Chapter 161 Elena's Warning
JASON'S POV
Rourke set up the meeting for Thursday evening at a small coffee shop about ten minutes from our apartment. When he called to tell me Elena had agreed to come he mentioned that she did not ask many questions and she did not hesitate when he made the request. She said yes immediately and asked only for the time and the address. That told me a great deal. She had been waiting for someone to reach out to her. She wanted this conversation just as much as we did and probably more.
Caitlyn and I arrived twenty minutes before the arranged time. We chose a table in the far back corner of the shop, away from the windows and the other customers who were there. Rourke sat across from us. We all had coffee sitting in front of us and nobody said very much while we waited for her to arrive. There was not a lot to say before she got there.
Elena came in right at the time Rourke had given her. She stopped just inside the entrance and looked slowly around the room until she found us. Then she walked directly to the table without any hesitation and sat down across from Caitlyn. She folded her hands on the table in front of her and looked at Caitlyn's face carefully for a long moment before she said anything.
"You look like him," Elena said. "A little. Mostly around the eyes."
"Like Collin," Caitlyn said.
"Yes," Elena said. "He always chose the same kind of person. He had a very specific type and he never moved away from it."
Nobody responded to that. Rourke let the moment pass and then said "Elena we genuinely appreciate you agreeing to sit down with us. We want to understand why you came here and why you have been watching Caitlyn."
"I came here because she is in serious danger," Elena said. She said it the way someone states a plain fact. There was no exaggeration in her voice and no drama. Just the words themselves delivered simply and directly.
"What kind of danger," I said.
"Collin owed money," Elena said. "A very large amount of money. To people in Russia. These are people who have long memories and who do not walk away from what they are owed no matter how much time passes."
"Who are these people specifically," Rourke said.
Elena looked at him for a moment. "You are a detective," she said. "You are sitting here because you already suspect what I am going to tell you."
"I want to hear you say it directly," Rourke said.
"Bratva," Elena said. She said the word quietly and she did not look around the room when she said it. "Russian organized crime. Collin worked alongside them for many years. He moved large sums of money on their behalf and he helped them establish and maintain operations in this country. Then at some point before he died he took money that did not belong to him and he was gone before he could answer for that."
"How much money are we talking about," I said.
"Millions," Elena said. "I do not have a precise figure. But it is a large enough amount that the people he took it from are treating the recovery of it as a very high-priority matter."
"And they believe Caitlyn is the way to find it," I said.
"They believe she either has access to it directly or that she knows something that points to where it is," Elena said. "Collin was with her for years. In their reasoning, a man does not spend that much time with a person without telling them things. They believe she is the most direct path available to them."
"She does not have it," I said. "She did not know about any of this while Collin was alive. She found out about his criminal activity the same way the rest of the world did."
"I understand that and I believe what you are telling me," Elena said. "But what you and I believe is not relevant to how they think. They have formed a conclusion and they are not the kind of people who easily change a conclusion once it has been made."
"How do you know all of this," Rourke said.
"I have contacts in Russia who have known me for many years and who still communicate with me regularly," Elena said. "When Collin died I started hearing things through those contacts. I heard conversations about what the organization was saying about the woman he had been living with. I heard what they were planning to do about the money that was missing. I listened carefully and I gathered enough information over time to understand that the situation was genuinely serious."
"And you decided to come here and warn her," Caitlyn said.
Elena looked at her steadily. "I was married to Collin once," she said. "I know the world he built his life inside of. I know what the people in that world are capable of doing when they want something returned to them. I could not sit in Moscow and do nothing when I had information that might protect someone."
"Why did you not come to us directly when you first arrived," I said. "Why did you spend weeks watching from the street instead of walking up and knocking on the door?"
"Because I needed to be certain before I made myself visible," Elena said. "I did not know if you would believe me. I did not know if approaching you openly would create risk for me. The people I am talking about have eyes in many places and I needed to be careful about how I moved."
"And now you are certain enough," Caitlyn said.
"Now I am certain enough," Elena said. "You have clearly been through a great deal already because of Collin. I could see that from watching and from following the news about the trials. I decided that staying quiet was the wrong choice."
"Do you know whether they have already sent someone to this country," I said.
"I believe they have," Elena said. "My contact told me they sent someone to begin gathering information and assessing the situation. That conversation happened approximately two weeks ago."
"Two weeks ago," Rourke said. He wrote it down without looking up from his notepad.
"I came here as quickly as I could after I heard," Elena said. "I am sorry it still took as long as it did before I came forward to speak with you directly."
"I need you to tell me everything you know," Rourke said. "Every name that came up. Every detail your contacts gave you. Everything."
"I will tell you what I know," Elena said. "But first I need something from you. If the organization discovers that I came to law enforcement I am no longer safe anywhere. I need a real form of protection before I say anything further."
"I will do everything in my power to make that happen," Rourke said. "But I need the information you have before I can begin making any formal commitments."
Elena considered that for a moment and then nodded slowly. She looked at Caitlyn one final time before she began talking in detail. "I am sorry," she said. "I am genuinely sorry that you are in this position."
"I am glad you came," Caitlyn said. "Whatever you have to tell us I need to hear it."