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  The three non-amigos arrive at our door almost simultaneously.

  “We—” Yens begins.

  “He—” says Susannah.

  “I—” says Kevin. He flips his phone closed, and stares at Yens. Defiant.

  Yens shrugs, putting himself in charge by relinquishing the floor. He sets his briefcase on Franklin’s desk, then crosses his arms, waiting with a look of infinite patience.

  Kevin adjusts his jacket, smoothes his tie. Waits, just a bit longer than necessary, to begin.

  “As I explained to Detective Yens, it’s not part of our role as journalists to assist police in their investigations. And we certainly do not—ever—turn over any of our work product or notes to law enforcement.” He turns to the detective, pointing an imperious finger. “You may have a copy of what goes on the air. Otherwise, get a subpoena. And we’ll fight you every step of the way.”

  You go, Kevin, I offer in silent approval.

  “And it was clearly out of line for you to visit Charlie and Franklin in their homes. I have detailed e-mails from each of them about that. And they’ll stay in my files. And our lawyer’s. However, in this particular case,” Kevin continues, “we felt it not improper for all of us to talk, within certain boundaries, of course, about the matter of Katherine—” he stops.

  “Harkins,” Susannah puts in. She looks at me and Franklin. “Isn’t she the Prada—?”

  “P.I. Yes.” Kevin finishes her sentence. “I decided we should talk here, up in your office, so as not to publicize our meeting to the newsroom. Now. Detective Yens. Charlie and Franklin will answer your questions. If they can. Briefly.”

  “Fine,” Yens says. He snaps open his briefcase, and pulls out a manila folder.

  I think I can see photographs inside. Which reminds me. I wonder if our videotape of the purse party is still rolling on our monitor screen. Franklin told me to eject the cassette when he went for tea. I hope I did. For oh so many reasons, including my future employment, that undercover video better not be visible. And I can’t draw attention to it by turning around to check.

  Moving carefully sideways, one step, then two, I plant myself in front of the television screen.

  Franklin, apparently understanding instantly, sidles over next to me. Adding to the video barricade.

  “But if you go too far with your questions, in any way, I have our lawyer on speed dial.” Kevin flips open his cell phone with an I-dare-you flourish.

  As the Kevin and the cop glare at each other, I reach over and wheel my office chair toward me, and sit down, keeping myself in front of the screen. Franklin does the same with his chair. Talk about hidden video.

  “Do you recognize this person?” Yens shows me a black-and-white, eight-by-ten photo, turns it to Franklin, then back to me. It’s a corporate-looking portrait, a thirtysomething woman. Severe. Serious. Dark hair, parted down the middle, pulled back somehow. Black jacket. Pearls. An executive. Or, it crosses my mind, an international spy. But this is clearly Katie Harkins. Who else would he be showing us?

  I look at Franklin, who’s shaking his head. No.

  “Me, neither,” I say. “She doesn’t look familiar. Is it Katie?”

  “How about this person?” Yens holds up another photo.

  It looks like the same woman, but in this photo her hair is wildly untamed. Maybe with extensions. She’s got raspberry glossy lips, a black T-shirt, a leather jacket. The same pearls. New York fashionista.

  “Nope,” Franklin says. He looks at me. “You?”

  “Nope,” I agree. “Is it Katie?”

  “We know Katie Harkins was supposed to meet with you several days ago,” Yens says, cutting me off. He shows us both photos again. Kevin and Susannah step into the room to get a look. “You’re positive you haven’t seen her? Looking like this? Or like this?”

  “What are you getting at, Yens?” Kevin interrupts. “They told you they haven’t seen her. I’m sure they told you she cancelled their appointment.”

  “She didn’t cancel,” Yens says.

  “Of course she did,” Kevin retorts. He looks at Franklin. “Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “Well, not really,” Franklin says. “I said, someone called to cancel. I never spoke to her directly. All of our communications were by e-mail. I saved—”

  “Stop,” Kevin commands.

  Franklin nods. He gets it. “Anyway, bottom line. She didn’t call to cancel. Someone in her office did.”

  “That’s what they said, at least,” Yens mutters as he replaces the photos in the file folder. “Man? Woman? Who was on the phone?”

