Pretty Girls

by Karin Slaughter

“Sure.” Nolan’s tone was even. “We could start there.”

  Claire studied the man closely. She couldn’t get a read off him. Was he afraid? Was he eager? “Johnny was an FBI agent back in the early nineties.”

  “That’s true.”

  Claire waited for more. “And?”

  “He was one of the shittiest agents this office has ever seen.”

  “I don’t recall reading that in his official bio.”

  Nolan shrugged. He didn’t seem afraid that Jackson would break through the mirror and strangle him.

  Claire said, “He’s been all over the press conferences with the Kilpatrick family.”

  “I said he was a shitty agent, not a shitty politician.”

  Claire still couldn’t read the man’s expression. “You don’t sound like a fan.”

  Nolan clasped his hands together on the table. “On the surface, it seems like we’re making progress, but when I think back on the last few minutes of our conversation, I get the feeling that you’re questioning me instead of the other way around.”

  “You’ll make a great detective one day.”

  “Fingers crossed.” He flashed a grin. “I want to tell you something about the FBI.”

  “You always win?”

  “Sure, there’s that, and terrorists, of course. Kidnappers, bank robbers, pedophiles—­nasty fuckers—­but nuts and bolts, what we at the ol’ FBI deal in day-­to-­day is curiosities. Did you know that?”

  Claire didn’t respond. He’d clearly given this speech before.

  Nolan continued, “Local cops, they find something curious they can’t figure out, and they bring it to us, and we either agree that it’s curious or we don’t. And generally when we agree, it’s not just the one curious thing, it’s several curious things.” He held up his index finger. “Curious thing number one: your husband embezzled three million dollars from his company. Only three million dollars. That’s curious, because you’re loaded, right?”

  Claire nodded.

  “Curious thing number two.” He added a second finger. “Paul went to college with Quinn. He shared a dorm room with the guy, and then when they were in grad school together, they shared an apartment, and then Quinn was best man at your wedding, and then they started the business together, right?”

  Claire nodded again.

  “They’ve been best friends for almost twenty-­one years, and it seemed curious to me that after twenty-­one years, Quinn figures out his best buddy is stealing from their company, the one they built together from the ground up, but instead of going to his buddy and saying ‘Hey, what the fuck, buddy?’ Quinn goes straight to the FBI.”

  The way he put it together did seem curious, but Claire only said, “Okay.”

  Nolan held up a third finger. “Curious thing number three: Quinn didn’t go to the cops. He went to the FBI.”

  “You have domain over financial crimes.”

  “You’ve been reading our Web site.” Nolan seemed pleased. “But lemme ask you again: Is that what you’d do if your best friend of twenty-­one years stole a small, almost negligible, amount of money from your zillion-­dollar company—­find the biggest, baddest stick to fuck him with?”

  The question gave Claire a different answer: Adam had turned in Paul to the FBI, which meant that Adam and Paul were not getting along. Either Adam Quinn didn’t know about the movies or he knew about the movies and he was trying to screw over Paul.

  Claire asked Nolan, “What did you do next?”

  “How’s that?”

  “You investigated Adam’s complaint about the money. You must have talked to the accountants. You traced the money back to Paul. And then what?”

  “I arrested him.”

  “Where?”

  “Where?” Nolan repeated. “That’s a funny question.”

  “Humor me.”

  Nolan chuckled again. He was enjoying this. “I arrested him in his fancy office down the street. I put the handcuffs on him myself. Frogmarched him through the front lobby.”

  “You surprised him.” Claire knew the kinds of things Paul left behind when he was surprised. “Did you check his computer?”

  “Another funny question.”

  “You have your curious things, I have my funny questions.”

  He drummed his fingers on the table. “Yes, I checked his computer.”

  Claire nodded, but not for the reason Nolan would be thinking. If Adam had known about the movies, he would’ve made sure that they weren’t on Paul’s computer when the cops came. The first thing Paul would’ve done is point the finger back at his partner. Which meant that Fred Nolan had just handed Claire compelling proof that Adam was not involved in Paul’s side business after all.

  “So, what do you say?” Nolan asked. “Quid pro quo, Clarice?”

  They stared at each other again, this time with hope instead of hostility.

  Could she trust Fred Nolan? He worked with the FBI. Then again, so had Johnny Jackson. Maybe Nolan’s trash talk about the congressman was meant to draw her out. Give a little/get a little more. Or perhaps Nolan was being truthful. Paul was always telling Claire that she never trusted ­people, that she held back too much.

  She asked, “What do you want to know?”

  A smile broke across his face. “Did Paul slip you something before he died?”

  The key tag. She almost laughed with relief. This entire dance had been to move them toward the key tag.

  Claire chose to sound obtuse. “Are you making some kind of sexual innuendo because of what my husband and I were doing in the alley?”

  “No.” The question clearly knocked him off his game. “Absolutely not. I just want to know if he slipped you—­gave you—­something. Anything. It could be small or big or—­”

  Claire stood up. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Wait.” He stood up, too. “I’m not being an asshole.”

  Claire employed one of Grandma Ginny’s quips. “If you have to say you’re not doing something, then you probably are.”

