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PROLOGUE
Sunday, October 2, 11:05 p.m.
The instructions were clear: Don’t look inside the red trash bag. Meet the buyer, collect the money, and give him the goods. For God’s sake, don’t talk. Just leave. No one gets hurt. Everyone comes out a winner.
Simple. A moron could do it.
But Terrance Dillon was eighteen. And he was too curious, too fearless, and too naive for his own good.
Two hours ago, Terrance had been at the Quick Mart counting out the last of his rumpled bills and scattered coins to buy an energy drink and a bag of beef jerky. Terrance’s thoughts had been centered on his girlfriend, who had spent the last couple of hours snuggling close to him and talking about the homecoming dance. As he’d dumped the last of his change on the counter, he worried about finding the money to pay for the big winter dance date and wondered how he’d tell his grandmother that he and Stephanie were dating again.
As Terrance had left the store and crossed the parking lot, his father pulled up in a new white Lexus, sporting a big grin. Fresh out of his latest stint in prison, Jimmy got out of the car and hugged his son, wishing him a happy birthday. The guy had been gone the last decade, and though they’d traded a few letters and phone calls, they weren’t exactly what anyone would call close.
Still, Terrance had been stunned and kind of pleased by the in-person visit. He was flattered when Jimmy asked him if he wanted to go for a spin in the car and maybe help him tackle a big-paying job. Jimmy needed an extra hand for a couple of hours. Grab and go. Simple. Easy money.
Terrance found Jimmy’s infectious laugh and smooth voice compelling. His old man made the plan sound foolproof. And despite all the shit between the two of them, he wanted his father’s approval.
Now as Terrance stood in the alley, the half-moon glistening in a cloudless sky and shadows cloaking hidden nooks and corners, doubts whispered. The deeper the cold night air cut through his high school letterman jacket, the further his thoughts wandered from his father’s guarantees of success to the contents of the bag gripped in his right hand.
Don’t look in the bag. Better you don’t know. Grab and go. Simple. Easy money.
He hadn’t seen Jimmy in an hour, and his gut was telling him to bail on his old man. His grandmother had said Jimmy’s get-rich-quick ideas always ended in disaster. She’d warned Terrance to stay away from the guy. Terrance wanted to love his old man, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew Jimmy had gone to jail for selling drugs.
But Jimmy had seemed different at the Quick Mart. The ex-con acted like he really wanted to help his only son.
A freight train rumbled above on the triple trestle in Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom district. The night chill oozed deeper, fueling his impatience and nerves. A small animal scurried in the dead end of the alley. A cat howled. Terrance shivered.
His phone chirped with a text. Hoping it was Jimmy, he fished out the two phones from his pocket, glancing at both displays. The message was on his personal phone, not the burner Jimmy had given him. The text was from Stephanie.
You home yet?
Terrance smiled, glad she was thinking about him. Jimmy had told him not to use his personal phone, but to communicate with the burner. Using the new phone, he texted back.
Terrance here. Almost done. Waiting on my ride.
You okay? Where is your phone?
An unseen creature scratched in a darkened corner. He didn’t enjoy lying to Stephanie, but she wouldn’t like any of this.
I’m fine. My battery is dead. I’ll call in the morning.
Text me when your ride arrives.
Okay.
He shifted his feet and dropped the phones back in his pocket. He hated lying. This was bullshit. He was cold. Tired. Ready to go home.
He held the bag up to the moonlight, but thick plastic guarded its secrets. He shook the sack gently and heard the clink of glass. What the hell was in the bag? Jimmy had said it wasn’t drugs, but why was it worth so much money? How much could one peek hurt? Just one.
Don’t look inside.
He shooed away Jimmy’s warnings and in the stillness unknotted the bag and looked inside. Moonlight shimmered off ten vials of drugs. The labels read “propofol.”
Jimmy had lied. Terrance should have seen it co
ming. He should dump the bag. Run. But if he ran, there’d be no money. No “get rich quick.”
He’d heard about the drug in the news. It was the kind rock stars took when they couldn’t sleep. This kind of shit had killed some of those same stars. What the hell was someone going to do with this? His thoughts raced with unexpected excitement. Could it be for a famous singer? Someone he might know? It would be unbelievable to meet a pop star right here in the alley. Crazy. Maybe.
