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Eht I’d say this, but there’s tooon the chair next to Eh her notes The action irritated Emma for some reason Those were her notes The female va through the "No luck," she said, re"

"How about theon that"

"I a a smile "But like you, I haven’t had any luck yet You have what, hundreds of entries in your database?"

"Thousands," Ee to snatch her database away from the former FBI consultant Hundreds of entries, indeed And was there any such thing as a forovern the inforet that she herself worked for the govern at all

"Thousands," Phoebe allowed "But there are nition database, and as brilliant as Louis is, those coht, but it was obvious she didn’t think they were very useful

E an irrational need to defend herabout this before you came in If I could identify even one of these women, it would lead to the rest of them"

"How do you figure that?"

"Because they all know each other They all go to the sa about Victor’s The people ork inside the Beltway are like a small town Everyone knows everyone, or knows soo to a few of those parties ourselves," Phoebe et invitations every day in the Congress the--" She froze as a thought occurred to her "The women all knew each other which means they probably all knew Lacey, too Lacey’s funeral," she finished on a whisper

"Pardon?"

"Lacey’s funeral," she repeated more certainly "There were so many people there, but I only knew a few of them because they were all Lacey’s friends"

"But you have the pictures from Victor’s files Wouldn’t you remember if any of these women had been there?"

"No," Eht If not for Duncan, I don’t knohat I would have done I don’t reht furiously "Wait, there was a--"

"Glen Pettry handled the funeral?" Phoebe interrupted

"Yes, he was the one who toldbecause Phoebe had pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and was already punching in a number

"Glen," she said pleasantly "Phoebe Micheletti How are you? He’s good, grumpy as ever Listen, do you have security ca we’re working on, but we’ll figure it out Thanks anyway"

She clicked her phone off and dropped it into her pocket "No joy He has video, but only at the back entrance where the bodies come in because they arrive at all hours The front entrance isrecorded at Aunt Tessie’s funeral, and the funeral hohborhood Besides, Glen does a lot of business with vas"

E who’d been at the funeral, but she wasn’t inclined to share it She’d already decided she didn’t want to ith the pushy vah," Phoebe said She stood and looked around "Listen, if you do find these women, you need to let me deal with the to steal your thunder, E Besides, Duncan wants you safe, and he’s pretty bossy He’ll want one of us to follow up if you get a lead, and I can get a lot more information out of those women than you can"

"I wouldn’t be too sure--"

"It’s likely Victor ain "No matter how persuasive or sympathetic you are, they can’t tell you what they don’t remember I’ll be able to undo whatever Victor did and help thes they don’t even realize they know"

Ehed again "You haven’t been around us long enough yet, but you’ll be a believer soon enough All right, I’ way ho, and I’ll let you knoe get any hits on the facial recognition" She sed, Emma It always starts this way"

She pushed her chair back into the table and looked over to where Louis was typing furiously "Louis," she called, waiting until he looked up, his expression a little vague, as if not quite in the noith the rest of the pops" He nodded and went i away the hand of another va next to him

Phoebe smiled "Chin up, Eo with a sour look "Chin up, E called Eone, even sticking her head into the hallway to be absolutely sure And then she picked up her own phone and scrolled through the nuht on top since she’d called him more than anyone else in the last few days He answered after the second ring