‘Some Angolans.’
‘So he’s screwing the Mob?’
‘I know, not very smart.’
‘And why are you here?’ I asked.
‘We’ve been investigating him for a while now, mainly for defrauding his company and using it as a front for laundering money. We didn’t know who he was laundering for at first, but we intercepted some interesting communications and they hinted at some kind of a deal that he’d set up here.’
‘Who’s we?’ I asked.
‘Oh, did I forget to mention that I’m no longer with the police force? I’m in theNFIDnow.’
‘National Financial Intelligence Division?’ I couldn’t hide the shock in my voice, or the anger. ‘For how long?’
‘About five and a half years.’
‘Wait . . . so that means you didn’t even . . .’ Rage bubbled up inside me, and I tried to swallow it down. ‘So after everything you did to me, you didn’t even bother staying on and becoming a criminal detective?’ My voice shook with anger and Cam quickly averted his gaze.
‘You fucker!’ I hissed at him, trying to move my face in front of his so I could look him directly in the eye. ‘So, after all that, you’re not catching killers like you dreamed of – we dreamed of – you’re working fraud and economic crime?’
‘We do a lot more than that, and you know it,’ he said defensively.
Fuelled by a very sudden and intense burst of adrenaline, I tried to wrench myself free. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Not now, not ever. But I pulled so hard that the momentum sent me flying, and before I could catch myself, I was falling face-first towards the ground.
CHAPTER 20
Six years ago
8.20 a.m.
Hour 6
I stared at Cam. His face said it all: he didn’t want me looking at the piece of paper, and yet I had to. And we both knew it. The only way I wasn’t going to see what was on it was if he physically wrestled it away from me. I looked down, a growing sense of dread strangling me from the inside, and then began unfolding it. Slowly. Each movement feeling heavier and heavier than the last one, until the weight of what I was doing became almost too much to carry.
‘Lizzy, please. It’s going to look bad, but I swear it’s not what . . .’
‘What is it?’ My voice sounded unsteady.
He shook his head. ‘Don’t. Just don’t.’ He was pleading and not even trying to hide it.
‘What is it?’ I asked again, praying he would just tell me. Because if he told me, I wouldn’t have to see it with my own eyes. That would be better, wouldn’t it? If he told me, if he confessed right now, maybe I wouldn’t have to face what this actually was. And I knew it was bad.
But the words never came.
I unfolded the paper completely, and then lifted it to my face with shaky hands. It took me a few moments to understand exactly what I was seeing, but when I did, it felt like my entire world shattered around me.
‘You . . . you . . .’ My throat closed. I held up the map, but the words wouldn’t come.
‘I didn’t use it, I swear. I was going to, but I—’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I snapped.
Because there it was.
A perfectly detailed and totally unforgivable copy of the police training maze we’d just gone through yesterday. The maze where he’d won. And I had lost.
‘Fuck . . . You knew where everything was going to be,’ I whispered, tracing my finger over the paper. ‘How it was laid out, what we were going to encounter . . . You knew everything.’
