Page 33 of Salvation

Why are there two photos of Gabrial?

Is that a clue?

I need to call Hope with this information. Though the only information we gathered from what was collected was that whomever this is… they’re smart… very smart.

Tossing the report on my desk, I lean back in my chair and groan. Reaching for the phone, I dial Hope’s cell number. It goes straight to voicemail. I leave her a message telling her I have info and she needs to call me back.

After hanging up the phone, I lean my head into my hands and rub my temples. A chuckle from across my desk has me looking up. My partner, Alan, is looking at me. “Where were you this morning? You hungover or something?”

Frowning, I glare at him. “No, I’m not fucking hungover. Why would you even ask that? I was reviewing the Mascareni files this morning. I was also here until midnight last night. The only thing I’ve drank in two fucking days is coffee.”

He holds out his hands in appeasement before flicking the top of the pen he’s holding. The sound of his fingernail on the plastic grates on my nerves. He annoys the shit out of me with that. But he’s always doing it. It’s like a nervous habit; not that he has a reason to be nervous. More like he has the need to constantly be moving. I swear he has A.D.D. He says, “Sorry. This case is getting to me. We have nothing. I was out pounding pavement earlier, re-questioning people from the scene. Yet, no one saw anything, and no one is willing to talk to us. They all have blinders on. Everyone in that neighborhood is always outside. They live on their porches and stoops. Everyone knows how many times everyone shits a day, yet no one saw anyone dump Eli’s body in the center of the street in the middle of the damn day… or knows how Mrs. Mascareni up and disappeared from the face of the goddamned earth. Or they have fucking amnesia.”

I lean back in my chair as I listen to him. He’s right. But this is also not surprising. That neighborhood is full of people buying and selling Gabrial’s drugs. It’s the typical blue-collar neighborhood full of buried secrets. The fresh paint on the houses can’t hide the fact that the wood is splintering and peeling underneath.

“People aren’t going to talk. Not to us. We’re going to have to find something. No one wants to be the next person lying dead in the street… they know talking guarantees that outcome.”

He mumbles, “Yeah, well, we need a crumb because right now… we’re wandering through the fucking forest in circles like jackasses.”

How right you are, Detective Rodgers.

Instead of sitting in silence staring at a file I’ve already memorized, I call Hope’s cell again. No answer.

Sighing in annoyance, I mutter, “Why have a phone if you never answer the damn thing,” and call the shelter.

Maia answers and tells me that Hope has just walked in.

I grumble, “Let me talk to her. She’s not answering her cell again.”

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