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The man in the photo was at least sixty with silver hair, a long nose, and angularfeatures.
“That’s who the limo belongs to?” Nickasked.
They were standing around the conference table, all of them too amped tosit.
“Not outright, but that’s where it leads. The car is currently requisitioned to his driver, and Porter has been spotted entering and exiting it on several occasions since I spotted it outside of Moran’soffice.”
“What the fuck…?” Declansaid.
Julia wondered if he was rubbing his temples because of the strange and unexpected break in Elise’s case or because of the brunette Julia had spotted leaving the house carrying her shoes that morning just aftersunrise.
“He’s not on the roster of Whitmore Club members,” Nicksaid.
Ronan nodded. “Correct.”
“Then how do we know this ties into Elise’s disappearance?” Nickasked.
Julia was gratified to hear him use Elise’s name. It sounded personal, like she was real to Nick. Like he cared abouther.
Ronan sighed. “We don’t. Not technically. But there are some… oddities associated with Porter as they relate to some of the Whitmore boardmembers.”
“What kind of oddities?” Juliaasked.
Ronan shrugged. “A few dinner meetings, some overlapping acquaintances, things that wouldn’t necessarily be unusual — except for onething.”
“Do you want us to guess?” Nicksaid.
Ronan turned to the board and taped another piece of paper to it under Davis Porter’spicture.
Julia looked at the picture, an aerial shot of a massive stone building surrounded by trees, and in the distance, some kind of dome. “What isit?”
“It’s a private residence in Firenze, Italy, just outside Florence.” Ronan picked up the red marker and started drawing lines from some of the Whitmore members to the picture of the villa. She recognized the names, ticking them off as he drew the lines, starting with Davis Porter. “All of these men flew into Florence on March 21st. They all left the nextday.”
“But Porter isn’t a member of the Whitmore Club,” Julia said, trying to figure out what Ronan was gettingat.
“No, but when Moran got into his car I thought about Dubai, and about the page on Manifest’s website that seemed to be advertising meeting locations. I had Clay pull everything they could find on Porter, including his travel over the past six months. Then I cross-referenced it against the travel of the Whitmore board members to see if a number of them had been at the same place at the sametime.”
“And you came up with Florence,” Nicksaid.
“I came up withFlorence.”
“Who owns the villa?” Declanasked.
Julia wasn’t surprised to see that his eyes were suddenly sharp. When she’d first met him, she’d assumed he was the family fuck-up. Almost every big family hadone.
But Declan had proven her wrong. He could make connections hungover and sleep-deprived that eluded her at her best. It was a mistake to underestimatehim.
“That’s the other thing.” Ronan said. “Ownership of the villa looks a lot like ownership of the Manifestwebsite.”
Nick looked at Ronan. “Impossible totrace?”
Ronan nodded. “Shell companies, empty IDs, you nameit.”
Nick walked to the wall, his gaze traveling over the photographs and the intersecting lines. “Anyone think of any reason why all these guys — all these rich, powerful guys — would converge on Florence at the same time? Some kind of financial or political conference?Anything?”
“I had Clay run it,” Ronan said. “It was midweek, and the only big conference in town was fashion-related.” He hesitated. “But once I made the connection, I had Clay run travel records for Davis and the Whitmore members going back two years, just to see if there had ever been another time when they all went to the same city at the sametime.”
“And?” Julia felt like she was going to jump out of herskin.
