Page 10 of Irreversible

“Last I checked, women are still people.” I don’t discriminate; I just don’t like anyone all that much. “Why am I here?”

“If I’d knocked on your door, would you have answered?”

“No.”

“Have a seat, Porter.”

A glance at my nonexistent watch. “Ten seconds.”

“Isaac.” His expression turns grim. “Please.”

My stomach sours. He never uses my first name. Only once that I can remember, back when?—

Suddenly, my curiosity has turned to cold dread; I no longer want his news. “I’m gonna go.”

I’m mid-turn when he drops the bomb. “Sommerfield took the credit.”

Thecredit.

My throat burns with the rise of an acidic cocktail of bile and bad omens. “What?”

“He added her to his list.”

“No.” I blink stupidly. The look in his eyes is the only confirmation I need. “It wasn’t him,” I growl through a jaw clenched tightly enough to grind glass. “It wasn’t—Motherfucker… Tell me they didn’t buy it.”

But I already know the answer. Collapsing into the booth, I scrub a hand over my face until my eyes blur. Tanner pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his front pocket.

That means it’s serious.

“He wasn’t arrested for the Jenson girl until the day after…you know.” Mercifully, he doesn’t say it. “Theoretically, he would have had time.”

“Goddammit.”I slam my hand on the table, sending the ashtray rolling. “It’s bullshit, Tanner. Taking the word of afucking serial killer already pinned for life. It’s the easy way out. They can’t?—”

“You know I agree with you, Porter. I do.” His hands lift helplessly. “But the DA is buying it. Chief, too.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re not just buying it; they’re eating it up with a spoon.” And I’m no longer there to fight back. I rub at the ache developing in my forehead. “It’s not anything like Sommerfield’s M.O. The pattern fits the unsolved cases. I have piles of evidence supporting that. Why won’t they open their damn eyes?”

It’s the same argument I’ve held for almost two years. They listened, at first, because my track record as a detective was stellar. Then the trail died. The case went cold. But I never stopped pushing. Never stopped until the day I pushed so hard I got pushed right out the door.

“It. Wasn’t. Sommerfield.” I’ll say it until the day I die. It’s a feeling in my gut, and my gut is never wrong.

“They didn’t have anyone else to point to.” It’s too soft, the way he says it. Too gentle. Makes me want to punch him in the face.

“They closed the case.” The realization drops like shattering glass.

“Yeah.” Tanner looks like he could cry. “They did.”

And they didn’t even see fit to break it to me first. “They can’t close it on the unsubstantiated word of a monster. What if she’s still alive? What if?—”

I can’t catch my breath.

“I’m sorry, Porter.”

There’s nothing else he can say.

It’s over.

I grip the hair at my crown in clenched fists, ready to rip it all out and burn down the world.

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