The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan, page 25
Dixon rubbed the back of his neck. “We know he didn’t do it, Sasha.”
My face fell. “Then why is he in jail?”
My mom poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the counter. Her flower-coconut scent trailed behind her as she passed me to place the glass in front of Jason. She gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. “Scott is in jail because he chose to be.”
Jason wrapped his hands around the glass. “I don’t understand.”
“When Reuben Marx was murdered,” Dixon said, “Scott was working with the Marshals to collect evidence against the Rosettis. He’d been wearing wires to work and copying files and telling us everything he could for months.”
“Wait. Jason’s dad was working for the Rosettis?” I glanced at Jason. “I thought he was an accountant for a shipping company.”
Jason frowned. “So did I.”
Kessler tapped his pen on his notes. “The shipping company was a front. Angelo used it to smuggle drugs, weapons and cash to international terrorist groups, drug cartels—you name it—which Scott was trying to help us prove. He was an accountant for the Rosettis, only one that also used other means when necessary to make sure people paid their debts, like—”
“I don’t want to know,” Jason said with a grimace.
“But he was trying to turn his life around,” Dixon assured him. “That’s why he was working with us. We were going to admit him into WITSEC after he testified.”
I stared at Jason with wide eyes. Jason would’ve been in WITSEC. He would’ve left me.
“So how did my dad end up in jail?” Jason asked.
“Scott was inside the warehouse when Reuben was killed. He heard the shots and found the body, presumably right after you and your dad left, Sasha, and Lorenzo and the other guy cleared out.”
My mom sighed from across the room. “Stacy came over that morning and said Scott had forgotten something he needed for work. She had to take Jason to the dentist, so I told her you and Dad could take it to Scott.”
The image of my dad shaking something in his hand flashed through my mind. “It was a padded envelope.”
Mom nodded and traced the speckles in the granite counter with a finger. “I sent you there.”
“Julia, it wasn’t your fault,” Kessler said in the nicest voice he’d used all day.
Jason ducked his head. “It was my dad who sent her there. If he hadn’t been involved with the Rosettis, none of this would’ve happened.”
“True,” Dixon said, “but if Scott hadn’t been at the warehouse, Sasha would probably be dead right now.”
Jason’s head snapped up at the same time I whispered, “What?”
“After Reuben was shot, all hell broke loose. Mob killings aren’t as common as they used to be, especially not someone that important to a family. And we still have no idea why he was murdered. But during the scramble to hide his body and make sure no one from his family could retaliate, all Scott could find out from the inside was that Lorenzo and Marco had been sent to retrieve something for Angelo. We don’t know what.”
Kessler tapped the edge of his notepad on the table. “At first we thought we’d finally be able to catch Marco. If he was getting publicly involved in the family business, we wanted him. Then Scott got a call about a ‘mess’ he had to ‘take care of.’ A man and a girl, at an address he recognized.”
Jason looked at me in horror.
I shrugged. “Lorenzo saw me when we were running away. He knew me from Dante. It wouldn’t have taken long to find my address.”
Kessler held my gaze. “Thirty-seven minutes from the time Scott heard the shots to the time he got the call.”
“Scott called us,” Dixon said, “and told us the Rosettis were considering putting out a hit on Julia too, just in case Sasha or her dad told Julia about what they saw. So we got to her at work before they could. And Scott took control of clean up. He stalled for as long as he could to buy us time. Lorenzo wanted to make it look like a random crime, a home invasion or carjacking. Something violent where you two could be executed as soon as possible and it wouldn’t be linked to the Rosettis. But Scott talked some sense into Angelo, claiming the murder of a young girl in a violent crime would cause a media frenzy in town, which wasn’t something they wanted.”
Jason buried his head in his hands. “This is so sick. All of it. That my dad was involved, just all of it.”
“Keep in mind,” Dixon added, “this was all happening in the first hour after the shooting. And we were scrambling too. Trying to come up with a way to find you before they did and offer you protection.”
“And then Scott got a call that the problem had been ‘taken care of.’” Kessler made air quotes. “We thought that meant you two were dead. We went to your house to make sure and no one was there. It didn’t look like you’d packed and left. I remember your room in particular, Sasha. It was still full of clothes scattered around and a book lying open on the flower bedspread. So we assumed the worst.” A look that almost seemed apologetic crossed his face. It almost made him look human.
I studied my mom, who was still tracing patterns in the granite. “How long did you think I was dead?”
She lifted her head, her expression truly apologetic.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I thought you were dead for almost six years.”
The hint of a smile played on her lips. “It was eight months before an agent overheard a phone conversation about Marco and a girl. We didn’t recognize the girl’s name, but we hoped it was you.”
“Couldn’t my dad have found out where they were and told you?” Jason asked.
“Things changed for Scott the day Sasha was taken,” Kessler said. “We couldn’t tell him we’d gotten to Julia in time. We can’t divulge information about whether someone is in WITSEC, even to someone who’s helping us. So in his mind, in the span of a single day, Sasha and her dad had been murdered by the Rosettis and her mom died in a car accident. It scared him. He was worried about what Angelo would do to you and your mom if anyone found out he was an informant, so he stopped helping us.”
