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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The spring night had become chilly as we drove toward the crime scene in my Suburban. We’d chosen it over Jack’s Tahoe so we could transport the body. There was no need to get Lily and Sheldon out of the house to follow behind us when we could do it ourselves.

Flashing blue and red lights illuminated the darkness ahead, reflecting off the black water of the Potomac in the distance. Jack’s face was grim in the dashboard glow, his jaw set in that way that told me he was putting pieces together in his head.

“This is becoming a pattern,” I said, breaking the silence.

“Someone’s cleaning house,” Jack agreed. “And they’re not being subtle about it.”

I regretted not grabbing a jacket on our way out to wear over my coveralls, and I wrapped my arms tight around myself. Jack turned up the heater.

Each new body brought us closer to understanding what connected them all—and also potentially closer to whoever was responsible. The thought sent an involuntary shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.

We pulled in behind three patrol cars and an unmarked sedan I recognized as Riley’s. The Mercedes was parked at an odd angle on the gravel shoulder, its hazard lights still blinking uselessly into the night like a distress signal that had come too late.

Riley met us at the perimeter tape. He was tall and lanky, and he always looked a little uncomfortable in his starched uniform. He was a country boy at heart, and knew the woods and rivers like the back of his hand. He had sandy hair and plain brown eyes, and he was married to a nice woman named Becky I’d met a time or two.

“Sheriff,” he said. “Doc. Not your normal Sunday night.”

“Show me,” Jack said.

Riley lifted the tape for us, and I ducked under after Jack. As we approached the Mercedes, I could see the rear driver’s side window had been shattered. Glass glittered on the ground like malevolent diamonds in the flashlight beams. The sight of the black sedan stirred something in my memory.

“The vic is in the back seat,” Riley said. “Hands bound behind him with zip ties. Single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Execution style.”

Jack circled the car slowly, his trained eyes missing nothing. “Who found him?”

“Jimenez. He was running radar when he spotted the car. Thought it might be a breakdown. When he pulled up, he saw the broken window and realized something was wrong.”

“Any witnesses?” Jack asked, peering inside the vehicle.

“Not a one,” Riley said. “This stretch of road is pretty quiet after dark. Only traffic is the occasional truck headed to or from the industrial park.”

I pulled on gloves and opened my medical bag. “CSI on the way?”

“They’re here,” he said. “Waiting on you to give them the go-ahead.”

I nodded and circled to the driver’s side rear door where the window had been shot out. The interior dome light cast an eerie glow over the scene, turning everything surreal.

Derek Rogan sat slumped against the door, his head tilted at an awkward angle. Blood and brain matter had sprayed across the beige leather upholstery in a surprisingly neat starburst pattern. His hands were zip-tied behind his back, the plastic cutting deep into his wrists where he’d struggled against his restraints.

“Single penetrating gunshot wound to the occipital region,” I said, noting the neat hole at the base of his skull. “No exit wound. Bullet’s still inside.”

Jack bent down beside me, shining his flashlight along the floor of the car. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to a small shell casing that had rolled under the front passenger seat. “9mm. Professional. Clean.”

“He’s still warm,” I said, touching the area beneath his neck. I pulled out my thermometer. “There are signs of early onset rigor in the smaller muscles of his face and neck. I’d estimate TOD at approximately two hours ago. Maybe less. This was recent.”

Jack straightened up and scanned the surrounding area. “Killer couldn’t have gotten far. Not on foot.”

“There would have been a second vehicle,” Riley said. “This is too isolated for public transportation, and it’s a five-mile walk to the nearest gas station.”

“So at least two people,” Jack said. “One to drive Rogan here in his car, another to follow in a second vehicle for the getaway.”

“Just like Theo and Chloe,” I said quietly. “Two shooters.”

I leaned in closer, examining the bullet wound with my penlight. “Clean shot, close range—probably pressed right against his skull. No stippling or powder burns on the skin around the entry wound, but there’s some on his hair. Shooter was careful.”

“Something’s off,” Jack said, circling the car again. “He’s experienced, former military. How’d they get the drop on him?”

I checked Rogan’s mouth and nostrils. “No signs of drug use or sedation. His pupils aren’t dilated.”

“Check his neck,” Jack suggested.

I gently turned Rogan’s head and spotted a small puncture mark just below his left ear. “Possible injection site. Could be a tranquilizer or paralytic.”

“That explains why a man with his training didn’t put up more of a fight,” Jack said.

I continued my examination, noting defensive marks on his knuckles. “He did try to fight, though. His right hand has bruising consistent with landing a punch. His suit’s expensive but rumpled like he’s been wearing it awhile. And there’s a stain on his cuff that looks like coffee.”

Jack circled the car again, his flashlight beam cutting through the darkness. “Why kill him? He’s just a bodyguard doing his job.”

