Previous Chapter (5) - Jack | First Chapter - Camila
The squad room of the 17th Precinct hummed with its usual chaotic symphony. Phones rang with the shrill insistence of a house fire. The air, thick with the smell of burnt coffee, stale donuts, and the faint, metallic tang of desperation, was a perfume Detective Vince Morvillo had long since stopped noticing.
He sat hunched over his desk, a man drowning in a sea of paperwork, his tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. He stared at his monitor, the blue light reflecting off the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
On the screen was the BOLO report for Camila Reyes, Journalist, Female, Hispanic, 29. He’d just finished rewriting it for the third time, carefully deleting any mention of the West District and replacing it with vague language about "following a potentially volatile, out-of-state lead."
Morvillo leaned back, the springs of his cheap office chair groaning in protest. He took a long, slow drag from his lukewarm coffee, the bitter liquid doing nothing to calm the frantic hummingbird of panic in his chest.
Relief. That’s what he felt. Pure, undiluted, pants-wetting relief.
He had missed her. God help him, he had completely missed her.
Six days ago, his burner phone had buzzed with a call from a number he’d been programmed to both dread and answer instantly. It was Luis Navarro. His voice hadn’t been angry. It had been something far worse: calm.
"Vince," Slick had purred, the sound like silk being draped over a razor blade. "We’ve acquired a new asset. A reporter. She had some… questions."
In that moment, Morvillo’s world had tilted on its axis. A reporter. That was his job. His one, singular, all-important job: to be the firewall. To monitor the press, to watch for names, to see which nosy sons of bitches were sniffing around the edges of Romano’s empire and to gently, quietly, redirect them. He was supposed to prevent fires.
And a five-alarm blaze had just erupted right under his nose.
If Frank Romano found out—truly found out—that a journalist had not only been connecting the dots on the disappearances but had actually printed stories, Morvillo knew his life expectancy would be measured in hours. He wouldn’t just be fired. He would be a cautionary tale, a new piece of rebar in the foundation of some downtown skyscraper.
But he had gotten lucky. Incredibly, terrifyingly lucky. Slick had confirmed that the reporter hadn’t filed a story. She hadn’t told her editor where she was going. She had walked into the spider’s web all by herself. The fire had been contained before it could spread.
With a hand that trembled slightly, Morvillo opened a web browser, his fingers flying across the keys to the Metro Tribune’s digital archives. He typed in her name: C-A-M-I-L-A R-E-Y-E-S. His stomach clenched as the search results populated. They weren't front-page exposes, thank Christ. They were small, buried pieces, the kind of filler most people skipped. But to him, they were sticks of dynamite. He saw the names: Elena Kowalski, Sarah Wong, Chloe Johnson. He saw the questions she was asking, the pattern she was identifying. A cold sweat trickled down his spine. This was a paper trail. A breadcrumb path that, if followed by someone with half a brain, could lead right to the West District. He thanked whatever dark gods were listening that Romano's crew were thugs, not researchers. They'd caught the mouse in their trap, but they hadn't bothered to check if she'd already chewed a hole in the wall. That ignorance—their ignorance of these articles—was the only thing keeping him breathing right now.
Now, all Morvillo had to do was erase the scorch marks. He had to make sure that not only did no one find Camila Reyes, but that no one even looked for her in the right place.
He took another sip of coffee, his eyes darting around the squad room. No one was paying him any attention. They were all wrapped up in their own miserable little worlds of domestic disputes and petty thefts. The bigger, more monstrous beast operating in the West District was his secret. His burden. And his paycheck.
He clicked ‘Save’ on the revised BOLO report, uploading it to the central database. Step one was complete. The official narrative was now in place. Camila Reyes wasn't a local missing person. She was a ghost, chasing other ghosts in another state.
He just had to make sure everyone believed it. Especially the people who knew her best.
Morvillo had just managed to get the tremor in his hands under control when the phone on his desk blared, the sound sharp enough to make him jump. The small digital screen on the console lit up with a name that made his stomach clench: METRO TRIBUNE - CITY DESK.
He let it ring twice, composing himself, slipping on his professional mask like a comfortable old coat. He picked up the receiver.
"Homicide, Morvillo."
"Vince? It's Art Shafton." The editor's voice was a coiled snake on the other end of the line, tight and spitting fury. "Don't give me the runaround. I want to know what the hell is going on with my reporter."
Morvillo leaned back, the cheap chair groaning in protest. He pitched his voice low, injecting a note of calculated weariness. "Art, good to hear from you. I assume you're talking about the Reyes situation."
