Kara was exhausted but couldn’t sleep.
When she went to bed after dinner, telling Matt and Michael that she was tired and had a headache, she hadn’t been lying. But she’d sat at her laptop and started researching. She read more about Will Lattimer and First Contact. Will was quoted criticizing some of the government programs that were supposed to help the homeless. He called sixty thousand homeless in Los Angeles a “humanitarian crisis” and claimed he had a nine-point plan that would virtually end homelessness in less than three years for a fraction of the money that the city had already spent but, “The homeless industrial complex will never initiate my program because they would lose billions of dollars. They care more about the money than they do about the people they are supposed to help.”
He was also quoted as being critical of harm reduction programs that didn’t provide rehab options. “Most homeless outreach programs funded by the city aren’t even allowed to offer treatment.”
Kara didn’t know if that was true, but she’d seen enough city employees giving away the “tools of the trade”—pipes, clean needles, foil, Narcan—that she wouldn’t be surprised.
She searched Violet Halliday and found a bio on a website for a computer company that she helped start up ten years ago at the age of nineteen. The bio indicated that she was attending community college while working for the company, which streamlined some sort of online form system. The description went way over Kara’s head, but apparently it was a good program because the company sold to a bigger company, and Violet was one of four people credited with the technology breakthrough.
Impressive. Probably. Kara still didn’t know what the program did, but other people seemed to appreciate it.
There wasn’t much online about Violet, and everything she found about Will she already knew. She was about to shut down and try to sleep when she saw an obituary that mentioned Violet. It ran three weeks ago.
Halliday, Jane Elizabeth, 54. Died in Venice Beach on August 20 of hypoxia. She is survived by her daughter, Violet Halliday, 29, of Burbank. In lieu of flowers, donations should be sent to First Contact, an organization that seeks to empower the homeless so they can become self-sufficient.
Kara frowned. Hypoxia was almost always caused by a drug overdose.
Was there a more personal reason for Violet’s involvement in Craig’s investigation?
She closed her computer and lay back on the bed. She fell into a deep, heavy sleep and dreamed about a woman overdosing on fentanyl, then it morphed into Colton being shot over and over and over...
Kara woke up suddenly. She looked at her clock. It was just after midnight; she’d slept for two hours. But something had been bugging her about her meeting with Lex on Monday, then yesterday with Elena. After reading the obituary, she realized what it was—she had never been informed about Colton’s will.
She was in it. She knew because Colton had joked about it.
“‘And to my partner, Kara Quinn, I leave my Harley, which is far superior to her wimpy bike.’”
“My bike is not wimpy.”
“It’s for girls.”
“I am a girl.”
“The Harley is better, and it’s one of the lighter, faster models.”
She laughed, finished her beer, grabbed two more for her and Colton. They’d just finished a very successful investigation together and were relaxing at his place. “Don’t tease me. I might really want it.”
“I’m not teasing. I have a will. Don’t you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t have anything of value.”
“Your bike. Your condo.”
“It’ll go to my Grams.”
“Your gun collection?”
“So you’re saying if I start pushing up the daisies, you want my guns.”
“That Colt .45 you have is pretty damn sweet.”
“It’s not practical to carry, but yeah, it’s nice to have around.”
“You need a will, Kara,” Colton said, now serious. “We’re cops. More than that, we take the dangerous cases because we have no family.”
“Hey, my grandma is my family.”
“You know what I mean.”
She sipped. “I take the dangerous cases because someone has to, and they’re more fun.”
He touched his bottle to hers. “True, that.” He drained half his beer. “I’m serious about the will. The union has a template and you can use the staff lawyer, might as well take advantage considering we pay dues. You should go see him, have it written up. I did.”
“Damn, Fox, I don’t like talking about dying. You or me.”
“Then promise me you’ll write a will. You can leave everything to me or to charity or to your grandma. But you need to do something, or the courts and government will get involved and probably screw it all up.”
Or worse, she thought, my parents will try to get it.
“Deal.” She drank while Colton got up and flipped the steaks. “Do you really have a will?”
“Yep, and I’m leaving you my Harley. You can sell it if you want, but it’s a nice bike. And you get my badge.”
“Don’t.”
“Seriously. We make a good team. If I bite it, I want you to have something to remember me by.”
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Colton lied to her about his will. Or he changed it and wrote her out of it.
Something itched in the back of her mind and she would never get back to sleep if she didn’t scratch it.
She opened her computer and went to a real estate search engine, typed in Colton’s address in Echo Park. The last time the house had been sold was ten years ago—that was when Colton bought it. It wasn’t for sale now.
Might mean nothing.
Might mean something.
Will has been avoiding you. He avoided you Monday, you had to practically hunt him down yesterday, and he hasn’t even tried to get back to you about Violet—and she’s still missing.
Colton and Will were close. Will had brought Colton into the investigation when homeless men were being murdered, maybe he brought him into this investigation.