A slash of headlights approached and swiped across Terrance’s face as a vehicle turned into the narrow lane. He quickly knotted the bag as a white van approached, slow and careful. The van was older. Clean. The kind of vehicle he drove when he worked on the lawn maintenance crew over the summer. The kind people didn’t pay attention to. The kind he wouldn’t drive when he got rich.
Heart pounding, he clutched the bag close to his side, doing his best to look like he knew what he was doing—like this wasn’t his first drug deal. He pictured the way Jimmy stood, easy and relaxed. Always with a big grin.
Nerves fired with worry as he reminded himself Jimmy had promised the exchange would be easy. No questions.
Grab and go. Easy money.
He grabbed the burner and texted Stephanie, Terrance, again. My ride is here, I hope.
Who? Where are you?
In the city. White van here. Got to go.
Shoving the phone in his pocket, he stood straighter, heart pounding, his mind skipping beyond the next few minutes to the money he’d make. $2,000. Pocket change to famous singers, but it was a damn fortune to him. He’d already decided to buy his girl the necklace she liked. And put money toward a dryer for his grandmother so she didn’t have to use the clothesline this winter.
The driver cut his headlights but kept the engine running as he stepped out of the car. Moonlight silhouetted the man’s large frame. The stranger wore a hoodie and kept his head tilted down so shadows cloaked his face. Maybe that was for the best. No questions.
Just a little bit longer, and it would be over. He’d take the money and never look back.
Terrance held up the bag. “I have a delivery for you.”
The driver didn’t speak for a moment, then he moved forward, gravel crunching under his boot as he stepped into the alley.
The stranger didn’t speak for what felt like forever before he reached in his jacket pocket. “Where’s Jimmy?”
“Sick,” Terrance lied, like Jimmy had told him.
For a moment the stranger stood still as stone. “Jimmy didn’t contact me,” he barely whispered.
“Said it was safer not to. Less said, the better.”
A weighty silence lingered between them before the stranger spoke again. “Let me see in the bag.”
“Do you have the money?”
The man pulled his hand from his pocket, a thick wad of bills clutched in his long fingers.
With trembling hands, Terrance untangled the hurriedly tied knot. He opened the bag so the man could see inside.
Approaching slowly, the man looked and nodded. He held out the roll of bills with one hand as he reached for the bag with the other. Eyeing the stranger, Terrance took the money and shoved it in his pocket. As much as he wanted to count it, he had no idea what he’d do if it were short.
The man turned, and for an instant, moonlight illuminated the side of his face. Terrance froze, transfixed as a memory elbowed free. Before he could rein in the question, he asked, “Hey, man. Do I know you?”
The buyer paused but didn’t look up. A grin washed over stony features. “Do you?”
Don’t talk. Grab and go. “Sure. Seen you around our town.”
The man clutched the bag tighter. “That so?”
“No worries, dude. I’m no snitch,” Terrance said, mustering false bravado. “As far as I’m concerned, this never happened.”
“No, it did not.”
Terrance patted the money in his pocket. “We’re good. That’s it?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
Terrance stepped to the side, expecting to walk past the man and out of the alley. As he passed, the guy asked, “Your name is Terrance, right?”
Hearing his name sent a chill down his back. He didn’t want anyone knowing he was here either. Shit. If his grandmother found out, she’d go nuts. And fuck, he was due to hear any day about the scholarship. He should have kept his mouth shut.
Terrance halted midstep. “Hey, man, I said I wouldn’t tell.”
“I know.” He smiled.
Terrance’s nerves eased.
The man moved with the blinding swiftness of a snake. Moonlight glinted briefly on a knife blade before he jabbed the sharp tip into Terrance’s belly and twisted hard, then removed the cold metal quickly before stepping back. Terrance staggered. For a moment, he was stunned and simply stared at the hole in his jacket. Shit. A hole in his jacket.
With trembling fingers, he unzipped it to find a bloodstain blooming and growing wetter and warmer across his belly with each beat of his heart.
Terrance touched his stomach and pressed. Wincing, he studied his crimson-stained fingertips as if they belonged to someone else. Blood gushed from his gut. His head spun, and he dropped to his hands and knees. His fingers dug into the gritty cobblestones lining the alley.
Terrance looked up at the guy. “I said I wouldn’t tell.”
