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“The man with the missing pinkies Ryan Richardson described?”
She nods. “He was supposed to do a handoff. To Patrick Donnelly and another O’Leary soldier. But obviously that didn’t go well for either of them.”
Poppy doesn’t say so, but this corroborates everything her brother told her. The sheriff and Poppy’s father going after the missing-pinky guy who’d driven Alison to Suncatcher Lake that night presumably to deliver her to O’Leary’s goons; Ali’s father killing Patrick Donnelly and the other bad guy. But something gnaws at Poppy. “How do you know all this?”
Poppy examines the agent in the weak light. Far from gloating, Fincher appears despondent.
“Patrick Donnelly was my CI.”
“Your informant?”
She nods.
“Why hasn’t the FBI done anything? Why haven’t you—”
“You weren’t listening.”
Poppy waits.
“Someone in my office, and at WITSEC, is dirty.”
69
“Your turn to share,” Agent Fincher tells Poppy. She’s moved to the front seat of Poppy’s car. They sit in the empty parking lot at KBI.
“Ryan Richardson was arrested in England,” Poppy says.
“England?”
“He’s a law student. On some trip for school. He was in Italy when the man with the missing pinkies tracked him down.”
The agent thinks about this. “He told Ryan Richardson what happened to Alison?” the agent asks. “The truth about O’Leary and—”
“I think he was planning to. But then he got a call and rushed back to a small English town where he’d been hiding. Ryan tracked the guy there.”
The agent is listening intently.
“When Ryan got to the guy’s house, someone had tortured and killed the man and his wife.”
Agent Fincher says, “This explains a lot.”
Poppy waits for her to continue.
“One of O’Leary’s men, one he uses for wet work, left for Heathrow a few days ago.”
“Well, that’s it—you’ve got him.”
Agent Fincher exhales like it’s not that simple.
Poppy decides to tell Fincher about the note found in Alison’s car. The cryptic message about finding her in the clouds.
“Did you crack the code?” Fincher probes. “Do you know what it means?”
“No, but I think Ryan does. I think he may be going to this place in the clouds.”
Fincher contemplates this, but says nothing.
“Why would they torture the pinky guy and his wife?” Poppy asks.