Chapter 3

10th January 2015, Nelson & Murdock Law Office - Hell's Kitchen, NYC

Matt was emptying the boxes in his office when he heard the phone ring in the other room.

"Hey, buddy," Matt heard Foggy pick up the phone in his office.

"Homicide," Matt recognized the voice on the other line as belonging to Brett Mahoney. "Female suspect found at the scene. Definitely qualifies as interesting."

"She's been charged yet?"

"Assistant DA hasn't made the call yet."

"Do you have a name on the suspect?"

"Yeah. It's Evans. Rosalie Evans."

10th January 2015, Interrogation Room, 15th Precinct Police Station - Hell's Kitchen, NYC

Rose sat in the interrogation room of the Hell's Kitchen police station, her hands cuffed to the desk—as if they'd be enough to hold her if she really wanted to escape.

She was a failure and she had gotten her client killed after she promised she would help him.

Daniel Fisher didn't deserve this. It was all her fault. She should have been more careful. How didn't she notice they had been followed?

The door opened. Four men entered the room: the two detectives that had arrested her and two men she didn't know.

"Okay, can we please take the handcuffs off the 110-pound woman?" A blond, chubby man asked the detectives.

If you only knew this 110-pound woman could snap you like a twig, you wouldn't say that, Rose thought with a misplaced sense of resentment.

His companion, a handsome, brown-haired man with red glasses obscuring his eyes, and a cane—blind, then—followed him inside.

Rose's breath caught in her throat. It was him. The vigilante she had helped, the man whose life she had saved. The man in the mask she had only known as "Mike." Her pulse quickened slightly but she forced herself to remain calm. She couldn't show that she knew him, that she had recognized him.

"Miss Evans, can you tell me who these men are?" one of the detectives asked her.

Rose didn't answer, her eyes never leaving Mike's face.

"We're her lawyers," Mike said. "Uncuff our client and give us the room, please."

Rose could see the slight tension in Mike's jaw, the way he stood slightly straighter when he entered—he recognized her too.

One of the detectives uncuffed her. "Thank you, Detective," Mike said—and then both detectives left the room.

"Miss Evans, my name is Matthew Murdock. This is my associate, Foggy Nelson. Do you mind if we sit down?"

Matthew Murdock . So that was his true name. It suited him.

Rose shrugged, keeping her face void of expression, though her mind was racing with questions. What was he doing here? Was this coincidence or had he sought her out?

"She gave a vague shrug," the blond man—Foggy Nelson—said. "I say we go with it."

"We understand you're in some trouble," Mike—Matt—said, once he and Nelson had sat down. "We, uh, may be able to help."

"Can you tell us what happened?" Nelson asked her.

Rose kept mum, unsure how to proceed with Matt's friend present.

Nelson sighed. "Why don't we start with what we know, then? You were found in your apartment with one Daniel Fisher."

"Who appears to be the victim of a homicide," Matt continued for his colleague. "And currently, you're the only suspect, Miss Evans."

Rose looked directly at Matt, knowing he could sense her gaze. "Okay, one, who the hell are you? And two, who sent you?"

Matt smiled at her—a cocky, lopsided smile that had become familiar to her by now.

"I'm Matt," he said, before pointing at Nelson next to him. "He's Foggy. And, as for, who sent us. No one sent us."

"So, what? You're just a couple of Good Samaritans? Today's just my lucky day?" She scoffed, though there was a knowing undertone to her words that only Matt would catch.

"I bribed the desk sergeant with a box of cigars for his mom," Nelson explained.

"Our practice is relatively young, Miss Evans, and we are aggressively pursuing new clientele," Matt said before addressing Nelson. "You gotta stop giving Bess cigars."

"She likes to smoke, Matt. It's a free country."

Rose observed them, understanding the dynamic between the two men. They were clearly friends as well as colleagues, she could tell from their banter. She didn't know whether Foggy Nelson was aware of Matt's other identity, whether Matt was keeping his vigilante activities secret from even his closest friend. She didn't want to out him if that was the case so she decided to keep playing dumb.

"So, how long have you been practicing law?" Rose asked them, her eyes still on Matt, curious how the man she knew as a masked fighter lived his daytime life.

Matt grinned and asked Nelson, "what time is it?"

