I said he was a shitty agent, not a shitty politician." Claire still couldn't read the man's expression. "You don't sound like a fan." Nolan clasped his hands together on the table. "On the surface, it seems like we're making progress, but when I think back on the last few minutes of our conversation, I get the feeling that you're questioning me instead of the other way around." "You'll make a great detective one day." "Fingers crossed." He flashed a grin. "I want to tell you something about the FBI." "You always win?" "Sure, there's that, and terrorists, of course. Kidnappers, bank robbers, pedophiles-nasty fuckers-but nuts and bolts, what we at the ol' FBI deal in day-to-day is curiosities. Did you know that?" Claire didn't respond. He'd clearly given this speech before. Nolan continued, "Local cops, they find something curious they can't figure out, and they bring it to us, and we either agree that it's curious or we don't. And generally when we agree, it's not just the one curious thing, it's several curious things." He held up his index finger. "Curious thing number one: your husband embezzled three million dollars from his company. Only three million dollars. That's curious, because you're loaded, right?" Claire nodded. "Curious thing number two." He added a second finger. "Paul went to college with Quinn. He shared a dorm room with the guy, and then when they were in grad school together, they shared an apartment, and then Quinn was best man at your wedding, and then they started the business together, right?" Claire nodded again. "They've been best friends for almost twenty-one years, and it seemed curious to me that after twenty-one years, Quinn figures out his best buddy is stealing from their company, the one they built together from the ground up, but instead of going to his buddy and saying 'Hey, what the fuck, buddy?' Quinn goes straight to the FBI." The way he put it together did seem curious, but Claire only said, "Okay." Nolan held up a third finger. "Curious thing number three: Quinn didn't go to the cops. He went to the FBI." "You have domain over financial crimes." "You've been reading our Web site." Nolan seemed pleased. "But lemme ask you again: Is that what you'd do if your best friend of twenty-one years stole a small, almost negligible, amount of money from your zillion-dollar company-find the biggest, baddest stick to fuck him with?" The question gave Claire a different answer: Adam had turned in Paul to the FBI, which meant that Adam and Paul were not getting along. Either Adam Quinn didn't know about the movies or he knew about the movies and he was trying to screw over Paul.
( Karin Slaughter )
[ Pretty Girls ]
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