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We sat there for a moment just staring at one another, his mind surely racing with ideas as much as mine was.

The hows and whys appeared to line up, but the closer I looked, the less that seemed to be the case. We assumed the AD was cleaning up loose ends, but maybe he wasn’t—or at least not in the way we thought. It had never made sense to me why the AD was tied to the mafia at all, or why my father’s investigation of them had led to his current situation. Was there some kind of symbiotic relationship between the AD and Vollero that we just didn’t understand? Marco had said the boss had nearly been caught once, then ‘went to ground,’ but how could you run a mob like that, unless you placed someone else in charge? A faceless, nameless killer willing to do whatever it took to keep your enterprise running that the cops would never connect to the organization. Dawson had said that money and power were the motivation for most crimes, and their union would help guarantee both.

Until potential snitches threatened to burn it all down.

“What are you thinking?” Dawson asked as he stared at me across the table. “I can practically see the wheels in your mind spinning.”

“I have a theory—”

“Spill it.”

“We know there has to be some kind of tie between the AD and the mob…that much is clear. What we don’t know, and haven’t put much thought into, is why.” He looked at me expectantly. “What if the AD isn’t pulling the mob’s strings, but Vollero is pulling his?” When he didn’t immediately shoot me down, I continued. “According to a credible source, Vollero was almost caught once. After that, he essentially became a ghost, which means someone would have had to run things in his stead.”

“And you think that’s what the AD is doing.” A statement, not a question.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“It does.” His eyes narrowed as he leaned in closer. “Who is this credible source?”

“Marco—the one that told me I was on the Vollero family’s radar before. He’s basically admitted having mob ties, and I’m willing to bet he’s part of the witness security program.”

“And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Why would any Brooklyn-born Italian boy move to southern Ohio to open an authentic pizza place that people here wouldn’t properly appreciate?”

“To escape the city?”

“Maybe, but why would he all but admit to being former mafia?”

“Because he thinks it gives him street cred? No one actually in witness security would ever admit to their former life when they’re trying to escape it. To qualify for WITSEC, you have to turn on someone major and agree to testify against them in court. Their anonymity in the program is literally what keeps them alive.”

“Thanks for the unnecessary lecture, hotshot. I’m well aware of how WITSEC works, but that doesn’t change the fact that Marco pulled me aside before everything went to shit with Manny and warned me to keep my nose out of it—just like he did again on Sunday.”

If I hadn’t already had it, that little tidbit certainly got his attention.

“Warned you how?” The heat in Dawson’s tone was undeniable, and I quickly walked him through the conversation I’d had with the potential former mobster while he listened intently. By the time I finished, his brows were pinched tightly together with narrowly restrained anger. “I think I have a few follow-up questions for this guy,” he said as he snatched his keys off the table and headed to the door. “Grab your coat.”

“Wait…you actually want me to go with you?”

“No, but I’m hardly going to leave you here alone, so…” He pulled his gun from its holster and gave it a once-over before he tucked it away and grabbed the doorknob. “Shall we?” As if I’d say no. Without responding, I walked over and plucked my coat from a hook on the wall. “I think we need to set some ground rules before we leave,” he said as he led the way to the car. “You go in behind me. You do not say anything unless prompted by me…and I cannot emphasize the ‘ by me ’ enough. This is not the time for you to get angry and pop off without thinking—”

“I would never—”

“You would often, and now isn’t the time. If you’re right about this guy, he could be a path to the AD that he won’t see coming.”

I shook my head as I climbed into his car and buckled in. “Marco doesn’t know anything about him—”

“That he told you.”

“Ooh, I see. Is it the dick between your legs or your fancy badge that you think will make him tell you things he wouldn’t tell me?”

“It’s the threat of arrest if I think he’s obstructing justice that will likely do the trick.” He pulled out into the road, headed toward town. “But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hold the other two against me if they help keep you alive.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Not everyone underestimates you because you’re a woman, Danners. Need I remind you that the entire reason for this field trip is that a notorious killer wants you dead?”

“A dubious honor, indeed.”

“Dubious or not, I can assure you that the AD doesn’t underestimate you.”

“Not anymore—”

“Exactly. So let me do my job, okay? Just this once?”

I exhaled my anger to see that Dawson had a point, even if I hated to admit it. If Marco did know something, the reality was that the fed had way more weight to throw around than I ever could. Did it really matter if he was the one to get the information? No . No, it didn’t.

He took a left at the light, and I could see Marco’s Pizza in the distance. It was getting close to dinner time, and I wondered if the place would be too busy to carry out our impromptu investigation—or if the man in question would even abide it—but when we pulled into the lot, I was pleasantly surprised to find it empty. Dawson parked near the dimly lit building, and the two of us hopped out of the car, headed for the entrance.

“Remember the deal,” Dawson said as he reached for the door handle.

“Yes, yes, I remember.”

Looking satisfied, he pulled the handle.

The door bucked but wouldn’t open. Dawson jostled it a couple of times, but the metal only clanged against the lock instead of swinging wide.

