Chapter 3 - THE FLASH DRIVE
The shooter escaped.
Vincent did not ask permission after that.
He took Amelia to a secure apartment above an old restaurant in Queens.
She was furious.
“You kidnapped me.”
“I saved you from a rifle.”
“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Vincent almost smiled.
She didn’t.
“Who is Raymond Fletcher?”
Amelia froze.
Vincent placed a photograph on the table.
Raymond.
Older now.
Still handsome.
Still respectable.
“How do you know that name?”
“The shooter’s car was registered through a shell company. The shell company paid a consulting firm. Fletcher’s brother owns it.”
Amelia sat.
For three years she had protected the secret because everyone who touched it became vulnerable.
But silence had failed.
So she told Vincent.
Everything.
The abuse.
The files.
Her friend’s disappearance.
The false identity.
When she finished, Vincent asked one question.
“Where’s the evidence?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what you are.”
Vincent looked amused.
“You work in a diner with my name on it.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
He leaned back.
“What do you think I am?”
“A man people fear.”
“That’s not an occupation.”
“Isn’t it?”
For the first time, Vincent smiled.
“You’re difficult.”
“I stayed alive by becoming difficult.”
That erased the smile.
Two days later Amelia took Vincent to Pennsylvania.
Not to a bank.
Not a storage locker.
A cemetery.
Her mother’s grave.
Behind the granite marker, inside a waterproof tube buried beneath a rose bush, was the flash drive.
Vincent stared.
“You hid evidence under your mother?”
“Raymond hated cemeteries.”
“Why?”
“He was afraid of death.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Men like him usually are.”
They returned to the car.
Amelia inserted the drive into an offline laptop.
The files opened.
Payments.
Police reports.
Names.
Then Vincent saw one name he knew.
CASTELLANO, SOFIA.
He stopped breathing.
Amelia looked at him.
“Who’s Sofia?”
Vincent did not answer.
He opened the file.
Eight years earlier.
Domestic violence investigation.
Evidence suppressed.
Charges never filed.
Prosecutor assigned:
Raymond Fletcher.
Vincent’s hands began to shake.
Raymond had handled Sofia’s case.
He had buried it.
Vincent looked at Amelia.
The man hunting her was connected to the worst night of his life.
May you like
This was no longer coincidence.
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