“We know that, Mr. Goodwin. We aren’t here to talk to you. We’re here to talk to her,” Nikki said, pointing to Pam Warren, who had gone as white as the blouse she was wearing.

“Pam! What does Pam have to do with anything?” He addressed his next comment to his secretary-receptionist, who looked like she was going to black out at any moment. “Pam, do you know anything?”

“I think what you should have asked her, Mr. Goodwin, is what did she tell Mr. Moss this morning about our visit here and whatever else she knows? Then I think you should ask her how much money he paid her. Then you should inform her we ran her bank account, and guess what we found?” The last comment was a lie, of course, but neither Goodwin nor Pam needed to know that.

“Pam! Is this true? Did you sell me out? Why would you do such a thing? Tell these ladies it isn’t true? Oh, God, it is true. I can see it on your face. Why? Tell me why you would do such a thing?”

Pam Warren started to sniffle, then outright bawl her eyes out. She reached into her desk for a wad of tissues.

“I’ll tell you why, Mr. Goodwin. Lincoln Moss intimidated her for one thing. Then he flashed a wad of cash, and what woman can’t use a wad of cash. She probably viewed Jane Petrie as someone doing something she wasn’t supposed to be doing, which, of course, is true, so she figured why not. It’s that simple.”

“Dear God! What did you tell that monster, Pam?”

“All right, all right! I gave him Jane Petrie’s address in France. And her cell-phone number. He paid me a hundred thousand dollars. He only wanted to give me ten thousand. I laughed at him. I wanted more than the sixty-six thousand dollars you paid Jane Petrie. You would have paid her another sixty-six thousand if she’d supplied that after picture. You know it, Joel. He said . . . he said . . . I could have an accident. And that no one would ever know it wasn’t really an accident. Everyone in this town knows how powerful Lincoln Moss is.

“Then he said he would call me at home and asked if he had the correct telephone number. I have an unlisted telephone number, and yet he somehow had it. He wanted to know who was in the conference room with you this morning. I couldn’t give him names, so I just said the FBI. Then he left.”

“You’re fired, Pam. Clear out your desk. You just put Jane Petrie’s life in danger. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“Well, if I did, it’s your fault, Joel. You deal with people who break the law. What she was doing was illegal. So I took his money? So what? Do you think I wanted to end up in some ditch alongside the road or worse yet, mugged and raped?”