Chapter 9
Evie
My phone vibrates as I pull into the parking lot of Bee’s Liquor Store. I ignore the message from Gabriel Martin and flick to navigation, double-checking the address Daniel Price sent me after he finally reached out.
This can’t be right.
Across the street, a one-story brick building sits—no business signs, no street numbers visible from here.
To my right, a faded billboard advertising last year’s RV show blocks my view of what might be a house or a business.
The asphalt stretches from the liquor store parking lot all the way to the street corner.
A mix of dead weeds and brown blades of grass fill the cracks.
I scan for street numbers on the liquor store. Even. The building Daniel wants to meet at is an odd number—definitely that side of the street.
There’s no traffic, so I zip across the pavement and park in front of the brick building.
Four metal steps lead up to an unmarked door.
I take in the faded parking lines and broken asphalt.
This isn’t the professional setting I expected from an FBI supervisory special agent.
I triple-check the address. This has to be the place.
I shoot Daniel a text: I’m here.
The moment I hit send, I regret it. If someone’s monitoring our communication—and given everything that’s happened, someone might be—I’ll have to answer for this in a deposition. I should’ve used an encrypted app.
Damn it.
Oh well, can’t undo it.
I step up to the door and try the stainless-steel knob. It’s locked. I rap my knuckles against the metal, creating a dull thud that reverberates through my hand. There’s no way anyone is hearing me. So I step back and kick the door.
Once.
A second time.
A third.
The resulting thud is louder than my hand. But the only way someone will hear it is if they’re near the door.
An old Cadillac with a faded paint job rumbles past. I watch as the wheel hits a pothole, sending a spray of dirty water to the curb.
There’s no response from Daniel on my phone, so I lift my leg to kick, and the door opens outwards.
I catch my foot in time, but still wobble, off balance. Daniel holds an arm out to catch me, but I catch myself.
“Evie,” is all he says.
“Agent Price.”
He holds the door for me to enter. “Thank you for meeting me here. This place is mostly empty midday.”
“What is it?”
I enter into a hollowed-out shell of a building with windows on the far side, but they’re up high, like basement windows. Daniel doesn’t stop, walking through the building that I imagine must have once been used for manufacturing. He opens a door and we enter into a small windowless office.
“What is this place?” I repeat as I take a seat in front of an old metal desk. The chair has a metal frame and a leather pad. The furniture feels like it’s from the fifties or sixties.
“It’s a property we use from time to time. Surveillance ops. When we need a private place to question someone.”
I’m not sure if it’s due to his words, or his tone, but my skin crawls and I find myself wishing I’d brought my handbag so I’d have my mace.
He leans back in the chair behind the desk, and the chair creaks with his weight.
His silver-framed glasses glint beneath the overhead light.
I’ve met Daniel Price before, over a year ago.
Our meetings since have all been via telephone.
He’s grown a moustache, and he’s lost some weight, but his posture in the chair shows his middle still stretches the fabric of his shirt.
“To be clear, if someone asks, I’ll likely deny meeting with you.”
“Why?” Wait, that doesn’t even matter. “Why did it take so long for you to respond to me?”
“I’m off the case.” He raps the desk with his knuckle. “So are you.”
“When you didn’t respond, I became worried.”
I wait, bracing for him to tell me I’m silly or paranoid.
“What’re you doing here, Evie? What do you need from me?”
“I can’t find Lina.” She’s my witness, but she’s also Daniel’s. He rescued her in a sting.
“Protective custody.”
“No. There’s no record of her.”
“That’s protocol.”
I pause, studying him. Not him so much, but his eyes. Are they cold? Dead? Or is there a hint of warmth?
At the very least, there’s curiosity, and he’s here. He didn’t have to respond. On an inhale, I opt to roll the dice. “Someone’s deleting official documentation on her. Scrubbing her from the system.”
“Want some advice?” Daniel asks.
“I want whatever information you have. I had her relative’s address—her cousin in New York. Do you have it?”
“Evie, my bet is she’s no longer in the country.”
“Well where would she be? Would they return her?” She’s been in the US for years. We promised to help her in exchange for her testimony.
“Wherever the NGO moved her.”
“NG… The human rights group? WITSEC relinquished protective services? You know that for a fact?”
“I don’t know anything for a fact. That’s my guess.” He pushes up from the chair. “Case is closed, my plate’s loaded, and I’m following orders. My advice? Do the same.”
