Page 98 of What's Left of Us

But not the people who told him to.

That’s what he doesn’t understand.

“He said he wasn’t working alone, Beau.”

“He also said that a demon made him do it,” Beaugard points out with a dumbfounded expression on his face. “I don’t really put much weight into what he said in court, and you shouldn’t either.”

His team was going for an insanity plea, but the jury saw right through that. Volley wasn’t insane, he was scared and willing to do what it took in order to avoid Rikers.

“I made a deal with the devil,” he said into the mic, wild-eyed and sweaty as he frantically looked at the jury. “A demon made me do it.”

Maybe he wasn’t totally out of his mind.

He said that he’d been paid by the devil himself but wouldn’t say the name. His claim was that his life would be in danger if he did. If I had to guess, I’d say the devil wore a designer suit and had the same last name as my ex-wife’s maiden name.

“You know I’m good at my job,” I tell Beaugard quietly. “I’m usually never wrong about these things. My intuition is saying we need to look into this. I’ve got a reason to believe that he’sconnected to more than we have him for. Maybe he can be given a deal if he gives us information—we get him out of Rikers and into a different prison for the same sentence.”

Beaugard swipes at his face, looking as tired as I feel. I’m lucky if I get four hours of sleep a night these days, and I know his hours are crazier with all the cases that come into the station. Our hours are supposed to be nine-to-five with the BCI, but with rising crime rates, that almost never happens. “If we opened this can of worms, do you honestly believe it’ll get us anywhere? There’s a lot of time and money that get tied up into these kinds of cases, and I’ve got people on my ass about what’s worth our energy and what isn’t.”

He means the state.

They like to hold our spending over our heads like putting money into getting dangerous people off the streets isn’t important enough.

“Tell the troopers to write a few more tickets so the state has the funding they need then,” I counter, ignoring the narrowed look I get. “I’m sure if they pull over enough soccer moms going ten over the speed limit because they’re late dropping their kids off, then we’ll have enough money to getactualcriminals off the roads.”

Beaugard doesn’t bother scolding me for my opinion because he knows there’s no use. I’ve never been the kind of guy who went after the blue-collar workers trying to get to their jobs on time by speeding, or the people whose license plates are dirty in the wintertime from all the grime and muck kicking up from the roads.

“So?” I press.

I don’t tell him about Welsh or the file that Conklin put together. Not yet. Not until I have the information I need to move forward. And that depends on what Volley has to say.

Beaugard finishes the coffee I gave him and tosses the cup into the trash. “Apparently, your intuition is still strong. Estep said Volley wants to talk.” His expression goes stiff as he leans back, tapping his hand against the edge of the desk. “And he only wants to talk to you.”

My eyebrows go up.

“You realize,” the senior investigator says slowly, “that I can’t get this approved, right? There is no way anyone would let you go on your own.”

I figured as much, which is why I was hoping to do this without having to ask. Conklin used to say it was better to ask for forgiveness, not permission. Those words were at the forefront of my mind when I made the call to Estep to get access onto Volley’s exclusive visitor’s list, which was made up only of his legal team.

“So what do we do?”

Beaugard stands, buttoning his suit jacket and checking his watch. “Iam going to the deli to get my wife the sub she’s been craving before she threatens divorce again,” he says with a small smile curling his lips. “Her pregnancy hormones are brutal this time around. They say that means it’s a girl, God help me. Butyouare going to go home and get some sleep because you look like shit. Think about what I said. You can’t go see himalone.”

He walks by and squeezes my shoulder once before sliding a piece of paper onto the desk in front of me.

It’s Estep’s personal cell number that he must have given Beaugard to pass along.

My boss pats my back and walks out, leaving me alone in his office.

His words sink in.

I can’t go alone.

That doesn’t mean I can’t gotalkto him alone.

*

The front dooropens as I lift my hand to knock, and a hand swings out before I have time to blink. I don’t expect the sting behind the blow coming from a five-foot-nothing pregnant woman, but pregnancy hormones must give people an extra dose of strength.

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