At the end of my rant, I am up on my feet with my finger pushing down on the table to drive my point home. Fuck this. This is why I don't try to do the right thing.
"If they had came for me I would have sent them back...in body bags to whoever put the hit out on me. And make no mistake I wouldn't have taken out my favorite coffee shop while doing it either."
A man dressed the same as Roberts sticks his head in and motions for him to step out for a moment. I am again left in my box but this time I start pacing back and forth. This is going to be a long fucking night if they don't stop looking up there asses for answers that don't have anything to do with what happened. I can't wait to get the fuck out of here and do my own investigation. I wasn't lying when I told Roberts that the people at the café were my friends. They were good people that didn't deserve to die. I can't walk away from this and just let it go.
Roberts comes back into the room and gives me a long silent look. "Well, you must know someone somewhere because my boss just got a phone call from the commissioner telling us to let you go or else."
I look at him; I know exactly who called in a favor for me. I reach for my jacket hanging on the back of the chair and turn to get the hell out of here as fast as I can. But Roberts stops me again when he keeps talking.
"Apparently you have friends in really high places because they want me to 'let you help' with the case." I can tell Roberts hates the idea of letting someone he’s not sure he can trust poke around in his case. I've been there before. I understand what it's like.
"Those people really were my friends. I can help you if you'll let me." I sit back down at the table and look him in the eye so he can search for a lie or an untruth. He won't find any but he doesn't know that. He has to find out for himself. Whatever he sees must show him I am serious. He throws a file up on the table towards me. When I pull it closer I can see it's everything they have on this case.
I waste no time going through the pictures and reading over the victim's bios.
"I realize this is not how things are done but can I have a copy of this to take home with me? I can think things through better when I am in my own place and check up on some things for you."
Roberts doesn't say a word but tilts his head and waves his hand for me to take the file in front of me. I wait for him to leave before I call an Uber and open the file. My fucking hands shake as I flip through the information. There's something in the file I have to see before I can walk out the door and go back to my cold apartment to delve into the world I know I will find when I start looking for the killers.
Kathryn St. Claire. Her name is Kathryn St. Claire and she lives close to the café. She's a fucking baby like I suspected she was, all of twenty-three years old. Her account of what happened makes me sound like a fucking superhero. I don't know if I'm flattered or if I'm pissed. I was not kind to this girl and yet she still spoke highly of me when she talked about our time together. A note in the file states she wants to ask someone to thank me for her. I guess Roberts wasn't going to mention that part in his interview with me.
I shouldn't be looking at her information. Looking only leads to wanting and wanting for a man like me leads to getting. For her sake and mine, she needs to stay firmly out of arms reach. Even if I have to tell myself that over and over until I believe it.
***
And that is exactly what I do as I get back home. The entire way here I talked myself out of stalking her on social media, looking for her phone number in the file, or even having the damned driver drive by her address. I don't get the door shut before I'm reaching for my laptop, looking stuff up on her. She is a typical twenty-something. She keeps all the social media accounts you would expect, although she doesn't use them as often as someone her age normally would. She was tagged in a lot of pictures but that was done by friends. A wave of unexplained jealousy consumes me when I see her in a tiny bathing suit looking back with a smile on her face and the devil in her eyes.
It's not for me to be jealous over her. She doesn't belong to me. I can't have her because of who I was and who I am. Hell, I don't know if she would even be safe with me. What if someone did come looking for me from my time as a government fixer? What then? Some young girl doesn't need all that bull shit in their life and having to worry about heavy stuff because of something their boyfriend did years ago.
I laugh out loud but it holds no mirth. Boyfriend. I don't think a man like me would be considered a boyfriend in any sense of the word. Maybe fuck-buddy. The sheer fact that I myself can't see me being anyone's boyfriend tells me I shouldn't be messing with this woman. She doesn't seem like the type to have fuck-buddies running around everywhere.
God damn it, now I'm mad again. I push the thought of her having several lovers hanging around waiting to make her feel better out of my head and start on what I really need to be focused on. Something about the crime, or some aspect of what went down, is missing. It is sitting right in front of me but I'm just not seeing it. I go over the pictures again and again. I put in a call to my good friend and wait for him to get back to me with anything he might have on the situation.
He works through channels the cops won't, and can't, use. When I start looking, the first name that comes back with anything other than social media posts on it is the lawyer, which isn't shocking. Even lawyers have to advertise. But having a client who is being charged with a number of very serious crimes connected to a wealthy Senator is. I search deeper and find out the douchebag's client was none other than the contractor for the shipping company who "transported goods" to and from the country, only this guy's containers were found full of women.
The guy claims he doesn't know anything about the girls and never actually looked at what was being loaded and unloaded in his containers, which is such bull shit. The lawyer from the café is standing beside him in several shots taken just outside of courtrooms.
I knew about the Senator and the shit storm that exploded back in May and early June. It had been all over the news. I even knew one of the men who helped investigate the trafficking ring. The Senator hasn’t gone to court yet and is saying it is all a misunderstanding, that someone inside his cabinet was responsible for all the crimes committed. He is still grinning and wooing the public over to his side while he’s a free man. His trial won't start for another six or eight months, maybe longer if they can't find enough witnesses that are willing to testify against him.
I go through the photos again taking special care to look at the lawyer for anything pointing to him being the target. When my phone rings I think about not answering it but I’d told Roberts I wanted to be kept informed and the only way to do that would be to answer.
"Dragomir, I just got confirmed identities on the last victims and the next of kin will be notified ASAP. Did you happen to catch the name of that lawyer standing two up from you in line?"