PART 1: Red Resurfaces
The call came in just after 6 a.m.
Industrial dredge crew, working the south canal near Marston Wharf, pulled a bloated corpse from the black water. Male. No ID. Teeth missing. Fingertips charred to the bone.
Name in the field report: John Doe (alias Glen Fields).
But Izzy didn't need a name. She saw the shoes.
Scuffed brown brogues. Size eleven. Soles patched with duct tape.
The last time she saw them was in a grainy security video of Red Malloy leaving Heller's through the alley, looking over his shoulder like he already knew what was behind him.
Now he was here.
Drifting in silence.
The morgue technician lifted the sheet. Just the top half. Face was bruised, swollen. Whatever had killed him had done it hard and fast.
Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the skull.
Izzy didn't flinch.
She just stared at the cracked cheekbone, the bruising across the brow. The similarities to Arthur's wounds weren't perfect — but they echoed. Hard. Precise. Silent.
She stepped out into the hallway and pulled out her phone.
Jack answered on the second ring.
"It's him," she said.
There was a pause.
Then Jack said, "How bad?"
"They tried to erase him."
"Did they?"
She looked back at the door.
"No."
Two hours later, she stood in a concrete precinct hallway with a clipboard in her hand and a detective from Violent Crimes explaining why Red's death was being labeled "gang-related."
"Canal dump, tied hands, burn marks — it fits the cartel pattern. No ID, no next of kin. It's a clean close."
Izzy stared at the file.
"Red Malloy wasn't in any gang. He booked bets in corners of this city too moldy for the cartels to care."
"Still fits the profile."
"Right. And no one thinks it's odd he died the same way as Arthur Rourke?"
The detective shrugged. "You know how it works. No link, no leverage. Different victims, different social strata. If we tie every corpse to a conspiracy, we're gonna need more file cabinets."
Izzy smiled grimly.
"You'll need more body bags."
Outside, Jack stood on the courthouse steps in a black hoodie, staring at nothing.
She walked up beside him, the wind tugging at her coat.
"They're cleaning house," she said.
Jack didn't reply.
He just nodded once.
Then: "He warned me. Said if I had the drive, he was already dead."
Izzy reached into her pocket, pulled out the crime scene photo of Red's shoeprint from the alley — the one she'd taken before the rain washed it away.
She handed it to him.
"He wasn't wrong."
Jack's voice was quiet. "He wasn't the one they wanted."
Izzy folded her arms.
"No. But he knew the way."
PART 2: Proxy Trails
Izzy sat in the dim corner of an empty library microfiche room, a safe haven for cops who asked questions other cops stopped asking.
In front of her: three folders, a flash drive, and a login to a legal disclosure archive most people didn't even know existed.
She was tracing the sculpture.
The missing one — the one likely used to kill Arthur, then vanished into silence.
It had been listed in Rourke-Thorne's office asset register as "Modern Construct 7," marked under a vendor called Carapace Assets Ltd. A generic name with no origin, but attached to a shell management firm based out of Belize.
She leaned forward and opened the offshore registry directory.
Carapace Assets Ltd.
Registered Agent: Zedai Financial
Holding Address: Coral Gate, Belize City
Ownership Proxy: E. Kerrigan
She froze.
E. Kerrigan.
She typed it again. Scanned the Rourke-Thorne internal memos she'd recovered from Dusty — the junior accountant. A name popped in a 2022 financial oversight note:
"Correspondence forwarded to E. Kerrigan for discretionary review."
It wasn't just historical.
It was recent.
She pulled out her notes on Evelyn Kerrigan — Arthur's former partner, lover, co-founder of his earliest ventures. Supposedly dead. Supposedly irrelevant.
Yet her name was embedded in offshore assets, private shell transfers, and now — somehow — a murder weapon.
Izzy narrowed her eyes.
She pulled out the ledger Jack had stolen — Arthur's backup — and flipped to the final ten pages. There, just beneath a tangle of bank codes, two initials scribbled in a margin: E.K.
No explanation.
No arrow.
Just E.K., boxed twice.
It could've been old business.
But her gut said otherwise.
She circled it. Slowly.
Either someone was using Evelyn's identity...
...or she had never disappeared at all.
PART 3: The Ghost Woman
The records room at city archives smelled like old glue and dryer lint — a place where paper went to wait for someone who still believed in it.
Izzy flipped open the manila folder with KERRIGAN, EVELYN M. scrawled across the front. It was thin. Suspiciously thin.
Inside: one missing persons form. Dated July 17, 2015.
Filed by a housekeeper.
Reported last seen leaving her art studio in the warehouse district, 6:40 PM.
No signs of struggle. Car left parked. Phone off.
Case closed — forty-eight hours later.
Closure Reason: Voluntary Disappearance — Legal Counsel Notification
At the bottom of the report, typed neatly, a private law firm's name:
Talbot & Elger LLP — same firm used by Marcus Thorne's legal team for corporate structuring.
Izzy flipped the page.
No obituary. No medical file. No death certificate.
Not even a traffic citation after 2015.
Evelyn hadn't died.
She had been erased.
