The list Rina Kessler had given Vance contained seven names. Seven people who had touched Clara Holden's case and left it worse than they found it. Over the following three days, Vance worked through the list methodically, starting with the weakest link and pulling until something gave.
The first name was Curtis Malloy, the hungover brake lathe operator who had mounted the wrong wheels on Clara's Malibu. Vance found him at a bar called the Rusty Sprocket, a windowless establishment on Dunhaven's south side that served cheap whiskey and asked no questions. Malloy was exactly where Kessler said he'd be: slumped at the end of the counter, nursing a beer and staring at a muted television showing a college football game from three years ago.
Vance took the stool beside him and ordered a bourbon he had no intention of drinking. "Curtis Malloy?"
The man turned, and Vance saw a face ravaged by years of hard labor and harder drinking. Broken capillaries bloomed across his nose. His hands trembled slightly as he lifted his glass. "Who's asking?"
"My name is Leo Vance. I'm investigating the death of Clara Holden."
The name hit Malloy like a physical blow. His face went pale, then red, and his grip on the glass tightened until his knuckles whitened. "I don't know anything about that."
"You know everything about it. You were the last person to work on her car before the crash. You mounted the wheels that killed her."
Malloy looked around the bar, as though searching for an exit that didn't exist. The bartender was at the far end of the counter, absorbed in a crossword puzzle. The only other patrons were two elderly men playing dominoes in a corner booth. There was no one coming to save him from this conversation.
"I didn't mean for it to happen," Malloy said, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. "It was a mistake. I was tired. I'd been working doubles all week because Sorokin fired two guys and didn't replace them. I grabbed the wrong wheels. By the time I realized, her car was already gone."
"And when you heard about the crash?"
"I wanted to come forward. I swear to God, I wanted to. But Volkov came to my house that night. He told me if I said anything, the company would sue me for negligence. He said I'd lose everything—my job, my house, my kid. He said they had lawyers who would make sure I never worked again. So I kept my mouth shut."
Vance leaned closer. "Did Volkov tell you about the bottle?"
Malloy closed his eyes. A tear traced a path through the stubble on his cheek. "He said they would take care of it. He said as long as everyone stuck to the story, no one would get hurt. But people did get hurt. Clara died. Her family... they deserved to know the truth."
"Then tell them. Come forward now. Help me put Volkov and Sorokin away for what they did."
Malloy shook his head violently. "You don't understand. Volkov isn't just a shop owner. He's connected. The sheriff's department, the county commission, even some people at the state level—they all owe him favors. He's been greasing palms in this town for twenty years. If I talk, I'm a dead man."
"Then give me something else. Something I can use without putting your name on it."
Malloy was silent for a long moment. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled business card. It was for a storage unit at Keystone Lock-Up—the same facility where Vance had photographed Volkov and Sorokin. On the back, scrawled in ballpoint pen, was a combination: 47-23-11.
"The lock on the unit," Malloy said. "Volkov thinks he's the only one with the code, but I followed him there once. I saw him punch it in. Whatever you're looking for, it's in that unit. The rim, the work orders, all of it. He was supposed to destroy everything, but he's too paranoid. He thinks keeping the evidence gives him leverage over Sorokin."
Vance took the card and tucked it into his jacket. "Why are you giving me this?"
"Because I haven't slept through the night in six months. Because I see Clara's face every time I close my eyes. Because maybe if someone finally tells the truth, I can stop drinking myself into oblivion." Malloy finished his beer and stood up, swaying slightly. "Don't come back here, Mr. Vance. And don't tell anyone you talked to me. Whatever happens next, I was never part of it."
The second name on the list was Dr. Harold Pinter's assistant, a lab technician named Gretchen Foss who had processed Clara's toxicology screen. Vance found her at the Dunhaven County Morgue, a squat concrete building behind the county hospital that smelled of formaldehyde and industrial cleaner.
Foss was a small woman in her fifties, with wire-rimmed glasses and the weary expression of someone who had spent too many years dealing with death. She met Vance in a cramped office lined with filing cabinets, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like trapped insects.
"I knew this day would come," she said, not bothering with pleasantries. "I knew someone would eventually ask the right questions."
"What can you tell me about Clara Holden's tox screen?"
Foss removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "It was doctored. Not by me—I need to make that clear. I processed the sample as usual, and the results came back clean. No alcohol, no drugs, nothing. I logged the results and went home. The next morning, the file had been changed. The BAC was point-one-four. My supervisor, Dr. Pinter, told me there had been a clerical error and that he had corrected it personally."
"Did you believe him?"
"I didn't want to believe him. But Dr. Pinter signs my paychecks. He's been the county coroner for eighteen years. When he tells you something, you nod and you go back to work. That's how it works in this town. You don't ask questions because the people who ask questions don't stay employed for long."
Vance made a note in his pocket notebook. "Would you be willing to testify to that? To say, under oath, that the original tox screen was clean?"
Foss looked at him with a mixture of fear and something that might have been hope. "If you can guarantee my job will be protected—"
"I can't guarantee anything. But I can tell you that the more people who come forward, the harder it is for Volkov and Pinter to punish all of them. Silence protects them. Truth protects you."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a manila folder. "I made a copy of the original results. I've been keeping it in case... well, in case something like this happened. I don't know if it will hold up in court—the chain of custody is broken—but it's something."
Vance took the folder. Inside was a single sheet of paper, the official letterhead of the Dunhaven County Coroner's Office, with Clara Holden's name at the top and a series of numbers that indicated a complete absence of alcohol in her system. The original report, preserved by a technician whose conscience had finally outweighed her fear.
"Thank you," Vance said. "This helps more than you know."
