CHAPTER 16 EVELYNS GRAND JURY ORDEAL #2
"Then stop acting like they’re yours." She stepped into his space, close enough to see the faint scar along his temple where someone had tried—and failed—to put him down.
"Because if they were, you’d know about the three dealers skimming from the northside shipments. You’d know about the cop who’s been leaning on your runners. And you’d know that the only reason you’re still breathing is because Dario hasn’t decided you’re more trouble than you’re worth."
Silence. Daniel’s breath came hard through his nose.
Dario tapped the desk once. "Evelyn."
She didn’t look away from Daniel. "What?"
"Tell him about the ledger."
That got Daniel’s attention. His gaze flicked to Dario, then back to her. "What ledger?"
Evelyn exhaled through her teeth. "The one your accountant’s been keeping. The real books. The ones that show where the money’s actually going."
Daniel went very still. "You’re lying."
She reached into her jacket and tossed a folded sheet onto the desk. "Page twelve. Cross-referenced with the deposit slips from last month. Your boy’s got expensive tastes—private jets, offshore accounts, a mistress in Miami."
Daniel snatched the paper, scanned it. His knuckles whitened.
Dario watched him, expressionless. "You see the problem?"
Daniel crumpled the sheet in his fist. "I’ll handle it."
"You will," Dario agreed. "But Evelyn’s the one who found it. Which means she stays. And you don’t touch her again."
Daniel’s glare could have stripped paint. But when he turned to leave, he didn’t argue.
The door clicked shut behind him. Evelyn flexed her wrist, testing the ache.
Dario picked up a pen, twirled it once between his fingers. "Next time," he said, "lead with the ledger."
She smirked. "Where’s the fun in that?"
Outside, the rain kept falling. Somewhere in the city, an accountant was about to have a very bad night.
Dario set the pen down with a click that cut through the hum of the office air conditioner. Evelyn watched his fingers flex once against the desk, the only tell that her evasion had landed.
"Medical privilege," she said, before he could press further. "You want substantive answers? Get a court order."
Daniel shifted against the wall behind her, his shoulder blades pressing into the framed city permits. The movement wasn't nervous—just adjusting for the Glock digging into his kidney beneath his jacket.
Dario's gaze flicked to him, then back to Evelyn. "Privilege applies to patients, Doctor Crane. Not their accomplices."
"Good thing I'm invoking it for myself, then." She leaned forward just enough to make the overhead light catch the silver in her lab coat's embroidery. "Unless you've got a medical degree tucked next to that ledger?"
A muscle jumped in Dario's jaw. The rain outside sheeted against the windows, turning the skyline into a watercolor smear. Somewhere in the building, a phone rang twice before being silenced.
Daniel cleared his throat. "She's got you on the letter of the law, Vitale."
"And you," Dario said, too softly, "are standing in my office with a stolen firearm and a dead man's blood under your nails. Don't cite law at me."
Evelyn's fingers tightened around the strap of her bag.
The new detail—the blood—hadn't been in any report she'd seen.
She kept her voice even. "You want leverage? I've got six bodies in cold storage with toxins no coroner's office will recognize. You want to know what kills that way?"
She tilted her head toward Daniel. "Ask him what happened to the seventh."
Daniel went very still. The clock on the wall ticked three times before he said, "That's not how this works."
Dario smiled, all teeth. "Then enlighten us."
Evelyn stood abruptly, chair scraping. "No. You don't get to play interrogation games with live subjects."
She yanked open her bag and slapped a file on the desk.
"Autopsy photos. Toxicology screens. Everything you need to prove this isn't some street-level hit."
Her knuckles whitened on the folder. "But the cause of death? The mechanism? That stays between me and the dead until you give me a reason to trust you."
The air between them crackled with the unspoken threat: she could bury the truth forever if pushed.
Dario didn't touch the file. "You're forgetting who owns the morgue."
"And you're forgetting who signs the death certificates." Evelyn turned toward the door, catching Daniel's arm as she passed. "Come on. We're done here."
Dario's voice stopped them at the threshold. "The Morettis don't take ultimatums, Evelyn."
She didn't look back. "Good thing this wasn't one."
The elevator doors slid shut behind them, cutting off whatever he said next. Daniel exhaled hard as they descended. "That blood thing was a bluff, right?"
Evelyn watched the floor numbers drop. "Does it matter?"
Above them, Dario picked up the autopsy file. The top photo showed a Y-shaped incision stitched with black thread, the edges of the skin tinged an unnatural violet. He reached for his phone.
"Get me the coroner," he told the dial tone. "Not the office. The man."