“Wrong place, wrong time?” I suggested. “Or maybe he saw something he shouldn’t have.”

“Likely the latter,” Jack said. “A professional like Rogan would have noticed if his employer was being targeted. He might have tried to intervene if someone was trying to take Nicholas out. Or force him to commit suicide.”

“It’s a shame the ambassador died in Arlington County,” I said. “I’d like to examine those autopsy results and see if there’s a possibility it’s a staged suicide.”

I completed my examination, documenting everything with methodical precision. Riley approached with a black body bag, and I said, “We can move him now. I’ll add him to the autopsy list for tomorrow. It won’t take me long for either him or Max. We already know cause of death, so there’s no need for the full treatment.”

Jack helped me maneuver Rogan’s body into the bag while the CSI techs continued processing the vehicle. The weight of him reminded me how substantial a human life is—and how quickly it can be taken away.

“You think the same person who killed Max Ortega got to this guy?” Riley asked as we zipped the bag closed.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Different weapon, same precision. Josef Visek was former Special Forces, so he fits the bill. Even for the calculated placement of the gunshot wounds on Chloe Vasilios. For now, he’s our primary suspect. Professional hit man for hire.”

We loaded Rogan’s body into the back of my Suburban. The gurney wheels clacked against the metal floor, an oddly final sound in the quiet night. Jack closed the rear door and turned to Riley.

“I want roadblocks on all major highways out of the county,” he said. “And a full description of Josef Visek to every deputy. He’ll be riding with someone. Expect both to be armed and extremely dangerous.”

“What about the vehicle he might be driving?” Riley asked.

“Unknown,” Jack said. “But he had to have a second car here to get away after killing Rogan. Check traffic cams for anything leaving this area in the last hour.”

“On it, Sheriff.”

As Riley walked away, Jack’s phone buzzed. He looked at it and his jaw tightened.

“Doug?” I asked and he nodded.

Jack helped me into the Suburban and then went around to the driver’s side and got in, and then he put the phone on speaker.

“What’s up, Doug?”

“So something popped I figured you’d want to know about,” Doug said. “Two years before Theo and Vivica Vasilios divorced, Theo disappeared.”

“Disappeared how?” I asked as Jack pulled out onto the highway. The headlights carved a tunnel through the darkness, and I had the unsettling feeling that we were being watched from beyond that circle of light.

“He dropped off the grid entirely. No credit card usage, no phone records, no travel documents. He was just…gone. For more than a year. That’s when his ex-wife filed for divorce on grounds of abandonment.”

“How does someone just disappear for that long?” Jack asked. “Was a missing person report filed?”

“Yes,” Doug said, “But then it was withdrawn by Vivica. I guess Theo reached out and let her know where she could send the divorce papers. It was uncontested, and that’s when Theo gave her a very generous settlement.”

“So it was a guilt offering,” I said.

“And then some,” Doug said. “I found property records that were in both Vivica’s and Theo’s names that were donated to something called New Dawn Fellowship. She’d filed an initial complaint with the divorce proceedings that Theo forged her signature and gave the properties away. She withdrew the filing, but everything electronic leaves a trail, and I had to dig to find it but it was there.”

“Good job, Doug,” I said, feeling a surge of excitement. A new lead—something concrete to pursue.

“What the hell is New Dawn Fellowship?” Jack asked, his voice tight with controlled urgency.

“I’m still working on that,” Doug said. “You want to talk about safeguards, boy do they have it. Their digital security is no joke. Multiple layers of encryption, servers bouncing all over the globe. They don’t want to be found.”

“So Theo paid off the ex-wife for giving away marital assets,” Jack said. “Then what did he do?”

“The time he spent off the grid is a mystery,” Doug said. “All of this happened a few years before his thirty-fifth birthday when he was set to come into his inheritance from his grandfather.”

“What do you want to bet New Dawn Fellowship knew all about the inheritance?” Jack asked.

“That’s a sucker’s bet,” Doug said. “But get this, I ran Nicholas Vasilios’s financials for the same three-year period, and the last year that Theo was gone, Nicholas made four separate payments totaling right at twelve million dollars.”

“To New Dawn Fellowship?” I asked, sitting up straighter.

“I don’t know yet,” Doug said. “Nicholas was ambassador at the time, so he used the State Department to set up dummy accounts and move money through a couple dozen different accounts. I’m peeling back all those layers to see who was the recipient of all that money.”

“So when did Theo decide to rejoin society?” I asked, my mind racing to connect the dots.

“Theo leaves a digital footprint again about a week after the fourth payment was made by Nicholas. And then he’s back in the tabloids and living the high life as if nothing had happened.”

I processed this as we drove through the darkness. “So Nicholas paid someone off to get his son back from this New Dawn Fellowship.”

