“That works for me,” she said. “So then tell me, do you feel you righted things with Molinari and her partner?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m out of the woods with her. She’d been in touch with the FBI and the cops in New York. And I assume she talked to you?”
“Yes. I gave her a statement and she seemed satisfied with it, though she was far from pleased that I’d been in contact with you and had never updated her.”
Kelman dropped his sweater on an armchair and they’d settled on stools in front of the island.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” she asked. “I actually have a decent Bordeaux I’ve been saving.”
“I’d love that.” She brought out the bottle and two glasses, and as Kelman uncorked the wine, she set up a plate of olives and Parmesan cheese, items that had been in her fridge since before she moved in with Baby.
“I think this cheese is okay,” she said, smiling. “It said ‘aged thirty-seven months’ or something like that on the label, and I’ve added only an extra month to that.”
“I’m famished so I’ll take my chances,” he said, grinning back. She realized how little she’d seen him smile since Florida.
“This may be getting too close to the area that’s off-limits, but did Holt’s name ever surface when you first learned about the insider trading?” Kit asked.
“Never. But it had been a fluke for me to intercept the call from that one doctor, and the chances of me stumbling on another player were slim. There was nothing about Holt in the records I logged into. And any payments to Holt would have been made in cash.”
“Do you think Healy was in cahoots with Kennelly and Lister or was he working all by his lonesome?”
“The three of them must have been working together, because it’s hard to imagine two sets of them concocting basically the same scheme. And I still think Wainwright knew about it all. I’ll bet they came up with the plan with Wainwright’s approval or even at his instigation.
“But if they’d already seduced one doctor, why go to the trouble of paying a second for the same info?”
“They probably divided up the work and each went after various members of the advisory board, hoping to corrupt just one of them. And then, lo and behold, they landed two fish.”
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand. Holt’s an orthopedic surgeon. How did he end up on an advisory board for a cancer drug?”
“I know next to nothing about medicine, but I did a little investigating online and the drug that was tested is meant to treat blood cell disorders beyond leukemia. It’s apparently also being tested on lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. I saw that one of his areas of expertise were problems caused by arthritis so he would have been a legitimate candidate for the advisory board.”
“It seems so insane for him to have put his career in jeopardy.”
“His need for money clearly overrode any fear of the risk he was taking. I’m sure Healy paid him well for his information.”
“But how could Holt presume that killing Healy and stealing the flash drive from me would solve his problems? Wouldn’t he have realized that there were other ways for him to be implicated?”
“Maybe not. I suspect he believed Healy was working solo and had no idea there were other players in the mix. So Holt told himself that once he eliminated Healy and made sure the flash drive didn’t come to light, he’d be safe. I was still in the picture, of course, but without the flash drive, I obviously didn’t seem like a threat to him.”
“Is there any chance the person who broke into your place in Miami could have been Holt?”
“No way. I didn’t manage a good look at the guy, but I could tell he was on the young side—and definitely not an amateur.”
“Then you still think it was Ithaka?”
“Yes. They probably sent someone as soon as Matt tipped them off to where I was staying. He must have told them I had the flash drive, but they surely wondered what else I had that could prove damaging to them. Remember how you thought someone had been in your apartment a week before the big break-in? I bet Ithaka was behind that, as well. It was done by a pro who made only one tiny mistake with your pillows.”
“That makes sense. Holt talked about hacking his way into my place,