Chapter 23
EVELYN
Alexander straightened off the SUV when he saw us coming. The others climbed out after him.
“Well?” Marcus asked.
“She identified him,” I said. “Nathaniel Drake is Kingfisher.”
Nobody spoke for a moment. My words hung in the gray afternoon like the rain that threatened to fall.
Sebastian said something colorful under his breath.
Alexander stepped up. “Let’s get out of the open, and you can tell us all about it.”
He placed a hand on my back and ushered me around the car to the front seat. Once I was inside, he crossed over to the driver’s seat. I turned in my seat so I could see the others as they climbed into the back.
I filled them in as Alexander started the drive home. Everything from Ginny’s account of that night, the drug that burned off faster than they anticipated, the man Director Keller had deferred to who called the girls little birdies. And the way Ginny had identified Nathaniel Drake confidently.
“Her account is credible,” Dominic said. “She was steady under questioning and specific about what she saw. A defense attorney will have a hard time poking holes in her story.”
“It’s enough to charge him,” Marcus said, his legal mind sharp at work. “With the ledger and her testimony, it’s enough.”
“We need it to be more than enough,” Alexander said, his eyes on the road. “We need it to be airtight. Drake has reach and resources, and you can guarantee he’ll have the best defense money can buy. Everything we hand over has to be airtight.”
“Mercer seemed open to reopening the Kingfisher case if we had something concrete,” I said.
“That’s something,” Adrian said.
It was more than something. For the first time since Kingfisher had sent that first taunt, we were ahead of him. We had a witness, a ledger, and a federal agent willing to act. Speaking of the witness, I texted Izzy as the city blurred past my window.
“Assign two Archers to the safehouse. Precious cargo inside.”
Precious cargo was our phrase for a key witness. I sent the address over to Izzy. My phone buzzed with confirmation. We were stretching ourselves thin, but Ginny was going to be key to our case. She had to be protected.
The mood in the car was cautious, but it was the best mood we’d had about this case in weeks.
Sebastian was already talking about what came next.
Marcus was quiet as he stared out the window.
I had a feeling he was turning over legal implications in his head.
He always got lost in thought when he was doing that.
Dominic and Adrian were trading thoughts about prosecutorial options in low, measured tones in the back.
I blew out a breath. This was good. We were going to get him. I could feel it.
Alexander’s phone dinged. He glanced at it and went very still. “Turn on the news,” he said quietly but the urgency in his voice quieted the whole car.
I pulled up the local news feed on my phone.
The speakers in the car connected to Sebastian’s phone as he did the same.
The press conference was already in progress.
Nathaniel Drake stood at a podium flanked by the police chief.
With his sharp suit and concerned furrow of his brows, he was the portrait of a concerned philanthropist who was troubled by something.
And I had a sinking feeling I knew what.
“—have tried to better this great city,” he was saying, “To invest in its future and its people. But I can no longer stay silent about something that has been brought to my attention.”
The screen cut to footage. Grainy, taken at night. The railcars stood like silent sentinels as a masked figure in dark clothing moved through the rail yard.
My stomach dropped.
“This woman,” Drake said, his voice carefully curated to outrage, “leads a dangerous criminal organization that has operated in the shadows of our city for years called the Archers. Terrorizing its streets. Operating outside the law.” He paused for effect.
“I have received information from federal sources confirming that the rail yards you see here have been used to traffic young women.”
The image on the screen shifted, and I cursed. It was the Archers symbol I had stupidly painted in the train car we rescued the women from the rail yard last week. I had done it to bait Kingfisher, and it looked like he was taking the bait in a way I hadn’t seen coming. This was my fault.
“And yet,” Drake continued. “This organization continues to operate unchecked.” He turned slightly to the police chief beside him.
I narrowed my eyes on the screen. How had he gotten his hooks into the police chief?
Did Detective Patel know? “I am turning over all evidence in my possession to law enforcement, and I want to be clear.” His eyes came back to the camera.
“We will identify this woman. We are already working to do so. And when we do, we will hold her and every member of her organization fully accountable.”
The press conference ended as Drake walked off the stage, ignoring the questions reporters were shouting at him. The live feed went black on my screen.
Nobody spoke, but I could feel their eyes on me.
Even Alexander was glancing at me out of the corner of his eye as he drove.
But I didn’t have any words for them, only stunned disbelief.
I should have seen this coming. I knew tagging the train car was a bad idea, but I did it anyway.
I never expected Drake would do this, though.
That he would out me on live television.
I blew out a shaky breath as I tried to figure out what to do now.
With one press conference, Drake had blown years of anonymity out of the water.
We had stayed in the shadows for years. Every decision I had made, every protocol, every precaution—all of it had been built around the single principle that the Archers’ power lived in their invisibility.
The moment we became visible, we and the people we protected became vulnerable.
I had spent years making sure that never happened.
And it hadn’t mattered because in one move, Drake had blown it all to hell.
I had thought we had finally gotten ahead of him.
That we were going to get him this time.
And he had been ten steps ahead, and I hadn’t seen it coming.
The Archers had families. They had lives outside of this. People who had trusted me to protect them by keeping them nameless and faceless and safe. And now they were in danger. Because of a stupid decision I had made.
My phone buzzed. A single text from an unknown number.
Checkmate. Your move.
I stared at it for a long moment. Your move.
Like this was still a game. Like the people in this car and the people out in the field and the women we had spent years pulling out of dangerous situations were just pieces on a board he got to rearrange at will.
I put the phone face down on my knee and looked out the window, trying to breathe through the cracking in my chest.
I had kept the Archers safe by keeping them invisible. That was the deal I had made with every single person who joined my organization. They would be safe. And I had broken it. This was my fault.
The car was quiet. My guys watched me, waiting for me to say something, anything. To have a plan, a next step, anything.
I had nothing. Just the weight of every member of the Archers and their secrets pressing down on my shoulders.