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Should I?
“I still don’t know your name.”
Smug, in his thousand-dollar suit, with his shiny shoes, and slicked-back hair, he switches hands, placing his gun in his left and freeing up his right. Then he stalks closer and offers it, as though he actually wants me to shake. “Don’t be rude, Ms. Swanson.” He bends and grabs my hand, tightening his grip until the small bones in mine move, and a gasp of pain tears from deep inside my throat. “When a man is attempting to introduce himself to you, you look into his eyes.” He straightens his spine, so oddly, I do the same. “You stand up straight. You pay your respects.”
“I-I don’t…” Swallowing the painful lump in my throat, I risk a look over my shoulder, only to find the men just two feet away from me. I’m surrounded. I’m stuck. And as I bring my focus back around, I acknowledge I may just be looking into the eyes of the devil himself.
“Special Agent Gordon Fuller at your service.”
Before I get the chance to respond, or react, or in any way scream, a blinding pain crashes against the side of my face and turns my vision dark. If I hit the ground, I’m not conscious enough to feel it.
Small mercies, I guess.
Thanks, Judy.
Drake
TIME TO GO TO WAR.
Istride through the Copeland City police precinct—one of them, anyway—and charge toward the war room I’ve basically lived in for two weeks straight. I’ve slept here every night since handing Rory over to a new team for safekeeping, except for the snatches of time I’ve gone back to the house to ensure she was tucked in and asleep. I’ve eaten here. I’ve made a million calls from this room, and examined a thousand hours of CCTV footage, not only of the murder that took place weeks ago, but from that night five years ago inside Vallejo’s club.
I’ve replayed, time and time again, everything that happened on that op. Every word that was said. Every face I saw. And then I’ve scoured the Copeland City CCTV footage in a desperate search for those same faces to pop up again.
“I don’t know what’s missing.” I step through the war room door and catch Malone and Fletch by surprise, their eyes glazing over from countless hours of studying the same shit I’ve studied. They sit at an ugly, old, melamine-topped table with empty coffee mugs and overflowing case files, but they look across as I stalk toward the massive whiteboard we’ve used since this case began. “We’re missing something,” I snarl, my patience wearing thin as another day closes and nighttime ascends.
Rory will be at the house, stomping around in a bad mood and pretending that the dark doesn’t scare her.
The sooner I’m done here, the sooner I get to go to her and make sure she’s okay.
“I’m calling in every contact I have,” Malone exhales, as tired as I am. “There is no proof Vallejo set up a new life beyond that night at the club. He diversified his income streams and bank accounts long before his supposed death, but they’re all here.” He sets a manila folder on the table and sits forward to rest his elbows on top. “Everything is here, Banks. He had other identities, as most men in the business do, and plenty of hidden caches of cash. But none have moved since that night, except to funnel down to his heirs via a will and the authorities’ inability, orrefusal,” he adds on a sneer, “to freeze it all.”
“You’ve tracked it all?” I come to a stop on the opposite side of the table and scrub a hand across my face. “You’ve got a handle on every asset? Every ID? Everything?”
“I’ve got it all,” he murmurs. “These contacts of mine are thorough, so if they can’t find anything, I’m led to believe that nothing exists.”
“So how does a man go on to live?” I drop my hands and set them on the back of a ratty chair, squeezing until my knuckles turn white “How does he finance his new life, if not with the money he’d earned prior to the club?”
“That’s what we’re saying,” Fletch inserts. “If not for Vallejo’s missing body, we can’t find any hint he’s actually alive. He hasn’t shown up since the night you shot him. Facial recognition hasn’t popped him once in five years. We’ve run every airport, bus stop, shipping port, train station, and taxi rank across the country. He’s a ghost.”
“And yet,” I snarl, “he’s not beneath the fucking headstone we all thought he would be.” My phone trills in my pocket and sparks my ire, impatience soaring in my blood. Because I know we’re close. We’ve had our heads down on this for weeks in search of a man who’s made himself damn near impossible to find.
Reaching back and taking out my cell, I spy Rory’s name on the screen, and consider sending her to voicemail. This isn’t the first time she’s tried to call me since I dumped her with Spears. And it wouldn’t be the first time she’s sent a barrage of angry texts after I’ve ignored her. But I swipe the screen and answer this time, bringing the device to my ear.
Because fuck it. I need to hear her voice.
“Rory?”
“It’s not Vallejo!” she screams out in panic, sending shards of ice through my veins and the frame of the chair beneath my hand, splintering when my fist balls. “His name is G—”
“Tsk tsk tsk,” a man’s voice, soft and calm, sickeningly sweet as he takes Rory’s phone and silences her so her shouts are muffled. A hand clapped over her mouth, maybe. “She’s spicy, huh?”
“Who is this?” I stare through Malone. Through Fletcher. Through the entire fucking homicide division and try to place my caller’s voice. “Where are you?”
He chuckles, too familiar, too… impossible. “You offend me, brother. You don’t know who this is?”
Archer shoves up from his chair and sprints around to practically press his ear to the other side of my phone.
“G—” I swallow the bile in my throat and shake my head. “No chance.”