"Don't you 'Art' me," Shafton shot back, his voice crackling with static and rage. "I got a one-line email. 'I'm resigning, effective immediately.' That's not Camila. That's a goddamn hostage note. She was looking into those missing girls. She was onto something. Now you're telling me she just walked away?"
This was it. The performance. Morvillo cupped the receiver, turning away from the squad room as if sharing a state secret. "Listen to me," he said, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. "You can't repeat this. Off the record? The kid was a hothead. Ambitious. She got in way over her head."
"What are you talking about? It's a missing persons case!"
"It was a missing persons case," Morvillo corrected him smoothly. "It's not anymore. Look, Art, I'm looking at a CI report right now. It's flagged DEA, I can't even email this to my own captain, let alone read it to you over an open line. One of the girls on her list, Chloe, had a brother with deep ties to a Miami-based cartel. We think Camila got a tip, something big, and went off-book to chase it."
There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line.
"A cartel?" Shafton's voice was thick with disbelief. "In Miami? You're telling me my reporter dropped a local story to run off to Florida without a word?"
"I'm telling you she got obsessed," Morvillo said, the lie rolling off his tongue with practiced ease. "She thought she had the scoop of a lifetime and didn't want the paper or the department horning in on it. She took a burner phone, probably hopped on a bus. It happens, Art. You know it does. They get that look in their eyes and they chase ghosts."
"I don't buy it, Vince. It doesn't track." The conviction in Shafton's voice was returning.
Morvillo played his final card. He let a harsh, authoritative edge creep into his tone. "Frankly, Art, it doesn't matter if you buy it. It's an active, multi-agency investigation now. My official advice to you, as a friend, is to let this lie. Kill any follow-ups. If you or your people start poking around, you could blow our case against the cartel wide open. You could get people killed. You understand what I'm saying?"
He had turned Shafton's concern for his reporter into a potential obstruction of a federal investigation. It was a classic bureaucratic checkmate.
The silence on the line stretched, filled only by the hum of the connection. Finally, Shafton let out a long, defeated sigh.
"Yeah," he muttered, the fire in his voice now just ash. "Yeah, Vince. I understand."
"Good," Morvillo said, and before Shafton could have another thought, he added, "I'll be in touch if anything breaks," and hung up the phone.
He placed the receiver back in its cradle with a soft, final click. The immediate threat was neutralized. He had successfully planted the seed of a plausible, if outlandish, lie.
But he knew men like Art Shafton. He was a dog with a bone. The lie would hold for a while, but his journalistic instincts would gnaw at it. Eventually, he'd start digging again.
Morvillo stared at the phone. Shafton was a loose end. A very big, very loud loose end. And he needed to be silenced, not just placated.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, ignoring the stack of legitimate case files that needed his attention. He picked up his personal cell phone, not the department-issued one, and scrolled through his contacts to a name he hadn't called in almost a year: "Fitzpatrick - T.T. HR."
Tim Fitzpatrick was a mid-level Human Resources manager at the media conglomerate that owned the Tribune. More importantly, Tim Fitzpatrick had a taste for high-stakes online poker and a nasty habit of losing money he didn't have. Morvillo had made a little problem with a loan shark go away for Fitzpatrick a while back. It was time to call in the favor.
He walked out of the main squad room and into a small, windowless interview room, closing the door behind him. He dialed. Fitzpatrick picked up on the second ring, his voice nervous.
"Morvillo? Is everything—"
"Everything's fine, Tim," Morvillo said, his voice a low, calm rumble that carried an implicit threat. "I need a favor. It’s a clerical matter. Regarding a recent resignation at the Tribune. A woman named Camila Reyes."
"Reyes, right. The one who just quit," Fitzpatrick stammered.
"That's the one," Morvillo said. "As of right now, her file is sealed. It's part of an active and sensitive investigation involving federal agencies." He let the lie hang in the air, knowing the word 'federal' would terrify a corporate drone like Fitzpatrick. "Under no circumstances is anyone at the Tribune to discuss her. Not her employment, not her assignments, nothing. All inquiries, internal or external, regarding Ms. Reyes or the missing persons cases she was working on, are to be immediately redirected to my desk. Directly. Not to the precinct switchboard. My direct line. Is that understood?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Morvillo could practically hear the man sweating.
"Vince, I… that’s highly irregular. I could lose my job."
"You could lose a lot more than that, Tim," Morvillo said, his voice dropping an octave, losing all pretense of friendliness. "Just remember our last conversation. Make it happen."
He didn't wait for a reply. He hung up.
The trap was set. He had effectively cut the Metro Tribune off at the knees. Any internal investigation would now lead directly back to him, where he could smother it with official-sounding bullshit.
Morvillo decided to head out for an early lunch to steady his nerves which were feeling frayed.