Outside, the rain found new angles to strike the pavement. Somewhere in the city, a body was missing from its drawer.
The morgue’s fluorescents buzzed like trapped flies overhead as Evelyn turned to leave, the autopsy file tucked under her arm.
The scent of antiseptic clung to her clothes, sharp enough to make her nostrils burn.
She didn’t look back at Dario, though she felt the weight of his attention like a hand between her shoulder blades.
Daniel Marsh stepped into her path before she reached the exit, his polished shoes blocking the linoleum’s yellow caution line. His suit was federal-issue gray, his smile federal-issue cold. "Miss Crane. We need to talk."
She sidestepped. He mirrored her.
"Afterwards," she said, voice flat. "I’ve got a client waiting."
Marsh’s fingers closed around her elbow, not tight enough to bruise, just tight enough to remind her he could. "This isn’t a request." He leaned in, his breath minty with gum. "You’re walking out of here with a sealed autopsy report. That’s obstruction. That’s an indictment waiting to happen."
Behind them, a drawer slid shut with a metallic clang. Evelyn didn’t turn to see if it was Dario moving, but she felt the shift in the air—the quiet, predatory focus of a man who didn’t like his territory challenged.
Marsh didn’t glance back either. He kept his eyes on her, thumb pressing into the soft inside of her elbow.
"You think Vitale’s protection stretches to federal court? Think again."
His voice dropped, a blade wrapped in silk.
"I can bury you in charges before lunch. Or you can tell me what’s really in that file."
Evelyn exhaled through her nose. The file was warm against her ribs, the edges digging into her skin. She could smell the ink, the faint reek of formaldehyde seeping through the pages. Marsh’s grip didn’t loosen.
Dario’s voice cut across the morgue’s chill, calm as a surgeon’s scalpel. "Problem, Agent?"
Marsh finally looked away, but his hand stayed locked around Evelyn’s arm. "Just a friendly chat."
"Didn’t sound friendly." Dario took a step forward, his shadow stretching long across the floor. "Sounds like you’re threatening a civilian in front of witnesses."
The agent’s jaw tightened. "She’s not a civilian. She’s a consultant with ties to organized crime."
"And you’re a federal agent with his hands on a woman who didn’t invite the contact." Dario’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. "Let her go before I start wondering about your definition of professional conduct."
For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then Marsh released her, smoothing his tie with a jerk of his wrist. "This isn’t over."
Evelyn rubbed her elbow, the skin tingling where his fingers had been. "It never is with you."
Marsh’s gaze flicked to the file, then back to her face. "You’re playing with fire, Crane. And when you burn, don’t expect Vitale to throw water on you." He turned on his heel and strode out, the doors swinging shut behind him with a hiss of compressed air.
Dario watched him go, then tilted his head at Evelyn. "You okay?"
She flexed her fingers, the ghost of Marsh’s grip still circling her arm. "Peachy."
The overhead lights flickered, casting jagged shadows across the stainless steel tables. Somewhere in the building, a generator kicked on with a low thrum.
Dario held out his hand. "Give me the file."
Evelyn tightened her grip on it. "Why?"
"Because Marsh isn’t bluffing about the indictment." His voice was matter-of-fact. "And I’d rather he didn’t know about the silver stitching in that corpse’s ribs."
She hesitated, then passed it over. The paper whispered against his palm.
Dario tucked it inside his jacket. "Next time he corners you, don’t let him touch you."
"Or what?"
"Or I’ll break his fingers." He said it like he was commenting on the weather. "Come on. We’ve got a body to find before it walks into a police station."
The morgue’s doors sighed open again, this time revealing the rain-slicked street beyond. Somewhere out there, a dead man was missing. And Daniel Marsh was already on the phone.
The surveillance van smelled like stale coffee and gun oil. Dario Vitale adjusted the volume on the earpiece, listening to Evelyn’s voice crackle through the feed. Across the street, the neon sign of the diner flickered, casting uneven light over the wet pavement.
"Still no sign of Marsh," she murmured.
Dario watched the diner’s entrance through binoculars, the lenses calibrated to cut through the rain. A waitress refilled a trucker’s coffee. A couple argued over pancakes. Nothing out of place.
Then the door swung open.
Daniel Marsh stepped inside, shaking water from his coat. He slid into a booth near the back, his posture relaxed, but his fingers tapped an uneven rhythm against the table. Waiting.
Dario’s phone buzzed—an encrypted message from his lieutenant. Feds have a tail on him. Two unmarked cars, southbound.
He exhaled through his nose. Marsh was sloppy tonight. Or desperate.
Evelyn’s voice came again, lower now. "He’s got a briefcase. Didn’t have that earlier."