Casey Cox could be dead by now, but instead she’s a burr abscessing into my skin, reminding me every single minute that it’s there. She’s out there ticking, ticking, ticking like a bomb, ready to go off when I least expect it.
“We have to take action,” I tell Sy, my partner, as he piddles around like an old man in his dated kitchen. “The press she’s getting is turning her into a hero. It’s a nightmare. We have to stop that.”
Sy’s frown ripples like scored leather on his face. The alcohol is aging him. “We should give the press some of the photos of Brent Pace’s body,” he says.
“Too risky,” I say. “Chief won’t like that. He’ll say we’ve compromised the investigation.”
“We could leak it, then rant and rave that it got out. If we’re the ones who are livid, Chief won’t think we did it. We can blame Dylan Roberts.”
I think about that for a minute, taking his suggestion to its logical conclusion in my mind. So the TV news anchors who are so intrigued with the murder suspect who saved a girl and her baby—and would love to break the story that she’s not really a killer—would get a taste of the bloody crime she’s wanted for. It could work to reverse public sympathy for her.
“We both know it wouldn’t compromise anything,” Sy adds. “The evidence is what we wanted it to be.”
I grin. “They’d have to go back to talking about how dangerous she is.” I let out a heavy breath and kick the chair in front of me. “He should have gotten her in Shady Grove. This could all be over.”
“I don’t know.” Sy gets up and walks across the kitchen, his house shaking with his boot steps. He pours three fingers of whiskey into a glass, throws it back with a grimace. “Gotta hand it to that girl. She’s got instincts. And if we go trashing Dylan to Chief Gates, he’s just going to dig in. The Paces helped the chief get his job. If they want Dylan to keep looking for her, Chief’s going to stand by his decision.” He lifts the bottle and offers it to me. “Want some?”
“No,” I say. “Need to keep my head clear. So do you. We can’t be making mistakes.”
Sy puts the bottle down hard, and the liquid sloshes against the sides.
“Okay,” I say, “here’s our strategy. First, we leak the pictures to the press, along with a list of the evidence—her DNA left at the scene, the knife in her car . . . Then we go ballistic all over the department, threatening anybody who had access to the pictures. Indignant, we’re-gonna-get-to-the-bottom-of-this kind of rant.”
“You’ll get it to the press?”
“Yeah, I’ll do that. But then we’ll plant stories about Dylan to the chief. Can’t be blatant. We just put some more bugs in his ear about Dylan’s incompetence. Like he’s had some crazy PTSD episodes that we tried to overlook.”
“That didn’t get any traction when you tried it in Chief’s office. Dylan seems too competent. I think we have to be more subtle.”
“We still have to plant doubts.”
“But what about looking for her?” Sy grabs the bottle again, drops into his recliner, levers the footstool up. “We have to find her. I can’t sleep nights knowing she’s out there, on to us. She could expose us anytime. I wouldn’t fare well in prison.”
“Shut up, you’re not going to prison. And how do you know she’s on to us? She’s running from prosecution. That’s all. It doesn’t mean she knows anything. We’ve gotten this far, haven’t we?”
When Sy drinks out of the bottle, I get up and go to him. I grab his face, give it a light slap, then tilt his chin up. “Haven’t I made you rich? Haven’t I? Don’t tell me it hasn’t been a blast. All the garbage we have to put up with, we should be living like kings. We put our lives on the line every mind-numbing day, and most of us don’t make enough money to drive a new car. They owe us this, and we had the backbone to go after it. We got what was ours.”
Sy jerks his face out of my grip. “Maybe we went too far, Gordon. The Andy Cox thing got us in over our heads . . . and then Brent . . .”
“Every single time you get drunk you start wailing about Cox. It was thirteen years ago. We did get away with it.” I grip his face again and set my jaw as I stare into his eyes. “Are we in over our heads? Have we been caught? Has anything happened to us, ever?”
Sy jerks his face away.
“No,” I say, “we’re still living the good life, and Casey Cox is just some kid out there trying to keep her head down. She’s not talking to anybody. We’ll find her soon enough, and when we do, we end it. That’s all. She can join her Honest Abe of a dad in the grave he’s rotting in.”
“But even if he finds her, or if we do, if anything happens to her, the press will be all over it. It’s got their attention now.”
“If we leak the right things, none of that will matter.” I slap the top of his head, point my finger at him. “You keep your head straight, you hear me? That whiskey is making a coward out of you. We control this story, and nobody else. You’ve trusted me this far, and I haven’t let you down. Everything we’ve done is because we had to. We’ve done good, Sy.”
“Okay, Gordon. I get it.”
“No, you don’t. Look at me.” I tip his face up again. His eyes are bloodshot. “Look at me, Sy. Do you trust me?”
“Things get out of control, Gordon.”
“Do you trust me?” I say louder.
He jerks away from me again and wipes his mouth with the back of his arm. “Yes, I trust you!”
“Then we do it this way, and we keep our heads clear, and we follow our strategy. And when Casey Cox is dead, we’re home free.”
“What about Dylan?”
“Dylan’s head’s so twisted that he’ll move on too. Especially if we get him a job at the department. That’s what he really wants. He’ll be fine.”
When I finally get Sy under control, I drive home, my mind racing with the strategy. Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I think of the steps involved in ruining what’s left of Casey Cox’s name. I’m good at this. I’ve done it for years. I even like it.
Unlike Sy, I sleep fine at night.