---
He walked back to his desk when he came back to the precinct, a grim satisfaction settling over him. He felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his burner phone. A text from Navarro.
Garage. Midnight.
Morvillo typed back a single letter: K.
He was just settling back into his chair, trying to focus on a legitimate robbery case, when the direct line on his desk phone rang. It was a line reserved for internal affairs and high-priority calls. Almost no one used it.
He snatched it up. "Homicide, Detective Morvillo."
A woman's voice answered "Detective Morvillo? I have a man on the line inquiring about Camila Reyes"
Vince's eyes went wide "thank you… patch him through, please".
He forced himself to breathe as he waited for the connection to switch.
"Who am I speaking with?" he asked, his voice sharpening instantly, shifting from cop to interrogator. He heard the faint sound of a pen scratching on his notepad as he prepared to take down a name.
"Just a… a concerned citizen," the man on the other end said, the lie thin and obvious. "I have some information about the West District disappearances Ms. Reyes wrote about last week."
"Ms. Reyes is no longer with our publication," Morvillo said coldly. "She submitted her resignation last week. Effectively immediately."
"Resigned?" The voice asked, his voice shaking slightly. "That’s… sudden. Do you have a contact number for her? This information is—"
"We have no contact information for Ms. Reyes," Morvillo cut the man off, his tone brokering no argument. "As for the West District story…"
Morvillo’s grip on the receiver tightened. The West District. The Reyes disappearance. This wasn't a random crank. This was a ghost. This was someone who knew something.
"Who is this?" Morvillo pressed, his voice hard as steel. "What is your name?"
"Never mind," the voice whispered. "Forget I called."
Click.
The line went dead. The man had hung up.
Morvillo stared at the phone, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He hadn't gotten a name. He couldn't trace the call. It was a dead end.
But it was a terrifying one. Shafton was a problem he could see. A problem he could manage. But this? A ghost on the phone, someone who knew about the West District, someone who was looking for Camila?
This was a loose end he couldn't even see, let alone tie up. And in his line of work, the threats you couldn't see were the ones that got you killed.
The ghost on the phone was an unknown variable, a phantom he couldn't control. But Camila's hatchback, sitting abandoned three blocks from the Old Print Works, was a tangible problem. It was a physical breadcrumb, a piece of evidence that tied her directly to the West District. It had to be dealt with.
---
That night, Morvillo waited until the city had sunk into its late-night lull. He drove his unmarked sedan out of his quiet suburban neighborhood and headed west, towards the industrial rot he so despised. The call had come in from a patrolman an hour earlier. "Hey, Detective, we tagged that gray hatchback you flagged. Looks clean, no signs of forced entry. Just sitting here."
"Good work," Morvillo had said, his gut twisting. "Cordon it off. I'll handle the scene myself. This is a sensitive case."
He was handling it, all right.
He parked the other end of the street and stepped out of his car, the collar of his coat turned up against the damp, cold air. The street was desolate, lined with skeletons of warehouses and lit by the sickly orange glow of a single functioning streetlight. The hatchback was right where the patrolman said it would be, tucked behind an overflowing dumpster. A single strip of yellow police tape was stretched across the driver's side door, a lonely, useless gesture.
Morvillo scanned the street. Empty. He pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves and popped the trunk of his own car. From beneath the spare tire, he retrieved his "burner kit." It was a small, unassuming gym bag containing the tools of his trade—not his police-issued ones, but the ones he used to commit crimes, not solve them.
He walked down the street to Camila's car, ducked under the police tape and used a slim jim to pop the lock on the hatchback's door. It opened with a soft click. The interior was exactly as a frantic reporter would have left it—a few crumpled coffee cups, a notebook on the passenger seat. He glanced at the notebook. It was full of her notes on the missing girls. He ripped the pages out, folded them, and stuffed them deep into his coat pocket. He’d burn them later.
Then, he went to work.
From his kit, he pulled out a cheap, prepaid burner phone—the kind you buy for cash at a 7-Eleven. He tossed it onto the floor under the passenger seat.
Next came a folded, worn map of Florida. He’d circled a random marina near Miami with a red pen before he left his house. He wedged it between the driver's seat and the center console, making it look like it had slipped out of someone's pocket.
Finally, the pièce de résistance. A crumpled-up receipt from a bus station on the other side of town, dated the day after Camila disappeared. A one-way ticket to Jacksonville. It was a forgery, and a good one. He tucked it into the glove box, underneath the car's registration.
He worked with a cold, detached efficiency. There was no hesitation, no moral debate. This was just a job. A dirty, soul-crushing job that paid for his mortgage and his daughter's braces.
