by Elle Gray
We built a solid case against Petrosyan and thought we had him dead to rights. But then his high-priced mouthpiece, a dirtbag named Palmer Tinsley, dropped a bombshell on us and offered up Petrosyan’s bodyguard, Mushyan, instead. Had a signed confession and everything. Then Fish gave us the final nail in Mushyan’s coffin—security video showing him shooting Ben in the head. It was incontrovertible, but I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Petrosyan ordered the murder. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can prove, so that scumbag is still walking free.
“It’s not your fault, but thank you,” I say. “Besides, you gave us what we needed to get a murderer off the streets. Petrosyan may have ordered it, but Mushyan pulled the trigger.”
“Well, it’s a disagreeable situation all the way around,” he replies. “But let’s not delve into old unpleasantries. What is it I can do for you, Agent Wilder?”
“I need your help, Fish.”
“Another big case?”
I shake my head. “No, actually this is personal.”
He leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers in front of him, an enigmatic smile touching his lips.
“Personal. How intriguing. It’s so rare that you give me a glimpse of your personal life,” he says. “So, tell me, Agent Wilder, how can I be of service?”
I let out a quiet breath. I’ve thought long and hard about asking Fish to get involved with this, simply because as much as I like him as a person, I know there’s a limit to how much I can trust him. And giving him this sort of access to my personal life comes dangerously close to crossing that line. But Fish has the sort of reach I need for this, and it keeps those closest to me out of the line of fire. Fish is a man who knows how to take care of himself. He has an army around him, so I know I have less to worry about when it comes to him. As it is, I worry about Brody, who is the one who gave me this information to begin with. And I’d rather not endanger him any more than I already have.
I pull the file Brody gave me out of my bag and slide it across the desk to Fish. He picks it up and flips through the pages, then looks up at me, an expression of curiosity on his face.
“Mark Walton—this is your boyfriend, is he not?” he asks.
“No, he’s not my boyfriend anymore. Nor is he Mark Walton, apparently,” I explain. “That’s all the information I have, but it shows that Mark Walton is a fiction. His information is backstopped for ten years, but prior to that, he didn’t exist. I need to know who he really is. And who he works for.”
“Fascinating,” Fish says. “So, he was deliberately inserted into your life.”
“It seems that way.”
“For what purpose?”
“Because I’ve been looking into the murders of my parents,” I admit. “I believe the organization responsible for their deaths inserted Mark into my life to keep tabs on my investigation.”
I pause as my thoughts turn to Gina Aoki and how she was brutally murdered after meeting with me. Mark was one of the few people to whom I’d mentioned that meeting, and as uncomfortable as it is to think about, I can’t deny that there’s a piece of me that thinks he might have done it. If he’s cold-blooded enough to insert himself into my life and pretend to care about me, what else is he capable of? It would take a monster to do something like that. And that kind of monster would be more than capable of cutting a woman’s throat, I have no doubt.
“That sounds like a very interesting story,” Fish says. “What is it your parents were involved in? I believe you said they worked for the government.”
“That’s a story I’m not ready to share yet. My investigation’s nowhere near complete.”
Fish looks at me for a long moment, that enigmatic smile still on his lips. And judging by the way he’s looking at me, I already know what he’s going to ask.
“That’s a story I would very much like to hear,” he says. “So, that is my price for getting this information for you. When your investigation is complete, I want to hear all about it.”
I hate being right all the time. But it seems a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. There’s nothing he can do with that information to leverage me after I’ve finished my investigation and exposed all the conspirators. If anything, having somebody else know—especially somebody like Fish—might provide me with an added layer of protection.
“Deal,” I say. “When I find out who killed my folks and have brought them all to justice, I’ll tell you everything.”
His smile is wide and wolfish. “Then I look forward to hearing all about it,” he says smoothly. “I’ll tell you the moment I have any information to pass on.”
“Thank you, Fish. I really appreciate it.”
“It’s my pleasure, Agent Wilder,” he grins. “In fact, cooperating with the FBI can only help my public image as I go legit.”
Well, at least we’re both getting something out of it. Win-win situations are so rare in life.
Six
Criminal Data Analysis Unit; Seattle Field Office
“What do you have, Rick?” I ask as I step to the front of the room.
“Nothing good,” he states. “Other than the bleeder’s taking money out of her main bank account, none of her credit cards and secondary bank accounts has been touched in the last ten days. No lunches, no coffees, no fill-ups at the gas station—nothing.”
“Maybe that means she’s living off the money the bleeder’s taking?” Mo offers.
“It’s possible,” Astra agrees.
I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s it,” I say. “I think the bleeder’s working for himself. I just don’t think he’d hand all that cash over to somebody else. That just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“But it’s something we need to keep in mind,” Astra says. “Something we can’t rule out entirely right now.”
“I agree,” I nod.
“There is also no evidence that she went anywhere. No plane tickets, no bus tickets, and no receipts from gas stations,” Rick adds. “She left zero paper trail. As far as I can tell, she never left town.”
“She couldn’t have just disappeared,” Astra muses.
