impart such news, then said, “She was murdered.”
Alec Harden’s face paled. His mouth parted, but no words came, and Zach let him be, allowed the words to sink in as he dropped into his morocco leather chair, closing his eyes. Outside, wooden mallets clicked on wooden balls, and one of the Fellows shouted that another had cheated on his shot. Finally, through eyes blurred with tears, Alec asked, “How? Why?”
“We don’t have all the answers yet, sir, but we’re working on them.”
“Why so long?”
“We only just identified her. A forensic artist had to be brought in.”
“A forensic artist? For what? What does that mean?”
“Whoever killed her didn’t want her identified.”
The ambassador stared in mute silence. And then he rose, walked over to a side table, and poured himself a glass of what looked like whiskey from a crystal decanter. He drank it down in one shot, then poured another. When he finished that one, he faced Zach, saying, “That’s why you asked for my DNA—why there was an issue when you found out she was adopted? It wasn’t just a precaution—you knew?”
“We suspected. We had no way of knowing for sure.”
“How many weeks has it been? You should have informed me then.”
“And what if it wasn’t her? Torture you while we waited to learn the truth?”
“My daughter has been missing for that long. That was torture enough, the not knowing.”
And Zach could say nothing. He had no children of his own. He could never imagine what it would be like to report a son or daughter missing, never mind learn that they had been murdered. But the request for the ambassador’s DNA had been a precaution, because it was possible they were wrong. And that was when they’d learned that the ambassador and his late wife had adopted Alessandra from Romania when she was an infant. There were no clear records, no chance of a family member’s DNA to be found, so that avenue of identification had been fruitless. Because she had traveled so much with her family, finding any dental records that could be used had been harder than Zach had thought possible. “At this point, our only identification is from the forensic artist’s sketch.”
“I’d like to see it.”
Zach removed it from his briefcase, handed it over.
Alec stared at it, blinking back tears. “That’s her.”
“It would help if we had some of her DNA. For a positive match.”
“It’s her.”
A moment of acquiescence, allowing that he was grieving, and not likely to be thinking in terms of investigations and conclusions. “Of course, sir. But we intend to prosecute once we find who did this, and for that…”
Alec eyed the drawing, then handed it back. “I—I’d forgotten, but she stopped by here during her break a few weeks ago, off touring Rome, or rather visiting the columbaria of Imperial Rome with her friend Francesca, from the academy across the street.” He took a deep breath, glanced out the window at the croquet game, which was winding down.
“Maybe there’s something in her room, something she left behind…”
Alec shook himself, said, “Yes, I’ll take you up.”
“Perhaps one of your staff can show me, if you’d like to have a moment to yourself, sir.”
Alec nodded, and Zach opened the door, saw the same woman who had escorted him up, waiting a discreet distance away. He hesitated at the door, turned, saw the ambassador staring out the window. Zach hated to disturb his thoughts, but figured now was better than later. “Was there anything she discussed with you over the phone the last few weeks? Anything unusual? Maybe something she sent home?”
“I was so busy. We didn’t speak but once or twice a week, and it was she, asking about my health…”
When nothing more was forthcoming, Zach let himself out and started down the hallway, the closed door and his footsteps doing little to muffle the strangled sobs of a grieving father.
Leonardo Adami had come to the decision that watching the ambassador’s residence was a waste of time. He was tired of the waiting, even more tired with sharing a car with Alonzo, and was half tempted to switch places with Benito, who watched the ambassador’s residence through his binoculars from the rooftop of one of the nearby houses. In fact, he’d picked up his phone to make the call when Benito announced that Griffin had arrived at the ambassador’s. That was not something they’d anticipated when they’d started watching the place. The three of them had been there all afternoon, as they had been