He closed the car door, wiped the handle clean with his gloved hand, and stepped back. He looked at the scene he had created. It was perfect. It was a neat, tidy narrative. A determined reporter gets a hot tip, dumps her car, grabs a bus, and chases a story to the sun-drenched hellscape of Florida. It was a dead end that looked like a promising lead.
---
Morvillo returned to the precinct just after 11 PM. The squad room was a ghost town, smelling of stale air and regret. He sat down at his desk and began to type.
He filed a supplemental report, his fingers flying across the keyboard, the lies flowing as easily as breath.
Evidence located at the scene (see attached photos: burner phone, map of Florida, bus ticket receipt) suggests subject voluntarily left the jurisdiction in pursuit of a lead related to the ongoing cartel investigation. No signs of foul play. Recommend BOLO be downgraded and case file status changed to 'Voluntary Adult Missing - Inactive.'
He printed the report, signed his name at the bottom with a flourish, and walked it over to the records room. He placed it in the outbox for filing.
With that single piece of paper, Vince Morvillo officially erased Camila Reyes. She was no longer a victim. She was no longer a case. She was just a name in a folder at the bottom of a very, very deep pile. He had buried the evidence, and the body along with it.
---
The air in the multi-story parking garage was cold and still, heavy with the smell of damp concrete and carbon monoxide. It was a place of transactions and transitions, a concrete purgatory where men like Vince Morvillo came to collect their thirty pieces of silver.
He leaned against the fender of his sedan on the third level, the city lights a distant, blurry smear. Midnight had come and gone. Slick was late. He was always late. It was a power move, a little reminder of who was in charge, who waited for whom.
Finally, the silent purr of an expensive engine echoed through the garage. A sleek, black Audi R8 glided up the ramp and came to a stop a few feet away, its headlights cutting sharp, white blades through the gloom.
The driver’s side door opened, and Luis Navarro stepped out. He looked completely out of place, a peacock in a tomb. His suit was a shimmering sharkskin grey that seemed to absorb and repel the dim light. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine.
He walked over to Morvillo, his footsteps echoing unnervingly in the silence. He didn’t offer a handshake. He just stood there, his hands in his pockets, that same greasy, unreadable smile plastered on his face.
"The newspaper?" Slick asked, his voice smooth and soft, barely disturbing the dead air.
Morvillo pushed himself off the car. "Handled," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He hated how subservient he sounded in Navarro’s presence. "Her editor thinks she’s chasing cartels in Miami. HR is stonewalling all internal inquiries. The official file is closed. Anyone calls asking about her or the missing girls, the switchboard routes them straight to me." He paused, the ghost from the phone call still haunting him. "One did, in fact. Earlier today. A ghost. He hung up before I could get a name."
Slick’s smile didn’t waver, but his eyes, cold and dark, narrowed slightly. "A ghost?" he repeated, the word a silken threat. "Make sure he stays one, Vince. Frank hates it when the dead start talking."
"I will," Morvillo said, a little too quickly.
Slick’s smile widened, becoming genuine for a terrifying second. "I know you will." He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a thick, white envelope. It was heavier than usual. Much heavier.
He held it out. Morvillo took it, the weight of the cash a familiar, sickening comfort in his hand.
"A bonus," Slick said, his voice dripping with faux generosity. "For your initiative. For handling the reporter situation before I had to bring it to Frank’s attention. He appreciates employees who solve problems before he has to hear about them. It shows… management potential."
The word "management" hung in the air, both a promise and a threat. It meant more money, more security. It also meant deeper complicity, a permanent place in the machine from which there would be no escape.
Slick clapped Morvillo on the shoulder, a gesture that felt less like camaraderie and more like a brand. "Keep up the good work, Detective."
He turned and walked back to his car, his expensive shoes clicking on the dirty concrete. The Audi’s engine purred back to life, and with a final, blinding flash of its taillights, it disappeared down the ramp, leaving Morvillo alone in the oppressive darkness.
He stood there for a long time, the envelope clutched in his hand. He didn’t open it right away. He just stood there, breathing in the toxic air, feeling the weight of the money. It felt like a gravestone.
Finally, with a hand that trembled almost imperceptibly, he tore open the seal. He fanned the contents. Stacks of crisp, new hundred-dollar bills, bound in thick rubber bands. More money than he made in three months on the force.
He didn't feel relief. He didn't feel gratitude. He looked down at his own shaking hands, clutching the blood money that had paid for his soul, and for the first time in a long time, Vince Morvillo felt a sliver of genuine, terrifying fear.
He hadn't just tied up a loose end. He had tied a hangman's noose, and he had just willingly, eagerly, slipped his own head right through it.
