, grabbed the bag, and unzipped it.

She removed a black iPhone that she had never seen Samara use. Switching it on, she saw notifications for text messages and missed calls. And the phone had just below 30% battery, leaving plenty of power for Angela to analyze the contacts list and call and text logs. But when she swiped the screen, she reached only a password prompt instead of the homepage.

She guessed at Samara's password with no luck, then plugged Samara's charger into the phone.

It was late and she was running out of options. The clock on her nightstand read 11:17 p.m. Retrieving her phone and the number for Preston's landline, she dialed him for the third time that day.

"Hello," said the annoyed male voice on the other end.

"Preston? It's Angela again. Sorry, I know it's late. I was just wondering—"

"I can't tell you any other way than I have twice already, Angela. I haven't seen her."

"But has she called, texted, anything?"

"She has not stopped by, called, texted, emailed, written, sent smoke signals, left balloon animals, delivered origami, nothing."

"But I—"

"I've tried to be polite about this, Angela, but it's late and now it is time to be frank—stop calling me. I am not interested in helping you. Your friend is a fucking hooker, and she lied to me about all the random men—and maybe women—she slept with while we were together. I spent the entire day getting probed by doctors to make sure I hadn't caught some kind of mutated disease from her, and I am glad to be rid of her. She's never coming back. Now leave me alone." The line disconnected.

What an asshole.

### 7

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Where is everyone?

It had been dead quiet since breakfast. Her tray was still sitting on the floor by her cot. The yogurt container, which she'd set upright when she saw she'd knocked it over, was now warm.

I shouldn't even be here.

Detective Linares had called in an investigative team that worked for hours while she sat quietly on her couch and did her best to answer their questions. She was convinced at first that they believed her, but as the night progressed they found no evidence of an intruder.

Why would someone do this to me? If I had just gone to Preston's with Samara . . .

She imagined Samara's shrill wail as she was tormented, her terrified face, blood pooling on the ground beneath her. Had she been held in a dingy basement? A closet? Some abandoned building in a remote part of town?

Not knowing was the worst form of torture, a hangnail in Angela's mind—inflamed, throbbing, and catching on everything.

And has anyone even heard from Mark?

A heavy lock clanked, and Angela spun toward the noise. Two uniformed officers—one tall and thick with a shaved head, the other average height and overly muscular with close-cropped dark hair and a precisely outlined beard—were opening the door to her jail cell at the Hermosa Beach Police Station.

This can't be good news.

"Prison transport. Stand, face the rear wall, and interlace your fingers behind your back," the shorter one said.

What the hell?

They clasped restraints around her ankles and cuffed her right wrist. "Now turn slowly and face front." He locked her left wrist in the handcuffs. "Follow me."

The shorter one led Angela; the tall one followed.

"Where are we going?" she asked, doing her best to sound calm and even.

"Centurion Regional Detention Center—lady prison." He glanced back at her, smirking. "What? You thought they'd let you stay here till trial?"

"Trial?" she said, skeptical.

He faced forward and laughed, shaking his head.

### 8

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

Angela awoke exhausted with the same clothes she wore the night before still clinging to her clammy skin. She couldn't remember the details, but she'd had violent, disturbing dreams—the kind that require psychological recovery before re-engaging with reality. It took a few deep breaths to transition back.

She changed and then drove for hours, first retracing her steps from the day before, then stopping at the hotels she knew Samara had booked with clients. She showed photos of Samara to concierges and other hotel employees, and a few even seemed to recognize her, but no one had seen her recently. Another fruitless idea.

Angela turned for home when her cell phone started ringing. It was an "unknown caller." Her pulse quickened. _Samara would be calling from an unknown number._ She nearly dropped the phone trying to accept the call.

"Samara?"

"Uh . . . hello?"

"Hello?"

"We have . . . cushion," stuttered a timid male voice with a thick Spanish accent.

"What? Who is this?" Angela said.

"This . . . leather shop. You come yesterday . . . with . . . cushion."

"Oh . . . right. Is it fixed?"

"Yes."

"OK, I'll be there shortly."

Crestfallen, she drove to the shop.

The leather appeared almost new. If she looked closely, she could _just_ see where it was blemished, but to a casual observer the cushion would blend in with the rest of the couch. On any other day she would have been beaming, but today the consolation was not enough to override her other worries.

She paid her bill and went home. With the cushion back in place, at least the den was starting to look normal again. She redistributed her colored throw pillows on the couch and, after a fleeting moment of contentment, sat at the kitchen table, and began typing a text message to Samara's sister: "Nicole, I still haven't heard from her, have you? I am thinking about calling the police."

She cringed at the thought of notifying the cops and everything that implied. She would probably have to tell them what Samara really did for a living, and that meant she would probably have to tell Nicole, too. _How do you tell someone that her sister is secretly an escort?_ There was also a risk that the police would learn about Angela's unsavory occupation. And while she was confident her business was legal, she never had to gamble her freedom on that theory. But there was no other choice. She needed help.

"Whatever you need to do to find her, please do it. You know how irrational she gets when she's upset."

Angela stared at Nicole's message, and then texted back: "Do you have a few minutes to talk before I call them?"

Nicole had a conservative personality. She lived in a quiet suburb of Chicago with her fiancée and their French bulldog, and she worked in the human resources department of a large insurance company, where she'd been since graduating college three years before. But she also knew how adventurous and rebellious her sister was. Maybe she'd grown indifferent to hearing the details of Samara's exploits.

Angela's phone began to ring—it was Nicole.

So much for practicing my delivery.

"Hey," Angela said.

"Hi Angela. Thanks so much for handling this."

"It's no problem. I'm worried, too."

"Yeah. I can't believe she just disappeared. That's so unlike her. I also can't believe she and Preston broke up . . . and that she didn't tell me."

"I actually wanted to talk about that. What do you know about your sister's job?"

"What do you mean? What does that have to do with her breaking up with Preston?"

"It'll make sense in a minute."

"OK . . . she teaches yoga. And she does pretty well for herself."

"She definitely does well, _but_ . . . she . . . doesn't teach yoga."

"What? Yes she does. She has been doing it for years. She's even taught _me_ yoga. I don't understand."

"She's been practicing yoga for years—and she's very good at it—but she is not a yoga instructor. That was just a cover story."

"Cover story? For what? Are you telling me that Samara is . . . some kind of . . . spy?"

I wish.

"No. She's . . . an escort."

Way to break it to her gently.

Silence.

"Angela . . . are you telling me that," Nicole's voice dropped to a whisper, "my sister is a fucking hooker? Are you kidding me?"

"Not a hooker, an escort. She doesn't stand around on corners cat-calling Johns. Her clients are high-class: business executives, doctors, lawyers, celebrities, that type. She doesn't have a pimp or a madam or anything like that. She just kind of freelances and runs her own business."

"Great, so she is an _entrepreneurial_ hooker. I feel so much better."

"Look, I know this must be very strange to hear. I just thought it would be better coming from me."

"Instead of from _Samara_?" Nicole sounded incredulous.

"Better me than the police."

Silence again.

"Wait. Angela, you're not going to tell the police about that, are you?"

"I need their help, Nicole. Plus, the longer we wait, the harder it'll be for them to find her."

"But you don't have to tell them she is a hooker. Can't you just say that she's a yoga instructor?"

"Maybe. The problem is—and here is the other wrinkle in this situation—Preston knows. If the police go looking for Samara, they'll definitely talk to Preston, and he'll tell them."

"Are you sure? I mean, wouldn't that implicate him, too? They lived together. And he's a lawyer. He wouldn't want it getting out that he was dating a hooker."

"I was thinking the same thing at first, but when I talked to him, he had some very unpleasant things to say about Samara. Given that he just learned about her occupation two nights ago, and that he immediately broke up with her when he found out, I don't think he would hesitate to tell the cops. Not to mention, he's so mad about it, he'd probably tell them out of spite anyway."

"But maybe he won't. Isn't it worth taking the chance?"

"What if one of Samara's clients knows something?"

"What do you mean?"

"If one of her clients has key information, wouldn't you want the cops to know that?"

"I don't know, Angela. Maybe."

"Look, I've exhausted every other avenue. We need the cops to help, and they can't give us the help we need unless we tell them everything. I don't think we have a choice here."

Angela could hear Nicole breathing heavily on the other end. "Fine. Let's tell them. But please find her soon, OK?"

### 9

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

Angela expected a raucous intake area manned by disinterested bureaucrats, but the Hermosa Beach Police Station was library quiet, and the lone officer who sat at the front desk behind a pane of bulletproof glass was typing diligently at a computer. When the front door closed behind Angela, Officer Rosa Fuentes looked up from her screen and greeted her.

"Hello ma'am. How can I help you?" Her face was juvenile, her voice pre-pubescent. She seemed too eager to receive Angela.

Is she even old enough to be a cop?

"Hi. I need to report a missing person. Is this the right place?"

"Yes, ma'am. I can help you. Please approach the glass."

Angela crossed the gritty, faded-white linoleum floor and walked toward Officer Fuentes. The room was lined with dented steel folding chairs. To Angela's left was a doorway and a large corkboard festooned with police-blotter publications and colorful flyers for community events. The air inside had the same sand-and-salt-water mustiness as the beach, only there was no breeze. Everything in the station felt stagnant.

Though initially encouraged by the calm—maybe they would actually have time to pay attention to Samara's case—Angela began to wonder whether the inactivity and the cheery reception were instead signs of incompetence and inexperience.

"You'll have to answer a few questions so I can create the file," Officer Fuentes said as Angela arrived. "Then a detective will be assigned to the case who will follow up and begin the investigation. Just let me get the template pulled up and we can get started."

Officer Fuentes entered basic information into the form: Samara's name, age, physical description, when she was last seen, what she was last seen wearing, and Angela's contact information for the detective. She also had Angela email a photo of Samara to include in the file.

"If you don't hear from one of our detectives by five p.m. this evening, please call us back at this number." Officer Fuentes handed her a generic business card displaying only the address of the station and a general-access number for the front desk.

"Thank you," Angela said.

"Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

"No. I really appreciate it. Thanks again."

That was easy.

After texting Nicole with an update, Angela sat on her rejuvenated couch and flipped through daytime soap operas and talk shows, stopping at each just long enough to register the fabricated drama and exasperated acting. She would never admit it, but sometimes she liked watching these programs. Judging the characters from her couch and criticizing their stupidity was a unique pleasure that only daytime television could provide. But today she was too distracted with her own drama to enjoy it, so she just kept changing channels until she heard a knock at the front door.

Standing at the entrance was a late-20s, caramel-skinned man wearing a shirt and tie combination from a cut-rate department store, most likely bought on sale together with his pleated khaki pants. He was average height with a strong jawline and delicate, pinkish lips surrounded by a closely trimmed, chestnut goatee. He wore his hair cropped close to his scalp, and he spoke with an alto and slightly gravelly voice, emphasizing and extending his _o_ 's and soft _a_ 's like a surfer.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. Detective Marco Linares, Hermosa P.D. I'm here about the missing-person report you filed today." He held out his badge.

"Hi. Come in, Detective. Please have a seat," Angela said, indicating the couch. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thanks, ma'am. I just have a few questions. This shouldn't take long."

"OK."

"What is your relationship with"—Detective Linares referred back to his notebook—"Samara Ryland?"

"She's been a close friend for a long time. We went to U.C.L.A. together until she dropped out. But we still spent plenty of time together after that. We've pretty much lived in the same area for our entire adult lives."

"Did she live here with you?"

"For the past day or so, yeah. She lived with her boyfriend until two nights ago, but they had a bad breakup and she came here in the middle of the night with all of her stuff. She was very upset."

"Tell me about the boyfriend."

"Truthfully, I don't know much about him. His name is Preston. I can't remember his last name. He's black, about 6'4". I'm not sure how much he weighs, but he's pretty big—he looks like an ex-athlete—and he's a lawyer at some big downtown law firm. I have his home number around here somewhere. I can give that to you. Samara was actually on her way to his apartment to pick up the rest of her stuff when she went missing. I'm not sure she ever made it, though."

"What makes you say that?"

"I spoke to Preston three times the day after she broke up with him. All three times, he said he hadn't seen her."

"Do you have any reason to think he was lying?"

"Yes," she said, nodding. "When I first talked to him, he said he'd been home all day and that he hadn't seen Samara. Then the last time we spoke he said he'd been at the doctor's all day. He also got aggressive and made some really strange statements, like Samara was never coming back and he was glad to be rid of her. They didn't sit well with me at all."

"I see . . ." he said, trailing off while he jotted some notes. "Tell me more about the breakup."

Angela hesitated.

As if he could read her thoughts, Detective Linares looked up and added, "Don't worry, ma'am. There's nothing you can tell me that I haven't heard before. The more details I have, the better chance we have of finding her."

She took a deep breath and continued: "They had been living together for a few months. Preston was out with a client who suggested they hire an escort. The client gave Preston a number to call, and he reached Samara, which set him off. He broke up with her as soon as he came home—"

"Ma'am," he interjected, "just so I'm clear, are you saying Ms. Ryland is an escort?"

I haven't admitted anything yet . . .

"Yes—but she's a high-class escort. Do you remember the Elliot Spitzer scandal?" He nodded. "She is an escort like that, not the type of girl you find standing on corners near cheap motels. She doesn't have a pimp or anything. She just kind of does this on her own."

"Understood." Detective Linares was back to scribbling notes. "Do you know anything about her clients?" he said into his notebook.

_He doesn't seem fazed at all._ She could feel herself relaxing.

"Nothing."

"How long has she been doing this?"

"Since college."

"Does she have a car?"

"Yeah, she drives a papaya-orange Audi TT. I'm not sure about the year or the license plates."

"Anyplace in particular where she likes to hang out?"

"I can give you a list of the bars and restaurants I know she's been to recently, and I can also give you a list of the hotels I know she . . . used."

"Anything else you can think of that would help me find her, ma'am?"

"I have her regular phone and what I think is her work phone here. But I can't get access to her work phone. Maybe you guys can get in. I am sure it has some useful information on it."

"I can't do anything with her phones, ma'am. I don't have authority to search those."

"But her regular phone isn't password protected. And her work phone might contain some good leads. Can't you get a warrant or something?"

"I would need _her_ permission to search her personal property, and she isn't here. And because I'm not investigating a crime—and the phone is not a necessary source of evidence relating to that crime—I can't get a warrant for the phones either. Sorry."

"But her work phone might have a bunch of useful information on it. What if one of her clients did something to her? Without the phone, we'll never even know who they are."

"I don't know if that's true. Besides, I only said that I don't have authority to search her phones."

"But—"

" _But_ if I were to learn what was on those phones from another source, nothing would prevent me from using that information in my investigation."

Angela stared at him, confused.

"I know there are plenty of tech savvy people out there who would be willing to help a beautiful woman circumvent a mobile phone password to help her find a missing friend," he continued. "And I have no control over whether one of those people gets access to Ms. Ryland's phone and lets you in. You follow?"

"Are you saying I should—"

"I'm not saying you _should_ do anything. I'm just telling you what I'm permitted to do—and not permitted to do—in investigating your close friend's disappearance. But I agree that her phone might contain some useful information." Detective Linares winked.

"I appreciate the insight, Detective." Angela smiled.

"In case you think of anything else, here's my card." Unlike the card from the station, this one had a direct contact information for Detective Linares, including both his office number and cell.

"Thanks. What happens now?"

"I'll touch base with any significant updates. You'll probably hear from me again within 24 hours."

"Thanks, Detective. I really appreciate it." Angela shook Detective Linares's hand and showed him out. She locked the front door and turned to face her empty den.

Now what?

Her phone was still sitting on the coffee table, its indicator light blinking—she had a new message. Expecting a response from Nicole, she swiped her screen and entered her password. She needed to update Nicole on Detective Linares's visit anyway.

But Nicole had not yet responded—it was a text from an unknown number: "Don't worry about Samara. She is fine."

What the hell?

She dialed the unfamiliar number immediately, but it didn't even ring. Instead she heard three prolonged, ascending digital tones followed by a robotic woman's voice saying, "The number you have reached is no longer in service." She called back twice more and got the same result. She tried texting the number, too, but got no response. Angela called Nicole to see if she had received a similar cryptic text, but she hadn't.

### 10

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Inhabited by the full spectrum of L.A. County's female criminals, Centurion Regional Detention Center was a fortress. Angela was marched into the prison intake area where she surrendered all of her clothes and possessions. She was issued Centurion's standard blue prison uniform with "L.A. County Jail" and "M" (signifying the uniform's size) stenciled in white across the back and down the outside of the pant legs. The clothes were oversized and made her look like she was wearing an older sibling's pajamas, but at least they were comfortable. The blue color was strange to her, too—prison garb was always red or orange in the movies.

Considered a suicide risk because of her alleged crimes, she was housed in the "mental health" area of the compound. Her new cell was bounded on three-and-a-half sides by cinderblock walls painted white. Two cots, one above the other, like floating bunk beds, both with hunter-green-plastic-covered mattresses, were affixed lengthwise to the left wall and widthwise to the back wall. Facing the foot of the bunks, on the half-wall securing the door, was the same type of seat-less, stainless-steel commode she had in her Hermosa jail cell. A wall-mounted desk and a floor-mounted stool, both made of hard, white plastic, occupied the rear of the cell. And the floor, flecked with irregular surface blemishes of indeterminate origin, was made from gunmetal-colored concrete, and buffed to a sheen.

Angela stood motionless, appraising her new quarters.

At least I don't have a cellmate . . .

Regina Mack, the butch, black, female guard who walked Angela to her new cell, unceremoniously slammed the steel-barred door behind her and locked it. "Put your sheets on whatever bed you want. Lights out in 20," she bellowed then ambled away.

Angela dropped her prison-issue linens on the bottom bunk and made the bed.

At six the next morning there was "head count," followed by "chow" at seven. Most inmates went to their jobs afterward, but Angela was escorted back to her cell where she could be more closely monitored.

At 10 a.m. two guards led her to a small, square attorney room, where an older gentleman was waiting at a rectangular steel table.

Everything in the room felt close. The walls were dense, barely coated with plaster, and painted a neutral eggshell color. Gray plastic molding ran along the bottom three inches of the walls from one side of the doorframe to the other, outlining the meager perimeter of the sandstone-shaded concrete floor. Aside from the four aluminum chairs surrounding the table, the only other item in the room was a wall clock mounted several feet above the table and encased in a steel protective cage.

"Hi, Angela. George Maynard Wallace," the man said, rising and speaking steadily as he extended his hand. "But please, call me 'GM' for short."

"GM?"

"That's right," he said. "I'm here to discuss representing you. Please have a seat," he said, indicating a chair across the table.

She sat.

GM was the prototypical defense attorney. He had carefully combed silver hair and wore a navy blue suit, a crisp white shirt, and a maroon tie diagonally crossed with white pinstripes. His face, like his body, was full but not fat. And his gaze was firm yet welcoming. His battle-forged confidence saturated the room.

"Let me tell you a little bit about myself and why I'm here."

GM was some kind of capital defense celebrity. He was a tenured professor at Stanford Law School, but the university gave him liberal leave to defend high-profile death penalty cases, which he did free of charge. An accomplished trial attorney, and a fervent opponent of the death penalty, he quit his lucrative private practice in Texas and dedicated the latter part of his career to lobbying against the death penalty throughout the U.S., and to representing the worst capital offenders at trial. Though he warned that past success is no guarantee of a positive outcome, he noted that, of the defense attorneys who have tried more than 10 capital cases, no one had a better record in these matters than he did.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Angela interjected. "Why all this talk about death penalty cases? I didn't kill anyone—someone else did this. Are you telling me they want to _execute_ me?"

"We don't know that for sure yet, but, given what's being reported about your case in the news, there is a high likelihood the prosecutor will seek capital punishment. You're already getting quite a bit of media attention."

Media attention? I've been sitting alone in jail for the last 36 hours.

"What's being reported in the news?" she asked.

"Some rather gory details about a murder that occurred in the back room of your house. Given that you're the only person who's been arrested so far, and given that the crime scene is in your house, you are being implicated as the perpetrator."

"This is absolutely unbelievable," she said.

"That's why I'm here—it looked like you would need legal counsel sooner rather than later."

She sat, speechless, absently shaking her head. _Death penalty? There is just no way . . ._

"The prosecutor you will be facing," GM continued, "is Patricia Pearson—the youngest head of Major Crimes at the D.A.'s office, and the first woman to hold that post. She graduated at the top of her class from Harvard Law School, clerked for some of the smartest judges in the country, then shunned offers to work at the big New York City law firms to come back here and work at the D.A.'s office. She's a bit of an idealist, but in my view she has all the wrong ideals. Regardless, she is hands-down the D.A.'s best trial attorney, and she has an almost impeccable record in death penalty cases. But fortunately, I know her tactics well. In fact, to my knowledge, I'm the only defense attorney who's beaten her in a capital case."

This can't be real. I shouldn't even be here.

"Anyway," he continued, "given your predicament and my unique experience with this prosecutor, I figured I would come by and offer my services. You don't have to decide right now, but you'll have an arraignment in the next few days during which the prosecutor will officially enter the charges against you and you will have to plead 'guilty' or 'not guilty' to each one. It would be wise to have an attorney present for that."

Angela still said nothing.

It's just not possible they think it was me . . .

"I should reiterate that I would be representing you free of charge. I take these cases because I have an ideological objection to capital punishment. Because of my advocacy I can usually get one or more organizations to donate the time and resources I need for any given case. Between that and my salary from the law school—"

"OK, let's do it," she said abruptly. Mark, the only person she knew who could help her find a good attorney, was still missing, and she had very little money to pay an attorney even if she found one. If there was any other choice, she didn't see it.

"Very happy to be representing you," he said, giving a brief nod. "Now," he continued, "there's not much we can do until we learn what specific charges you're facing. But did you say someone else may have been at your house that day?"

"I know someone was there."

"Any theories on who that might have been? I could at least have a private investigator start looking into that person. Maybe we get lucky and I find something useful before the arraignment."

"I'd look into Preston Knighton. He's an attorney at some big downtown law firm. He and my friend Samara—Samara Ryland—had a really bad breakup. She came to stay with me, and when she went back to his apartment to get the rest of her stuff, she vanished. He had to have done something to her. And Samara's disappearance is how this whole mess started. First it was Samara, then Mark, then Oliver."

"Did the police investigate Mr. Knighton?"

"They did, but Detective Linares—the officer handling Samara's case—seemed oddly convinced that Preston had nothing to do with her disappearance. He just dismissed it out of hand."

"OK. I'll look into him. Who's Mark?"

"Mark Newsome. He's a client that I was romantically involved with. He went missing, too, a day or so after Samara."

"A client?"

"I . . . sometimes work as a dominatrix."

How many times am I going to have to tell people about that?

"And you think his disappearance and Samara's disappearance had something to do with the murder?"

"They just all happened so close together in time. It felt sequential. Although, I must admit, I'm not sure what the connection is."

"OK," GM said. "I'll have the P.I. look into Samara and Mark, too. I'll also try to wrest some information from the police and the prosecutor, but they probably won't share anything until after the arraignment.

"Speaking of which, I have to warn you that although the arraignment will be procedurally simple, there will be a lot of press there. It can be overwhelming dealing with them for the first time, but just remember that regardless of what they say or do to goad you into speaking, ignore them. The frenzy will pass soon enough."

He stood to leave.

"If I find anything out before the arraignment," he said, "I'll let you know. Otherwise I'll see you there in a few days." He walked to her side of the table and put his hand on her right shoulder. "We'll get through this together, Angela. You're not alone anymore."

### 11

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

By the next morning Angela had called and texted the unknown number more than a dozen times, each call concluding with the same automated response announcing that the number had been disconnected. Nicole hadn't received any communication from Samara either, from the unknown number or any other.

Angela wanted to tell Detective Linares, but Nicole insisted that she didn't. To him it would just be evidence that Samara was fine and that she fled voluntarily. And Nicole worried that if they told him he would either close the case or deprioritize it. If Samara was really in trouble—and it definitely seemed like she was—they couldn't afford for the police to scale back their search. So Angela reluctantly obliged Nicole for now, but she knew she would eventually tell Detective Linares.

In the meantime Angela was back to waiting. After a long run to clear her head, she contemplated how to access Samara's phone. Jacob Drake, her client, was the only tech-savvy person she knew, so she sent him a text message, hoping he could get her in: "Jacob, your Mistress needs to see you tonight. Come over after work. You will be here no later than 6 p.m." She hoped that by staying in character with him, he would feel obligated to help.

Jacob arrived at 6 p.m. sharp. Mistress Angelique answered the door in a thin, knee-length, white silk robe that did little to hide her body. "Hello, Jacob. Come in."

"Hello Mistress."

"Sit with me on the couch, there's something I need you to do." Jacob complied. "Do you see the black phone on the coffee table?"

"Yes Mistress."

"Pick it up." Again, Jacob complied. "Now go to the home screen."

Jacob swiped the phone and saw a password prompt. He looked up at her. "What's the password, Mistress?"

"That's a good question, Jacob."

He stared at her. "If you locked yourself out of your phone the easiest thing to do—"

"I didn't lock myself out, Jacob. That's not my phone."

He hesitated. "Mistress?"

"I need you to access the home screen for me, Jacob. I didn't think it would be so complicated."

"I—"

"You can't get around a basic 4-digit password?"

"It's not that. It's . . . if I get caught, I could lose my job. What's this for?"

"Jacob, you have nothing to worry about. I don't want to put your job in jeopardy. I need you to pay me, after all."

"But I—"

"I will be the only person who knows you helped me. I won't say a word."

He kept staring at her, unconvinced.

"Jacob, follow me. I want to show you something."

She took the phone, grabbed his hand, and led him to the bedroom, where Samara's luggage was still sloppily piled near the closet.

"See all these bags?"

"Yes Mistress."

"They belong to my closest friend. It's almost everything she owns. It's here because she broke up with her boyfriend and moved out of his apartment in a hurry. She came here to stay while she figured out what to do next. She was incredibly upset."

Mistress Angelique looked over the mess, then turned to Jacob. "She vanished the next day." She paused to emphasize the gravity of the incident. "Nobody has been able to find her. Her friends and family don't know what to do. And this black phone"—she held it up at chest level—"might be the key to figuring out where she is."

She walked him back to the couch and sat him down. She stood, lording over him, almost straddling him.

"You have to do this for me, Jacob. You can trust your Mistress." She extended the phone. "I won't ask again."

He breathed deeply, furrowed his brow, and accepted the phone. "Yes Mistress."

He slid his right index finger up the screen, from bottom to top, then clicked through a menu, held the power button, and double-clicked something near the bottom of the phone. He simultaneously hit another button with his other hand.

She folded her arms across her body and glowered at him.

"It'll be quick," he said into the screen, still working. "Just a minute or two."

Moments later, he was in.

"Here," he said, handing over the phone. "Just make sure you go to 'security' under 'settings' and change the password to something you'll remember before it locks again," he continued. "Or turn off the password altogether."

She smiled, her face gleaming from the light of Samara's home screen. She quickly disabled the password and then put the phone down, looking down at Jacob when she finished. "That was nice work, Jacob."

She stared at him seductively, lifting her left foot onto the couch next to him, and resting her palms on her hip bones, which parted her robe most of the way up her thigh. "And I ought to reward you." She held the pose for a pregnant moment, allowing Jacob the time to consider what might come next. "But for now . . . ," she leaned in and whispered, "that will be all." She lifted her foot off the cushion and playfully kicked him into the backrest. "Time for you to go."

