Chapter 12 #2
"Your guess is as good as mine." Dove scanned the chaos—systematic, grid-pattern, cataloging details without dwelling on any single one.
The file cabinet had four drawers. All four had been emptied.
The desk drawers, too—three of them, all pulled out and dumped.
The bookshelf above the desk had been swept clean, with reference manuals, binders, and loose papers cascading down like an avalanche frozen mid-fall.
But it was the folders that drew her attention.
Some were closed. Some were open. And some were open and empty.
She stepped closer, careful not to touch anything, and read the labels on the folders nearest to her feet. Case numbers. Names she didn't recognize. Dates going back years, decades. Her uncle's career distilled into paper and ink and the quiet bureaucratic language of law enforcement.
Then she saw it.
A manila folder lay on the floor near the overturned desk chair, splayed open like a book. The label, written in her uncle's precise block letters, read: MALLOR, JACK—GULF COAST ENERGY PARTNERS.
Empty.
“Jesus,” Trent whispered behind her. “Looks like whoever trashed this place got what they wanted.”
She crouched down, hands on her knees, and stared at the folder.
The tab was creased, the edges soft from handling, the kind of wear that said this file had been opened and closed many times.
But whatever had been inside it was gone.
Every page. Every document. Every note her uncle had kept about a case that was twenty years old and supposedly dead.
“Unless he took the contents to protect them, which is what I would’ve done.
” She straightened and looked around the office again, counting.
Three other folders she could see were also open and empty.
Different labels but related to Jack’s case.
“The other files all have to do with Gulf Coast Energy Partners and Armond Jackson.”
Trent inched closer and bent down.
She grabbed his arm. “We can't touch anything," she said, pulling her phone from her pocket. "This is a crime scene."
She pulled out her cell phone and called Corrick.
He answered on the second ring, his voice carrying the strained patience of a man who hadn't slept and was running on caffeine and duty. "Miss Quinn."
"We're at my uncle's place in Fort Lauderdale. The front door was kicked in. The house has been tossed. Every room.”
"Are you safe? Is the location secure?" Corrick asked.
"We cleared the house. No one's here. But his office is destroyed. Files everywhere.”
"I'll contact Fort Lauderdale PD. I’m getting in my vehicle. Ten minutes out,” he said.
“See you when you get here.” She hung up and looked at Trent.
He was standing over his father’s empty folder, arms crossed, with an expression she couldn't quite read.
Not anger. Not fear. Something older. Something that lived in the place where a fourteen-year-old boy had watched his father drive away for the last time, never understanding why.
"Come on," she said. "We should wait outside."
They stepped onto the front stoop, and Dove didn’t bother shutting the door.
The street was quiet. Modest homes with neat lawns and cars in driveways and the distant sound of a lawnmower somewhere down the block.
Normal. Suburban. The kind of neighborhood where people waved at each other and complained about HOA fees and assumed the worst thing that would ever happen was someone parking in the wrong spot.
She sat on the top step. Trent lowered himself beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched.
The afternoon sun was brutal, pressing down on them like a hand, and the concrete was hot through her jeans.
She didn't care. The heat felt good. Real.
Something to focus on besides the inside of that house.
She pressed her palms against her knees, fingers splayed and stared at the pavement.
"He didn't talk to me about his work. And I couldn’t talk to him about my work. It was all classified, compartmentalized.”
“I understand that,” Trent said. “What bothers me are all the coincidences. All the ways this just falls into place. Add in the weird shit that’s been happening.
The person at my mom’s funeral. The snakes.
The Hendersons and their threat. Fucking Karl.
It all has to be connected somehow. But I can’t for the life of me figure it out. ”
“There’s a thread there, and it all comes back to what someone might want Mallor’s Landing for.”
“Karl’s an opportunistic asshole. If he sees a paycheck, he’ll do almost anything,” Trent said.
“Mallor’s Landing is unique because of the two distinct aspects—commercial and natural habitat.
But it’s not easy to run. Fish and Wildlife has to inspect both properties to make sure they don’t mix.
There’s licensing for the business, permits for both sides.
In some ways, it’s a logistical nightmare, and I nearly destroyed it all when I was being a young, angry jerk.
” He ran a hand over his face. “I still might have, considering what the Hendersons have. But I can’t imagine anyone wants both the business and the habitat.
If it weren’t for my father and grandfather's long-lasting relationship with this community, and my ability to turn my shit around, it wouldn’t work at all. ”
She snapped her head toward him. “Doesn’t mean Karl, the Hendersons, and whoever else is involved won’t have plans.”
A dark sedan turned onto the street and pulled up behind Trent's truck.
Corrick stepped out—tall, lean, early sixties, wearing a suit that looked like it had been slept in and a face that confirmed it.
He carried himself like a man who'd spent his career in rooms where the stakes were life and death, and he’d long ago stopped being surprised by either.
"Miss Quinn."
“You can call me Dove,” she said. “This is Trent Mallor.”
He shook both their hands. His grip was firm but brief, the handshake of someone who understood that formalities mattered even when everything was falling apart. "I came straight from the office. Fort Lauderdale PD is five minutes behind me."
He looked at the door. At the gap. At the splintered wood near the lock, where someone had put a boot or a shoulder through it.
His jaw tightened, and Dove saw something flash behind his eyes—not just professional concern, but something personal.
Slade had been his agent. His colleague. Maybe even his friend.
"Walk me through what you found," he said.
They did. Room by room, in the same order they'd cleared it. Corrick listened without interrupting, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression schooling itself into the careful neutrality of a man who was cataloging every detail for later.
When they reached the part about the office—the files, the empty folders, Jack Mallor's name—Corrick inhaled slowly through his nose. It was the only crack in his composure.