Next Chapter (7) - Jolene
The squad room of the 17th Precinct hummed with its usual chaotic symphony. Phones rang with the shrill insistence of a house fire. The air, thick with the smell of burnt coffee, stale donuts, and the faint, metallic tang of desperation, was a perfume Detective Vince Morvillo had long since stopped noticing.
He sat hunched over his desk, a man drowning in a sea of paperwork, his tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. He stared at his monitor, the blue light reflecting off the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
On the screen was the BOLO report for Camila Reyes, Journalist, Female, Hispanic, 29. He’d just finished rewriting it for the third time, carefully deleting any mention of the West District and replacing it with vague language about "following a potentially volatile, out-of-state lead."
Morvillo leaned back, the springs of his cheap office chair groaning in protest. He took a long, slow drag from his lukewarm coffee, the bitter liquid doing nothing to calm the frantic hummingbird of panic in his chest.
Relief. That’s what he felt. Pure, undiluted, pants-wetting relief.
He had missed her. God help him, he had completely missed her.
Six days ago, his burner phone had buzzed with a call from a number he’d been programmed to both dread and answer instantly. It was Luis Navarro. His voice hadn’t been angry. It had been something far worse: calm.
"Vince," Slick had purred, the sound like silk being draped over a razor blade. "We’ve acquired a new asset. A reporter. She had some… questions."
In that moment, Morvillo’s world had tilted on its axis. A reporter. That was his job. His one, singular, all-important job: to be the firewall. To monitor the press, to watch for names, to see which nosy sons of bitches were sniffing around the edges of Romano’s empire and to gently, quietly, redirect them. He was supposed to prevent fires.
And a five-alarm blaze had just erupted right under his nose.
If Frank Romano found out—truly found out—that a journalist had not only been connecting the dots on the disappearances but had actually printed stories, Morvillo knew his life expectancy would be measured in hours. He wouldn’t just be fired. He would be a cautionary tale, a new piece of rebar in the foundation of some downtown skyscraper.
But he had gotten lucky. Incredibly, terrifyingly lucky. Slick had confirmed that the reporter hadn’t filed a story. She hadn’t told her editor where she was going. She had walked into the spider’s web all by herself. The fire had been contained before it could spread.
With a hand that trembled slightly, Morvillo opened a web browser, his fingers flying across the keys to the Metro Tribune’s digital archives. He typed in her name: C-A-M-I-L-A R-E-Y-E-S. His stomach clenched as the search results populated. They weren't front-page exposes, thank Christ. They were small, buried pieces, the kind of filler most people skipped. But to him, they were sticks of dynamite. He saw the names: Elena Kowalski, Sarah Wong, Chloe Johnson. He saw the questions she was asking, the pattern she was identifying. A cold sweat trickled down his spine. This was a paper trail. A breadcrumb path that, if followed by someone with half a brain, could lead right to the West District. He thanked whatever dark gods were listening that Romano's crew were thugs, not researchers. They'd caught the mouse in their trap, but they hadn't bothered to check if she'd already chewed a hole in the wall. That ignorance—their ignorance of these articles—was the only thing keeping him breathing right now.
Now, all Morvillo had to do was erase the scorch marks. He had to make sure that not only did no one find Camila Reyes, but that no one even looked for her in the right place.
He took another sip of coffee, his eyes darting around the squad room. No one was paying him any attention. They were all wrapped up in their own miserable little worlds of domestic disputes and petty thefts. The bigger, more monstrous beast operating in the West District was his secret. His burden. And his paycheck.
He clicked ‘Save’ on the revised BOLO report, uploading it to the central database. Step one was complete. The official narrative was now in place. Camila Reyes wasn't a local missing person. She was a ghost, chasing other ghosts in another state.
He just had to make sure everyone believed it. Especially the people who knew her best.
Morvillo had just managed to get the tremor in his hands under control when the phone on his desk blared, the sound sharp enough to make him jump. The small digital screen on the console lit up with a name that made his stomach clench: METRO TRIBUNE - CITY DESK.
He let it ring twice, composing himself, slipping on his professional mask like a comfortable old coat. He picked up the receiver.
"Homicide, Morvillo."
"Vince? It's Art Shafton." The editor's voice was a coiled snake on the other end of the line, tight and spitting fury. "Don't give me the runaround. I want to know what the hell is going on with my reporter."
Morvillo leaned back, the cheap chair groaning in protest. He pitched his voice low, injecting a note of calculated weariness. "Art, good to hear from you. I assume you're talking about the Reyes situation."
"Don't you 'Art' me," Shafton shot back, his voice crackling with static and rage. "I got a one-line email. 'I'm resigning, effective immediately.' That's not Camila. That's a goddamn hostage note. She was looking into those missing girls. She was onto something. Now you're telling me she just walked away?"