  “I need you to sit down.” Nolan wasn’t playing around anymore. There was nothing flirty or silly about his tone. “Please.”

  Claire sat back down, her spine straight in the chair. She could almost feel the power shifting back to her side. Nolan was going to lay all of his cards on the table, and she knew what the first card would be before he even showed his hand.

  He said, “He’s alive.”

  Claire asked, “Frankenstein?”

  “No.” Nolan smoothed down his tie. “Paul. He’s not dead.”

  Claire twisted her face into what she hoped was an expression of disbelief.

  “Your husband is alive.”

  “I am sick of your bullshit, Agent Nolan.” She forced some haughtiness into her voice. “I knew you were reprehensible, but I didn’t know you were cruel.”

  “I’m sorry.” He held out his hands, as if none of this was his fault. “I’m being straight with you. Your husband is alive.”

  Claire tried to show surprise, but it felt too fake. She looked away. Coldness had always worked to her advantage. “I don’t believe you.”

  “No more bullshit,” Nolan said. “We helped him fake his death.”

  Claire kept her gaze turned away. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t supposed to know the extent of Paul’s crimes. “You’re telling me that the FBI helped my husband fake his death over three million dollars?”

  “No, what I told you before is the truth. The embezzlement charges were dropped. That was settled between your husband and his partner. But we found some other things while we were investigating the initial complaint. Things that were a hell of a lot more curious than some missing cash.” Nolan didn’t elaborate. “We realized that Paul had information we needed. Volatile information. His life would’ve been in danger if it
got out that he was talking, and we needed him alive to testify at the trial.”

  Claire’s cheeks were wet. She was crying. Why was she crying?

  Nolan said, “He was mixed up in some things—­bad things—­with some bad ­people.”

  She touched her fingers to her face. The tears were real. How could that be?

  “He asked to go into witness protection.” Nolan waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he continued, “My bosses felt like he might be planning to run, so we moved up the day it was supposed to happen. We picked Paul up on his way to see you, taped him up with the squibs—­that’s like a plastic balloon with fake blood—­and told him it was going down in the alley.”

  Claire stared at her wet fingertips in disbelief. She couldn’t be crying for Paul. She wasn’t that stupid. Was she crying for herself? For Lydia? For her mother, who would never come?

  Claire looked up at Nolan. He’d stopped talking. She should say something now, ask a question, make a comment.

  She said, “Did you know Paul was going to meet me? That I would see it?”

  “That was part of the agreement.” This time, Nolan looked away. “He wanted it to happen in front of you.”

  Claire’s hands were shaking again. She longed for a time when nothing on her body shook with rage or fear or whatever mixture of hate and betrayal she was feeling right now. “The paramedics—­”

  “Were undercover agents. Detective Rayman was in on it, too.”

  “The man at the funeral home?”

  “It’s amazing what ­people will do for you when you threaten to sic the IRS on their financial records.”

  “They asked me if I wanted to see the body.”

  “Paul said that you wouldn’t.”

  Claire clenched her fists. She hated that Paul knew her so well. “What if he was wrong and I asked to see it?”

  “It’s not like on TV. We show you the image on a screen. The body’s usually in another room with a camera pointed on it.”

  Claire shook her head. She couldn’t fathom the level of deceit at play. All to help Paul. All to give him a new life without Claire.

  “I’m sorry.” Nolan reached into his jacket. He handed Claire a handkerchief. She stared at the neatly folded white cloth. His initials were embroidered in the corner.

  She said the things she had wanted to say to Paul. “I watched him die. He was in my arms. I felt his skin go cold.”

  “A lot can happen in your head when you’re in a bad situation like that.”

  “You think I imagined those things? I saw blood pouring out of him.”

  “Yeah, we put two squibs on him. Probably could’ve gotten away with just one.”

  “But the knife—­”

  “The knife was fake, too. Retractable. The plastic on the squibs only takes a little bit of pressure.”

  “The killer.” Claire thought of the snake tattoo on the man’s neck. “He looked real.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s a real bad guy. One of my confidential informants, a low-­level drug dealer who’ll do anything to stay out of jail.”

  Claire put her hand to her head where the Snake Man had nearly ripped open her scalp.

  “Yeah, sorry. He got a little carried away. But Paul went off script, and my guy got pissed. That thing at the end where Paul turned into a Ninja Turtle, that was not in the program.”

  She patted the edge of the handkerchief underneath her eyes. She was still crying. This was crazy. She wasn’t in mourning. Why was she crying?

  Nolan said, “The ambulance brought Paul to the parking garage downstairs. He was supposed to have some information on him, but surprise, he didn’t have it.” Nolan was obviously still angry about this part. “He told me it was in his car. We waited until nightfall. Just me and him. Very low-­key. We were walking down the street talking about next steps—­your husband’s all about the big picture—­then we get to his car and he’s rummaging around inside the glove box and I’m thinking, What the fuck? Do I look like a fiddle that needs playing? and he says, ‘Here it is,’ and I’m thinking he’s just being an asshole, because the guy’s a real asshole, and he comes outta the car and I’ve got my hand palm up like some kind’a stupid kid thinking he’s gonna get some candy and boom, the asshole coldcocks me.”

