Prologue
Present Day
Ryan Walker glanced one final time at the photograph on his smartphone as he entered the local mini-mart and heard the cowbell clang behind him. He busied himself at an aisle end cap displaying individually wrapped pastries and feigned interest in the nutritional information while watching a haggard man approach the counter. This man had attempted to run, attempted to hide, and attempted to escape from the inevitable, but now that Walker had found him, death was certain to follow.
Edward Collins. Accountant. Formerly of Hellerman & Associates in downtown D.C., one of the more prominent accounting firms on the East Coast. The photo on Walker’s phone was a standard portrait from H&A — similar to any you’d find in the corporate world — with the subject neatly dressed in a suit and tie against a light blue background. With his perfectly sculpted hair and a matching smile, Collins appeared to be a rising star.
The early middle-aged man was now a shadow of his former self. He was disheveled, his blonde hair tousled, and he moved at an awkward pace as he peeked around nervously like his head was on a swivel. The smile from the photo was gone, replaced by a sour tension that wrinkled his freshly-worn face.
He wore expensive shoes and a fancy wool coat — a status symbol from another time — but inappropriate for the beautiful summer day, almost as if he was trying to disappear inside the oversized jacket. But there was no escaping from this. Collins had made a terrible mistake, and Walker was here to deliver the sentence.
Because of the warm coat and the weighty burden of fear, sweat cascaded from Collin’s forehead, forcing him to push his wire-rim glasses back up onto his face, while struggling to carry the grocery bag in his arms as he exited the store and returned to his temporary home across the street. The dilapidated motel — built in the shape of a U around its parking lot — hadn’t been cared for in years, and the weeds growing out of the parking lot’s broken asphalt formed a root structure that snaked its way along the cracked and worn streets of this northern D.C. neighborhood. Urban renewal had yet to find its way to this section of the city, and it clearly wasn’t a place for designer shoes. Collins obviously didn’t belong here.
It was indeed a long way from his upscale condominium in Tysons Corner, but once Collins came to the conclusion that his lies had been discovered and his life was in danger, this was his only choice. With one last nervous glance, he quickly opened the burnt orange-colored door and hurried into the motel room. Walker stared at the aging building from the opposite sidewalk, picturing the frightened man immediately dead-bolting the flimsy door, believing he was somewhat protected from the evils of the outside world, safe in his temporary sanctuary. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Collins had succumbed to a typical human weakness and made the grave mistake of trading time for money. Many had done it before him with surprisingly similar results. Collins had forgotten that time was the one priceless commodity none of us could do without. He was blinded by a short-term investment, intrigued by the possibility of unimaginable wealth, but as people never quite seemed to understand in that moment of weakness, he wouldn’t be taking his money with him.
Edward Collins had been a very good accountant, had worked for one of the most prestigious accounting firms in the country, and had enjoyed the opulent social class it provided. He gave everything to his company in those early years, working the insane hours required for a young executive to climb the corporate ladder, stepping off on the thirtieth floor into a corner office. Life had been good. For a time. When the Great Recession hit and the economy tanked, his firm made cutbacks, and he was one of them.
However, Collins still had a family to care for, a wife accustomed to an affluent lifestyle. No one was hiring while the economy slowly recovered, so he entered into the employment of a very unsavory character: Lorenzo Arcuri. But Collins should have known better. Years earlier, his younger brother had worked for Arcuri as well, and after one of those jobs went bad, the younger Collins had been fished out of the Potomac with his throat slashed. Never able to hold down a steady job and in and out of Virginia’s state prison system, Collins’s brother had learned the hard way the downside of working for a criminal, especially one as relentless as Arcuri.
Lorenzo Arcuri was the head of an organized crime family, tethered in Washington D.C., but with tentacles throughout the country. By any standard, not just criminal, Arcuri was ruthless and cunning — the latest in a long line of such leaders for this family, a vast extension of the Italian mafia. Known for his bold moves against his enemies and even bolder taunts against law enforcement, he was a force to be reckoned with. His criminal activities touched on so many industries, it was difficult to keep track — even for the FBI — and his business interests were as diversified as any legitimate or criminal enterprise could hope to be.
Therefore, Arcuri needed accountants who could track, bury, and clean all of the money which flowed from his criminal empire into his legal front businesses. The lines had always been blurred, and so a skilled mathematician was very useful at making the operations look legit and keeping law enforcement at arm’s length. Collins was well paid for his services, and in a short time was making more money than he had ever imagined, but he had also lost his perspective, forgotten about his dead brother, and gotten greedy.