She backed up, smiling, and Jacob stood to leave. She opened the door for him, but he stopped inside the entryway. He locked eyes with her and said, "I love you, Mistress," then walked out.

Interesting . . .

She walked back to the couch, dumbfounded. She expected her clients to express gratitude, but this was the first time someone professed their love. She wasn't quite sure how to take it, or whether she should be worried.

Less than two minutes later, still pondering Jacob's exit, she was startled by a knock at the front door.

Did he forget something?

She strode back to the entrance and pulled the door open, revealing Detective Linares instead of Jacob.

"Hello ma'am, I . . . ," he stuttered as looked her over, tracing her body through the robe. The glance was involuntary, instinctive. He tried hard to hide it, struggling not to accidentally articulate the subconscious, primal thoughts that ambushed his greeting.

She loved this response in men, especially when she caught it in time to watch their wits degenerate. But she had to be careful—this was a police officer, not a client.

Collecting himself, Detective Linares continued: "I just wanted to stop by and give you an update on the investigation."

"Hello, Detective. Please, come in," she said in a more sultry tone than she intended.

"Sorry if I caught you at a bad time. I see you just had a guest."

"Just a friend who stopped by to help me with a phone problem I was having." She winked at him.

He smiled. "Those are good friends to have."

She worried he would think she'd slept with this "friend" in exchange for his help, but decided it would be more awkward to explain that she didn't. So she let the issue pass.

They both sat on the couch.

"Tell me how the investigation's going," she said, again with too imperative and seductive a tone.

His face tightened. "We found Ms. Ryland's car in the garage next to Preston Knighton's apartment."

"What?" she said, shocked.

"Her car was locked, and there were no signs of a struggle, but there were no clues about where she went either."

"So what does that mean?"

"I'm not sure. I don't have authority to impound the vehicle or enter it to conduct any analysis. But it's strange that all of her stuff is over here, and her car is parked at her ex-boyfriend's place. People don't usually skip town without taking their cell phone and at least a change of clothes, and they especially don't leave their high-end sports cars parked in random garages."

"Isn't that Preston's garage, too? Did you look into him?"

"I did. He's an ex-Assistant District Attorney and an ex-Assistant U.S. Attorney—and those guys have to go through thorough F.B.I. background checks to even get hired. He's an esteemed member of the bar. Half the people in my department worked with him when he was with the D.A. Everyone said positive things. And there is nothing, aside from the location of the car, suggesting he was involved in Ms. Ryland's disappearance. Based on that and my extensive interview with him, he seems clean."

"What did he say when you talked to him?"

"I can't share details, but in general he was still pretty upset about the breakup, and he appeared genuinely surprised to learn that Ms. Ryland's car was parked in the garage next to his building. And he insisted he hasn't seen her."

"Do you believe him? I mean, it would be kind of hard to miss her car in the garage, wouldn't it? And he was making all these aggressive comments about her never coming back the day after she disappeared."

"I believe him. He parks in a reserved spot two levels below where we found her car. There's no reason he would have gone up there. Makes sense he didn't see it. And his comments are understandable given how upset he was about the breakup."

"But how do you—"

"I also looked around his apartment," he continued. "There were no signs of foul play whatsoever. If someone's involved in Ms. Ryland's disappearance, it's probably not Mr. Knighton."

"Are you saying someone else took her?"

"I'm not saying anything yet, just that I'm suspicious. I need to keep digging. But I don't have many leads to guide my investigation right now. I was hoping you thought of some additional information since we last spoke."

"I can probably give you a list of new names to check out, if you give me a few minutes to look through this." She picked up Samara's phone and dangled it in front of the detective.

"Of course. Take your time."

She searched the phone and then looked up. "Let me know when you're ready."

"Go ahead," he said. She recited the information from Samara's phone, and Detective Linares jotted it down. But the texts on Samara's phone were vague, and the calls in the call log were short. Each contact called infrequently. There was no indication that the names were even real, or any clue about which ones to prioritize. Angela wasn't sure any of it would help.

"Thanks, ma'am. I'll get started tracking down these leads. If you think of _anything_ else, please let me know as soon as possible. Time is not on our side." Detective Linares stood to leave.

_Fuck it, he needs to know._ "There is . . . one more thing, Detective. I got this bizarre text last night." She picked up her phone, opened the message, and handed the phone to him. "The person implied they were with Samara, but the message seems fishy. Samara would have contacted me personally if she wanted to let me know she was OK. The number is disconnected, too. I tried calling and texting it like 15 times."

"Are you sure this isn't genuine?"

"I've known Samara for over a decade, Detective. I'm very confident she didn't ask someone to send this for her. Besides, Samara has never intentionally been alone for more than a couple of hours at a time. She hates being by herself. She wouldn't just disappear like this."

"Maybe she isn't alone. Maybe she took off with one of her clients."

"From Preston's apartment? Without her car or phone or a change of clothes? That doesn't make sense. Besides, she was agonizing over her breakup. She wasn't exactly in the mindset for a romantic tryst."

Angela's phone whistled in Detective Linares's hand, signifying a new text message. He glanced down reflexively. His face changed from determined to confused.

"What is it?"

"Nothing." He looked up and handed her the phone.

She looked down at it and saw a message from Mark in full display on the screen. He asked to schedule a new session, and he ended it with "Mistress."

Shit.

"It's not what you think," she said.

"It's fine. I don't judge." He was condescending and dismissive.

Everyone judges.

"I am _not_ in the same line of work as Samara—I don't sleep with men for money," Angela insisted.

"Seriously, it's not my business. Just stay safe, OK? The last thing I'd want is for you to be on the other end of an investigation like this."

"I'm a domme, Detective, not an escort. I don't think I have much to worry about in that regard."

"Come again?"

"I sometimes work as a dominatrix. My clients are submissive men. The text you just read is from one of them. Not much to worry about there."

"So . . . you dress up in leather, tie people up, whip them, and all that?" He was shocked, but curious.

"I mean . . . these guys . . . they . . . ask for this. Besides, they're not exactly in a position to do any harm while they're here. So no need to worry." She forced a smile, trying to lighten the situation.

He returned her awkward glance, nodding slowly and skeptically.

"Anyway, back to the investigation," she said. "Anything else I can tell you about Samara?"

"No, ma'am," he said. "Thanks for the list of names. I'll check in again soon. Have a good night." He turned and walked out the door.

She sunk sloppily into the couch and stared at the front door, shaking her head. She exhaled and looked down at her phone.

Dammit Mark. That was awful timing. You should've waited for me.

Then, still holding the phone, she pursed her lips and replied to Mark's text: "Come over at nine if you're so eager. I am in a skimpy silk robe that could fall off any minute. XO."

The doorbell rang at 9 p.m. exactly. She pulled Mark inside and closed the door. He started to say _hello_ when she stopped him. "No talking," she said. "Here's what's going to happen. I am going to go sit on the couch, and you are going to go down on me until you can't keep a rhythm with your tongue. Then—and only then—you will stand up, bend me over the couch, and _pound_ me from behind. You will smack my ass, and you will leave marks. If you're not pouring sweat and gasping for air by the time you finish, you've done something wrong. Once I say you're done, you will get dressed quickly and leave. No questions asked. I'll text you later about scheduling a session this week. And you will fantasize about me every day until you come back. Nod if you understand." He did. "Now untie my robe and get to work."

The sex was athletic and exhausting—exactly the kind of release she needed. When Mark left she collected her robe and phone and walked back to the bedroom, heat emanating from the red marks on the sides of her ass. Her naked reflection in the mirror confirmed how rough Mark had been. It was perfect.

She awoke the next morning fully rested and thinking about Mark instead of Samara. A committed relationship was out of the question, but she wanted more than their current arrangement. She'd have to do some serious thinking about how to accomplish that.

She rolled over and grabbed her phone off the nightstand. It showed one missed call and two new text messages. The call and first text were from Nicole—she wanted an update on the investigation. But the other message was from a number Angela didn't recognize. It read, "You couldn't at least wait until you found her?"

### 12

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

Angela called the number, but it was disconnected. She tried texting it, too, but got no response.

This again?

Next she dialed Detective Linares. "Hello, Detective. It's Angela. I got another one of those weird texts last night."

"Same number?"

"No, but it was another one I didn't recognize, and the number was disconnected again when I called back."

"What did the message say?"

"It said, 'You couldn't at least wait until you found her?' I'll forward it to you."

"Any idea what that means?"

"I was with someone after you left last night. I'm guessing the message has to do with that."

"You're sure it wasn't Ms. Ryland?"

"I don't think so, although this one is tougher to tell."

"Does your guest from last night know she's missing?"

"No. He did see her once at my house right after she broke up with Preston. But otherwise he knows nothing about her."

"Anyone else know she's missing?"

"You, me, Samara's sister Nicole, Preston, a dozen or so random people I spoke to when I was driving around looking for her right after she vanished."

"Anyone else know about the guy you had over last night?"

"Just me, Mark—the guy—and apparently the person who sent the text. Do you think someone's stalking me?"

"It's possible. Until we know for sure, you should be extra cautious when you go out. Give me Mark's contact info and the number that you got the text from last night. I'll look into this."

She hesitated.

"What is it?" he said.

"Any chance you could investigate the text without contacting Mark? He's one of my best clients. If he finds out I gave his information to the police, he might walk."

"I have to talk to him, ma'am. He may know something. And—I don't mean to scare you—but he could've sent that text; and if he did, he may be a threat to you."

"I highly doubt that . . . but . . . fine. If there's no other way." She gave him Mark's number and address. "Please let me know what you learn, Detective."

Her day passed in glacially slow chunks. First she went for a long run on the beach, but a few miles in something popped in her knee, and she had to walk the rest of the way back. It took much longer than usual. Then she went to the salon to get her nails done, but it was packed, and although they said they could take her "in just a minute," she sat for 45 minutes before they did.

Everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. Eventually she found herself at home icing her knee and mindlessly flipping through TV channels, finally settling on the six o'clock news, which she apparently watched, but didn't remember.

A hard knock at the front door yanked her from her haze. Detective Linares was outside flanked by two stern-looking L.A.P.D. officers in full uniform, whom he introduced as Detectives Carl Trickett and Jack McElroy from the West L.A. Division. They just needed to ask her a few questions about Mark Newsome, they said. She let them in.

Trickett and McElroy were gray-haired, probably in their late 50s or early 60s, with hard faces and soft bodies. They had unyielding, almost predatory stares, suggesting that the motto emblazoned on their badges—"To Protect and Serve"—didn't apply to Angela. Trickett asked most of the questions and spoke as if he were dispassionately reciting lines from a movie he'd seen too many times. He anticipated her responses, and when she deviated from his expectations, McElroy interceded to redirect the dialogue. They were two physical embodiments of a single, jaded, law-enforcing spirit.

"Mark Newsome's wife reported him missing this morning after he didn't come home last night," Trickett began. "His car was found parked at the curb just shy of his family's house, but there was no sign of him. We understand he came to see you yesterday evening. And we also understand that a close friend of yours recently went missing, too. Quite the coincidence."

Angela felt her throat tighten and her palms start to sweat. Trickett and McElroy scrutinized her unblinkingly.

"Nobody's saying you did anything wrong—yet," Trickett continued, "but we figured we'd give you a chance to explain your relationship with Mr. Newsome and what you remember from last night, to get ahead of this thing."

Unsure of their intentions, she spoke opaquely. She called Mark a "client" and mentioned that they had been "dating" for a few months. He had been over for a "personal visit" last night, not a session, she said, and he was there for only 30 minutes or so. By design, Mark didn't say a word, so she wasn't sure where he was before or where he went after.

"Mr. Newsome came over for a 'personal visit,' during which you didn't talk, and he didn't give any hint as to where he was going afterward?" McElroy said. "Yeah, that sounds normal. Nothing strange there at all . . ."

Holding a long, flat scowl, Trickett probed further: "Why don't you tell us about this other missing-person case you're involved in?"

"I'm not _involved_ in that case. I filed it. My closest friend went missing a few days ago, but that has nothing to do with Mark."

"Your close friend vanishes and days later your client-boyfriend goes missing, too, and that doesn't strike you as odd?"

"It strikes me as awful, but they didn't even know each other."

"But they both knew you—well—didn't they?"

"What are you getting at, Detective? Should I have a lawyer here?"

"We just want to make sure we have all the facts, Miss," McElroy interjected. "No need for a lawyer yet—you're not under arrest."

"Yet?"

"Want to tell us about the text message you received last night?" Trickett said.

She froze.

Fucking Linares. Sitting there silently, letting all this happen.

"I got a text from a random number last night that seemed relevant to my friend Samara's missing-person case. But I don't know who sent it, or what it means."

Trickett and McElroy glanced at one another, and Trickett continued: "As we understand it, Ms. Gianni, the message relates to the missing-hooker case and references your little rendez vous with Mark Newsome last night—hours before he vanished. Seems to us it could be prime evidence in not one but two recent missing-person cases."

"I'd be happy to forward you the messages, Detectives."

"Messages? Plural?" Trickett and McElroy's attention swung to Detective Linares.

"There was an earlier message suggesting the girl was fine," Detective Linares said dismissively. "But it was also from a disconnected number. No mention or suggestion of Mark Newsome in that one."

"I think you'd better send us both messages," Trickett said to Angela, "and anything else you have. If you know something, we'll find out sooner or later. Best to play it straight from the beginning."

"I'll send them both, and if I think of anything else, I'll gladly share it. But for now, that is all I can offer, Detectives."

"Fine. We may need to speak to you again, but provided you send those messages, we're done for now. We'll show ourselves out." The three detectives rose, and Trickett dropped his card on the coffee table. Detective Linares avoided Angela's gaze as he walked out.

She knew now she couldn't trust Detective Linares. And worse, he now seemed to think she had something to do with Mark's disappearance.

Does that mean he suspects me in Samara's case, too?

Angela forwarded the text messages to Trickett, and dropped her phone on the couch next to her.

What the hell was that?

Just then, her phone whistled. She looked down at the new text message from another unknown number: "It's time we had a talk."

### 13

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

The courtroom was packed with rapacious journalists who were scrutinizing Angela's every twitch and feverishly scrawling their impressions on wire-coiled notepads—because the judge prohibited computers, cameras, and cell phones. Angela had been escorted in through a side door and seated next to GM at the heavy, cherry-wood counsel table on the left. Seated at an identical table to GM's right was a severe-looking woman with sharp, angular features and vibrant honey-blond hair, possibly dyed, that was styled in a smart, bob haircut. She wore a gray designer suit and looked fit, but she had pronounced crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, and the skin surrounding her mouth was starting to desiccate and furrow, making it difficult to guess her age.

"That's Patricia Pearson," GM said, nodding toward the opposite counsel table.

The floor was covered in pine-green carpet, and the walls, judge's bench, witness stand, and jury box were all paneled in the same cherry wood as the counsel tables.

"We didn't find anything on Preston Knighton, Mark Newsome, or Samara Ryland yet," GM whispered to Angela, "but that's nothing to worry about, it's only been a few days. I will of course have my investigators keep—"

"All rise," the bailiff called, as the judge lumbered to his bench.

GM stood and signaled Angela to do the same.

The judge sat, donned his wire-framed reading glasses, and looked over them at the crowd through two stern, deep-set eyes. "Please be seated," he said.

The judge's black robe hid his portly body, but between his collar and his shiny, hairless scalp were bountiful, loose folds of skin, barely interrupted by his thin lips and nostril slits.

He read the case name and number into the record and turned to Pearson: "Are the People ready?"

"Yes, Your Honor," she said.

"The defense?" he said, glancing GM's way.

"Yes, Your Honor," GM said.

"The prosecution may proceed with its charges."

Patricia Pearson stood slowly and recited the criminal indictment in a strong, unwavering voice. "The People charge Ms. Gianni with the capital murder of Mr. Oliver Knox," she said, pausing for GM's response and any potential commentary from the judge.

Angela swallowed hard and fought to maintain a blank face. _Look straight ahead. Breathe. You can do this._

"The defendant pleads 'not guilty,' Your Honor," GM replied as he stood.

It was clear from his tone and demeanor that these proceedings were routine for GM. And he was infectiously confident. Angela felt herself starting to relax—her fingers unfurling from the fists she hadn't realized she was making, her shoulders slowly receding from their anxious hunch.

He sure looks and sounds the part.

"The People charge Ms. Gianni with the capital murder of Ms. Samara Ryland."

Did she just . . . ?

Angela's stomach knotted and the blood drained from her face. The crowd stirred loudly behind her.

What the hell is happening?

The judge smacked his gavel on the sound block. "Order!" he said. "We will have an orderly audience or we will have no audience." He smacked the sound block again and looked menacingly toward the restless gallery, then back to GM: "How does the defendant plead, Mr. Wallace?"

"'Not guilty,' Your Honor," he said, showing no hint of surprise.

Did he know about this? Is she really dead?

Tears spilled over Angela's eyelids onto her cheeks as she tried to slow her breathing.

"The People charge Ms. Gianni with the capital murder of Mr. Mark Newsome," Pearson said.

It felt as if the air had been sucked from her lungs and she couldn't replace it. She sobbed audibly, involuntarily, and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders heaved spastically.

This isn't happening!

"The defendant pleads 'not guilty,' Your Honor."

Everyone was staring at her, every gaze filled with disgust.

The judge scheduled trial in 90 days—much sooner than expected, which Angela initially took as good news. But when GM leaned over to suggest a follow-up meeting at Centurion, the concern in his voice was unmistakable.

Someone—the bailiff, most likely—pulled her to her feet and out of the courtroom into an empty, silent corridor. Her tears had stopped, but her nose was still congested. She panted heavily through her open mouth as she tried to lift and place her feet one after the other, but they felt like two bricks, attached to her hips with thin, slack string.

The floor was glossy. The walls were adorned with portraits of old judges. The bailiff shuffled Angela down the passageway through a series of doors, his rubber-soled shoes chirping rhythmically with each footfall. They reached a heavy door with a push bar and the bailiff leaned into it, shoving the door open and enveloping them both in daylight that overwhelmed Angela's vision and stung her eyes.

She heard and felt the reporters before she could see them. There was an eruption of questions, so loud and comingled that she couldn't have answered properly if she wanted to, which she didn't. She ducked her head and continued trudging forward, slowly parting the crowd of inquirers, rubbing against them as she shambled past, swatting away the occasional microphone shoved opportunistically near her mouth.

The door to the police cruiser shut and the sound of the lock immediately followed. The now-muffled cacophony persisted outside, with cameras and questions and taps on the glass vying for Angela's attention.

And just a few days ago she couldn't have imagined a scenario in which she would actually want to be driven to prison.

GM was on his feet in the Centurion attorney room, facing the doorway, when the guards ushered Angela in. She entered, looking disoriented and harried from the arraignment. GM was stolid.

"That was some difficult news today in court," he said, gesturing to a chair. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm not," she said, sitting. "What the hell happened?"

GM slid into the chair across from her.

"Apparently both bodies were found yesterday, buried in the crawl space under your house. Unfortunately that's all I know for now. But we'll learn more details as they emerge."

"I don't even know what to say to that. Mark had been missing for days. Samara for a week or so. How do they just reappear, dead, under my house? And how can the police possibly blame me? There has to be some clue about who really killed them."

"That's something we'll have experts look into. I've already put in calls to some of the best forensics specialists I know. We'll have more information soon."

Elbows on the table, she lowered her head and pressed the meat of her hands into her temples.

"I'm very sorry for your losses," he said.

Looking up, but leaving her head in her hands, she said, "Did you know about this?"

"I found out when you did—at the arraignment."

She dropped her gaze back to the table.

"I didn't do this, you know," she said. "I didn't kill them."

"I believe you," he said. Then, leaning in, "and I wouldn't waver in advocating for you even if you did."

That might be the strangest thing anyone has ever said to me.

Several moments passed in silence.

"I have no idea why he would want to kill Mark or Oliver," she started, speaking into the tabletop, "or why he would target me," she continued, raising her eyes again to meet GM's, "but this had to have been Preston. He's the only person who had any motivation to hurt Samara, and he used to be a prosecutor, so he definitely knows how to manipulate evidence. And Detective Linares even mentioned that Preston still has friends on the force. He could've had help."

"We'll be evaluating everyone thoroughly," GM said, "especially Mr. Knighton and the Hermosa Beach detective."

She regarded him wordlessly.

"I know things are beyond overwhelming right now," he said, "but rest assured, I've handled cases more challenging than this and prevailed. At the beginning the deck always seems stacked in the prosecutor's favor. But as the case develops, our opportunities will multiply. In time, the right pieces will present themselves. We just have to be patient."

### 14

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

It wasn't quite optimism, but with GM handling her case Angela was beginning to nurture hope, even after the shock of the arraignment. A lot could go wrong before trial, of course. But there was something in GM's attitude—an iron resolve, impervious to adversity, forged through innumerable triumphs against the odds—that suggested he would win here regardless of the facts.

She breathed an audible sigh of relief and looked around the crowded chow hall.

Except for its patrons, the room resembled a grade-school lunchroom. There were three rows of light-gray, plastic-particleboard cafeteria tables, each row separated from the next by a seven- or eight-foot walkway. The tables were mounted to the polished concrete floor, as were the backless, black plastic stools surrounding them. Each table could accommodate 20, and there were five tables per row. Angela sat at a near-empty outer table, in a seat adjacent to one of the inner walkways.

"What you smahhlin' at, bitch?" The voice was loud, androgynous. "Think you some kinda bad bitch? 'Maniac Mistress of South Bay'? Ha! Look like a cute li'l snowflake to me."

I must have caught someone's eye when I was looking around. Shit.

All eyes trained on Angela. The din of the room collapsed into an ominous silence.

Two tables away, sitting on the opposite side of the aisle, was the source of the threat: Carmella "Inglewood Rose" Jenkins.

Inglewood Rose, simplified by most to "Wood," was a mutant of a woman. Just under six feet tall and just over 200 pounds, she had a gaping mouth that barely covered her gnarly, decaying front teeth. Her light-black skin was covered in tattoos, most notably a thick band of roses and barbed wire that encircled her neck, and a smattering of blood-dripping stars that covered the right side of her face. The "Maniac Mistress of South Bay" bit was confusing, but, given the media frenzy at court, that was probably the paparazzi's catchy moniker for Angela. Half the prison probably knew who she was now.

She dropped her gaze to the table. _Do not engage her._

A few seconds passed, and then a bowl of mashed potatoes landed face-down just shy of Angela's table. "You tryin' to ig- _nore_ me, Snowflake? Ain't nobody disrespect Wood like _dat_." Wood jolted to her feet and barreled toward Angela.

Angela gasped and tried to stand. But as she did, a half-chewed slab of meatloaf lodged in her windpipe, cutting off her air and throwing her off balance. She tripped over her stool and slammed her left side hard on the ground.

The chow hall echoed with cackling laughter. Through watering eyes Angela could see Wood closing in.

Holy shit!

Arms up to cover her face, she left her midsection unprotected, and that's where Wood's fleshy wrecking ball of a foot connected. It was a solid blow, like a medicine ball being dropped on Angela's gut from 20 feet above, enough to turn the meatloaf choking her into a projectile and to send Angela sliding back several feet along the shiny chow-hall floor.

She braced for more, but as Wood wound up again, the sound of two shotguns cocking brought her to an immediate halt.

"That will be all, ladies," said an anonymous guard from above.

Wood looked up to see two guards aiming at her from separate angles. She raised her hands and looked down at Angela, who had finally drawn a breath. "You lucky you such a famous Snowflake right now. Can't wait till you in population, bitch. We see how much these guards care 'bout you deyyyn." Wood spat and slowly backed away. "I be here waitin'."

The chaos of the chow hall subsided as quickly as it formed. But Angela still lay writhing on the ground. A uniformed guard appeared in front of her. "Get up," she said flatly. Angela winced as she stood, the pain in her gut beginning to set in. "Follow me to the infirmary," the guard said. "We'll have to get you looked at before you can go back to your cell."

"This one took a hard kick to the stomach," the guard said to Leanna Moritz, the attending physician. "Thought you should take a look before we lock her up for the night."

"OK, thank you," Dr. Moritz said, with a slight eastern European accent. Then, to Angela: "Please take off your top and sit on the examination table."

Angela did, and surveyed her surroundings.

The infirmary was similar to and not much bigger than an examining room in a civilian doctor's office. Only this facility looked ten years out of date. A quaint, wooden desk and office chair hugged the wall near the entrance. There was one brown-leather, medical-exam table next to two twin-sized beds, which were separated from each other and from the rest of the room by retractable, faded-yellow curtains. Lining the wall opposite the table and beds were steel shelves stocked with latex gloves, cotton balls, and assorted treatment provisions, all organized by their red, orange, and yellow warning labels. A locked, metal supply-cabinet stood next to the furthest shelf from the front door. Beyond that was a door that opened into a closet-sized X-ray room.

Angela looked down as Dr. Moritz probed her tender abdomen with a gloved hand and stethoscope. "Any sensitivity in the surrounding areas?"

"No, not at the moment," Angela said.

Dr. Moritz was gentle. She resembled a petite Jane Goodall with her straight, gray hair parted down the middle and pulled back in a tight pony tail, accentuating her pale, sunken cheeks and vibrant hazel eyes.

She fit a blood pressure cuff on Angela's right forearm. "I am just going to take a quick read of your blood pressure and other vitals. This is to confirm that there are no signs of internal bleeding that I might have missed with my direct exam."

She seems pretty thorough for a prison doctor.

"I don't see any signs of internal hemorrhage, but you are going to have a nice bruise for a week or so. It will hurt, but that is normal. It should feel like bad muscle soreness. If you see any blood in your stools, though, or if you have any acute pain—not the soreness from the bruise, but sharp quick pain in your abdomen that comes on suddenly—then come back to me right away. OK?"

"OK. Thank you so much for seeing me today, doctor."

"I appreciate it," Dr. Moritz said, taken aback by Angela's manners, "and you are quite welcome. Now take care of yourself and hopefully we don't have to see each other again."

### 15

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

Angela stared at the message: "It's time we had a talk." Before she could dial the sender's number—another she didn't recognize—she got a second text: "No more sharing my messages with the cops or anybody else, or Samara dies. Text '1' back if you understand. You have two minutes to respond."

This isn't happening.

She typed "1" and hit "send."

Her phone whistled almost immediately. "Good," the new text message read. The phone whistled again: "Here are the rules. I send instructions. You carry them out when I say. Fail once, Samara dies. Fail again, so does Mark." A whistle—new text, new number: "Text '1' if you understand. You have two minutes to respond."

She hit "1" then "send."

"Good," the response read. Then nothing.

She rose, dropped her phone on the couch, and glared at the device. Her heart pounded.

I need to think this through. I have to do something.

She grabbed her phone and wrote back to the last number: "How do I know they are even alive?"

She stood waiting, eyes riveted to the phone's display. The screen dimmed and faded to black, revealing her featureless, backlit silhouette.

Come on. Give me something . . .

Her phone whistled twice—two new messages. The first was an audio file, which Angela opened immediately: "Annnngieeee! Ahhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhh!" Samara's voice wailed then suddenly cut out.

Oh my god!

