Mauro recoiled as though he had just been made to touch or taste something disgusting.

“I’m not talking about that. It was a mistake, okay? That’s not who I am.”

Odessa said, “You said you have a child yourself.”

Mauro nodded fast. “It’s the wrong thing to do, I know that. Right from wrong—I know.”

Blackwood stepped toward him. “But this was deeper than that.”

Mauro did not deny it. He looked at Blackwood with dread, preferring to direct his words to Odessa. “I’m sorry about that, and I did my time…and why you gotta hassle me about this at my job, yo?”

Odessa read in his reaction that this went beyond fear of the FBI. He was genuinely scared even to be speaking about this.

“We need to know why you did it,” she said. “Who you did it for. This conversation stays here.” She indicated the basement room.

Mauro shook his head, offering his wrists instead, as though for handcuffs. “Take me in, FBI. Let’s go. Arrest me.”

“You’d rather go back to jail than tell us about it?”

“Take me in!” he said, very agitated.

Odessa turned to Blackwood. She couldn’t take Mauro in, obviously. The point was to get him to talk anyway. But they had touched a deep nerve in him. It looked like a dead end.

Blackwood did not return her look. His eyes remained on Mauro—while Mauro worked hard not to return his gaze.

Then she heard some rustling and thought that the woman had come back into the room to get something. Odessa tracked the noise to a large canvas bin of hotel bedsheets waiting to be laundered. The wheeled bin was larger than the housekeeping carts, and easily held many, many dozens of sheet sets and comforters. Large enough for a person of any size to be underneath the laundry.

And that was what it sounded like. Someone—something—stirring beneath the sheets. She thought she detected movement.

Mauro heard it, too. He was staring at the bin, listening to the rustling of something buried deep within the sheets. He backed away a few steps, until he was standing almost next to Odessa.

But Hugo Blackwood never looked over at the laundry bin. His eyes never left Mauro’s face, Odessa realized. Blackwood acted as though he was completely unaware of any noise coming from the laundry.

“Shit, man…” Mauro swallowed and wiped his mouth. He was freaking out. “Okay, listen. I’ll tell you, but you need to protect me.”

Odessa looked at Blackwood. There was no change of expression on his face.

She turned back to Mauro, while also keeping her distance from the laundry bin. “Talk,” she said, going with the moment.