Chapter 13 #2
"Sure you do." His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Emma Blackwell's files. The evidence you turned over to the FBI." He pauses, letting that sink in. "Our client will pay you well to give back what you took and forget what you saw."
My mouth goes dry. Keep calm. Keep him talking. "Your client." I keep my voice steady. "Does he have a name?"
"You know who we're talking about."
"Actually, I don't." I have to get him to say it, have to get it on the recording. "Who exactly sent you?"
His expression hardens. His hand moves to the table, drums once. Decision's made. "Listen carefully. Our client is offering you a way out. Take the money, disappear, live your life. Or refuse and deal with the consequences."
"That sounds like a threat."
"It's a fact." He leans closer. The smell of coffee on his breath, something sharper underneath. Cigarettes maybe. "You talked to the FBI about our client, you won't live long enough to see trial. But you help us clean this up, you walk away rich and safe."
My throat tightens. Every instinct screams to run, but I force myself to stay still. "And if I refuse?"
"Then we stop asking nicely." His hand moves to his jacket, shows me the grip of a holstered weapon. Black polymer. "You're coming with us either way. Question is whether you do it conscious or unconscious."
Clear coercion, clear criminal intent. Everything DOJ needs.
The espresso machine keeps hissing. Someone's phone rings.
"Hospital," I say quietly.
The door crashes open. Marc comes through first, rifle up, moving with lethal precision. "Sheriff's department! Don't move. Don't even breathe."
Gym-rat at the door reaches for his weapon. Finn materializes from behind him—customer with the newspaper—drives him face-first into the wall. Secures him before he can clear leather, arm twisted behind his back, face pressed against plaster.
Gray-hair starts to rise. Marc's rifle swings to him, barrel at his chest. "Hands where I can see them. Now."
For a second, I think he'll try it.
Federal agents flood the room. Calder's team, vests marked FBI, weapons drawn. Customers scream and scramble. A chair scrapes across the floor. Someone's crying, high and panicked.
"Hands! Show me your hands!"
Gray-hair's whole body goes rigid. Finally, slowly, he raises both hands. He shows empty palms.
Marc keeps his rifle trained on him while agents move in. They cuff him, pat him down, remove the weapon from his jacket. Second gun from an ankle holster. Knife from his belt.
Only when the contractor's secure, disarmed, being hauled to his feet does Marc look at me.
"You hurt?"
"No." I'm trembling now, shock catching up. "I'm fine."
He's beside me in three strides, scans me head to toe like he's checking for injuries anyway. Face, throat, hands, torso. Searching for blood, bruises, anything wrong.
Satisfied, he steps back, but his face shifts, reveals how badly he wants to pull me against him and not let go.
Calder appears, already on her phone. "Clean intercept. Both contractors in custody, full audio and video of the coercion and threat." She holds up her phone, showing the live feed from my body camera. "DOJ has everything they need."
My legs give out. I sit back down, still shaking. It worked. We got them.
The contractors are hauled out, still protesting their innocence. Calder coordinates with local FBI, establishes jurisdiction, gets the interrogation rooms set up. Around us, other customers are being interviewed, statements taken, the coffee shop transformed into a crime scene.
Marc doesn't leave my side. He doesn't touch me, but his presence is solid, grounding. When a customer bumps into me, panicking toward the exit, his hand moves to my shoulder. Brief and reassuring.
"You did good," he says quietly. "Stayed calm, got them talking."
"Felt like I was going to throw up the entire time."
"Fear's normal. You used it right." His thumb brushes my shoulder blade, just once, before he drops his hand. "Let's get you out of here."
Marc stays with me during the cleanup, the debrief, the coordination with local FBI. Calder handles jurisdiction, gets the contractors processed, arranges transport to the field office downtown.
By the time we're in her vehicle heading across Anchorage, the shaking has mostly stopped.
The field office is all fluorescent lights and beige walls. Agents move through hallways, efficient and focused. Calder leads us to an observation room, gestures to the one-way glass.
"Interrogation's starting soon," she says. "DOJ wants this documented properly. You don't have to watch, but—"
"I want to." I have to see this through, see Haywood's contractors admit what they tried to do.
Marc stands beside me, shoulders nearly touching. On the other side of the glass, the younger contractor sits handcuffed to a table, staring at his hands.
Calder works him for hours. Shows him the recording, the federal charges he's facing, the consequences of staying loyal to a man who's already abandoned him.
"Haywood ordered the hit," he says finally, voice flat. His shoulders are slumped, the fight gone. "Said the nurse had evidence that could destroy him. Said she had to be eliminated before DOJ moved."
"Lyle Haywood specifically ordered you to kill Sela Mitchell?" Calder presses.
"Yes. Said to make it look like an accident, get the body somewhere it wouldn't be found." He swallows hard. "Said he was under pressure to clean this up fast."
"Pressure from who?"
"Don't know. He never told us. Just said the whole operation was at risk if witnesses started talking."
The interrogation continues for another hour, but the contractor has nothing else useful. Calder finally steps out of the room, joins us in the observation area.
Beside me, Marc's expression is dark. "So Haywood's got a handler. But no proof it's The Marshal."
"Not yet," Calder says. "We need Haywood to give us that connection. And now—"
Her phone rings. She answers, listens, her face going rigid. "When? How long ago?"
She hangs up, looks at us. "Haywood's gone. Fled his office, abandoned his vehicle at a trailhead outside Anchorage. DOJ has a warrant for his arrest, but he's disappeared into the wilderness."
"With a head start and a destination," I say.
"He's no woodsman," Marc says. "The Alaskan wilderness will kill him in days without supplies. He's got somewhere specific to go—a safe house, an extraction point. Someone waiting for him."
I look at the map on the wall, at the vast emptiness of Alaska stretching beyond Anchorage. Millions of acres, hundreds of potential locations. A dozen places The Marshal could have set up for extraction or a safe house.
Too much ground to cover before Haywood reaches wherever he's running to.
"Then we go after him," I say.
Marc's hand finds mine, squeezes once. "Not we. This part's not your fight."
"Everything about this is my fight." I squeeze back. "Emma died for that evidence. Haywood tried to have me killed. I'm not sitting this out."
His expression says he wants to argue. Also says he knows better.
Calder's already pulling up terrain maps, coordinating with search teams. "Haywood's running scared, but he's not stupid. He'll go to ground, wait for us to spread out searching, then slip through when we're thin."
"Unless we predict where he'll go," Finn says.
"Or who he'll go to," Cara adds. "He mentioned a superior. Maybe Haywood's running to whoever's been protecting him."
"The Marshal." Marc's voice goes cold. "We find Haywood, we find the man who's been running trafficking operations across Alaska for years."
Haywood's out there somewhere, running, desperate, making the kind of decisions that get men caught.
Marc's hand tightens on mine. When I look at him, he's already studying the map, tracking terrain the way he tracked criminals when he was CID.
He'll find Haywood.
And I'm going with him.