The second read: "No questions. That one cost Samara a finger. Next time, she dies."

Angela collapsed on the couch, tears streaming down her face onto her shirt, the phone shuddering in her right hand.

Another whistle. "Stay home and wait for my instructions."

Then silence.

### 16

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Hunched over in the attorney room, Angela was straining to concentrate on GM's voice. In the last few days her bruise had blossomed into what resembled a subdermal supernova, with a sickly yellow core thrusting asymmetric, concentric bands of blood-orange and purple radially outward, expanding her discomfort along with them. It wasn't the sharp type of pain that Dr. Moritz warned of, but the persistent, omnipresent kind that torments the mind as much as the impacted nerve endings. Breathing hurt. Sleeping hurt. Reaching her back in the shower was all but impossible.

"We're facing quite a few challenges here, Angela," GM was saying. "Now, I don't say this to scare you, but it's important that you fully understand the scope of the case against you.

"According to the coroner's report, all three bodies had the following wounds: a cut on the inside of the upper-right thigh, which severed each victim's femoral artery and caused a fatal loss of blood, and contusions around the neck, wrists, and ankles from when the victims were allegedly bound and restrained. L.A.P.D. was able to isolate samples of all three victims' blood and hair in your back room, and they allege that all the fatal wounds were effected there via the chef's knife they found near Oliver's body. That knife has your fingerprints on it and no one else's. They also claim it's from the block in your kitchen."

"The knife they found was definitely from the block in my kitchen," Angela said, "and I am sure it has my prints on it, but the rest of what you are saying is just impossible. I never cut Mark, or even put him in my stockade. Same for Samara. In fact, she only saw my back room a handful of times. We just didn't go back there. I—"

"There's more," GM said.

"Are you serious?"

"I'm afraid so. The investigators apparently recovered from your phone video footage of Oliver receiving the fatal wound. In the video you can see part of a woman's hand holding the knife, and, though the angle isn't great, that hand resembles yours."

What. The. Fuck. This can't be real.

She tried to respond: "What . . . I . . ."

"Your neighbor," he continued, "Janet Sung, also claims to have seen you wheel two large, blue recycling containers to your back yard, tip them over, and drag their apparently heavy contents below your house via your crawlspace. She said you were under there for quite a while, and that when you emerged you were covered with dirt. The police also recovered samples of your hair from below the house, where Mark and Samara's bodies were found."

"I didn't do . . . any of that," Angela said. "And I can't make any sense of this. I don't even know Janet Sung. Why would she want to set me up?"

GM eyed her pensively. "I think it's time we heard your side of this thing. Why don't you walk me through, step-by-step, what happened, starting with Samara's disappearance," he said. "I don't normally want to know every little detail—just enough to undermine the prosecution's arguments with some margin for error—but if you are truly being set up, we are going to have to tell one hell of a story to the jury, and in that case the minutiae matters greatly."

She started with the breakup and Samara's unexpectedly showing up at her house with most of her belongings. She recounted breakfast the next morning, when Samara explained how her relationship with Preston ended. By the time she described receiving the anonymous text messages, though, her back and shoulders were intolerably sore from hunching over too long. She tried to sit up straighter, but winced as she did when waves of pain tore through her abdomen.

"Angela, let's stop for a second," GM interjected. "Are you in _physical_ pain right now?"

After assuring GM that she did not need immediate medical help, she explained that she was attacked in the chow hall and had already been evaluated by the prison doctor.

"Chow hall?" GM asked. "Angela, if they have you in the mental health area because you're supposedly a suicide risk, you should be getting meals in your cell. They've got to do a better job of monitoring your safety. Let's end here for today, and I'll go talk to someone in the warden's office to get your meal situation straightened out."

Angela was alone in her cell, sitting on the edge of the bottom mattress.

How could there be video of me slicing Oliver's leg? How could my neighbor have seen me climb into the crawlspace?

She nibbled the tip of her thumb.

Is it possible? Could I be . . . ?

"Wrists out the hole," Regina Mack snapped.

Jesus! Angela jumped.

Regina had a tray of food, and a cup of water. "Time for dinner."

That was fast. GM must have some clout around here.

Angela extended her hands into the hallway through the waist-level, rectangular opening that bisected the bars of her cell door. Regina cuffed her. "Sit on the bed and don't move till I exit the cell."

Angela complied.

"Now wrists back out." As she un-cuffed Angela, Regina said, "You have 15 minutes. Then I'll be back for the tray and all the cutlery. You try to hide anything from me and you gonna regret it." She walked off without further comment.

The food on the plate looked disgusting—pallid chicken on the verge of spoliation, vegetables 10 days past their prime—and floating in the center of her water was a thick dollop of phlegm the color of faded butterscotch. The guards clearly didn't like having to hand-feed their most notorious inmate, and they knew she couldn't do anything about what they brought her. This was a message.

She was parched, and she knew she wouldn't have another drink until breakfast, which was still more than 12 hours away, but she would have to wait. She stood, walked to the toilet, and poured out the contents of the cup. There may have been other surprises in the chicken and vegetables, but at least she couldn't see them.

When Regina returned for the empty tray and cup, Angela didn't say a word. Complaining would only incite the guards. If she stayed silent, maybe this would stop.

### 17

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

Angela had kept her phone fully charged on her nightstand, no more than an arm's length away, with the whistle notifications set to maximum. It had been a long, infuriatingly quiet night. She hadn't slept. But now that the sun had risen, she peeled back the sheets and reluctantly got out of bed.

She parted the white-vinyl venetian blinds in the den and glanced outside. It was a gorgeous day, with bright sun and a cloudless sky. Some of her neighbors were leaving for work. Others were rolling large blue bins filled with cans, bottles, and cardboard refuse to the curb. It must have been recycling day.

Nothing seemed farther away than the other side of the front window. Just beyond the glass, everyone was swimming in normalcy, marching confidently through their daily routines. But inside everything was precarious—and there was no indication about how long the situation would last.

Where are you, you bastard? And what the hell do you want from me?

She let the blinds snap back into place, then turned and walked to the kitchen.

I could kill for a banana-nut muffin and some of Charlie's dark roast right now.

In the fridge she found breakfast—a container of old Greek yogurt and some mixed berries on the verge of spoliation. Not quite the caffeine and sugar infusion she'd envisioned, but any nourishment would help. She had a canister of freeze-dried coffee somewhere, too, but she didn't care enough to mine her cupboards for it. She would just wait until later when she could slip away to Hermosa Roast for a higher quality, and more comforting, cup of java.

Spooning the yogurt into her mouth, Angela heard a loud whistle in the other room. _My phone._ She raced to the den and grabbed it off the coffee table, swiping the screen and entering her password in one fluid motion. But it was just Nicole, asking for an update on the investigation.

She wrote back: "No news yet, but I'll keep you posted."

She was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the empty yogurt container when a courier knocked at the front door. He delivered a plain, brown, cardboard box, about the size of a standard box of business cards, with Angela's name and address printed on the label. It weighed almost nothing, and there was no indication of who the sender was. Angela signed for it, and the courier left without a word.

In the kitchen, she opened the box with a paring knife. The inside of the package was lined with green-tinted plastic wrap and stuffed with cotton balls. On top of the plastic was a printed note that said, "Per our conversation."

You're sending me packages now?

She cut the plastic wrap away and dug through the cotton, releasing the faint smell of rubbing alcohol. Under the top layer, in the center of the box, in a nest of bloody clumps, was a woman's left pinkie with the nail painted turquoise. It was Samara's.

Angela's stomach churned. She doubled over, heaving berry-colored Greek yogurt and gastric juices on the kitchen floor.

She looked back at the box—and threw up again. A thick thread of vomit-infused drool swung from her lower lip as she sobbed convulsively and gasped for air.

Poor Samara! It must hurt so bad . . . There must have been so much blood . . . Oh my god, what if the wound gets infected and she loses her hand?

Her eyes were dropsical by the time she regained composure.

She'd managed to hold Samara's finger away from the mess to avoid contaminating it. And before her next rational thought, she'd cleaned the kitchen and stowed the box and its contents in the freezer—in case there was a chance doctors could reattach Samara's pinkie.

The room still smelled like puke, though. Straining to control her gag reflex, she opened windows, sprayed air freshener, and flooded the floor with a heavy dose of ammonia-based cleanser.

She stowed her cleaning supplies and glanced over at her phone. It was on the kitchen table, plugged into the wall, just a few steps through the chemical-and-vomit miasma surrounding her.

Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?

As if in answer to her vulnerable gaze, the phone whistled.

"Keep the boxed item frozen until I say," the first message read. The second and third said, "Schedule sessions with your clients Jacob Drake, Allesandro Fossati, Brandon Tegen, and Oliver Knox this week," and "Text '1' when you have complied. You have three hours."

He knows their names.

The tasks were easy enough. She had already frozen Samara's finger, and she had all of her sessions scheduled with time to spare. The first, with Jacob, was set for later that day.

But more directives arrived. "Your clients will be blindfolded in their sessions this week," the latest instruction began. Further messages commanded her to make movies of each client—one close-up video in which she would say his name and capture him begging for his favorite fetish, then three wide-angle videos in which the client's identity would be obscured.

For each of the latter movies, she was required to change her outfit, to dress the client in something different, to have him bound in different positions in her backroom dungeon, and to alter the lighting from the prior video. She would threaten the client with a chef's knife in all three, and in the final clip, she would cut each client—it need only be a small incision—and let him bleed on camera for ninety seconds or so while she zoomed in on the wound and blood splattering on the floor. The cuts were to get progressively bigger, with Oliver Knox getting the biggest.

After each session, she was instructed to upload the videos to a specific file-sharing website. Once the kidnapper confirmed that the files had been transferred, Angela would delete everything on her end, including the videos and all the kidnapper's text messages. If she succeeded in carrying out all the instructions, she would be free from any further obligations and Samara and Mark would be released immediately. The kidnapper would let Angela know where and when to pick them up, and they would never hear from him again. If she failed to carry out any of the instructions, in any respect, both Samara and Mark would die.

Getting the videos of Jacob would be easy. He liked edgier, corporeal sessions anyway, and he took pleasure in pushing the limits. He wouldn't mind suffering a nick or two, if that's what Angela wanted. Brandon would probably be about the same, even though he wasn't quite as adventurous.

But Allesandro and Oliver weren't into physical pain. They liked to be humiliated verbally, toyed with psychologically. Introducing blindfolded knife play with those two and actually cutting them at the end might scare them away permanently. She would have to be careful how she did it.

In the kitchen she withdrew her chef's knife from the beech-wood block on the counter. Admiring its clean, brushed steel, she gently pressed her index finger to the tip, releasing it when she felt a prick. She didn't often consider cookware in the context of her work, but this knife perhaps held more value as an instrument of intimidation than as a culinary implement. It was dark, heavy, and inherently ominous—an object that was wielded or avoided, but never ignored.

She rubbed her thumb across its edge to test its sharpness. There was a scraping sound as the grooves of her thumbprint caught the blade in quick, irregular intervals. Satisfied the knife was ready for use, she walked to the back room, wrapped it in a cloth, and placed it against the wall near her wrought-iron stockade.

After prepping a few more materials, she heard a car door close in her driveway. Jacob had arrived.

### 18

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

Special Agent John Bancroft reclined in his black-leather office chair, scanning the latest cyber-crime incident report on his P.C. It was the fourth time in as many weeks that the North Koreans had attempted a small-time nuisance hack in the L.A. area. It felt like they were probing for something.

"Should I be concerned?" asked F.B.I. Regional Director Stephen Meyerson, over Bancroft's shoulder.

Bancroft turned and raised his eyes to the upper reaches of the entryway, toward the source of the question. Meyerson stood 6'9", but with his thin frame precisely sheathed in a custom-fit, pinstripe suit, he looked even taller. His salt-and-pepper hair, as always, was neatly arranged in the same comb-over haircut that seemed all but required for white men appointed to high-ranking federal office. His eyes, the lone beacon of emotion in his stoic face, were icy blue.

"I don't know yet," Bancroft responded. "We've seen a rash of low-priority incidents in the past few weeks, but I can't say yet whether they're isolated, or whether the worst is yet to come."

"What were the targets?"

"A Hollywood studio, a local credit union, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, and a third-party gaming-service provider. None of them noteworthy on their own. We got involved because all the attacks appear to have been coordinated by a single group in North Korea."

"I can't see why they would be interested in those organizations. Could this be . . . ," Meyerson said, trailing off as he looked down at his phone. "You know what, never mind. I'll leave you to it for now. Let me know when you have a working theory; we can discuss the possibilities then."

"Will do, sir."

Meyerson nodded, then turned and left. Though he usually insisted on actively participating in all department investigations, Meyerson gave Bancroft more leeway than most, which could mean either that Bancroft had gained Meyerson's trust over the years, or that Meyerson, a product of the analog age, couldn't understand the details of Bancroft's cyberterrorism work. Bancroft could never decide which he believed.

Swiveling back to his screen he opened all four incident reports and the preliminary analyses for the first two breaches. "Could they have been testing our response time?" he asked aloud. "It's not like we—"

The phone rang. The caller ID read "Michael Stone," a private investigator contact that Bancroft occasionally did favors for and vice versa. Lifting the handset, Bancroft said, "Hi Mike. Can you hang on a second?"

"Sure," he said.

Bancroft hit "hold," replaced the receiver, and closed his office door.

"Alright, I'm back," Bancroft said. "Sorry about that. What can I do for you?"

"Hi John. No problem. I'm trying to track down a rogue trial witness and I could use your help, if you can swing it."

"What'd you have in mind?"

"I have a sketch of the witness that Peter did, and I was wondering if you could run it through your enhanced databases to see if it gets any hits."

"Sure. Doesn't sound too difficult."

"It's not. It's just that . . . this is a witness from that dominatrix triple-homicide case. Wasn't sure if that would change things on your end."

"Shouldn't be an issue. If we get a hit, that means your missing witness is wanted by the F.B.I. I don't think anyone around here would complain about getting a lead on someone like that, regardless of what else they're wrapped up in."

"Fair point. I just figured the F.B.I. usually tries to stay away from controversial cases—except when they do the underlying investigation to begin with."

"That's probably right, but I think we'll be fine in this instance. Send me the sketch and I'll see what I can do."

"Sounds good. Thanks, John."

"You got it. Bye now," Bancroft said and re-cradled the receiver.

Two minutes later an Outlook email notification appeared at the bottom right of Bancroft's screen. It was a message from Stone. Bancroft clicked it and opened the attachment.

"You've gotta be shittin' me," he said aloud, gawking at the sketch of the missing witness. He jabbed the redial button on his phone, and let it ring on speaker.

"Hel—"

"Mike I need to speak with your client about this sketch as soon as humanly possible."

"That was fast. You get a hit on the first database you ran?"

"I didn't run it through any databases."

"You know this witness _personally_?"

"Not personally, but Mike, if this is who I think it is, and he's been in L.A. recently, something big might be about to go down. I know you were calling me for a favor, but now I need one in return. Please, get me this meeting as soon as you can, OK? Pronto."

"I'll see what I can do," Stone said.

The line disconnected.

### 19

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

"We're not going to win on physical evidence here, Angela," GM was saying. "We just don't have enough of it."

They were in the attorney room again, for one of the last times before trial. There was a new, thin scratch in the steel tabletop, stretching diagonally from the near side on Angela's left to the far side on her right. _Handcuffs aren't sharp enough to do that. Did someone sneak a knife in here?_

"And," GM continued, "given that we need to tell one hell of a story about what happened to you, I'm afraid you're going to have to take the stand."

Angela looked up at him, raising her eyebrows. "You want me to testify? I could hardly sit through the arraignment, and I didn't even have to say anything there."

"It's not ideal. But we don't have a choice. You're the only person who can tell the jury what happened following Samara's and Mark's abductions, and you're the only person who can say what happened to you prior to Oliver's demise. Without telling those stories, we lose."

"And if I melt down on the stand? Don't we lose then, too?"

"Yes," GM said. "But you won't. I'll have you so thoroughly prepared you'll be able to testify dangling upside down over a cliff. And that includes handling Pearson's cross-examination. The key here is establishing and maintaining your credibility. And, separate from your telling a tight, compelling story on the stand, I have a few tricks for accomplishing that."

Angela looked down and thumbed the scratch on the table. "Forgive me if I don't share your confidence."

"You'll get there. I assure you."

She glanced at him, then refocused on the scratch.

"There are two other things we should discuss today before we break," GM said. "First, I spoke to each of the clients you videotaped."

Her hands froze. She sat upright. "And?"

"All three of them denied knowing you."

"Dammit," she said through her teeth.

"But," he continued, "we can always issue a subpoena to force one of them to testify. On the stand, under oath, facing you, we've got a much better chance that they'll talk. I wouldn't recommend subpoenaing more than one of them, though. One uncooperative witness wouldn't be a big deal at trial, but three could seriously hurt your credibility—and our chances of winning."

"And if we don't subpoena any of them?"

"Then we have no eyewitness testimony to prove that each of your edge-play videos was recorded in a single session, instead of over many. One recorded session per client could have been coerced, but many videos over an extended period more likely shows a pattern of predatory behavior—precisely what I expect Pearson to argue to the jury."

"Then let's subpoena Jacob Drake. If anyone will talk, it'll be him. He's the softest of the bunch. He even told me he loved me once."

"Sounds like an ideal candidate. I'll get the paperwork started. Last thing: Pearson knows we were investigating Preston Knighton. She's going to call him to the stand before we get the chance to, in order to spin his testimony in her favor."

This is unreal. Am I ever going to catch a break?

"How the hell did she find that out?" Angela asked.

"I leaked it."

"You did _what_?"

"I leaked it," he repeated. "We're going to take advantage of her skills."

"By letting her spin Preston's testimony in her favor?!"

"That's what it'll look like, and that's what she'll believe she's doing, but ultimately this will benefit us."

"How?"

"She'll call Preston intending to show that he wasn't, nor could he have been, physically present for any of the murders. This will happen under the guise of Preston testifying about his relationship with Samara, but of course, Pearson will really be trying to establish his alibis—to destroy any claim we have that he was the third party at the crime scenes."

"—which sounds awful for us," Angela interjected.

"That's what she'll think. And so will everyone else—"

"—including the jury. This is a terrible idea."

"Angela, what if we don't need to show that he was physically present? What if all we need is to raise a reasonable suspicion that he was orchestrating things from afar? If we do that while he's still on the stand—as a prosecution witness, right after Pearson finishes making an emphatic display of how clean he seems—the jury will swing our way without our having to introduce a single shred of new physical evidence. It would be better than if we had called him ourselves."

"And how do you plan to pull that off?"

GM leaned back and smiled.

### 20

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Foot bobbing in a blur on the floor, Angela glared at the white blouse and flax-colored skirt-suit laid out on the bunk next to her. For the first time in three months, she would wear something other than her prison uniform. But, like everything since her arrest, this outfit had been foisted upon her. GM curated the ensemble to project professionalism and innocence. The clothes were part of his scheme—and they were non-negotiable.

It's not what I would have picked, but when in Rome . . .

She changed clothes and waited to be taken to court.

Microphones and micro recorders swarmed her face like bloodthirsty mosquitoes, accompanied by incoherent shouting—her name, questions about the victims, vitriolic strings of obscenities. Journalists and demonstrators were battling each other for her attention as she emerged from the police cruiser.

She felt a deputy's hand press into the small of her back, thrusting her forward.

Just put one foot in front of the other. Keep your head down.

The crowd swallowed her. Roiling voices, studio lighting, mic booms. Hand-written placards demanding her execution.

She hadn't worn heels in months. And these shoes were new and stiff. Neck craned forward and wrists bound in front of her, her ankles wobbled as she landed each awkward step.

_Do not fall in front of these people. Do_ not _fall . . ._

The mob dropped away at the entrance, but more paparazzi were waiting inside. Just past the metal detectors, duct-taped clusters of black cables flowed sloppily from the media room into the lobby, snaking across the white-marble floor toward outposts from each major network.

More blinding lights. More shouting.

Ignore them. Keep moving. It's not much further.

Angela was escorted into the courtroom via a side door and seated next to GM at the defense table. The room was the same, or identical to, the courtroom from the arraignment—pine-green carpet, cherry-wood furniture and paneling. Electronics were again prohibited inside, save for those the attorneys needed to present their cases.

GM tried to give Angela a pre-trial pep talk, but she heard only gibberish. He had to yank her sleeve to signal her to stand when the bailiff called "All rise" and the judge entered. "We have a long way to go, Angela," he whispered. "Just try to relax."

Her focus waxed and waned throughout the opening statements. She caught only snippets of Patricia Pearson's 90-minute overture:

. . . A U.C.L.A.-trained psychologist . . . used her wits to feed her sexual appetites . . . . You will see evidence and hear testimony demonstrating her repeated predatory behavior . . . victims were objects to her . . . . You will hear expert testimony that she knew what she had done and even felt remorse for doing it. And you will hear testimony and see evidence that, nonetheless, she kept going. You will see video evidence . . . fingerprint evidence . . . DNA evidence . . . . Expert testimony of unchecked and growing sexual perversions that culminated in three killings. . . . Evidence and testimony regarding a misleading missing-person report and specious allegations of kidnappings. . . . Expert testimony that, in a moment of weakness, when her remorse was just too strong to bear, she called the police to report what she had done. . . .

GM rose and gave his rebuttal, but Angela could still only focus for instants at a time:

_The prosecution inundated you with catchy soundbites and headlines, the likes of which are great for tabloid covers and internet pop-up ads, but wholly insufficient for justice. A woman's life is on the line here, and you must decide her fate. Your task is to deliberate justly and rationally. And rational justice requires proof. That's what this case is about: proof. Not catchphrases. The State must prove Miss Gianni's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . Yet the prosecution is set to present mountains of speculation . . . . You will hear plenty opinions about sexual desires and preferences—but this is a murder trial, not a referendum on Miss Gianni's lifestyle. . . . You will hear testimony that a third-party orchestrated and carried out these heinous acts. . . . You will hear testimony and see evidence that_ MANY _people could have been present at the alleged scene of the crimes. . . . Most importantly, you will_ NOT _hear proof that_ MISS GIANNI _was the perpetrator of these horrible acts. . . . And after you have heard all the evidence—both sides of the story—you must ask yourself, 'Has the state proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that_ MISS GIANNI _is guilty of the accused crimes, and is not herself one of the victims?'_

Detective Linares was dressed in his usual discount-rack shirt-and-tie combo when Pearson called him to the stand. He was nervous at first—stuttering through his early answers—but he evened out as he settled into the routine he and Pearson had practiced.

"Detective Linares," Pearson was asking, "during your investigation into the disappearance of Samara Ryland, what did the defendant tell you about herself and her profession?"

"Very little," he replied. "In fact, she hid from me that she was a dominatrix. I only found out because one of her clients texted her while I was reading a message on her phone."

"Why were you reading a message on her phone?" Pearson continued.

"She claimed that she was receiving strange text messages from an unknown number," Linares said, "and that she believed the sender had kidnapped Ms. Ryland. She was showing me one of those messages when the text from her client came through."

"Did you find any evidence that Ms. Ryland was kidnapped by a third party?"

"No. The defendant insisted that Ms. Ryland's ex-boyfriend—Preston Knighton—was involved, and then pointed me to two text messages from unknown numbers. But the more I looked into the disappearance, the more it seemed the defendant was behind it and not some mysterious third party."

"Then how do you explain the text messages, Detective?"

"We found the 'Burner' app on the defendant's phone, and we believe she generated and sent herself the messages through that app."

"The Burner app? What's that?"

"It's designed to mimic a so-called burner phone—a phone that the user purchases for short-term use and then discards. The app basically provides an anonymous number to mask the true source of a phone call or text message. For example, if I wanted to send you a text message from my phone, but I didn't want you to know my number, I could send the text message through my Burner app and it would appear to you to have come from a different number than my own. Then afterward, I could tell the app to delete that number. The app would then delete the number and any data associated with it from my phone—including calls and texts made with that number. To someone looking at my phone later, it would appear as if I never sent you the text message."

Pearson and Linares continued their Q&A, with each question designed to seem neutral and innocuous, and each answer recited in a manner that overwhelmingly favored the prosecution.

"This is bullshit," Angela whispered to GM.

"This is how it goes," he said back. "We'll get our turn."

Linares testified that Angela broke down, hysterical, when he arrived at the scene of Oliver's murder. "She seemed remorseful, and stricken with grief," he said. He finished by explaining that his team of investigators found Angela's hair, DNA, and fingerprints at the scene of Oliver's murder, and Angela's hair in the crawlspace where Samara's and Mark's bodies were found.

"Your witness," Pearson said to GM, who was already rising to start his cross-examination.

"Detective Linares," he began, "in a typical investigation, it would be odd, wouldn't it, if you analyzed a person's home and did not find that person's hair, DNA, and fingerprints present throughout?"

"Well, normally, yes, but in this instance we found the defendant's DNA and fingerprints all over the scene of the murders."

"And the 'scene of the murders' in this instance was merely the back room of Ms. Gianni's house, correct?"

"Yes."

"That's someplace you would normally expect to find Ms. Gianni's hair, DNA, and fingerprints, right?"

"Yes, but again this happened to be the scene of three gruesome murders, not just any room."

"Are you saying you'd expect Ms. Gianni's hair, DNA, and fingerprints, to disappear when that room became a murder scene?"

"No."

"So, what was it about the presence of that biological material in Ms. Gianni's back room that suggested to you, Detective, that Ms. Gianni perpetrated the murders?"

Linares glared at GM.

"Can we agree, Detective, that there is nothing special about the biological evidence of Ms. Gianni's presence in her back room that implies she killed the victims?"

"The bodies, sir. The bodies imply she killed them."

"Let me ask this differently. If you swept the den of your house for your hair, DNA, and fingerprints, Detective, would you expect to find all three scattered about?"

"Yes."

"And if—God forbid—someone murdered your neighbor in your den, you'd expect that your hair, DNA, and fingerprints would still be scattered about the den, even though you didn't commit the murder, correct?"

"Yes, but—"

"So there is nothing special about the presence of hair, DNA, and fingerprints in a person's home—even if that home happens to be a murder scene—that suggests the resident of that home committed the murder, is there?"

"There is nothing special about those things in _isolation_ , but there is plenty of other evidence—"

"Ah, but I am just talking about the hair, DNA, and fingerprints right now, Detective. I'll get to other forms of evidence in due course. So, can we agree that the presence of a person's hair, DNA, and fingerprints in that person's home—even if the home tragically becomes a murder scene—do not in and of themselves suggest that the resident is a murderer?"

"Fine. We can agree."

GM glanced down at his notes, then said, "Let's change topics a minute. You testified earlier that the more you investigated Ms. Ryland's disappearance, the more it seemed to you like Ms. Gianni was behind it, right?"

"That's correct."

"Just so I'm clear on the facts underlying that investigation, Ms. Ryland went missing roughly 24 hours after she and Mr. Preston Knighton broke off their romantic relationship?"

"That's correct."

"And Ms. Ryland was on her way back to Mr. Knighton's apartment to collect her remaining possessions when she went missing?"

"That's what the defendant claimed."

"You also found Ms. Ryland's car parked in the garage next to Mr. Knighton's apartment the day after she was reported missing, correct?"