This was it. The performance. Morvillo cupped the receiver, turning away from the squad room as if sharing a state secret. "Listen to me," he said, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. "You can't repeat this. Off the record? The kid was a hothead. Ambitious. She got in way over her head."
"What are you talking about? It's a missing persons case!"
"It was a missing persons case," Morvillo corrected him smoothly. "It's not anymore. Look, Art, I'm looking at a CI report right now. It's flagged DEA, I can't even email this to my own captain, let alone read it to you over an open line. One of the girls on her list, Chloe, had a brother with deep ties to a Miami-based cartel. We think Camila got a tip, something big, and went off-book to chase it."
There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line.
"A cartel?" Shafton's voice was thick with disbelief. "In Miami? You're telling me my reporter dropped a local story to run off to Florida without a word?"
"I'm telling you she got obsessed," Morvillo said, the lie rolling off his tongue with practiced ease. "She thought she had the scoop of a lifetime and didn't want the paper or the department horning in on it. She took a burner phone, probably hopped on a bus. It happens, Art. You know it does. They get that look in their eyes and they chase ghosts."
"I don't buy it, Vince. It doesn't track." The conviction in Shafton's voice was returning.
Morvillo played his final card. He let a harsh, authoritative edge creep into his tone. "Frankly, Art, it doesn't matter if you buy it. It's an active, multi-agency investigation now. My official advice to you, as a friend, is to let this lie. Kill any follow-ups. If you or your people start poking around, you could blow our case against the cartel wide open. You could get people killed. You understand what I'm saying?"
He had turned Shafton's concern for his reporter into a potential obstruction of a federal investigation. It was a classic bureaucratic checkmate.
The silence on the line stretched, filled only by the hum of the connection. Finally, Shafton let out a long, defeated sigh.
"Yeah," he muttered, the fire in his voice now just ash. "Yeah, Vince. I understand."
"Good," Morvillo said, and before Shafton could have another thought, he added, "I'll be in touch if anything breaks," and hung up the phone.
He placed the receiver back in its cradle with a soft, final click. The immediate threat was neutralized. He had successfully planted the seed of a plausible, if outlandish, lie.
But he knew men like Art Shafton. He was a dog with a bone. The lie would hold for a while, but his journalistic instincts would gnaw at it. Eventually, he'd start digging again.
Morvillo stared at the phone. Shafton was a loose end. A very big, very loud loose end. And he needed to be silenced, not just placated.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, ignoring the stack of legitimate case files that needed his attention. He picked up his personal cell phone, not the department-issued one, and scrolled through his contacts to a name he hadn't called in almost a year: "Fitzpatrick - T.T. HR."
Tim Fitzpatrick was a mid-level Human Resources manager at the media conglomerate that owned the Tribune. More importantly, Tim Fitzpatrick had a taste for high-stakes online poker and a nasty habit of losing money he didn't have. Morvillo had made a little problem with a loan shark go away for Fitzpatrick a while back. It was time to call in the favor.
He walked out of the main squad room and into a small, windowless interview room, closing the door behind him. He dialed. Fitzpatrick picked up on the second ring, his voice nervous.
"Morvillo? Is everything—"
"Everything's fine, Tim," Morvillo said, his voice a low, calm rumble that carried an implicit threat. "I need a favor. It’s a clerical matter. Regarding a recent resignation at the Tribune. A woman named Camila Reyes."
"Reyes, right. The one who just quit," Fitzpatrick stammered.
"That's the one," Morvillo said. "As of right now, her file is sealed. It's part of an active and sensitive investigation involving federal agencies." He let the lie hang in the air, knowing the word 'federal' would terrify a corporate drone like Fitzpatrick. "Under no circumstances is anyone at the Tribune to discuss her. Not her employment, not her assignments, nothing. All inquiries, internal or external, regarding Ms. Reyes or the missing persons cases she was working on, are to be immediately redirected to my desk. Directly. Not to the precinct switchboard. My direct line. Is that understood?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Morvillo could practically hear the man sweating.
"Vince, I… that’s highly irregular. I could lose my job."
"You could lose a lot more than that, Tim," Morvillo said, his voice dropping an octave, losing all pretense of friendliness. "Just remember our last conversation. Make it happen."
He didn't wait for a reply. He hung up.
The trap was set. He had effectively cut the Metro Tribune off at the knees. Any internal investigation would now lead directly back to him, where he could smother it with official-sounding bullshit.
Morvillo decided to head out for an early lunch to steady his nerves which were feeling frayed.
