Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
U.S. Marshals Service Office
Tacoma, Washington
Allie and Jason pushed through the glass doors of the federal building and showed their credentials to the security officer at the front desk, who promptly directed them to the third floor.
Marze was already inside the conference room when they arrived, standing near the window with his arms crossed.
He was deep in conversation with a man with close-cropped hair that had started going gray at the temples.
Allie hadn't seen him before. He looked to be in his late forties, but somewhat weathered, and his dark suit fit neatly to his lean frame.
When he turned at the sound of the door, his eyes moved across Allie and Jason like someone accustomed to assessing threats in a fraction of a second.
“Agents Bishop and King,” Marze said by way of introduction. “And this is Deputy U.S. Marshal Jake Reeves.”
Reeves stepped forward and extended his hand. His grip was firm and controlled, and his dark, assessing eyes held steady on Allie's for a beat before he shook Jason's hand and gestured toward the table.
“Have a seat,” he said. “I appreciate you all coming down. I know everyone is stretched thin right now.”
They settled around a rectangular table cluttered with folders and a laptop that displayed what appeared to be a schematic for a security protocol.
Reeves remained standing. He moved to the head of the table where a dry-erase board had been set up with names, addresses, and shift schedules written in precise block lettering.
“Let me walk you through what we've got in place,” Reeves began.
“I've assigned twenty-four-hour protective details to three individuals: AUSA Bob Halloway and AUSA Sarah Park here in Tacoma, and U.S.
Attorney Elias Thorne up in Seattle. Each detail consists of two marshals per shift, rotating every twelve hours.
We've implemented movement restrictions, secure check-in protocols every four hours, and mobile surveillance units on their residences.”
He tapped the board near Halloway's name. “Halloway's been cooperative. Park has as well. Thorne's detail is coordinating with his office security in Seattle, which adds a layer of complexity, but we're managing it.”
Marze nodded. “What do you need from us?”
“Honestly? I need to know what you're working with.” Reeves turned his attention to Allie. “What leads are you following? The more I know about where the threat is coming from, the better I can position my people.”
Allie rested her forearms on the table. “We've been running down Sterling's caseload and cross-referencing it with Judge Vance's. Right now, we're focused on the Torrino RICO case. It's the strongest thread connecting both victims.”
Something flickered behind Reeves's eyes, a reaction Allie couldn't quite read. “The Torrino case,” he repeated. “That's interesting.”
“You know it?” Jason asked.
“I worked it." Reeves pulled out a chair and sat down, folding his hands on the table.
“I handled witness security during the trial. Things like protecting cooperating witnesses, managing safe house logistics, and coordinating with the prosecution on testimony schedules.” He paused, letting the significance settle. “I know that case inside and out.”
Allie exchanged a glance with Jason. His institutional knowledge of the trial was exactly what they needed. “That puts you in a unique position to help us,” she told him.
“Happy to help where I can.” Reeves clenched his jaw.
He paused, lowering his eyes to the ground before raising them and looking directly at each of them.
“Look, Sterling was a colleague. Vance presided over cases I worked.
These aren't just names on a file to me.
I want whoever did this caught, and I'll do whatever I can to make that happen.”
He opened a folder in front of him and slid it toward the center of the table.
“I can give you access to the Marshals Service's witness protection records and security logs from the original trial. Names, locations, communication records, anything that might help you identify who had a reason to come after the prosecution team.”
Marze leaned back in his chair. “Let's talk about what we know so far.”
For the next thirty minutes, they laid out the pieces they had.
Both victims had worked the Torrino prosecution.
Both had been found with numbers branded into their chests, fourteen for Sterling and thirty-five for Vance.
The branding iron was industrial grade, available commercially, and nearly impossible to trace.
The killer was organized, patient, and familiar enough with the victims’ routines to get close.
“The branding is what gets me,” Reeves said, rubbing his jaw. “It's deliberate. Seems symbolic.”
“Agreed,” Allie said. “We just don't know yet what the symbolism is.”
“What about the Torrino family?” Reeves asked.
“Sal had a sprawling organization. Plenty of people went down with him or lost something when the empire collapsed.
Some of them are still locked up, and I can tell you from experience that guys like that don't forget. They sit in their cells and nurse grudges for years.”
Jason nodded. “We've considered the organized crime angle. But it's been five years. Why now?”
“Could be any number of reasons,” Reeves said.
“Someone gets released. Someone on the inside finally connects with someone on the outside who's willing to act. Or maybe the trigger was something else entirely, something personal that pushed someone over the edge.” He spread his hands.
“I've seen it before. These things can simmer for a long time. They just need something to come along and turn up the heat to boiling.”
Allie made a mental note. Reeves’s perspective on the criminal network was valuable, and his willingness to open the marshals’ files could save them weeks of bureaucratic wrangling.
“All right,” Marze said. “Let's divide this up.
Allie, you continue the deep dive into the case documents.
Jason, follow up on witness interviews and start pulling old case files.
Reeves, coordinate the protective details and get us access to those Marshal Service records as soon as possible.
I'll handle liaison duties with the U.S. Attorney's office.”
Reeves nodded crisply. “I'll have the records ready for you by Monday. Anything you need before then, call me directly.” He reached into his jacket and produced a business card, handing it to Allie. “Day or night.”
