“She’s Judge Cummins’s secretary. Looks like she’s done a runner, too.”
She looked genuinely startled. “Do you think it’s connected to Alice’s disappearance?”
“What do you think?”
“I wouldthinkyou can’t rule it out at this point.”
“Did you find a record of any threats against the judge? Or any reason why Cummins needed protection?”
“My people are looking at our records. But any disclosure has to be cleared through our legal counsel.”
“But I was hoping for some professional courtesy. I came all this way, after all. Atyourinvitation.”
“Um, I’m going to have a glass of wine if you’d care to join.”
“Never got into wine. But if you have beer?”
She rose, opened a glass door set in the cabinet, took out a bottle of open red wine, grabbed a glass from the overhead cabinet, and poured out a goodly portion into her wineglass. “Dos Equis okay?”
“Fine.”
She pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge, poured it into a glass, and handed it to him. She resumed her seat and took a sip of her wine. “My father was the one who got me into wine.”
“They made wine in Czechoslovakia?”
“No, in California. My father immigrated there initially. As a teenager he worked in a vineyard for two years to earn money for college. Then he came east, went to college, joined the Secret Service, and then left to build what eventually became Gamma Protection.”
“Sounds like he was quite a force of nature.”
“He was.” She stared out the window. “And I miss him dearly.”
“I’m sure. So, you wanted to meet?”
She looked back at him, an expression on her face Decker couldn’t really read. “I understand that a wad of old Slovakian money was found in Alan Draymont’s throat.”
Decker sat up straighter and eyed her, barely concealing the anger he was feeling. “And how did you find that out?”
“I know that you’re upset by that. But I have resources everywhere, it’s just the nature of the business I’m in.”
“Resources are one thing, getting confidential information about an ongoing federal criminal investigation is something else.”
“Is it true?” she asked.
“What if it were? What would that tell you?”
“You already know of my father’s connection to that country.”
“But even if he had any enemies, your father is beyond their reach. And why take it out on Draymont in any case?”
“As to your first query, Gamma and my father were interchangeable. He may be gone, but the company is still there.”
“So they want to destroy the company your father built, you mean?”
“It could be. It’s certainly one possibility.”
“And as to my second query?”
“I don’t know why they would target Alan Draymont. My initial thought was the most obvious. That the real target was the judge and he died defending her.” She glanced up at him. “Could that still be true?”