"Yes, but to the extent you are implying that Mr. Knighton was involved in Ms. Ryland's disappearance, you should know that Ms. Ryland's car was parked two levels above Mr. Knighton's reserved spot, where he wouldn't see it, and we cleared Mr. Knighton as a suspect after I questioned him."

"How many times did you question Mr. Knighton?"

"Once. It's all I needed."

"So based on the location of Ms. Ryland's car and a single conversation with Mr. Knighton—who happens to be an attorney, trained to speak persuasively—you dismissed Mr. Knighton as a suspect despite that Ms. Ryland went missing in or near his parking garage less than 24 hours after she and Mr. Knighton had a sudden and emotional falling out?"

"It's a little more complicated than that, Mr. Wallace."

"Then please explain to the jury the _other_ evidentiary clues that led you to believe Mr. Knighton was not involved in Ms. Ryland's disappearance."

"I . . ."

"Maybe you'll remember later. Let's switch topics again. You testified earlier that your team found the Burner app installed on Ms. Gianni's phone, correct?"

"Yes."

"And your theory is that Ms. Gianni used that app to send anonymous text messages to herself regarding Ms. Ryland and Mr. Newsome's disappearances?"

"Yes."

"And further, your theory is that Ms. Gianni did this to give the appearance that a third-party abducted Ms. Ryland and Mr. Newsome?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"If I understood your testimony correctly, with this app users can delete any record of calls and texts they wish to keep anonymous?"

"Yes."

"So how did you verify that Ms. Gianni sent the anonymous text messages to herself?"

"The nature of the app is such that we couldn't verify that for certain. But the presence of the app and the emergence of these anonymous texts seemed to us too big of a coincidence. There were no other conclusions to draw."

"That might be true if the app had been installed prior to the messages being sent and received, but what if the Burner app wasn't installed on Ms. Gianni's phone until the day she was arrested—well after the messages were sent?"

"What do you mean?"

"It would have been impossible for Ms. Gianni to send anonymous messages with that app when she didn't have the app installed yet, right?"

Pearson: "Objection, Your Honor. Calls for speculation."

GM: "She's right, Your Honor. The jury hasn't yet heard from the defense's mobile-software expert, who will show conclusively that the Burner app wasn't installed on Ms. Gianni's telephone until the day she was arrested. But I am merely testing the bounds of Detective Linares's theory about the anonymous text messages with this question, not asking him to speculate."

Judge: "Watch it, Mr. Wallace. I will overrule the objection for this question, but I suggest you conclude this line of inquiry quickly."

GM: "Yes, Your Honor." Then, turning to Linares: "Your theory would be invalid if the Burner app was not installed on Ms. Gianni's phone until after the anonymous text messages had been sent, correct?"

"I suppose that would be true," Linares said.

"No further questions, Your Honor."

GM winked at Angela and retook his seat at the counsel table.

### 21

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Pearson didn't flinch after Linares's cross-examination. She called to the witness stand forensic experts, DNA experts, fingerprint analysts, a psychologist, and even a hand surgeon—to opine on the similarity between Angela's hand and the hand in the video recovered from Angela's phone, in which Oliver received his fatal incision. Pearson played that clip and all the videos of Angela's sessions recovered from her computer. She introduced credit card records, phone records, and Angela's internet browsing and search histories, all of which supported the prosecution's story.

Janet Sung, Angela's neighbor, who claimed to have seen Angela duck under her house dragging "something heavy," was just leaving the witness stand. GM had gotten her to admit that she only saw a woman's back and hair—not her face—and that she didn't see exactly what the woman was dragging. But Sung steadfastly maintained that the woman she saw was Angela.

Could Preston have hired someone who looks like me to kill Oliver and bury Samara and Mark?

"The prosecution calls Mr. Preston Knighton," Pearson announced. All eyes turned to the main door of the courtroom.

Preston glided from the gallery, through the gate, up to the witness stand, wearing a tailored, blue Zegna suit with a powder-blue tie and brown Ferragamo loafers. He was tall and muscular, but he had bright eyes and a bit of a baby face, making him seem approachable despite his imposing stature. He exuded a sort of polite formidability.

Pearson started with a few pleasantries and preliminary questions, then cut straight to the essence of her direct examination: "Mr. Knighton, why'd you break up with Ms. Ryland?"

"Apologies to the jury if I sound disrespectful to the dead, but I learned that Ms. Ryland had been lying to me since the start of our relationship. She was an escort, and she had many other . . . partners that she hid from me."

"Were you mad when you found out?"

"Furious. I couldn't believe she would do something like that—and hide it from me."

"Were you mad enough to kill?"

"Of course not. I have my ups and downs, like anyone else, but I don't resort to violence. Ever."

"Have you ever been arrested or even accused of committing any kind of violent act?"

"No."

"Do you have any police record whatsoever?"

"No."

"In full disclosure to the jury, we used to work together at the District Attorney's office, didn't we?"

"We did."

"To get that job, did you have to undergo any kind of background check?"

"I did. I underwent a full police investigation, which is routine before the D.A. will hire you. I came out completely clean."

"After your stint at the D.A.'s office, where did you go?"

"I went to work for the U.S. Attorney's office."

"Did you undergo any kind of background check to get that job?"

"Yes. I underwent a comprehensive F.B.I. investigation, which was mandatory to get hired at the U.S. Attorney's office. Again, I came up clean."

Preston and Pearson exchanged a brief look, and Pearson turned and walked a few paces toward the jury. "I want to switch topics for a minute," she said, turning again to face her witness. "Did you know the other victims in this case: Mark Newsome and Oliver Knox?"

"Yes," he said, deliberately pausing for the anticipated reaction.

Murmurs rippled through the crowd; jurors looked at one another, brows furrowed; Angela glanced at GM, who didn't flinch.

"They were both former clients of mine," he said, completing his answer.

"Seems odd, doesn't it, that your ex-girlfriend and two of your ex-clients turn up dead in a matter of weeks?"

"Extremely odd. I was floored when I heard the news. I immediately contacted the police and offered to help in any way possible. I've done everything I could to cooperate to ensure that the proper authorities had all the information the needed to find this killer."

"How did your relationships with Mark Newsome and Oliver Knox end?"

"I can't divulge details because of attorney-client privilege, but I can say that both terminations were due to business circumstances, and both were amicable. Neither person was dissatisfied with my services."

"Did you have a personal relationship with either victim?"

"No. I knew them in a strictly professional capacity."

"Mr. Knighton, just so we're clear, were you in the Los Angeles area during the apparent time of the murders—let's say the two-week period following your breakup with Ms. Ryland?"

"No. I had to travel to New York for trial prep a day or two after we broke up. And I was in New York for the next three weeks."

"Thanks, Mr. Knighton. No further questions."

GM rose and began his cross: "I'm sure the police and the D.A. appreciate all of your cooperation, Mr. Knighton, but tell me: do you consider it important to cooperate with defense counsel as well, so that the accused has every opportunity to be fully heard at trial?"

"Of course."

"Then why did you move to quash the defense's subpoena for your phone?"

"My view is that my private telephone, text, and email conversations, many of which are protected under attorney-client privilege, are not relevant to this case. And unfortunately for you, Mr. Wallace, the court agreed with me, which is why your subpoena was quashed."

"You used to clerk in this court, didn't you, Mr. Knighton?"

"Many, many years ago, yes."

"And you still have friends on the Hermosa police force and the L.A.P.D., do you not?"

"I do. I worked with both departments when I was at the D.A.'s office."

"You still have friends there, too—at the D.A.'s office?"

"Yes. I try to stay connected with my former colleagues, Mr. Wallace. Networking is important for my practice."

"And friends do favors for one another, don't they, Mr. Knighton?"

"I suppose it depends on the favor."

GM regarded him coolly, for what seemed a beat too long. He paced between the jury box and witness stand with his left arm folded across his chest and his right index finger resting against his lips. Letting his finger fall away, he continued: "In your years as a prosecutor, did you ever ghost a suspect's phone?"

Preston shifted in his chair. "Not personally, but it was done on a number of cases I ran."

GM nodded and kept pacing. "But you knew people at L.A.P.D. who could ghost phones for you, if you needed that?"

"Yes."

"To ensure we haven't lost the jury here, basic ghosting is a process by which you can use one phone or device to covertly monitor everything that happens on another, right?"

"More or less."

Still pacing, GM extended his right hand, palm up, toward Preston, as if physically offering him the next question: "But there's another type of ghosting, too, isn't there, Mr. Knighton, in which the person doing the ghosting can actually manipulate the target phone or device remotely?"

"So I'm told," Preston said, tersely.

"Are you aware of the Burner app and its capabilities, Mr. Knighton?"

"I am."

"Now, the jury's heard a lot about the Burner app on Ms. Gianni's phone, and the anonymous text messages she had received. But I want to talk about _Ms. Ryland's_ phone for a minute. The one she used for her . . . occupation."

GM stopped just shy of the jury box, put his hands in his pants pockets, turned to face Preston, and asked, in a slightly louder tone, "Are you aware that Ms. Ryland, your ex-girlfriend, used the Burner app on her work phone—the one she used to communicate with her clients?"

Preston glanced at Pearson, who jumped up and said, "Objection, Your Honor. Irrelevant. And outside the scope of the direct examination."

"Overruled," the judge said. "But let's get to the point here, Mr. Wallace."

"Yes, Your Honor," GM replied. Then, to Preston, "Mr. Knighton, are you aware that Ms. Ryland had the Burner app installed on her work phone?"

Preston drew a long breath and exhaled slowly. "Yes," he began, "and before you craft a series of questions designed to take that fact out of context, let me explain _why_ I know."

He sat forward and continued: "I was afraid that Samara might have said or done something to jeopardize my private legal practice, and I wanted to mitigate any damage she had done. So, I had a friend at L.A.P.D—I won't say who—ghost her phone for me so I could search it. I found nothing. And I stopped my unauthorized surveillance there."

What the . . . ?

The judge sat up straight and bodies audibly shifted behind Angela. Jury members cocked their heads and leaned further into the courtroom.

"It was incredibly stupid of me to abuse my connections like that," he continued. "And I take full responsibility for it. Now, on the record, I'd like to sincerely apologize to this court and to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury for what I did. And here, under oath, I swear to all of you," he scanned the jurors' faces, "it will never happen again."

It was the first of only two times Angela would see GM flash genuine confusion. But having been blindsided by unexpected testimony in the past, he knew, it seemed, how to quickly recover. Snuffing his emotions, he inched toward the jury box, continuing in his typical, confident, tenor: "It takes guts to admit something like that on the witness stand, Mr. Knighton."

After appraising the jury's confusion, GM faced Preston and continued: "But let's see how far your honesty goes."

Preston's expression devolved from victorious smugness to stunned bewilderment—that "oh shit" look of a card sharp who laid down his presumptive trump card only to realize he was about to be outplayed. His shoulders slumped subtly, almost imperceptibly, as he awaited GM's next move.

"Did you use Ms. Ryland's Burner app to send anonymous text messages to Ms. Gianni from Ms. Ryland's phone?"

Pearson leapt to her feet: "Objection, Your—"

"—Overruled," the judge snapped.

"Mr. Knighton?" GM said.

"Absolutely not!" he exclaimed in a noticeably higher octave.

"Mr. Knighton, what would you say if I told you that the defense's mobile-technology expert determined that Ms. Ryland's Burner app had been manipulated—"

"—I wouldn't know anything about that—"

"—during the weeks leading up to the victims' murders—"

"—I had nothing to do with that—"

"—from New York?"

Preston stared at GM, chapfallen. The audience erupted behind Angela.

"I . . . I . . . don't even know what to say to that," Preston conceded, his reply more question than statement.

The corners of GM's mouth curled upward.

### 22

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

The dominion Angela felt over Jacob with the knife in her hand was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Tying and binding someone was one thing, but pressing a cold, sharp blade against Jacob's neck took him inches from death. One hard twitch of her arm and she could sever his jugular or rupture his trachea, maybe both. In most sessions her clients would obey because they wanted to. It was a mutual understanding, a game, in which they would concede their power and dignity, and she would make a show of devouring and absorbing it, brandishing it against them in an iron-handed yet consensual way. Most sessions, at their core, were entertainment. But this was something more savage—she could end Jacob's life _right now_.

Jacob's helplessness roused something sadistic in her. She relished frightening him; she enjoyed splitting his skin. At one point she removed the leather briefs she'd dressed him in and lifted his scrotum onto the flat side of the blade, gradually sliding the knife out from under him while threatening to cut off his testicles. But instead of castrating him, she made a larger-than-anticipated laceration on his inner thigh and watched the blood trickle down his leg to the floor beneath him. She filmed the entire sequence.

When Jacob left she watched each video of Jacob she'd recorded, trying to understand the kidnapper's reason for requiring them. To her they looked like standard bondage movies, except the clip in which she cut Jacob's leg. But even that wasn't so outlandish for more extreme fetishists.

Why have me cut these men and film them bleeding? Especially if you can't tell who they are in most clips.

Unable to find answers, and conscious of her deadline to upload the videos to the file-sharing website, Angela stopped watching and transferred the files. After receiving confirmation that the transfer had been completed, she was instructed to delete all copies of her videos and all text messages she had received from the kidnapper to date. She was to repeat this sequence after each client's video files were uploaded. The command ended with the usual, "Text '1' to this number when you finish," and allowed her 15 minutes to comply. She deleted everything quickly and sent the text as requested.

Angela's sessions with Brandon and Allesandro were equally successful, although she had a close call at the end with Allesandro. Brandon, like Jacob, seemed to enjoy the scenario; though also like Jacob, he was visibly upset at being left to bleed. Allesandro winced when she first touched the knife to his skin, but he played along without complaining—until she cut him.

"Grapefruit!" he shrieked, which was his "safe word." Angela said "OK, we're done," but let him bleed on camera for another minute, which Allesandro didn't appreciate. She concocted a story about how she thought it would be good for him to explore something new. And, after some initial skepticism, he bought it, leaving without further incident. He even scheduled a follow-up session for two weeks from that day.

She confirmed that the first three sets of videos had been transferred, and she deleted the videos and associated texts as instructed.

Samara and Mark were now one session away from freedom. But the last session with Oliver presented by far Angela's biggest challenge. Oliver's fetishes were the mildest, and of the four clients she had to film, she had the weakest connection with him. He was unlikely to blindly trust her as Jacob, Brandon, and Allesandro had. And he had a volatile personality. Not only would he certainly object to her using a knife, but, if she cut him, he might leave her for good. He might even retaliate.

What if he tips off the police? After the fiasco with Trickett and McElroy, and with Linares guaranteed suspecting me now in Samara's case, I'd be fucked.

In the back room, her hand quivered holding the chef's knife. She scoffed at the sight. _Great. He's not even here yet and I'm already losing it._

Using a dishrag, she gripped the knife by the blade, concealing all but the tip.

Maybe if I just use the point to make it seem smaller . . . . Maybe if I warm it up before he arrives so he won't be able to tell right away it's a knife . . . .

But she still had to cut him, and it had to be the biggest cut she made yet. She wrapped the rest of the knife in the rag and, squatting, she placed the bundle gently on the floor, pausing for a moment on her haunches.

You're almost there. Suck it up and just do it.

She exhaled and rose.

Angela blindfolded Oliver when he arrived and stood him in the middle of her back room. Circling him slowly, and landing each step stiletto first to emphasize the sound, she slapped him gently with her leather flogger and verbally demeaned him until she saw his crotch start to bulge.

That's right, you like what I'm doing. You'll like everything I'm going to do today, Oliver.

"You're cock's getting hard, Oliver. I can see it. You're particularly enjoying being at my disposal right now, aren't you?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"You'll give me _everything_ I want today, won't you, Oliver?"

"Yes Mistress. Of course, Mistress."

"That's what I like to hear."

Maybe this won't be so bad.

She ended the first recording and strut toward the dishrag by the wall. She bent over, straight-legged—in case he could see out the bottom of his blindfold, she wanted to give him an erection-sustaining view while she gathered herself and the weapon. She took a deep breath. It was time to introduce the knife.

"Today, Oliver, I want you to be afraid," she said approaching him. She pulled out the blade and slid the dull side slowly from his suprasternal notch (the divot at the junction of his neck and chest) to his belly, gently pressing the tip of the knife into his naval. "Are you afraid, Oliver?"

"Yes Mistress." He was trembling faintly, and his stomach muscles tensed, but he didn't complain.

So far, so good.

"I don't believe you. Leave the blindfold on, but take off your underwear."

"Yes Mistress." He slid off his white briefs and stood cowering, cupping his genitals.

"Hold out your hand." She draped a leather thong over his fingers. "Put this on instead."

"Yes Mistress."

"Now hold out your hand again so I can lead you where I want you to go." She grabbed his hand and led him to a wall covered in restraints. There, she spread his legs and shackled his ankles to the wall. She chained his hands also, and, using a pulley system, stretched out his arms 45 degrees above his shoulders. He stood splayed against the wall like a demonic version of Da Vinci's _Vitruvian Man_.

She approached Oliver with the knife, getting close enough to feel the heat from his body and his breath on her neck. She whispered in his ear: "Today I'll show you what fear really is." Leaning down she inched the tip of the knife from the knob on the inside of his ankle to the bulge in his leather thong. She jammed the knife into the wall between his legs, just under his scrotum. "Are you afraid now, Oliver?" she growled.

"YES MISTRESS!"

"I still don't believe you."

She traced the knife tip behind his ears and under his chin, poking it into his soft submandibular tissue, and then ended the video. She put her phone and the knife down by the door and came back to release him from the wall restraints, marching him over to her stockade for the final clip. She yanked off the thong and bound him to the stockade stark naked, completely helpless and exposed. He still made no complaints or angry remarks.

Time for the finale.

Bending over to retrieve the chef's knife and her phone, she noticed the latter had powered down. _Do not tell me my battery just died._ She picked up the phone with both hands and attempted to reboot it.

The startup screen appeared, and she again reached for the knife. But as she extended she felt a sudden jabbing sensation and a cool rush on the right side of her neck. She felt dizzy and started to fall forward, her face racing toward the wall. Then, just before impact, there was nothing.

### 23

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

After ten days of mounting exhibits and droning testimony, Pearson concluded her case-in-chief. "She put on a bear of a case," GM said to Angela, "but there's still a reasonable chance we get a 'not guilty' verdict after that cross examination of Preston Knighton. The jury seems plenty suspicious about him now, and I think they're starting to take our third-party killer story seriously. We bought ourselves some credibility there. Maintaining that credibility and telling a tight story about what happened to you are our keys to victory now."

Easy for you to say—you don't have to take the stand.

"It could be a while before I call you, though," he continued. "I still have to put on some preliminary witnesses to rebut a few minor points in Pearson's presentation. So don't get too worked up about testifying just yet."

Not sure the Dali fucking Lama could stay calm in this situation, GM, but thanks anyway.

GM looked resolute as he stood and called his first witness, a psychiatrist who would counter the testimony that the prosecution's psychoanalyst offered about Angela's alleged patterns of predatory behavior.

This should have been the part of the trial that Angela followed most closely. The testimony was in her field; she was equipped to analyze every nuance. But instead she half-listened as she visualized Pearson cross-examining her in front of the jury, emphatically juxtaposing her contradictory statements, the judge having to silence the indignant and suddenly boisterous crowd.

She'd seen firsthand what it looked like when witnesses unraveled on the stand. And she didn't have Detective Linares's experience, or Preston's natural poise. She shuddered at the thought.

Have me so prepared I could testify dangling over a cliff? My ass. I'm going to get smoked up there.

She looked at her lap, realizing that she'd been rubbing her sweaty palms across the light fabric covering her thighs. It was difficult to see under the table, but it looked like there might be handprint stains on her skirt, outlining the tops of her legs.

Great. We'll see how credible I look when I stand up and everyone sees that.

Pearson must have already cross-examined the psychiatrist because GM was calling his second witness, Jacob Drake. Angela snapped to attention, hoping to catch Jacob's eye and silently assure him that she was still the person he knew and not some demented killer. Maybe, under oath on the stand, he'd open up and testify about what really happened.

From the defendant's bench, through the crowd, she could hardly see him enter the courtroom. At first he appeared taller than she remembered, his gait more stilted. As the bailiff escorted him toward the front, he kept his head angled downward and took short, choppy steps like a prisoner in leg restraints. He ascended the witness stand tentatively, then sat and faced her. They stared at each other for a prolonged, awkward moment.

Angela felt her mouth fall open and her brow knit. _What the hell?_ The witness looked remarkably like her former client, but it wasn't him. Instead she found herself regarding the face of an angry stranger.

She gestured to get GM's attention as the witness was being sworn in, but GM didn't see her. Unsure what else to do, she stood and called his name: "GM!"

The judge, irritated by the distraction, said, "Is there a problem, Mr. Wallace?"

"I . . . just need a brief word with my client, Your Honor," he said, looking quizzically at Angela.

"Fine," the judge said. "Let's take a fifteen minute break. Next time, counselor, I suggest you hold any necessary conferences with your client _before_ we swear-in a new witness." He slammed his gavel on the sound block. "The court is now in recess."

"That is not Jacob Drake," Angela said. "We need to do something."

"That man is Jacob Drake," GM said. "His credentials checked out. He has the same job and address you mentioned. Physically, he is just as you described him. I can't believe that there is another Jacob Drake in L.A. with the same appearance and occupation. The chances are just too remote. Hell, even his driver's license and birth certificate corroborate his identity."

"I don't know what to say," she said. "That isn't my Jacob Drake. I can't see how it would help to question the wrong guy."

GM took a breath. "OK, here's what we'll do. I'll stop questioning this witness, let the judge know we have the wrong guy, and ask for a continuance to find the other Jacob Drake. We can have our P.I.'s help us out. The judge most likely won't grant the continuance, but it wouldn't hurt to ask. Hopefully the P.I.s can find this guy before we conclude our rebuttal case."

"Let me make sure I understand this, Mr. Wallace," the judge responded to GM. He, GM, and Patricia Pearson were having a sidebar away from the witness and jury. "You are telling me that you called the wrong witness to the stand today—a first for any defense attorney appearing before me in my 25 years on the bench—and you want to use this court's time to try and correct your mistake?"

"This is the wrong Jacob Drake, Your Honor. That's true. But what I am saying is that our calling him was beyond just an inadvertent mistake. We identified this witness and verified his identity—or so we thought—by contact information, physical description, work information, address, driver's license, and even birth certificate. All of those criteria happen to match the Jacob Drake you see here today. We intended to question the right Jacob Drake about the defendant's sexual behavior, which, as Your Honor has heard, the State has emphasized in its case. We would just like a little time to figure out how this happened and to locate the right witness so that the defendant can put on her full defense and get a fair trial."

"The State objects, Your Honor," Pearson said. "The defense has had ample time to prepare its case. There is no reason to think that defense counsel, who was unable to locate this witness for the last three months, will be able to do so in expedited fashion now. Granting a continuance will just waste this court's and the State's time and resources. This feels an awful lot like a delay tactic to allow the defense time to alter its strategy, or a contrived attempt to orchestrate a mistrial, either of which would be highly prejudicial to the State."

"I assure you, Your Honor, that the defense is in no way delaying to alter its strategy," GM said. "And we are certainly not aiming for a mistrial. We will have our private investigators—professional people-finders—locate the witness, instead of relying on the defense's attorneys and staff to do that, as we did before. Thus, we have plenty reason to believe we will be able to locate the witness in expedited fashion."

The judge sat back and folded his hands in his lap. "It is Thursday afternoon," he said. "I will give the defense until Monday morning to locate the witness. If you can't find him by then, you will have to look on your own time, Mr. Wallace."

"Thank you, Your Honor," GM said. GM and Patricia Pearson returned to their respective counsel tables.

"The witness is excused with the sincerest apologies of the California judiciary," the judge said. "Please see the Clerk of the Court about getting a juror's compensation voucher for the time you spent here today, Mr. Drake." The judge turned back to the attorneys and the crowd. "The court is now in recess until Monday at 8:30 am." He smacked the sound block with his gavel and walked out.

### 24

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Four people crammed into an attorney room at Centurion: GM, Angela, and two people Angela had never seen before. "Angela, please meet Mike Stone and Peter Fairchild," GM said. "Mike is the P.I. I've been telling you about, and Peter is a former police sketch-artist who works with Mike. They're the best in the business and they're here to help us track down the real Jacob Drake."

"Nice to meet you both," Angela said. They returned her greeting.

"We understand the person we're looking for resembles this man," Mike showed Angela a picture of the Jacob Drake GM had called to the stand, "but that there are some key differences. Peter is here to try and capture those differences in a sketch, so we have something to work off of. I also want to go over all the descriptive information about Jacob Drake you gave GM to make sure I have everything right and that you have nothing more to add. Let's start with the sketch."

Peter leaned in toward Angela with his sketch pad and began asking specific questions about Jacob's appearance. "Tell me about his hair," he started; then he moved to the shape of Jacob's head and jaw line. Peter even asked about Jacob's ear and nose hair; his freckles, moles, and other skin blemishes; the length and contour of his eyelashes; things that Angela otherwise wouldn't have thought to mention. By the time he finished, Angela had exhausted her memory. Mike occasionally interjected with questions about Jacob's posture, demeanor, habits, and other nuances about his character.

Peter displayed the completed sketch for Angela. "That's him," she said confidently. The sketch was perfect. She was sure they wouldn't misidentify Jacob now with Peter's rendering.

Mike followed up with questions about Jacob's contact information, work address, car, and other identifiers. He was quick and professional, and knew exactly what he was looking for. "Thanks, Angela. I think we have what we need."

After days of searching, Mike and Peter hadn't found Angela's Jacob Drake, despite the updated sketch and additional intel.

"The only match we found is the Jacob Drake we already had," Mike explained at their Sunday meeting. "We identified a few other potentials, but when we went to visit them, they were far off the physical description. And none of them had a tech background."

"So where does that leave us, Mike?" GM asked.

"We won't be able to find him by tomorrow, but we'll keep looking. There's also the issue with my friend from the bureau," Mike said, somewhat cryptically.

"Right," GM said, turning to Angela. "There's someone else here to see you today, Angela—an agent from the F.B.I."

"F.B.I.?" Angela asked.

"Mike called in some favors with friends at federal agencies. One of his contacts recognized the man in Peter's sketch and asked to meet with you about him."

"As in, this guy knows where we can find my Jacob Drake?"

"No," GM admitted.

"Then how does that help us?"

Turning to Mike and Peter, GM said, "Gentlemen, do you mind excusing us?"

"Sure," Mike said as he and Peter rose to leave.

When they were gone, GM continued: "There may be an angle here, Angela."

She looked at him expectantly.

"Apparently, the real Jacob Drake, whoever he is, has been on the F.B.I.'s wanted list for years. And while that means they probably won't find him quickly, they may be willing to pay up for information regarding his whereabouts, what he's been up to, et cetera."

"F.B.I. wanted list?" she asked. "Jacob?"

"Apparently," he said.

Can this situation get any weirder?

"Consider this," he continued. "So far the D.A.'s office has been unwilling to drop the death penalty or to deal with us in any way. But what if there were overriding national security concerns? I mean, this guy has been on the F.B.I.'s wanted list for a long time. He must be viewed as a threat to the U.S. Assuming we can provide useful information about him, the F.B.I. may be willing to step in negotiate with the D.A. on our behalf. Maybe they could convince the D.A. to back away from the death penalty. Maybe they could even get you transferred someplace safer."

