Chapter 2 - ELIAS REED
“Everybody stay where you are.”
Renee’s voice cut through the garage.
Gloria turned on her.
“You have no authority here.”
“No.”
Renee took out her phone.
“But Naomi does have a reason not to let anyone start collecting photographs off the floor.”
Naomi stared at the picture in her hand.
Marcus had not moved.
“What is his name?”
He looked at her.
“Naomi.”
“The man in the picture.”
Silence.
“Marcus.”
His jaw tightened.
“Elias.”
Naomi looked down again.
“Elias Reed.”
“Yes.”
The name was not new.
That made it worse.
Marcus had told Naomi about Elias three years earlier.
His twin brother.
Identical.
Dead before Naomi and Marcus met.
Marcus’s version had always been short.
Elias had stayed near home.
Worked around motorcycles.
Got mixed up with people he should not have.
Died in a garage fire.
Marcus did not like talking about him.
Gloria liked it even less.
Naomi had respected that.
Now she looked at Renee.
“The file identifies the dead source as Marcus Reed.”
Renee nodded.
“It does.”
“But this is Elias.”
“Yes.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“I never told the government my brother was me.”
Renee answered:
“No. He did that part himself.”
Gloria snapped:
“Enough.”
Naomi looked at her.
“No.”
Then to Marcus:
“You knew he used your name.”
Marcus did not answer quickly enough.
“How long?”
“After he died.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I found out after he died.”
Renee watched him.
“About the sealed file?”
“Yes.”
“About the racing alias?”
Marcus looked at her.
“Before.”
There.
Naomi closed her eyes for half a second.
“Start over.”
Marcus looked toward the garage door.
Then the wedding venue beyond it.
Music still played faintly.
People still waiting.
He looked back at Naomi.
“Elias and I raced amateur motorcycles when we were younger.”
“Under your own names?”
“Usually.”
“Usually.”
Marcus rubbed his cheek where she had hit him.
Naomi noticed.
Shame arrived late.
She did not apologize yet.
Not because she thought the violence was justified.
Because she did not trust herself to turn the apology into a demand for forgiveness.
Marcus continued.
“When I moved to Colorado, I stopped racing. Elias kept using some of my old registrations.”
“Your name.”
“Yes.”
“Why let him?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“Then?”
“I told him to stop.”
“Did he?”
Marcus gave a bitter laugh.
“No.”
Renee crouched near the photographs but did not touch them.
“Elias got close to a stolen-motorcycle operation through illegal street races. He’d already used Marcus’s name with some of those people before state investigators approached him.”
Naomi stared.
“He became an informant.”
“Yes.”
“Under Marcus’s name.”
“Internally, he had a source number. Operationally, some people knew him as Marcus because that was the name he had already been using.”
“Did your office correct that?”
Renee’s mouth tightened.
“Not cleanly.”
That sentence belonged in the story somewhere.
Apparently now.
Naomi held up the original case photograph.
“Why does the death summary say Marcus Reed?”
“Because whoever wrote the summary collapsed the operational alias into the identity field.”
“Who?”
“Assistant District Attorney Warren Pike approved the final packet.”
Naomi stopped.
Warren Pike.
Her first mentor.
The prosecutor who had hired her as a summer law clerk.
The man who later wrote the recommendation that got her into the state prosecutor’s office.
Retired now.
Living in Connecticut.
Marcus watched her.
“You know the name.”
“I worked for him.”
“I know.”
Naomi stared.
“You know?”
Gloria looked toward Marcus.
He looked suddenly uncomfortable.
Naomi felt another piece break.
“How much did you know about my connection to this?”
“Not this.”
He pointed at the photographs.
“I knew you interned in the same office.”
“That office handled hundreds of cases.”
“I know.”
“Did you know I had been in this garage?”
“No.”
Renee said:
“I didn’t either.”
Naomi turned.
“You brought me the first photo.”
“It came from the archived case copy.”
“Then how did you not know?”
“Because I never saw that print until last week.”
“Why last week?”
Renee stood.
“An old evidence box was reopened because one of the VIN numbers from the Reed case surfaced in a current prosecution.”
Naomi’s stomach dropped.
“What prosecution?”
Renee looked at her.
“Yours.”
Silence.
Naomi’s current case involved an organized stolen-vehicle network.
Luxury SUVs.
Collector motorcycles.
Altered VINs.
Fraudulent salvage titles.
The trial was nine weeks away.
She felt suddenly cold beneath the wedding dress.
“What VIN?”
“I’m not discussing current-case details in a garage.”
Fair.
Then Naomi looked down at the pile again.
“How did these get here?”
Nobody answered.
Gloria’s eyes moved toward the black Indian motorcycle.
Naomi saw it.
“That was Elias’s.”
Gloria whispered:
“Yes.”
“Was this case searched?”
“Yes.”
“Then why were photographs still inside it?”
“I don’t know.”
Naomi looked at her.
“You tried to grab one.”
Gloria’s face tightened.
“That doesn’t mean I put them there.”
“What does it mean?”
Gloria looked at the photograph Naomi held.
Then at Marcus.
May you like
Her voice dropped.
“It means I remember the night that picture was taken.”