"Just promise me one thing. When this is over, make sure people know what Dr. Pinter did. He's been signing off on falsified reports for years—insurance cases, custody disputes, wrongful death claims. Clara Holden isn't the only one whose death was swept under the rug. She's just the only one whose family fought back."
The third name was Deputy Raymond Haskins, the sheriff's officer who had filed the accident report. Vance caught up with him outside the Dunhaven County Courthouse, where Haskins had just finished testifying in an unrelated traffic case. The deputy was a beefy man with a sunburned neck and the swaggering confidence of someone who had never been held accountable for anything.
He was less confident when Vance introduced himself and mentioned Clara Holden.
"That case is closed," Haskins said, his hand resting on the butt of his service weapon. "Accidental death. No foul play. Nothing to investigate."
"Then you won't mind answering a few questions. Why were there no skid marks at the scene? If Clara was drunk, wouldn't she have braked late or not at all?"
Haskins' jaw tightened. "Drunk drivers don't always react logically. That's the whole point."
"What about the seat belt? Her sister says Clara never drove without one. But your report says she was unbelted and thrown clear. Did you check the buckle for mechanical failure?"
"I checked everything I needed to check."
"Did you check the tires?"
The deputy's face flushed a deeper shade of red. "Listen, Vance. I know who you are. You're the cop who got fired for insubordination back in '14. You've got no authority here. You've got no badge. You've got nothing except a grudge against this department and a dead woman's family whispering in your ear."
"I've got enough to ask questions. And if you don't answer them, I'll find someone who will. Maybe the state police. Maybe the attorney general's office. Maybe a reporter who'd love to write about a small-town sheriff's department covering up a wrongful death."
Haskins stepped closer, close enough that Vance could smell the spearmint gum on his breath. "You need to be very careful, Mr. Vance. Dunhaven is a tight-knit community. People who come here looking for trouble tend to find it. And when they do, there's usually no one around to help them."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a friendly warning. From one law enforcement professional to another." Haskins smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "Go home. Forget about Clara Holden. Forget about Griffin Tire. Whatever you think you know, you're wrong. And whatever you think you can prove, you can't."
He turned and walked away, his boots striking the pavement with the measured rhythm of a man who believed he was untouchable.
Vance watched him go. The threat was clumsy, almost amateurish, but it confirmed what Kessler had told him. The conspiracy wasn't limited to Volkov and Sorokin. It extended into the institutions that were supposed to hold them accountable. The sheriff's office, the coroner's office, probably the county commission and the local courts. A web of favors and silence that had protected Griffin Tire for years.
But webs could be broken. All it took was enough pressure applied to the right threads.
That evening, Vance drove to Keystone Lock-Up. The gate was still propped open with the same cinder block, and the facility was deserted, the only light coming from a flickering sodium lamp over the entrance. He parked near the dumpster where he'd hidden during his previous visit and walked to Unit 47.
The combination Malloy had given him worked. The lock clicked open, and Vance rolled up the corrugated door just high enough to slip inside. He pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and swept the beam across the interior.
The unit was packed with boxes. Financial records, tax documents, work orders stretching back a decade. But Volkov had been sloppy; the evidence of Clara's case wasn't hidden in the back or buried under irrelevant files. It was right at the front, as though he'd been looking at it recently. The bent alloy rim, its lug holes stretched into oblong shapes. A folder containing the original work order for Clara's tire rotation, signed by Curtis Malloy. A series of emails between Volkov and Sorokin, printed out and marked with yellow highlighter, discussing how to handle the "Holden situation." And at the bottom of the pile, a small glass bottle, the kind of cheap vodka sold at gas stations, still sealed in an evidence bag with a Dunhaven County Sheriff's Office tag.
Vance photographed everything. He worked quickly, methodically, aware that he was trespassing on private property and that the evidence he was collecting would never be admissible in court without a warrant. But he wasn't building a legal case. Not yet. He was building leverage—the kind of leverage that could force a confession or pressure a prosecutor to open a real investigation.
He was photographing the emails when his phone buzzed. A text message from an unknown number: "They know you're there. Leave now. Back entrance."
Vance didn't hesitate. He shoved his phone into his pocket, grabbed the folder and the evidence bag, and slipped out of the storage unit. Outside, the night was silent except for the distant hum of the highway and the chirping of crickets in the weeds. He ran toward the rear fence, following the beam of his flashlight, and found a gap in the chain-link that he hadn't noticed before. Just wide enough for a man to squeeze through.
He was through the gap and into the field beyond when headlights swept across the storage facility's parking lot. A vehicle—he couldn't tell what kind in the darkness—pulled up to Unit 47 and stopped. Doors opened. Voices shouted. Flashlight beams crisscrossed the darkness.
Vance didn't stay to see who it was. He ran through the field, through a drainage ditch, through a copse of scrubby trees, until he reached a side road where his Taurus was parked, exactly where he'd left it. He threw the evidence onto the passenger seat, started the engine, and drove away with his headlights off until he was a mile down the road.
When he finally turned the lights on, his hands were shaking. But so were his lips, curling into a grim smile. He had the rim. He had the work order. He had the emails. He had the doctored tox screen from Foss. He had enough to tear Griffin Tire apart.
What he didn't have was Rina Kessler. He didn't know where she was, who she really worked for, or why she had warned him. And as he drove through the dark Indiana countryside, he realized that the person who had saved him tonight was the same person who had nearly killed him two nights ago. The same person who had walked through his locked door and left a word on his computer screen.
The Ferret. The woman who got into places she shouldn't be able to get into. Including, it seemed, his life.
His phone buzzed again. Another text from the unknown number: "We need to talk. Tomorrow. The diner on Route 24. 10 AM. Come alone or don't come at all."
Vance read the message twice, then deleted it. He didn't know if he was walking into a trap or an alliance. But at this point, the difference seemed almost academic. The only way out of this was through it.
And through it, he would go.
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