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“What’s this?” I tip my chin at the file. It’s already obvious it’s mine. I can’t believe she’s giving me access to it.
“Parts of your file. Not all of it was necessary for what you wanted, so I kept some of it.” She crosses the room and places her hand on the top before I can riffle through.
“What?” I meet her dark gaze.
“There are clear connections in here to people you’re currently working with.”
“So what?”
“Kimi, reading this, it might make it impossible for you to keep pretending with them. Are you sure you want to do this now?”
“Are there definitive answers in here for Chad’s death?”
“No.” She takes a deep breath. “It raises questions in my mind. First, why you were ever allowed to become an agent. I mean, it was pretty clear the other day you’ve got unresolved PTSD, and there are serious Mafia connections floating around you.”
My memory sparks again with the reaction my mother had to Lorcan. Not him. Not him. Anyone but him. “To the Donagheys?”
“Mostly the file points to the O’Malleys. But as you know, they’re in bed together in one way or another.”
“I know Chad was connected to the O’Malleys through The Cage. Who else?”
“Chad’s father, Ho-Jun.”
“He died a few months before Chad. An accident, right? I was so young, and then Chad died. I didn’t ask a lot of questions.”
“It was labeled an accident by the cops investigating. Ho-Jun worked at a garage as a mechanic. He was working after hours, and the jack holding up the car he was working on was faulty. He was—”
The blood leaves my body in a rush. Darkness floats around the edge of my vision. “Crushed.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Blindly, I reach out for a steel chair and sink into it.
“You knew?” Dai Qing’s brow furrows.
“No.” I shake my head. “No. I was too young.”
Her frown deepens. “But you know something now.”
I swallow the bile rising in my throat. If Lorcan killed Ho-Jun, could he also be responsible for Chad? Finn said they killed for each other, and Lorcan told me about Ho-Jun’s murder. Finn fought with Chad in The Cage, and Chad was good, one of the best. Could Finn have done it? Did they do it?
“If you know something”— she taps the folder—“you need to tell us.”
“I don’t know anything.” I glance up at her and then away. “I was only ten. What would I know? I didn’t even realize Ho-Jun worked as a mechanic. He was a deadbeat. We had nothing to do with him. I’m—” I scramble for the right phrase. “Surprised he died like that.”
Dai Qing sinks into the chair across from me and drags the folder close to her. She riffles through it for a minute before extracting a paper. “The bureau also considered your father’s death suspicious.”
I frown and take the sheet from her. On it is the medical examiner’s report. I scan it, using my FBI training to make sense of the jargon. So many injuries. It hurts my heart to read it.
“He was beaten before he sustained his fatal injuries.” Stones drop and sink into my stomach, one by one.
“What did your mother tell you?”
“He went for a hike.” My voice is so quiet I don’t recognize it. Each word causes the image of my father to surface, alive, happy. “He loved being outside in nature.” I gather the loose strands of my hair off my face. “It was foggy. He got off the path. Wandered over a cliff. The impact killed him.”
“The last part is true.”
I rub the paper between my fingers and pass it to Dai Qing. “The real truth is he was probably followed into the woods, beaten to semiconsciousness then tossed over the edge of the cliff.”