Seeing her shoulders drop in something that looked like relief did not make him feel any better. He turned and walked to the kitchen. Retrieving his jacket, he paused by the door. She still hadn’t moved.
“You’ll call if you need anything?” he asked.
She nodded.
He hesitated.
“Please,” she said again cutting off any question he might ask.
He swallowed. “You know how to reach me.”
He left before he could listen to logic and change his mind.
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, Carly watched her small living room fill with people. She had no idea how they had coordinated their arrival, but Vivi, Ian, Wyatt, Naomi, Mikaela, Mario, Joe, Marcus, and even Brian—who must have come over from Boston the night before—filed into her home, one after the other. The only person missing was Drew.
Her stomach sank a little at the realization. Actually it had been pretty low ever since he’d walked out the night before. She’d asked him to go, yes, and he’d struggled with the decision, then ultimately done only what she’d demanded. But the second the door had closed behind him, she’d wanted him back.
She hadn’t wanted to talk about anything, just simply wanted him there. She knew he would have given her that, his undemanding presence, if only she could have brought herself to ask for and accept it.
“Where’s Drew?” Vivi asked, coming up beside her.
While everyone else was making themselves comfortable into the living room, Carly had come into the kitchen to put on a second pot of coffee. “I don’t know. I imagine he’s on his way,” she answered. She hoped he was on his way. Even though she knew he hadn’t been happy with her when he’d left, she didn’t think it would keep him away.
Vivi started to say something, but just then Joe Franks walked into the room.
Carly turned and watched him approach. Mikaela had called earlier to confirm that Joe’s story had checked out. They now had a primary suspect in the murders of her mother and uncle, as well as Marguerite—Vince Repetto. She still felt somewhat numb about it all.
“Carly,” Joe said, coming to her side.
When Carly glanced at Vivi, her friend reached out to give her arm a small squeeze before leaving her alone with Joe.
She looked into the eyes she remembered so well—better than she thought she had. With him appearing back in her life, she remembered more—about him and her mom and what had happened back then—more than she was ready for.
“Coffee?” she asked, turning away.
When she didn’t look up at him and began gathering more mugs instead, he spoke. “I loved your mother very much. I know I said it last night, but now that you know I was telling the truth, that I am telling the truth, I want you to hear it again. And it wasn’t just her that I loved. It was you too. And to an extent, Marcus, though I was just getting to know him. But still, he was a part of the two of you, and so he was a part of me too.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing as she filled a mug with coffee and handed it to him.
“Are you still riding?” he asked, changing the subject.
She shook her head. “No, we didn’t have that kind of money when we lived with Lorraine, but more to the point, I was too recognizable in that world.”
“Well, maybe you can once we get this wrapped up once and for all.”
As she opened her mouth to question just how he thought they were going to wrap it all up, Drew knocked on the door and walked in.
Holding her coffee mug close to her chest, she watched him close the door, look into the living room, and pause. He’d see what she’d done the night before—the piles now all put away in boxes, her riding videos—they’d found several—stacked neatly by the television, and the vacuum tracks on the throw rug. Yes, in her efforts to keep busy, at two in the morning, she’d pulled out her vacuum cleaner and vacuumed the entire house. She was glad her landlords hadn’t decided to come up for the weekend or they might have started to doubt the sanity of their tenant.
When his eyes turned and caught hers, they briefly flitted to Joe, then came back to her. His unreadable expression studied her; she had no idea what thoughts might be going through his head. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to apologize for sending him away the night before. But rather than come into the kitchen to talk to her, he simply said, “Good morning,” and joined the others in the living room.
“Is everything okay?” Franks asked.
Carly’s heart sank into her stomach. “It’s fine,” she said. Because that was what she always said. “Maybe we should bring the coffee in and get started?”
Without a word, he helped her carry several mugs and the coffee pot, as well as some sugar and a pitcher of half-and-half, into the living room. People moved aside as she and Joe deposited everything onto the coffee table. Naomi immediately took over as hostess, pouring coffee for those who wanted it. Drew declined, and moved to the far end of the room. Leaning on the frame of the window that looked out toward the back of the house, he stood apart from the rest of the group. Again.
She wondered how often he had done that—been a member of a group while somehow staying outside of it. She thought probably quite often. At that realization, her heart sank a little further. He’d been trying, like she had, to be more for her. He’d been honest with her—she knew that—about his life, his career. And she also knew his honesty wasn’t just important because of what he’d said to her, but also because he’d said it all. In more ways than one, he’d been trying since day one of this situation, to be a part of something with her.
And she’d pushed him away because she hadn’t been strong enough to let him in. Seeing him standing on the outside now, she knew it wasn’t just his nature that put him there, it was her doing as well.
“Let’s get started,” Ian said, calling everyone to attention. With one last look at Drew, Carly sat on the edge of her sofa and let Ian do his thing.
