The legs of her chair screeched on the concrete floor as Nina pushed back from the table. She strode to the door, then turned to stand in the frame.
“Stand up, please?”
I frowned, still staring at the screen with blood boiling in my chest. Still, I did as she asked, shoving my chair hard enough back that it practically screamed through the small room.
“What?” I snarled as I stepped closer. “You want to look me in the eye when you’re lying, sweetheart?”
“Look at him,” she said calmly as if I wasn’t spitting like an alley cat in heat. “And look at her. Then look at me now.”
I did as she asked. And then did it again. And on the third time, I started when her meaning was suddenly crystal clear.
The doorway next to us was about average—maybe eighty inches tall, just four inches over my height of six-two. The man in the video—whom we had also seen face-to-face at her house in Newton—was much shorter, maybe five-ten in boots. His barrel chest and thick middle perhaps gave an illusion that he was larger than he was, but I remembered it clearly.
I stared at the video. The Nina in it barely came up to the guy’s forehead, even in these same heels. Both of their heads were at least eight or more inches below the entryway to the house. But here with me, in the exact same shoes, Nina’s eyes were perfectly level with mine. She had, as always, the grace of a gazelle…but the height of someone much, much taller than the woman talking to Vamos.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered. “Nina, I…” I shook my head again and again.
“I said it wasn’t me,” she said sadly. “But you didn’t believe me.” She closed her hand over the phone, silently bidding me to put it away. “Why didn’t you believe me, Matthew?”
My mouth just opened and closed like a damn fish, my heart pounding so loud I could practically hear it banging like a drum. Fuck. Oh, fuck.
“If you had waited a few more moments. Answered any of my calls, we could have figured it out together. But you left. You ran away. And now…” She drifted off, as hopeless as I felt.
I blinked again and again between her and the photo. “So, it’s…”
“That is my friend,” she said quietly. “And someone you know…intimately. Her maiden name is ‘Caitlyn Calvert,’ although I believe she goes by Shaw now. Some people, myself included, have been known to call her Cait.” She raised a sleek blonde brow. “I have wondered if that might correspond to another Kate you’ve been looking for. She’s from Paterson too, you know.”
I blinked. Derek had said as much on the phone when he called me here, but I hadn’t really believed it. Not until now. And I hadn’t even thought to ask Caitlyn herself about her relationship with Nina’s husband—fucking idiotic, considering she had been right in front of me less than two weeks ago in the Hamptons. Given our history, I had spent most of that day trying to avoid someone I saw as an obnoxious, desperate try-hard, but it was clear now what Caitlyn was trying so hard to be. She wasn’t just attempting to become a member of Nina’s class and station. She was actually attempting to be Nina de Vries herself.
And this was why.
“Jesus,” I murmured.
“Convincing, isn’t she?”
“So…I don’t get it,” I said. “What are you doing here, then? If that’s not you, what are you turning yourself in for?”
Nina tipped her head, eyes full of resolution. “Because I still know things, Matthew. It’s still my name on the deeds. On the company. Is it not?”
“You said yourself those weren’t yours. Caitlyn was obviously the one who showed up to sign those papers, Nina. It’s identity fraud, not your conspiracy.”
“Yes,” she said, a hell of a lot more calmly than I would be if I found out my childhood best friend had literally stolen my identity. “But just the same…” She shook her head. “For a moment, I thought I would have to be here anyway. Calvin called me just after you left, wanting to waive spousal privilege. But last night, his attorneys talked him out of it again. And I drove back from Boston right away.”
She turned to look down at her hands, which were folded in front of her skirt again. For a moment, I thought I saw the shadow of a bruise on her neck, just under her ear. But before I could say anything, a scratch of static indicated that the room’s speakers were turned back on.
“Zola. He’s on his way up.”
I glanced toward the mirror, behind which I knew Derek was standing. “Shit.”
“This is what’s going to happen,” Nina said calmly as if we were still having the same conversation. “I’m turning myself in for the crimes I mentioned. Maybe that makes me an accessory to this whole disgusting scheme. Maybe it doesn’t. I looked it up. Identity fraud or not, I’m still part owner of a variety of real estate used to traffic young women into sex slavery throughout the tristate area. So, I’m going to own it. Because that’s how I can help put Calvin where he belongs. You said it yourself, didn’t you?”
I glanced toward the door, half expecting my boss to come tearing through any second. “I said…”
“You said the only way around it was if I was an accessory to the crime. Well, I am, as I just discovered. So I’m turning myself in.”
I nearly dropped my phone as I shoved it back into my pocket. “Nina, before you do anything, you need to call your lawyer. The new prosecutor on this case is here to—”
“New prosecutor?” she interrupted. “What do you mean, new prosecutor?”
“I recused myself yesterday. Told my boss about you and me, and as of yesterday, I’m off the case.”
