Chapter 5: The Asset
I opened the door.
The woman standing on my back step was somewhere in her late forties, wearing a dark canvas jacket and carrying nothing.
No bag, no folder, no visible equipment.
She looked like someone's neighbor coming to return a borrowed dish.
"Vance," she said.
"Yes."
"Reyes." She stepped inside without being invited, which told me everything I needed to know about what kind of asset Diane had sent.
"Close the door."
I closed it.
She looked at the drive in my hand.
"That it?"
"Yes."
"Good." She didn't take it.
"Marsh briefed me.
I need to hear it from you.
Everything from the phone call forward.
Don't edit."
I told her.
The nurse.
Flynn's voice on the phone.
The sheriff's station.
The settlement envelope.
The lawyer in the hospital room.
The second call from the unknown number.
All of it.
Reyes listened without writing anything down.
When I finished, she pulled out a chair and sat at my kitchen table.
"The second caller," she said.
"Describe the voice."
"Controlled.
Professional.
Not local.
No regional accent.
He knew exactly what was on the drive without having seen it.
He moved within an hour of me landing, which means his information came from inside the hospital or inside county law enforcement."
"Or both," Reyes said.
"Or both."
She was quiet for a moment.
"The DOJ inquiry Marsh mentioned — the one that went quiet eight months ago.
I worked the edge of that.
It didn't go quiet because there was nothing there.
It went quiet because someone with a federal appointment made a call and the supervising attorney was reassigned within a week." She looked at the drive again.
"Whatever Jessi built, she built it without knowing how high the ceiling was."
"How high is it?"
Reyes met my eyes.
"High enough that Flynn Sterling is a middle floor.
His father is the parking garage."
I set the drive on the table between us.
"Then who's the penthouse?"
"That's what we're going to find out." She reached into her jacket and produced a slim reader device.
"I need to copy what's on this before it goes anywhere official.
If we submit it through normal channels, it disappears.
We need a parallel record first."
"Jessi mentioned a man named Gerald Pruitt.
He has a recording — Flynn's associate threatening him into recanting testimony."
Reyes stopped moving.
"Gerald Pruitt.
Owns the hardware store on Clement Street in Harrington."
"You know him?"
"His name was in the inquiry file.
He was listed as a witness who voluntarily withdrew his statement." She looked up.
"He didn't withdraw voluntarily."
"No.
He was threatened.
And he recorded it.
Jessi has a copy on the drive."
Reyes plugged the reader into the drive.
The device lit up green.
She watched the progress bar move and said nothing for a full minute.
Then: "Vance.
When Flynn called you overseas — when he said his father owns the police — did he sound like a man covering his tracks, or a man who had never needed to?"
I thought about the laugh.
The ease of it.
The complete absence of concern.
"A man who had never needed to," I said.
"That's the problem with people like Flynn Sterling," Reyes said.
"They've been protected so long they forget that protection has a source.
And sources can be cut." The progress bar reached one hundred percent.
She pulled the reader free and pocketed it.
"The drive stays with you.
Don't let it leave your body."
My secure phone buzzed.
I looked at the screen.
It was a message from a number I didn't recognize — but the prefix was one I knew from my own work.
Internal.
Federal.
The message read: *Arthur Sterling called the state AG's office forty minutes ago.
He's requesting an emergency review of your military service record.
He's looking for leverage.*
I showed Reyes the screen.
She read it.
Her expression didn't change.
"He's scared."
"He's looking for something to use against me."
"He won't find it," she said.
"But the fact that he's already making calls tonight means he knows the drive exists and he knows you have it." She stood up.
"We need to move Jessi."
"Move her?
She's in external fixation frames."
"County Memorial is in Harrington County.
Arthur Sterling has had a deputy posted in that hospital for eleven years.
The man signs the deputy's paycheck." She picked up her jacket.
"We need her in a federal medical facility before morning.
I can arrange transport."
I was already moving toward the door.
"One more thing," Reyes said.
I stopped.
"Gerald Pruitt.
We need him in a safe location before Flynn realizes the drive has a copy of his recording." She looked at me steadily.
"Flynn will figure that out the moment he knows you have the drive.
And based on the call you got tonight, he already suspects."
I thought about a man in a hardware store on Clement Street who had been waiting four months for someone to come back for his recording.
"How long do we have?"
Reyes checked her watch.
May you like
"If Flynn is making moves tonight?
Maybe until sunrise."
