Chapter 4
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Two weeks later
Houston
Michael Flint was reviewing case files in his Houston office when one of his secure laptops chimed with an incoming call. He clicked the answer button.
Banks of monitors, server racks, and the perpetual glow of screens that never went dark provided the background, and Carlos Gaspar’s familiar face filled the screen.
“I’ve been asked to pass this along,” Gaspar said without preamble from his Miami tech cave.
“Asked by whom?”
“One of my favorite ghosts. Can’t say more.”
Gaspar had retired from the FBI after a long and successful career. Meaning he was exceptionally well connected.
His network of intelligence contacts included sources in every agency from Langley to Fort Meade, along with a few that didn’t officially exist. Gaspar’s information was always solid, even when he couldn’t reveal sources, means, or methods.
Flint’s government service was murkier than Gaspar’s, but intel from confidential classified sources came with limits they both respected.
He poured himself coffee from the perpetually brewing pot on his credenza. “Right. What’s the message?”
“Guy you’d want to meet wants to see you.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t ask. Couldn’t tell you if I had.”
Flint scowled at the screen, which caused Gaspar to grin. Their relationship had developed its own rhythm.
Gaspar handled tech surveillance, databases, digital forensics, and more from his Miami base.
Flint worked both the office and the field. He’d built an exceptionally lucrative business finding people and things other investigators couldn’t find, usually for clients who could afford to pay handsomely for success and discretion.
“What’s the message?”
“Check your front door. Package just delivered.”
“Hang on.” Flint walked through his house to the entrance where he found a padded envelope on the doorstep. He picked it up and opened it on his way back to the office.
Inside was a burner phone with a text message showing on the screen: Tonight. Oak Hotel lobby bar. 8 o’clock. Come alone.
Flint read the message twice as he settled back in front of the laptop. “Not much of a message. Why should I care?”
“My contact didn’t say. But he’s reliable.” Gaspar’s sources had never steered them wrong.
“The Oak. Gotta have serious money to walk through the door there.”
“Figured you’d appreciate that,” Gaspar deadpanned.
“Okay. Thanks.” Flint disconnected and pocketed the phone.
Six hours later, Flint pulled his Range Rover into the parking structure beneath The Oak Hotel and found a spot on the third level near the elevator and the emergency stairs, just in case.
The Oak’s lobby was all understated luxury and quiet money, the kind of place where billionaires conducted business over twenty-thousand-dollar bottles of wine. The bar occupied one corner, dimly lit and designed for conversations that weren’t meant to be overheard.
He spotted the man immediately. Tall, thin, late thirties. Sharp suit that probably cost ten grand. Sitting alone at a corner table with his back to the wall and clear sightlines to all entrances. Preoccupied. Detached.
He looked up as Flint approached. Pale blue eyes that seemed to take in everything and give away nothing. Flint had seen that look before. In mirrors, mostly.
Jason Fisher. One of the wealthiest men on the planet. Owner of Onyx, the tech conglomerate. Famously high-functioning autistic. Not as wealthy as Elon Musk, but much wealthier than the King of England.
What the hell was he doing here?
“Michael Flint,” Fisher said with a quick nod. Not a question.
“Jason Fisher,” Flint replied, taking the seat across from him without waiting for an invitation. “Your message was pretty light on details.”
“Security.” Fisher gave him a brief grin. “What are you drinking?”
“Not sure how long I’ll be here,” Flint replied by way of rejecting the offer. “What do you want?”
“Authorities claim my siblings died more than twenty years ago. I have reason to believe otherwise,” Fisher said. “I need to know the truth.”
“Twenty years is a long time. Memory fades. Evidence disappears. Witnesses die.”
“The official reports at the time say they died in a house fire. Accidental electrical fault.” Fisher’s voice was steady, but Flint caught the tension underneath. “No bodies were ever recovered.”
“Fires burn hot enough to vaporize bodies all the time,” Flint replied.
“Hot enough to consume three children and their babysitter without leaving so much as a tooth fragment? Not likely.” Fisher’s replies were characteristically cold and rigid.
Flint studied Fisher’s face. Flint had seen him on magazine covers and financial news programs. In person, he exuded a coiled intensity, like a spring under pressure. Not a man to cross.
“Why me?” Flint asked.
“Maybe you’re the wrong guy, if you’re asking that question.”
“Humor me,” Flint said flatly. He was long past the point where he needed to take every case that came along. Even if the potential client was the mercurial Jason Fisher.
“Because you find people who don’t want to be found. You don’t give up.” Fisher stated without emotion as he cocked his head and leveled a flat stare toward Flint to finish with the most important point he wanted to make here. “And you don’t ask questions about things that aren’t your business.”
“What makes you think your siblings don’t want to be found?”
