Page 38 of Duplicity

Simon looked at his shoes again, then up at her. “You said Hayden?”

She nodded. “You know him?”

“I followed Justice when he left on the first day of school. I overheard him and the guy he called Hayden talking about getting ready for something. The guy was gonna ‘take care of him.’”

Most likely that had to do with drugs. Just because the kids who attended the school were underage didn’t mean they had no access to substances that could easily be abused. She hadn’t even drank coffee when she was in high school.

Cat asked, “What do you mean you heard them talking?”

Simon winced. “Don’t ask questions when the answer makes you an accessory to a possible crime. Probably best not to know.”

Her eyebrows rose. “At least you didn’t say an accessory to a Vanguard operation.”

He conceded that with a nod. “So, the kid who confessed to shooting you and your partner is connected to the same guy?”

“He killed my partner. I only caught a bullet in the leg.”

Simon shook his head for some reason. “He was trying to kill both of you. He just missed when it came to you.”

Her eyes burned.

She glanced down the hallway at the board on the wall where art projects had been hung last semester and never taken down. Creativity, and a display of all the angst and hope. The pressure and dreams contained in teenage minds.

“You shouldn’t downplay it. You didn’tonlyget shot in the leg. It was murder and attempted murder, right?” He shifted closer to her and lowered his voice. “Those were the charges?”

Cat nodded.

He laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I guess we’d better figure out who this Hayden guy is and what he’s connected to.”

The note in his voice and the shadow in his expression gave her pause. Was there something he hadn’t yet shared with her? Another trauma, or a piece of the puzzle that made up the complex image of his experience. Light and shadows, hard edges, and curves. No experience occurred cleanly. Not when people and pain were involved.

“Did your car really get hit with paint?”

She nodded again, grateful for the reprieve from heavier subjects. “It’s all over my hood and my windshield, which is shattered. I used the wipers and got to the side of the road, but they had already driven off. I never even saw the license plate.”

“It could have been caught on a street camera. I’ll call Peter and see what he can find?”

Thankfully, he phrased it like a question. “For the record, I’m open to any and all assistance from Vanguard.” She gave that a second to sink in. “Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been out of regular police work for so long that makes me not as territorial as other cops. They don’t want help, and they will swear up and down they don’t need it.”

Simon gave her a small smile. “The Cold Case department frequently runs into roadblocks with the police. No one wants to admit they weren’t able to solve a case.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Everyone needs a little help sometimes or fresh eyes on something.”

If he agreed with her, would he also agree to let her in on every part of what he was doing? Maybe she wouldn’t understand all the technobabble regarding his communication network. But she understood how to look at something with the eyes of an investigator, and that might be exactly what he needed.

Shemight be exactly what he needed.

Cat cleared her throat. “Maybe later, if we confirm they are the same person, we can share notes about what we’re working on. Pool our resources and see if we can figure this out.”

Simon’s face relaxed, and he said, “That would be good.”

His stomach rumbled.

He chuckled, and she was about to comment when an alarm chimed over the school announcement system, echoing loudly down the hall. “This is an emergency situation. All students and staff please proceed to the north field to assemble away from the building. Repeat, this is an emergency situation.”

Doors opened, and kids filed out of classrooms, heading toward the end of the hall behind her where the double doors led outside.

“What does that announcement mean?”

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