Chapter 7: Four Hours to Pittsburgh
Daniel drove.
I sat in the back with Logan.
We had been on the road for twenty minutes when Daniel's contact — the older voice from the earlier call — reached us again.
His name, Daniel finally told me, was Marsh.
He had worked with David before David's cover was blown.
He was not FBI anymore.
He hadn't been for a year.
"Reeves pushed him out," Daniel said.
"Marsh started asking questions about the staged accident.
Reeves buried his clearance and had him reassigned to a desk in Albuquerque.
Marsh resigned six months later."
"And he's been helping David since then?"
"Marsh is the reason David is still alive."
Through the speakers, Marsh's voice was flat and efficient.
"The two men behind David in that photograph are contractors.
Not bureau.
Reeves is keeping this off the books."
"Can David lose them?" Daniel asked.
"He already did.
Forty minutes ago.
But they know the neighborhood.
They'll reacquire."
"Where is he going?"
"There's a church on Fineview.
Saint Brendan's.
David has used it before — the priest knows him, lets him come through the back.
It buys him an hour, maybe two."
"We're four hours out," Daniel said.
"Then you need to move faster." A pause.
"There's something else.
Reeves filed a welfare check this morning.
On the child."
My head came up.
"He used the preschool enrollment," Marsh said.
"Filed it as a concerned party.
Anonymous tip that the child was being kept in unsafe conditions.
Baltimore family services has a caseworker scheduled to visit the home address on file."
"We're not there," I said.
"No.
But when the caseworker finds an empty apartment, it escalates.
Reeves gets a second filing — child whereabouts unknown, mother not responding.
That gives him a legitimate paper trail to justify a search."
"He's building a legal frame around an illegal operation," Daniel said.
"He's done it before.
He's very good at it."
Logan had fallen asleep again, cheek against my shoulder, Captain Bear tucked under his arm.
I looked at his face.
The small nose.
The way his eyelashes rested against his cheek.
"Marsh," I said.
"When we get to Pittsburgh.
What's the plan?"
"David comes out with you.
All of you, together, in one vehicle.
You go somewhere Reeves cannot follow officially — which means somewhere outside his jurisdiction with a witness who can document the handoff."
"What kind of witness?"
"A federal prosecutor," Marsh said.
"Not FBI.
DOJ.
Her name is Adler.
She's been building a case against the trafficking network for fourteen months, independent of Reeves's operation.
She doesn't know about David yet.
But she will want what he has."
"Does she know about Reeves?"
"She suspects.
She doesn't have proof."
"David is the proof," I said.
"David and everything he's been carrying for two years," Marsh said.
"Eighteen months of financial records.
Transaction logs.
Shell company structures.
Names.
Dates.
And a recorded conversation between Reeves and a network coordinator from eleven months ago."
The car was quiet for a moment.
"He's had a recording for eleven months," I said.
"And he couldn't use it," Marsh said, "because the moment he surfaced, Reeves would have moved on Logan.
David made a choice.
He chose to wait until he could get to you and Logan first."
I looked out the window.
The highway opened up ahead of us, grey and straight and long.
"He chose us," I said.
Not to Marsh.
Not to Daniel.
Just to myself.
Daniel glanced at me in the rearview mirror and said nothing.
Logan shifted in his sleep.
May you like
His hand found my sleeve and held it.
We drove.
