I just made my team a little bit bigger, even if the members aren’t there by choice. A favor was called in that night I was almost arrested in Raleigh, and that was all it took to get me out of trouble.
There will be a time when I need these men and they will come running. I now have a handful of well-respected, God-fearing politicians in my back pocket. A senator, a couple of congressmen, several mayors and state legislators. And poor Judge McIntyre from Louisiana, who tagged along to the cocktail party with a friend.
Chapter 17
Present Day
Judge McIntyre came through like a champ. Just like I knew he would. I’m riding with Ryan back to the house as Rachel follows behind us in her car. She agreed to be held accountable for my actions, so it looks like I’m stuck with her.
In order to walk out of there today, I had to agree to meet with the detectives in Atlanta on Friday morning to answer questions on the circumstances surrounding the death of Amy Holder. If I refused to agree to do that, I would be held at the Lake Forbing Police Department until the escort sent by the Atlanta Police Department arrived and dragged me back there. If I’m not there for that meeting on Friday morning, there will be another warrant issued for my arrest for failure to show.
Yesterday, Mr. Smith’s plan was unclear, but that is not the case anymore. While I thought I could always go back to being Lucca Marino, after today it will be next to impossible to lose the Evie Porter identity. As a condition of being released, I was photographed and fingerprinted, so now not only am I in the system for the first time ever, I’m in the system as Evelyn Porter.
I was so careful to keep Lucca Marino clean and off the grid—a blank slate that I could shape when I was ready—that I’ve got nothing to prove I’m actually her. But Evie Porter has a full background and history, including pictures, the freshly uploaded fingerprints, and the material witness warrant for questioning in the death of Amy Holder.
Eight years ago, Mr. Smith saved me from potential arrest, and now he’s set me up for one.
Today is Monday and already half gone so I have only three full days to handle this.
It’s quiet in the car.
Of all the questions twisting and turning in my head right now, the one that plagues me the most is: Why would Mr. Smith up the stakes on this job? I may be stuck in this town and in this identity for now, but my work here is done. Was this ever a real job or just a ruse to keep me in one place?
“You can ask me anything,” I finally say when the silence becomes too much.
“How did she die?” he asks. “The woman they want to question you about.”
“She died in a fire.”
He cringes slightly, eyes still firmly on the road. “How did you know her?”
“Through work,” I answer. Which is true. She was my last job.
We’re a few minutes from his house and he hasn’t asked me anything else, so I push him. “You’re not going to ask me if I was there? If I know anything about what happened to her? If I played a part in it?”
“No. And it’s not because I don’t want the answers.” He turns and looks at me a second or so before his focus is back on the road. “It’s because you’re not ready to tell me the truth and I’d rather you not lie to me.”
“You’re not scared you’re shacking up with a criminal?” I ask, no hint of amusement in my voice. “Not afraid I’ll set fire to that big beautiful house of yours?”
Push, push, push.
His humorless laugh fills the interior of the car. “My entire street witnessed my girlfriend being taken away by the cops. I’ve spent the whole day at the police station doing whatever I could to secure her release. And now she’s picking a fight with me as I drive us home because I refuse to play games with her.” He glances my way again. “Am I happy this is happening? No. Am I here supporting you through it? Yes. Am I scared of you? No. I’m patient enough to wait until you’re ready to talk to me about this. But I’m not having hypothetical conversations with you about it.”
His words hit me in a way I didn’t expect.
Ryan reaches over and slides his hand into mine, softening the vibe in the car. “We’ll go to Atlanta and tell them you don’t know anything, answer their questions, and then we can get back to normal.” He says it so decisively that I almost believe that is an option for me.
I have no idea what normal would even look like.
We pull into the garage, but Ryan keeps the engine running. “I need to stop by my office to pick up a few things since I wasn’t able to get by there earlier,” he says, staring through the front windshield.
I get out of the car before I say something I will regret. That little speech was making me want to tell him all the things I shouldn’t and now he’s running from me. I’m almost in the house when I hear Rachel shut her car door, her heels clicking on the concrete behind me.
“Evie, we need to go over some things,” she says as she follows me in the back door.
I nod but don’t turn back to face her. “I need a shower first. And a little time. Give me an hour.” I’m heading up the stairs before she has a chance to say anything else.
I stop cold in front of our closed bedroom door. We never shut this door when the room is empty. I think back to this morning when we were getting ready for the day, each of us moving at a snail’s pace, groggy from the weekend. I went down first, then Ryan joined me not long after, but then I ran back up here to get my phone from where it was charging beside the bed.
The door was open when I left the room.
I twist the knob slowly, then give it a push.
The bed is made, which is another thing we rarely do and certainly wouldn’t have done it this morning given the state we were in. I scan the room, then suck in a breath when I see what’s waiting for me on the nightstand on my side of the bed.
An origami swan.
It’s set back against the lamp and small enough not to raise the interest of anyone but me.
I stare at it longer than I should, giving it power it doesn’t deserve.
Finally, I reach for it and pull it open. There’s another piece of paper inside the body of the swan. There are two pictures printed on one side. This is what the cops in Atlanta have on me, compliments of Mr. Smith, I’m sure. And he delivered it to me in the same way I let Judge McIntyre know what I have on him.
In the top image, I am standing outside a hotel in downtown Atlanta and Amy Holder is only a few feet away, her face angry and her hands raised as she flips me her middle finger. In the second image, I’m following Amy inside the hotel. The same hotel where only a few minutes later every cell phone camera on the street out front caught the black plumes of smoke that poured out her balcony window. It is clear there was a problem between us, and it’s also clear I went into the hotel after her.
I remember this moment perfectly. Her heated words. The stares from anyone close enough to hear what she was screaming at me. And then later, the sounds of the fire truck sirens blasting through the air, the people screaming, the acrid smell of smoke.
The perfect piece of evidence, placing me at the scene in a confrontational moment with the dead woman. Knowing Mr. Smith, there are other shots from other angles that are just as damning and that can be passed along to the Atlanta PD whenever he’s ready. This is just a teaser to whet their appetite.
The back side of the paper lets me know what he wants from me.
It’s a picture of me taken on the same day, but the location is different. I’m leaving a bank a few blocks away from the hotel Amy was staying in.
At the bottom of the paper is a phone number. Retrieving my cell from my bag, I call him immediately.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. You managed to get out of there quicker than I gave you credit for,” Mr. Smith says when I answer, the robotic pitch a bit higher than usual.
“You’ve always underestimated me.” It takes everything in me to inject a touch of playfulness into my voice.