She nodded absently.

"Of course, that's just the best-case scenario," GM said. "This might turn out to be nothing. So I want you to temper your expectations here, OK?"

She nodded again.

"But all that said, I do think we should at least talk to this agent and see what he has to say. In my view, we have nothing to lose. What do you think?"

"I agree," she said.

Minutes later, Special Agent John Bancroft entered the attorney room and introduced himself. He was tall and clean shaven, with windblown brown hair and dark, endearing eyes. His face was round but not fat. His body was solid but softening, a sign that his exercise routine was not quite compensating for his slowing metabolism. He wore a nondescript gray suit with a white shirt and no tie, and spoke with an upper-class southern accent.

"I appreciate you speaking with me today, ma'am," Special Agent Bancroft began. "I understand your attorney explained to you why I'm here. What I'd like to do is show you some pictures to see if you recognize a man we've been looking for for quite some time."

He produced a manila envelope, opened it, and pulled out three photographs. He handed her two of them—poor quality pictures that were obviously old. "These were taken in 1997 and 2003, respectively," he said.

The first was a wide-angle shot of a punk kid in what looked like a garage. He was maybe 15 or 16, wiry, and had spiky hair dyed jet black. The resolution wasn't great, but the kid did resemble Jacob, except for the dyed hair. It was such an old photo, though, that she couldn't say for sure it was him.

The second was a more recent, medium-frame shot of the same kid in clearer focus. He had matured and gained some weight, but still retained his angular features. His hair was ash-brown, short, and scruffy; his piercing eyes were blue-green. The skin on Angela's arms and legs molded into goosebumps as she looked. "Oh my god," she said. Though the photo was old, she knew—it was Jacob.

"You recognize the man in this picture, ma'am?" Bancroft was pointing to the photo from 2003.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "That's Jacob Drake. That's the man we tried to call as a witness at my trial. We couldn't find him, though. He disappeared."

Bancroft slid the third photo to Angela. "Is this what Jacob Drake looks like today?" It was a computer simulation, but it too was Jacob, or at least a startlingly accurate estimate of how he had aged since the 2003 photo.

"That's _very_ close, yeah," she said.

"How do you know this man?" he asked.

"Wait a minute, Agent Bancroft," GM interjected. "I think we've established that my client can help the bureau here. Before she gets into the details, though, we'd like to know how the F.B.I. can help her."

"What'd you have in mind, Mr. Wallace?"

"A mutually beneficial arrangement through which you catch an elusive fugitive and my client obtains her safety and freedom."

"I don't follow."

"In the long run, Agent Bancroft, we both want the same thing—to catch this man. You want him for national security reasons. We want him so that he can help exonerate my client."

"OK."

"To achieve that, though, we need to keep my client safe and healthy long enough to be exonerated and to meaningfully cooperate with your team. The problem is her welfare's being threatened in two main ways at present. First, the D.A.'s office is insisting on pursuing the death penalty. They don't care how much we cooperate or try to streamline the courtroom proceedings—they won't deal. And she could end up executed as a result. Second, my client has already been attacked by an inmate at Centurion, and I fear for her continued safety if she stays there.

"That's where you come in. In exchange for our cooperation, you could speak to the D.A.'s office on our behalf and arrange for them to drop the death penalty from this case and to transfer my client to another facility where she'll be safer."

"That would be a very tall order, Mr. Wallace."

"Not as tall as demanding that the State drop all its charges, which is what I should be asking for given the national security implications of finding this fugitive, and the fact that my client has been wrongfully accused and incarcerated." GM smiled at Bancroft. "But I can be reasonable, Agent Bancroft, because I know that once you find this man we will be able to prove my client's innocence on our own. And as a token of our good faith, I am asking for much smaller consolations in exchange for our help.

"Now what do you say? Will the F.B.I. be reasonable and meet us halfway on this?"

"We might be able to work a transfer," Bancroft said, "but don't get your hopes up about the D.A. dropping its capital charges. Either way, I'll talk to my superiors and see what I can do."

"We look forward to hearing from you again," GM said. "Hopefully, sooner rather than later."

"Like I said, I'll see what I can do." Bancroft rose and looked at Angela. "Thanks for your time, Ms. Gianni. I look forward to hearing more about your former client." Turning to GM, he said, "I'll be in touch," and then walked out.

### 25

### KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE . . .

Angela awoke sprawled face down on the floor. Her head thumped, her eyelids were heavy. She rolled onto her right side slowly and, when she completed the motion, lifted her left palm off the linoleum. It was slick and sticky. There was a palm imprint where she had pressed against the ground. Rubbing her fingertips against the meat of her hand she registered the substance—blood.

She jerked to attention and scanned her torso for wounds. Nothing there. She glanced toward her extended right arm and saw, just beyond it, a bloody cooking blade. Beyond that, a drooping, middle-aged man's body was mounted in a stockade. He wasn't moving—or breathing—and there was a deep laceration on the inside of his upper-right thigh. Dried blood covered his leg below the wound and viscous blood spread across the floor beneath it.

Her heart fluttered in her throat.

"Hello," she said aloud, her voice hoarse and tired. No response from her limp companion.

Oliver Knox. His name is Oliver Knox.

"Oliver?" Still nothing. _Did I kill him?_

She remembered holding her phone and reaching for the knife. And then the sharp, stabbing pain.

Was someone else here?

She sat up and surveyed the room. She was alone aside from Knox. She felt her neck—nothing there. Maybe a small bump.

There's blood everywhere.

She reached for her phone, which was next to her against the wall, smeared with blood. She wiped it clean and checked for videos. But there weren't any. There was a 23-minute-old message from Nicole, though, asking about Samara.

Samara!

It came back to her: Samara and Mark had been hours away from release; Angela had to film one last series of videos with Oliver and send them to Samara's kidnapper; she had to get the videos to him in time or she and Mark would die.

Where are the videos of Oliver I took? How long was I out?

She had no messages from the kidnapper yet. Maybe there was still time. _Did he know?_

She marinated on the thought.

Was I set up to fail? Does that mean Samara and Mark are . . . ?

She couldn't text the kidnapper—he had been very clear that he would kill Samara if Angela asked any more questions. So if she wasn't dead already, she would be then. Detective Linares had made no progress finding Samara and Mark's captor, so he was useless, too. _He probably thinks I'm involved anyway after that bullshit with Trickett and McElroy. They do, for sure._

_I could just . . . go . . . . But where? Mexico?_ "He'd kill them for sure then," she mumbled aloud. If they're even alive.

_What if I got rid of him myself?_ She looked over at Oliver's blanched body, the fleshy gash in his leg, the syrupy blood that had drained from it—and quickly turned away, covering her mouth and chewing back vomit. _Brilliant idea. I can't even look at it without puking. They'd figure out Oliver came here before disappearing anyway, and I'd still be fucked._

_Maybe I should just . . . call Linares_ . . . . She scanned her bloody back room and her bloody clothes, the blood-encrusted knife and her blood-smeared phone. _There is no way he would believe me . . ._

A blaring shriek pierced the room, a shrill, ear-rending, two-note blast she wasn't sure if she felt or heard first. In microseconds her pulse surged to the brink of cardiac arrest. Before she could consciously process the intrusion, she'd realized the source of the threat—her phone, sitting on the ground next to her, still set with all the notifications at maximum volume. Detective Linares had just sent her a text, a response to a message apparently sent from her phone just before she received Nicole's text. He was on his way, he said. He would be there shortly.

What the fuck?!

Angela shot to her feet. The room would be impossible to clean before Detective Linares arrived. She could only close the door and hope he didn't go back there. She needed to rinse herself, though, and she had to make the trek to the bathroom without getting blood elsewhere in the house.

Leave everything except the phone. Get to the shower.

She tiptoed to the bathroom, tore off her clothes, tossed them in the tub—anything leather would be ruined, but she had to flush away the blood—then she stepped in and turned on the shower. Trying to process what was happening, she scrubbed her skin violently with a loofa. There was no denying that a message was sent from her phone to Detective Linares. But she had no memory of sending it. _It had to have been someone else. But who? And what the hell am I going to tell Linares? There is no time!_

Arms bent at a 90-degree angle, hands and elbows raised to shoulder level, she looked down to scrutinize herself. The front of her body seemed clean. She jumped out of the shower with the water still running and inspected her back in the mirror. _I think I'm OK._ She ripped a gray towel off the wall to blot her hair and tie it off, stanching the dripping. Using a second towel snatched off the hook behind the door she swept her arms, legs, and body, and wrapped herself tight. _Dry enough._ She turned off the water.

Charging into her bedroom she slipped into a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt, then grabbed paper towels and a bottle of bleach cleanser from the kitchen. If there were traces of blood on her phone, she didn't want Detective Linares to see them.

He'll be here any second.

She had sanitized her phone, but now she had a fistful of bloody rags to dispose of.

Was that a knock at the front door?

The wastebasket under the kitchen sink would have to do for now.

In the front entryway Detective Linares greeted her with an unexpected apology: "Hello ma'am. Before you say anything I just wanted to say sorry for the West L.A. detectives the other night. They have this old-school way of doing things and sometimes they get out of line. That's the kind of stuff that gives cops a bad name. I should have said something to them—I take more pride in my work than that. Anyway, I apologize. It won't happen again."

She opened her mouth to speak, but the words caught in her throat. Her bottom lip jerked into her top one as she sniffed back a suddenly runny nose. He was studying her, confused.

She was confused, too, when the first saline droplet slid down her face. A pressure built around her eyes and in her sinuses. Her diaphragm began to spasm, portending an ugly disgorgement. Then she erupted into tears.

"Ma'am?" was all Detective Linares could muster.

Forfeiting speech for the moment, she stepped aside and gestured for him to enter. There was no hiding the truth now, no plausible cover story that could save her.

"Wanna tell me what's going on?"

"I—" she gasped, her shoulders lurching back to accommodate her lungs—"don't know what's happening to me."

"Ma'am, I am going to need you to get a hold of yourself and tell me what's going on. Nice and slow, OK?"

"The kidnapper knew, Detective. He _knew_."

"What kidnapper?"

"The person that took Samara and Mark. He knew that I shared text messages with you. He knew that you came here with the other detectives."

"Please slow down. How do you know Ms. Ryland and Mr. Newsome were kidnapped?"

Angela described the text messages she received after Trickett and McElroy's visit. She explained that the kidnapper threatened to kill Samara if she shared further information with the police. And she told Detective Linares about the box she received in the mail.

"Someone mailed you Ms. Ryland's finger?" He was beyond skeptical.

"It's in the freezer."

"Show me."

Angela pointed him to the appliance, and he opened it. He reached in, shuffled some items, and then turned back to her. "Where?"

She stepped to his left and began lifting her hand to indicate the box, but it was gone. "Of course," she said, exhaling emphatically.

"Ma'am?"

"There's more I need to tell you, Detective." She indicated the kitchen table. "Please sit."

"The kidnapper told me to freeze the finger until further notice. That same day, he instructed me to make films of my clients and send them to him, or he would kill Samara. His demands were specific. I had to make a certain number of videos, each a certain length. Once I sent them to him, I had to delete them and all his texts."

"So you have no evidence of these 'demands' or the videos?" Detective Linares seemed both irritated and incredulous.

"No." Anticipating her next revelation, her heart started thumping, a battering ram pounding the inside of her ribcage. With a deep breath she continued: "It gets worse, Detective."

"Go on."

"He made me cut my clients. Little slices at first, but they got bigger over time. I was filming the last set of videos this afternoon. I was almost done—just about to start the final video—when my phone shut off. I went to reboot it, but I felt a stabbing pain in my neck and then passed out. I think I was drugged.

"I was out for a while, but when I came to, my client was dead—murdered—in the stockade in the back room I use for sessions. And the videos from today were wiped from my phone. Just gone. He probably took the finger back while I was unconscious, too."

"Ms. Gianni"—his face was stern and sober; he spoke deliberately—"are you telling me that there is a dead body in your back room?"

"Yes."

"I need you to get up _very slowly_ and walk me back there." He took a deep breath.

In her mind his gun was already drawn, though for the moment it stayed fastened in his shoulder holster. She walked calmly and carefully three steps ahead of him; she eased the door open and stepped aside.

He winced, possibly choking back vomit. He radioed Angela's address to dispatch, noting the body and that this "was an apparent homicide." He requested detectives and a battery of specialists.

### 26

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

"You do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now pending before this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" the bailiff asked.

The room was packed to capacity. The victims' family members sat near the front. Low-paid news-station interns stood in the back, ready to shuttle salacious tidbits back to the media room at a moment's notice. Everyone stared at Angela.

"I do," she replied.

It had been several days, but they'd heard nothing from Bancroft, meaning they wouldn't get the opportunity to force Jacob Drake to testify. GM had put on the rest of his witnesses in the interim, leaving only Angela's testimony as the grand finale. "Remember what we talked about," he had said. "Maintain your credibility at all costs. Don't stretch on any answers. Just tell it like it is. Juries are incredibly sensitive to even the appearance of dishonesty."

She hadn't slept in days.

"Please be seated," the bailiff said.

Separated from the audience, Angela could smell the citrus aroma of furniture polish and the toasted fabric scent of freshly vacuumed carpet. The witness chair was made from some kind of heavy wood, probably oak, and it was covered with well-worn, greenish-gray cushions. But it was more comfortable than she expected.

In preparing for this moment, GM instructed Angela to look only at him. There would of course be a crowd, but watching the sea of spectators would only distract her. "Focus on the one person you are conversing with—me," GM said. "Your nerves will surge when you first get up there, but that's normal; they'll go away when we start talking together."

He was right about the first part.

Thanks to GM's diligent preparation, she knew what he was going to ask, and when, and what she was supposed to say in reply. She could hear him asking the questions. She could hear herself answering. It felt mechanical.

Seconds later, when she'd consciously processed what she'd said, she was surprised how natural her answers sounded. Her confidence started rising—until she surveyed the audience.

Most of the crowd undulated between boredom and skepticism. But the victims' families and those sympathetic to them remained steadfastly angry.

Are they even listening?

Patricia Pearson's objections reverberated incessantly in the background.

"Can you describe the content of these anonymous text messages you were receiving?" GM was asking.

"The first one was vague," she heard herself saying. "It said something like, 'Don't worry about Samara. She is fine.' The next one said, 'You couldn't at least wait until you found her?'"

"Did you have a sense for what that meant?"

"It seemed like a reference to Mark Newsome visiting the night before, which scared me."

"Why did that scare you?"

"It meant that whoever sent the text was watching me and knew what I had been doing."

"A scary thought indeed." GM flipped through some notes in front of him and then continued. "While we are on the subject of Mark Newsome, why did you invite him over that night?"

"He had been pushing to see me. I missed him. I was hoping he could console me. I thought seeing him might help take my mind off Samara."

"Did it?"

"Yes. At least until I got the strange text message the next morning."

"What did you do when you got that text?"

"I called Detective Linares immediately to make sure he had all the information pertinent to his search for Samara. And to let him know that someone might be watching me."

"Did you hear testimony from a prosecution witness a few days ago suggesting that the text messages came from your phone and were generated by the Burner app?"

"Yes, I heard that. But it isn't true."

"What makes you say that?"

"I had no idea what the Burner app was until this trial. I had never seen it before."

"You heard testimony from our mobile-software expert that the app was found on your phone, but it was downloaded and installed the day you were arrested, right?"

"I did hear that."

"Do you have any explanation for that?"

"I don't. I surrendered my phone to the police early that afternoon, and I haven't seen it since. When I handed it over, the Burner app was not on it, to the best of my knowledge. Though I'm sure my phone passed through many other hands that day."

Her testimony continued this way for two days: GM asked her questions in a way that allowed her to simultaneously tell her story and refute the prosecution's witnesses. She described in detail receiving Samara's severed finger, the instructions for making the edge-play videos, and her being knocked unconscious just before the last Oliver Knox recording. She described her surprise at finding a corpse and a bloody room when she awakened, at learning that someone had contacted Detective Linares from her phone, and at later learning that Mark and Samara had been killed.

When she had finally settled into a rhythm, she heard GM announce, "No further questions, Your Honor."

Patricia Pearson stood to begin her cross-examination.

Adrenaline hijacked Angela's body. GM sat behind the counsel table and tried to reassure her with a solemn nod—his way of reiterating that she had prepared for this. That had limited effect.

"You testified that Ms. Ryland's severed pinkie was sent via courier service to your house, correct?" Pearson asked, setting an aggressive tone from the start.

"Yes," Angela replied.

"What courier service made the delivery?"

"I don't remember."

"What color were their uniforms?"

"I don't remember the delivery man wearing a uniform. Maybe brownish?"

"So, you don't actually know?"

"I—"

"Please don't speculate. I am asking only about what you specifically recall right now. And please try to remember that you are under oath."

"I . . . don't know."

Breathe, Angela. Stay calm.

"I believe I heard you testify that you did not remove Ms. Ryland's finger yourself, is that right?"

"That's correct. I did not."

"And you heard the testimony during the prosecution's case-in-chief, did you not, that her pinkie was severed with a pair of bolt cutters?"

"I did."

"Any reason to doubt her finger was lopped off with bolt cutters?"

GM: "Objection. Speculative. Calls for expert testimony."

Judge: "Overruled."

"You may answer the question," Pearson said.

GM counseled her to listen for his objections. If she heard him say something was "speculative" or "called for expert testimony," then it was probably best for her to explicitly state that she had no opinion on the matter.

"I have no opinion about how her finger was cut off," Angela said.

"Seems like an angry thing to do, doesn't it? Lopping someone's finger off?"

GM: "Objection. Speculative. Calls for expert testimony."

Judge: "Overruled. Mr. Wallace, the witness will be allowed to testify about her interpretation of relevant circumstances. Please try to keep your objections reasonable." To Angela: "You may answer."

"I have no opinion," Angela said.

"Do you think severing someone's pinkie is a nice thing to do?"

"I . . . have no opinion."

"Would you like it if _your_ finger was severed?"

"No."

"Well at least you have an opinion on that." Pearson paused to look over some notes, then continued: "You testified that Ms. Ryland was probably your closest friend, correct?"

"Yes."

"You also testified that you spent most of your free time after college with her, right?"

"Yes."

"Were you angry when she started spending a substantial amount of her time with her new boyfriend?"

"I wish I could have seen her more, but I wouldn't say that I was angry."

"Did you see her often when she was with him?"

"No."

"Did you talk to her over the phone frequently?"

"No."

"Did you spend most of your free time alone at that point?"

"Yes."

"And did you like being alone?"

"Not particularly."

"But you weren't angry?"

"I was fine."

"You testified that during this time, and especially when Ms. Ryland went missing, you took solace in your relationship with Mark Newsome, correct?"

"Yes."

"And you testified that, although you knew the relationship was morally wrong, you had strong feelings for Mr. Newsome, correct?"

"Yes."

"What kind of feelings did you have for Mr. Newsome?"

"Romantic."

"He was longing to see you the last night he came to your house, and you were longing to see him, correct?"

"Yes. I think there are text messages that show it."

"Both of you were feeling the passionate fires of burgeoning love, or something along those lines? His existing marriage notwithstanding."

"Something like that, yes."

"Tell me, what did you two talk about that night? The last night you saw him."

"I . . . we . . ."

"You . . . what?"

"We didn't talk."

"You didn't talk?"

"Well, we didn't have a conversation."

"I'm afraid I don't understand. Could you explain for the jury what you mean?"

"He came over, and I . . . gave him instructions on how we would make love that night. He was into that sort of thing, which is why he came to me in the first place."

"Did you two discuss these instructions?"

"No. Part of my instructions were that he was not permitted to speak."

"What happened after you gave him the instructions."

"We made love."

"And then?"

"He left. That was part of my instructions, too. That he leave immediately after."

"So, this married man you say you were passionately in love with—who you hoped would console you and take your ailing mind off your missing friend—you invited him over, forbade him from speaking, had him satisfy you sexually, and then kicked him out as soon as you were done?"

GM: "Objection. Argumentative. Mischaracterizes the witness's testimony."

Judge: "Overruled."

"I . . . it wasn't like that."

"Do you want to change your testimony then?"

"No, I just . . . no."

"Let's change focus for a minute. You are aware, are you not, that your credit card records suggest that you purchased, the day after Ms. Ryland showed up at your house, a pair of bolt cutters that match those used to sever Ms. Ryland's left pinkie?"

"I am. But, those records must have been falsified."

"Right. According to your testimony, your credit card records and many other pieces of evidence introduced by the prosecution were all tampered with by an unidentified third-party. A powerful and efficient defense, if you could prove it. But there is no sign of this mysterious third party, and there is no actual evidence of any tampering, is there?"

"I will let the jury decide that."

"Good idea." Pearson signaled a paralegal on her staff, who disappeared and then reemerged wheeling in a television and DVD player. "To start with, let's let the ladies and the gentlemen of the jury decide the veracity of your testimony about the bolt cutters. I'd like to show you some footage from security cameras at the hardware store where the bolt cutters were purchased—the purchase you say was fraudulently placed in your credit card records."

GM: " _Ob-jection_ , Your Honor." GM was vehement. "The prosecution already closed their case-in-chief. They can't introduce new evidence at this late stage. This is extremely prejudicial to the defense."

Pearson: "Your Honor, may I approach?"

Judge: "Please. You, too, Mr. Wallace."

Pearson: "Your Honor, if I may, the prosecution intends to show two brief videos to attack the veracity of the defendant's statement that her credit card records were falsified. Nothing more. Mr. Wallace is exaggerating the potential for prejudice. This is classic impeachment material, and the jury has a right to see the witness address it. Mr. Wallace is free to try and rehabilitate the defendant's testimony on redirect examination, as contemplated by the rules."

GM: "Your Honor, I don't know what Ms. Pearson's videos show, but we all know the overwhelming and irrevocable effect that out-of-context video can have on a jury. This is not classic impeachment material—this is an attempt to sandbag the defense with highly prejudicial and improperly introduced visual evidence, which should have been presented during the prosecution's case-in-chief."

After a long, contemplative pause, the judge said, "I am going to overrule your objection, Mr. Wallace. But, Ms. Pearson, the prosecution is strictly prohibited from referring to this video for any purpose other than impeaching the defendant's testimony. Not one reference to the video after you conclude your cross-examination. Am I clear?"

Pearson: "Yes, Your Honor. Perfectly clear."

The television monitor was set to face the jury, and the video was cued. The black-and-white feed came from a ceiling camera that overlooked three registers at a hardware store. Seven seconds in, a woman approached the right-most register with a pair of long-handled bolt cutters.

What the fuck . . . ?

The woman was the same height, weight, and complexion as Angela. Her clothing looked similar. Her haircut was the same. As the cashier accepted the woman's card and ran it, Pearson paused the video. "The time on the video says 11:02 a.m.—the exact time that your credit card records say you purchased the bolt cutters—does it not?"

"It . . . does," Angela stammered, "but . . ."

"Yes, Ms. Gianni? Do you have more to add?"

"It . . . that's . . . not me."

"You drive a white Honda Civic, don't you, Ms. Gianni?"

"What? I . . ."

"It's a straightforward question, Ms. Gianni."

"Yes . . ."

"Cue the second video please." Pearson's paralegal switched feeds. The second clip came from a parking lot camera mounted to a lamppost. It showed the same woman leaving the hardware store and getting into a white Honda Civic, though the license plates were obscured. "The time on this video is 11:05 a.m. Same store, outside parking lot. You going to say that isn't you getting into your white Honda Civic with your newly purchased bolt cutters, Ms. Gianni?"

Angela's cheeks were radiating heat. Each beat of her heart felt stronger, faster; her whole body pulsed, as if her blood was trying to burst through her skin and escape to a friendlier environment.

"I . . ."

Pearson stood watching the jurors, basking in their reactions, allowing them a moment to marinate on what they had just seen before she continued her cross-examination.

"Maintain your credibility at all costs," GM had said. "Don't stretch on any answers. . . . Juries are incredibly sensitive to even the appearance of dishonesty." GM's admonitions echoed through Angela's thoughts. She couldn't bring herself to speak.

"I think you've answered my question," Pearson said.

### 27

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Angela remembered the moments preceding the jury's verdict in isolated frames. Empty jury box. Deliberation room opening. Jury seated. Foreman standing.

The judge had asked Angela to stand, too, and she must have, though she didn't recall rising. Her vision tunneled, focusing on the foreman. She was acutely aware of her breath—the gentle whistle as she pulled air in through her nostrils, the rushing sound of her lungs deflating as she released it, the alternating coolness and warmth on her top lip.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?" the judge asked.

"It has," the foreman said.

Angela's breath quickened.

"How does the jury find on count 1, the capital murder of Ms. Samara Ryland?"

"Guilty."

Angela glowered at the foreman, unblinking. Her vision pulsated with each heartbeat. She breathed faster, exhaled harder.

"And on count 2, the capital murder of Mr. Mark Newsome?"

"Guilty."

She panted hard through her nose and got lightheaded. Her peripheral vision began to scintillate.

"On count 3, the capital murder of Mr. Oliver Knox?"

"Guilty."

She drew a huge breath and held it. Tears filled her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. But she still didn't blink.

The murmur of the crowd swelled and overtook the room.

After the jury saw Pearson's footage from the hardware store GM had warned Angela this would happen. Even though Angela swore it wasn't her in the video, the resemblance was too close for the jury to believe her. And if Angela actually bought the bolt cutters used to sever Samara's finger, what else might she be lying about? It was exactly what GM had feared when he objected.

Pearson was known for unconventional litigation tactics, which GM was prepared for, but, GM would explain later, what Pearson did with the video was the lawyerly version of a cheap shot, or a sucker punch. Any reasonable attorney would have considered the video to be evidence and would therefore have shown it to the defense, as the prosecution was required to do with all its evidence. But Pearson called the video "impeachment material," which is used only on cross-examination to undermine witness testimony, so she wouldn't have to disclose it. She gambled with this approach—the judge could have found the video to be improperly withheld evidence and prevented her from playing it during Angela's cross—but if the judge allowed her to show it while Angela was on the stand, as he did, Pearson could undermine all of Angela's testimony in a single stroke.

Pearson gave GM a hard look as she stood and strode out of the courtroom.

Angela was facing the rear wall of her cell when she realized where she was. _How long have I been back?_ She was in her prison uniform again, so she must have relinquished her skirt suit to the guards. She sat on the bottom bunk and scanned the white cinderblock walls surrounding her. They looked closer than usual. The cell, smaller.

I guess this is home now . . .

She turned to the back wall, jammed a pillow over her mouth, and screamed.

This can't be happening! Who the hell was that woman in the video? And who the hell did my neighbor see in my back yard?

She sobbed into the tissue-thin pillow cover.

You're a murderer now. A MURDERER! That's what they said today. It's on the record. Official. MURDERER!

The pillow was starting to suffocate her, but she kept it pressed to her face.

"You got 30 minutes to gather all your things and put 'em in this box," Regina Mack barked as she slid some folded cardboard through the bars of Angela's cell. Angela jumped—she didn't hear Regina slink up, but Regina had a habit of approaching quietly and startling her with officious commands.

Angela pulled the pillow slowly off her face, just far enough so she could speak unobstructed over her shoulder. "What happens in 30 minutes?" she asked, straining to sound normal.

"You goin' to your new cell," Regina said as she started walking away, ". . . in population," she added over her shoulder.