"I won't lie to you," he said, turning to face them.
"I have no idea who would do this or what they were after.
Slade's last few active cases were straightforward.
Witness protection check-ins, administrative closures, nothing that would warrant this kind of.
.." He gestured toward the house. "Aggression. "
"What about enemies?" Dove asked. "Thirty years in the marshals. He had to have made a few.”
“Slade was meticulous. He didn't cut corners.
He built cases by the book, protected his witnesses, and kept his head down.
" Corrick's voice carried the weight of someone defending a man who could no longer defend himself.
“All that said, he could also be antagonistic, and he knew when and how to bend rules. While he was well-liked in the marshals' office, there were a few who didn’t particularly care for him, and he definitely made a few enemies among the criminals.”
"What about regarding my father's case?" Trent asked. “About there being a mole.” Trent glanced at Dove. His brow scrunched and the muscles in his face were tight. “He told me that he didn’t see the point in exhuming my father’s body. That he’d help me fight that if I wanted to. And for some reason, that doesn’t make sense to me. ”
Dove understood the comment because she agreed. However, she didn’t like the implication that her uncle was hiding something, even if she believed deep down in her bones that he had been.
Corrick folded his arms. He blew out a puff of air from his nose like an agitated bull.
“I shouldn’t be surprised that Slade came to you and suggested that.
The only problem is he didn’t have a decent enough argument as to why we shouldn’t, and I told him that.
” He adjusted his stance. The kind of subtle shift that told Dove the next thing out of his mouth was going to be uncomfortable.
“Did Slade tell you that the medical examiner who performed your father's autopsy twenty years ago—Dr. Raymond Weiss was brought up on charges eighteen months ago?
Falsifying records. Taking bribes to alter findings on several cases.
" Corrick's voice had an edge. “Dr. Weiss has agreed to testify against the person inside the justice department who asked him to falsify records.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dove said as her pulse picked up speed.
“He’s adamant your father’s case was clean. But given the scope of his misconduct and the person involved, the DOJ is compelled to verify the integrity of every autopsy he performed during the relevant period. Your father's included."
The words settled between them like stones dropped into still water. Dove watched Trent's face. The muscle jumping in his jaw. The way his hands curled into fists at his sides, then slowly, deliberately, uncurled.
“There is no reason to believe there was any tampering with your father’s autopsy,” Corrick added quietly. “There was more than one witness to the accident. But one other witness died. Evidence burned. And now this dead man’s cache. We need to cover our bases.”
Trent was quiet for a long time. Long enough that the sound of approaching sirens began to thread through the neighborhood—thin and distant, growing closer. “I won't fight it," Trent said.
Dove stared at him, unable to say anything because the change in his opinion shocked her.
"I don't like it," he continued. His voice was rough, the words dragged out of somewhere deep and reluctant.
"I hate it, actually. The idea of someone digging up my father's grave makes me want to put my fist through a wall.
" He held Corrick’s gaze. "But if there's even a chance that it leads to whoever did this to Slade—gives Dove some answers—I won't stand in the way. "
"I appreciate that. More than you know." He pulled a card from his jacket pocket and handed it to Dove. "I'm going to keep you in the loop—both of you. Whatever we find—in this house, in the investigation, in the exhumation—you'll know. That's a promise."
The sirens were close, now—two Fort Lauderdale PD cruisers turning onto the street, light bars washing color across the pale stucco of the neighboring houses.
Corrick straightened his jacket. "Excuse me.
I need to brief the responding officers.
" He took a step, then turned back. "Your uncle was one of the finest marshals I ever had the privilege to serve with.
I don't say that lightly, and I don't say it just because he's gone.
I mean it. And I will find out who did this.
" He walked toward the cruisers, his stride purposeful, his shoulders squared against whatever came next.
Dove's throat ached. "He was going to retire," she said.
The words came out small. Fragile. Nothing like the the professional voice she'd used in the medical examiner's office.
"Two months. He had a place picked out in Jupiter.
He loved scuba diving and fishing and said that place was the best for both.
He sent me pictures." She pressed her fingers against her eyes.
"He was going to get a dog. A lab. He always wanted a lab but said his schedule wasn't fair to a dog. He was finally going to get one."
Trent didn't say anything. He just put his arm around her and pulled her against his side, and she let him.
Let herself lean into the warmth of him, the solid, sunbaked weight of a man who smelled like the Everglades and coffee and the faint musk of python that still clung to his clothes from this morning.
"I'm going to find who did this," she said. “And whoever’s coming after you.”
"I know you are."
"And when I do—"
“We’ll figure all that out together.”
She looked up at him. His face was half in shadow, the afternoon sun cutting a line across his jaw, his eyes darker than usual, holding something that wasn't pity and wasn't sympathy but was more useful than both.
Understanding. The bone-deep, hard-won understanding of a man who'd lost people, lived with the weight of it, and had come out the other side still standing.
"Together," she repeated.
"That's what I said."
She almost smiled. Didn't quite get there, but something moved in the right direction. A muscle in her cheek. The smallest acknowledgment that even in the middle of this, something was holding her up that hadn't been there before.
A cruiser door slammed. Radios crackled. Corrick's voice carried across the lawn, calm and authoritative, directing officers toward the house.
Dove straightened. Wiped her face. Put the armor back on, piece by piece, the way she always did.
But she didn't pull away from Trent's arm.
Not yet. She gave herself ten more seconds of leaning into him, of letting someone else hold the weight, of breathing in the smell of cypress and swamp and the stubborn, complicated man who'd driven two hours without being asked and hadn't once suggested she didn't need him there.