“We appreciate it,” Allie said, and tucked the card into her pocket.
As they filed out of the conference room and into the elevator, Jason leaned against the wall and let out a breath. “That's a solid get. Having someone who actually worked the Torrino case on our side.”
“Twenty years with the Marshals Service and direct knowledge of the trial logistics,” Allie agreed. “Did we just get lucky?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Not yet, anyway.”
The TFO was quiet by the time Allie settled into the conference room.
Most of the staff had gone home hours ago, and the hallways had taken on a hollow, after-hours stillness where every sound carried further than it should.
The hum of the building's ventilation system provided a low, steady backdrop as she surveyed the landscape of boxes and folders spread across the table.
Over two dozen banker's boxes of archived Torrino trial materials had been delivered from the federal warehouse, and they occupied nearly every flat surface in the room.
Stacked two and three high, their cardboard lids were slightly askew from repeated handling.
Allie had spent the last few hours creating a timeline on the whiteboard, mapping out who had testified when, which motions had been filed and in what order, and how the prosecution had built its case piece by piece.
The Torrino RICO case had been the most significant organized crime prosecution in the Western District of Washington in over a decade.
Salvatore “Sal” Torrino had spent thirty years building a criminal empire that stretched across the western coast of Oregon and Washington State.
Racketeering, money laundering, extortion, and at least two murders that the prosecution attributed directly to his orders.
He’d been slippery for decades, and law enforcement had tried and failed multiple times to build a case that would stick.
Every time, witnesses recanted, evidence disappeared, and informants went silent or simply vanished.
Torrino operated with a combination of old-world discipline and modern caution that had kept him insulated from prosecution for longer than anyone cared to admit.
When the federal government finally brought the RICO indictment five years ago, it was treated as a landmark moment.
Two years of wiretaps, financial forensics, cooperating witnesses, and physical evidence that tied Torrino directly to the violence and corruption his organization perpetuated.
The trial lasted eleven weeks and produced a conviction on all counts.
Life without parole. His organization crumbled in the aftermath, with dozens of associates either imprisoned, flipped, or scattered.
Allie ran her finger down the witness list, which went on for pages.
Hundreds of people had been pulled into the orbit of this case.
The prosecution had presented four hundred eighty-seven exhibits, a staggering volume that ranged from financial ledgers to surveillance photographs to physical items seized during raids.
She pulled a stack of trial transcripts toward her and began reading through the prosecution's opening statement.
Sterling had delivered it, and his confident voice came through even on the page, painting Torrino as a calculated predator who had corrupted institutions and destroyed lives for profit.
Allie leaned back and stared at the boxes.
The numbers branded into Sterling and Vance meant something specific, and she was increasingly curious if they might be connected to exhibits from this trial.
She wanted to review the master exhibit list to see exactly what exhibits fourteen and thirty-five corresponded to, but when she searched through the materials spread in front of her, she realized it wasn’t among them.
The archives had sent over transcripts, motions, and witness statements, but the comprehensive exhibit log was missing.
She reached for her phone and dialed Mia's extension. The analyst picked up on the second ring, and Allie could hear the faint tap of a keyboard in the background.
“Still here?” Allie asked.
“You know me,” Mia said. “What do you need?”
“The master exhibit list from the Torrino trial. It's not in any of the boxes they sent over.”
“Hold on.” The keyboard tapping intensified for a moment. “It might not have been included in the first batch. Let me reach out to the archives and see what I can do. It could be sitting in a separate storage location.”
“Can you push on it? I need that list.”
“I'll make some calls first thing in the morning.”
“Thanks, Mia.”
Allie hung up and turned back to the transcripts, but before she could find her place, her phone buzzed again. She glanced at the screen to see her neighbor’s name.
“Hey, Connie.”
“Allie, I'm so sorry to bother you.” The older woman’s voice carried that familiar mix of apology and determination.
“I know you're busy, but that fox came back.
It tore up the chicken wire again, and I just chased it off, but the damage is worse this time.
I hate to ask, but could you come help me patch it up?
I can't reach the section that's torn. And well, the chickens.”
Allie glanced at the clock on the wall. It was well past eight. She looked at the boxes, at the transcripts fanned across the table, and the timeline on the whiteboard with its gaps and question marks. Her eyes were burning, and her neck ached from hunching over documents for hours.
“You bet. I'll be there soon.”
The relief in the older woman's voice was immediate and warm. “Thank you. I’m going to call a pest control company tomorrow and see what we can do to grab up that miscreant.”
Allie gathered her notes into a neat stack and capped her pen. She stood, stretching the stiffness from her back, and took one last look at the room before switching off the overhead lights. The boxes sat in shadow, holding their secrets for another day.
As she walked through the empty corridor toward the elevator, something settled in her mind with quiet certainty.
She couldn’t yet explain it, couldn’t point to a single piece of evidence or a specific detail that had triggered the feeling.
But after all the dead ends, false starts, and chasing leads that dissolved into nothing, she was optimistic that what they were looking for was buried somewhere in those thirty-plus boxes of documents.
They might not find it tomorrow, or even this week, but something told Allie they were finally looking in the right place.