Page 112 of One Last Promise

“I do. It’s just a hunch, but tomorrow morning I’ll get on the phone with my contacts in Miami.”

Moose glanced at Axel. “I still don’t understand. . . . What does this have to do with Tillie and Hazel?”

“Yeah. Good question. So . . .” Flynn glanced at Axel, then Tillie. Took a breath. “Okay, so the papers named the DEA agent who was the victim of the drive-by—Amaia Carrero. I looked her up, and that’s how I discovered she worked for the DEA. But I also found her page on Facebook. And then I found pictures of her daughter’s memorial service.”

Flynn opened the Facebook page and started to scroll through the pictures, stopping at one of a group of men dressed in dark suits, standing at what looked like parade rest, dark glasses, behind a seated woman.

“To be clear, these were pictures whereshe was tagged—she didn’t put these up. So I followed the tagger and discovered she is the wife of a marine, or rather former marine. A Raider.”

Tillie glanced at Moose. He gave her a nod.

“So I went back and scrolled through the pictures on Carrero’s feed, and I found one—again, not hers, but tagged by this same woman, the wife of the Marine Raider. It was taken six months prior—I think it’s at a barbeque. And I think the same men are in it.” She opened the picture.

A group of men sat together in lawn chairs. One of them held a little girl on his lap, his arm around Amaia. “I’m not sure who the man with Amaia is, but the tagger is Gloria Belafonte. I think this is her husband, Luca Belafonte.” She pointed to an Italian-looking man in the group. “I figured out his name after reading through her post about their Fourth of July party. I did a global search and discovered that Lance Corporal Luca Belafonte was awarded the Silver Star, along with two other Raiders who had been captured by the Taliban in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan in 2007. They were liberated in 2012 during an insurgent capture in the Badghis Province.”

“I remember hearing about that,” Tillie said. “I was learning Dari at the Defense Language Institute out in California.”

“Was that all you heard?” Flynn asked, looking at her.

“I was taking my final exams and then getting ready to leave, so I don’t remember much. And my sister had run away from the foster home, so that sort of consumed my thoughts.”

Moose frowned at Flynn. “What do you mean, was that all she heard?”

Flynn swallowed, glanced at Moose. “I’m just . . . I don’t . . .”

“Flynn,” Moose said. “Just tell us.”

“Right. Okay. So there is a picture of the Silver Star ceremony at the White House.” She clicked on the tab and turned her computer toward the group. “For Lance Corporal Luca Belafonte, Gunnery SergeantPrice Henry, and . . .”

“Master Sergeant Declan Young,” Tillie said on a wisp of breath. She leaned forward. “Yeah, that’s him.”

“He looked like the picture in Hazel’s locket,” Flynn said softly. “She showed it to me while we were waiting for the social worker. That, and Pearl’s picture.”

“He still has his dark hair,” Tillie said, her voice breaking. “He was—is—Black Irish. Descendant of the Spanish traders.”

“He’s very handsome. Striking, really,” Flynn said. “Memorable.”

“Yes,” Tillie said, her voice a little small and tight.

Moose couldn’t move. “Tillie, is that your . . . yourfather?”

She looked over at him, swallowed, and her face had whitened. She nodded.

“Her father isalive?” He stood up.

“It’s possible,” Flynn said. “Thatwastwelve years ago. But he’s pictured here too.” She returned to the Facebook page, the men with the dark glasses around Amaia. She pointed to one. “This is him, I think.”

Same rugged jawline, same build. Even Moose could see it. “What does this have to do with Rigger?—”

“You think these are the guys in the private organization, working with the DEA task force,” Tillie said.

“I do,” Flynn said. “And I think that the Southern Syndicate is slowly punishing them for the death of Karl Richer.”

“As in,Julianis punishing them,” Tillie said. “By killing the people they love.”

“Yep.”

“And he thinks by finding me . . . Wait. He filed for custody to track me down—but I thought it was because I knew about Matthew Lopez.”

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