Chapter 3 - THE MAN FROM THE CRASH REPORT
The man approaching the SUV looked nothing like a murderer.
That was the first thing I noticed.
He was perhaps sixty, with silver hair cut neatly above his collar and the composed face of someone who spent his life being trusted. His dark FBI raincoat hung open enough to reveal a white shirt and conservative tie.
Deputy Assistant Director Thomas Keene.
I knew the name.
Everyone who covered federal law enforcement knew it.
Keene had built his reputation investigating organized crime. He appeared on television whenever Washington needed someone calm, respectable, and reassuring.
And now Dominic Rinaldi was telling me he had helped murder my father.
“Stay in the vehicle,” Dominic said.
Keene stopped twenty feet away.
“Elena Ward.”
Hearing my name made my stomach drop.
“Step out of the SUV. You are not under arrest.”
Dominic gave a quiet laugh.
“That sentence usually means she will be shortly.”
Keene ignored him.
“Elena, Dominic Rinaldi is a dangerous criminal. Whatever he told you about your father is designed to manipulate you.”
I looked at Dominic.
Then back at Keene.
“Why were federal agents inside my apartment?”
“Your father possessed classified evidence before his death. We received information that those materials may have resurfaced.”
“Thirteen years later?”
Keene’s expression did not move.
“Please step outside.”
Dominic leaned close enough that only I could hear.
“Look at his left hand.”
I did.
Keene wore a gold signet ring.
A black stone with a tiny silver symbol carved into its center.
A crown intersected by three vertical lines.
I had seen it before.
On the edge of one of my father’s notebook pages.
He had drawn that exact symbol beside two words.
Orpheus Circle.
My pulse exploded.
Keene saw my eyes drop toward his hand.
For one instant, his calm mask cracked.
That was enough.
“Marco,” Dominic said.
The SUV lurched backward.
Gunfire erupted.
The rear window shattered.
I threw my arms over my head as Marco rammed the vehicle behind us. Metal screamed. Dominic fired through the broken glass, not at the agents themselves but at the tires of the SUV blocking our escape.
Marco spun us onto the shoulder.
We tore through mud, clipped a wooden barrier, and plunged down an access road.
My entire body shook.
“That was the FBI!”
“Some of them,” Dominic replied.
“You shot at federal agents.”
“I shot tires.”
“That distinction is not going to comfort a prosecutor.”
“It might comfort the agents.”
Marco took another turn.
I looked at the photograph still clutched in my hand.
“My father wrote about the Orpheus Circle.”
Dominic’s head turned sharply.
“You know that name?”
“He drew Keene’s ring.”
“What else?”
“I need the notebooks.”
“We’ll get them if we can.”
“If?”
“Elena, they knew you opened that box.”
I stared at him.
“How?”
“That is a better question.”
Only three people knew the storage unit existed.
Me.
Sofia.
And the facility manager.
A sick thought entered my mind.
“No.”
Dominic studied my face.
“What?”
“Sofia wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t say she did.”
“She’s my best friend.”
“I’m not accusing her.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking someone watched you retrieve the box.”
That was almost worse.
We drove for nearly forty minutes.
Eventually the city gave way to industrial blocks and warehouses. Marco took us through an underground garage beneath a renovated brick building.
Dominic led me upstairs.
I expected some mob fortress.
Instead, I entered what looked like an ordinary corporate office after hours.
Computers.
Conference rooms.
A coffee machine.
A tired woman in glasses looked up from a laptop and frowned.
“You brought her here?”
“Bianca, meet Elena Ward.”
The woman froze.
Her face changed.
She stood so quickly her chair rolled backward.
“Oh my God.”
Bianca Rinaldi was beautiful in an understated way. Dark hair tied loosely behind her neck. No expensive jewelry. No bodyguards hovering beside her.
And she looked at me like she was seeing a ghost.
“You have David’s eyes.”
My throat tightened.
“You knew him.”
She crossed the room.
For a moment I thought she might hug me.
Instead, she stopped several feet away.
“I owe your father everything.”
