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Sebastian
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I slam the door behind me, but not before my words reach the man sitting at the desk I just barged past. I see him stand out of the corner of my eye but he knows better than to race in here to get between his boss and me.
“Detective Wolf.” My asshole of a friend, Darrell Carver, gives me a look from where he’s standing next to a row of bookcases. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“Go to hell.” I lower myself into a chair in front of his desk. I don’t give a fuck that my back is to him or that he happens to be an assistant district attorney. “I heard that you’re cutting Justin Beacon loose. Tell me my lieutenant is mistaken.”
“As usual, your lieutenant has the facts straight. That woman is never wrong.” He walks past me to the worn leather office chair behind his desk.
It’s been there since I became a detective four years ago. Darrell is the third person that I’ve seen in the chair. The rigors of the job were too much for his last two predecessors.
So far, he’s holding his own but he’s yet to mark his seventh month on the job. There’s a running bet in my squad room about how long he’ll make it. My money is on a couple of weeks shy of a year.
The strands of gray hair at his temples speak to the stress he’s under. The tan lines where his wedding ring once sat on his left hand only add to the story of how drastically his life has changed since he accepted this position.
“I gave you everything you needed to put him away for life.” I scrub my hand over the back of my neck, irritation gnawing at me. “Now, you’re about to let a fucking murderer walk free.”
“Sebastian.” His voice takes on the calm tone that I loathe when we’re anywhere but grabbing a beer at my favorite pub. Our relationship has two distinct facets.
After hours we’re friends.
As a detective and assistant district attorney we rarely see eye-to-eye.
I work hard to find justice for people who have lost their lives at the hands of another. I do what it takes to drop them at Darrell’s feet with as much ammunition as I can to put them away forever.
“One of our witnesses died. The other flipped his story on its end.” He exhales. “I don’t have a case without them.”
It’s been months since I arrested Beacon for the murder of a friend of his. The nineteen-year-old almost cracked in the interrogation room under my questioning before my lieutenant pulled me out.
It was for the same reason it always is. The sight of Beacon’s friend’s lifeless body fueled my temper. He’d bled out from a stab wound to the chest.
I didn’t touch the fucking asshole, but my fists made contact with the wooden table in the interrogation room one too many times according to Christine Hildebrandt, my lieutenant.
Once Beacon asked for a lawyer, I set out to find as much evidence as I could while he sat in a cell unable to make bail. Now, six months later, the son-of-a-bitch is set to walk free.
“You can’t work with what you have left?” I shove a hand through my hair. “What about the blood on the sole of his shoe?”
“He’s the one who called 9-1-1.” Darrell shakes his head. “He had as much blood on his shoes as the paramedics. I won’t win this. Without those witnesses, we’ve got nothing.”
“I’ll talk to the surviving witness,” I offer. “Give me ten minutes with him.”
“That’s not happening.” He leans back in his chair. “He left the country a month ago. It’s over, Sebastian. As much as I wish we could, we can’t win every case.”
“We should,” I bark back. “How did Leonard’s mother take the news that her son’s killer isn’t going to pay for what he did?”
His eyes meet mine. I see the answer before he says a word. “Just as you’d expect.”
I’d expect the woman to fall apart. Leonard Grilson’s mom, Betty, had one child.
I’ll never forget the look on her face when I went to her apartment to tell her he had died. The pain in her voice was palpable. Just as it is every single fucking time I have to walk into someone’s home to tell them their life will never be the same again because a person they love was killed.
I promised Betty her son’s death wouldn’t be in vain.
Now, I’m a fucking liar and she has to live the rest of her days knowing that her kid’s childhood friend shoved a knife through his heart because of an unpaid loan of a few hundred dollars.
“That’s on us.” I stand and button my suit jacket. “Her pain is on us.”
“No.” Darrell rises to his feet. “It’s on Justin Beacon.”
I rest my palms on the top of his desk as I lean forward. “It was our job to put that bastard away, Darrell.”
He raises both hands in the air. “I did my best.”
“It’s not good enough.” I cock a brow in challenge.
His arms cross over his chest. “Get on this side, Sebastian. Go to law school, sit in this chair and do your best. I guarantee you won’t do a better job than I am.”
“Fuck you.” I straighten my stance. “I’d do better. We both know I would.”
“Prove it.” He smiles. “You’d make a great lawyer. You should have stuck with your first instinct.”
I laugh as I turn to leave. “Beers next Tuesday night at Easton Pub, Darrell. You’re buying.”
“Sure,” he calls as I open the door to his office. “I’m not joking about law school. Go. It’s what you’re meant to do.”
Darrell is one of only a handful of people who knows that I was accepted into law school years ago.
I didn’t pursue it. Instead I followed in my father’s footsteps by joining the force. Turning my life upside down to become a lawyer isn’t going to happen. I left that dream in my past.