“I think it’s pretty clear why we’re all here today. We now believe FBI agent Vince Repetto is responsible for at least three deaths, including those of Carly and Marcus’s mother and uncle. Deputy Director Franks, Joe,” Ian said with a gesture to the man, “was involved in those events and is here to walk us through what happened. Everything that’s not in the records.”
“I know it’s been a long time, a very long time, in coming,” Ian continued with a look at Carly then Marcus, “but we have more resources now than they did when this first happened, including Naomi and Brian—who we all know have talents we’re better off not knowing about—and, of course, Vivienne, with her background in cold cases. So, now I’ve set the groundwork, Joe, do you want to take over?”
Joe stood as he began to speak. “Vince Repetto is an agent in one of our white-collar crime divisions. About sixteen years ago, a routine check on employees showed two financial transactions that raised red flags with the auditors and they handed his files over to my team to investigate.”
“But you’re anti-terrorism, aren’t you?” Marcus asked.
Joe wagged his head. “We are, primarily, but several people on my team, myself included back before I was deputy director, act as a sort of counterintelligence within the agency when needed.”
“How does that even work?” Carly asked, setting her coffee down, unable to stomach it just then.
Joe lifted a shoulder. “It’s a bit of an unusual arrangement, but because our anti-terrorism activities encompass so many disciplines—from money to weapons to intelligence to murder—our group is uniquely set up to loan agents out to other divisions under the guise of investigating potential terrorist threats.”
“But really, you’re investigating agents,” Naomi clarified.
Joe responded to Naomi. “We are, again, only when needed. If we see a situation, like Repetto’s, where it looks like something is going on that shouldn’t be, we create a back story, send an agent to the team, partner them up with the agent we want to investigate, and
see where it leads us.”
“In our case, it led to the deaths of my mother and uncle,” Marcus said.
“Why were Tony and Sophia chosen?” Vivi asked, attempting to keep the conversation on track.
For a moment it looked like Joe wanted to say something to Marcus, but then he gathered himself in and answered. “When the auditors handed Repetto’s file over to us, we dug into his life and realized that not only were there those two questionable transactions, but a history of them. Most of them were smaller than the two that had raised the flags, but taken together they added up to quite a bit of money. Based on what we were seeing, we suspected he was dealing in insider trading of some sort.
“We ran an analysis of the companies and learned that many of them, though not all, had some sort of nexus with Tony Lamot—sometimes there were people Tony knew on the board, sometimes the contacts were social. There were all sorts of different connections.”
“Tony wasn’t involved in insider trading,” Carly said, cutting off anything more Joe might say.
Joe’s eyes lingered on hers, then he answered. “No, Tony wasn’t. Quite the contrary. He thought he was helping the government investigate other people for wrongdoing.”
“You’re being vague, Joe,” Naomi broke in. “It’s not useful and it won’t help us get to where we need to be.”
Carly watched as this uncharacteristic comment from Naomi elicited the first reaction she’d seen from Drew all day. His lips tilted into a small smile.
“You’re right. Okay, here’s the bottom line. We can talk particulars as needed, but here are the facts. Four years prior to our investigation, Tony Lamot was, in fact, investigated for insider trading. Nothing came of that investigation and there was no evidence to suggest any involvement on his part. But what the investigation did was bring Vince Repetto into Tony’s orbit—Repetto himself wasn’t involved in the investigation, but his partner was.
“What we ultimately learned in our investigation of Repetto is that about six months after the original investigation into Tony ended, Repetto approached him and asked if he would be willing to help the FBI investigate other insider trading claims. Your uncle was a good man.” Joe paused to glance at both Carly and Marcus. “Of course, he said yes. So, for the next few years, Tony Lamot gathered bits of information and passed it on to Repetto. The information flowed both ways as well, and occasionally, Repetto would ask Lamot to drop a piece of information in the ear of one businessperson or another. Tony was told this was to test the flow of information and to see if a specific businessperson would use the information provided to make illegal trades.”
“But that wasn’t the case,” Naomi said, reaching to refill her brother’s coffee mug.
Joe shook his head, but Brian piped in as he held his mug out for his sister. “Tony wasn’t helping the FBI, was he? He was helping Repetto himself manipulate the market.”
The question didn’t require an answer but Joe nodded.
“How did you figure this out?” Carly asked.
“Because when the information first came to me and I saw the nexus to Tony, I knew I could reach out to Sophia. It gave me an excuse to do something I’d wanted to do for years,” he added quietly.
“Anyway,” he continued on an exhale, “the FBI knew nothing about what I just told you when I contacted your mom and uncle the first time. The three of us met for several hours and when it became clear to your uncle that he hadn’t actually been helping the FBI, as he’d been told, he was more than happy to fill in the gaps for us. We’d suspected what was happening, of course, but it wasn’t until we talked to your uncle that we knew how he was doing it. Tony was horrified, naturally, and both he and Sophia wanted to help.”
“And so you involved civilians in your investigation?” Marcus said. “Despite the dangers.”
