Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
FBI Field Office
Tacoma, Washington
Allie stood beside Marze on the glossy floor of the lobby with her arms straight at her sides, trying to look like she belonged in front of cameras.
She felt besieged. The lobby had been rearranged to accommodate a makeshift podium, and every available inch of space behind the rope line was packed with reporters, camera operators, and sound technicians jostling for position.
Three satellite trucks were parked outside on the street with their masts extended into the sky.
The story had gone national overnight.
Marze stood at the podium with his usual bearing. His shoulders were squared, his expression serious, his voice carrying through the room without effort. He spoke in the clipped, authoritative cadence that Allie had come to recognize as his public-facing mode.
A former federal evidence custodian named Arthur Pym had murdered four members of a federal prosecution team over the course of several weeks.
His motive was to expose a conspiracy in which those officials had fabricated evidence to convict organized crime boss Sal Torrino in a RICO case five years prior.
The killings had been methodical and targeted.
Pym had branded each victim with the exhibit number corresponding to the fabricated evidence they had personally introduced at trial.
The room erupted with questions. Reporters called over each other and shot their hands up as their voices overlapped. Marze pointed to a woman in the front row.
“Can you confirm reports that the Torrino family was involved?”
“Donatella Torrino, the daughter of Salvatore Torrino, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder. She manipulated Arthur Pym into carrying out the killings, then attempted to assassinate U.S. Attorney Elias Thorne herself.”
“Is Thorne alive?”
“Mr. Thorne is recovering from his injuries. I won't comment further on his condition.”
A man near the back raised his voice above the others. “What about the Torrino conviction? Will it be overturned?”
Marze's jaw tightened by a fraction. “The case remains under active investigation. I'm not in a position to comment on potential judicial proceedings. That decision won’t come out of this building.”
“Deputy U.S. Marshal Jake Reeves has been named in reports as a co-conspirator. Can you confirm he's in custody?”
“Both Donatella Torrino and Deputy U.S. Marshal Jake Reeves are in federal custody. That's all I can say at this time.”
More overlapping questions were hurled at him, but Marze held up a hand and thanked the room.
Allie watched the reporters press forward as Marze stepped away from the podium and walked past her without a word.
She fell into step beside him, and they moved through the security door and into the relative quiet of the hallway toward the bank of elevators.
Marze loosened his tie by half an inch. “I'd rather interview a hostile witness than do that again.”
“You and me both,” Allie said.
One of the elevators pinged, and they entered. She felt her boss studying her as they ascended. “I’m proud of you,” he finally said.
It startled Allie. She knew underneath his gruff exterior, Marze was a compassionate man, but he kept his stoic demeanor at the forefront.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He gave her a quick nod and a small smile.
The doors opened, and they stepped out, Marze continuing down the hall toward his office.
Allie watched him for a moment, then turned in the other direction to find Jason.
He was leaning against the wall outside the bullpen, reading something on his phone.
He looked up when he heard her approaching.
“How'd it go out there?”
“Marze handled it. I stood there and tried not to blink too much.”
Jason pocketed his phone. “Reeves and his attorney are in Interview Two. You ready?”
“Let's go.”
Jake Reeves sat on the far side of the table.
He looked like he hadn't slept in days. His face was drawn, and his eyes had the dull, hollowed aspect of a man who’d been running on adrenaline for weeks and had finally run out.
His suit jacket hung on the back of the chair, and his shirt was wrinkled at the collar.
The confidence she remembered from their first meeting at the U.S.
Marshals Service office, his firm handshake and the assessing gaze—all of it was gone.
Beside him sat a sharp-eyed woman in her fifties with dark hair cut to her jawline and reading glasses dangling from a chain.
“I represent Deputy U.S. Marshal Reeves,” she said, without standing. “Before we begin, I want to be clear that my client is not making any statements today without clarity regarding the scope and nature of any potential agreement.”
Jason pulled out a chair and sat down across from Reeves. Allie took the seat beside him.
“We appreciate you both coming in,” Jason said.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table.
“I'll be direct. We have Arthur Pym's recorded confession. On that recording, Pym describes in detail how he was coerced into facilitating the fabrication of evidence during the Torrino trial. He specifically names your client, Deputy U.S. Marshal Reeves, as participating in witness intimidation and evidence tampering.”
