Page 13 of Of Angels & Absolution

I swallow hard, darting a glance at him. I’m not surprised he knows that, and I’m not naïve enough to ask how. He does illegal work on this side of town, and he carries the marks of the violence he’s endured both on his body and in his eyes. If he’s not a member of the Skull and Crossbones, he’s had plenty of occasion to deal with them.

“Do you think it was really them?” I whisper, my fingertips ghosting over the photo of her clothes. There are photos of the body later, but I don’t want to look at them.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Dynamo says. “But if it were me, I’d find the DNA test, or find a way to get one.”

“There’s no DNA test?” I ask.

“I couldn’t find one,” he says, nodding at the file. “If there ever was one, it’s not in there now. My guess is, if they identified the body later and it wasn’t your friend, they didn’t want any proof on the record that they’d ever known. That’s the sort of thing that gets you put on a podcast about shady criminal justice systems, bribery, and botched trials. My girlfriend watches those true crime shows, and nine times out of ten, when a case isn’t solved, it’s because the cops fucked it up.”

“I saw DNA tests, though,” I say, riffling through the papers.

“The lab sent back DNA from the clothes,” he says, helping me sort through to find them. “They found four sets of DNA on the clothes. Hers, and three more.” He pulls out thepapers and slides them across to me. “As soon as they got a match and saw it was someone who’d already been arrested for a violent crime, and that it was gang related, the trial was basically over before it began.”

“Angel,” I whisper, reading the top of the page. “I remember that fight. The parents of the other guy were going to bring assault charges, but they dropped them.”

“There were two more sets of DNA on the clothes,” Dynamo says, passing over two more pages, then another. “And here’s the findings that say one of them had shared DNA with the first. I couldn’t find the DNA tests from the other two kids, if they took them. Like I said, there’s a lot missing or a lot of assumptions. Probably both.”

“No, that makes sense,” I say, scanning the pages. “Heath is Angel’s uncle.”

“His cousin.”

“What?” I ask, looking up.

“He’s his cousin,” Dynamo says, sliding the explanation page on top. “See, it says the DNA was a 13.5% match. An uncle would be about twice that.”

“But… That’s not possible.” My head is spinning. I already have a hard enough time figuring out how all their family is related. If somebody was cheating, and one of their fathers is not really their father, I’ll never be able to figure it out.

“What about grandparents?”

“Same as uncle or aunt,” he says. “Half-grandparent would be the same as a cousin.”

“And a half-uncle,” I say, nodding with relief. “Okay, this makes sense now. Heath and Angel’s mom are half-siblings.”

At least I don’t have to tell Heath some really bad news about his parents. I remember him standing up there with me that day, refusing to let me go down to the river with them, saying he had to stay with me because he was her brother butrefusing to tell me why. I remember how tense he was, bitter and resentful and angry at the world, kicking rocks and fuming and pacing. When did he go back?

“What about her DNA?” I ask. “They matched it with Heath’s?”

Dynamo shakes his head and turns the paper over to find the back is blank. “It doesn’t say.”

“So, they matched Angel’s DNA to a sample already in the system, then said another sample matched, so it must be Heath, and the last one didn’t, so it must be Saint, and that was enough?”

“Like I said, there’s probably a reason so much is gone or was never investigated to begin with. Bagging the son of one of the heads of the Crossbones is a huge political win.”

“So, the judge wanted that on his resumé more than actual justice,” I say, feeling sick. “And I gave them exactly what they wanted.”

“It’s probably not your fault,” he says. “The second they found North DNA on her clothes, they would have been salivating to make the arrest.”

I drop my head back, so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. “Why do I feel like I got more questions than answers out of this?”

Dynamo yawns and then stands, sweeping the pages back into the folder. “I think that’s enough for tonight. Hit me up if you want to look over them some more or need me to look up anything. For now, we could both use some sleep. My house?”

“Ha,” I say, rolling my eyes. “There are three boys who possibly murdered someone who might have something to say about that.”

“Damn,” he says. “Why didn’t you start with that? I would have stopped asking you out a long time ago.”

“Really? That works?”

“Yeah, Red,” he says. “Been there, done that, never going down that road again.”

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