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Her tear-filled eyes met mine. “It’s her.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“Mrs. Strousberg is A.” She turned her head away from me and vomited again.
My mind reeled. Mrs. Strousberg, the woman who’d funded Schön’s education and was like a mentor to her, and the woman who ran one of the world’s largest human trafficking rings were one and the same? I couldn’t fathom it. Or could I?
Mrs. Strousberg had provided scholarships for orphaned girls. I remembered Schön saying the woman was an orphan herself. That could be a lie, of course, as most details are when a person is living under an assumed identity.
My hand remained on Schön’s back, and when she stood, I did too.
Her eyes met mine. “I don’t know what to do.”
She was looking to me for an answer, and I didn’t have one. Did she want to leave either the compound or St. Moritz in order to have time to process the realization? Did she want to return inside and tell the team she knew A personally? Under the assumed identity, of course. Or somewhere in between the two?
“I will support whatever decision you make. If you want to leave, I’ll go with you?—”
“Leave?My God, do you think I would try to hide this?”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “I did not say or suggest you would hide anything. What I would’ve said had I finished my sentence was that maybe you need time on your own—not entirely so since I’ll be with you—to think through the ramifications of this discovery.”
She shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. We have to do everything in our power to find her.”
“I agree, but, Schön, realizing Mrs. Strousberg was A made you physically ill. You may be in shock. I, for one, can imagine how it would feel to learn someone close to me was a criminal on par with the worst in the world.”
She stepped back and folded her arms. “It makes sense, though, doesn’t it? She had a pipeline to orphaned girls. Magnet, she asked me to work for her! Was that a euphemism for becoming a sex slave that she intended to auction off to the highest bidder?”
“Possibly.”
“Or did she think I’d help recruit other innocent and unsuspecting women?”
“Also a possibility.”
Schön’s eyes filled with tears. “All that time, I thought she cared about me.” She brushed away her tears. “Do you think she had a hand in Schmid grooming me to be a honey trap?”
Everything she said was, again, a possibility.
Schön dropped her arms, and her hands fisted at her sides. “I’m going to take this fucking bitch down if it’s the last thing I do.”
“You will not be alone.” I pulled her into my arms, and while at first, she stiffened, after a few seconds, she rested her cheek on my chest. I held her for as long as she let me, then held her hand as we made our way inside. There were a few puzzled expressions, but knowing Schön like I did, I was certain she would not interrupt the briefing to drop her bombshell.
“This appears to have been taken the day we saw Godwin at the restaurant,” said Verity, who looked over at us.
Schön nodded.
Verity continued. “While completely unidentifiable, we can get clues from this image. The woman looks to be approximately the same height as the one in the photo with Rávdos and Godwin.”
“Much shorter than the bodyguard in the photos you showed us earlier,” Rogue commented.
“True, but with any kind of disguise, it is far easier to add than take away.” The previous image of the woman disguised as a man appeared on the screen. “As you can see, the body seems disproportionate, which is what made Schön and I take notice initially. The hips are wider. Not significantly so, but even from the angle of these photos, you can see how long her legs appear to be in relation to her torso.”
Another came on the screen next to the bodyguard’s shot. It was of the woman Schön had noticed in the town square last summer.
“While we have no idea what the woman from the photo taken at least sixteen years ago might look like now, we can tell from the photo of her in the suit that she’s relatively slim.” Verity zoomed in on one of the images of the person masquerading as Charlene Vella-Borg taken last summer. “My guess is, to disguise herself as her sister, she’s using a combination of a mask, heavy makeup, a wig, and a suit that makes her appear at least three stone heavier.” The still from Rile DeLéon’s CCTV footage appeared next to the other. “My expert opinion is that Charlene Vella-Borg never left Mallorca and that her older sister is setting the stage for her to be framed for any number of crimes.”
“May I interrupt?” Nemesis asked.
“Of course,” Verity responded.