Dominic placed my father’s photograph on the table.
Bianca touched it with two fingers.
“I kept that blanket for ten years,” she whispered.
I sat down.
“Tell me what happened.”
Dominic looked at his sister.
She nodded.
Then she told me.
Thirteen years earlier, my father had been tracing payments through a chain of shell corporations.
They appeared unrelated.
Hotels.
Shipping companies.
Political foundations.
Construction firms.
But money moved through them in the same pattern every six weeks.
The FBI believed organized crime was laundering money.
Dad discovered something worse.
The payments corresponded to movements of women and girls.
Some were undocumented immigrants.
Some were runaways.
Some were girls taken from families powerful enough to make their disappearance dangerous.
Bianca had been one of them.
“The Orpheus Circle wasn’t a Mafia organization,” she said. “They used Mafia routes, corrupt police officers, politicians, businessmen. Anyone who could move people without questions.”
“Who ran it?”
Dominic answered.
“Your father never proved it.”
“But he had names.”
“Yes.”
“Keene?”
Bianca nodded.
“Keene was one.”
I felt sick.
“Why didn’t my father go public?”
“He tried.”
Dominic leaned against the table.
“Three days before his death, he contacted someone inside the Department of Justice. He believed he had found an honest prosecutor.”
“What happened?”
“The prosecutor disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“His boat was found in Chesapeake Bay.”
I stared at him.
“Then Dad knew he was next.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he take me and run?”
Bianca’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because they told him they would kill you if he disappeared.”
The room went silent.
I suddenly remembered my father checking the locks.
Watching cars.
Hugging me three times in one day.
He hadn’t been paranoid.
He had been terrified.
“Did you see him the day he died?”
Dominic nodded.
“He came to me.”
“What did he want?”
“To make a deal.”
My jaw tightened.
“What kind of deal?”
“He gave me a ledger containing evidence against three members of the Orpheus Circle.”
“Why you?”
“Because he believed I could hide something the FBI could not.”
“Where is it?”
Dominic hesitated.
That hesitation told me everything.
“You don’t have it.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“He divided the evidence.”
I remembered one strange line in Dad’s notebook.
Three keys. Three doors. Trust none together.
“What did he give you?”
“A key.”
Dominic walked to a safe.
He opened it.
Inside lay an old brass key attached to a faded red tag.
There was a number stamped into the metal.
317.
I stared at it.
“That’s it?”
“For thirteen years.”
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never figured it out?”
“Your father told me I would know when Elena came looking.”
A chill moved through me.
“He knew I would?”
“He hoped you wouldn’t.”
Dominic placed the key in my palm.
The red tag was worn almost smooth.
But there was faint writing beneath the number.
AWC.
Ashwood Cemetery.
My heart began pounding.
“The truth is buried where he is.”
Bianca looked at me.
“What?”
“The anonymous text. It said the truth was buried where my father is.”
Dominic’s expression sharpened.
I turned the key over.
A tiny engraving ran along one edge.
NORTH WALL.
I remembered Ashwood.
Behind my father’s grave stood an old family mausoleum.
Its north wall had a row of locked memorial boxes.
Dominic reached for his coat.
“We go back before Keene realizes what the key opens.”
A phone rang.
Bianca answered.
Her face went pale.
“What?”
She put it on speaker.
A man’s voice said, “Mr. Rinaldi, you should turn on the television.”
The screen in the office came alive.
Thomas Keene stood behind a podium.
My photograph filled the display beside him.
A reporter shouted a question.
Keene answered calmly.
“Elena Ward is currently believed to be traveling with Dominic Rinaldi. We have reason to believe she may possess stolen federal evidence connected to the murder of Special Agent Robert Haines.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“I’ve never heard of Robert Haines.”
Dominic looked at the television.
Then at me.
Keene continued.
“A warrant has been issued for Miss Ward’s arrest.”
My phone buzzed.
A new message.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
A photograph filled the screen.
Sofia sat tied to a chair.
Blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
May you like
Underneath were six words.
BRING THE KEY OR SHE DIES.
