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“Call me when you pick her up,” Craig said.
He hung up and looked at first Kara, then Matt and Michael.
“There may be a witness to the shooting, but I’m hearing this secondhand. It’s someone who was meeting me today—but I don’t know why she didn’t immediately go to the police.”
“Violet?” Kara said.
He looked surprised. “Yes. How—Oh. I told you about her.”
“I’ll go with you,” Kara said.
Dyson shook his head. “I don’t know where she is.”
“Who called you?” Matt asked.
“A mutual friend. This is a sensitive situation.”
He was gathering his briefcase together as he spoke. His phone rang again and he looked agitated, answered.
“Dyson.” A moment later he said, “Now?” He listened, then responded, “I’ll be there.” He ended the call and said, “The DA has called an emergency meeting. I have to go.”
Kara looked at Matt, tilted her head. He knew what she wanted. He didn’t want to give in—he still wasn’t confident that the threat against her was over. But she was safe in the courthouse.
“We’ll meet you in the lobby,” Matt said. “Don’t leave this building without us.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” she said with a flash of a smile.
Michael followed Matt out. Kara stayed put.
Craig gathered files into his briefcase. “I have to go, Kara.”
“Talk.” She blocked his path to the door.
“I can’t share details about my investigation. I plan on presenting my case to the grand jury this Wednesday. I have ethical and legal concerns. I need Violet’s statement—it’s key to my investigation, and she has valuable information.”
“And she didn’t tell you what information she had?”
“Not specifically, but I suspect it’s the link we’ve been looking for that connects certain staff in government to nonprofits who have been benefiting from government contracts. I wasn’t lying when I said this is going to impact dozens of high-ranking elected officials and staff.”
He opened the door and started for the elevator at the end of the hall. Kara followed, saying, “This started with Chen.”
“No. It started with the building he owns and a grant he received to use it for homeless Chinese immigrants.” He paused, assessing how much to tell her. “He was paid by the city to house his laborers—it’s insidious, but on the surface, not illegal. It was illegal for him to traffic the women and illegal for him to force them to work as indentured servants, but not to be paid to house them in his building. There’s much, much more to the housing scheme—it’s about grants and funding, who approved the grants, and who profited from them.”
“And this Violet girl knows.”
He looked pained, as if he’d already said too much. “I may need you—you are one of the few people who understands the structure of Chen’s operation, and more important, I trust you. This case has shaken my faith in the system, but you’ve always been honest and I’ve never doubted your integrity.”
Craig sounded genuinely upset. She didn’t know whether to thank him for his praise, or push with more questions.
She opted to push.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that Violet witnessed the shooting?” Kara asked.
Craig pressed the button on the elevator. “I know you got rid of the feds because you think I’ll talk to you alone, but I can’t. I’m sorry, Kara. This is such a sensitive situation right now, and I need to talk to Violet, possibly get her under protection.”
That comment surprised her. Craig thought the girl was in danger.
“I can talk to her, assess the threat level,” Kara suggested.