“Or paid to keep something quiet,” Jack suggested. “People don’t usually shell out twelve million dollars unless they’re desperate.”

“And the tattoos?” I asked. “How do they connect?”

“I’m still working on that,” Doug said. “But get this—I just found a reference to a ceremonial branding for new members in an archived news article about a cult investigation. The reporter mentioned matching tattoos on initiates’ bodies as a symbol of their new family. The article was about a different group, but the description matches.”

“So Theo joined this group, something happened that made Theo want to leave, and Nicholas paid a fortune to extract his son,” I said. “And now someone’s on a killing spree, and three of our victims have the same tattoo on the bottom of their foot.”

“You gotta brand your members, right?” Jack asked. “Not a lot different than the Hells Angels.”

“That makes the most sense,” I said. “Cults often mark their followers—it creates belonging and makes it harder to leave.”

“Doug,” Jack said. “The car Rogan was found in—it’s a black Mercedes sedan. The car that ran Chloe off the road a few months back was also a black sedan. Let’s run vehicles of those on our lists and see if anything pops.”

“On it,” Doug said.

“What if Rogan wasn’t just working security for Nicholas? What if he was also tracking Chloe? Or trying to scare her? Maybe Nicholas knew exactly where she’d come from and didn’t want his son to be dragged back into it. So he’s the one who plans to eliminate her. Maybe things just went wrong the night Theo and Chloe were killed, and Theo was murdered too.”

Jack grunted at the theory, and I heard a rumble of voices in the background on the phone.

“I’m putting you on speaker,” Cole said. “We got in touch with Emmett Parker and Vivica Vasilios.”

Jack and I exchanged a quick glance, both of us surprised at how quickly Cole had managed to track them down.

“What did you find?” Jack asked, his eyes returning to the dark road ahead.

“Parker was easier than we expected,” Cole said. “He’s a student at Ridgemont Community College in Richmond. Lives about a block from campus in one of those cheap student apartment complexes. Kid answered on the first ring.”

“Did he know about Chloe’s death?” I asked, still trying to piece together how this young man fit into Chloe’s mysterious past.

“Yeah, he’d seen it on the news. He seemed real upset,” Cole continued. “He agreed to come to the sheriff’s office tomorrow morning before his first class. Said he could be there by eight.”

“Good work,” Jack said. “What about Vivica Vasilios?”

“That’s where it gets interesting,” Martinez’s voice came through the speaker. “She wants to meet tonight. Said she doesn’t care how late it is.”

“Tonight?” I asked, glancing at the clock. It was just after nine.

“Her exact words were that she feels her life might be in danger,” Martinez said. “She was pretty insistent about talking to you specifically, Sheriff. Said it has to be tonight.”

Jack’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Where is she?”

“She’s staying at The Tides in King George,” Cole answered. “Said she’d meet you in the hotel bar. It’s open until midnight.”

The Tides was a boutique hotel that had opened about a year ago, catering to the wealthier visitors to our area. It was sleek, modern, and expensive—the kind of place that served tiny portions on enormous plates and called it cuisine.

“She’s flying out on the Vasilios private plane back to London first thing in the morning,” Martinez added. “Sounds like she’s in a hurry to put distance between herself and whatever’s happening here.”

“Or someone,” Jack muttered.

“We’ll drop Rogan’s body at the lab and then head straight to The Tides,” I said.

Jack nodded. “Cole, arrange police protection for Vivica immediately. Send someone you trust who won’t be easily intimidated.”

“Already done,” Cole said. “You want us to keep digging?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Focus on New Dawn Fellowship. That name keeps coming up, and I want to know what we’re dealing with. And see if Doug or Margot can pull anything from Theo’s State Department files—there has to be something there that ties all this together.”

Jack disconnected.

We drove in silence for a few minutes, both of us processing the latest developments. The body of Derek Rogan lay in the back of my Suburban, another victim in a rapidly expanding case that seemed to grow more complex with each passing hour.

“What do you think Vivica knows?” I finally asked.

Jack’s face was half illuminated by the dashboard lights, casting deep shadows across his features. “Enough that she’s afraid for her life. Enough that she’s willing to risk talking to us before fleeing the country.”

“You think she knows about New Dawn Fellowship?”

“She was married to Theo when he disappeared,” Jack said. “She filed for divorce because of it, then withdrew the complaint when he resurfaced. Yeah, I think she knows a hell of a lot more than she’s ever told anyone.”

“Let’s get this body dropped off quickly,” I said. “I’ve got a feeling time is running out for anyone who knows what those tattoos really mean.”

Jack nodded grimly as he turned into the driveway of Graves Funeral Home. “And I’ve got a feeling that before this night is over, we’re going to wish we didn’t know either.”