“If Reese is developing the Selzucaine, that would explain his connection to Blake.” I was processing everything in reference to what Mannie had told me yesterday. “But why would he attend the funeral?”

“I’m still working on that.”

“Maybe our senator here has his hands in the drug-smuggling business?” Greer suggested.

“It’s possible,” she acknowledged. “I expected that either Blake or Mannie would be keeping an eye on things—I just didn’t know that Mannie would show up there on Amber Road. And then there was that accident. I just thank God the driver is recovering.” She sighed heavily. “I witnessed Blake kill a man. Aaron Jasper. Blake shot him in the head because he was stealing from him and because he’d contacted someone called the Matchmaker.”

“The Matchmaker?” I said. “Who’s that?”

“Don’t know. We don’t have any files on anyone using that name, and looking online hasn’t helped any—there are just too many search results for the word ‘matchmaker.’ Believe me. I’ve got nothing, and I’ve been at it for two hours already this morning.”

“And Blake killed Jasper for contacting him?”

“And for not being faithful. He did it before I could stop him. I’m sure Jasper was no Boy Scout, but Blake played judge, jury, and executioner. No matter how corrupt the guy was, he deserved better than that.”

“Why didn’t you arrest Blake at that point?” Greer asked.

“The opportunity didn’t present itself,” she said somewhat evasively.

“Do you have any idea where Blake is right now?”

“He has a condo he uses, but he moves around a lot. Besides, it’s not just about locating him, it’s about getting access to his contacts, to his accounts. We bring him in now, we shut down his business for a couple of days or maybe a week or two. And then the people he works with just regroup and go at it again, as strong as ever. He’s being financed from somewhere. That’s who we want. Whoever’s at the top of the food chain.”

From our research, we knew that after Blake took on the persona of an infamous terrorist named Fayed Raabi’ah Bashir, founder of The Brigade of the Prophet’s Sword, he started to receive funding from terrorist organizations. At times, it seemed like he was playing one side against the other, getting money from the jihadists and also benefiting from arms sales to private security firms contracted by the military to fight extremism.

But some of his money also appeared to flow in from the tech sector. Murky ties. Offshore accounts. Nothing solid.