---
He walked back to his desk when he came back to the precinct, a grim satisfaction settling over him. He felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his burner phone. A text from Navarro.
Garage. Midnight.
Morvillo typed back a single letter: K.
He was just settling back into his chair, trying to focus on a legitimate robbery case, when the direct line on his desk phone rang. It was a line reserved for internal affairs and high-priority calls. Almost no one used it.
He snatched it up. "Homicide, Detective Morvillo."
A woman's voice answered "Detective Morvillo? I have a man on the line inquiring about Camila Reyes"
Vince's eyes went wide "thank you… patch him through, please".
He forced himself to breathe as he waited for the connection to switch.
"Who am I speaking with?" he asked, his voice sharpening instantly, shifting from cop to interrogator. He heard the faint sound of a pen scratching on his notepad as he prepared to take down a name.
"Just a… a concerned citizen," the man on the other end said, the lie thin and obvious. "I have some information about the West District disappearances Ms. Reyes wrote about last week."
"Ms. Reyes is no longer with our publication," Morvillo said coldly. "She submitted her resignation last week. Effectively immediately."
"Resigned?" The voice asked, his voice shaking slightly. "That’s… sudden. Do you have a contact number for her? This information is—"
"We have no contact information for Ms. Reyes," Morvillo cut the man off, his tone brokering no argument. "As for the West District story…"
Morvillo’s grip on the receiver tightened. The West District. The Reyes disappearance. This wasn't a random crank. This was a ghost. This was someone who knew something.
"Who is this?" Morvillo pressed, his voice hard as steel. "What is your name?"
"Never mind," the voice whispered. "Forget I called."
Click.
The line went dead. The man had hung up.
Morvillo stared at the phone, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He hadn't gotten a name. He couldn't trace the call. It was a dead end.
But it was a terrifying one. Shafton was a problem he could see. A problem he could manage. But this? A ghost on the phone, someone who knew about the West District, someone who was looking for Camila?
This was a loose end he couldn't even see, let alone tie up. And in his line of work, the threats you couldn't see were the ones that got you killed.
The ghost on the phone was an unknown variable, a phantom he couldn't control. But Camila's hatchback, sitting abandoned three blocks from the Old Print Works, was a tangible problem. It was a physical breadcrumb, a piece of evidence that tied her directly to the West District. It had to be dealt with.
---
That night, Morvillo waited until the city had sunk into its late-night lull. He drove his unmarked sedan out of his quiet suburban neighborhood and headed west, towards the industrial rot he so despised. The call had come in from a patrolman an hour earlier. "Hey, Detective, we tagged that gray hatchback you flagged. Looks clean, no signs of forced entry. Just sitting here."
"Good work," Morvillo had said, his gut twisting. "Cordon it off. I'll handle the scene myself. This is a sensitive case."
He was handling it, all right.
He parked the other end of the street and stepped out of his car, the collar of his coat turned up against the damp, cold air. The street was desolate, lined with skeletons of warehouses and lit by the sickly orange glow of a single functioning streetlight. The hatchback was right where the patrolman said it would be, tucked behind an overflowing dumpster. A single strip of yellow police tape was stretched across the driver's side door, a lonely, useless gesture.
Morvillo scanned the street. Empty. He pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves and popped the trunk of his own car. From beneath the spare tire, he retrieved his "burner kit." It was a small, unassuming gym bag containing the tools of his trade—not his police-issued ones, but the ones he used to commit crimes, not solve them.
He walked down the street to Camila's car, ducked under the police tape and used a slim jim to pop the lock on the hatchback's door. It opened with a soft click. The interior was exactly as a frantic reporter would have left it—a few crumpled coffee cups, a notebook on the passenger seat. He glanced at the notebook. It was full of her notes on the missing girls. He ripped the pages out, folded them, and stuffed them deep into his coat pocket. He’d burn them later.
Then, he went to work.
From his kit, he pulled out a cheap, prepaid burner phone—the kind you buy for cash at a 7-Eleven. He tossed it onto the floor under the passenger seat.
Next came a folded, worn map of Florida. He’d circled a random marina near Miami with a red pen before he left his house. He wedged it between the driver's seat and the center console, making it look like it had slipped out of someone's pocket.
Finally, the pièce de résistance. A crumpled-up receipt from a bus station on the other side of town, dated the day after Camila disappeared. A one-way ticket to Jacksonville. It was a forgery, and a good one. He tucked it into the glove box, underneath the car's registration.
He worked with a cold, detached efficiency. There was no hesitation, no moral debate. This was just a job. A dirty, soul-crushing job that paid for his mortgage and his daughter's braces.