Nelson checked his watch. "It's 12:22 AM."

"About seven hours," Matt answered before turning in her direction.

Nelson scoffed. "Well, if you go from when we passed the bar..."

"I was going from when we got our own desks."

Nelson nodded at Matt's words. "Oh, then, yeah. Seven hours."

Rose widened her eyes. "You've never done this before?"

"If you were to hire us, then, yes, you would be our first client."

Rose didn't verbally answer in the affirmative but she had to admit she was impressed. There were very few lawyers who would take on a case such as hers with so little experience—the risk was just too great for their new firm's reputation. But knowing what she did about Matt now, his desire to help her made more sense.

Matt took her silence for assent and asked her, "tell me, how did you know Mr. Fisher?"

"I didn't," Rose answered, without really elaborating.

"You didn't know him?" Nelson asked her, sounding skeptical.

Rose shrugged. "Not really, no. I met him a few days ago—" not a lie, "and he asked me out for drinks—" also not a lie, technically. "We met a total of three times. I didn't know much about him, except his place of work and that he had moved to the city recently. He was single, didn't really know anyone in the city except for his co-workers and not that well either." All of that was true and yet, of course, it wouldn't really tell them anything.

If Matt were alone, and they weren't at the police precinct, she would him tell the truth.

Nelson pulled a notebook out of the pocket of his jacket, ready to take notes. "Ok. And what was Daniel Fisher's place of employment?"

"Union Allied Construction. He worked in the finance department. He was an accountant there."

"And what about your place of employment?" Matt asked her.

"I work from home," Rose said, once again technically not lying.

"And what happened yesterday?"

"I met with him at the Three Roads bar, on 49th Street, at 10 pm, give or take. We had a few drinks and then..." Rose raised her hands in the air. "The next thing I remember is waking up on the floor of his apartment covered in blood. His blood." At the lawyers' meaningful silence, she added, "Look, I'm not stupid. I know how this sounds. But it's what happened. We met at the bar. We had a few drinks. After that, I have no idea what happened. I only know that it wasn't me."

Someone must have drugged her drink or something. It was the only thing that made sense. They had caught her off-guard, whoever they were. And it must have been a potent drug too or a very heavy dose, since, with her accelerated metabolism, drugs and alcohol wouldn't really affect her in the way they normally would a woman of her build.

She deserved to go to jail, she knew that, but if they arrested her for this murder, nobody would bother looking for Daniel's real killer. If everyone believed her guilty, Daniel's murderer would remain unpunished. "I swear I didn't kill him."

Matt nodded. "I believe you, Miss Evans." His tone made it clear this wasn't just a lawyer's platitude—he genuinely believed her. Rose knew it was because he could hear her heartbeat, could tell she was telling the truth.

10th January 2015, Nelson & Murdock Law Office - Hell's Kitchen, NYC

"I'm friends with Gary Feinstein in the DA's office. I'll give him a call first thing in the morning, see where their heads are at," Foggy said, walking up and down the office, a ball in his hand he would throw in the air and then catch again. "I'm guessing they're gonna puff their chests, but they have to know murder two's a risk. We end up at manslaughter, we get the right judge—maybe she's out in five to 10."

Matt shook his head, hands on his hips. "We're not taking a deal."

"No, this is why they have deals, Matt," Foggy protested. "So, the straightforward cases don't waste everybody's time."

"I don't think she did it." Matt knew she didn't. Rosalie Evans was innocent. He had heard her heartbeat, strong but steady, when she swore she didn't kill Daniel Fisher—she was telling the truth. Beyond that, he knew her character. She wouldn't kill an innocent man. She had saved his life, kept his secret, and now she was in trouble. He wasn't going to abandon her, especially not when he knew she was innocent.

Matt heard Foggy stop his pacing. He shook his head in exasperation, blond locks slapping his cheeks. "She's the sole suspect, found at the scene, covered in blood, with the murder weapon and no defensive wounds. If they offer anything it'll be a gift, and we will take that gift. We do not want this to go to trial."

"They don't want this to go to trial, either. Why hasn't she been charged yet?"

"They have 24 hours. And it's the weekend. They're gonna take every last second to collect the evidence before they move."

It was Matt's turn to shake his head, denying his friend's words. "They've got the evidence. You just laid it out yourself. This is a good arrest, Foggy. We should already be reading about it in the papers. There's something not right about this case. I can feel it."

