Page 107 of Forged in Secrets

Grace pulled a face. “I don’t understand. It sounds like it was an accident.”

“The guy's girlfriend threw us under the bus, but she didn’t actually tell any outright lies. Nothing that would contradict the bodycam footage. From her perspective, we butted in on her private business and got her man killed.”

“Wait. There was proof of what Josiah saw? On camera?”

Ben no longer felt relieved to be telling the truth. No, this was the part where he would have much preferred to let Grace go on loving the person she thought he was.

“There was video footage, yes. Mine lined up with both of our statements.”

“And Josiah’s?”

“Josiah told the police that he saw the suspect reaching for a weapon. Told them that the guy was moving toward him, and that he was certain he was about to be shot.”

Grace’s brow furrowed.

“I don’t get it. He lied?”

Ben let out a breath. “To this day, I don’t think he did. I think that Josiah really did believe he was about to be shot. I think that the suspect played a stupid game and won a stupid prize, and the idea that he gets to be a martyr is ridiculous. And don’t even get me started on his girlfriend and her Stockholm syndrome.”

He had tightened his free hand into a fist as angerwelled up in his chest. He was thankful that Grace was on his other side, stroking his thumb with her own. It was too late for his indignation to mean anything. The situation had been what it was, and his dumb decisions were his own.

“I went home that night and logged into the SAPD system,” he said quickly, half-hoping that Grace would let the statement pass.

“Illegally, you mean. You hacked your way in.”

Her glare was about as intimidating as a chihuahua guarding a chew toy, but still, he hated disappointing her.

“Yes. Look, I know it was wrong, but I was worried. Josiah was freaked out. His face was on the news already. People on social media were accusing him of being a racist for shooting an unarmed black man. He was my partner. I felt that I had to look out for him.”

Grace raised her eyebrows at him, but made no further comment, her manicured fingers still resting lightly on his own.

“The bodycam footage was bad. Really bad. It was blurry and chaotic, but just clear enough that I could tell the guy wasn’t reaching for a weapon. Josiah let his panic cloud his judgment. He went against our training in a chain of bad decisions. He shot and killed a man. But I still couldn’t bear the idea of his life being ruined over it. It was a mistake. It felt so unbelievably unfair.

“So I did what I thought was the right thing. I downloaded the footage, did some tinkering, and reuploaded it. By the time the investigation team got a chance to look at it the next morning, it looked like a corrupted file. They couldn’t see anything. And in the end, he kept his job, and at least some of his reputation once the news cycle moved on.”

“I’m confused. Your bodycam footage didn’t show you doing anything shady, so why did you get fired?”

“I wasn’t the computer genius I am today, I guess,” Ben joked without mirth. “They figured out that someone destroyed the footage on purpose and they traced the hack to me. I was fortunate I only lost my job. I guess the SAPD knew it would make the whole shooting fiasco look even worse if they let the story get out.”

“I guess you deserved that,” Grace said flatly. “We can’t do wrong in hope that something good will come of it.”

“Oh, that wasn’t the worst of it. After I got fired, the fellow officer that I was planning to propose to, Mikayla? She dumped me. She was moving up the ranks on the force, and me getting fired didn’t exactly look good on her.”

“Okay, maybe you didn’t deserve–”

“Did I mention that about a week after she dumped me, Josiah swooped in and they started dating?”

Grace’s shocked expression immediately shifted to guilt.

“I still deserved it. Yeah, it was not exactly up to bro code, but it’s not as bad as you think,” Ben said quickly. “He never actually found out that I was the one who probably kept him out of jail by messing with that footage. SAPD fired me quietly. After that night, I was feeling pretty messed up. I thought Josiah was, too, until I realized he was drowning his sorrows with a new relationship. We didn’t discuss it again. And then we fell out of touch, and that was that.”

He let the last few words escape in a rush. It was all out on the table now. Even if he didn’t get mushy about how he really felt–and he wasn’t planning to–Grace was smart.She’d read between the lines and see the hurt that he tried to pretend wasn’t there.

At least, he hoped she would.

Would she see the same remorse that Craig Gorsky had shown her, even though his own eyes held no tears? Would she realize that he wanted to trust her with all of his heart, even though it scared him?

He listened as an ambulance roared into the parking lot, sirens blaring as the blue and red lights competed with the sunshine.

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