and we’re under a tight deadline.”
“Good. The fucker has just been holing up in his office all summer. He’s not doing shit right now—someone has been doing it for him.”
“I got the extension on discovery, but we’re not getting more than another two months, no matter how much the judge hates Gardner’s lawyers. I think she’ll give us the warrant if we ask.”
“Okay, but if she doesn’t?”
I shrugged. “Keep following him, but we should focus more on known associates. Anyone who might be in his social circle, you know?”
There was a long pause.
“Derek, what?”
“Zola, we need another way to figure this out.”
“No,” I cut in. “No Feds. You know what’s going to happen. They’ll drown the whole damn case.”
“I don’t mean that, asshole. I’m talking about…look, Cliff and I can follow Gardner all you want around the city, but we gotta be real. On the Upper East Side? We stick the fuck out.”
He didn’t have to say what he meant by that. The Upper East Side was the whitest part of New York. And my detectives were definitely not.
Shit. I shouldn’t. This was not a good idea.
And yet somehow it was.
“Well, I did just get an invite to a party in the Hamptons. Hosted by Eric de Vries. His wife asked me to be her plus-one because she said the party was going to be full of business types.”
“Shit. You gotta go. All those assholes love jerking each other off.”
“Yeah, but I figured Gardner might be there.”
Liar. I wasn’t going because I knew she might be there.
“Hmmm,” Derek said. “Look, if we had a bigger investigative team, I’d say stay away. But, it’s not against the law for you to attend a party.”
I ground my teeth. “Yeah, but—”
“Besides, I thought you said the family hated him ever since Eric got pinched.”
I searched for another way, any way that we could possibly get this kind of information. But surveillance was hard enough when we could count the people we trusted on more than one hand. And it wasn’t going to get easier than this to poke around. See who knew what.
Derek knew it too.
“Zola, I’ll be straight with you. If there is any way you can nose around that party and find out who this chick is, it could potentially save this investigation a shit load of time,” he said. “Find out if Gardner’s going to be there or not. I think you need to get your ass on the Jitney, man.”
I sighed. All sense of victory had suddenly morphed into fear, plain and simple. Not because I was worried about Calvin Gardner. Because I was worried about her. And the fact that when she was around, I couldn’t seem to control anything I did.
But just as quickly, another landslide of questions rattled through me.
How much did Nina know about her husband’s past identity?
Was she aware of Pantheon’s existence?
Did she know the name Katarina Csaszar?
Maybe she had been trying to tell me these things the entire time. And I, of course, had blocked her out as a potential source completely, as much to protect my own hide as to protect hers. I had said it myself: the only way for her to evade spousal privilege was to name herself as an accomplice in the crimes.
I hadn’t ever once considered that maybe she actually was one.
I shook my head toward the apse to my right, where several rows of candles stood flickering in red votives, symbols of the prayers offered by parishioners for their loved ones. Gestures of faith, grace, and hope.
No. I knew this woman. Knew her on a soul level. I had seen her with her daughter, watched her break bread with my family, worshipped her as she fell apart in my arms. There was no way Nina would ever be a part of a sick racket like this.
But then again, there was only one way to find out for sure.
“All right, man,” I said heavily. “I’ll do it.”
We hung up. The line shuffled forward.
“Fuck,” I muttered with each footstep. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Language!” The gargoyle reared back from her place in line, which was now next for the priest.
My head snapped up. I hadn’t been in the mood for this before, and now I really didn’t give a shit about protecting these parishioners’ pretend-virgin ears. “Ma’am, with all due respect, go fuck yourself.”
“Excuse me?” she hissed. “What did you just say to me?”
“We’re both in line for the priest,” I cut back, ignoring the astonished looks behind me. “I’m pretty