On the FBI's advice, Sarah Doyle’s parents filed a missing persons request, but nothing had turned up about the girl’s whereabouts more than a week after they acted on it. There had been people in Palm Beach who recalled meeting her, but neither the FBI nor the Pam Beach Police found find any records of such a person using credit cards over that six-months’ period. It was assumed that Epstein would never have allowed the girls to possess one, instead giving them cash if they needed something or had Maxwell or someone else buy it for them.
       There was a record of a girl fitting Doyle’s description showing up at the Emergency Room at Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach a week or two before the alleged murder, but before she was admitted or gave information someone came and took her away. The admitting nurse said she recalled the girl had bruises on her wrists but did not seem in pain. The nurse didn’t remember anything about the man who picked Doyle up because he was standing  thirty feet away at the hospital entrance and merely crooked his hand to mean she was to leave with him immediately.
       Katie kept Dobell informed of all details, such as they were, on the investigation, and her editor was becoming worried that the story was falling apart.
       Katie said, “Why is it falling apart, Alan? We know what’s been going on with Epstein for years. The feds are getting closer to uncovering all his financial malfeasance. People are getting scared, and they probably haven’t even heard about Sarah Doyle’s murder.”
       “Alleged murder. On the hearsay of a call girl who wasn’t even in the house when it was supposed to have happened. I’m not saying that even without this murder there’s probably a good story— as you and I originally envisioned it— about the power, the money and the sex. But that will depend on how much and how fast the feds can move on Epstein. If they do, it will blow up in all his friends’ faces, and they’ll scatter like rats.”               “They are all rats,” she said.
     “Probably true, but unless someone can find that girl’s body, which, to quote a famous line, probably ‛sleeps with the fishes.’”
       “Okay, and what about Pierce. He does know what happened, and he does know that David and I have been snooping around. I’ sure he was the one who wanted to buy McClure’s. By the way, anything new on that?”           “Not a word from any quarter. I think it’s a dead deal. Whoever it was pulled out.”
       “Which, Alan, leaves  David and me in what I think is considerable danger.”
       Dobell sighed. “Somehow, Katie, I can imagine Pierce having a night of rough sex and the girl dying from an overdose or asphyxiation or something. But that doesn’t make him a guy who’ll go around knocking off ex-cops and current journalists.”
       Katie shook her head at how many times she heard a version of that irrelevancy.
       “And what about Ghislaine? She believes Pierce killed her father and told me to watch my back.”
       “What she wants to believe about Pierce killing off Maxwell to get his empire at a time when Maxwell was drowning anyway in debt and was a very sick man who might not have lived very long is far from a tight case against Pierce. The official investigation made no such accusations.”
       “Yeah, but it didn’t say why Maxwell went overboard one way or the other. Ghislaine said suicide is something her tough old papa would never think of doing.”
       Dobell shook his head. “What can I say, Katie? We’re just going to have to wait to hear what happens with the feds and you can keep digging—in your spare time, because I think you should start working on some other story.”
       Katie, thinking of all the times she and David had almost been murdered,  threw up her hands and said, “So, meanwhile I should just go around without a care in the world that someone might want to knock me off? It would be in all of Epstein’s friends’ interest to see me go away.”
       “How about if I send you away,” said Dobell, “on another assignment, outside the U.S. Then your mystery assassins will just drop the whole idea because they don’t think you’re a threat anymore.”
       “Where’d you have in mind? Timbuktu?”
       “You know, I’ve never actually known where Timbuktu is, but it sounds far away.”
       “It’s a city in Mali.”
       “Hmm, anything happening in Mali?”
       “Be serious, Alan. I can see going away might be a good idea till things either cool down or come to a head.”
       “Well,” said Dobell, “poke around and see where’s there’s something going on you can blow the lid off. Outside the U.S. But, hey, I’m not paying for David to go with you.”
       “Understood,” she said, and left his office.
       Katie didn’t have a clue where she might go for a story big enough to make her absence known. But, after a moment’s thought, she realized where she really needed to go.
       She returned to her desk and called Angus Pierce’s office, asking to speak with Andrea Solari.
       “How can I help you, Ms. Cavuto?”
       “Thank you for taking my call,” said Katie. “As you suggested, I never did hear back from Mr. Pierce, but I am going off on a trip—”
       “A vacation, I hope?”
       “No, on assignment for a story. It will take some time to work on. But before leaving I thought I’d give it once more try to see if I might speak with Mr. Pierce.”
       “Well, I’ll be happy to pass your request on to him.”
       “Is he back in South Africa?”
       “No, he’s actually back in Switzerland with his son, Richard. They are both avid skiers.”
       “I think you said he was in Gstaad?”
       “I don’t believe I did, but he’s not.”
       Katie didn’t want to push her queries too far.
       “Well, then, Ms. Solari, I won’t take up any more of your time. If you speak to Mr. Pierce, tell him I’ll always have my cell phone wherever I might be.”
       “I don’t expect to be hearing from him until at least next week.”
       The call ended, Katie dialed David.
       “Hey, you ever been to Switzerland?”

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       Katie knew she was going out on a creaking limb by trying to meet with Pierce in Switzerland, not least because she would have to make up an unrelated story for Dobell to approve after telling her he wanted her out of harm’s way. Since Dobell did not know of Pierce’s whereabouts he would not be suspicious if Katie found a story to pursue in Switzerland.
       “Alan, I think I’ve got a good story prospect for us in Switzerland,” she said to him on the phone, after deciding she couldn’t look him straight in the eye.
       “What did you have in kind?” he asked.
       “The International Olympic Committee.”
       “What about it?”
       “I got a lead that at least two on the Committee may have been bought as to who gets the 2016 games.”               “And how do you know this?”
       “Well, like I said, I have a lead from someone who says that the fix seems to be in for Brazil.”
      “Well, Katie, you do know that all these Committee guys are always wined and dined for years by competing cities. Even more than the commissioners of the NFL.”
       “I know,” she said, “but this seems to be about money changing hands. Big Brazilian billionaire types buying votes.”
       Dobell thought for a moment, then said, “How sure are you about this?”
       “Obviously I’m not, but if you want to get me out of the country, you can send me to Lausanne where the IOC is headquartered.”
       Katie had, in fact, heard from a reporter she knew at Sports Illustrated who’d said there was a rumor going around but that his magazine didn’t want to pursue it so early, before a decision on the city was getting close. She made somewhat more out of that information than she should have with Dobell, but said, “Maybe it’s a long shot, but if it is a real story, I’ll bring it back to you.”
       Dobell thought some more then said, “Okay, fly off to Lausanne. Beautiful, nice, safe city. Just try not to spend too much. And I’m not paying for David.”
       “Got it,” said Katie. “Okay, I’ll leave as soon as I gather some more info.”
       Dobell had not told Katie that he’d already spoken to Roger Sheridan about his idea to send Katie out of the country, and, after hearing that Angus Pierce might be the one who made the bid on McClure’s, the publisher told Dobell by all means to get Katie out of the way. Apparently he, too, hated Pierce and his tactics and knew only too well how Katie had already put her life on the line on other stories she’d done for the magazine.               Katie hung up her phone and smiled at the prospect of going to Lausanne, which was not where Pierce was in Switzerland. Then she stopped smiling and thought, “My God, I’m putting myself right in the lion’s mouth!”