Page 96 of The Session

“Go on,” he prodded.

This was to put the other person on the back foot.

Diane flipped through the pages of the book, then deadpanned, “Sorry, I haven’t got to the chapter about staring competitions yet. I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“You said you were investigating a murder. Is this, like, a podcast thing?” he asked.

He wanted to blurt out Kevin’s name but had made it far enough into Lightman’s communication strategies to know that was a dumb idea.

“Something like that. I know you’re new to the organization, but did you ever hear the name David McCready come up?”

“No.”

“He worked at Summit out of the Miami office. In It or security—I don’t know what the internal name for it was. But he died under circumstances that were suspicious.”

“Suspicious how?” Mark asked.

“Drug overdose. A tiny little pill. Apparently, it was too much for him, which shouldn’t be a surprise—David had no history of drugs.”

“So you’re a private detective?” he asked.

“Something like that,” she deflected again. “I’ve been trying to find out what happened, but your colleagues aren’t exactly the most forthcoming.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but I don’t think that has anything to do with me,” Mark said.

“I’m sure it doesn’t, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Although I thought you might be curious because . . .”

“Because what?”

Diane pulled up her phone and turned it toward Mark. On-screen was a photo of the flyer that had been found in Haiti with the reward for his whereabouts. “It seems like somebody doesn’t like you.”

“It seems like somebody found out that I would make an easy ransom.”

Diane laughed. “Is that what you think, or what they told you?”

“What do you think?”

“Everybody knows where that compound is, Mark. You weren’t hard to find. Hell, I knew you were there. This is what someone does if you want to make it look like you’re a kidnapping target. But what they actually want to do is make it look like you were the innocent victim of gunfire in a botched attempt to kidnap you,” Diane said.

“You mean kill me under cover of this?” He indicated the bounty poster.

“What did Max Lightman say? If somebody thinks one step ahead, you have to think two steps ahead, and then maybe you know what they’re thinking. Did you try calling the number?” she asked.

She opened up an app on her phone and played an audio clip for Mark. It began with the sound of static, followed by a man saying “Alò?” in a French accent.

“That’s it. Nothing else. No instructions on how to collect the money. Just a recording of what I’m pretty sure is an impersonation of a Haitian accent, by the way. What’s also interesting is that the phone number traces to a disposable phone bought at a grocery store near the port. It was purchased three days ago.” She looked at him and waited.

“What’s your point?”

“Nobody was listening to those messages, Mark. Somebody set that number up, I assume, around the time you found out where you were headed. Which means they just wanted it to look like it was something the locals were doing. But whoever made that flyer was using it as a smoke screen.”

“A smoke screen to kill me,” Mark said.

“A smoke screen to throw off suspicion,” Diane corrected. “The question is, away from whom? Who wants to kill you, Mark?”

“I couldn’t tell you. That makes as much sense as somebody wanting to kidnap me. I’m a nobody.”

“A nobody?” Diane asked, tapping Max Lightman’s name on the textbook. “Do you think anybody hasn’t figured it out?”