No drugs.
Just documents.
Photographs.
A flash drive.
And another envelope.
This one said:
MARA.
Mara stared at it.
"Can I?"
Ruiz nodded.
Mara opened it.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
She began reading silently.
Halfway through, her expression changed.
"What?"
She didn't answer.
She handed me the letter.
Baby girl,
If you're reading this, I need you to understand something before anyone tells you a different story.
I did not leave you.
My hands began shaking.
I continued.
There are things I should have told you years ago. I thought keeping you ignorant would keep you safe. I was wrong.
Rick Morgan is the safest man I have ever known.
I made him believe I hated him because I needed certain people to believe he was no longer connected to us.
I stopped reading.
Ruiz took the letter.
She continued.
Rick never abandoned us. I pushed him away. If he is reading this, tell him I am sorry it took eleven years to tell him why.
I closed my eyes.
Eleven years.
Every Christmas I hadn't called.
Every birthday I remembered but ignored.
Every time I'd driven past David's road and kept going.
All because I'd believed the fight was real.
Mara looked at me.
"He didn't hate you."
I couldn't answer.
Because I finally understood.
David hadn't made me his daughter's safe place despite our feud.
He had created the feud because he intended me to remain her safe place.
Ruiz examined the flash drive.
"We need to see what's on this."
The People Behind the Curtain
Back at the clubhouse, Torch brought out an old laptop.
The flash drive contained bank records.
Photographs.
Audio recordings.
Names.
Payments.
And recent photographs of Victor Hale.
Ruiz stared at the screen.
"He didn't disappear."
"No."
"He changed his identity."
"Looks like it."
She opened another folder.
Cal Mercer.
Mara's mother's boyfriend.
I felt my stomach tighten.
"How long has he been connected to Hale?"
"Years," Ruiz said.
Then she opened a second folder.
Laura Bennett.
Payments had been made into her account for years.
Mara sat across from us.
"No."
"Mara—"
"My mother isn't involved."
"We don't know what the payments mean."
"Then don't say she is."
I respected her for that.
Even abandoned children defend their parents.
Sometimes especially abandoned children.
Ruiz called Laura.
No answer.
Then we drove to her house.
The front door was open.
A lamp had been smashed.
A chair was overturned.
Laura was gone.
Cal was gone.
On the kitchen table sat a phone.
Mara recognized it immediately.
"Mom's."
Ruiz picked it up carefully.
The screen was cracked.
There was dried blood near the edge.
Mara froze.
"Is that hers?"
"We don't know."
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
"Rick Morgan?"
"Who's asking?"
"You have something that doesn't belong to you."
I looked at Ruiz.
"The drive?"
"Yes."
"Who is this?"
"Ask David."
My heart jumped.
"Where is he?"
The man laughed.
"Where he should have stayed eleven years ago."
The line went dead.
Eleven years.
That phrase wouldn't leave my head.
This wasn't about David's disappearance nine days ago.
It had begun eleven years earlier.
Maybe even before that.
Then Torch walked into my office and closed the door.
"We need to talk."
"About?"
"David."
"What do you know?"
Torch sat down.
"More than you."
That was not the answer I wanted.
I stood.
"Start talking."
"You remember the night you and Dave fought?"
"Obviously."
"I was there afterward."
"You mean you saw him?"
"You left. Dave stayed."
I stared at him.
"He asked me for help."
"With what?"
"Hale."
My blood ran cold.
"You knew?"
"Not everything."
"What did he tell you?"
"That Hale was threatening Laura."
"Why?"
Torch rubbed his jaw.
"Because Laura had stolen something from him."
"What?"
"A ledger."
"What was in it?"
"Payments. Bribes. Names. Judges. Cops. Contractors."
"And David?"
"He wanted Hale to believe you'd cut him off."
I stared at him.
"You knew the fight was being used?"
"The fight was real."
Torch looked at me.
"But David used it."
He had told Hale that I hated him.
That the Saints wanted nothing to do with him.
That David's family was isolated.
It kept Hale from looking closely at us.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"David made me swear."
"For eleven years?"
"He said Mara's life depended on it."
I slammed my fist against the desk.
"She showed up here alone last night!"
"I know."
"You should have told me!"
"I know."
"Then why didn't you?"
Torch looked suddenly old.
"Because three days ago David called me."
Everything stopped.
"What?"
"He said things had started moving again."
"You talked to him?"
"Yes."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"What did he say?"
Torch swallowed.
"He told me if Mara came here, I should make sure you opened the jacket."
I looked toward the main room.
Mara was sitting at a table doing homework.
My old leather jacket hung over a chair.
I walked toward it.
Picked it up.
Checked the pockets.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the crooked repair near the left pocket.
I ran my fingers underneath it.
Something hard.
I took a knife and carefully cut the inner lining.
A tiny brass key fell onto the table.
Mara stared.
"What does that open?"
Torch whispered:
"I think I know."
Twenty-three years earlier, the Ironwood Saints had bought an abandoned service station outside town.
We used it for spare parts.
Eventually the roof collapsed.
Nobody went there anymore.
But beneath the building was an old mechanic's inspection pit.
Inside that pit, David had welded a steel compartment into the concrete.
We used to hide emergency cash there.
The brass key opened it.
Inside was a waterproof case.
A video camera.
And one note.
WATCH WITH MARA.
The Truth About Mara
We returned to the clubhouse.
I connected the camera to the television.
One video file appeared.
Dated twelve days earlier.
David appeared on screen.
Older.
Gray in his beard.
Tired.
But alive.
Mara stood so quickly that her chair fell backward.
"Dad!"
David looked directly into the camera.
"If you're watching this, things went worse than I hoped."
Mara covered her mouth.
"I need to explain."
David breathed deeply.
"Rick, first, I'm sorry."
I sat down.
"I told myself for years I'd fix this before you ever needed to know. That was pride. You warned me about Hale. I didn't listen."
David explained everything.
Laura had worked as a bookkeeper for one of Hale's companies before Mara was born.
She discovered records showing that Hale had bribed officials and used construction businesses to launder money.
She copied the ledger.
Hale discovered it.
David helped her hide.
Then Mara was born.
And everything became more complicated.
David looked down.
"Mara, I'm sorry. There's something about your birth I should have told you."
Mara grabbed my hand.
"Your mother was already pregnant when I met her."
Mara inhaled sharply.
David looked directly at the camera.
"And I didn't care."
Mara began crying.
"I held you the night you were born. I changed your first diaper. I walked around the kitchen with you for three hours because you wouldn't sleep."
He smiled.
"You threw up on my favorite shirt."
Mara laughed through her tears.