Jason shook his head. “He just stopped?”
Dixon pushed off the counter he was leaning against and crossed the kitchen. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “There’s something you need to see.”
Jason and I looked at each other, then abandoned our uneaten food and followed him back into the dining room, my mom, Kessler and the recorder trailing us.
Dixon reached into his manila folder and pulled out another picture. “About a month after the shooting, the cops anonymously received a video of Scott finding Reuben Marx’s body. Who do you think that was courtesy of?”
“The Rosettis,” Jason replied. “It was their warehouse, right?”
“Correct. When Scott found Reuben, he immediately began damage control, which included picking up the gun on the ground next to the body to get rid of it. From the angle of the camera and the point where the video started, it looked like Scott was holding the gun over Reuben’s dead body.” Dixon handed the picture to Jason. “That’s a still frame from the beginning of the video.”
I took a step forward, my arm brushing Jason’s. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve believed Jason’s dad had just killed Reuben Marx from that picture.
“Two days after the cops got the video, what was left of Reuben Marx washed up onshore,” Dixon said. “The next day, while the media was buzzing about the body being found, a copy of the video was leaked to the press. And the day after that, the cops got a search warrant and found the gun from the video buried in Scott’s backyard.”
Jason thrust the picture back at Dixon. “I remember that part.”
I wrapped my hand around Jason’s, gently rubbing my thumb across the inside of his wrist.
“We tried to explain to the police that Scott had been helping us and was being set up for doing so,” Kessler said, “but it was too late. They had a body, a gun, video evidence and media pressure to bring charges. It was too incriminating for them to do nothing.”
“That’s what the Rosettis did to him when they had no idea he was helping us,” Dixon said softly. “Imagine how much worse it could’ve been if they found out.”
Jason leaned into me. “My dad said he was innocent at first, right?”
Dixon nodded. “He got a good defense lawyer, fought it every step of the way.” He tucked the photo of Scott back into the folder. “Then one day, out of the blue, he confessed.”
“We didn’t have any money left,” Jason said. “My mom wouldn’t tell me a lot about what was going on, but I knew the lawyer was expensive and we had to sell the house.”
“That’s why your mom thought he confessed, to stop the money problems.” Kessler looked Jason in the eye. “But that’s not the truth. He told us Angelo threatened you and your mom. The Rosettis knew the cops were close to pinning Reuben’s murder on them, so they planted the evidence. They needed someone within the organization to take the fall, and your dad was going to be it.”
Jason squeezed my hand, then sat at the dining room table. “Did my mom know? About any of this?”
“No,” my mom replied. “We talked about everything, Jase. If she had known, I would’ve known. I’m sure of it.”
“Scott told me she didn’t know anything, even after,” Dixon assured Jason. “And don’t worry, we’ve already sent an agent to bring her here just in case any other Rosettis are around.”
Jason exhaled. “That’s why my dad was so eager for us to move away.”
“Wait.” I sat next to Jason as I put the timing together in my head. “You moved before eighth grade, right? And your dad confessed before that?”
“Yeah.”
“Mark told me the confession happened a year ago. That’s when we started planning Mark and Sloane Sullivan. Why would he lie about that?”
Jason pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes. “Because they’re all liars. Everything we thought we knew is a lie.”
I reached over and placed both hands on Jason’s, pressing down on his wrists with my thumbs until he was forced to drop his hands and look at me. “Your dad was protecting you. He was protecting me. I don’t know how he got involved with the Rosettis, and obviously there’s a lot more to him than we knew growing up, but he was trying to be better. He shouldn’t be in jail for killing Reuben Marx, and I can prove it.”
I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments and let my hands drop into my lap. After wanting to get out of WITSEC for so long, I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. But I had to. I opened my eyes and looked directly at Kessler, standing by the door. “I can testify that Jason’s dad didn’t do it. I can tell the cops what I saw and they can reopen the murder investigation and we can get a hearing or something to prove it wasn’t Jason’s dad.”
Kessler studied me. “There were unidentified fingerprints found on the gun, the one used to kill Reuben Marx. But you can’t always just ‘get a hearing.’ Scott confessed, Sasha. Unless you can also testify as to who really pulled the trigger, give us some concrete evidence we could use to catch the real killer, your saying Scott didn’t do it isn’t going to help.”
Crap. He’s probably right. No one said anything as I stared out the dining room window. All I could see was the side of the house next door. I wanted fresh air and the sound of the ocean and time to think. But I still hadn’t found out the one thing I needed to know.
Kessler broke the silence. “I’m just going to ask the question everyone here wants to ask.” His eyes locked on mine. “Could the man you saw shoot Reuben Marx have been Marco?”
“No,” I replied without hesitation.
Kessler folded his hands in front of him, his face a mask of calm. Then he spoke. “Ever heard of Stockholm syndrome?” he snapped.
“Oh my God!” I smacked a hand on the table. “I’m not some hostage that psychologically bonded with my captor.”
