And she is gone.

Lowell reaches forward and snaps the laptop closed. “The man you saw in that footage, the one she encountered first? That was Judge Ryan Conahue. His body was found under a pile of trash the morning after this happened. A restaurateur took out his garbage at 5:30 a.m. and got a bit of a fright. Conahue had been stabbed once in the chest, directly in his heart. He’d bled out into the snow.”

She produces another file from a drawer in her desk and tosses an image down—a silver-haired man in his late fifties, early sixties, eyes clouded over and staring straight up toward the sky, blue lips slightly parted. There is, indeed, a wound in his chest—the obvious source of the copious amounts of blood that have stained his great coat and turned the dirty snow around him bright red.

“A judge? He was a judge?” I ask.

“Yes, sweetheart. He was presiding over a murder case at the time. A man had been arrested, a very dangerous man, and his companions, the men you just saw in the video, didn’t want the judge to find him guilty of the crime. They’d been leaning on Judge Conahue, trying to coerce him into freeing this individual, but he refused.”

“So they murdered him.” Just when I thought this couldn’t get anymore complicated, any more fucked up…

Agent Lowell fiddles with the computer for a second and then turns it back to me. It’s already playing. A beaten-up van is careening down the street. It pulls over at the side of the road in front of the alleyway and two men get out. They go to the back of the van and open the rear doors. It’s hard to see what’s going on in the mouth of the alleyway now, because the bulk of the vehicle is blocking the view, but I can see a scuffle taking place. An arm, a leg. One of the men slips in the snow and lands on his ass, his whole body suddenly in view. I still can’t see his face properly, but I have no problem whatsoever seeing his shoulders hitch up and down—he’s laughing. Laughing.

The rear doors to the van close, and then the man who fell over walks back to the driver’s door and climbs in. There’s movement at the passenger door but it’s so dark I can’t see who climbs in there. The van pulls away, and then they’re gone. The street is empty.

“Who are they?” I ask. There’s a lump in my throat the size of a basketball. I can barely talk around it.

Lowell shifts in her seat, tracing her fingers over the fat file in front of her. “They’re a cartel.”

“Colombian?”

She shakes her head. “Mexican.”

“Not…not Julio Perez?”

Lowell looks intrigued, like I’m finally talking her language. “No, not Perez, though he is connected to this group. They’re called Los Oscuros. Their leader, Hector Ramirez, started off in drugs but quickly realized guns were more profitable. They were based in Mexico for years. Some shit went down on US soil and Hector apparently decided he didn’t want his business remotely managed anymore. He legally immigrated and set up a carpet cleaning business. He used that as a front for money laundering. Still does.”

“And where does my sister fit in?”

“He also sells pussy,” Lowell says. My father flinches—I doubt anybody has ever said pussy in front of him before. I definitely doubt they’ve ever essentially referred to his daughter as pussy. Lowell clearly doesn’t give a shit that she’s offended my father’s delicate sensibilities. “Your sister’s a pretty girl, Dr. Sloane. Hector took one look at her and saw dollar signs. He made a deal with Perez. Perez bought her from him, was going to keep her at that little fuck village he’s set up for himself out in the desert, but your good friend Rebel somehow managed to get his hands on her. That’s where things get tricky. The Widow Makers are at war with Los Oscuros. The cartel found out Alexis was with the bikers and they immediately put a contract out on her life.”

My head is officially hurting at this landslide of information, but I do understand what Lowell is telling me. “They wanted her dead because the bikers might be able to convince her to testify that Los Oscuros killed the judge. Right?”

“That’s right, sweetheart.” Dad leans forward, propping his elbows against the table. “Your sister called me four months after she went missing. I didn’t know anything about her disappearance before that, I swear. She told me what had happened and asked me to send her some money so she could get away. She was frightened, but she sounded like she was okay. She told me not to call the police, but—”

“Your father’s not an idiot, Sloane,” Lowell says. “As soon as he found out Alexis was alive, he did the right thing and contacted the authorities. We’ve been handling the case ever since.”

A bolt of anger fires through me. “And by handling the case, you mean nearly killing my sister?”

“What? She was…Alexis was nearly killed?” The disbelief in my dad’s voice makes me scream at him. He thinks he’s in possession of all the facts, but in reality he’s been kept in the dark. His face has gone as white as chalk.

“Oh yeah, didn’t Agent Lowell tell you that? Alexis nearly died because your buddy here shot her?”

The muscles in my dad’s face fall slack, all expression completely slipping away. He can’t believe the words I’m saying—I can see that plain as day. He turns to Lowell, shaking his head. “Surely that’s not true?”

I receive a glare from the woman sitting opposite me, as though me spilling that little secret is highly inconvenient. Yeah, I’ll bet it is, bitch.