He said, “I know a little restaurant right on the Inner Harbor where I’d like to take you for dinner.”

Rachael nodded.

Jack couldn’t wait to get away from this cold, driven woman. It was very likely she wouldn’t talk to them. Had she held the family’s reputation so dear, had she believed her brother’s confession to the world would not only destroy her brother but cause irreparable damage to the family and to the Abbott holdings so much that she murdered her own brother? He couldn’t imagine it himself, it was too over the top.

They heard Laurel Kostas hang up the phone, and turned.

By the look on her face, she hadn’t gotten what she wanted. Jack was tempted to applaud, but he didn’t. He watched her face smooth out, and he knew to his gut that when this woman managed that slick-as-glass expression, she was in full control again.

She radiated power and malice.

“I spoke to my lawyer. He said he would call your superiors, who would deal with you, Agent Crowne. You will leave now. I will not speak to you.”

Rachael said, “But Mrs. Kostas, don’t you want to know if your brother’s death really was an accident? Don’t you care that someone might have murdered him and gotten away with it? Didn’t you love your brother?”

Jack saw feral rage on her face. She leaned forward, her palms splayed on the long expanse of smooth blond birch. “My brother’s drinking was unfortunate. Quincy and I told him many times to stop—at least not to drive when he drank too much—but he never listened to us, or to anyone. Quincy and I have wondered why he would drink to such an extent when his supposed precious daughter had magically returned to him. Both of us have wondered if he didn’t change his mind about you, if he was about to demand DNA tests, but didn’t have the chance—he died. Greg Nichols agrees it is strange, all of it, your appearance, my brother’s death.

“You should be thanking me that we didn’t push the police to investigate you, particularly since you are the only one to gain by his death. Why have you involved the FBI? You think they wouldn’t consider you a prime suspect?”

TWENTY-FIVE

She was good, Jack thought, very good, a deft manipulator. She’d managed to turn it all around, and what she said made sense. It was obvious to Jack that Rachael had never considered this. She looked poleaxed.

Jack said, “Ms. Kostas, I understand your father was quite the autocrat, that Rachael’s mother was so afraid of him she didn’t tell Rachael who her real father was until after Carter Blaine Abbott died.”

“That is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. My father was a great man, a brilliant man, a man with extraordinary vision. Look around you—he founded Abbott Enterprises fifty years ago with a small strip mall, and look what it is today: a power not only in the U.S. but in the world. Abbott is both respected and admired, and that is because of my father’s legacy.

“To his family he was kindness itself. But I will tell you this—he couldn’t abide fools or liars; he protected his children, took care of them. When he saw your mother, young as she was, he knew what she was, and so he saved his son from her.

“Did you show up on my brother’s doorstep because that scheming mother of yours needed money and you were the one who was to get it for her?”

Rachael wanted to kill her on the spot, to put her hands around her neck and . . . but she said, her voice calm, even pleasant, “That was very well done, Mrs. Kostas. You put me on the defensive, a skill Jimmy said you have in spades. I would not like to own a company you wanted to acquire.

“But finding out about my father’s death isn’t about your spite, isn’t about your dislike for me. It’s about getting justice for a very fine man.”

Laurel slammed her fist on the desktop. “I know the truth, and it’s quite horrible and needless enough, without implying anyone else was involved. If you didn’t kill him, then the senator was drunk and he lost control of his car.”

“Surely you knew your brother didn’t have a single drink since he killed that little girl, Melissa Parks, in Delancey Park eighteen months ago, nor did he drive a car after that evening.

“You had meals with him, saw him in social settings. Surely you noticed he no longer drank, never drove? This is the truth. I know it to be the truth. Actually, he always drank club soda. Therefore, he couldn’t have been drunk, nor could he have been driving. Someone else was.”

“I will not speak further about this.”

“I know Jimmy told you and your husband, and Quincy, about what happened eighteen months ago. Moreover, he told you he couldn’t stand living with the guilt anymore and that he was going public with all of it. He said you and Quincy were both furious when he told you what he planned to do, that even though he would be the one ruined by his confession, you and Quincy didn’t agree. You felt it would blacken the family name, call into question the family honor, make business partners question the Abbott honesty. He said you and Quincy were enraged. He was disappointed because he wanted you both to understand, to support his decision to go public.”

Laurel drew herself up to her full five-nine height. She looked faintly bored. “Whatever aberrations my poor brother suffered from at the end of his life, they are no longer of any concern to anyone. I loved my brother very much. I admired him, but he wasn’t a strong man.”

“Not strong? I didn’t know him very long, ma’am, but I’d say he was one of the strongest people I ever met.”

“I want you to go now. I have nothing more to say to either of you.”

Rachael said, “There is something else, Mrs. Kostas. Did you and your brother, perhaps that lecherous husband of yours, drug me and tie my feet to a block of concrete and throw me in Black Rock Lake because you knew I was going to tell the world what my father had done?”

“You leave my husband out of this, you little bitch! You claim someone tried to kill you? Threw you into a lake?” She laughed, tossed her hands. “How very melodramatic you are. Who would possibly believe someone like you? You are nothing more than a temporary annoyance. Get out.”

Rachael said as she turned, “Actually, I’m far more than a temporary annoyance, Mrs. Kostas. I own Jimmy’s house. I have a third of his money, a third of his stock. I hope you contest the will. I hope you demand DNA testing. Yes, let’s do it, as publicly as you like. It will give me a chance to announce to the world what vipers you and your brother are.”