  “Man.” Franklin says. He tilts his head. “Almost certainly. Or a pretty deep-voiced woman.”

  “Have you found her?” I ask.

  “Have you tried to reschedule?” Yens ignores me. “What happened?”

  “Yes, several times,” Franklin says. He flickers a questioning glance at Kevin, then continues. “I’ve left Charlie’s cell-phone number and mine. But no return calls. I always get a voice mail, the same voice mail, saying she was out of the office for a few days and would be back Wednesday. But that was two days ago.”

  “Exactly. And in answer to your question, Ms. McNally, no. We haven’t found her. We’re told her home in D.C. is empty. Her car is not in the garage. Mail at the post office, unclaimed. According to our sources. Due to the nature of her job, of course, we know that’s not necessarily alarming. But it is unusual. And that’s why I’m following up. To see if you’ve heard from her. Or anyone in her office.”

  I totally get it now. No question about it. I should have thought of it when Yens paid me a visit, but I was so frazzled my brain didn’t grasp it then.

  “She works for you, doesn’t she? She’s an ex-FBI agent. Now a private investigator. Undercover, I bet.”

  I hear Franklin’s intake of breath. Susannah looks at Kevin, quizzical, making a little what’s-this-about expression. The news director holds up a hand, eyes narrowed, quieting her.

  I point to the briefcase and the photos inside. “She works for you, as well as for the purse companies. Doesn’t she? That’s her agency photo, and then how she looks on the street. On the job. And let me ask you. Does she also work with Keresey?”

  Will Yens say “Keresey who?” And I’m playing back my memories to see if I recognize the woman in the photos from the purse party. Now that I’ve seen the pictures, I can’t wait to look at the video again. What if she was there? Would she have recognized me? It’s so much simpler when people are who they say they are, and not someone—else.

  “Keresey who?” It’s Kevin. He’s so concerned about what Franklin and I might say. He’s the one who should keep his mouth shut.

  “Yes, Keresey who?” Yens says. He crosses his arms in front of him, expression almost sardonic. Waiting.

  I wonder if he really doesn’t know her. Or if he’s just trying to find out how much we know about the FBI’s counterfeit operation. How many Kereseys can there be?

  “Keresey Stone of the FBI,” I say, then stop. I’m the reporter. Stay on the offense. “Do the state police have an undercover operation? Looking into counterfeit purses? Is Katie Harkins undercover for you? Did she go missing on assignment?”

  Yens looks amused.

  “Good try, Charlie,” he says, emphasizing that he’s using my first name again. “We’re done here. You’ll call me if you hear anything.”

  “They will not,” Kevin says. “They’ll call me. Then we’ll decide where to go from there. Susannah, will you show the detective the way to the front door?”

  When Kevin turns around to watch the two depart, I whirl to the TV monitor behind me. The tape is still rolling, but the video is over and the screen is, thankfully, black. Who knows how long it’s been that way. I punch the red stop button. Click the power switch to off. Franklin gives me a congratulatory nod. And by that time, I have a plan.

  Chapter Eleven

  “S

  o what do you think, Kevin?” Now the parade
is going the other direction. Franklin and I are accompanying Kevin back to his office. I think I can parlay Detective Yens’s visit into an open door for us to get permission to change our purse story into a real investigation of the distribution system, showing the teeming black market kept thriving by greedy suppliers and fashion-addicted women. I just have to lure Kevin into thinking it was his idea. Talking in bullet points so he can understand, I’ve told him about our visit to the FBI and Keresey’s undercover work. I’ve told him about our potential access to the Delleton-Marachelle design studio in Atlanta. I’ve described the purse parties we could have access to. Of course, I left out the part about how I’d already been to one. Now I have to see if I can reel Kevin in.

  “Do you think you could get into one of those parties? Maybe with a hidden camera?” Kevin asks. He opens the glass door to his office and gestures us in.

  “Well, sure I do,” I say, nodding oh-so-thoughtfully. “Don’t you, Franklin?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” he replies. “We even have that new camera. In fact, I was fooling around with it and I…”

  He pauses. I can almost hear his brain recalculating.