"You can feel it?" Foggy's words brimmed with skepticism and something else he couldn't identify. Matt frowned in confusion.

"All right, I'm just gonna say this once, and we can move on," Foggy said. "You don't necessarily show the best judgment when beautiful women are involved, Matt."

"How would I even know if she's a beautiful woman?" Matt immediately replied, though, of course, he knew Rose Evans was beautiful. Beautiful and dangerous.

He had recognized her immediately as soon as he had stepped foot into the precinct that morning. That scent—even amongst all the other smells in the busy precinct—had lingered. Honey, lemon and lilies. Delicious, intoxicating, lingering on his tongue every time he'd take a breath until he could taste it.

It was definitely her, the woman he had met as his other self at the docks. The woman who had saved his life. The woman whose steady heart, selfness and bravery, as well as impressive fighting skills had fascinated him from the first.

Matt would have taken such a case anyway, whoever the accused was, but knowing that it was her, of all people, he couldn't pass the chance of helping her. She was innocent—he knew it with absolute certainty. And after everything she had done for him, he owed her.

Rose knew who he was now—both identities. She could reveal his secret if she wanted to, but Matt trusted her not to. She had proven herself trustworthy that night in her apartment and on the rooftop afterward. There was an unspoken bond between them now, a mutual understanding.

"I don't know," Foggy answered his question, bringing Matt out of his thoughts. "It's kinda spooky, actually. But if there's a stunning woman with questionable character in the room, Matt Murdock's gonna find her and Foggy Nelson is gonna suffer."

Matt chuckled. "All right, I don't disagree with anything you're saying."

"Thank you," Foggy said.

"But I need you to back me, anyway," Matt continued, almost speaking over Foggy.

Foggy groaned, the sound muffled by his hands. "All right. Fine. Let's start with the obvious, then. If she didn't do it, who did? We're dead in the water if we don't give them an alternative."

"Agreed," Matt replied, happy he had convinced Foggy to see it his way.

"We need to take another run at our client," Foggy continued. "She may not be guilty, Matt, but that doesn't mean Miss Evans is telling the truth."

Oh, Matt knew she wasn't telling the whole truth. There were layers to Rose Evans that she was keeping hidden, not just from Foggy but from him as well. But he trusted that she had a good reason for her secrecy, just as he did for his. That made him even more determined to help her, to figure out what was really going on.

10th January 2015, Jail Cell - Hell's Kitchen, NYC

Rose was lying in her prison bed, feigning sleep. She heard the door of the cell opening. She remained immobile, on her side, her eyes closed, waiting.

A hand covered her mouth, to stop her from screaming, while a figure got on the bed, poised over her, attempting to strangle her with a bed sheet rope. "I'm sorry," the man attacking her said.

Rose fought back, kicking her assailant in the ribs and poking him the eye, using just enough of her strength to set herself free but without revealing any of her superhuman abilities. The man was startled enough to let her go.

"Help," Rose screamed. "Help me!"

10th January 2015, Nelson & Murdock Law Office - Hell's Kitchen, NYC

Rose sat in a plastic chair in Nelson and Murdock's office, wearing a t-shirt and a pair of leggings that the two lawyers had managed to get for her. She needed a shower, badly.

She knew that they probably expected her to be more freaked out that she was—well, maybe only Nelson—but with the job she did and the life she had led, someone trying to strangle her in her sleep was nothing. The bruises on her neck were already fading anyway.

"Couldn't find any milk," Nelson said, handing her a cup of tea. "I hope it's okay."

Rose smiled at him. "Thank you," she said, before taking a sip.

"We have tea now?" Matt asked while taking off his coat and hanging it on the rack in the corner near the door.

"I stole it from the financial office next door." Nelson shrugged, looking unapologetic.

Matt came to sit in front of her. It was strange to see him in this setting—dressed in a suit and tie rather than his black vigilante outfit, presenting himself as a respectable lawyer rather than a fighter in the shadows.

"How are you holding up?" His voice was filled with genuine concern.

Rose shrugged, taking another sip of her tea. "Okay. Thanks for getting me out."

"Don't thank us yet," Nelson said, standing next to her chair. "Just because they released you doesn't mean they won't eventually bring charges."