Population.

Angela had almost no possessions, and it took maybe five minutes to build the box and put her few belongings in it. The rest of the time she sat on the bed calming herself and waiting for Regina, who returned late.

Get it together, Angie. You can't go in there crying.

"Hands through the hole," Regina said, louder than necessary.

"How am I supposed to carry the box with cuffs on?"

"After I cuff you, hold your arms up and I'll put the box on them."

Angela did what she was told. Regina led her down several long corridors, through multiple security checkpoints, and eventually into the massive collection of cells known as "general population," or "population" for short. Unlike the peaceful solitude of the mental health area, population was loud and teeming with activity.

There were three floors of cells in this area of the prison surrounding a central atrium, which was lined with steel-mesh paneling, walling off each floor. Nearly fifty inmates were milling about in the common area on the ground floor.

Angela's cell, number 327, was on the third floor. It was a mirror image of her last cell, with the same mounted bunks, dingy steel toilet, and white cinderblock walls, all configured on the opposite side from her last cell.

Now that she was in population and no longer being monitored, Angela had to share her cell with another inmate: Shauntrelle Lewis.

Shauntrelle had the darkest skin Angela had ever seen. She was human midnight, with eye-whites cut from a luminous moon. She lay on the bottom bunk holding a book and glaring at Angela, who extended her hand for a greeting. Shauntrelle didn't budge. "You up top," she said, and then returned to reading.

The shadow from the upper bunk obscured Shauntrelle's face. So, aside from her skin and eyes, Angela had no idea what she looked like. For now she would just be a featureless entity with whom Angela was forced to share space.

Regina clanked the door shut and said, "Hands out the hole." She removed Angela's cuffs and strolled off without another word.

Shauntrelle ignored Angela for the rest of the day. She spent the evening reading on the bottom bunk while Angela passed the time on the top bunk soundlessly reliving the worst moments of her trial and wondering what living with the phantom-woman below her would be like. The silence in cell 327 sharply contrasted with the clamor emanating from the common area outside.

It wasn't until several hours after lights-out that Angela heard Shauntrelle move. There was a rustling sound, followed by the clink of something light being dropped in the toilet, then the sound of Shauntrelle peeing just a few feet away.

This is going to take some getting used to.

When the guards came by for headcount in the morning both Angela and Shauntrelle had to stand outside the cell and wait for the guards to tally the prisoners. For the first time, Angela could see Shauntrelle's face and the cluster of blood-dripping stars tattooed on her right cheek, just like Wood's. Angela's heart began to pound.

Stay calm. Do not show any emotion.

Back inside Angela approached the toilet to relieve herself. Shauntrelle hadn't flushed from the night before. In the middle of the bowl, submerged in Shauntrelle's festering urine, was Angela's toothbrush. She could hear Shauntrelle's sinister laughter behind her.

"Look like you gonna need a new toothbrush, Snowflake."

### 28

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

Bancroft knocked on Regional Director Meyerson's door. "Steve, you got a minute?"

"Sure. What's on your mind?"

"You're a tough man to get ahold of these days."

"What can I say, I've had a lot on my hands the past week or so."

"Listen, I sent you an email about two weeks back about a witness I interviewed who may be able to help us track down Stepan Alexievich. I realize things are crazy right now, but I think we may have a unique opportunity here. We haven't had a legitimate lead in that case in years."

"Alexievich? That's your big cyberterrorist case that went cold, what, ten, twelve years ago?"

"Yeah, this was the kid who orchestrated the New York City blackout of 2003, and then detonated his entire crew in Berlin when he found out the authorities were onto him. He's gotten much worse since, if you'll recall. The working theory is that he's behind most of the recent Chinese, Russian, and North Korean breaches of U.S. government and commercial enterprises."

"Yeah, but his involvement in all that post-2003 stuff is just speculation, right?" Meyerson said. "We don't have any physical evidence or corroborated eyewitness intelligence that he's even alive, let alone still in the game?"

"That's true, but that's why this lead is all the more important. If we can track this guy down, we can at least answer those questions."

"Alright. What is it you need from me, John?"

"I need authority to negotiate with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. Specifically, I need authority to negotiate a prisoner transfer from Centurion Regional Detention Center to a safer location, and I need to be able to exert enough leverage to get the D.A. to drop their capital charges against my witness."

" _Capital_ charges? Who the hell is this witness, John?"

"You been watching the news over the past couple of months?"

"Yeah . . . why?"

"You see anything about a dominatrix from Hermosa Beach convicted of triple homicide?"

"You mean the 'Maniac Mistress of South Bay'? Yes. That was hard to miss. What does this have to do with your witness?"

"That's our girl."

"Our girl?" Myerson stared down his nose at Bancroft. "You want to bend over backwards to try to get information from a convicted psychopath? Tell me you're kidding."

"No joke, Steve. She is the lead."

"You don't think _maybe_ she has some incentive to lie to us to try and get out of the otherwise untenable situation she's in? We have plenty of open cases with solid, active leads, John. Why don't we focus on those and take a look back the Alexievich file when we get something real. Let's not get desperate and start reaching here."

"Look, I hear you. This isn't the ideal witness. But she had no idea about the Alexievich investigation when I arrived. Still doesn't. She doesn't even know who he is. Her attorney hired a private investigator to locate a rogue trial witness, and the P.I., unprompted, sent me a sketch of that witness to see if I recognized him. It was him, Steve. Then I went to visit the witness with actual photos, and she ID'd Alexievich cold from his 2003 photo. She even got goosebumps looking at the picture. You can't fake that."

"John, let's be practical here. What do you really have right now? An artist's rendering of a missing person—sketched at the direction of someone who was just convicted of butchering three people—that resembled what _you think_ Alexievich might look like today, after aging 12 years. That's not exactly a reliable starting point.

"From there, you went to the same desperate woman, whose lawyer no doubt told her that we would help her if she played ball, and— _tada!_ —she mystically recognizes the man in our photos and wants us to do her bidding for her before she'll tell us more, if she even has anything more to tell."

Bancroft started to interrupt, but Meyerson raised his index finger to show he wasn't finished, and answered Bancroft's unasked question. "The goosebumps could have just been nerves, John. I just don't think we have a solid enough lead right now to waste any political capital on this. The bureau can't afford to lose any credibility right now."

"Steve, this is the only lead we've had on this case in almost a decade. If it is Alexievich, and he has been in L.A. recently, something very big could be about to go down. I think it's worth checking out."

"Objectively, this is thin. I'm not saying it won't lead somewhere eventually, but we just don't have enough to push this now. Not yet, anyway. Just be patient. Something better will surface.

"To be clear," Meyerson continued, "I'm not saying you can't work it when you have time. In fact, please do. I'm just saying you will have to work it without sticking the bureau's neck out in the process. Talk to her again. See what else you can get out of her. Maybe you get lucky and turn up something we can really lean on."

"There's no chance her lawyer lets her talk without getting some concessions from us first," Bancroft said.

"Then you'll just have to let it go, John. Sorry."

Bancroft muttered "yes sir," then rose and exited Meyerson's office.

### 29

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Wood's crew was everywhere in population. Angela had encountered about ten of them in her first week there. They were easy to spot by their bloody-star face tattoos. But, since it wasn't wise to walk around prison scrutinizing other inmates' faces, she usually only discovered them after they made themselves known.

She'd expected physical altercations, but so far they'd resorted solely to psychological tactics. They'd take her soap and towel in the shower, or they would steal her shoes while she was rinsing so she'd have to walk around barefoot until the prison issued her another pair. They'd pick up plates off her tray in the chow hall and walk off with them. One woman dropped a used tampon in her vegetables during lunch.

On Thursday of her second week, Angela was returning from the shower. Nobody had taken her soap, towel, or shoes that day. Nobody tried to provoke her during breakfast. She walked back into her cell and tossed her toiletry bag under the bottom bunk.

Turning to face the cell door, it felt as if a shotput struck the back of her left knee. She stumbled forward, raising her arms reflexively, but something cinched around her elbows and biceps, securing them, arresting her forward motion, whipsawing her neck, bouncing her chin off her chest then yanking her head backward.

A cloth filled her mouth. Someone pulled back on it violently, forcing the material between her teeth, trapping her tongue against the floor of her mouth. Then there was a downward blow to the back of her right leg, dropping her to her knees.

"Tole ya I be waitin', Snowflake. Glad you here waitin' for me, too."

Wood.

Angela later learned that Wood had been in solitary confinement for two weeks for hospitalizing another inmate. She must have heard about Angela's transfer as soon as she got out because Angela's cell was her first stop when she was released.

Angela tried to scream through what she now recognized as a towel stuffed in her mouth, but all that emerged was a muffled grunt. Two women, one for each flank, were holding her arms splayed out at her sides. Somebody—Wood probably, judging by the weight—was gagging her and standing on top of her left calf, pinning her knee to the ground, preventing her from standing.

"I'm just here to give you a li'l welcome gift, sweetie. You be sure to thank me later." There was a hollow _thud_ as something small and hard, wrapped in thin fabric, impacted the middle of Angela's back. It took her breath away. She fought for air through the towel and started hyperventilating.

_Thud . . . thud . . . thud._ The gag loosened with each strike, then tightened as Wood wound up again.

"You just my sweet li'l bitch, ain't you, Snowflake? . . . I asked you a question, Snowflake!"

Thudthudthudthud.

Tears streamed down Angela's face as she tried desperately to scream through the terrycloth.

"Dats a good li'l bitch. Just wanna make my baby cry a touch today is all. Just a li'l sumpin to keep you thinkin' 'bout me till I come through again." She felt one last hard hit near her right kidney, then the pressure let up on her left calf. The gag was loosening, too.

"Course, we can't have you knowin' who be in here. Dat'd spaaawl the surprise." She heard and felt a hollow _boom_ as her field of vision scintillated and blurred, and her brain shook inside her skull. Both of Angela's arms slid free as she toppled forward face-first onto the concrete floor. A thick, hardcover book dropped at her side—a dictionary. She heard footsteps scuttering away. The floor was cold on her cheek as she lay crying.

"See you soon, Snowflaaaake . . . ." The voice echoed for a beat then faded.

Angela lay motionless, looking through her tears at the dark underbelly of Shauntrelle's bottom bunk, and at the toiletry bag she had dropped there moments ago. Her back was hot, tingling; she knew she knew the worst pain was yet to come. Palms flat on the concrete at shoulder level, she tried to push herself up off the ground. As she raised her torso a sharp pain shot through her right side. She winced and fell back to the floor.

I need to get to the infirmary.

Dr. Moritz looked exactly like Angela remembered: white physician's coat; long, straight, gray hair parted down the middle and pulled back in a tight pony tail; warm hazel eyes.

"You have a thing for bruises, do you?" she was saying, joking in too serious a tone. "I remember you from last time. Big bruise in the front. What'd you do now, ask them to even it out?" She looked at Angela and smiled.

Angela forced a grin.

"Sorry, I must be a little loopy today. Just trying to lighten the situation," Dr. Moritz said.

Dr. Moritz manually examined Angela's back and then X-rayed it. The scan showed two cracked ribs that would be "quite tender" for a few weeks. There was nothing to do to protect the afflicted area, but she gave Angela some pills for the pain. She also advised Angela to stay in her cell as much as possible and keep to herself until the ribs had healed.

She had seen similar marks on other patients, she explained. Sometimes hostile inmates would wrap a bar of soap in a pillow case or shirt and use that to beat a restrained victim. Judging by what she was seeing, she assumed that is what happened to Angela.

"You see, often these incidents are just the gang members' way of making a statement," Dr. Moritz was saying. "You are a high-profile prisoner, all over the news. To the outside world, and probably to most of the inmates, you seem very dangerous. Beating you into submission was your attackers' way of showing their dominance. 'Not even the crazy lady from the news can mess with us,' you know? That kind of thing."

Angela just stared.

"Anyway," Dr. Moritz continued, "they have made their statement now. If you don't give them more reason to come after you, things should calm down a bit. So just lay low. That's my advice to you."

"If you know who I am from the news, then why are you helping me?" Angela snapped.

"Would you prefer I didn't?"

"Why should you care what happens to some crazy killer?"

"You're still my patient. I took a Hippocratic Oath, so I'm obligated to look after your health to the best of my ability, and that includes invoking preventative measures, like helping you avoid high-risk situations."

Angela said nothing.

"Yes, yes, I heard about you on the news," Dr. Moritz continued, "and the reporters did their best to portray you as a monster. But it's their job to do that. I have no idea what you really did or didn't do. And frankly, I don't care. There is no carve-out in the oath I took for 'bad people.' OK?"

Angela tittered. "Fair enough."

Dr. Moritz put her hand on Angela's, which were folded in her lap. "Not everyone in this place wants to hurt you, you know."

Angela clenched her teeth and swallowed, holding Dr. Moritz's gaze. She looked down at Dr. Moritz's hand, and nodded gently.

"Now don't overdo it on those pain meds," Dr. Moritz said as she helped Angela down and showed her to the door. "And let's check back in a week to make sure those ribs are healing properly. Got it?"

"Yup. See you in a week," Angela said, starting to exit. Then, pausing and softening, she turned and said, "Thank you."

"My pleasure," Dr. Moritz said, with a warm smile.

Angela stepped gingerly into her cell and moved toward the ladder for the top bunk. Shauntrelle, lounging below reading, looked up at Angela over the top of her book and said, "Need some help?" Her expression seemed genuine.

That's gotta be a trick . . . right? I should tell her to 'fuck off.' Then again, Dr. Moritz said to lay low . . .

Angela opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything Shauntrelle beat her to it.

"You better call somebody then," Shauntrelle said, laughing and returning to her book.

When's this shit going to end?

On the top bunk, lying prostrate, Angela pressed her face into her pillow. Her back was sore all over. The pills Dr. Moritz had given her did little to dull the pain.

They hate you. All of them. Your best friend is dead. Your boyfriend is dead. You have no one. Oh, and you're a murderer. Get used to that. Mur-der-er. And these maniac inmates are going to kill you as soon as they've finished having their fun. You can count on that. And that could be a long time from now . . .

Doing her best to keep quiet, Angela wept.

### 30

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

She could tell by Bancroft's face that he was frustrated. "I'm sorry ma'am," he said flatly, "my boss won't let me negotiate with the D.A. on your behalf."

Nobody moved. The collective mood in the attorney room sunk.

GM, who'd prepped Angela not to divulge any details about her story or her relationship with Jacob until he approved it, spoke on her behalf. "That's unfortunate, Agent Bancroft. We appreciate you telling us. But you could have relayed this information over the phone. Is there a reason you insisted on an in-person meeting today?"

"I need to speak directly with your client, and I couldn't say what I needed to say over recorded prison lines." GM began to interject, but Bancroft continued: "Relax, counselor. I'm just here to paint a clearer picture of who the man is that we're looking for, and the consequences of not finding him in a reasonable amount of time. There are safety concerns here."

"OK," GM said. "We're listening."

Turning to Angela he said, "Much of what I'm about to tell you is confidential. But in the interest of furthering a stalled investigation—one with significant national security ramifications—I am going to give you details you would not normally be entitled to. In short, I am sticking my neck out here, and I hope you'll keep this information to yourself." He looked at GM: "I hope you _both_ will keep this information to yourselves.

"The man we're after is Stepan Alexievich, though he's gone by many names and has changed his identity many times. As best we can figure, he was born in Ukraine and spent most of his formative years in St. Petersburg and Berlin. We don't know anything about his mother, but the rumor is his father was instrumental in advancing the Soviet Union's computer capabilities during the Cold War. Stepan got a very early start working with technology and quickly developed into a prodigy.

"When he was 13 or so, he struck out on his own and formed a hacker collective called 'Ananke.' They started out doing nuisance hacks, just little jobs to harass store owners, teachers, little old ladies—whoever was susceptible. It was all pretty frivolous. They seemed more like cyber pranksters, just punk kids, at that time.

"But Stepan was ambitious. By the time he was 16 he had Ananke orchestrating massive cyber-to-physical attacks—crashing military navigation systems, shutting down metropolitan power grids, that sort of thing. And _that_ started attracting the attention of more serious players, including not only international law enforcement agencies but also guerillas, radical groups, and, eventually, ambitious governments who thought they could use Stepan's skills to further their interests around the globe.

"In 2003, an Ananke subdivision executed its most ambitious hack yet. The team, led by Alexievich, crashed the power grid for most of the northeastern U.S. causing the famous 2003 blackout in New York City. It was not publicly disclosed that a hack brought down the system, but Alexievich's crew was behind it. It was also not publicly disclosed that the operation was backed by a covert group of Russians who we believe were linked to the Kremlin. To this day, we don't know exactly what they were after or what they took during the blackout. There was too much collateral looting, and most security systems were down. The hack was brilliantly planned and executed.

"We do know that Interpol had a source inside Ananke who started feeding the authorities information just after the New York job. The source gave Interpol a date and location for an Ananke meeting in Berlin. But hours before that meeting was set to occur, the building and the Ananke crew members that worked the New York job were blown up with military-grade C4—all but our friend, Stepan Alexievich. Subsequent intelligence showed that he learned of the Interpol penetration, planted the explosives, which he obtained from god-knows-where, and took out his own crew, in addition to six innocent civilians who happened to be within the blast radius.

"Since then, all efforts to locate and apprehend Alexievich have failed. In fact, nobody has seen this guy since 2003—not our spies, not our informants, not even cybercriminals we've detained. But that hasn't stopped him from expanding his empire. We have credible intelligence that he continues to facilitate hacks in the U.S. and elsewhere on behalf of Russia, China, North Korea, and various radical groups in the Middle East and South America. These are serious hacks with global repercussions. And while we have arrested some of the personnel involved, we haven't come close to nailing the mastermind, Alexievich, in over twelve years.

"The problem is that the people who now carry out the hacks never interact directly with Alexievich. He's tweaked his approach such that he no longer perpetrates the hacks himself. Instead, he prepares each job, writes the critical code, and then sells instructions for how to carry out the attack to the highest bidder among his trusted contacts. Someone on the buyer's side then follows the instructions and perpetrates the hack.

"He can do this because he has a vast network of people—his own private army of spies—scouring computer systems, business systems, and government systems for exploitable weaknesses, which are usually human rather than technological, making them much harder to pinpoint in advance. These private spies find him vulnerable targets, essentially at random, then he makes and sells blueprints for attacking them. In short, he's created an underground marketplace for unpredictable cyberattacks—and sometimes physical attacks—against the United States, and, without apprehending him, we have no way to shut it down.

"I am telling you all of this for two reasons. First, and most importantly for you, Alexievich hasn't been seen in over twelve years because the people who have been face-to-face with him are either in his trusted network or dead. He doesn't take chances. Given that you've been circulating an artist's rendering of a man that looks remarkably like Alexievich, he likely knows you are looking for him and can ID him. That puts you right in his crosshairs. Of course, he knows you are discredited at the moment, and he knows you are in prison where you'll be more difficult to access. Those things might buy you some time. But rest assured he is devising, or has already devised, a plan to silence you. And he has eyes and ears everywhere, so you need to be very careful.

"Second, I was hoping that by sharing my intelligence with you, you'd be willing to share something with me. Now, I understand and appreciate the position you're in, and I wouldn't tell my whole story if I were in your shoes either, but if there is _anything_ that you can give me without forfeiting your negotiating leverage—anything at all that would help to get this investigation jumpstarted—then I might be able to convince my boss we should speak with the D.A. on your behalf. No bullshit."

GM exchanged a glance with Angela. "Thank you, Agent Bancroft," he said. "We'll take it under advisement. For now, we'll consider what you've told us privately."

"That's fine," Bancroft said, rising to leave. "But please make a decision quickly. We might not have much time."

"What do you think?" Angela asked GM.

"I think he's serious about catching this guy," GM responded. "But I'm not sure we have a play here."

"If I tell him what I know, then maybe he'd have a better chance of finding Jacob, or Stepan, or whatever this guy's real name is."

"Maybe. But if you do that, we lose our leverage. The F.B.I.'s never going to negotiate with the D.A. for us if we help them first without securing their commitment to assist us. And I don't think we have enough information that we could give Agent Bancroft a tidbit now and then hope the F.B.I. gets intrigued and comes back ready to deal for more.

"It does sound like they're getting desperate for information, though. I think our best bet is to wait and see if they soften before offering them anything."

"Are you sure I have enough time for that?" she asked, her voice betraying her concern.

"I can't say that Agent Bancroft's spook story about Alexievich hunting you is necessarily false, but look at it this way: it's awfully convenient that he could wait two weeks before reconnecting with us, yet now that he wants us to respond, time is of the essence. I think he's trying to pressure you into doing him a favor, and fast. This isn't the first time I've seen the F.B.I. invoke a witness's safety to try to elicit information."

Angela sat motionless. _Easy for you to say . . ._

"Look," GM continued, "if Stepan Alexievich—a sophisticated international cyberterrorist who murders anyone who glimpses him—was really after you, he would've tried something already. He wouldn't wait until the F.B.I. contacted us before tracking you down. Plus, where was this warning the first time we met Agent Bancroft? He knew exactly who we were dealing with then, yet he said nothing. Now that he wants something from you the situation is suddenly life and death? I'm confident we're safe waiting a few more days. If we don't hear anything from Agent Bancroft in a week or so, we can reconsider. But let's stay patient for now."

"If you say so," she said.

Alone in her cell, Angela hunched over the desk holding her head in her hands.

This just gets better and better. Those star-faced bitches want to kill me. Jacob, Stepan, or whatever his name is, wants to kill me. Even the fucking state wants to kill me. How the fuck did I end up in this predicament?

She lifted her eyes and glanced at the dingy wall in front of her. _At least I have these wonderful accommodations to help ease my mind . . . ._ She sat up, feet flat on the ground, hands dropping to the table. She looked around the cramped space. _I am so fucking sick of white cinderblock walls . . ._

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Her knees started bouncing.

And what happens if I die before I can talk to Agent Bancroft? Does this terrorist slip away, or carry out some plot that I could have helped prevent?

She shifted her feet and felt a few sheets of paper crunch beneath them. She looked down—the sheets seemed blank. There was a ballpoint pen rolling on the floor next to them.

She moved her feet away, allowing the top sheets to flatten back out, and stared at the creases she created. Looking over her shoulder at the empty entryway to her cell, then back at the ground by her feet, she lifted up several un-creased pages and set them on the desk in front of her.

"Fuck it," she said aloud, grabbing the pen from under the desk.

She wrote until her hand hurt, then kept going. When she finished, she signed the bottom of her disquisition, folded the pages, and stuffed them into an envelope marked "Special Agent John Bancroft, F.B.I."

"Just in case," she said, sealing the envelope.

She climbed to the top bunk, stuffed the envelope under her pillow, and lay on her back. She let out a deep breath.

Now I'm ready.

### 31

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

John Bancroft arrived early at the office. He sat sipping his Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf coffee, clicking aimlessly through the Stepan Alexievich file. There were dossiers on each of Ananke's founding members, videos of the 2003 New York City blackout, gory photographs from the aftermath of the Berlin bombing, and miscellaneous intelligence reports detailing subsequent Ananke hacks and potential leads regarding Alexievich's whereabouts. Bancroft had taken over the F.B.I. portion of the case just after the Berlin incident. He was a rising star then, in his early thirties, accumulating accolades and rapid promotions. Apprehending Stepan Alexievich was going to be his crowning achievement.

He clicked on the 2003 picture of Alexievich and maximized it. Stepan smirked in the photo; his smugness jumped off the image, needling Bancroft across the decades. "This isn't over," Bancroft whispered, clicking his mouse hard to close the JPEG.

He'd heard nothing from Angela Gianni's lawyer since his last visit to the prison. It had only been a few days, but given the circumstances, the silence almost certainly meant she wouldn't talk without a deal. He'd need another angle, but he had very little to work with.

Bancroft was still ruminating about the Alexievich case, staring into his sandwich wrapper after his typical in-office lunch, when Meyerson pounded on his door and charged inside. "John, we have a situation. We're getting some really strange chatter about a potential multi-front attack in the L.A. area, and I need your help interpreting it and generating a response plan. Grab your stuff and let's go."

In a single motion, Bancroft spun in his chair, stood, and snapped on his blue F.B.I. windbreaker. His wax-paper sandwich wrapper levitated and slid over the edge of his desk onto the floor as the men raced toward the door.

When the squeaks from their footfalls dissipated in the hallway, Bancroft's office line started to ring. A minute later, the red light on the handset illuminated, signifying a new voicemail.

### 32

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Late in the afternoon Shauntrelle returned from her job and stood leaning against the front wall and gazing into the atrium. Angela was hunched over the desk again.

There were whispers outside and shuffling noises. Angela lifted her head to investigate. As she did, Wood's fist bludgeoned her left cheek. "Hiya precious!"

As Angela reeled from the unexpected blow, Wood looped a garrote fashioned from a twisted prison uniform around Angela's neck, constricting her throat. Wood yanked backwards, dragging Angela over the floor-mounted stool. "Coupl'a birds been chirpin' dat you met with the feds yesterday." The blood vessels in Angela's face stretched and swelled. "You talkin' to the feds about my crew, Snowflake?!" Wood squeezed tighter. Angela's eyes bulged from the pressure.

She kicked at Wood, but she couldn't get a good angle. "Answer my question, bitch, and this'll be over soon." Wood swung Angela's head into the wall. The left side of her head, just above her eye, split open, smearing blood on the white cinderblocks. She kicked at Wood again, catching her on the leg this time.

"Shaunnie," Wood grunted, "com'ere and make sure dis bitch stop kickin'." Wood swung Angela's head into the wall again. Blood poured over her left cheek onto her shirt. Some seeped into her eye, temporarily blinding her on that side.

Shauntrelle slipped into the cell and grabbed something by her bed.

Angela was slumping, dazed after her last collision with the wall. Shauntrelle approached from Angela's right, crouching. She cocked her arm as if she were about to punch Angela, but she brought her hand down violently on Angela's right instep.

There was a popping sensation in Angela's right foot, and pressure between her metatarsals. Then acute, searing pain. The choker did little to muffle Angela's scream.

Shauntrelle rose. The pressure in Angela's foot dissipated and gave way to violent throbbing. A slippery warmth built up in Angela's sock. She caught a flash of Shauntrelle's bloody hand holding a toothbrush handle that had been sharpened to a point.

A new wave of terror coursed through Angela's body as she tried to balance completely on her left leg, but it was difficult to maintain her footing on the increasingly slippery floor, especially with Wood still yanking her backward.

Shauntrelle scampered toward the front of the cell.

Angela heard a snapping sound, a few light _clank_ s in the toilet, and then the sound of _whoosh_ ing water. Wood persisted with her interrogation: "Did. You. Talk. About. Me?" She let up just enough for Angela to grunt an answer.

"No."

"Don't you lie to me you pasty-ass ho." The makeshift choker constricted. Wood rammed Angela's head into the cinderblocks again. "What'd you tell 'em?" She let up again, barely.

"Nothing," Angela sobbed.

"Nothin'? Why you meet wit' 'em den? You think I's stupid?" She let up again, barely.

"I . . . swear," she whimpered. She was starting to lose consciousness.

There were shouts down the hall and in the atrium. Wood paused for an instant to listen.

