Page 127 of What's Left of Us

“But you need Georgia’s?”

She stands her ground. “I think it’s best if you both left.”

When we walk out, I see her slip the card into the sleeve of her shirt before the door closes behind us.

Georgia takes a deep breath. “That was…”

“I know.”

When the following Sunday rolls around, Georgia is invited back by Leani, just like I knew she’d be. I’m conveniently called in for a last-minute mandatory overtime detail at the same time I’m supposed to be at the Del Rossi’s house for dinner.

I ask Georgia not to go.

She asks me to trust her.

Neither one of us winds up happy.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Lincoln / Present

Following Beaugard outof his office, I’m met with my third, “No, Hawk. I’ve got paperwork up to my dick that I need to finish by end of business today. I can’t deal with any of your shit on top of that.”

I extend the file that Dickers gave to me after taking pictures of each page and saving them to my laptop at home. “You’re going to want to look at this. It’s going to make you want to take on this case. I’m telling you.”

He stops, dropping his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Did you call the prosecutor’s office about Heller’s trial coming up on Friday?”

“Yes.”

“And made sure the arresting officer sent the court all the documents they need?” he asks.

“All done. I even checked with the ADA to make sure there was nothing else she needed. She thinks it’s going to be a slam dunk.”

“Will he plea?”

Heller is a nineteen-year-old kid who got drunk and decided to run over a peer that he’d been feuding with since high school. Since it happened in the middle of the night in a relatively isolated neighborhood, there weren’t any witnesses. But the idiot recorded the whole thing and posted it to Snapchat.

“He’d be dumb not to,” I remark. There’s no way he can deny he did it. There’s video proof that we were able to applya warrant to obtain from the social media corporation that was more than willing to help us get what we needed.

Beaugard grabs the file and opens it, his brows furrowing when he sees the compilation of information dated from years back up until Conklin’s death. “What is this?”

“You said that the paper Volley gave me wasn’t going to be enough to move forward with on its own,” I say, tapping the stack of papers. “I found this folder that Conklin was working on putting together. There is more than enough reasonable suspicion here to apply for a warrant.”

The senior investigator shakes his head as he flips through the pages. “And you just so happened to find this after your talk with Volley?”

He knows damn well I didn’t, but I’m not going to throw Dickers under the bus for passing it along to me. “It was buried under other files in the cabinet that he used to store copies of his arrest reports. Must have gotten missed when they went through it.”

A doubtful noise rises from his throat. “This is a lot we would need to process,” he tells me, closing the file. “And there’s no way in hell you’d be able to take lead on it. Even if you are cleared to come back full-time.”

If.“Iwillbe cleared,” I correct him. “In a few weeks when I go through my physical. And I already know I won’t be appointed to the case, but I deserve to be a liaison.”

His laugh is startled. “You’re kidding, right?”

When he looks at me, he realizes I’m not.

Tucking the file under his arm, he pulls me to the side to let somebody pass us in the narrow hall. “Look, it’s obvious Conklin invested a lot of time in this. You have too, whether you admit it or not. But if you get any more involved in this, whatever justice you’re seeking won’t matter. They’ll throw it all out because of conflict of interest. Do you want that?”

I shake off his hold. “Does that mean you’ll look into it?”

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