"Which means it's crucial you don't speak to anyone other than the two of us about what happened," Matt added.

Rose smiled a bitter smile. "I don't have anyone to talk to, anyway." There was only one person she could think to call and she had pushed her away months ago.

"Do you have somewhere you can stay tonight?" Matt asked, shaking her from her thoughts.

"My apartment's not far."

"You can't go there," Nelson said. "Someone is trying to kill you. They failed once, who's to say they won't try again? And your apartment is the first place they'll look."

"Miss Evans, our immediate priority is to keep you safe. And in order to do that, we're gonna need to have a frank discussion."

She knew this was coming. She couldn't keep everything hidden anymore—not if she wanted their help. She only hoped she was doing the right thing. "Okay."

"Do you know who's trying to kill you?" Matt asked.

Rose shook her head. "No."

"Do you know why they're trying to kill you?"

No going back now. "Yes."

They went to take a seat in the conference room of the office, a recording machine turned on.

She had to give her statement.

"I don't even know how to begin."

Matt smiled at her, charming and kind. "The beginning is usually a good place to start."

"I'm a private investigator."

Nelson widened his eyes in surprise but Matt barely flinched. He already knew her skills, had seen her in action. Her profession clearly didn't come as a surprise to him.

"Am I to assume then, that Daniel Fisher was your client?" He asked.

Rose nodded, then remember about Nelson and having to keep up appearances and answered verbally instead. "Yes, Daniel Fisher was my client. I haven't been a P.I. for long, only a few months. My list of clients is limited. Also, I'm selective in the cases I take. Cheating spouses don't interest me, even though I know I could probably make a generous amount of money with that. What I specialize in are more serious cases; missing people for the most part, but sometimes...sometimes I stumble upon those cases that the police dismissed, like murders that don't seem like murders."

"And which type of case was this? Missing person? Or a murder that doesn't look like a murder?" Matt asked perceptively.

"The second one. You see, Daniel was sweet on the secretary in the financial department of Union Allied. They were even planning on going on a date. Then, one day, she didn't show up for work. Daniel asked his employers if she had taken a sick day or a personal day but they told him she had been fired. When Daniel asked why, they said they couldn't divulge this information. Daniel tried calling her, texting her, but nothing. And then...the day after her dismissal, she was found in her apartment, a rope around her neck. She was dead. And the police ruled it a suicide and left it at that. But Daniel knew that it wasn't a suicide. Knew there was something fishy about the whole thing. That's when he came to me."

Rose stopped and took a breath, already feeling drained.

"Wow, that's...that's a lot," Nelson commented. Matt kept silent, but his stance was rigid, like he was keeping himself in check, trying not to show his anger. But the tick in his jaw betrayed him.

"Daniel wanted to prove that Daria Mason—that was her name—hadn't killed herself. That she was murdered instead. But he didn't know where to start. How do you go about proving something like that? How do you prove that the company you're working for killed one of its employees?"

"So, what did you do?" Nelson asked her.

"I started from the obvious. Finding the motive. She had been fired from work and then, not even a day later, she was dead. Clearly, whatever had happened at work was the reason why she had been killed. So, the first step was to figure out what she had been working on before being fired. And Daniel, who already worked there, was the perfect person to find that out. I, on the other hand, went about trying to convince Daria's family to have an autopsy performed on their daughter's body. They didn't want to, at first, wanting to be left alone in their grief, but when I told them that I thought their daughter's death wasn't a suicide, they couldn't say no. They needed to know."

"What emerged from the autopsy?" Matt asked.

"Nothing." She couldn't suppress the bitterness in her voice.

"Nothing?" Nelson asked.

"Yeah. But, and that's when it becomes even weirder, the doctor who performed the autopsy suddenly resigned from his job and left town."

"He was bribed," Matt says. A statement of fact.

"Most likely." She hesitated, uncertain whether to reveal this next part or not. In the end, she asked, "would you mind turning the recorder off for a bit?"

Matt frowned, but it was really difficult to figure out what he was thinking with the red glasses covering his eyes. Still, he did as she asked.

"Thank you. Am I under attorney-client privilege, right? So, everything I say will not leave this room?"

"Yes," both Matt and Nelson said at the same time.

"Okay, well, this next part falls into a bit of a grey area."