Fisher reached into his jacket and withdrew a small tablet. He turned it toward Flint. The screen showed a grainy security camera image. A man at an ATM machine, face partially visible in profile.
“This was taken six weeks ago,” Fisher said. “The man in the photo is twenty-seven years old. He should be dead.”
Flint looked at the image. The resolution was poor, but he could make out enough details. Average height, dark hair, lean build. Unremarkable.
“Could be anyone.”
“Could be. Except for this.” Fisher swiped to the next image.
A side-by-side comparison. The ATM photo next to what looked like a pre-school picture of a young boy. Maybe three or four years old. Same nose. Same jawline. Same way of holding his head slightly tilted to the left.
“One of my brothers,” Fisher said as if he were discussing strangers. “Identical twins. Dylan and Kevin Fisher. Three years old when they died. I can’t determine from this image which brother this is, but both of them would look like this today.”
Flint picked up the tablet and examined the comparison more closely. The similarities were striking, but facial recognition software could be fooled or results faked. Especially with low-quality surveillance footage like the sample Fisher had collected.
“You run this through any databases?”
“Several. No matches. But that doesn’t mean anything. If someone wanted to disappear, really disappear, they could do it. New identity, new background, new life.”
“Or it could be coincidence. Guy who looks like your brothers. Human appearance is fairly generic in most respects.”
Fisher swiped to another image. Two birth certificates. Dylan Michael Fisher and Kevin William Fisher.
Then the Social Security death records. Dylan Michael Fisher and Kevin William Fisher. Deceased.
“Officially, my brothers are dead. Have been for twenty-four years. Which suggests only three options.” Fisher said.
He held up one finger at a time as he ticked off the possibilities.
“Either a mistake was made by the arson investigators. Or my brothers have doppelgangers. Or at least one of them is still alive.”
Fisher had his attention now. The case was a challenge with impossible odds. Just the kind Flint appreciated, and Fisher probably knew as much. Which was okay. It meant Fisher had done his homework.
Flint took one more look at the images on the tablet and then settled back in his chair. He nodded toward the bartender, an old friend.
He poured a healthy three fingers of his best whiskey and handed it off to the waitress who delivered the glass to Flint with a smile.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Flint sipped the whiskey. He raised the glass toward the bartender with appreciation.
Fisher took that in before he replied, “About what?”
“You’ve got enough money to hire dozens of private investigation firms. But you’re sitting in a hotel bar with me. Why?”
Fisher was quiet for a long moment before he spoke softly, as if he were sharing state secrets. “There are people who wouldn’t want certain questions asked. People who benefited from my siblings staying dead.”
“What kind of people?”
“The kind who burn down houses with children inside.”
Ambient noises from the bar filled the space between them. Conversations, laughter, glasses clinking against the tabletops.
“You think someone killed your family deliberately.”
“I think they wanted my father to stay quiet. And when he wouldn’t, they sent a message.”
“What kind of message?”
“The kind written in fire.”
“My prices are outrageous.”
Fisher reached into his jacket and withdrew a check, sliding it across the table. “To get started. Plus a heavy bonus if you find them alive.”
Flint glanced at the check. Seven figures. Pocket change to a man as rich as Fisher, but a sum Flint wouldn’t normally ignore. Which Fisher must have already known. Another indication that he’d done his homework.
“And if they’re dead?”
“Then I want the people who killed them. All of them.”
“That’s not what I do.”
“You find them. I’ll handle what happens next.”
Flint studied Fisher’s face. He wasn’t lying about wanting his brothers found. But he wasn’t telling the whole truth either. There were layers here. Layers meant complications.
But the photos nagged at him. What if Fisher was right? If his siblings survived the fire, didn’t he deserve to know?
“I’ll need everything you have collected so far,” Flint said. “Police reports, fire department records, witness statements, insurance claims. Everything from the fire and all subsequent investigations.”
“Already compiled.” Fisher slid a key card across the table. “Room 1247. Everything I could find is waiting for you.”
Flint didn’t touch the key card. “Presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“I was confident you’d want to find the truth.”
Flint pocketed the key card, collected his whiskey glass, and stood. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Mr. Flint.” Fisher’s voice stopped him before he could turn away. “Time is a factor here. If my siblings are alive, they may not stay that way. Certain parties have a vested interest in keeping the past buried.”
“What parties?”
“Find them,” Fisher said simply as he dropped a couple hundred dollars on the table to pay for the drinks and buy silence from the staff. “Before someone else does.”
Flint watched Fisher until he cleared the exit and then looked down at the key card in his hand.
Room 1247.
A substantial retainer.
Four dead, three children and the babysitter, who might not be dead at all.
Flint finished his beer and headed for the elevators. The smart thing would be to walk away. But Fisher was right about him, too. He wanted to know the truth.
Besides, the check was already in his pocket.