“You—you what?”
“I recused myself,” I repeated, this time impatiently. “Nina, I had to. I should have done it from the start. And because I didn’t, technically I’m on administrative leave. I’m not even supposed to be here. We shouldn’t even be talking. I just—”
“Zola,” Derek interrupted sharply with a knock on the glass. His meaning was clear.
I frowned at the mirror, then turned back to Nina. “Look, Cardozo is solid, but he doesn’t know you. Get a lawyer, Nina. Now. Do not put yourself through a deposition. Do not say a word until you have someone to advise you legally. Please. Do it for Olivia, if not yourself. Do it for—for me.”
There was a knock on the glass, which I took to be my final warning.
“I have to go, Nina,” I said. “Fuck, I’m…I’m so goddamn sorry.”
Her eyes widened again, as if she was just registering that I was going to leave her once more. “You know, I could have borne anything if I’d thought you believed me.”
A tear fell down her cheek, cutting a red flushed line down her porcelain skin. I felt like it was cutting me through completely.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.
And then, because I could already hear the sounds of Cardozo’s voice booming to the receptionist on the other side of the barriers, I let the door close and ran in the opposite direction, to escape out the back door like the rat I was.
It killed me to leave her there alone. Unprotected.
But it was the only thing left to do.
Prelude
“Page Six”
The New York Post
September 9, 2018
Socialite Surrenders to Scandal & Splits!
Heiress Nina de Vries Gardner, granddaughter of the late Celeste de Vries and cousin to De Vries Shipping CEO Eric de Vries, pled no contest to accessory to human trafficking and identity fraud this morning at the Kings County criminal court.
“Ms. de Vries is a law-abiding citizen, which is precisely why she turned herself in the moment she discovered her inadvertent part in the scheme as a co-property owner,” said her lawyer in a statement outside the courthouse. “Her only desire now is to cooperate with law enforcement and do everything she can to bring real justice to the true villains of this case, starting with her husband.”
Sources confirmed that early this morning Mrs. Gardner filed for divorce and a legal name change from her husband of ten
years, Calvin Gardner, who was indicted on similar charges of human trafficking last May. She was also granted a six-month no-contact order from Judge Stratford, which will prevent Mr. Gardner from contacting his wife or daughter, who reportedly attends a boarding school in Massachusetts. It’s rumored that Mrs. Gardner may have accepted a plea deal in exchange for offering testimony against her husband. Mr. Gardner pled not guilty at his arraignment and is awaiting trial at his residence on the Upper East Side.
Though notoriously low profile, the de Vrieses, one of New York’s oldest families, have been plagued by scandal in the last year. It began with Eric de Vries’s wedding upset, then shocking charges of insider trading (later dropped), and the kidnapping of his wife last January, and the shooting of arms mogul John Carson inside their apartment following the Met Gala last May. Mere weeks later, Calvin Gardner was indicted on charges thought to be related to John Carson’s underground arms networks in Brooklyn.
Mrs. Gardner left the courthouse with her head held high, wearing a suffragette-white vintage Chanel skirt suit. Perhaps a gesture toward her newfound freedom? Or a sign that the Gardner divorce is about to get very ugly?
“It’s an heirloom,” she replied when asked. “It belonged to my grandmother, Celeste de Vries. She always looked very striking in it.”
And in this gossip columnist’s humble opinion, “striking” also runs in the family—at least when they are wearing Chanel.
The Brooklyn DA’s office, represented by Greg Cardozo, officially had no comment.
The Newark Star-Ledger
October 8, 2018
Four charged in multi-state human trafficking ring
Four New Jersey and Brooklyn residents indicted for a simultaneous, multi-state human trafficking ring this morning. Concurrent charges were filed in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in one of the largest interstate cooperative efforts on record between local law enforcement agencies.
New Jersey investigators arrested Ben Vamos, a Paterson landlord, as well as his girlfriend, Gloria Adami, while Brooklyn authorities arrested local gang members Kevin “K-Money” Reynolds and Devon Carter for their alleged roles in the scheme. At four different houses co-owned by Vamos and Pantheon, LLC, an anonymous shell corporation registered in Delaware, investigators found drugs, weapons, forged immigration documents, as well as seventeen women held captive in the basements. In addition to trafficking charges, Vamos has also been charged with the intent to distribute illegal narcotics and weapons trafficking.
Vamos, the leader of the alleged ring, was born in Hungary and emigrated to the United States in 1969 following the failed revolution. He owns a number of properties across New Jersey, several of which were identified as locations through which potentially hundreds of women have been funneled since the early eighties.
“We believe this effort began initially as a way for Vamos and others like him to help friends and family escape the Eastern Bloc before the Iron Curtain fell,” said New Jersey Attorney General Patrick Johnson in a press conference.
