Page 22 of After All The Wreckage
She nodded. “It’s going to be another five hundred a month.”
Fuck. There was no way I could swing that. I instantly thought of Dad, wishing I hadn’t fought with him. Wishing I’d done anything to convince him to loan me the money. Then, I thought of what he’d said, about getting a job using my computer skills. I was damn good at finding—or creating—security issues. Someone would hire me as a white hat hacker protecting their systems. Maybe they’d even give me a bonus like Dad had suggested. I could continue to work cases on the side. Most importantly, Mom’s. I could even handle the background checks we did for the DoD.
I got up, tossed the rest of my uneaten meal, and washed the dishes while Nan watched.
“Say something,” Nan finally begged.
I dried my hands and looked at her. Nan had been the only one on my side, and now I didn’t know how to feel—what to think. “I’m the one in charge of her advanced health care directive. So ultimately, it’s my decision, and I’m not giving up on her.”
I grabbed my messenger bag loaded with my gear and walked out the door.
I hated myself a bit for leaving that way. But then again, I hated everything about this situation.
I drove my motorcycle to Shady Lane, and when I got to Mom’s room, I was struck by what Nan had said. Somehow, I hadn’t seen it before, but Mom did look withered. She looked like some tiny version of herself. Nothing like the person I’d idolized almost as much as a fictional character.
I greeted her with a kiss, but for the third day in a row, I didn’t talk to her about what I was doing as my fingers flew over the keyboard. This time it was because I didn’t want her to hear I was looking for work. I found a couple of local IT jobs and even a government job that might suffice. As I hit submit on the applications, it all felt wrong, but I wasn’t giving up on her.
I couldn’t.
A tiny piece of me, the logical part that was good at assembling pieces of a puzzle to solve a case, whispered that I was being irrational. Murmuring that maybe the doctors and Dad and Nan were right. But I couldn’t listen to it yet. It hurt too damn much to think of giving up hope. Giving up when she’d never given up on me, even after the mistakes I’d made.
I turned on one of theReal Housewivesshows Harriet had gotten Mom hooked on and lay down on the bed with her, careful of the cords and wires. My entire body shook as I realized how frail she felt. I held her hand and talked to her about the show as if she were there. And when the sun started to set, I kissed her goodbye with a heavy heart and more weight added to my shoulders.
On the way to the police station, I forced my thoughts away from Mom in the hospital and back to why she was there in the first place. The accident that wasn’t an accident. Harriet wasn’t at the front desk. It was some new person I hadn’t buttered up yet. I waved to her, acting like I had every right to be there, and strode past the swinging gate into the bullpen, only to find it eerily empty.
Voices drew my attention to the conference room. Detective Muloney was in the doorway, talking to a group of people strewn around the long table I could only partially see. Something was afoot because the energy vibrating through the space was tense. Maybe there’d been a break-in or an assault on campus. Crimes like those occurred near most universities, and this departmentprided itself on handling them fast and efficiently. Which only spiked my irritation because they hadn’t handled Mom’s case the same way.
Muloney turned his head toward me as I wound my way through the desks. He was in his fifties, but still fit, without the bulging gut that sometimes found its way onto older officers. Mostly bald, he made up for the lack of hair on his head with an abundance of it on his face.
He leaned over to one of the rookies at the table and said something that caused the younger man to look my way before Muloney came out of the room to head me off. One look at my angry face, and he seemed to realize why I was there. He let out an exasperated sigh, tugged his scraggly beard, and then sat on the corner of the nearest desk.
“You lied to me, Dexter. You’ve really earned the nickname I gave you.”
“I don’t have the time or energy for this today, Rory. We’ve got a missing kid that takes priority over everything.”
Surprise, sympathy, and sadness instantly filled me, and I shot a look toward the conference room. No wonder the desks were empty. For two heartbeats, I felt bad that I was pulling him away from it. Missing kids were the worst. Kid cases of any kind were a strain. But my regrets flew out the window with his next words.
“I did what your dad asked and what I thought was best. I don’t need you going half-cocked all over the damn place, chasing imaginary leads because you think you’re some big shot PI. Leave the real investigative work to the men who’ve got the experience to do it.”
My teeth ground together as his words stabbed at me. Men. Experienced. Half-cocked. I might have been only twenty-two, but I’d been working for Marlowe & Co. for nearly ten years and I’d double majored in criminal law and computer science.I’d been on the streets since getting my PI license at eighteen, and that had given me more experience than the rookie cop coming out of the propped-open conference room door fumbling paperwork. Instead of responding with my résumé and demanding the respect I’d earned, I gave him my best saccharine smile and acted like he hadn’t said anything.
“Exactly what have you uncovered in my mother’s case, Baloney-Muloney? How did you determine her car’s computer had been messed with? What have you done to follow up on it? How did you trace her movements that day? Because you damn well haven’t asked me what cases she was working on or where she’d been. You haven’t asked for the security footage from our home or office. You haven’t even asked me who I think might have had it out for her.”
“The list is long,” he said with a grunt. “Your mom made more enemies than friends.”
That pushed me into full pissed-off mode. “Because she didn’t let cheating bastards, sneaky thieves, or deadbeat parents get away with anything. And she had plenty of friends. Just ask Harriet,” I said, waving toward the front desk even though my mom’s friend wasn’t there.
“Your dad gave us most of what we needed. I’ve had James combing through it when he’s had time.”
I stepped closer to him, shoving a finger into his chest. “You’ve got James working it? For God’s sake, the kid barely has a badge. And whatever Sutton Bishop told you, it isn’t nearly enough. He didn’t have access to our cameras, notes, or our case files, so whatever he gave you, you knew I could’ve given you more. The more you needed to do this investigation right.”
For a moment, Muloney looked completely chagrined, and my stomach fell as realization hit me. I’d tapped into Dad’s computers, and he’d followed it back. He must have. I’d made a stupid rookie mistake. I’d let the fox into the henhouse. Notonly let him in, I’d opened the door and practically laid out the welcome mat. All my anger turned inward.
I hadn’t been myself since I’d gotten the call from Muloney letting me know Mom had been pulled from the Potomac. I was exhausted, living on mere hours of shut-eye while juggling the bills, our cases, and school, and trying to spend as many minutes as possible with Mom and Nan. And I’d slipped up because of it.
Dad wasn’t right and neither was Muloney. I was good at what I did. But I’d been desperate to keep all the balls rolling, and my desperation had blinded me.
I stepped back. “I want everything you have. And I mean everything. Have Harriet send it over to me. If I don’t have it by first thing tomorrow, I’m going to Edith at theMercuryand telling her how you violated every code in the book to get information you had no right to.”
