Chapter 15 - The Price of a Copy

Benny survived surgery.

The bullet missed his heart by less than an inch.

When the doctor said that, I sat down on the hospital corridor floor because my legs stopped negotiating.

Dante sat beside me.

Not on a chair.

On the floor.

For five minutes neither of us spoke.

Then I said, “He switched the drive.”

“Yes.”

“He gave Silas a fake.”

“Yes.”

“I yelled at him for being afraid.”

Dante turned his head. “Fear and courage are not opposites.”

“That sounds like something printed on a coffee mug.”

“It can still be true.”

I leaned my head against the wall.

“Did your father ever talk about mine?”

“Not to me.”

“Do you think he knew Miguel died because of Silas?”

Dante was quiet.

“I think he suspected too late.”

“That is not the same as knowing.”

“No.”

Price came down the corridor carrying the encrypted drive in an evidence bag.

“We opened it.”

I stood.

“And?”

“It is real.”

Dante’s expression did not change, but his shoulders did.

Price continued. “Payments to Mercer. Port inspectors. Shipping coordinators. Shell companies. Offshore accounts. Dates matching known trafficking movements.”

“Silas?”

“His name does not appear.”

“Of course not.”

“But his private company codes do.”

“Enough?” I asked.

“For trafficking conspiracy, bribery, financial crimes? Strong. For Miguel’s murder? Not yet.”

I felt my hope drop.

Price held up a hand. “However, there is a section labeled M.R.”

My breath caught.

“What does it say?”

“Three payments to Samuel Mercer twelve years ago. One two days before your father died. One the morning after. One after the investigation closed.”

Dante stood.

“That is enough to squeeze Mercer.”

Price looked at him. “We do not squeeze suspects, Mr. Moretti.”

“What do you call it?”

“Interviewing.”

“Of course.”

She almost smiled.

Then her phone buzzed.

She checked it.

Her face went blank.

“What?” I asked.

“Mercer’s transport was hit.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed. “By whom?”

“Unknown.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes. Two agents injured. Mercer escaped.”

I stared at her.

“He was under federal guard.”

“Yes.”

“How does a wounded police captain escape federal custody?”

Price’s jaw tightened. “With help.”

Sofia appeared at the far end of the hall, already on her phone.

“Pier cameras just caught a vehicle associated with Mercer heading south.”

“Toward where?” Dante asked.

“Georgetown.”

My stomach dropped.

“The storage unit.”

We all understood at once.

The blue flashlight.

Price called agents while we ran for the elevator.

Dante grabbed my arm.

“You stay here.”

I yanked free.

“Not this time.”

“Mara.”

“My father hid something there. Mercer knows it. I know the unit better than any of you.”

Price looked at me, calculating.

“You stay in my vehicle unless I say otherwise.”

Dante began to object.

Price cut him off. “You can stay too.”

He stopped.

Twenty minutes later, federal vehicles surrounded the storage facility.

The unit door was open again.

Mercer’s abandoned car sat nearby.

No sign of him.

Agents cleared the rows one by one.

Price finally let me approach the unit.

The workbench had been moved.

Behind it, where the blue flashlight had fallen, there was only dust.

“It is gone,” I said.

Sofia checked the old camera recording.

“The attackers never recovered it.”

“Then Mercer did tonight.”

Price crouched near the floor.

“Maybe.”

She pointed to a fresh scrape along the concrete.

A metal bracket had been pulled from beneath the bench.

Inside the bracket was an empty cylindrical space.

I stared.

“The flashlight was a decoy.”

Dante looked at me. “What was hidden inside the bracket?”

I thought about my father’s note.

Ask Mara about blue light.

Not blue flashlight.

Light.

I looked up at the old emergency fixture mounted over the unit door.

Its plastic cover was faded blue.

“My father built that.”

An agent brought a ladder.

Price unscrewed the cover.

Inside, taped behind the battery housing, was a small microcassette.

We all froze.

Mercer had searched the floor.

He had missed the ceiling.

Price lowered the tape into an evidence bag.

I could barely breathe.

“What is on it?” Dante asked.

I looked at the tiny cassette.

“My father’s insurance.”

The old emergency fixture had one more secret. When Price removed the tape, she found a strip of masking tape beneath it with a date and three initials: M.R., A.M., E.M.

“Miguel Reyes. Antonio Moretti. Elena Moretti,” Dante said.

I looked at him. “Your mother?”

He nodded slowly. “If that is what E.M. means.”

It was the first hint that someone in Dante’s family besides Antonio had known my father was in danger. Price photographed the strip before touching anything else.

“We follow evidence in order,” she warned.

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I wanted to jump straight to Elena. Instead I forced myself to wait for the cassette. My father had hidden it for a reason, and whatever came next deserved to be heard before we built another theory around grief.

On the drive to the evidence lab, I kept seeing the blue cover above the storage door. For years I had remembered that light as something childish and comforting. Now it felt like a message stretched across twelve years, waiting for me to look up.