Page 40 of Silent Vendetta (Vendetta Duet)

Did that mean Barry was on board with my father’s case? Or was he just fishing around for clarification?

“You remember my friend Luna?” I said.

“Franco and his men are after her.”

Were. Franco’s corpse is rotting in my basement right now, but I digress.

“You remember Luna’s father? Nineteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“And she was sent a letter, warning her to drop the case trying to free him,” Barry recalled.

“Right. She has an important court hearing next week. A writ of habeas corpus. It’s the first step to requesting a new trial.”

“And you want to help her? How?”

“I have it on good word that there is evidence her father is innocent. Perhaps evidence of his innocence exists and was missed in the first trial. His public defender was fresh out of college and was up against a high-profile prosecutor with a team of people.”

“Do you mind sharing where you got this tip about the evidence?”

“It’s best if you don’t know,” I said.

Barry frowned.

“Now, I can fill you in on all the particulars. I can call my office and get you access to any files and evidence and any records you need and help escalate this. But we need to resolve both in the next two days.”

Barry scratched his jaw. “Sir, I heard what happened last night from some of my cop buddies. That Luna was abducted. Shouldn’t finding Franco be the priority?”

If only I had an assistant who could come drag Franco’s carcass into the lake for me.

“Police are looking for Franco,” I continued. “No one is looking for this mystery man, which makes it easier for him to get to Luna.”

Barry tapped his pen on his desk, his voice bordering on irritation.

“Sir, even if I wanted to help you, solving even one of those cases is difficult. Impossible in that time frame.”

“Let’s assume for right now that thereisevidence in those case boxes that could exonerate Luna’s father. If you or your men left this second and went to the evidence locker, got every piece of evidence, and then boarded a private jet and flew to a lab who’d be willing to immediately process it…” Money helped you cut in line at private for-profit labs. I’d checked when I’d gotten desperate one time about my father’s case. Matter of fact, I even had a list. “And you sat down with the analyst as they did it, I would have the results quickly, yeah?”

Barry stopped clanking his pen.

“That’s not how labs work. They would make us wait in line, just like anyone else.”

“Not if we flashed $200,000, they wouldn’t.”

Barry pursed his lips.

“I don’t have time to get in line. What I do have is money—and plenty of it. I can fund as many private jets as necessary, as many bodies as you need. I can pay extra fees—”

“Bribes.”

“Compensation for a rush job, to get this done.”

“Sir, aren’t you worried about how this will look? You’re a prosecutor. Someone gets wind of this…”

“I can pay a lab analyst a hundred grand for a couple of hours of their time. Money is no object. Arrange what you need, call who you need to, and get this done.”

I expected him to push back even more—even I could hear how unreasonable this timeline was—but he scrubbed his face and sighed.

“You looked into her father’s case already, didn’t you?”

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