"What do you mean?" Matt asked.

"I mean that, in order to discover the truth, I had to commit a crime."

"What kind of crime are we talking about?" Nelson said.

"I might have asked a friend of mine to perform a second autopsy...in secret."

Nelson cursed in a low tone but Matt didn't seem bothered.

"What did you find out?" He asked.

"My friend found a narcotic in Daria's system, a heavy dose. That's why there were no signs of struggle on her body."

"She was drugged and then killed, making it look like a suicide," Matt said.

"Yes, but of course I have no way to prove it. That autopsy would never be admissible in court. And there was no way to perform a second autopsy legally because, one, the police were always convinced it was a suicide and, two, her parents had the body of their daughter cremated soon after."

Matt nodded, turning the recording machine on once again. "So, what did you do next?"

"Proving the death of Daria wasn't suicide had been a bust. So, the only thing left to do was trying to prove that Union Allied was involved in illegal affairs."

"And that's when Daniel comes in," Nelson stated.

Rose nodded, but then, remembering herself, she added 'yes' for good measure.

"What did Daniel find out?" Matt asked her.

"Union Allied is overseeing the bulk of the government contracts for the West Side reconstruction."

"I've seen their signs all over Hell's Kitchen," Nelson said.

"The last two years have transformed the business," Rose said. "There's new owners, new grants, new contracts."

"Yeah, the world watched half of New York get destroyed," Matt said. "That's a lot of sympathy."

"And Union Allied benefited from every dollar of it," Rose commented bitterly. "Daria was the secretary for the chief accountant. And one of her jobs was to coordinate the pension claims for the company. Daniel managed to find out that, about two weeks ago, the day before her death, she was emailed a file called, Pension Master. It was meant for her boss, obviously, but she had made the mistake of opening it."

"I'm guessing it wasn't the pension fund," Matt commented.

Rose shook her head. "No. Daniel managed to open the file without raising suspicions. Or, at least, that's what we thought. He told me that it wasn't the size of the pension fund. The numbers were astronomical. And they were constantly adjusted. Money coming in and money going out."

"Going where?" Nelson again.

"We were unable to find out. It was coded routing numbers, but we are talking a lot of money."

"What did Daniel do with the file?" Matt asked.

Rose sighed, deciding to lie. Foggy Nelson couldn't know about this, it would put him in danger. She didn't want the death of another innocent man on her conscience. "Daniel was supposed to give it to me. That's why we met at a bar yesterday. We figured we were safe, in a crowded place. Clearly, we were wrong."

"Did he give you the file?" Nelson asked.

"No." It wasn't a lie. Daniel hadn't given her the file…but he told her where he had hidden it. "I don't know how they knew. They must have had people watching him. They must have people everywhere. We met at the bar, we ordered drinks and we sat at a table near the back. He started to tell me about the file and what was inside and that he had made of copy of it. And then things got blurry. Like I was drugged. And the next thing I know, I wake up in his apartment, covered in blood. They killed him because of me. And he had a son...a little boy. And now that boy is an orphan. Because of me." She finally broke down, bursting into tears. "I was supposed to help him. I promised that I would help him and I only made things worse. I need to get out of here, I'm sorry." She got up from her chair and made for the door when Nelson stopped her.

"We can't advise that, Miss Evans," he said.

"No, you don't understand," Rose pleaded. "Either you're with them or you're not. And if you're with them, then I'm dead already. And if you are not, then I cannot have anybody else die because of me."

"We can protect ourselves, Miss Evans," Matt said.

Rose turned to look at him. "No, you can't. Not from them." But even as she said it, she knew he could. She had seen what Matt Murdock was truly capable of.

"Miss Evans," Nelson said, looking apologetic. "We can't let you go home."

"She can stay with me," Matt offered. "Just for tonight, until we figure something out. I'll keep you safe, Rose."

"It's not me I'm worried about."

"They're not going to do anything to a lawyer. Too risky if they want to keep attention away from themselves."

"You can't know that," Rose protested. "They are capable of anything."

"Perhaps not. But, like I said, I can protect myself."

"Alright then." Rose nodded in surrender. She knew Matt Murdock could indeed protect himself. And she knew she couldn't do this alone. She needed his help. She needed the help of the man in the mask.