  “I signed it out of the engineering department, just the other day,” he picks up his sentence. “To make sure we know how to operate it properly. So, I’d say we’re all systems go. If Charlie is comfortable.”

  “Oh, sure,” I say again. “If it’s all right with Kevin.”

  “You’d have to be in disguise,” Kevin says, swiveling in his black leather I’m-an-executive chair. His desk is stacked with resumé DVDs. In front of him is a legal pad with a list of something I wish I could read. “You’re so well known. How would you pull that off, Charlie?”

  “Well, I think I could manage to look different enough. And, maybe, we could go out of the viewing area. Right, Franklin?”

  Franklin nods. He’s shifting, trying to get comfortable on the wooden arm of Kevin’s ultramodern couch.

  “And what are you efforting for this Atlanta shoot?” Kevin continues. “We’d have to pay for plane tickets, for an out-of-town photographer, hotel rooms. How will that be cost-effective? Can’t you just do it by phone?”

  “Oh, no way,” I say. Hoping I’m right. “We’re getting unprecedented access to the manufacturing and design process. Hoping for interviews with big shot, execs, designers. They’ll explain how colossally detrimental the knockoffs are to legit businesses.”

  “We can’t get to the bottom of it, of course,” Franklin says. “Even the FBI admits, it’s basically unstoppable. But the D-M people will show us evidence seized from the cargo ships that bring the stuff into the U.S. Huge containers crammed with fake bags. Customs nabs them, usually in L.A. But they know they barely make a dent. And we’re getting exclusive stuff.”

  My turn at bat. “And also, of course, how the companies are taking law enforcement into their own hands. Forming their own in-house purse police. Tracking down the bad guys. Becoming kind of fashion vigilantes.”

  “Fashion vigilantes,” Kevin repeats. “I like it.”

  “Problem is,” I say. Going for the kill. “Susannah says she wants just the feature. I wonder if she might not be happy with the bigger story.”

  “I’m the news director,” Kevin says. “She doesn’t need to know everything we do.”

  I’m trying to keep a straight face. And I can’t possibly risk a peek at Franklin, who I’m sure is amused by Kevin’s insistence he’s in charge. But I’ve never been quite comfortable with hiding what we’re doing from management. If Kevin now gives us the go-ahead, he’ll never know we had already gone ahead without him.

  “When a true journalist gets turned on to a big story, it’s our job to do it right,” Kevin says. From on high. “Not doing our job if we turn our backs on it. It may be tough, but you know the old saying. When the going gets tough—” He looks at me, as if to make sure I know how to finish the line.

  And I know he expects me to say “the tough get going.”

  But I don’t.

  “The tough go shopping,” I say.

  “Well done, Charlotte,” Franklin says. “At least now we’re not faking it.”

  “Yup,” I say. “Telling the truth is always my first choice. It just doesn’t always work when you’re an investigative reporter.”

  I throw my briefcase and purse into the backseat of Franklin’s immaculate silver Passat. Both car doors slam, and Franklin maneuvers us out through the overcrowded obstacle course of news trucks and microwave vans in Channel 3’s cramped basement parking lot.

  “What does Keresey want anyway? Why do you think she’s asking to meet us out of her office?”

  “Why are you asking me?” Franklin holds up the gizmo to open the garage door, pointing, then clicking. He eases the Passat up the ramp and into the sunlight. “The message was on your phone.”

  “Just brainstorming,” I reply. “We can ask her about the raids, at least.”

  “Yeah, good idea. I couldn’t find any mention of any enforcement actions that had resulted in agents being killed. Nothing. There were some Justice Department news releases about seizures of counterfeit goods. Lattimer’s successful bust in Atlanta. But nothing in warehouses.”

  As we pull out into traffic and head toward our destination, I buzz down my window, hoping to let in the autumn day. Instead, I hear car horns blaring, irate drivers yelling at kamikaze bike messengers, crosswalk-ignoring pedestrians swearing as they claim the whole of Cambridge Street as their personal domain.

  “I suppose they only put out press releases when something goes right. If an agent were killed in the line of duty, but the mission failed, maybe they’d just keep it quiet.”

