Page 33 of Duplicity

This could either be a warning to leave him alone or someone with information that might help her solve the case everyone else seemed to think was closed.

She passed an older man walking with Principal Cruise. As she walked by them, the older man winked at her. The visitorbadge he had clipped to his shirt pocket would only be valid for today, but as this man was a Vanguard employee supposedly working on the IT network, he would be here for as many days as it took.

The company wasn’t wasting any time making sure Simon had the support he needed, even if he didn’t want it. And the person placed inside the school couldn’t be Peter as it would be far too obvious to the students that they were twins.

The gruff voice said, “He’s my cousin. That’s what it is to me.” He paused for a second. “You think he’s innocent?”

Arlo hadn’t seemed too interested in what she had to say. But for some reason, this cousin of his was? He had to have passed the information about her to this man. Maybe there was a person in Arlo’s life smart enough to see that this wasn’t what his fate was supposed to be. That he should never have thrown his life away by falsely testifying that he had killed a police officer and shot another.

“I was there.” Cat gripped the phone. “The shooter killed my partner and shot me in the leg. But I never saw his face well enough to be able to identify him.” It was why the prosecutor had relied more on the confession than on her statement or any other witness testimony.

“You think he lied?”

“It might not matter what I think.” She closed the door to her office, rounded the metal desk, and sat, shaking the mouse to wake her computer up before she entered her login password.

“I want to talk. Face-to-face,” he said. “If you think he’s innocent, then we should meet.”

Cat needed to get something straight. “I don’t think he’s innocent. I just think he might not have done this.”

He rattled off a street address.

“I’ll have to come by on my lunch break.” She wouldn’t miss the meeting after work with Vanguard and the police department.

The call ended.

Okay, then.She stared at her phone, then typed the address into her computer. A tire shop not too far from here, probably about ten minutes’ drive. There was nothing about it that popped up on the police radar, which didn’t necessarily mean it was clean.

Thirty minutes later, Cat pulled up just down the street from the garage. She sat for a moment and watched two men talk outside, then shake hands. One guy got into his car and drove off. The other stood by the open garage doors and looked around. He slid a pack from his pocket and lit a cigarette.

She left her jacket off so that her badge and gun would be clearly displayed. Anyone who saw her would know she was a cop. It could cause some problems for whoever this guy was if people saw him talking to a police officer, but this was about protecting herself first before she did a favor for someone else.

He spotted her approach and lifted his chin. “You her?”

“Alvarez.”

He frowned. “I met another cop named Alvarez. A guy.”

“Probably my brother, or if it was years ago, it might’ve been my father.” Or one of her uncles, although that was a stretch.

“Younger guy.”

But he wasn’t going to tell her the context of that meeting? She would have to follow up with Romeo and find out what happened. “And you are?”

“Carlos.” He took a drag from his cigarette and blew it off to the side. “Why are you bothering my cousin talking about how he lied or whatever? You think that’s going to help him do what he’s gotta do?”

Cat shrugged one shoulder. “You asked me here to tell me to leave him alone?”

He flicked the cigarette, dislodging ash from the end. “Seems like he’d be better served with you working out who did kill that cop instead of putting ideas in his head about getting out.”

So it was more that he simply didn’t want his cousin to get his hopes up. “If I’m going to solve the case, I need to know what he knows. Who asked him to lie? Does he know who the real killer is?”

Someone dangerous was still out on the street, and a young man had thrown his life away, going to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Given the way she was raised—by a cop who followed the Lord as if God was not just heavenly Father but also his commanding officer who issued orders and dictated the way a person should live—the sense of justice that lived deep inside her grated against Arlo’s fate.

Her father thought logically about spiritual things. He saw the world in black and white, right and wrong. The same way her dad thought logically about the law, he thought about everything.

In her experience, evil often disguised itself as good. It was sometimes hard to tell what lay under the surface in this morally gray world. The place where people’s true intentions lay, and who was truly innocent, was often buried deep.

“Arlo doesn’t know anything.” Carlos sucked on the cigarette and blew it out again. “Stop asking.”

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