25. Dimitri
25
DIMITRI
“ W hat do you have for me?” I ask, walking into the office.
After leaving the guesthouse, I headed straight to my room for a cold shower. Her scent was all over me, and I knew I wouldn’t get any work done if every breath I took reminded me of her.
Oleg places a folder on my desk.
“This file contains everything we know about the Thorne family,” he says. “We’re still looking for new information, but this is what we have so far.”
I nod in appreciation and turn to Pavel. “Anything about the detective?”
“Nothing about the detective himself, but I might have found someone related to him. His younger sister.”
“What do you mean ‘you might have’?” I ask.
“She’s in WITSEC,” he says. “New identity, new location, new life.”
“Why is she in a witness protection program?” I ask.
“The fire at the Thorne mansion was apparently only the beginning,” he says. “Our FBI contact revealed that the detective had to flee the country because he was being targeted. His family and friends began to get hurt. That’s when he requested that his sister be put under WITSEC.”
“Do we know where he was last seen?” I ask.
Pavel shakes his head. “Nobody has seen or heard from him in over two decades.”
“What about the sister?” I ask. “Where does she live now?”
“She’s in the suburbs of Maryland,” Pavel replies. “Should I contact her?”
“Yes, but it’s better if we do it in person,” I say. “Send a team to America.”
“I’ll arrange it right away,” Pavel says.
I turn my attention to the file before me. I pick it up and flip through the pages.
Oleg did a good job with the report. Out of all my men, he’s the most meticulous and detail-oriented. I knew I could count on him to give me a comprehensive report on the Thorne family.
Tucked into an inside pocket of the binder, I find a photograph.
I pull it out to study it.
Taken over two decades ago, the entire Thorne family stands in front of their mansion—a classic plantation house with tall white columns on the front porch. Three generations are present—including Malorie’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The family is all smiles, but something about the photograph feels tainted.
Only weeks after this photograph was taken, all of these people perished in a fire.
Everyone except the blonde girl standing in the middle.
Malorie Thorne, Briar’s mother.
She’s beaming at the photograph, her pearly white teeth on display. She’s wearing a bucket hat that hides half of her face. She looks like an angel, but I know she sold her heart to the devil.
My gut churns as I continue staring at the photo.
It seems to whisper things to me—secrets that were long forgotten, curses that are still in force.
“I felt the same way,” Oleg says from beside me.
I drop the photograph. “What?”
“Something about it forces you to look,” he says. “And it’s hard to look away. There’s something dark and twisted about it.”
“It’s just a family photograph,” Pavel says, glancing over my shoulder. “What’s dark about it?”
Oleg and I exchange glances.
“Something inexplicable,” I say, putting the photograph away to look at the rest of the report. Even as I read through the pages, my mind keeps taking me back to that one photograph.
Every detail is burned into my mind’s eye, but I still feel like I’m missing something. It felt like the photograph was trying to tell me something important.
“There’s no record of a twin sister,” I say, flipping through all the pages once more.
Oleg shakes his head. “We combed through all the information we have on the family. There’s no mention of Malorie having a sister.”
“So we’re right back where we started then.” I sigh. “You did a good job with the report, Oleg. But we need more information. There must be someone who can tell us more about the family.”
Oleg shakes his head. “There’s no one left.”
But he’s wrong.
Only one person can tell me the complete truth—Malorie herself.