I sidestepped the fed and pressed my face to the adjacent door, cupping my hands around my eyes to see inside.

Nothing.

“They shouldn’t be closed,” I said, stepping back to see if I’d missed a sign posted on the doors or windows, but found none.

“When did you see him last?”

“Maybe 48 hours ago, at most.” The way Dawson’s brows furrowed set me on edge. “Why?”

“Because he’s gone, Danners, and that can mean only a couple of things, none of which I like.”

He pulled out his phone and began texting someone urgently while I stood there trying to make sense of what was going on. Had word of Marco’s involvement with me somehow gotten back to Vollero? Had it landed him on the AD’s hit list? Or was it something else entirely?

Something niggled at the back of my mind—a warning of sorts that had no real context but would not relent—and I struggled to grab hold of it, but the harder I tried to focus on it, the more diffuse it became.

Until a memory snapped into my brain like a slingshot, shocking me into clarity: the memory of Manny and me standing near the edge of the hotel roof he’d planned to throw me over. The argument we’d had. The words we’d exchanged. The way his eyes had sparkled with deranged joy as I’d accused him of not even knowing who the AD was.

And the seven innocuous words I’d forgotten he’d said in response.

“ Oh, I know…and so do you .”

Everything in my body went cold as I looked at the locked doors of the pizza place. The pizza place that had opened just over a decade ago.

Before my topless pictures/football player scandal.

Before the Throwaway Girls went missing.

Before Garrett’s dead mother’s medical bills were paid off.

Before Sarah Woodley’s body was found.

“Dawson…” I said, turning to face him.

“Just give me a second—”

“Dawson—”

“—I’ve just got to finish this message to Dean—”

“Dawson!” I clamped my cold hand around his wrist to grab his attention. When he finally looked at me, I found nothing but concern in his hazel eyes. “I just remembered something…from the rooftop that night.”

He lowered his phone and stepped closer. “What?”

“Manny said he knew who the AD was—and that I did, too.” I swallowed hard as the world around me spun. “What if…what if Marco is the AD? What if he’s the ghost we’re chasing?” His eyes searched mine for a moment before he pulled away and lifted his phone again. “What are you doing?”

“You said Marco claimed that Vollero was nearly caught once. I’m checking to see if that’s true.”

His deft thumbs typed a search into his browser, and we waited for the results. And there were many, each headline stating that the infamous Vollero boss had nearly been brought down, but a mess-up in the DA’s office had sunk the case. All of them were dated eleven years ago.

“Dawson…that’s right around the time Marco came to Jasperville.”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” he said as he scanned one of the many newspaper articles on the case. “If he got witness security for his efforts to bring Vollero down, why would he be working with him now? The mafia is hardly a forgiving organization.”

A valid point.

“Right,” I said, thinking through the possibilities, “but what if he hadn’t actually given the feds what they needed to bring Vollero down? What if he’d done what he needed to, knowing that the case was going to fall apart?”

Dawson’s eyes narrowed as he turned my theory over in his mind. “You’re saying he didn’t really give the boss up at all.”

“Exactly.”

“But his information would have to have led to something substantial, or he’d never have secured a spot in WITSEC, assuming he actually did.”

“Were there other arrests made at the time?”

He looked back at his screen and nodded. “Quite a few. But it still doesn’t make sense. Vollero would have to have set the whole thing up.”

“Yes, but what better way to save yourself and maybe get rid of some members of your family who needed to go? All with the help of your right-hand man?”

The set of Dawson’s features told me he wasn’t quite convinced. “Or maybe you sold them out because you needed to clean house and start again in a new place with a new identity. Somewhere no one would ever go looking for a mob boss…”

“Are you saying you think Marco is Vollero ?”

“I’m saying we need to hunt him down and find out.”

My mind reeled with complicated scenarios until it gave up entirely, because in the end, Dawson was right. We weren’t going to get anywhere until we found him.

But his abrupt disappearance did not bode well.

I contemplated that fact while he called Dean and relayed both what we knew and what we suspected.

“He’s got a friend at the US Marshals Service. He’s going to see what he can find out, but it’ll be difficult given the sensitive nature of the WITSEC program. In the meantime, we’re going home so I can do some digging into this old case and see if there’s anything there.”

“Okay.”

“And as much as I know you want to help, you have schoolwork to do.” I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off with raised palms. “Once you’re done, you can help all you want.”

“Fine,” I said as I sighed heavily, “but the second you find anything interesting, all bets are off.”

“Deal.”

“Good. Now take me home. Being here is freaking me out a little.”

“You’ve faced killers and death more times than I care to admit, but it’s newly-abandoned buildings that scare you?” he asked with a laugh. “You never cease to surprise me, Danners. Truly.”

“I like to keep you on your toes, Dawson. You should know that by now.”

“Oh, I do,” he said as he opened his car door. “I’m painfully aware of that fact.”

We climbed in and drove all the way back to Gramps’ house in silence, a strange tension looming in the air between us. One I couldn’t quite place.