Reeves didn't flinch, but his knuckles whitened.
Jason continued. “The evidence is overwhelming. But if Deputy U.S. Marshal Reeves is willing to cooperate and provide testimony against Elias Thorne, we can potentially work out a deal for reduced charges and possible recommendation for leniency.”
The room was quiet for a moment. Reeves stared at the table, then slowly raised his eyes to meet Jason's.
“I'll consider it,” Reeves said. His voice was hoarse.
His attorney set her pen down. “My client and I need time to discuss the specifics of any proposed agreement. We'll want to see what you're offering in writing before we commit to anything.” She pushed her chair back. “I think that ends this meeting for now.”
Jason nodded. “We'll have something drafted for your review by the end of the day.”
The attorney gathered her things, and Reeves stood slowly, reaching for his jacket. He didn't look at Allie or Jason again as she guided him out.
Jason sat back in his chair and exhaled. “He'll flip.”
“He knows what's coming if he doesn't,” Allie said. She stood up. “Let's give it a day.”
The bullpen was louder than usual when they returned. Agents and support staff moved between desks with a restless energy that hadn't been there a week ago. The case had shifted the entire atmosphere in the office.
Brandy was perched on the edge of Eastman’s desk, her red moto jacket draped over one arm as she gestured toward the lobby. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. There were three satellite trucks out there. Three.”
Mia shook her head. “This case is going to be studied in law schools for years. The prosecutorial misconduct alone would fill a semester.”
“Not to mention the daughter angle,” Brandy said. “A mob boss's kid manipulates a mentally ill man into killing the people who framed her father? That's more like a movie than a case study.”
“A bad one,” Mia quipped.
Marze appeared at the edge of the bullpen. He walked over to where she and Jason were standing with the two analysts, and for a moment, he just looked at them both.
“Good work,” he said. “Both of you.”
Jason shook his head. “I never thought I’d see something like this.”
“I know what you mean. They were supposed to be some of the best. And look what they did. Ignored everything we believe in and our whole reason for doing this.”
Allie stared at him, appreciating his visible frustration. She remembered her first impressions of her boss when she’d started working in the Tacoma office. Over the last couple of years, she’d seen more than his Marine veteran exterior.
He straightened. “Cases like this are the ones that remind us all what's at stake.
When the people who are supposed to uphold the law decide to use their positions for their own purposes, it doesn't just damage the system. It destroys it.” He paused, his eyes steady on them.
“Four prosecutors and a judge fabricated evidence because they convinced themselves the ends justified the means.
They put a guilty man in prison, sure. But they did it by committing crimes of their own, and they broke a man's mind in the process. Now five people are dead and a conviction that took years to build will almost certainly be overturned.”
“You think so?” Jason asked, though they all knew the answer.
“I don’t see how it couldn’t be,” Marze replied.
“The whole thing makes me angry. Justice requires integrity. Without it, the whole thing collapses. Every case we build, every conviction we secure, all of it depends on the belief that the people inside the system are playing it straight. The moment that trust is gone, none of it means anything.”
Allie nodded. She believed that, had believed it since she first walked through the doors of the Academy.
It was the reason she did this job, the reason she got up every morning and drove to this office and sat in rooms across from people who had done terrible things.
Because the system worked when the people inside it were honest. And when they weren't, people got hurt.
“If anyone ever pressures you to bend the rules, for any reason, you refer them to me.” Marze gave a single nod then walked back toward his office.
The bullpen noise resumed around her, but Allie remained still for a long moment.
She thought about Sarah Park sitting across from her in that interview, guarded and careful, volunteering nothing she didn't have to. Park's son Lucas would grow up knowing what his mother had been part of, would have to live with that shame–something Allie knew intimately.
Her thoughts shifted to Pym in his sterile apartment with his protein bars, and how Donatella had used that need for order against him to get what she wanted. Allie pictured the woman sitting in that interview room, calm and unapologetic, with her only regret that she hadn’t committed murder.
There were no clean endings here. Just consequences, spreading outward like cracks in glass.