Joe sighed. “It’s a poor excuse now, but we didn’t think Repetto could be dangerous. His crimes were all white collar. His role in the FBI didn’t even require that he ever use his gun. He was certified to carry one, but given what he did, we all looked at him as a bit of a desk jockey. A smart one, but not someone we thought would get violent.”
Marcus stood and began to pace, unable to sit and listen passively.
“So why didn’t you take the information my uncle and mom gave you and arrest him?” Carly asked.
Joe ran a hand through his hair and met her gaze. “I wish we could have done that. You will never know how much I wish we could have done that. Your uncle wanted to help, he really did, and he gave us the information we needed to understand how Repetto was operating, but he wasn’t the most organized person and certainly didn’t have any ready records of his encounters with Repetto. Especially since Repetto had told him, under the auspices of keeping his involvement a secret, not to keep records.”
“It was going to take time to gather what you needed, wasn’t it? The actual proof and not just my uncle’s word,” Carly said.
“And then your mom suggested that, while she and Tony gathered the data, maybe they could help with the active investigation,” Joe replied.
“And you didn’t argue.” Again, Marcus cut in.
“Actually, I did,” Joe said. “I didn’t want her involved any more than she already was. But she was adamant. She didn’t like how Tony had been used and didn’t like that someone with the kind of authority Repetto had was taking advantage of people. It was her idea to try to catch him in the act. So to speak.”
“So what did that mean?” Ian asked, setting his empty mug down on the coffee table.
“It meant that we set up an operation where it looked like my anti-terrorism team was going to investigate Tony for funding terrorists. When we did this, my boss arranged with Repetto’s boss, Anton Perelli, to have Repetto partner with me to investigate the claims.”
“The bogus claims,” Carly clarified.
“Yes, the only people who knew they were bogus and that the true target of the investigation was Repetto himself were me, my boss, Perelli, your mother, and your uncle. Repetto obviously had no idea and probably took his being brought into the investigation as verification of just how clever he’d been in his own dealings.”
“So, as part of this operation to investigate Repetto, you both went undercover together,” Vivi said.
“Yes, we did. The story we’d set up was that we were businessmen with interests in the Middle East who were, eventually, looking for someone to help us funnel money to groups that were on the terrorist watch list but who would help us conduct business in certain regions.”
“And how was that supposed to catch Repetto in the act?” Brian asked.
“We wanted to put Repetto into Tony’s orbit more often than he was,” Joe answered.
“And hope he would use those opportunities with Tony in the same way he had in the past, but this time you would have a record,” Naomi finished.
“That was the plan,” Joe answered.
“Did it work at all?” Mikaela asked.
Joe bobbed his head. “Yes, but not quickly enough.”
“Why not?” Carly interjected.
“We think Repetto got nervous about having me, another agent, around and it took him a lot longer than we had anticipated to take the bait—unfettered time with your uncle—that we’d dangled. He did eventually, of course, because a guy like Repetto couldn’t resist, but it takes time for the kind of racket he was running to play out.”
“So when my mother and uncle were killed, you think there was something in play but that it just hadn’t played out enough for you to act on it?” Carly asked.
“Exactly,” Joe said, and in his voice she heard years of regret. “And then they were killed and the false information your uncle had fed to Repetto wasn’t acted on.”
“And you had nothing,” Marcus said. “After all that, you had nothing.”
Joe looked at Marcus for a good long while before answering. “Your mother was collecting data for us. She was remarkable.” His voice broke. “Incredi
bly smart and significantly more organized than your uncle. She told me she was working on gathering all the information we would need regarding Repetto’s interactions with your uncle.”
“And I assume, since we’re all here now, you never got that information?” Vivi’s voice was gentle.
Joe shook his head. “No, we had plans to meet up. She was going to hand over what she’d gathered to me. She was excited about it. I think,” he paused and cleared his throat. “I think she liked thinking she was going to be the one to give us what we needed to bring Repetto down. I tried to get her to give me what she had, but she wouldn’t. She wanted it all organized and wrapped up with a damned bow or something before she handed it over.” Joe didn’t say it, but in the guilt Carly heard in his voice, she knew he still struggled with the fact that, had he been a bit more persistent and not given into her wishes, Sophia and Tony might be alive today. “She was killed before she could give me the information,” he said quietly as he sat down. “And we never found it.”
Silence fell over the room at that statement. Joe had shed a lot of light on what had happened fourteen years earlier, but what he hadn’t done was provide any information that gave them any direction, any lead to follow.
“And you think he’s back to his old games now that his old boss is dead?” Mikaela asked.
Nodding, Joe replied. “Like I said, Perelli knew everything. He didn’t like the idea of having a dirty agent on his team and he did what he could to keep Repetto contained. It was the next best thing, since we couldn’t arrest him.”
“Which is why Repetto hasn’t moved roles or ranks in the past fourteen years,” Wyatt said.
“Perelli’s death is the only thing Marguerite and I could think of that would set him off again.”
“And, as you’ve said before, in doing that he needed to tie up some loose ends,” Vivi said with a pointed look toward Carly and Marcus.
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