Impressed by the grotesque amount of money being laundered by his own hand, he felt as though he rightly deserved a piece of it, and so he started to skim a little off the top for himself. With each transaction, a little more went into his pocket, and because he was good at what he did, the ruse lasted much longer than he expected. Although the amounts were insignificant to the overall haul being funneled into the Arcuri family fortune, it was still stealing. And in the eyes of Lorenzo Arcuri, stealing was unforgivable. No one made a selfish decision like that in Arcuri’s empire.
So now, Edward Collins was on a list; a list from which you were only removed when you were dead. Most of the people on the list knew they were targets — knew they had made a mistake — so attempted all the usual methods of escape. But the family never forgets, and Arcuri hired Walker to track down these traitors and check them off the list.
Walker considered the grim nature of his work as he lumbered into his unwashed car parked on the street and threw his cell phone on the passenger seat. He glanced in the rearview mirror and the reflection of three-day-old stubble that covered his solidly framed cheeks and chin and his lengthening brown hair was much different than the close-cropped, clean-shaven look of his former life. His gray-colored eyes were sunken and bloodshot, and his lips were chapped. He hadn’t slept well last night. Never slept well.
Walker knew that because he was the one who located these people, he was complicit in the judgment that had been issued. Were these people guilty? Perhaps. Did it matter? No. His only task was to find them. Thankfully, Walker didn’t do the actual killing; he was not the executioner. But once a target had been found and the call had been made, the sentence was officially handed down. So in essence, he did kill them, just from a distance.
There was some relief in that not all of his assignments were like this; he didn’t only work for Arcuri. Walker’s other clients were mostly criminals, too, but Arcuri usually paid the most. It seemed like the personal cost of each case was commensurate with the salary, each successive job tearing away another piece of his soul. Following a cheating spouse or tracking down a runaway child was standard fare until Arcuri offered him the chance to be the hunter.
Walker called himself a private investigator, but he didn’t have an office or a business card. He only learned of new clients through word of mouth, and he only worked for certain types of people. The criminal underworld was surprisingly well-connected in that respect. Without much deviation, his clients were wealthy and powerful, probably through illegal means, and so if they called upon Walker, his investigations needed to be discreet. His was not a ‘shingle above the door’ kind of operation, and in most cases, the people he tracked down ended up dead.
This was in stark contrast to his former life: a special agent with the FBI. Assigned to the Violent Crime Division after graduating from the Academy, his focus had been on kidnapping and child disappearance, a notoriously difficult area with its tragedies usually outweighing its successes, but he was determined to make a difference. After fifteen years stationed at the fast-paced FBI Field Office in Northwest Washington, covering the District of Columbia and several counties in northern Virginia, Walker had gained a wealth of experience and was highly respected for his work in the division
But that was before the mistake. The mistake that still haunted him. The alcohol dulled the screams, but only slightly. They were always there, just a little quieter sometimes — the whispers of the guilt he carried with him. He could not escape the eternal condemnation, even after all these years and in the company of these vile human beings. It was his personal Hell, and he was their fallen angel. Walker had honed his skills in the best law enforcement agency in the world, and now was merely a disgraced former agent with a much-needed skillset. He was their kind of guy, an investigator for hire who could find the people that could not be found by traditional means or under normal circumstances. This was his penance.
Walker looked down at the scattering of post-it notes and other documents — an investigator’s jumbled collection of clues pieced together during his search for the subject — on the passenger seat. Staring back at him was a close-up photograph of Collins taken the day before, reminding Walker of himself. It showed Collin’s left hand, devoid of any jewelry, only the circular band of untanned skin on the finger where his wedding ring had been. His mistake had already cost him dearly, his family obviously destroyed in the process, and Collins was now going to die alone and afraid. Walker wondered if he was eventually destined for the same fate.
He stared at the smartphone. Was he going to make the call and send this man to his death? Was he ready to issue his death sentence? Walker picked up the phone and paused. What if he didn’t make the call? Would they ever know? Probably not. He could just pull away. Sorry, I can’t find him.
Walker’s head started to ache as the morning dullness was wearing off. He grabbed a nearly empty bottle from under his seat and took a long drink. The liquid was hot on his throat, but the pain quickly subsided as a wave of relief washed over him, quelling the tension in his temples. Walker debated his options as the headache was slowly numbed by the hard liquor. He tapped at the phone, inputting the address and room number. He hesitated again, glancing back at the crumbling structure across the street, but finally pushed ‘send’. The ding of the sent text message rang in his ears.
Walker sighed heavily. Too bad, he thought. But everyone makes choices. Collins simply made the wrong ones. Walker understood terrible choices all too well. We all have to live with the consequences. Sorry, Collins. After several minutes, he put the vehicle in drive and pulled away.
