Late in the afternoon, as I was trying to remember what year and what file records about Humboldt Chemical belonged to, my office buzzer rang. I stiffened and had my gun in hand when I went to the front door. I was astounded to see Abigail Trant, her honey–colored hair and softly tinted face as perfect as when I’d met her two weeks ago. Her Mercedes Gelaendewagen was double–parked on the street outside. When I invited her in, she asked if I’d talk to her in her vehicle instead. I wondered briefly if she had been dragooned into acting as a decoy but followed her to her trucklet.

“Do you know that Robbie Baladine has disappeared? If you know where he is, can you send him home?”

I blinked in surprise but assured her I hadn’t heard from him for several days. “Did Eleanor or BB send you to talk to me?”

She looked straight ahead, ignoring an angrily honking line of cars behind her. “I came on my own initiative, and I am hoping you will honor my speaking confidentially to you. We are flying to France with the Baladines on Saturday, along with the Poilevys, so Eleanor discussed Robbie’s disappearance with me in a frank way, as it is affecting their travel plans. They both feel that you have encouraged Robbie to be disobedient. I don’t know if that is the reason, but BB has been talking furiously about wanting to put you out of business or thoroughly discredit you in some way. Knowing something about his methods, I didn’t want to call you—he might well be monitoring your phone calls. I think I told you when we met that he doesn’t like to feel anyone is getting the upper hand with him: for some reason he thinks you are taunting him or undermining him in some way.”

I gave a snort of mirthless laughter. “He’s been making it almost impossible for me to run my business.”

A car shot around her from behind, giving her the finger and a loud epithet. She paid no attention.

“I had suggested to Teddy that Global try to make use of your agency, that it would be a good thing to support local talent. But he said you refused to take the assignment.”

My jaw dropped so suddenly that my ears popped. “You were behind that? Mrs. Trant—that was extremely gracious of you. The trouble is, the assignment as it came to me from Alex Fisher was to frame someone, a man named Lucian Frenada who was drowned over the weekend. I couldn’t take it on.”

She sighed. “That’s so typical of Alex. I wish Teddy didn’t rely on her advice so much—I think she often leads him astray.”