He closed the car door, wiped the handle clean with his gloved hand, and stepped back. He looked at the scene he had created. It was perfect. It was a neat, tidy narrative. A determined reporter gets a hot tip, dumps her car, grabs a bus, and chases a story to the sun-drenched hellscape of Florida. It was a dead end that looked like a promising lead.
---
Morvillo returned to the precinct just after 11 PM. The squad room was a ghost town, smelling of stale air and regret. He sat down at his desk and began to type.
He filed a supplemental report, his fingers flying across the keyboard, the lies flowing as easily as breath.
Evidence located at the scene (see attached photos: burner phone, map of Florida, bus ticket receipt) suggests subject voluntarily left the jurisdiction in pursuit of a lead related to the ongoing cartel investigation. No signs of foul play. Recommend BOLO be downgraded and case file status changed to 'Voluntary Adult Missing - Inactive.'
He printed the report, signed his name at the bottom with a flourish, and walked it over to the records room. He placed it in the outbox for filing.
With that single piece of paper, Vince Morvillo officially erased Camila Reyes. She was no longer a victim. She was no longer a case. She was just a name in a folder at the bottom of a very, very deep pile. He had buried the evidence, and the body along with it.
---
The air in the multi-story parking garage was cold and still, heavy with the smell of damp concrete and carbon monoxide. It was a place of transactions and transitions, a concrete purgatory where men like Vince Morvillo came to collect their thirty pieces of silver.
He leaned against the fender of his sedan on the third level, the city lights a distant, blurry smear. Midnight had come and gone. Slick was late. He was always late. It was a power move, a little reminder of who was in charge, who waited for whom.
Finally, the silent purr of an expensive engine echoed through the garage. A sleek, black Audi R8 glided up the ramp and came to a stop a few feet away, its headlights cutting sharp, white blades through the gloom.
The driver’s side door opened, and Luis Navarro stepped out. He looked completely out of place, a peacock in a tomb. His suit was a shimmering sharkskin grey that seemed to absorb and repel the dim light. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine.
He walked over to Morvillo, his footsteps echoing unnervingly in the silence. He didn’t offer a handshake. He just stood there, his hands in his pockets, that same greasy, unreadable smile plastered on his face.
"The newspaper?" Slick asked, his voice smooth and soft, barely disturbing the dead air.
Morvillo pushed himself off the car. "Handled," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He hated how subservient he sounded in Navarro’s presence. "Her editor thinks she’s chasing cartels in Miami. HR is stonewalling all internal inquiries. The official file is closed. Anyone calls asking about her or the missing girls, the switchboard routes them straight to me." He paused, the ghost from the phone call still haunting him. "One did, in fact. Earlier today. A ghost. He hung up before I could get a name."
Slick’s smile didn’t waver, but his eyes, cold and dark, narrowed slightly. "A ghost?" he repeated, the word a silken threat. "Make sure he stays one, Vince. Frank hates it when the dead start talking."
"I will," Morvillo said, a little too quickly.
Slick’s smile widened, becoming genuine for a terrifying second. "I know you will." He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a thick, white envelope. It was heavier than usual. Much heavier.
He held it out. Morvillo took it, the weight of the cash a familiar, sickening comfort in his hand.
"A bonus," Slick said, his voice dripping with faux generosity. "For your initiative. For handling the reporter situation before I had to bring it to Frank’s attention. He appreciates employees who solve problems before he has to hear about them. It shows… management potential."
The word "management" hung in the air, both a promise and a threat. It meant more money, more security. It also meant deeper complicity, a permanent place in the machine from which there would be no escape.
Slick clapped Morvillo on the shoulder, a gesture that felt less like camaraderie and more like a brand. "Keep up the good work, Detective."
He turned and walked back to his car, his expensive shoes clicking on the dirty concrete. The Audi’s engine purred back to life, and with a final, blinding flash of its taillights, it disappeared down the ramp, leaving Morvillo alone in the oppressive darkness.
He stood there for a long time, the envelope clutched in his hand. He didn’t open it right away. He just stood there, breathing in the toxic air, feeling the weight of the money. It felt like a gravestone.
Finally, with a hand that trembled almost imperceptibly, he tore open the seal. He fanned the contents. Stacks of crisp, new hundred-dollar bills, bound in thick rubber bands. More money than he made in three months on the force.
He didn't feel relief. He didn't feel gratitude. He looked down at his own shaking hands, clutching the blood money that had paid for his soul, and for the first time in a long time, Vince Morvillo felt a sliver of genuine, terrifying fear.
He hadn't just tied up a loose end. He had tied a hangman's noose, and he had just willingly, eagerly, slipped his own head right through it.
Next Chapter (7) - Jolene
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