PART 11:

The kind, Ava said, that show exactly who built what, and exactly whose name they put on it when they needed somewhere for it to disappear. She hung up. The kitchen was very quiet for a moment. Outside the window, the river had gone from gray to a dull silver as the morning light increased, and a single tug was moving north against the current.

Slow and deliberate engine working hard for every yard. Lucian was looking at her with that expression she still didn’t have a name for. “I need a lawyer,” she said. “Not your lawyer, mine.” “I know someone not yours,” she said again. someone with no connection to you. Someone the federal investigators won’t look at sideways because of who retained them.

She picked up the tablet and started memorizing the account numbers. And I need copies of everything on here, encrypted somewhere my father’s lawyers can’t touch before I hand them to Delaney. Lucien moved. She’d seen him move with purpose before. That night in the subway station, the controlled efficiency of it.

But this was different. This was the movement of someone who’d been waiting for a specific word, a specific signal, and had just received it. He crossed to the kitchen counter and picked up his own phone and made two calls in rapid succession, both brief, both in a register so low she caught only fragments.

The second call lasted 11 seconds. He set the phone down. There’s a woman named Patricia Cho. He said, “She’s an attorney. Criminal defense and financial crimes, 15 years. She’s never lost a case that involved federal document subpoenas. She is not connected to me professionally. She’s connected to me because I helped her brother get out of a bad situation four years ago.

And she said if I ever needed something in return, it would have to be legal. And I said, “Fine.” He looked at her. She can be here in 40 minutes. Ava thought about it for approximately 3 seconds. Call her, she said. Patricia Cho arrived in 37 minutes, which told Ava something about the woman before she’d said a word.

She was 50, small, with closecropped gray hair and the kind of face that gave nothing away as a matter of professional discipline. She wore a charcoal blazer over a dark shirt and carried a leather bag that looked like it had seen serious use over a long time. She looked at Ava’s bruised face without comment, looked at Lucian with an expression that communicated a great deal in a short time, and sat down at the kitchen table and opened the bag.

“Start from the beginning,” she said. “Everything. Don’t edit for my benefit.” Ava started from the beginning. It took 40 minutes. Patricia Cho took notes by hand in a small, precise script and interrupted only twice. once to clarify a date, once to ask about the specific bank that had held the account when Ava was 19.

At the end, she put down her pen and looked at the tablet for a long moment. The subpoena, she said, “When Agent Delaney called, he said material witness, not subject.” “Yes, that’s honest or it’s strategic.” Patricia said either they genuinely believe you were used without knowledge or they’re keeping the door open to flip that designation depending on how cooperative you are.

She tapped her pen against the notepad. The documents on this tablet. How were they obtained? A beat. Ava looked at Lucian. Patricia held up one hand. I’m going to ask you to not answer that question in front of me, she said to Lucienne. and I’m going to proceed on the assumption that what’s on this tablet is factually accurate and that questions about providence are something we manage separately. She looked at Ava.

The federal case doesn’t need your documents to proceed. They have their own records. What your documents do is give you negotiating position. You walk in with corroborating evidence that demonstrates your cooperation and your knowledge and the material witness designation stays a material witness designation.

She paused. You do not call your father before this meeting. You do not call your sister. You do not respond to any communication from anyone in the Moretti family through any attorney they employ. My father is going to know within the hour that I called Delaney back. Ava said. Yes. Patricia said he will. What does he do when he knows? Patricia looked at her steadily.

He accelerates whatever he’s been building to use against you. The article from this morning is the first layer. There will be more. She closed her notepad. Which is why we’re meeting with Delaney today, this morning. Before your father’s lawyers have time to fully deploy, she looked at Lucian. She can’t go to this meeting from your building.

Whatever happens after today, her her being here cannot be the story. She needs to be somewhere clean. Lucian’s jaw moved. There’s an apartment on somewhere I can corroborate, Patricia said. somewhere with a front desk and a camera and a record of her arriving by herself. A pause. Mara, Ava said. My employee, she has an apartment in Park Slope.

She’s been trying to reach me since last night. She looked at Patricia. If I go there, clean up and we go to the meeting from there. That works, Patricia said. She was already standing, already repacking her bag. I’ll set up the meeting for 11:00. That gives you 2 hours. Ava stood. She looked at Lucian. He was standing by the window with the morning light behind him.

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