"You better notta, bitch. I find out you lyin', you gonna die a slow fuckin' death." She squeezed extra hard on Angela's neck. "Ain't no escapin' Wood," she whispered in Angela's ear. "Remembuh dat." She slammed Angela's head into the wall hard and let go.

Wood and Shauntrelle scuttled away. Angela slid to the floor bleeding.

### 33

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

Bancroft returned to his office late, and fell into his chair with the day's events still looping in his mind. The chatter Meyerson called him in to analyze had peaked that afternoon. Everything pointed to an imminent attack. Bancroft had units standing by for hours to deal with the most likely scenarios. But nothing happened. Nothing at all. It was the strangest false alarm he'd ever seen.

Finally registering his surroundings, Bancroft noticed the red light on his phone handset and the sandwich wrapper on the floor by his desk. He dialed his voicemail, entered his passcode, and hit "1" for new messages. He crumbled and discarded the wrapper as the first message played, and swept breadcrumbs from his lunch under the desk with his shoe.

Special Agent Bancroft, this is Jordan Babitz from the C.I.A.'s Berlin field office. Please give me a call as soon as you get this. I have information regarding an old case of yours, and that information may relate to a potentially imminent threat within the U.S. I'll fill you in on the details when we speak, but the short story is, our EU field offices have been working around the clock to identify actionable intelligence about . . . an issue we are facing here. As part of our investigation, we obtained recorded conversations between two high-ranking persons of interest.

In those recordings, the P.O.I.s, speaking in a code that we recently deciphered, explicitly mentioned Ananke and the city of Los Angeles. We don't have the planned timeline yet, but we're working on it. I was told you are the F.B.I.'s foremost authority on Ananke and Stepan Alexievich. Please call me back as soon as you can.

Babitz left his number and email address and then hung up.

The clock on Bancroft's computer read 9:17 p.m.; it would be 6:17 a.m. in Berlin. He lifted the receiver and dialed, but Babitz didn't answer.

After leaving a message, Bancroft tried Meyerson's cell. He answered almost immediately.

"Myerson."

"Steve, its John."

"Can it wait, John? I'm in the middle of something at the moment."

"It can't; I'm sorry. But I'll be brief. I just got a voicemail from Jordan Babitz in the C.I.A.'s Berlin field office. He claims they have audio recordings linking Ananke—Stepan Alexievich's outfit—to a potential threat in the Los Angeles area. The threat may or may not be imminent, but he needs our help to determine that."

"Let me guess, you want authority to deal with the D.A.'s office so your psychopath will talk?"

"I wouldn't have put it quite like that, but yes. Basically."

Meyerson paused for a breath to consider the situation. "See if you can get this Babitz on the phone to learn more about his intel before going to the D.A. But John, after today, so long as the C.I.A. really has something suggesting Alexievich is here, you have my authority to do whatever you need to do. Negotiate away if you think you have to. Let's figure out what the hell is going on."

"To be clear, sir, my authority includes both the prisoner transfer and seeking removal of the capital charges from the case against my witness?"

"Correct. You have my authority to do both."

"Thank you, sir."

"Good luck, John. Keep me posted as soon as you know more."

"Will do."

The line disconnected.

Bancroft worked through the night. He learned in his conversation with Babitz, who called back an hour after Bancroft first tried him, that the C.I.A. intercepted chatter between an official with ties to Pyongyang, North Korea, and a middleman in Berlin who was brokering a deal for Ananke. Pyongyang might be looking to up the stakes from its recent nuisance jobs with a hack causing more significant economic fallout, or even a plot causing human fatalities. If Ananke was involved, either scenario was plausible.

The C.I.A. recording was predictably scant on details. So Bancroft assembled a team of F.B.I. analysts to identify possible targets and to devise protective strategies and countermeasures in conjunction with Babitz's team, which would work the European side of the lead from the C.I.A.'s Berlin office. They would all reconvene via videoconference the next afternoon to discuss their progress and next steps.

Bancroft left messages with GM and with the D.A.'s office. If everything went smoothly, he could have a deal in place with Angela Gianni by morning.

### 34

### INSTITUTIONAL OVERSIGHT

Angela nearly collapsed in the entryway to the infirmary.

"Oh my god, what happened?" Dr. Moritz asked, rushing to her aid. "You look like you just stepped off a battlefield." She ducked under Angela's right arm and wrapped her left arm around Angela's waist. "Let's get you on the examination table. That gash over your eye is going to need stitches, I can tell already."

She cut away the bloody sock on Angela's right foot. "This is going to need stitches, too—on both ends. Stay put, I am going to get some antiseptic compounds to disinfect the wound." She walked to the end of the shelving nearest the locked medicine cabinet and grabbed two bottles of clear liquid Angela didn't recognize.

I can't do this. Wood. Alexievich. Pearson. One way or another . . .

Dr. Moritz dowsed a gauze swab with one of the clear liquids and touched it to the exit wound on the sole of Angela's foot. Angela grimaced and involuntarily jerked her calf.

"It's going to hurt until I anesthetize the area. Sorry."

Dr. Moritz repeated the procedure on the entry wound. There was a _shtttthhh_ sound as Angela sucked in air through her gritted teeth.

"You wanna tell me what happened?" Dr. Moritz said, extending another antiseptic-soaked gauze pad toward Angela's left temple.

Angela grunted. "I . . . ," she looked down at her lap. "I need your help." Her eyes filling with tears.

"Of course," Dr. Moritz said, removing a glove and grabbing and squeezing Angela's hand. "That's what I am here for."

Angela wiped her cheeks with her free hand. "I'm in trouble, doc—the kind there's no getting out of. The people that did this think I ratted them out to the F.B.I. It's only a matter of time before they finish what they started." She spoke in an even tone, but, as she talked, tears spilled over her eyelids onto her cheeks. The droplets on the left side were tinted pink with blood.

"Then you have to tell—"

"—No," Angela said, shaking her head. "All the guards can do is put my attackers in solitary, or move me to another cell in the same block. Maybe that delays things a few days, but ultimately it just makes things worse. Besides, I have bigger problems than just jailhouse gangsters now."

"Go on," Dr. Moritz said.

"I _did_ talk to the F.B.I. the other day, but not about anyone here." Angela sniffed in hard and swallowed. "We spoke about a man who used to be my client. Turns out this man is a multiple murderer and a terrorist, who not even the F.B.I. can track down. He's a professional killer, and he wants me dead because I can ID him."

"Can't the F.B.I. do anything?"

"No. They've been trying to track the guy for a decade."

Dr. Moritz furrowed her brow and rounded her mouth to form the word _what_ , but stopped herself short of releasing her question.

"I'm dead, doc," Angela said with rheumy eyes. "I'm just not sure how it's going to happen yet. But what's the difference? Slaughtered by crazy inmates, assassinated by an international terrorist, executed by the state . . ."

Dr. Moritz squeezed her hand. "Give it some time. You _will_ figure something out."

"Time is one thing I don't have," Angela said, looking down at Dr. Moritz's hand gripping her own. The doctor's veins protruded through her loose, time-worn, tissue-paper skin. The sensation of the doctor's hand in her own conjured memories from her childhood. Her grandmother's touch. Cotton candy at the Santa Monica pier. Sunshine.

"I'm innocent," Angela continued. "I didn't kill anyone. I didn't rat anyone out to the feds. I don't deserve an ugly death at the hands of some unknown executioner. But that's what I have waiting for me out there." Angela pointed out the front door of the infirmary.

Dr. Moritz sat silently, her clinical intensity faded, giving way to maternal empathy. Angela covered Dr. Moritz's hand with her own and squeezed back. "I need . . . a way out," she pleaded. "A way to . . . handle things on my own terms."

Dr. Moritz leaned back, gently retracting her hand. She intertwined her fingers and dropped her hands to her lap, furrowing her brow and cocking her head slightly. Her nurturer persona was starting to recede.

Angela didn't move.

"What you are talking about," Dr. Moritz began, in a sterile diagnostician's voice, "is an absolute last resort—for terminally ill patients with less than six months to live. Even then it is highly controversial. You don't even have an illness, let alone a terminal one." She sounded defiant, yet her face still held traces of compassion.

"Like I said, doc," Angela replied, "I'm dead already. All I can do is try to control is how it happens."

The women stared at one another.

"I know it's a big ask," Angela continued, "but I wouldn't impose if there were another way."

Dr. Moritz was still sitting back, away from Angela, but her demeanor seemed increasingly empathetic.

"Regardless of your physical health," Dr. Moritz said, finally, "you're still a prisoner. I'm not sure the regular rules for . . . what you are asking even apply here."

Dr. Moritz stood and seemed to look past Angela at the back of the room. After several seconds of silence, she said, "So, I couldn't affirmatively give you anything, even if I wanted to. I'd be risking too much, if I did." She returned her gaze to Angela and the two women exchanged a somber look. "I'm sorry," Dr. Moritz said, rising.

She walked past Angela and continued toward the back of the infirmary.

"Please . . . ," Angela pleaded. "I have no other choice."

Dr. Moritz ignored her and kept walking.

"Dr. Moritz . . ."

She unlocked the wall-mounted, metal medicine cabinet next to the shelving, and opened its door just a crack. But instead of removing anything from the cabinet, she pocketed the keys, turned, and walked back toward Angela.

"I have to step out for a minute before I stitch up your wounds."

"Dr. Moritz, please, I can't do this . . ."

"Now, before I step out, have you taken any fentanyl citrate this afternoon?"

What the fuck? Is she really going to stonewall me like this?

"I don't even know what that is," Angela said, looking dejected and sounding like a defeated torture victim begging for mercy.

"I ask," Dr. Moritz continued, "because a single, 25-microgram tablet combined with the anesthesia I am going to give you could cause respiratory arrest and be lethal . . . but I wouldn't know it until after I administered the anesthesia. So we need to be careful. But now that I am confident you haven't taken _a 25-microgram fentanyl citrate pill_ , I'm going to step out. I'll be back in a few minutes."

She walked out of the infirmary and down the hall toward one of the restrooms.

Did she just . . . ?

Angela slid off the table, balancing herself on her left foot and putting the ball of her right foot into her shoe. She slid her right foot forward toward the end of the table, and quickly stepped ahead with her left, wincing as she did. She turned around the base of the table, facing the back of the room and the open medicine cabinet. Again, she slid her right foot gingerly along the floor then hopped forward with her left. In a few more steps she would reach the cabinet.

Slide . . . hop. Slide . . . hop. Slide . . . hop.

She swung the metal door all the way open, revealing a menagerie of multicolored, plastic pill containers, each labeled with the name and single-tablet dosage of the active agent it contained. Angela didn't recognize any of the drugs. She pulled a few bottles off the middle shelves, but none contained fentanyl citrate.

There was a collection of bottles in the back of the top shelf that seemed cordoned off. The bottles had big warning marks—red triangular icons with stark exclamation points at their centers; some warnings displayed the infamous skull-and-crossbones insignia.

She lifted out a thin, burnt-orange container and inspected it: "fentanyl citrate – 25 mcg." Untwisting the white cap, she removed a pill, replaced the top, and put the bottle back in the cabinet, swinging the door millimeters shy of being shut, just as Dr. Moritz had left it.

The white tablet in her palm was small—no bigger than a birth-control pill, and roughly the same weight. There were no discernable markings on it other than a straight line carved across its diameter. It didn't seem possible that something so superficially innocuous could end a person's life.

She stared at the tablet, thinking of the days leading up to her arrest. _Everything just spun out of control. And if GM couldn't prove someone else was involved . . ._

She heard footsteps down the hallway—someone was approaching the infirmary.

She thought about Samara and Mark; fresh, warm tears coated her eyes. _They are all dead. I don't have anyone anymore._

The footsteps were getting closer.

She could suddenly feel the sharp pain of her most recent wounds. Her head throbbed again. Her shoe was slippery with blood.

She glanced down at her palm, took a deep breath, tossed the tablet into the back of her throat, and swallowed.

### 35

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

The sun had risen. It spilled through Bancroft's blinds, limning his phone. He peered impatiently at the device, waiting for GM and Patricia Pearson to return his calls. He had contacted GM to inform him that he now had authority to negotiate with the D.A. to get Angela transferred and to get the death penalty dropped from her case. He had called Pearson to get the negotiations started. There was no time to spare.

Bancroft was confident he communicated the urgency of the situation to the attorneys, but he was also certain that they both were busy in their own right this morning, perhaps with their own emergencies to handle. The question was how long it would take them to check their voicemails and get back to him.

Two hours passed and Bancroft hadn't heard from either attorney. There wasn't much he could do about Pearson. But if he went to Centurion and demanded to see Angela Gianni, maybe he could have her call GM, which should be enough to get his attention. He grabbed his windbreaker and cell phone and headed for the door.

"Special Agent John Bancroft, F.B.I.," he said, pressing his credentials against the bulletproof glass that separated him from the duty officer in Centurion's visitation area. "I have a national security emergency and I need to see one of your inmates. Please call the warden."

The duty officer, happy to deflect responsibility to a higher authority, rang the warden, who asked to speak directly to Bancroft.

"Hello, this is Special Agent Bancroft."

"Hello, this is Warden Mendez. How can I help you?"

"I have a situation, Warden. I am working with the C.I.A. to prevent an imminent threat to the city of Los Angeles. I spoke with one of your inmates, Angela Gianni, two days ago, and she identified the man we believe is behind the threat. I need to speak with her at once so we can locate this man and stop him. Her attorney is George Maynard Wallace—I have his consent to speak with her."

It wasn't true, but to Bancroft it wasn't false either. He had authority to negotiate with the D.A. He just needed to formalize the process and get the paperwork started.

"Given the exigent circumstances, Agent Bancroft, I will let you meet with this inmate. But if I find out that you are misrepresenting any of the pretenses you just gave me, you can rest assured this facility will promptly inform your superiors. Am I clear?"

"Yes ma'am. Perfectly clear."

Bancroft gave Angela's prisoner ID number. Warden Mendez told him to stay where he was while she had the guards escort Angela to an attorney room where they could talk. In the interim, he would fill out the required paperwork and make sure the duty officer had his visit properly documented.

Bancroft sat on a decaying, gray-wool couch and scribbled down the required information, impatiently tapping his pen on the clipboard when he finished. He handed the completed documents and the pen to the duty officer, then sat back down and waited. The warden was taking longer than expected.

When the duty officer's phone finally rang, Bancroft stood and walked toward the door, expecting to be let in and shown down the hall. But instead the duty officer called him over and handed him the receiver.

"Hello," he said.

"I'm afraid there's been an incident," Warden Mendez said. "Angela Gianni died yesterday. Drug overdose."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, Agent Bancroft. I just found out myself."

"How could this happen?"

"She was assaulted yesterday by another inmate and sent to the infirmary where she was injected with an opioid anesthetic. Standard procedure for a patient in her condition, I'm told. Before she was injected, though, she swallowed a very powerful painkiller, and she hid this fact from our infirmary physician. The combination of the medicines sent her into respiratory arrest and she died quickly. I should have been told about this immediately, but there was some sort of hiccup at shift change and the news never reached me."

Bancroft was silent on the other end. Warden Mendez dutifully added, "We will of course investigate all of this thoroughly."

"Thank you, Warden. This is very unfortunate. Is there any way I could see the body?"

"The body has been taken to the morgue in the coroner's office at U.S.C. Medical Center. I assume you know where that is?"

"I do. Thanks."

"Good luck, Agent Bancroft." The warden hung up.

Bancroft handed the receiver back to the duty officer. It was a 30-minute drive to the coroner's office.

At night when the gunshot fatalities and heroin overdose corpses came flooding in, the morgue was a hive of activity. But when Bancroft arrived, just a few hours into the workday, it was cloaked in stillness. He could hear the buzz of the fluorescent tubes overhead and the echo of his knuckles cracking off the metal body lockers and the shower-tile floor. Any trace of color or life seemed to seep away through the grated drains pocking the ground, leaving only an air of blanched sterility.

"Can I help you?" the assistant coroner asked.

"Special Agent John Bancroft, F.B.I.," he replied, extending his credentials. "I'm here to see a prisoner that OD'd at Centurion Regional Detention Center yesterday. Name is Angela Gianni."

"Sure. I was going to pull her out and get her on the table later today, anyway." He turned toward the metal lockers.

"On the table? For an autopsy? I thought this was ruled an overdose."

"That was the initial assessment," he said over his shoulder. "But she was beat up pretty bad. They want to do a partial work-up to confirm the cause of death. It should be minimal."

Bancroft followed the assistant to the body. He didn't know what he was looking for. He had only seen her twice. To him she was a head and two arms, elbows to fingertips, extruding from a baggy blue prison uniform. But in case Alexievich was behind this, he had to at least give the body a once-over.

The assistant opened a burnished metal door at waist level and slid out a bagged body on a slab. He unzipped the translucent, white-vinyl halfway and parted it.

She was nearly unrecognizable. The fluid from her swollen cheeks and eyes had redistributed around her face and congealed in faded blackberry- and jaundice-colored subdermal splotches. There was a plump, sebaceous quality to the tissue.

Bancroft stared perfunctorily, too disconcerted by the grotesque image to truly focus, but he found no signs of Alexievich's involvement. It was a dead-end.

"You mind if I get a cheek swab from her?" Bancroft asked. It was all he could think of. He assumed he would be asked at some point if he verified her identity. Might as well collect some DNA while he was here.

The assistant coroner looked confused.

"I just need some DNA to run back at the lab to include in a file we have open. This woman was providing information in connection with an ongoing investigation, and I need to be able to verify her identity for the record."

"Sure," the assistant coroner replied. "I'll give you a hair sample, too. That might be easier to work with since she's been deceased for approximately 16 hours."

"Fine by me."

The coroner swabbed the inside of her cheek, plucked a few hairs, put the samples in small biomaterial storage containers, and handed them to Bancroft.

"Thanks for your help," Bancroft said. "If anything irregular turns up in your assessment, please let me know." He handed the assistant coroner a business card. "I'll let you get back to work."

On his drive back to the office, his cell phone rang. "Bancroft," he said, accepting the call.

"This is Warden Mendez at Centurion. Any chance you're still nearby?"

"I'm just leaving the coroner's office, why?"

"The guards cleaned out Angela Gianni's cell this morning and found a letter addressed to you. Figured I would let you know in case there is something useful in it."

"I'm on my way."

### 36

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

Initially encouraged by the prospect of the letter, Bancroft was surprised by how unhelpful it seemed. In it, Angela detailed her version of the facts surrounding the three murders—including her theory that a man named Preston Knighton was involved—and gave specifics about her interactions with the Jacob Drake she knew. But nothing in her descriptions revealed his intentions or his potential location.

And while many aspects of Angela's story sounded like they could have been orchestrated by Alexievich, Bancroft wondered why Alexievich would go to such lengths to frame her? What did he have to gain?

"What are you up to Stepan?" Bancroft asked his empty car.

Back at the bureau, letter in hand, he strode toward the analyst's offices. "Haddy!" Bancroft called down the hall. Haddy Gunderson was the senior analyst working the Alexievich case, and the most reliable member of Bancroft's team. Bancroft reached her office before she could poke her head out. "What's up, John?"

"I just got back from Centurion. Remember that witness I was telling you about who might have current intel on Alexievich?" He continued before she could answer. "She died yesterday in an apparent drug overdose after being badly beaten by another inmate. Centurion's investigating now."

"Wow," Haddy said. She was tall and thin, with delicate features, and shoulder-length brown hair. She could have been beautiful, but she walked and sat with a pronounced hunch that evinced deep-seated physical insecurity. Her thick-framed, purple Warby Parker glasses—the type worn by elegant women to make an ironic fashion statement—solidified her awkward-brainiac appearance.

"I have a handwritten letter from the witness, Angela Gianni," Bancroft was saying, "detailing her interactions with a man she knew as Jacob Drake—a man who I believe is actually Stepan Alexievich." He handed her the stuffed envelope. "I need you to read through this letter and catalog all of those interactions, including, of course, time, date, and location information. I also need you to catalog all the times she claims to have been framed for doing something. For example, there is some supposedly doctored security camera footage from a hardware store showing her purchasing bolt cutters she never bought, and there is footage from her cell phone camera showing her killing one of the victims she allegedly didn't kill, and so on. Let's see if we can pin down the details about all of those incidents. Oh, and I have hair and cheek samples from the witness that I need you to take to the lab for DNA analysis."

"Will do," she replied. "Am I looking for anything specific when I sort the incidents from the letter?"

"Anything that might help us find Alexievich. Assume, of course, that Drake is Alexievich. And assume Alexievich is behind anything the witness says she was framed for. We have to run down everything we can find. Get creative here, Haddy. This is all we've got."

Bancroft splashed cold water on his face and watched in the mirror as it dripped from his nose and chin. It had been a long time since he last had a credible lead on Alexievich's whereabouts. And the years had left their mark. Gray flecks were colonizing his hair, and his brow was wearing into a network of epidermal trenches. He wondered what an F.B.I. simulation of his appearance would look like if he had to wait another ten years to catch Alexievich. Exhaling a lungful of air, he blotted his face with paper towels then pushed through the men's room door toward his office.

"John, I sent you those lists you requested," Haddy announced. She'd been waiting outside Bancroft's office for him to return. "Want to talk through them?"

"Pull up a chair," he said.

Bancroft opened her email and its attachments. She looked over his shoulder as he read.

"Any word from the lab yet about the DNA samples?" he asked.

"Not yet, but I put a rush on the order. We should have results this afternoon."

"Thanks," he said, and continued reading. "We probably aren't going to get much from the credit card and phone records. If Alexievich did have people alter them, it'll take some time to figure out who those people are. It'll probably take even longer before we can get them to talk. Let's deprioritize those for now. I want to focus on leads that could generate immediately actionable intelligence."

"Understood," Haddy said.

"Anything jump out at you as you read the letter?"

"No one thing in particular. I did dig into the incidents we had concrete time and location info for and used that to find satellite and other surveillance footage of the areas in question. There's some interesting feed I want to show you. Click on the first clip I sent."

Bancroft complied, and Haddy narrated as the feed began: "This is security footage showing a woman—supposedly Angela Gianni—buying the bolt cutters used to sever a victim's, Samara Ryland's, finger. The D.A. showed this in court."

"Kind of grainy, but that certainly looks like her," Bancroft said.

"Next clip is from the parking lot of that store. Same day, just minutes after the purchase. The D.A. showed this one too."

"OK," Bancroft said, clicking the next file to play it.

The video displayed a wide-angle, aerial perspective of the parking lot with moderate resolution. A woman who resembled Angela exited the store. Her face wasn't clear but her hair was the same as the woman's from the interior security camera footage and she appeared to be wearing the same clothes. She walked to a white Honda Civic and got in.

"Angela Gianni drives a white Honda Civic."

"Shit," Bancroft said. "You telling me that she really did buy those bolt cutters?"

"Watch the next clip."

Bancroft clicked on the next video. The wide-angle shot came from directly above and followed the white Civic out of the parking lot. After several turns on side streets, the car pulled into a parking garage and the video ended. "What am I looking at here, Haddy?"

"This is satellite feed of the same car pulling out of the hardware store's parking lot and heading north. Gianni's house is south. The D.A. did not have access to this, or any of the other satellite feed I am about to show you."

"Did you pull feed from that parking garage?" Bancroft asked as he pointed to his screen.

"The parking garage had no video surveillance. And there doesn't seem to be any satellite footage of the car or the woman leaving. I have analysts following up and trying to track down other satellite feeds as we speak."

"'The woman,' you say? Not 'Gianni'?" Bancroft asked.

"I'm trying to stay objective here until we can officially ID her."

"OK, fine. So what's it mean that this woman drove to the parking garage?"

"Play the next video."

Bancroft clicked on the third clip.

"This is satellite footage of Gianni's house at night," Haddy said. "It's tough to make out her house," she pointed to it on the screen, again the angle was from directly above, "but we can see the curb and the road because of the street lights." Mark Newsome's Mercedes pulled up to the curb and he exited the car, heading toward Angela's front door. Light spilled out into the yard and then disappeared.

"What you're seeing is Mark Newsome pulling up to Gianni's house and going inside," Haddy said. "Luckily, he walks under the street light and looks up. We get a decent look at his face here," she said, indicating the revelation. "This is the night he disappeared. Fast forward three minutes."

Bancroft did.

The clip showed a woman, who looked like Angela, walk from left to right across the screen toward Mark Newsome's car. She paused for an instant, and then got in the back seat. She opened the door without a struggle.

"What the hell?" Bancroft said. "Is that Gianni?"

"She never steps into the light, so we can't tell for sure, but she does resemble our girl," Haddy replied. "Fast forward to 25:14."

He did. Seconds later, light again spilled out onto the front yard and was then eclipsed. Mark walked down the stairs and got into his car, pulling away shortly thereafter.

"We had to zoom out to track the car on this feed, but we were able to follow it to its destination," Haddy said. "Nothing interesting happens on the drive, but fast forward to 30:52."

At that time the video showed Mark's Mercedes pulling into a parking garage.

"Let me guess," Bancroft said, "no working cameras?"

"You got it. But this time, something different happens. Go to 39:01."

The satellite feed showed Mark's Mercedes pulling out of the garage.

"You're positive this is the same car?" Bancroft asked.

"100%. Fast forward to 56:04."

The Mercedes pulled up to the curb just shy of Mark Newsome's house in Pacific Palisades. A woman exited the car—the same one from earlier in the video—but not Newsome.

"To save you time," Haddy said, "we never see him exit the car. But she takes off on foot from his house and walks two miles to a parking garage with no working cameras, then we don't see her again. She generally avoids streetlights and busy roads, and she never looks up."

Bancroft looked at her.

"I know I don't need to tell you this," Haddy added, "but this behavior suggests a professional attempt to evade satellite cameras. Kind of sophisticated for a small-time dominatrix, don't you think?"

"Definitely suspicious. And I'm curious to know, if that was Gianni getting into the car at the curb, then who let Mark Newsome into her house?"

"Good question," Haddy replied. "We don't know yet. Sure looks like she was working with someone, though."

Bancroft took a second to contemplate what he'd seen. "This is good work, Haddy, and I really appreciate it, but where's the Alexievich connection? I mean, I see plenty of new rocks to look under, and maybe even evidence that Gianni killed Mark Newsome, but how does this line up with our investigation?"

"Play the last clip," she said.

It was satellite feed of Angela's home during the day. A thin man with brownish-blond hair walked down the front steps and into a silver Honda Civic. Bancroft rewound the feed and replayed it twice. "Is that who I think it is?"

"Potentially," Haddy said. "This was taken right around when Gianni said she had Jacob Drake over to hack into her friend's phone. He never looks up, so we don't get a view of his face. And the picture isn't great. But this is the only shot we recovered of the man she knew as Jacob Drake. And note what happens next."

Bancroft returned his attention to the screen and hit play. After making a series of turns, the car drove into a parking garage and the video ended. "I'm sure I don't even need to ask, but—"

"No working cameras," she said.

"Tell me we have him leaving, or at least entering the garage earlier."

"Unfortunately not," she said. "He neither enters nor exits on this feed. We haven't been able to find any other footage of him whatsoever. We're cross-checking with other sources as we speak, though. Maybe we get lucky and see his face on a traffic-light camera or something."

"OK. Thanks, Haddy. Please keep me posted with what you find. Where are we on—"

"Nothing yet, but results should be in any minute," she replied before he could finish. "I'll ping you as soon as I hear from the lab."