Everyone keeps telling me that. “I can’t,” I admit, pushing up to stand, well aware I’m not getting anything else of value out of Daniel. “She’s my responsibility.”
“Do you not trust the system?”
I’m not sure if that question is testing my IQ or if he’s really so steeped in FBI culture that he’s a believer.
“Fine.” His shoe scuffs the floor as he comes around the desk, passes me and puts his hand on the doorknob, signaling this meeting is officially over.
“I get it. It’s hard to step away when you’ve made a promise.
” He drops his gaze to the floor, then scans the wall.
“I’ll tell you this. And only this. You’re not wrong about this case.
But you’re looking in the wrong direction. ”
With that, he opens the door, and points to the side door he let me in through.
“I’ve got to get back to my team. We’re in the middle of something. That door will lock behind you.”
He turns to the hallway, presumably to another office.
“Thank you, Agent Price.”
“Don’t know what you’re thanking me for. We never met, remember? You say otherwise, I deny it.”
And with that, he’s down the hall, leaving me alone in an empty shell of a building.
When I pull the heavy metal door open, bright sunlight blinds me for a second. I wait until the door clamps shut and double-check that it did indeed lock behind me. It did.
Good.
Daniel gave me more than I expected. He gave me the confirmation I need to search for Lina, and he gave me a tip. The NGO. I have a file on them back at the house.
And even if someone took important pages from the case file, I’ve worked with that NGO before. I have other files on them. Some boxed up and in storage downstairs in my basement.
The sound of a car engine breaks the stillness. A bluebird takes flight from a limb of a small tree growing between the street and the parking lot.
Pop.
I’m moving before I understand why—lunging for the front of my car, knees hitting asphalt.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
The rear window of my rental shatters.
The car speeds up.
Someone exits Bee’s Liquor, phone pressed to his ear, scanning the area.
The car engine fades.
I peer around in time to see a blue Ford Mustang, a relatively new model, speed off out of sight. Too far away for me to read the plate.
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the car’s hood—still warm from the drive—and force myself to breathe. The metallic taste of adrenaline floods my mouth.
A siren sounds.
I push up from my car, and the man across the street in Bee’s parking lot shouts, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I shout back, but I’m not. My car’s rear window is shattered. So is one of the liquor store’s windows.
Random drive-by shooting? Or was I the target?
I cross the street on unsteady legs. The man—fifties, neck and hands covered in tattoos—approaches. “Knuckleheads,” he mutters. “Shooting up everywhere.”
“Did you see them?” I ask.
“Blue Mustang. Relatively recent model. That’s all I got.” He glances at my rental. “You from Arizona?”
It takes me a second. The license plate. “No. Rental.”
“Lucky,” he says, and I don’t correct him.
Luck has nothing to do with it.
The sirens grow louder. A Maryland police officer pulls into the lot, and a woman exits the store, hurrying to her car. The owner waves her off—she was inside with him, safe.
But I was outside. In the open. And someone knew exactly where to find me.
The liquor store owner handles most of the police interview—he’s got better details on the car. Blue Mustang, 2020 or 2021 model. Couldn’t read the plate. No view of the occupants.
Neither of us saw anything useful.
While I hand over my rental paperwork and license, I can’t stop staring at the brick building across the street. Daniel should be coming out. Did he hear the shots? Or is he still inside, oblivious?
The building stays silent.
“You’re lucky, miss. This isn’t a great area.” The officer glances at my license. “What brings you out here?”
“A meeting.” I gesture toward the building.
He doesn’t ask for details, and I don’t volunteer that it’s a federal facility. Maybe he already knows.
“You’ll want to tow that,” he says, nodding at my shattered rear window. “Glass can be dangerous at highway speeds.”
I agree, though the car looks drivable. But I don’t want a shard in my eye if I’m wrong.
The nagging suspicion won’t leave me: was I the target?
They shot the liquor store too—cover, maybe. Making it look random. But if someone knew I was here. If someone knew I was meeting Daniel…
Was the goal to scare me? Or were they actually trying to kill me?
I perch on the curb while the officers photograph bullet holes and collect evidence. My phone buzzes.
Shonda
Rebecca’s looking for you.
Of course she is.
Shonda
Are you at the courthouse?
I don’t answer. How do I explain this? Sorry, can’t make the afternoon meeting—someone just shot at me outside a federal surveillance location.
My phone lights up again. Michael Harridan. Calling, not texting.
I let it ring.
While viewing his name on the screen, a familiar SUV pulls into the parking lot.