“Wells handed these to me after your conversation about Tripp,” Gabe says. His prosthetic gives a faint, mechanical sound as he shifts his weight. “Something about the timing bothered him. The photos didn’t line up cleanly with the story we’d been working from. So he asked me to trace where they came from.”
I keep my eyes on the screen. “And?”
“I found the photographer.”
That gets my attention, but I keep my expression neutral. “Did he shed any light? Vin said my father hired someone to document those meetings in case things went sideways. Is there more to it than that?”
Gabe clicks to the next image. Same warehouse, different day. This one is of Vin shaking hands with the man with the birthmark.
“That’s true,” he says. “Robert hired him. The photographer didn’t know why, just that he was on round-the-clock surveillance of this specific warehouse.”
I turn slightly, attention sharpening. That distinction matters.
“So what’s the new news, then? I know all of this.”
“The photographer wasn’t one of ours,” Gabe continues. “No background in this world or affiliations. He does corporate surveillance and industrial work. Shipping disputes. Zoning conflicts. He was hired because he wouldn’t raise alarms.”
“Okay,” I say. “So where does this go wrong?”
Gabe exhales slowly and brings up a third image. Another warehouse. Different men, same long lens distance.
“The problem isn’t the photos themselves,” he says. “It’s what your father did with them.”
I wait.
“Robert didn’t just collect these images,” Gabe continues. “He cross-referenced them against dates, locations, and shipping manifests. He compared the faces in these photos to names that had already been flagged by federal task forces for fentanyl trafficking in the States.”
My jaw tightens. Fentanyl.
“He didn’t say anything to me,” I say.
“No,” Gabe agrees. “He didn’t. He was still trying to get to the bottom of everything before he decided what to do with it.”
He pulls up a timeline now. Dates stacked alongside shipping lanes, port arrivals, and warehouse transfers.
“Your father realized what was happening the day before he was murdered,” Gabe says. “He found out the shipment was already en route.”
A slow, cold weight settles in my chest.
“From Asia,” I say.
“Yes. Fentanyl was already en route and scheduled to move through the infrastructure he controlled. That meant two things. One, he had the power to stop it. And two—” He pauses, letting it sit. “—anyone involved stood to lose hundreds of millions if he did.”
I drag a hand over my mouth, the pieces clicking together with sickening precision.
“And the photographer?” I ask.
Gabe shifts again, his expression hardening. “That’s where it escalates.”
He brings up a final set of notes.
“The photographer was approached the morning of the murder,” he says. “Whoever it was wanted to know who hired him and why. He panicked because he wasn’t trained for that kind of pressure.”
“So he talked.”
“He told them Robert Stone hired him,” Gabe says. “He told them what he’d been photographing. He told them that Robert had been asking for additional coverage. Specific dates. Specific warehouses.”
I feel it then. The inevitability of it.