  “Maybe. And of course ‘Operation Knockoff’…” he looks at me, raising his eyebrows to scorn the pretentious name “…is still a work in progress. So maybe all of it’s still hush-hush.”

  “There she is,” I say, pointing to a familiar shape. “See? Keresey’s on the sidewalk. Over there. Right under the entrance to the Charles Street T Station. You don’t think she’s expecting us to get on the train, do you? You have tokens?”

  Franklin taps his car horn and Keresey looks up. Recognizing us, she points us to the Longfellow Bridge, the one everyone calls the “salt and pepper” bridge because of the huge shaker-shaped pedestals that line the edges.

  I wave at her, signaling we understand. Genius Franklin even finds a legal—legal for thirty minutes at least—parking place in front of Mass General Hospital. We hurry to catch up with Keresey, who’s leaning back against the rusting wrought iron sidewalk railing and staring out over the street to the river beyond. She’s dressed in blue jeans tucked into high-heeled black boots and a dark chocolate leather jacket. Flat messenger bag over one shoulder. Sunglasses, baseball cap, blond ponytail. No necklace of ID tags.

  The wind kicks up, the Boston promise of the cold to come. I’m glad I wore a leather jacket of my own over my black turtleneck sweater dress, and happy for my flat boots as we trot along the sidewalk. A fleet of J-boats glide, sails stiff, across the choppy water, and a few sculls power their way back up the river toward MIT. Beside us, a parade of cars and bicycles cross the wide expanse.

  “You undercover?” I ask, as we arrive. “Headed to a purse party? Or sneaking out of the office to the Red Sox game?”

  I’m trying to be casual, but I can already feel she’s all business.

  “Hey, guys,” she says. Her smile is tense. “Walk with me, okay?”

  The three of us turn toward Cambridge, the sidewalk just wide enough. Keresey’s in the middle. Across the way, a Red Line train, passengers in each window, hurtles by, headed into the tunnels of the Boston-side subways.

  “I know it’s not SOP. Meeting you like this,” Keresey begins. “But standard operating procedure means I have to notify the PIO, and the SAC, if I want to talk with you.”

  I wait, pulling my jacket more closely around me as the wind picks up over the water. Franklin stuffs his hands into the p
ockets of his maroon suede jacket. He’s silent, too. We know it’s best to just let her talk.

  “I don’t want to put you in an awkward position. Let’s put it this way. I didn’t want to put any of us in an awkward position. But, Charlie, I saw your eyes light up when the SAC was discussing our undercover operations. And don’t even begin to try to convince me you two don’t have a plan to do some U-C investigating. Attend some purse parties on your own. I’ve known you both long enough.”

  I halfway open my mouth to reply, then think better of it.

  Keresey holds up a hand, then turns to me with a rueful smile. “Hey. I don’t want to know. That’s the awkward part. If I know, I’ll have to order you to stop. I’d also be obligated to ask you if your expeditions are already underway. So I won’t ask. You don’t tell.”

  She stops, mid-river, and points to an alcove where a concrete bench carved into the side of the bridge provides room enough for us to sit down. As we sit, she takes the strap of the messenger bag from her shoulder and, slowly, zips the pouch open.

  Franklin flickers a questioning glance at me. What?

  I reply with the briefest shrug. No idea.

  Keresey is pulling out a brown legal-sized envelope. She unwraps a red string from around the two paper discs on the flap, then reaches in and extracts an eight-by-ten photograph. And another. They flutter, caught briefly in a puff of wind. She juggles the envelope and the photos to keep it all from blowing away.

  I crane my neck to see who’s in the pictures, but she’s holding them face-to-face. I can tell Franklin is checking them out from his side, too, but he signals with a slight shake of his head. Nothing. Nothing to do but wait.

  Keresey puts the envelope back into the bag, and puts it down on the sidewalk, taking a moment to balance it so it’s standing upright. Apparently she doesn’t want to spill what’s still inside. Apparently she’s trying to drive me crazy with suspense.

  Finally she holds up the two pictures. Shows them to Franklin, then turns to show them to me.

  Keresey, with her back to Franklin, doesn’t see him put a hand to his mouth. I understand his startled gesture. We saw these same photos earlier this morning. The international spy. And the raspberry-glossed fashionista.