Page 54 of Dirty Liars

Jack circled the car again, his flashlight beam cutting through the darkness. “Why kill him? He’s just a bodyguard doing his job.”

“Wrong place, wrong time?” I suggested. “Or maybe he saw something he shouldn’t have.”

“Likely the latter,” Jack said. “A professional like Rogan would have noticed if his employer was being targeted. He might have tried to intervene if someone was trying to take Nicholas out. Or force him to commit suicide.”

“It’s a shame the ambassador died in Arlington County,” I said. “I’d like to examine those autopsy results and see if there’s a possibility it’s a staged suicide.”

I completed my examination, documenting everything with methodical precision. Riley approached with a black body bag, and I said, “We can move him now. I’ll add him to the autopsy list for tomorrow. It won’t take me long for either him or Max. We already know cause of death, so there’s no need for the full treatment.”

Jack helped me maneuver Rogan’s body into the bag while the CSI techs continued processing the vehicle. The weight of him reminded me how substantial a human life is—and how quickly it can be taken away.

“You think the same person who killed Max Ortega got to this guy?” Riley asked as we zipped the bag closed.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Different weapon, same precision. Josef Visek was former Special Forces, so he fits the bill. Even for the calculated placement of the gunshot wounds on Chloe Vasilios. For now, he’s our primary suspect. Professional hit man for hire.”

We loaded Rogan’s body into the back of my Suburban. The gurney wheels clacked against the metal floor, an oddly final sound in the quiet night. Jack closed the rear door and turned to Riley.

“I want roadblocks on all major highways out of the county,” he said. “And a full description of Josef Visek to every deputy. He’ll be riding with someone. Expect both to be armed and extremely dangerous.”

“What about the vehicle he might be driving?” Riley asked.

“Unknown,” Jack said. “But he had to have a second car here to get away after killing Rogan. Check traffic cams for anything leaving this area in the last hour.”

“On it, Sheriff.”

As Riley walked away, Jack’s phone buzzed. He looked at it and his jaw tightened.

“Doug?” I asked and he nodded.

Jack helped me into the Suburban and then went around to the driver’s side and got in, and then he put the phone on speaker.

“What’s up, Doug?”

“So something popped I figured you’d want to know about,” Doug said. “Two years before Theo and Vivica Vasilios divorced, Theo disappeared.”

“Disappeared how?” I asked as Jack pulled out onto the highway. The headlights carved a tunnel through the darkness, and I had the unsettling feeling that we were being watched from beyond that circle of light.

“He dropped off the grid entirely. No credit card usage, no phone records, no travel documents. He was just…gone. For more than a year. That’s when his ex-wife filed for divorce on grounds of abandonment.”

“How does someone just disappear for that long?” Jack asked. “Was a missing person report filed?”

“Yes,” Doug said, “But then it was withdrawn by Vivica. I guess Theo reached out and let her know where she could send the divorce papers. It was uncontested, and that’s when Theo gave her a very generous settlement.”

“So it was a guilt offering,” I said.

“And then some,” Doug said. “I found property records that were in both Vivica’s and Theo’s names that were donated to something called New Dawn Fellowship. She’d filed an initial complaint with the divorce proceedings that Theo forged her signature and gave the properties away. She withdrew the filing, but everything electronic leaves a trail, and I had to dig to find it but it was there.”

“Good job, Doug,” I said, feeling a surge of excitement. A new lead—something concrete to pursue.

“What the hell is New Dawn Fellowship?” Jack asked, his voice tight with controlled urgency.

“I’m still working on that,” Doug said. “You want to talk about safeguards, boy do they have it. Their digital security is no joke. Multiple layers of encryption, servers bouncing all over the globe. They don’t want to be found.”

“So Theo paid off the ex-wife for giving away marital assets,” Jack said. “Then what did he do?”

“The time he spent off the grid is a mystery,” Doug said. “All of this happened a few years before his thirty-fifth birthday when he was set to come into his inheritance from his grandfather.”

“What do you want to bet New Dawn Fellowship knew all about the inheritance?” Jack asked.

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