“You are!” Kessler insisted. “You can’t accept even the possibility it could’ve been Marco. Scott said Lorenzo and Marco went out together. We don’t know where to, but you saw Lorenzo at the warehouse. Who else could’ve been with him?”
“Any guy from fourteen to forty with brown hair and a baseball cap, which probably describes about 50 percent of white males in that age group!” I pointed to the voice recorder, back in its place in the middle of the table. “You want to know about Mark, right? That’s what all this is about? The recorder and the interrogation? Fine. I’ll tell you about Mark.” I leaned closer to the recorder to make sure it captured my words. “He makes the best fettuccine alfredo I’ve ever had. He plays basketball dirty, all elbows and hip checks. He likes giving me a hard time and when he does, the right side of his mouth quirks up crookedly. He tears up at romantic comedies, even though he totally denies it, and he sings along to Kings of Leon more loudly than anyone should. And he hates guns. As in, he’s morally opposed to them. Other than to protect me, there is not a single circumstance I can imagine in which Mark would pick up a gun, let alone shoot someone. That is how I know it wasn’t him.”
The expressions that met me when I finished ranged from surprise to disbelief to concern. The concern was all Jason’s.
“He didn’t do it,” I said softly. But he might know something about who did.
“Have you found Marco yet?” Jason asked without taking his eyes off me.
That was the question I’d been waiting for.
“No,” Dixon replied. “We have agents scouring the area for him, road blocks set up, ears on the inside ready to tell us if he contacts Angelo, but nothing. It’s like he vanished. We don’t even know whether he’s dead or alive.”
I could feel Kessler’s eyes on me, feel the way he wanted to dissect my reaction, so I changed the subject. “How did you find me? Now, after all this time?”
Once again, Dixon reached into the manila folder.
“I’m really beginning to hate that folder,” I muttered.
Dixon slid over a piece of paper. “It started with that.”
I picked up a missing-child poster just like I’d seen in ads in the mail, except this one had my picture on it. Actually, two pictures: a close-up my dad had taken the last day of sixth grade, with me smiling and the tips of Jason’s fingers visible around my shoulder, and an artist’s rendering of me at eighteen that was surprisingly accurate. I raised an eyebrow as I scanned the information on the poster. “Jennifer Smith?”
“After we realized you might still be alive,” my mom said, “we decided to try anything to find you, including putting your picture on a missing-child poster, sending it to all the police stations in the country every few months and hoping something would turn up. We used a fake name so the Rosettis wouldn’t catch on.”
“We never got a single hit until five weeks ago.” Dixon moved to the window, looking out and stretching his back. “I emailed the poster one morning like clockwork, and that afternoon I got a call from Officer Nilson in North Carolina claiming to have seen you at a carousel.”
I shook my head. I knew the officer’s curious gaze and unusual questions had made me uneasy for a reason.
“The first time we got a hit and it was on your birthday? It seemed like too much of a coincidence so I came to North Carolina.” Dixon shot me a look. “Of course, I was busy searching for a girl named Andy who was homeschooled and lived with both her parents that no one in town ever remembered seeing.”
A slight smile tugged at my lips.
“And while Agent Dixon was in North Carolina,” Kessler added, “I was following Lorenzo. Who, about two weeks ago, took a road trip by himself to a small white house with red shutters in Lexington, Kentucky.”
My smile vanished. “With a basketball hoop at the end of the driveway and a large maple tree by the street.”
Kessler blinked. “How’d you know that?”
“That’s where we lived before we moved here. But we left at the end of March. Why would Lorenzo have gone there at the end of April?”
Kessler narrowed his eyes. “Because I don’t think he knew you’d moved.” He sat and glanced at Dixon before continuing. “He drove straight to that house and waltzed up like he owned the place. I was watching from down the block. When an elderly man opened the door, Lorenzo was surprised. He kept gesturing and asking the man questions, and all the man did was shake his head. Lorenzo finally gave up and went back to his car. But when he got in, he punched the steering wheel. Then he made a phone call, punched the steering wheel again, and drove back to New Jersey without stopping. None of it made sense until right now.”
Jason leaned forward, eyes on Kessler. “So if Marco was keeping in touch with his family, he didn’t tell them about leaving Kentucky.”
Kessler nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“Meanwhile,” Dixon said, “I was broadening my search for the elusive Andy, working my way town by town, when Agent Kessler called to say Lorenzo was on the move again. Another solo road trip that ended three days ago in a North Carolina beach town. It was too close to where Andy had been to be a coincidence.”
“Three days?” I asked. “Lorenzo was here all weekend?” The memory of headlights following me to prom made me shiver.
“He arrived on Friday, drove around for a while, then ended up watching your school all afternoon,” Dixon replied. “So we got access to the school records, searched for any recent changes, anything that might have attracted Lorenzo’s interest, and we found Sloane Sullivan.” He tapped the table with one finger. “With no student ID, no picture on file, no presence online, nothing. But an offhand comment to the office secretary about how strange it was for a senior to transfer so late in the year got me a very helpful story about how she’d set you up with a First Day Buddy named Liv.”