Elena said there was an undercover operation still going.
She wouldn’t tell Kara who.
It could be...
It could be Colton, and if it was, he wouldn’t stop until he found Violet. And if he did, and she was in danger, what better place to hide her but in the house of a dead man?
Her heart raced. Could Colton actually be alive?
No. No, he wouldn’t do that to her. Lex wouldn’t do that to her. She’d blamed herself because she hadn’t been in town to watch his back. She blamed the FBI for outing him, Lex for benching her, the world for the unfairness of his murder.
She’d gone to his funeral. She’d cried.
Yet...something was off. Maybe...maybe he wasn’t alive—the thought seeming ridiculous now. Maybe he left his house to Will, and Will was hiding Violet there. And she didn’t get word about his bike and badge because she was out of state...
But she didn’t know. She didn’t know if Colton was dead or if he could be alive. She had to know for certain.
Kara almost left then and there, but Matt would be furious.
She felt very uncomfortable. Colton had once been her lover, now Matt was her lover. She and Colton were friends with benefits, but they were still friends, and they shared a lot of benefits. Matt was...more. She didn’t know what yet, but more, because she felt different with Matt than with anyone else she’d been with. She wasn’t certain how Matt felt about her previous relationship with Colton. He was very old-fashioned about some things.
Yet...she didn’t know what she was going to face, and she needed backup. She could ask Michael, but she wanted Matt.
She dressed all in black, left her room, crossed the living area of the suite and knocked on the door of the room Michael and Matt were sharing.
“Matt, it’s Kara. We need to talk.”
It took him a minute, but he got up, opened the door. He’d obviously been sleeping hard—his face was still splotchy from where he slept on his cheek. “Sorry,” she said.
He glanced behind him, closed the door, looked at what she was wearing. “What’s going on?”
“I think Colton’s alive.”
He blinked once, twice, still waking up. “Why?”
“A lot of little things, but tonight I found the obituary for Violet’s mom. She was a drug addict, died of an overdose this summer. I fell asleep and woke up remembering Colton’s will. He had one, and he left me some things. We had this conversation a few years ago... Anyway, that’s not important. No one contacted me about his will. And then I looked up his house—it’s never been sold or even listed, not since he bought it. And Will Lattimer has been avoiding me. Will was Colton’s best friend. He was at his funeral...but then I remembered the funeral. Will was there, but he left early. He said all the cops were making him antsy. Will doesn’t have issues with cops, so that didn’t really make sense. But I dismissed it because I was in shock—and Lex got me out quickly because he was afraid Chen would come after me.
“And then, the final tipping point—one of Colton’s last cases. A killer was targeting homeless men. Colton went undercover and tracked him, found him. I remembered how seamlessly he had disappeared, how he had worked closely with Will...and how they always met at Echo Park Lake to exchange information. That’s where I found Will on Tuesday—at the lake. I didn’t put it together then, but now? It’s all I can think about.”
“Why would LAPD fake his death?”
“That’s not the question I have. I know why—they want him so deep that no one knows he’s looking. This explains why Elena wouldn’t tell me anything, not even a hint about the undercover operation. And if everyone thinks Colton is dead, he’s the best to do it.” She paused, considered. “I don’t think they faked the shooting—that was real. I think he lived—maybe he was injured, maybe he had a vest—but I think they took advantage of the opportunity. I don’t know! Maybe I’m wrong about everything.”
“Kara—” Matt reached for her, but she stepped away.
“Matt, I appreciate your support, but I need to do something. I’m going to go to Colton’s. He lives in Echo Park. It’s not far.”
“I’m coming.”
“I have to do this by myself. But that’s because of me, not you. I don’t know how to explain. I’m sorry if this makes you mad, I don’t want to make you mad. I trust you. This is just...it’s my past, and I have to know the truth.”
Matt stared at her. “I appreciate you coming to me, and I understand that you think you need to do this alone. I don’t know that you’re right, but there is definitely something going on with your boss and your lieutenant. We’re a team, Kara—you, me, Michael, the others. You need to use your team even when you want to be a maverick. You have always had my back, every case we’ve worked. You have to know I have yours.”
“If I’m right about this, my judgment about everything is wrong. And if my judgment is wrong? I’ll never be able to do this job because I’ll always doubt myself.”
“No,” Matt said. “Whether you’re right or wrong about Colton, your judgment has never been in question. Don’t start now.”
“I won’t be long,” she said. “I’ll call you—”
“No.”
“Matt, I have to! Please understand.”
“I’m going with you. I’ll let you confront him alone, but I’m going with you to watch your back. I need to tell Michael. Give me five minutes. Please.”
She didn’t want to—she wanted to leave now. She wanted to do this alone. But Matt was right. It was better to have a partner. A partner she trusted.
She said, “I’ll wait.”