“But since the nineties, it seems to have morphed into an entry point through which women from Eastern Europe are funneled into prostitution all over New England.”
Johnson was not able to offer a specific number or any other names in conjunction with the case.
“This operation makes the Epstein case look like a walk in the park,” said one officer who chose to remain anonymous.
No other names have been released in conjunction with Pantheon, but Patrick Johnson assured reporters this was just the beginning.
“This is a sign that local government can and will get things done,” said Derek Kingston, the NYPD detective who headed up the investigation in conjunction with the Brooklyn DA’s office, the Newark DA, and investigative units from New Haven and Boston.
He did not answer questions about why federal charges were absent, though another anonymous source inside the Brooklyn DA’s office speculated that federal agencies as well as other judicial appointees may be involved as well.
The New York Times
November 8, 2018
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York resigns
In a surprise announcement, Seymour Taft has resigned as U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York. Speculation about Taft’s potential corruption was rife when he was tapped to replace Sanjay Ramamurthy after the 2016 election, but grew louder when his office declined to prosecute former munitions contractor John Carson on federal charges of arms and human trafficking. Carson was killed in May, but last month a hack of Taft’s files revealed he had been gifted several large stock holdings from Carson two months before his appointment, and that his portfolio was subsequently reinvested in a fund managed by Calvin Gardner, who is facing charges of human trafficking as a part of Carson’s operation.
Rhonda Klein, a deputy attorney in the southern district, will be the acting U.S. attorney until another is appointed by the district judges, a process that could take months.
“I have no connection to John Carson, Jude Letour, Calvin Gardner, nor any other members of the alleged trafficking ring in the Northeast that has caught the attention of the public in recent months,” she said in a statement outside the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, only two blocks from the district attorney’s building at 350 Jay Street. “Human trafficking is a massive problem in this country, and I will not rest until I am certain this office has done everything it can to cooperate with the local authorities who have valiantly pursued this case, beginning with the Brooklyn district attorney’s office tomorrow morning. This is a human rights issue, and certainly a federal one. We will not stand idly by.”
Jude Letour and Calvin Gardner were both arrested in May, while a larger trafficking ring across New England and the tristate area, headed by Ben Vamos, was broken up last month. While no official connections have been made between the two, Mr. Gardner’s childhood relationship to Vamos emerged last month and has provoked questions about whether or not Gardner and Vamos had been working together from the start.
Mr. Gardner and Mr. Letour both await trials due to start within the next few months.
The New York Times
November 15, 2018
Socialite sentenced in trafficking case
New York heiress Nina Astor de Vries was sentenced today on charges of accessory to human trafficking and fraud. Despite remaining married to financier and real estate investor Calvin Gardner, de Vries has reassumed her maiden name after filing for divorce.
The judge agreed with the DA’s request for relative clemency, awarding only forty-five days of jail time and three hundred hours of community service to Ms. de Vries. She checked into Rikers Correctional Facility earlier this morning and is expected to serve only a short time of her sentence.
“Relief,” she said sharply when asked how she felt. “And gratitude.”
Although Executive Assistant District Attorney Greg Cardozo declined to comment on the sentencing, many suspect that Ms. de Vries made a plea bargain with the DA in exchange for testimony against her husband’s involvement in a larger human trafficking operation.
Calvin Gardner’s trial was delayed again after his wife confessed to her crimes. A new date has not yet been announced.
I
Primi
Chapter One
November 2018
Nina
The doors closed on a whisper, not a bang.
Even so, I stumbled slightly as I exited the Rose M. Singer Detention Center—one of the eleven jails housed at Rikers Island—with the wobbly grace of a newborn foal on the heels I hadn’t worn in more than two weeks. Under my arm, I carried the purse I’d brought in with me, just before I’d been stripped down, searched, and forced to trade the demure Chanel shift dress and wool coat for a brown jumpsuit.
Despite having been kept in a storage locker for the mere fifteen days I’d endured of my forty-five-day sentence, all my clothes still smelled like the jail, like sweat and concrete
and mildew and bleach. Like misery and anger. Hopelessness and despair. I’d burn them all as soon as I could find replacements. But for now, I just wanted off this godforsaken island.
I held up a hand to block the sun that was unnaturally bright for so late in November. Or was it just that I hadn’t seen it in over a week? Regardless, the light was blinding, and I squinted as I looked for the stop for the shuttle to the central hub of Rikers, from where I could call a car to take me…somewhere.
“Cos.”
My head snapped up at the sound of a familiar voice. I turned to find a tall blond man dressed in an impeccably cut navy suit, standing in front of a familiar BMW sedan.
“Eric?” I asked incredulously.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I found I wasn’t just hearing things. It was my cousin—Eric de Vries, Chairman and CEO of De Vries Shipping Industries and one of the busiest men in New York—waiting patiently for my release.
The Honest Affair (Rose Gold Book 3) Page 2