Long fingers clung to the blood-tipped knife. “I know, kid.”
Terrance’s body twitched. The heat raced from his limbs toward his torso. Somehow, he knew he was dying.
Carefully, the man knelt and slowly wiped the blade on his own pant leg before sheathing the weapon in a holster on his belt. Gently, he lowered Terrance to the ground.
“It’ll be over soon. Close your eyes, Terrance. It’s like going to sleep.”
Terrance gripped the man’s arm, his fingernails biting. “I don’t want to die.”
“We all die, kid.”
He could feel his heart pumping hard, struggling now. “Not me. Not now.”
“Death isn’t terrible. Death is stillness. It’s peace. I’ll pray for you.”
Terrance tried to sit up, but his body wasn’t responding any longer. His skin had turned icy cold. He had no choice but to lie there listening to his killer’s whispered prayers. He thought about his grandmother. His girlfriend.
“My grandmother’s going to hear I got knifed in a drug deal,” Terrance said.
“I’ll see to it she doesn’t know about this.”
“Why me?”
“This isn’t personal, kid.”
“My old man told me not to talk.”
“Jimmy was right.”
How many times had his grandmother warned him about Jimmy? She was going to be so pissed and heartbroken.
Terrance’s vision grayed, and his last image was of this man praying for him as his life bled out onto the dirty, gray cobblestones.
CHAPTER ONE
Monday, October 3, 9:00 a.m.
Agent Dakota Sharp with the Virginia State Police stood apart from the paltry gathering of mourners. Hands clasped. Feet braced. He wondered if guilt or loyalty had tipped the scales in favor of the twenty-mile drive north to this small town to attend his stepfather’s funeral. They’d never been close, their relationship a study in toleration. And after Sharp’s half sister died from an overdose, they rarely spoke again. And yet here he stood, carrying the banner for what remained of their family.
Roger Benson, RB to his friends, a talented artist and former chair of the local college’s art department, would have been embarrassed by the low turnout at his final tribute. Two decades ago, when Roger was in his prime, he had been a showman who’d inhaled attention and devoured the limelight. He once joked his memorial would be a festive event. He’d envisioned hundreds in attendance, a New Orleans–style brass band, and an open bar. Or course, there’d be a proper prayer or two. Tears from the ladies. Bemused male laughter over past exploits. And, in the end, a fitting celebration of a life well lived.
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Sharp scanned the cemetery’s gray headstones, which skimmed the sloping hill toward a hedge and a stand of oaks ripe with orange and red leaves. The sky was a thick gray, and a southwesterly wind blew at ten knots.
A gleam of light glistening on a cross affixed to the coffin drew his attention to the four people behind the priest who stood at the head of the simple casket. To think so few had shown for the old man’s closing performance; that had to sting for whatever incarnation of Roger hovered in the ether.
To the right of the funeral attendant stood Benson’s former agent, Harvey Whitcomb, whose frequent cell phone checks undercut his bereaved expression. Benson’s attorney, Donna Conner, wore a dignified black pants suit, a strand of pearls, and an expression that looked more bored than bereaved. Last was Douglas Knox, the town’s former police chief, who’d shoehorned his expanded frame into a wrinkled gray suit.
Sharp had been ten when his mother, Adeline, a stunning woman with auburn hair and an infectious laugh, had been hired as Roger’s office assistant. Four months later she was pregnant, she and Roger were married, and Sharp and his mother moved to Roger’s lake house near the small college town north of Richmond.
From day one, Sharp and Roger had been at odds. Roger thought in shapes, sensations, and colors. Sharp clung to hard facts. Roger painted. Sharp shot empty bottles off a fence with a BB gun. Abstract versus linear lines. Joie de vivre met bull in a china shop.
As different as the two men were, they agreed on two things. They both loved Sharp’s mother, and they both loved the baby she and Roger had together. Katherine Whitney Benson. Kara to friends and family. Because of Kara, Sharp and Benson did their best to get along.
Twelve years ago when Kara disappeared after a college party, Sharp had been deployed in Iraq as a marine sniper and was stationed miles outside Al Fallujah. When word of Kara’s death reached him, they’d been in the thick of some very nasty fighting. He wanted to leave immediately, but weeks would pass before the fighting eased enough so he could return home to his sister’s grave and a family torn into fragments.