“No, she couldn’t have,” I mutter.
“It certainly seems as though this case just got a whole lot more complicated,” Astra says.
“Guess she’s not off on a beach somewhere on a bender,” Mo adds.
“We still don’t know that for sure,” I caution. “There are a lot of ways she could have gotten out of town without leaving a paper trail.”
“Wow. You’re usually open to any and all theories but you seem pretty locked in on this one,” Astra says. “Are you maybe letting your dislike of Hedlund bleed over into this?”
I step back and take a beat, letting Astra’s words sink in. And I realize that despite Rosie’s assurances to the Congresswoman, I haven’t been behaving like a professional. I have indeed let my own bias and dislike of Hedlund color my view. I wouldn’t have handled any other case the way I’m handling this one. I still think Selene, troubled and difficult, is probably off on a bender somewhere. But that shouldn’t have affected how I handled this case—or rather, mostly dismissed it. The fact is, she’s missing, and we’ve been tasked to find her. So, whether she’s on a beach in Mexico or somewhere else, it’s our job to find her.
Looking up at Astra, I give her a small smile. “As much as it pains me to admit it, you might be right,” I say. “Mea culpa.”
“I’d think you’d be used to that feeling by now,” Astra quips.
I glance at the whiteboard and the notes I’d hastily scrawled there, giving myself a moment to wrap my head around it all. Then I turn back to the team.
“All right. We’re going to have to start from square , and I’m sorry for that,” I say. “So, let’s reset. What do we know so far?”
“We know that Selene has been missing for roughly ten days or so,” Mo starts. “We know that other than the bleeder’s draining her account, there’s been zero activity on her financials. Li
kewise for her socials—zero activity since the day she went missing.”
Looking at things through this new paradigm in my head, even I have to admit that’s a bit chilling. Kids these days—and as a twenty-three-year-old who grew up pampered and sheltered, she’s still very much a kid—are connected to their social media accounts. They’re constantly posting to Instagram and Tiktok, no matter how mundane or simple the thought. They live on social media as if they’re afraid they’ll be forgotten instantly if they don’t post continually. It’s as if that’s their only real connection to the world.
“Is it possible she’s got secret social accounts we don’t know about?” I ask.
“Not likely,” Rick throws in. “I ran her IP address against socials and didn’t turn anything up. I mean, it’s still possible, of course. But I don’t think it’s likely.”
I nod and look at the whiteboard again, feeling a vague sense of unease growing and spreading through me.
“Can we track her phone?” I ask.
I hear Rick clacking away at his keyboard for a minute before he shakes his head. “Phone was shut off days ago. Last activity was the confirmation text message from the bank.”
“What was the last location it pinged?” I ask.
“It was at her school,” he replies. “Last ping comes from a coffee house at Marchmont University.”
“That jibes with her last social media post on Instagram,” Mo says as she starts tapping at her keyboard. “On the screens.”
We all turn and look at the monitors on the wall. It’s a selfie Selene took in what looks like a coffee house, which lines up with her last ping. She’s a pretty girl and resembles her mother in a lot of ways—especially around the eyes. Selene has the same cornflower blue eyes in a face that’s smooth and youthful, and honey blonde hair that she’s got pulled back into a simple ponytail. Her expression is pensive. Nervous. But at the same time, there seems to be a sparkle in her eye that almost looks—excited.
“The only way to be truly free is to let go and live in the service of something greater than yourself,” Astra reads the caption below Selene’s selfie.
“Well, that’s not cryptic or anything,” Mo comments.
“It almost sounds as though she’s taking a vow of poverty and joining a convent,” Rick says.
I stare at the caption, reading it through several times. Rick’s right in that it almost sounds like a goodbye. As if she’s choosing to drop out of society and go join a convent or something. But then, we also live in an age when people jot down what they think are their most profound thoughts and put them on display for the whole world to see. This could be Selene’s saying goodbye or it could be nothing. It’s an interesting point to ponder, but it’s hard to say if it actually means anything right now.
“What are you thinking, boss?” Mo asks.
I shake my head. “I’m not sure just yet. I’m not totally convinced this is pertinent to the investigation. It could just be nonsensical ramblings posing as profound thought.”
“Some people do chase internet clout by doing that,” Rick points out.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve seen your socials,” Astra says sardonically.
“I don’t need to chase clout anymore. It comes to me,” he fires back with a grin.
As they laugh with each other, I stare at Selene’s face and read her caption again, trying to get into her head. What was she thinking when she posted this? What does she mean by letting go and living in service to something greater than herself? Does it mean anything at all? Or, is it as Rick suggested, a girl chasing internet clout by posting a cute picture and something she thinks makes her seem deep and contemplative?
“What about her car?” Astra asks as the thought occurs to her. “Has she gotten any tickets? Can we trace the car’s last known location on her GPS?”
Mo consults her computer screen for a moment then turns back to us. “The car was dropped off at Tony’s Auto six days ago. The GPS went dark after that.”
I look at Astra and raise an eyebrow as the ominous feeling inside me continues to grow. She frowns as she looks at me, and I can tell that Astra is having the same dark thoughts that are rattling through my brain. This is starting to look bad.
