Hamish opened the hotel's staff entry door, and as he stepped outside, he flipped his hand and called, "Hey, there! Heed the thirty-foot smoking rule." Then, after a short wait, he beckoned us to follow, leading us toward two people standing next to a minivan.

As we approached, the man slid open the side door, and the woman pulled out a badge wallet, opened it and showed it to Lorne, saying, "I'm Constable Cheng. We've been told to take you to the detachment."

"Great!" Lorne showed his ID. "I'm Crown counsel Wilson, and all three of us require emergency admission to the Witness Protection Program. I can initiate the application once we've settled."

We remained silent as we got into the van, then as we headed down Blackcomb Way, Constable Cheng turned from the passenger seat and asked, "Do you need accommodation?"

Lorne pointed out the window. "I have a townhouse in there along Snowy Creek that is uncompromised. We have need for nothing but secure transportation at the moment – and I have some evidence to register."

She nodded and returned the phone to her ear, again speaking below my hearing ability, so I turned to talk with Cynthia, seeing her head twitching, her eyes darting and her mouth agape. I placed a hand on her clenched fist and said, "We're safe now, Cynthia. Relax."

"Wish I could." She grimaced. "So much. So fast."

"But we're now safe."

She slumped her shoulders and nodded. "Yeah. But my stupidity caused this mess."

"What? How?"

"By not taking the time to question. He used my mailing list and influence. Not my skills." She shook her head. "No PR follow-up after the openings. I should have suspected something."

I pressed my hand on her tightly clenched fist. "Is follow-up usual?"

"It's a necessary part of an opening promotion. Reinforce the initial positive image. Maintain a steady flow of PR. Monitor response. Keep the place in the public eye until it's well established. Then do ongoing promotion as needed."

I nodded. "And Frank and his managers did the follow-up and ongoing by using duped reviewers."

"Yeah, and I'm ruined. My reputation's in tatters."

Lorne shook his head. "No, not at all, Cynthia. You'll come out of this unscathed."

She contorted her face as she looked up at him. "Hunh? How could this not ruin me?"

"You'll be seen as having helped bring down this scam. People like Frank are skilled in manipulation and coercion. Duping people is part of their game."

"Yeah, like he duped me."

"Did he answer to anyone?"

"How do you mean?"

"Did he make all the decisions? Or did he have to wait for input? For instructions?"

"Ummm, not always immediate. He sometimes took a while to think, but I saw no consultation. Never mentioned the need for permission. Appears he's the head of this."

Lorne bobbed his head. "And payment? How did he handle that?"

"Cash. Everything with cash."

"And the promotional items – corkscrews, pens, canvas bags and so on. Did you organise those?"

"I assembled the first kits. But from then onward, he did the ordering." Cynthia winced. "Used my suppliers. Took over everything. Used me only to show legitimacy."

"Do you have any of the pens?"

"Hunh?"

"Fat pen barrels make it easy to hide micro GPS chips and batteries."

"Fuck! He gave me one – proud of the new design." She slapped her purse. "I have it in here."

"We'll leave it at the police station. Have you anything else from him that could conceal a chip?"

"Like what?"

"Almost anything. They tracked us last night with a powered chip stitched into the hem of a bag from Nuance."

She closed her eyes in a wince. "Insidious."

We remained silent as the van slowed and stopped next to the police station entrance. Then while the two constables escorted us inside, I pictured what onlookers would see. Three women and two men. No uniforms. Nothing embarrassing. Whoa! Strange attitude. Why would I think it embarrassing? Being arrested isn't the only reason to ...

My thoughts were interrupted by Constable Cheng's voice, "We'll put you in here to wait for the duty officer; he's busy for another few minutes." She led us to a small, plain room with a central table surrounded by chairs.

As we sat, Cynthia opened her oversized purse, took out her laptop and phone, set them on the table and dumped the remainder of the contents beside them. While she sorted through the heap, a uniformed man entered and laughed. "Looks like my wife's routine. I'm Corporal Evans."

Lorne stood and extended a hand to shake. "Crown counsel Wilson. I'm working with Chief Superintendent Driscoll at E Division on an organised crime case."

"Yes, so I was told. How can we help?"

He pointed to Cynthia. "We've just learned that Ms Nguyen has been working with a man we now suspect is the kingpin of the operation. I need you to run a background check on Frank Babbeona. He may still be in Whistler, or he may be rushing back to Vancouver."

"Do you have an address for him?"

"Only his email ones – and his cell number."

The corporal stepped to the doorway and called, "Cheng. Here, please."

After he had confirmed the spelling and instructed the constable, he asked, "What else?"

Lorne picked up the pen Cynthia had pulled from the pile. "We suspect there's a GPS tracking chip in this." He unscrewed the barrel, pulled out the ink cartridge and tapped, the chip and battery falling into his hand. Then after disconnecting the battery, he reinserted the pieces and reassembled the pen while he continued talking to the corporal, "This needs to be recorded as evidence and filed. I'll send you the case number and forwarding instructions when I get to my computer."

While Lorne explained the overview and current situation to the corporal, I watched Cynthia sorting through the dumped contents of her purse and slowly reloading. "I used to do that before I resigned. Carry my whole world to and from work in a shoulder bag."

"You resigned?"

"It no longer made sense to cut nine hours out of my writing time when my books began earning more than my salary."

"More? Good Lord, you were in management there. What do your books earn?"

I shrugged. "Far more than enough."

"Wow! With my marketing skills, I thought it would be easy to self-publish and promote." She grimaced. "My royalties barely cover Grammarly, Adobe and the Ingram setup fees."

"As most indies discover. It's not as easy to manipulate social media with books as it is with restaurants. The publishing houses have the market pretty well sewn up. Why didn't you go traditional?"

Cynthia shrugged. "I got tired of the rejection slips."

"Those mean little. Look at Harry Potter – rejected twelve times before Rowling found a publisher for it." I chuckled. "That's the only thing I beat her on; I received only eleven rejections before one clicked."

I looked up to see Lorne still in an intense discussion with the corporal, so I pressed on, trying to comfort Cynthia. "With our forced time together the next while, maybe I can look at your work – see what it might need to win an agent."

"Ooh! I would love that."

"It might be only that you've had insensitive sludge pile winnowers, as JK and I appear to have encountered. Or your stories may need tweaking to bring them into what's currently in demand. Whatever, we'll ..."

I paused as Constable Cheng entered and said to the corporal, "There are no Babbeonas in the database."