The Silent Widow

Valentina wasn’t afraid of much. Ever since her sister’s disappearance almost five decades ago, Valentina had learned that there were few things in life she couldn’t survive if she put her mind to it. But her irrational fear of flying remained a constant. Friends insisted it must be the lack of control that bothered her. Perhaps they were right? It was certainly true that in the rest of her life, Valentina kept a tight grip on the reins, from her marriage, to her family to her business decisions and personal relationships.

She’d achieved everything she’d set out to during her time in LA. Showing up unannounced at the Missing offices downtown, she’d demanded to be shown the status of all the charity’s outstanding cases, as well as a detailed breakdown of the last six months’ accounts. Ever since the IRS had started sniffing around their foreign income sources, Valentina had become obsessive about checking the reporting personally. Very few people in the organization understood the full, true nature of their ‘work’, and the profound need for secrecy. Thankfully, Willie was too lazy and self-absorbed to pay his wife’s pet project much mind. But the IRS were a different matter. Willie had shut them down this time and paid off the LA police. But no one knew better than Valentina that they couldn’t afford a next time. Not ever.

It pleased her to watch her staff scur

rying around like frightened ants whose nest had been kicked over, scrambling to appease their queen. Charities, she reminded them, should be run to the same, exacting standards as for-profit businesses, and that meant results. She prided herself that, in Missing’s fifteen-year history, only a handful of the cases they’d taken on remained unsolved. There was Ritchie Lamb, the toddler who went missing in Turkey on a family vacation, almost certainly snatched by child traffickers, who sadly they’d never been able to trace. And Charlotte Clancy, the au pair girl whose disappearance had so deeply, and publicly, tugged at Valentina’s heart-strings because it happened in Mexico City, where she’d lost her sister María all those years ago. She could almost feel a photogenic tear rolling down her cheek at the memory. But in the vast majority of Missing’s cases, they were able to provide families with closure. Even if, as in Brandon Grolsch’s case, the news they had to break was not good. Those sorts of results only came from constant vigilance and consistent best efforts, qualities Valentina encouraged in her employees through a deft use of both carrot and stick.

This week in LA had mostly called for the stick. Within an hour of her arrival, Valentina had summarily sacked her accountant and both his assistants.

‘If you want something done properly, do it yourself,’ she’d complained to Terry Engels, the LA office manager, as the hapless accounts team cleared their desks – the second team to do so in less than two years. ‘The last six months’ files are a total shambles. I’ll sort them out myself while I’m here and then appoint someone new to take over.’

With the finances back under her own beady eye and a fire lit under the rest of Missing’s LA employees, Valentina had had ample time to attend to her other business. Namely, making sure that certain people knew that she was watching them – no one made a fool out of Valentina Baden – and that outstanding issues of a business nature with some troublesome Russians were resolved to her satisfaction. On the last day she’d even squeezed in a hair appointment and a trip to Neiman Marcus, in case Willie should get suspicious. Besides which, Cabo might be heaven in most respects, but from a retail perspective one’s options were limited.

So as far as Valentina was concerned it had been a very successful trip, and the break from Willie’s constant, cloying presence and growing paranoia about his new partner had restored her sanity. All they needed now was for the furor over Lisa Flannagan’s murder to die down and the irritating Dr Nikki Roberts to crawl back into her hole so that the media could move on to the next story, and life would stand a chance of returning to something close to normal.

‘Thank God you’re back.’ To Valentina’s astonishment, Willie had come to meet her on the tarmac. He looked terrible; pale and disheveled in a repellent velour jogging suit like some dying Floridian retiree. And his breath smelled. ‘He hasn’t returned my calls in two days!’ he blurted nervously to his wife. ‘Two days! He’s clearly angry.’

‘Who’s angry?’ Valentina asked, as one of Willie’s minions stepped forward to take her suitcase.

‘Who do you think?’ Willie snapped at her.

‘You mean Rodriguez?’ Valentina sighed.

‘Of course Rodriguez!’ Willie snapped. ‘We should never have gotten involved with him. This stupid deal—’

‘Is going to make us a fortune,’ Valentina reminded him calmly, laying a red-taloned hand firmly on his thick arm. ‘You have to calm down, Willie. This isn’t a good time to lose your nerve. Men like Rodriguez can smell weakness like a shark can smell blood. Believe me, I know. I grew up with men like him, remember? Things are different here.’

‘I know all that,’ said Willie.

‘Then act like it,’ said Valentina. ‘You’ve done your part, and you’ve offered him fair terms. If he’s angry about it, too bad.’

‘Too bad?’ Willie gulped down air, opening and closing his mouth like a stranded fish. ‘Too bad? Valentina, don’t you know what he’s capable of? What all these damned Mexicans are capable of? He’ll kill me. He’ll kill us both. Slit our throats in our beds.’

Calmly, Valentina climbed into the back seat of the Bentley. She waited for the chauffeur to drive away before replying.

‘Speaking as one of those “damned Mexicans”,’ she regarded her husband archly, ‘I can assure you you’re wrong. Naturally I know what Rodriguez is capable of. I’ve had dealings with him over Missing, remember?’

‘That’s a goddamn charity!’ shouted Willie. ‘It’s not the same! He doesn’t have skin in the game.’

That’s what you think, thought Valentina, but she kept her reflection to herself.

‘The point is, you’re right, he would kill us both in a heartbeat if it served his purposes to do so. But it doesn’t. He needs you, Willie. He needs your presence in LA, he needs your network, he needs the legitimacy you give this. You’re holding a lot of cards here, my love. All you need to do is play them.’

Willie opened his mouth to say something else, but Valentina held up a hand imperiously.

‘I’m tired now, my darling. It’s been a busy few days. If you want to talk more, we’ll do it at dinner.’

She closed her eyes.

‘Should I call Rodriguez again?’ Willie asked, unable to contain himself.

Her eyes still closed, Valentina responded coolly. ‘Absolutely not. For God’s sake, Willie. Please try to grow at least a tiny pair of balls.’

With an effort, the chauffeur stifled a giggle.

They drove on.

It was past ten o’clock when Derek Williams finally pulled out of the I-Hop parking lot and headed for his office, a mere eight blocks away on Centinela. If you could call the poky, windowless, twelve-by-eight cell he rented by the month an ‘office’. Above a busy auto shop, where the guys downstairs had been known to make more in an hour than Derek did in a week, Williams’ room was one of six rented out to independent businesses. One was leased by loan sharks, another by a down-at-heel lawyer named Alan Clarkson with whom Derek had struck up a wary friendship, and a third to a very affable pimp named Fabrizio. The fourth office was currently empty, and Williams’ nearest ‘neighbor’ at the end of the row was a woman from Phoenix who made bead purses and necklaces that, as far as Williams could tell, she never even attempted to sell. It was Sad Sack City, no question. But it was dirt cheap, safe enough, and the internet connection was reliable, which was pretty much all Derek Williams asked of an office these days. That and a bunch of friendly guys downstairs with tire irons, in case any of his clients ever got nasty.