“What is it?” Mo asks.
“Tony’s is a chop shop. If Selene’s car went in there, it’s not coming out,” Astra explains.
“Ready to take a ride?” I ask.
“If we’re going to Tony’s, let me just grab a Kevlar vest and a shotgun.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Rick, do me a favor and run a search of the GPS coordinates on both her phone and car before they went dark,” I tell him. “I want to know the places she visited most often.”
“On it, boss,” he chirps.
As Astra starts putting her things together, I turn to Mo and step closer to her workstation.
“I’d like you to hit Selene’s socials harder,” I say. “Look for anything else that might point to the meaning of her last post.”
“Will do,” she nods.
“And about that special project—have you had any luck?” I ask, pitching my voice lower. Mo gives a nod over to my office, and we silently walk over there and close the door behind us, just to have some privacy.
“I’m still gathering information, but what I can tell you preliminarily is that I see there are a number of cases involving large corporations that were ruled on one way in the past, but the Court has reversed its position with the addition of Justices Havers, Pearce, and Witkowski,” she explains quietly. “I don’t want to say too much right now—not until I have specifics. And those I’ll have for you in a little while. But just based on what I’ve seen so far, I think it’s safe to say that some rich people were very happy with the rulings and got even richer as a result of those rulings.”
“Those specifics—will you be able to get me names of the biggest beneficiaries of those rulings?”
She smiles. “I’ll have their shoe sizes for you.”
“Excellent,” I say. “Thank you. And watch your back, Mo. If this is what I think it is, there will be people with vested interests in not letting this information get out.”
She gives me a grin. “I told you when you asked me to look into this that I can take care of myself,” she replies. “I know the risks. But this is too important to let it go by the boards. I’m actually grateful you asked me to help with this.”
“I don’t know that you should be grateful for my putting you in the line of fire.”
“The only way to truly be free is to let go and live in the service of something greater than yourself,” she replies, giving me a dramatic rendition of Selene’s quotation, which makes me burst into laughter.
When my fit of giggles subsides, I give her a shoulder squeeze and a smile, still feeling guilty for dragging her into this. Mr. Corden and Gina Aoki paid for my investigation with their lives. But they knew what they were getting into. I haven’t yet told Mo some of the specifics of what I’m asking her to do, but I know I’ll have to—and soon. Mo’s got the expertise in finding patterns and rooting out irregularities. She’s got an understanding of the complex system of high finance that I’ll never have. I need her on this with me, but if something were to happen to her, I don’t know that I would ever forgive myself.
“Well….watch your back, anyway,” I tell her.
She nods. “I will.”
“We going?” Astra pokes her head in the door.
“We’re going,” I reply.
As Astra and I head out of the shop, my stomach churns as I turn Mo’s information over in my mind and it brings me back to something Gina Aoki said the day we met—at the root of all of this, it’s nothing but greed and power. And it’s starting to look as if my family was blown up just so somebody could add a few more zeroes to his bank account.
Seven
Tony’s Auto Repair, Othello District; Seattle, WA
The Othello district in Seattle has traditionally been thought of
as one of the roughest areas in the city. Filled with a lot of low-income housing, plus street gangs and other assorted criminals, it’s far from the kind of upper-class sheltered suburb that someone like Selene Hedlund would normally frequent. Unlike other neighborhoods in Seattle, Othello has been steadfast in not allowing gentrification.
The city has tried to improve the area, incentivizing businesses and developers to move in. But the residents always push back on them, so nobody’s been able to gain a foothold here. While I obviously don’t agree with some of the methods being employed, I’ll admit I can sympathize with the residents here who aren’t exactly thrilled with deep-pocketed big-wigs trying to horn their way in and drive them out.
We pull through the open gates and into the cracked and pitted asphalt parking lot of Tony’s Auto Repair and shut off the engine. We get out of the car, and I’m immediately assaulted by the stench of gasoline, oil, and a host of other, less pleasant, odors. The four bays of the shop contain cars up on hydraulic lifts, and another half-dozen cars are sitting in the parking stalls waiting for their turns. There’s also a large warehouse set off to the side, with the steel roll-down door closed up tight. That’s where the less-than-legal activities take place, I’m sure.
The office is painted a washed-out shade of blue that looks years overdue for a refresh, and has a large plate glass window in the front that’s scratched up and has a couple of cracks that are being held together with silver duct tape. There are four or five guys in blue coveralls buzzing around, working on the cars up on the lifts. Heavy metal is blasting from a set of tinny speakers overhead, almost sounding hollow.
“Nice place,” Astra notes. “Very….rustic.”
I give her a smile. “Don’t be a snob.”
She shrugs. “I am what I am.”
We walk into the office and find a twenty-something Hispanic girl behind the counter. She’s about five-three and trim, with dark hair, dark eyes, and russet-colored skin. I can see the outline of a tattoo just below the neckline of her coveralls, and a couple more on the backs of her hands. She’s on the phone and holds up a finger to tell us to give her a minute.