Page 4 of Corrupt Game

Ingrid had become a loyal friend these past few weeks. One of the only friends I had.

No one else even cared that my foster brother had gone missing only to be discovered dead in another country.

"Ms. DeLandro?"

I turned to see a woman beckoning me with a nod, her eyes kind yet weary from battles fought behind closed doors. Ingrid's office awaited, a sanctum where maybe, just maybe, I'd find the answers I sought.

The door swung open with a gentle creak, and the world I'd been bracing against seemed to pause. Ingrid Bench's office was a complete contrast to the chaos of my own mind—orderly, with every file, every book in its rightful place. The scent of worn leather mixed with the faintest hint of jasmine from a solitary diffuser perched on a shelf. It was soothing, an olfactory whisper telling me that here was a place of calm amidst the storm.

"Collette." Ingrid smiled. She stood framed by the doorway, her figure neither imposing nor dismissive, but rather exuding an aura of quiet strength. Her hair, a soft shade of iron gray, was cut in a practical bob that swung just above her shoulders as she moved forward to welcome me.

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," I said, my words barely above a murmur. The taste of gratitude was a bitter, metallic dread, clinging to my tongue like fear.

"Let's sit down. Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?" Ingrid gestured towards two chairs facing each other across a small table. There was a maternal quality to her concern, something I found both unnerving and comforting.

"Water would be great, thanks." I eased into one of the chairs. Its leather clung to my skin as if trying to anchor me to the moment.

Ingrid poured water from a pitcher into a glass and handed it to me. Her hands were steady, nails trimmed short, devoid of any polish—a testament to her no-nonsense approach to life. I took a sip, the cool liquid doing little to quench the dryness of my throat or the thirst for answers gnawing at me.

"I know this is hard," Ingrid began, her tone earnest, her eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made it clear she saw past the façade I struggled to maintain. "I want to help you, but you need to understand that I'm constrained by what I can officially do."

I nodded, clutching the glass tighter as my heart thudded against my ribcage. "I get that, Ingrid. But I can't just sit back and do nothing. Andy... he deserves justice."

Ingrid's sigh was one of empathy, tinged with the residue of countless cases that must have slipped through her fingers like grains of sand. "I've been doing this job for over thirty years,"she said, a wistful glint in her eye. "It doesn't get any easier seeing things left unresolved."

My fingers traced the leather grain of the armrests on my chair, the material cool and pliable. "But there has to be something more we can do," I said, tension knotting in my chest.

"Believe me, I've pushed as hard as I can push," she said, leaning forward, earnestness etched into the lines of her face. "My bosses want this shelved, even if it's unsolved. They don't see the threads that could lead us to answers—they see statistics, overworked staff, and a backlog of cases."

An acrid taste, like the dregs of forgotten coffee, settled on my tongue. Andy deserved more than to be dismissed as a statistic. His life, our shared history, couldn't just be some bureaucratic case file folded into a folder and archived away.

"Unsolved?" My voice cracked slightly, a mixture of anger and despair. "Andy was murdered. He’s not just some clerical error to be rectified."

Ingrid's eyes softened, empathy shining through. "I know. And if it were up to me alone..."

Her words hung in the air, unfinished, but the message was clear: her hands were bound by invisible cords stronger than any physical restraint. I reached into my purse, my hand brushing against the wad of cash I'd taken from Andy's apartment—dirty money that felt like betrayal—and wrapped my fingers around the business card.

"Maybe this will change their minds?" I offered the card to Ingrid like a talisman that might break the spell of bureaucratic indifference.

She took it carefully, turning it over in her hands. "Where did you find this?"

"Hidden in Andy's room," I replied, watching her closely. "It doesn't fit—it's too clean, too deliberate. Like it was meant to be found."

"Or a message meant to be sent," Ingrid murmured, her investigator's mind piecing together unseen puzzles. Her thumb ran across the embossed lettering, a tactile inquiry searching for truth in the grooves of ink and paper. The overhead fluorescent lights hummed a soft requiem for hope as she scrutinized the card.

“It’s a piece of the puzzle, isn't it? A clue that someone out there knows what happened to him."

"Potentially." Ingrid finally met my gaze again. "And clues are the breadcrumbs on the path to the gingerbread house."

"Or the witch's oven," I added darkly, allowing myself a fleeting smile at her analogy. But the smile faded quickly. "We have to be careful."

"Always," she agreed, placing the card carefully on her desk. "This could be significant. I can't promise miracles, but I will do what I can to look into it."

"Thank you, Ingrid," I said, relief mingling with a renewed sense of determination. I didn’t want her to get in trouble with her job, even though I needed access to more information than my skill set could provide. That small piece of card was a beacon, and as insignificant as it might seem, it was proof that the truth was out there—waiting to be uncovered. And I was ready to dig through every layer of deceit and danger to find it.

The FBI had written him off. I couldn’t just sit around and wait for someone else to take control.

Chapter 3: Collette

---