"Could you also compare the results we get back with the L.A.P.D.'s DNA analysis in Gianni's case file?"

"Will do."

### 37

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

At 6:30 pm that evening, Haddy was back at Bancroft's office handing him a manila envelope. "Lab results," she said.

"Anything unusual?" he asked.

"You could say that," she said. "Neither sample you gave me this morning matches the DNA from Gianni's L.A.P.D. case file."

He removed and perused the reports of both the lab's DNA analysis and Haddy's comparison of the F.B.I. results to the L.A.P.D. forensic team's results. He looked up at her, processing what he'd just read.

"Haddy, are you sure about this?"

"Positive," she said.

"Are you saying the samples I gave you aren't really hers? I saw the assistant coroner take them from her this morning while she was lying on a table in front of me."

"No. But I am telling you that the DNA samples the assistant coroner took do not match those taken and processed by the L.A.P.D."

Bancroft furrowed his brow as he regarded Haddy. Without saying a word, he turned to his phone and dialed the coroner's office, putting the audio on speaker so Haddy could hear.

"L.A. County Coroner's Office."

"Hello, this is Special Agent Bancroft, F.B.I. I was in this morning to see the body of Angela Gianni, an OD from Centurion Regional Detention Facility delivered to you guys yesterday. I understand she was scheduled for a limited autopsy this morning."

"Sure. I know the body you're referring to. How can I help you?" the curious voice said.

"Listen, it's imperative that you do not dispose of the body until we can conduct a further evaluation. We believe—"

"I'm afraid that's not going to be possible, Agent Bancroft. We conducted the autopsy and cremated her this afternoon."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm afraid not."

"What the hell kind of coroner's office disposes of a body 24 hours after death? That's irresponsible."

"I'm sorry. I know it's atypical, but we've been so busy lately we sometimes do same-day disposals when the report is clear cut and there's no next-of-kin. I was directed to do exactly that with this one. Our autopsy confirmed the initial assessment, and we had no reason to keep her."

Bancroft was silent.

"You can speak to my boss in thirty minutes when he arrives for the night, if you need an official statement or something," the assistant coroner offered.

"I'll do that. Bye." Bancroft hung up before the assistant coroner could reply. "What the hell?"

He turned to Haddy shaking his head, but he didn't seem to see her. He stared, mouth agape, for a moment longer, then abruptly reanimated. "Haddy let's get everyone together in a conference room."

"OK . . . what for?" she said.

"Gianni's death, the DNA mismatch, and the untimely destruction of Gianni's body are too strange to be just coincidences. There's got to be something else going on here—and my bet is that Alexievich is behind it."

"Uh huh—"

"And if he is, the only way we are going to find him is if we look very carefully—and very promptly—into any and all related issues," Bancroft continued. "Let's talk to everyone: the warden at Centurion, Angela's cellmate, the guards on duty yesterday, the prison doc, anyone involved in transporting the body from the prison to the morgue, the assistant coroner from last night, the one we spoke to today, the actual coroner, and anyone else you can think of that might have been involved in this situation. Let's pull something useful out of this mess."

"Will do," she responded, rising from her chair.

"If you can keep some junior analysts on the follow-up satellite footage, please do that, too," Bancroft said. "But drop all of the longer-term leads for now. Let's get this bastard before he does something terrible, or skips town."

### 38

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

"We did most of the personnel interviews you requested," Haddy was saying, looking haggard from a long night and morning. "The cellmate gave us absolutely nothing. She claims that she and Gianni never talked. She had no idea what was going on, and didn't even know about the OD until the next afternoon.

"The warden also didn't know about the OD until you went to see Gianni. Apparently the prison doc, Leanna Moritz, told the nearest guard about the OD when it happened, but the message never reached the warden. It's unclear why not. Moritz assumed the warden got word, though, because the coroner's transport unit arrived not long after she informed the guard—and the call to the coroner could only have been authorized by someone in the warden's office.

"We spoke with the guards on duty that night, and while a few admitted to hearing about the OD, none admitted to informing the warden. None of the guards detailed to the warden's office that night knew about the OD either. So, we still have a gap there we need to address. We'll keep working with Centurion to figure out who was involved, and, most importantly, who actually called the coroner."

"The sooner the better on that, Haddy," Bancroft said. "What else?"

"The assistant coroner that night," Haddy continued, "remembered getting a call from a woman at Centurion, but he couldn't remember her name. So that doesn't help much. He also said there was nothing strange about the arrival of Gianni's body. But he doesn't remember specifics because they were busy.

"The daytime assistant coroner—the one you met with—claimed that his boss, the chief coroner, instructed him via email to dispose of Gianni's body. But the chief coroner vehemently denied that, and we found no record of the email on the chief's computer, even on the backup system. The assistant still had the message in his inbox, though. We're analyzing it now."

"That's interesting," Bancroft said. "Email tampering is right in Alexievich's wheelhouse. Definitely let me know what you learn."

"Also interesting," Haddy continued, "is that we couldn't locate either of the coroner's transport drivers who moved Gianni from Centurion to the morgue. They're off duty for the next few days, but neither was home when we went to visit, and neither answered their phone when we called—many times. The GPS signals from their phones appear to be disabled, too. It's fishy, but there isn't much we can do aside from monitor their apartments, which we're doing. We'll keep trying and let you know when we learn more."

"Did you get video of the transport from the prison to the morgue?" Bancroft asked.

"Yeah," Haddy said. "We have complete satellite feed from morgue to prison and back. Nothing suspect there."

"What'd the prison doc say about the OD and the coroner pick-up from her end?" Bancroft asked.

"Moritz? She told us Gianni arrived in bad shape and appeared to be in serious pain, hence the opioid injection. Because Gianni had already ingested a potent painkiller, the injection sent her straight into respiratory arrest and she died quickly. Moritz informed the nearest guard about Gianni's death as soon as it happened. So nothing particularly strange about the OD story.

"Moritz said there was nothing strange about the coroner's transport unit either. There were two Caucasian males, late 20s or early 30s, average height and build. They came in, had the doc sign the necessary paperwork, and then took the body to the morgue. They engaged in very little conversation.

"Oh, also, I did manage to get a sample of Gianni's blood from the doc—apparently she drew some to help analyze the cause of death. I had our lab analyze the sample—same DNA profile as the one we got yesterday; it doesn't match Gianni's L.A.P.D. case file."

"What do you make of that?" Bancroft said.

"The simplest explanation is that L.A.P.D. Forensics screwed up during the murder investigations and analyzed the wrong DNA, or at least included the wrong report in Gianni's file, and that the samples you and got are the real deal," Haddy said.

"But you're not buying that?"

"No. The L.A.P.D. would've had to match the DNA from their report with the DNA found on the murder weapon and the other pieces of evidence used at her trial. There's no way a mix-up with the report would have gone unnoticed. There's something weird going on here. It feels like someone is deliberately trying to thwart us."

"I agree that our findings don't add up," Bancroft said. "But maybe that's because we're trying to force connections that aren't there. Let's not forget that Gianni was convicted of murder, and those stories she told were never corroborated, maybe for good reason."

"You don't really believe that," Haddy said. "Besides, don't you think it's beyond coincidence that we're seeing all of this strange activity just as you get a tip from the C.I.A. that Alexievich is in town?"

Bancroft gazed out his window for a moment. "Let's say you're right and these hiccups are actually intentional roadblocks," he said, turning to face her. "How do we get around them?"

"What do you mean?" she said. "We keep working our current leads until we pinpoint Alexievich's location."

"We can't keep treating this like a standard investigation—painstakingly following the physical evidence, talking to witnesses, looking retrospectively through it all for a mistake we can capitalize on. We don't have time for that. He could be ready to launch an attack any minute. Even assuming he did leave some clue somewhere, he'll be long gone before we finish analyzing it. He moves too quickly."

"I don't understand," Haddy said. "If you don't want to keep investigating, what do you want to do?"

"I do want to keep investigating," he said. "But faster. Our window for finding him is closing. I think we need to pick our best lead and pour all of our resources into it."

"OK," Haddy said. "But which is the best? If one lead was clearly better, we would already be focusing on it."

"I don't know." Bancroft paused to think. "There has to be something with the transport. There are just too many inconvenient mysteries there. Nobody can tell us who at Centurion actually called the coroner. The body was incinerated less than a day after the death and under very suspicious circumstances. The DNA samples from the body at the morgue don't match Gianni's case file. The transport drivers vanished right after this happened . . ." Bancroft trailed off.

"We'll certainly pin down who called the coroner," Haddy said, "but I don't think there's much else to investigate there. I know it feels off, John, but we looked at everything. The witness accounts all line up, and even the satellite feed shows nothing out of the ordinary—"

"Wait," Bancroft interrupted. "Just satellite feed? Haddy, did you look at video from inside the prison and morgue, too? Or just exterior footage from the prison's garage to the hospital's garage?"

Her confidence evaporated, giving way to concern. "Garage to garage. Shit."

"See if you can find me video of the body being picked up in the infirmary and being delivered inside the morgue," Bancroft said. "And pay close attention to that footage. No detail is insignificant. Let me know the second you've got something."

Haddy left and Bancroft opened his electronic Ananke file and maximized the 2003 picture of Alexievich. He glared at the photo and mumbled, "What the hell are you up to?"

He grabbed a coffee from the pantry on his way downstairs. He sat, sipping the beverage on a couch near the main entrance to the building, watching his colleagues come and go. There was something about observing human activity that spurred Bancroft's creativity, something in watching the natural ebb and flow of things that normally helped him connect disparate dots. But after forty-five minutes of contemplating the Alexievich-Gianni situation, the connections refused materialize. Bancroft rose, tossed his crumpled paper cup, and walked back upstairs. He needed more information.

"You're not going to like this, John," Haddy said behind him. Bancroft looked at her over his shoulder as she continued. "That footage you requested? The pick-up in the prison infirmary looked normal, although I couldn't make out Gianni's features on the video feed. But there were some . . . anomalies with the delivery at the morgue."

"Explain," he said, turning to face her.

"Our satellite video shows the transport unit pulling into one of the hospital's spillover garages, not the morgue loading area. And although that garage is technically under the same roof as the morgue, it's about as far away as it could be." She hesitated for a second and winced. "And there were no working cameras in the spillover garage area during the relevant time."

"Jesus, Haddy. How long until the truck went to the right place and made the delivery?"

"Feed from the morgue loading area shows the truck pulling in about ten minutes later. Five minutes after that, the body has been delivered to the assistant coroner and the drivers are on their way."

Bancroft exhaled loudly and said, "What do you think happened in that garage?"

"I don't know," she said. "And I don't know how to find out. The drivers are gone and the body is gone. All we have is some bogus DNA, worthless video feed, and patchy witness accounts. What do you do with that?"

"Very little, which I think is the point," he said. He drummed his fingers on the desktop and stared at the ceiling. Then, looking back at her, he said, "Haddy, see if you can bring in the prison doc for questioning."

"What? Why? We already spoke to her, and her story checked out."

"I got the wrong DNA sample from the assistant coroner, but he took that sample from a body right in front of me—"

"You mean Gianni's body?" she said. "You said yourself it was her."

"I did, but now that I think about it in light of the transport unit's little detour, what did I really see? A severely beaten body that looked enough like a woman I'd met twice—for short periods of time—that I wouldn't question her identity. I had already been told it was Gianni, so I didn't scrutinize the body so much as just look to confirm what I already 'knew.'" He made air quotes with his hands. "It's at least possible I was looking at a double, which would explain why the DNA sample taken from that body didn't match Gianni's. And this wouldn't be the first instance of mistaken identity in Gianni's case."

Haddy squinted in confusion, and Bancroft finished his thought: "What if the transport drivers switched bodies and delivered the wrong one to the morgue?"

Pausing to consider, she said, "That's pretty out there, John. But assuming that was even possible, the doc wasn't there for the switch or the delivery. Why do you want to question—"

"She gave us a DNA sample that matched the one I got from the morgue," he said, raising his eyebrows. "So either I'm wrong and the body wasn't switched, in which case she gave us the right sample and the L.A.P.D. really did screw up the DNA analysis in Gianni's case file, or I'm right and the DNA sample we got from the doc came from the wrong body—a body that was never at the prison."

"And if that happened," Haddy, finally understanding, finished for him, "then the doc had to have been given the wrong DNA to give to us."

"Exactly," he said. "In which case, she was in on whatever went down. We need to question her to find out. It's all we have to go on right now."

"I'll get her in A.S.A.P."

### 39

### A FEDERAL AFFAIR

"You ready for this?" Haddy asked, lancing her way into Bancroft's office.

"Tell me," Bancroft said.

"Leanna Moritz, the prison doc, called in a family emergency this morning and didn't go to work. She isn't home either. And she hasn't returned any of our calls. When we tried to track her position with her car and cell phone GPS, we couldn't find the signals—they'd been disabled. She's gone."

"Un-fucking-believable," he said. "I guess that validates our theory about her being involved."

"I have analysts scouring satellite footage as we speak to try and locate her and the two drivers, but given our recent luck with video, don't hold your breath. Any thoughts on how to proceed?"

"We're out of time, Haddy. And with everyone disappearing on us, we have nothing to go on. Alexievich could even be gone already. We need to make an educated guess about what really happened and work from there. It's our only shot at finding him."

"Maybe this was all a murder cover up," she said. "The doc could've OD'd Gianni for Alexievich. Gianni was actively looking for him, after all, blasting his picture all over the place. Maybe he had her silenced before things got out of hand. He had the body switched so the coroner wouldn't detect the murder. Then the doc and the drivers fled or were executed because they knew about it, and the body is gone so it can't be examined any further."

"That's a reasonable guess," Bancroft replied, "but if this was just a murder cover-up, then why switch the bodies? To the coroner, an OD would look like an OD regardless of whether it was a murder or suicide. Switching the bodies required getting the transport drivers involved unnecessarily, disposing of Gianni's body somewhere, and having the doc give us the wrong DNA sample, which put her at risk of being discovered. Those are three big question marks that didn't need to be there. Alexievich wouldn't have taken any extraneous chances. What else could he have done that would have _required_ all of those things?"

Bancroft paused, looking right through Haddy, the way he always did when he was homing in on an important thought, then shot to his feet. "Holy shit, Haddy," he said, pacing back and forth and lifting and shaking his left index finger.

"What?"

"What if—"

Bancroft's phone rang. He saw an international number on the caller ID. "Hold on a sec," he said to Haddy, "I think this is Babitz in Berlin. You're not here, OK?"

"Sure," she said.

Bancroft answered on speakerphone: "Bancroft."

"John, its Jordan. Paulson Omnigroup was just hacked in Berlin. Over €250,000,000 has been stolen. The money is bouncing between accounts all over the world, and the company's systems are going haywire. Anything happening there?"

"Jesus! I haven't heard of anything in L.A., but we'll look into it right now," Bancroft said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Haddy, who rose and darted out of the office to investigate. "But I can tell you that Mark Newsome was Chief Marketing Officer at Paulson Omnigroup. He was killed a few months ago, allegedly by his paramour, a woman who later came forward to provide information about Alexievich. And she allegedly killed herself a few days ago under some very suspicious circumstances."

"Jesus," Babitz said.

"Yeah," Bancroft said. "Certainly seems like our boy, doesn't it?"

"No shit."

"Let me get back to you, Jordan. I'll check on Paulson Omnigroup A.S.A.P. and let you know what I find."

"I'll be here," Babitz said. The line disconnected.

Haddy reappeared, out of breath. "John, the server room at Paulson's L.A. headquarters has been destroyed. Some kind of explosive device. At least six security guards were killed; the extent of the breach is unclear—we're working on the details now. And all of Paulson's security feed went offline."

"God dammit!" he said, pounding his desk. "Alexievich is almost certainly gone then, but just in case he's not, we need A.P.B.'s out on Alexievich, the two drivers, Moritz, and Gianni. I need you to call L.A.P.D. and T.S.A. and make sure they are on high alert and they know who we're looking for. I'll let Babitz know what happened and call Meyerson and get everything authorized—"

"Wait, you want an A.P.B. out on Gianni—on a _corpse_?"

"She's alive, Haddy! And I think she was involved in this breach."

"Alive? Involved? How? And with what exactly?"

"Mark Newsome's company just got hacked. Gianni was Newsome's dominatrix and lover. Who do you think was Alexievich's source of information about Paulson Omnigroup?"

"But she went to jail for killing him."

"Newsome probably found out about Alexievich, or maybe even saw him. They couldn't let him live. And by having Gianni go to jail for a few months, all the focus was on her, which gave him the time he needed to put together this attack. He obviously had someone on the inside at Centurion, too, so he knew he could get Gianni out easily enough when it was time—"

"Wait, so, the OD—"

"At worst Moritz sedated her. Then _Moritz_ called the coroner, or maybe just the drivers Alexievich had paid-off, without informing the warden. The transport drivers took Gianni to the hospital's garage—where no cameras were watching—and Alexievich picked her up and gave the drivers the other corpse. That's why the body had to be switched and why he had to get the drivers involved. Now that I think about it, that corpse is probably the woman who looked like Gianni from all of our strange videos, probably some poor Ukrainian woman who agreed to do this in exchange for Alexievich taking care of her family. He's made similar arrangements before."

"That's a hell of a theory, John."

"It's the only theory that fits all the evidence. And we have no time to overthink this. We need A.P.B.s out for Gianni, Alexievich, Moritz, and the two drivers. Maybe if we get it out soon enough, we catch them before they disappear. You can bet Alexievich is leaving soon, if he isn't gone already."

### 40

### CODA

Sitting upright in a soft leather chair, she struggled to raise her leaden eyelids. Everything was vibrating. The air was thick and stale. There was a muffled mechanical hum, like a drier tossing clothes in a distant closet. Across a narrow aisle to her right a man reclined in a beige leather seat, engrossed in something on his tablet. Light streamed in through an oval window next to him, stinging her eyes.

"Good morning, Angela," he said, barely looking away from his tablet.

I'm alive.

She recognized the voice. "Where—" she began but stopped short. Her throat was dry and inflamed; she could barely move her jaw.

"Where are you?" the man finished her thought. "On a plane, unfortunately. We didn't have much time."

"I—" she broke off again, wincing, bewildered.

"I'm sure you have questions," the man said. "But since you haven't yet fully metabolized the sedatives we gave you, you probably wouldn't remember my answers now anyway. So why don't we hold the explanations till later. For the moment, just know that you're safe. You're 30,000 feet in the air and hundreds of miles from Centurion. So take it easy and let yourself come back to life gradually. Rest as long as you need and I'll tell you everything in a few hours." He refocused on his tablet without waiting for her response.

She hesitated at first, but it felt too good to lean back and let her eyelids fall. The gentle vibrations sifted her quickly back to unconsciousness.

When she awoke, the man was gone and the cabin was dark. She couldn't see far down the corridor, but there was a beige leather seat facing her about five feet ahead. The man's seat across the aisle was empty, except for his tablet.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and tried to stand, but as she did her legs seemed to liquefy beneath her and she plunked back into the soft leather.

"Still a bit woozy?" a man's voice called from behind her. He walked past in the aisle, handing her a cold bottle of water and taking a seat in the chair across from her.

They studied one another. His features were obscured by the shadows, but she could discern a thick beard covering an angular face. His objective in scrutinizing her was unclear, but he didn't seem malicious.

She took a long slug of water.

He switched on the overhead reading light and leaned forward. The soft, yellow light trickled down the crown of his scalp through his brown, buzz-cut hair. But the backlighting did little to reveal his face.

"I'm told your left orbital bone is chipped at the temporal line," he said. "That's why the area around your left eye is so swollen. It will be painful for a few weeks, but there will be no permanent damage. We'll make sure you get plenty of ice to keep the swelling down. The rest of your injuries are just bruises. They'll heal much sooner, though you'll feel plenty of stiffness in your face and neck for the next several days.

"Cognitively, how do you feel? The sedatives should be tapering off now; you should start getting your faculties back soon, if you haven't already."

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Ah," he said, pausing for an instant, then continued: "I keep forgetting about the beard and the new hair." He leaned back into the light. "I've been thinking a lot about this moment. Apologies if I'm moving too quickly."

Shock took hold first, followed rapidly by confusion and anger as she stared into his blue-green eyes. He watched her morphing facial expressions with a scientific detachment.

"Jacob? What the hell?" she said.

"That's how you've known me, yes. But Jacob Drake, as you discovered during your trial, is actually someone else. For me his was just a convenient identity to borrow. I think you learned my real name from your friend Agent Bancroft at the F.B.I."

She glared at him, her mind cycling through endless questions and emotions. Then, finally, she spoke: "Why am I still alive? How did I get here?"

"Leanna Moritz injected you with a strong sedative instead of overdosing you like she promised. She asked me to apologize on her behalf for lying to you, but I assured her you would prefer escaping from Centurion alive.

"The logistics of how you got on this plane are irrelevant, but suffice it to say that once you were sedated, you were transported out of the prison and I had you picked up and sent to me. We boarded shortly thereafter."

"Where are you taking me?"

"Someplace safe where you can convalesce in peace. You'll know more soon enough."

She paused, unsure whether to relax or worry. The left side of her face began to throb, reminding her of her last encounter with Wood. "Did you have that gang attack me at Centurion?"

"Of course not. My intention was never to have you experience any physical harm. Leanna and I did take advantage of the situation to get you out of Centurion, though. I hope you don't hold that against us." His lips twisted into a toothless smile.

Something about his tone reminded her of the anonymous text messages she received when Samara disappeared. "Did _you_ set me up for those murders? Did _you_ kill Samara and Mark and Oliver?" Her voice shuddered with anger.

"Yes," he said evenly. "Facilitated all that, anyway. Oh, and your friends at the F.B.I. will soon believe you helped me target Mark Newsome's company, Paulson Omnigroup, too."

She clenched her aching jaw and clutched the ends of her armrests. Tears began to peek over her trembling lower eyelids. "Why did you do all this?"

"To discredit and marginalize you. To ensure you knew what it felt like to have everyone hate you and target you." He leaned forward. "And to demonstrate that I can make that happen to you anytime—if you ever turn against me." His voice was steady, his stoic face unchanged.

A rush of fear extinguished her anger. "But why kill _them_?"

"Mark was my way into Paulson Omnigroup. He was the reason I was in L.A. to begin with, but unfortunately for him there was no way for me to get the intel I needed without interacting with him directly. Because he could ID me, he had to be eliminated. And your dear friend Samara tried to blackmail him at a very inopportune time, almost derailing my whole operation. We tried several tactics to get her to back off, but she was stubborn. So I had her picked up and handled."

"Samara tried to blackmail Mark?"

"There's a lot you don't know about your dear friend Samara. Not exactly the hooker with the heart of gold that you thought you knew. We'll have plenty of time to discuss that later, though."

"And what about Oliver? Why did you kill him?"

"Wrong place, wrong time. By killing him and giving the police and the media a sensational culprit for a triple homicide—you—I made sure that nobody was looking my way, which gave me enough time to complete the business I was in town for. Framing you for those murders was just a convenient way of concurrently addressing multiple priorities. It was nothing personal."

"And Preston? Was he in on all this?"

Alexievich laughed. "Not at all. At first he was just a convenient decoy for the police when I picked up Samara—they couldn't have timed their breakup any better. But when I found out that Mark and Oliver were both his former clients, I figured I had to at least subtly connect him to their deaths as well. You see, police and juries usually can't stand little unexplained coincidences; they feel compelled to weave them into the story. The time it takes for them to figure out the truth is usually enough for me to do my work and then move on undetected.

"Anyway, when Preston gave me the gift of ghosting Samara's phone—and forgetting to remove his tracking software when he was done—all I had to do was make it look like my instructions were coming from his phone. Between the bodies found at your place and the messages apparently coming from Preston's phone, I thought the L.A.P.D. would be stumbling over themselves trying to tie you and Preston together in some diabolical web. Obviously, I overestimated them. At least they got your part right, though." He chuckled gutturally, then noticed Angela's stunned expression.

"I know hearing all this hurts, but you'll get over it in time. Things will improve."

Angela fought to maintain her composure. "What do you want from me?"

"The two of us are going to collaborate once you're feeling better. You have a unique expertise that will be valuable to my organization."

She stared at him, confused.

He continued: "I came to Los Angeles because my colleague found an opportunity for me here involving your friend Mark Newsome and his company. But while I was investigating that prospect, I learned that Mark was booking sessions with you. I didn't learn about your extracurricular relationship with him until later, but I digress." His lips contorted into a condescending smirk.

"It struck me as I learned of Mark's proclivities that there are probably others like him—many others—who engage services like yours. So I started watching you more closely, and even seeing you myself, to assess exactly what you had access to. And I was pleasantly surprised at what I discovered."

"I don't understand," she said. "What do I have access to?"

"You have a full lineup of wealthy, influential people coming to you for the experience you provide. Because of their lofty positions, these people have access to critical information and the authority to exploit it, which makes them ideal for helping someone like me. Most importantly, they have a lot to lose if the world learns of their perversions.

"Such people are the gold standard in my line of work." He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "They show me all the good opportunities and provide the way in. F.B.I., C.I.A., corporate cybersecurity departments, they can put up as many technological barriers as they want, but if I have a willing insider open the front door for me and walk me around the relevant pitfalls, none of that matters.

"These people exist everywhere, of course, but for me finding them and obtaining sufficient leverage to assure their cooperation is a lot of work. For you, though, they march willingly to your doorstep and hand you all their bargaining chips. Being in a position like that could make my job much easier."

"This was all just about my client list?" Angela pleaded. "Why didn't you just go after my clients then?"

"This isn't about your clients specifically. This is about all the people _like_ them that you'll be able to help me attract and employ."

"If you wanted me to keep working as a domme, then why not let me keep working as a domme where I was? You had me framed and incarcerated. I've been all over the news. There's no way I'll be able to work again."

"I never said I wanted you working in your usual capacity. Only that I wanted to collaborate. My organization is global, so you would only be of limited use if you were still doing sessions by yourself. I think you can help on a much grander scale.

"What I really need is for you to develop and train a network of mistresses that we can trust to feed us informants and targets. The wider the network, the better. We'll start outside the U.S. for the first few years, where your face won't be so recognizable. Then we'll gradually work our way back."

She was overwhelmed, speechless.

"Look on the bright side, Angela. Or do you still want me to call you Miss Angelique?" He smiled, a full smile this time. "Your life isn't over, it's just beginning. And you have much to look forward to. You'll be handsomely compensated; you'll travel the world. My people are better trained than anyone, and they will protect you at every turn. You have nothing to worry about anymore—you work for me now."

He stood and walked toward her, resting his hand on her right shoulder. "Everything is going to be fine once you get over the sting of your personal losses. But that will take time." He let go and continued toward the back. "And don't forget," he called over his shoulder, "things could always be worse."

A door slammed behind her as a tear slid down her face.

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### ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As a litigator in New York City and Washington D.C., and as a neurogenetics and neuropyschiatrics researcher earlier in his career, Adam Aust had more fodder for stories than he could reasonably keep to himself. So, he started writing. _A Glitch in the System_ and the novelette _Sanity's Only Skin Deep_ are the first of his efforts, but other works are on the way. Be the first to experience them by connecting with Adam directly.

Website: adamaust.com

Email: adamaustauthor@gmail.com

Twitter: @AdamAustAuthor

Goodreads: <https://www.goodreads.com/AdamAust>

