and she relived that day of flying with her father and embraced his words, knowing them to be true.
Nothing is impossible.
CHAPTER 19
After finding out about the ominous warning on Jack’s arm, Frank, Jack, and Joy agreed that there was one thing that held the answers they needed. Whatever was in the evidence case had frightened Mia as if it were death come to claim her soul. Jack beat himself up for respecting her wishes and for not forcing her to tell him what she was involved in, the gift of hindsight condemning him. The three agreed that the answer to finding Mia was not in the tattoo on Jack’s arm; it was in the case.
It was just after 12:30 when Frank walked through the lobby of the Tombs. There was no need to flash his badge, as he was greeted by his first name at every checkpoint he went through.
“Your disappearance from the force was just a rumor, hey?” the skinny guard with washed-out skin said as he stood up from the central reception desk.
“Good to see you,” Frank said as he offered his hand, shaking Larry’s warmly.
“I knew you wouldn’t be gone for long. You’re here about sublevel five?”
Frank was shocked that the young guard would know where he was going. “As a matter of fact…”
“I hate when the feds go sniffing around in our business.”
Frank didn’t respond, although his mind was already spinning.
“Surprised they didn’t call you in earlier.” Larry flicked the button under his desk, releasing the security lock to his gate and allowing Frank to enter the central lobby.
Frank walked through and headed for the bank of elevators against the far wall, then turned back to Larry.
“Thanks, Larry.”
“I’m glad you’re back,” Larry said with a nod before returning to his post.
As Frank hit the elevator button, he knew that things were about to go far off track. If the feds were in sublevel five, the situation that couldn’t get worse was already well past that point.
As the elevator doors opened on sublevel five, Frank saw yellow police tape stretched the length of the small lobby. Several black rolling cases of various sizes sat in the corner as if someone was moving in. Two men in dark suits said nothing as they stepped into the cab, not waiting for Frank to disembark, and hit the button for the ground floor.
Frank walked out, shaking his head. He ducked under the tape and stepped to the glass window, pulling out and placing his ID flush with the glass, rapping on the window with his knuckles.
Charlie spun around in his desk chair, his usually cheery face awash in grief.
“Frank,” Charlie said with relief.
“Hey, Charlie.” Frank nodded.
“This is god-awful.” Charlie’s usually perfect tie was askew, his hair mussed, making him look like someone at the end of a forty-eight hour shift. But Charlie had just arrived. “Their poor kids, both parents, how do you tell a kid their mother and father aren’t coming back?”
Frank nodded, wishing he could wipe away the pain with the simple truth, but that was out of the question for the moment.
Charlie glanced at Frank’s ID and buzzed the door. Frank pulled open the steel security door as the release buzzer screamed in his ear and headed straight into Charlie’s small office.
“Police tape?” Frank said. “What the hell?”
“Feds are here, looking for an evidence case they say belongs to them.”
“And that would be down here because…”
“They say Jack Keeler hid it down here for his wife.”
“Did he?” Frank wasn’t sure how much Charlie was involved.
“They’re not going to find anything,” Charlie said in unspoken understanding. “They come down here thinking they’re smarter, that we’re just a bunch of cops out of a Keystone movie.”
“The feds are always so charming.”
“Yes, we are.”
Frank turned to see a tall man, thin and wiry, standing ramrod-straight in the doorway, his head seeming a little large for his body, what little hair he possessed buzz-cut short. The exhaustion in his eyes left no doubt that the man hadn’t slept in days; the dark circles and humorless expression were not what anyone was accustomed to seeing in Gene Tierney. The FBI’s assistant director in charge of the New York field office was known for his sense of humor, a dark, dry wit honed over a twenty-five-year career, which Frank had come across on several occasions. Frank would never consider Tierney to be a friend, but he respected him, which was something he could only say about one other FBI agent, and nobody knew where she was right now.
“Since when are you back on the force?” Tierney quickly said.
“What the hell’s going on?” Frank asked.
Tierney stood there, troubled, mulling over Frank’s question. “We’re looking for an evidence box that Mia Keeler had, and it seems to have disappeared.”
“And why would it be here?”
“Mia’s smart. We believe she asked her husband to hide it down here.”
“So you think Mia was hiding evidence and Jack was committing political suicide?”
“No, I didn’t say that. But as with everything, there’s more to the story that none of us knows.”
“Do you know what’s in the case?”
“Evidence from a murder investigation.”
“And you think Jack and Mia are somehow involved?”
“Nobody is accusing them of wrongdoing. I’ve known Mia since she was a senior in high school, and her father forever. If she did something like this, she did it for a reason.”
“So all this to figure out that reason, you just come in and take over?”
Tierney took a moment, running his hands through his bristly hair. “We got the mayor, the governor, and we have a warrant, which I haven’t needed to wave around, because everyone is trying to work together on this. We’re not saying Jack or Mia did anything wrong, but something got them killed. And we need that evidence case.”
“So what’s taking so long? You’ve got a whole team down here, and you can’t find it?”
“Nothing is in the system,” Charlie cut in.
“He’s smart. He didn’t log it in, which means either someone was helping him”-Tierney paused as he looked from Charlie to Frank-“Or he tucked it into some other case file.”
“The DA’s office has thousands of active cases. Are you telling me you’re going to go through every evidence file?”
“Welcome to my hell,” Tierney said as he took a step into the evidence room. Frank followed him into the enormous storage space. Frank had been in there too many times to count.
“Do you mind if I take a walk around?”
“Yes, I do,” Tierney said, a tired tone of suspicion in his voice. “Until you tell me why someone who was so anxious to retire and get away from all of this is back.”
Frank stared at him a moment. “You and I both know it was no accident; otherwise, you wouldn’t be down here.”
“It’s no coincidence that we’re both here right now. I know what I’m looking for. Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”
Frank’s mind was scrambling. He was never one for lies, always spitting out the truth before his mind could hold it in check.
“I heard you guys were here, something that’s never happened before. Like you said, no coincidence.”
“We’ve spent the entire morning looking at every ongoing case that Keeler was working on.”
