Chapter 10 - The Evidence That DisappearedBy sunrise, Adrien Viscari had been arrested for murder.
Television helicopters circled the federal courthouse. Crowds gathered outside police headquarters. Reporters repeated the same accusations until speculation became public truth.
MAFIA BOSS EXECUTES DEPUTY MAYOR.
VISCARI LEDGER EXPOSED AS POSSIBLE CRIMINAL COVER-UP.
KEY EVIDENCE MISSING.
Cross had planned his death carefully.
The tunnel camera showed Adrien holding the gun.
It did not show Cross strangling me.
The microphone hidden in my button had stopped transmitting when I entered the flooded section.
And the original drive had vanished.
Without it, the released files could not be authenticated.
Worse, altered documents now appeared throughout the public database, naming Adrien as the director of the entire trafficking operation.
“He will be transferred to federal custody by noon,” Crane said.
We were gathered in the Queens safe house.
His badge had been suspended, his access revoked.
Caterina had survived surgery but remained unconscious under guard.
Marco paced near the window.
“We need the drive.”
“I searched the tunnel,” I said. “The police searched it too.”
“Then one of them took it.”
Sofia spread photographs across the table.
“The officers who entered from the north entrance belonged to Cross’s special unit.”
Crane studied their faces.
“Most of them have disappeared.”
Vincent pointed at one photograph.
“This man.”
Officer Daniel Rusk.
He had been the first person to reach Cross’s body.
“Can you find him?” I asked.
Crane made a call.
Ten minutes later, he received an address.
Rusk owned a small house on Staten Island.
We drove there without police assistance.
The front door stood open.
Inside, the television played footage of Adrien’s arrest.
A cup of coffee sat warm on the kitchen counter.
Rusk was gone.
Marco searched the bedrooms.
I noticed water on the floor near a basement door.
The same dark courthouse water that had soaked our clothes.
We descended.
Rusk lay dead beside a furnace.
One bullet wound to the head.
The wall safe stood open.
Empty.
Sofia crouched near the body.
“He did not have time to change clothes.”
“Someone followed him from the courthouse,” Marco said.
I looked at a family photograph on the basement shelf.
Rusk stood beside a woman and a teenage boy.
On the back was written: Summer at Bellweather Lake.
“Maybe the killer took his family.”
Crane called the wife’s number.
No answer.
He called the son’s school.
The boy had not arrived.
“They’re leverage,” I said.
Vincent examined Rusk’s hand.
Something metallic was caught beneath his fingernail.
He removed it.
A fragment of gold.
“Jewelry?” Marco asked.
Sofia shook her head.
“Gold leaf.”
I looked around the basement.
No gold decoration.
But the photograph showed a church behind Rusk’s family.
Its sign read Saint Gabriel’s Academy.
Gold leaf covered the school chapel.
We reached Saint Gabriel’s before noon.
Classes had been canceled after an anonymous bomb threat.
The grounds were empty.
Crane found Rusk’s wife and son tied inside the chapel office.
They were frightened but alive.
“Who brought you here?” I asked.
Mrs. Rusk shook uncontrollably.
“A woman.”
“What did she look like?”
“Blonde. Maybe forty. Expensive coat.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She told Daniel the city would forgive him if he returned what he stole.”
“What did he do with the drive?”
Mrs. Rusk looked at her son.
The boy began crying.
“He gave it to me,” he said.
“Where is it?”
“I hid it in the confessional.”
We entered the chapel.
The wooden confessional stood beneath a gold-painted statue.
Inside, taped beneath the seat, was a small black drive.
I almost collapsed with relief.
Vincent inspected it.
“It’s the original.”
A slow clap echoed from the balcony.
Marcus stood above us.
Alive.
A white bandage wrapped his chest.
I stared at him.
“I saw you die.”
“You saw me stop moving.”
Marco aimed his weapon.
Marcus raised both hands.
“I’m not here to fight.”
“You stabbed her life apart,” Marco said.
Marcus looked at me.
“I know.”
“How are you alive?”
“Cross’s men removed me before the police arrived. They thought I could still be useful.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
His smile was bitter.
“Not to them.”
He descended slowly, one hand pressed against his wound.
“I know where they’re taking Adrien.”
“Federal detention,” Crane said.
“No. The transport order is fake.”
My heart pounded.
“What do they plan to do?”
“Kill him during transfer and claim he tried to escape.”
Marco grabbed Marcus by the throat.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Route?”
“FDR service tunnel.”
Marco released him.
We ran.
Crane contacted the few officers he trusted, but none were close enough.
Adrien’s transport convoy entered the tunnel at twelve fourteen.
We intercepted it using a delivery truck.
Marco blocked the road.
The first transport vehicle crashed into the barrier.
Masked men emerged from the escort cars and opened fire.
They were not federal agents.
Sofia and Crane returned fire from cover.
I reached the armored van.
The rear doors were locked.
“Adrien!”
A gunshot sounded inside.
I found a fallen officer’s keys and opened the door.
Adrien sat chained to the bench.
Across from him, a masked man held a smoking pistol.
Blood covered Adrien’s shirt.
I fired without thinking.
The attacker fell.
I climbed inside.
“Where are you hit?”
Adrien looked at the blood.
“Not mine.”
A dead guard lay beside him.
Adrien had wrapped the chain around the man’s throat before he could fire again.
I unlocked the cuffs.
Outside, sirens approached.
Real ones this time.
“We have the drive,” I said.
Adrien stared at me.
“You found it?”
“Yes.”
For the first time since the club, he smiled.
It was small and exhausted.
But it changed his entire face.
Then Marcus appeared behind me.
Adrien’s smile vanished.
He seized the dead guard’s gun.
“Move away from her.”
Marcus did not.
“I came to warn you.”
“You came because Cross abandoned you.”
“Both can be true.”
Adrien aimed at his chest.
I stepped between them.
“Stop.”
“He nearly killed you.”
“I know.”
“He will again.”
Marcus lowered his eyes.
“No.”
Adrien’s finger tightened on the trigger.
I placed my hand over the gun.
“Do not become the man they say you are.”
He looked at me.
Slowly, he lowered the weapon.
Police surrounded the tunnel.
Crane raised his hands and began shouting instructions.
Marcus backed into the shadows.
Before disappearing, he looked at me one final time.
“There is one more name in the ledger,” he said. “Someone Cross was afraid of.”
“Who?”
Marcus smiled sadly.
May you like
“Your foster father.”
Then he vanished into the tunnel.
Related Stories