But not well enough.
Back at her apartment, Izzy scoured a cache of international travel logs — courtesy of a favor she was rapidly burning through with Homeland Liaison.
She filtered for E. Kerrigan, Kerrigan Evelyn, and anything tagged under aliases tied to her last known passport.
Nothing.
Then she ran the firm: Carapace Assets Ltd.
One ping: a customs note in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Private jet manifest, two years ago.
No passengers named.
But attached to the flight: a facial recognition hit flagged and dismissed as inconclusive.
She clicked it open.
Grainy photo. Security camera footage. A woman exiting a small private jet in sunglasses and a long coat.
The cheekbones were older. Hair darker.
But the walk — the way she carried the bag slung over one shoulder like she didn't trust the ground she walked on — Izzy had seen it before.
She pulled out a print of Evelyn from an old society column, cropped the eyes, compared the tilt of the jaw.
A match.
Not conclusive. But close enough.
She traced the image credit.
Source: Cardall Investigative Services.
A freelance firm with ties to Thorne's team. Hired last year — scope redacted.
Izzy leaned back in her chair.
If Thorne's people had eyes on Evelyn...
Then Evelyn wasn't just a memory.
She was currency.
And she was being spent.
PART 4: Jack Remembers Evelyn
The park was nearly empty.
Just the wind, the rustle of dry leaves scraping against the concrete path, and the quiet creak of the swingset swaying without anyone on it.
Jack sat on a low bench near the tennis courts, hoodie pulled tight, eyes fixed on nothing.
Izzy approached from the far path, footsteps soft in the dusk light. She didn't say hello. Just sat beside him, a few feet of silent air between them.
He handed her a paper bag. Inside: two coffees.
"I didn't put sugar in yours," he said. "Figured you'd call me sentimental."
"I would."
They drank in silence for a minute.
Then Jack spoke.
"You're digging up Evelyn."
It wasn't a question.
Izzy nodded. "She's on the papers. One of Thorne's shell companies traces back to her. Belize registry. Offshore. She's tied to the murder weapon, indirectly."
Jack gave a hollow laugh.
"She always said Arthur would get her killed. Maybe this is how."
"What do you remember about her?"
Jack leaned back. "She was sharp. Not smart — sharp. Like she could cut through bullshit without moving. She knew how things worked. Could see ten steps ahead, even if she didn't always say it."
Izzy watched him.
"She and Arthur—?"
Jack shrugged. "Complicated. They were lovers, sure. But more than that. Partners. They built the bones of the firm together. She helped him structure the first offshore umbrella — before Marcus. Before the polish."
"Why'd they split?"
"He didn't like sharing power. She didn't like being watched."
Izzy sipped her coffee. "Did she ever talk about leaving?"
Jack smiled. "Yeah. A lot. One night she was drunk on good wine and worse regret and said to me: 'Arthur doesn't erase people. He relocates them.'"
Izzy turned to look at him. "That exact phrase?"
Jack nodded. "I thought it was some poetic BS. But now...?"
He let the thought dangle.
Izzy stared ahead at the trees, almost black against the twilight.
"If she's alive, she's not just in hiding," she said. "She's part of the story they're trying to keep buried."
"And if Arthur was trying to contact her again before he died..."
"Then he was ready to burn the house down."
They sat there for a while, letting the air cool around them.
Then Jack added, quietly: "You think she knows about Leah?"
Izzy didn't answer.
She just finished her coffee and said, "We need to find her before someone else does."
PART 5: The Real Target
The light in Izzy's apartment was low — just her desk lamp, tilted hard left, casting long shadows over paper stacks and glowing monitors.
She scrolled through Arthur's recovered email cache — decrypted using the credentials Dusty had quietly passed her on a flash drive. Most of it was corporate flotsam: press inquiries, investment memos, tax drafts.
Then she found it.
Draft folder.
Timestamp: Three days before his death.
Subject line: (no subject)
Recipient: E. Kerrigan
She clicked it open.
The message was short.
Evelyn —
If anything happens to me, tell the girl. She deserves the truth.
She's not part of this — she never was.
But she's close enough to be collateral.
Use what I gave you. Use the ledger.
You're smarter than I ever was.
Don't let them bury her with me.
— A.
Izzy stared at it.
Not sent. Just written. Sitting in the dark, waiting for a keystroke that never came.
She read it again. Then a third time.
She picked up her phone and called Jack.
He answered on the second ring.
"She's the key," Izzy said. "Leah."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean Evelyn's not just tied to this by name. Arthur was planning to pass her something. Something through Leah. Or for her. I don't know which."
Silence.
Then Jack said, "You think they'll come after her?"
Izzy looked at the screen.
At the words She's not part of this — she never was.
"I think they already have."
Jack's breath caught. "I have to get to her—"
"No," Izzy said firmly. "You have to stay put. If they think you're trying to protect her, they'll use that."
Jack's voice hardened. "So what, I just sit here while my kid—"
"She's being watched. So are you. That means they want you to panic."
Another pause. Then softer: "What do we do?"
Izzy stood.
"We find Evelyn before they find Leah."