  Claire looked at the yellow-­purple swirl around Nolan’s eye.

  “I know, right?” Nolan pointed to his eye. “Dropped me like a sack of hammers. I was seeing tweety birds and then I was seeing that asshole skipping up the street like a fuckin’ schoolgirl. He turns around at the corner and gives me one’a these.” Nolan gave two thumbs-­ups as he flashed a fake grin. “By the time I manage to peel my sorry ass off the sidewalk, turn the corner myself, he’s in the wind.” Nolan looked both annoyed and impressed. “I gotta say, it’s not the only reason, but it’s part of the reason I really, really want to find your husband.”

  Claire shook her head. This still didn’t make sense. Paul asking to be placed in witness protection? He would never hand someone else control over his life. They wouldn’t let him be an architect in witness protection. They wouldn’t let him draw attention to himself or his career accomplishments. There had to be something else he was trying to get out of the FBI. She was missing a detail or a stray word that would put together the puzzle.

  Nolan said, “Look, I know I’ve been a dick, but I wasn’t sure whether or not you knew about your husband’s extracurricular activities.”

  “The embezzling?”

  “No, not that. Like I said, the money case is closed as far as we’re concerned. I mean the other stuff.”

  Claire stared in disbelief. How could anyone think she would know about the movies and sit idly by? But Nolan hadn’t talked about the movies. He had only talked about Paul knowing some bad ­people who were mixed up in some bad things.

  She asked, “What else was he involved in?”

  “Maybe it’s good you don’t know,” Nolan said. “I can tell he kept you in the dark. Think of it as a blessing. I see your hands shaking, the confusion in your eyes. But you need to understand that the man you loved, the guy you thought you were married to, is dead. He doesn’t exist anymore. Hell, maybe he never existed.”

  He wasn’t telling Claire anything she did not know. “Why do you think that?”

  “We had a shrink take a look at him. Witsec—­that’s Witness Security with the Marshals Ser­vice—­they always want a profile of anybody they put into the system. Kind of like a cheat sheet so they can predict behavior.”

  Claire doubted a stadium full of shrinks could predict her husband’s behavior. “And?”

  “He’s a nonviolent, borderline psychopath.”

  They were wrong about the nonviolent part. “Borderline?” she asked. Why did she want to hold on to that word, to think that Paul wasn’t a total psychopath because he was still capable of loving her?

  Nolan said, “He’s been living a parallel life. There’s the guy who’s married to this beautiful woman and has this successful career and lives in a million-­dollar mansion and then there’s the real guy who’s not very nice.”

  “Not very nice,” Claire echoed. What a massive fucking understatement. “You said they found him nonviolent.”

  “They did, but I’m the dumbass who took a hit in the eye, so I’m bound to think otherwise.”

  “Why were you helping him if he’s such a bad person?”

  “Because the real Paul Scott knows the identity of a very bad man who needs to be in prison for a very long time.” Nolan glanced back at the mirror. “That’s all I can tell you. Straight up, no bullshit. That’s how the system works. You do something bad, we let you go if you can point us toward somebody doing worse. And believe me, this is a hell of a lot worse.”

  Claire looked down at her hands. Clever Paul. He hadn’t just fooled Claire with his movie-­editin
g skills. He had also fooled the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They had found the disgusting movies on his work computer and he had dangled the identity of the masked man in front of their faces in return for his freedom.

  She asked Fred Nolan a question she knew she would eventually ask herself. “You said he wanted to go into witness protection. He was just going to leave me? Just like that?”

  “I’m sorry, but trust me, you’re better off.”

  “Did Adam Quinn know about the other stuff Paul was mixed up in? The name of the bad man?”

  “No. We grilled the shit out of him. He had no idea.” Nolan picked up on her distress. “I can see why you stepped out on your husband. He really didn’t deserve you.”

  Claire agreed, but she had caught Nolan in a lie. “If Paul was planning to run, why would he slip me something before we went into the alley?”

  “Backup plan?” Nolan guessed. “There was no guarantee he’d be able to get the drop on me.”

  “I want to get this straight.” Claire turned around all the cards he’d just laid out, so he could see them from her perspective. “You caught Paul doing something bad, something worse than embezzling. He told you that he knows the identity of this boogeyman. You said he was taking you to his car to show you some kind of proof, so I’m going to guess that’s a photograph or a document or something electronic, which means it has to be stored on a piece of paper or a disc or a flash drive or something like that? Something he could fit in his glove box? Something that could be slipped to me before we went into the alley?”

  Nolan shrugged, but she could read him now and she could tell that he was getting nervous.

  “You also said that Paul’s life would’ve been in danger if it got out that he was sharing this information about the boogeyman.”

  “Right.”

  “So that gives you all the power. Paul needs you more than you need him. I mean, yes, you want to make a case, but Paul wants to live. You said his life was in danger. You’re the only one with the resources to protect him. So why is he hiding from you?”

  Nolan didn’t glance back at the two-­way mirror, but he might as well have.

  Claire tried to look at the situation from a different angle—­Paul’s angle.