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Sometimes, Elena stopped here alone on her way home and sat at the bar feeling sorry for herself. Failed marriage, fucked job, a daughter that Elena had saved up money to send to college who was on her fifth year at UC Berkeley and wanted nothing to do with her because Elena was a “fucking cop.” Her daughter had said that to her face and it hurt. A son who planned to enlist in the Marines as soon as he graduated high school, even though she pushed for him to go to college first. But Robby was stubborn. A lot like her.
Kara had listened to Elena practically cry over her daughter because there was no one else she felt comfortable talking to. The men on her squad didn’t understand or thought she was too sensitive. Lex told her that Lizzy would “come to her senses” when she got out into the real world. Her ex had remarried and thought Lizzy was going through a phase. And Robby didn’t talk to either her or her ex about much of anything. He had his friends, played football, and just waited for the day he could leave and fight other people’s wars.
Kara listened and didn’t offer platitudes.
When Kara learned the truth, she would never forgive Elena or Lex. Elena wouldn’t blame her.
Without even asking, Cindy brought over a draft beer for Elena. Lex ordered another double whiskey.
“Well, fuck,” Lex said when Cindy walked away.
“She’s going to figure it out,” Elena said.
“You told her about the FBI, right? The portal?”
“Yeah, and I filled in Costa. He’s all over it. He has the reputation of a bulldog, he won’t let it go.”
“Still fucked,” Lex grumbled and drained his whiskey. They were using the portal as a diversion to keep Kara out of their business.
“How long have you been here?” Elena asked.
“Long enough to be halfway to drunk. You can drive me home or I can Uber. Shit, shit, shit. Kara knows something’s up. This morning, she gave me that look—you know the one she gets when she’s twisting things around in her head because they don’t fit.”
“Gave me the same look,” Elena mumbled and sipped her beer. “I can’t believe Craig is dead.”
“Makes no fucking sense. Chen had enemies. I can buy that someone would take him out. He was sniffing around both Craig and the AUSA talking about making a deal—he knew shit, and that shit got him killed. But why Craig?”
She had been wondering the same thing. “According to Kara, he planned to convene a grand jury this week. That tells me he was closer than we thought to finding out who’s behind the nonprofits he’s been investigating. Why wouldn’t he have told us?”
“He’s been unusually quiet lately. I called Peter, asked him to come by. Maybe Craig talked to him.”
“Dammit, Lex, last week Craig said we didn’t have enough for the grand jury. What’s changed?”
Lex shook his head. “I was thinking about how Halliday’s name came up today. What if she found the missing link in city hall records and told Craig?”
“Why did she run? She’s in the wind. I was skeptical about using her—even though Craig assured us there were precedents—she’s too emotionally involved. She’s edgy and ready to explode. And I don’t know about the legality of what she’s been doing in city hall.”
“I trust Craig,” Lex said. “He worked closely with her. Without Violet, we wouldn’t even have known that there were deleted files.”
Eight months ago, right after Chen was arrested, a huge swath of files had been wiped off government servers. It had made a big splash in the press for a day, then the story disappeared. At first, no one suspected anything other than a computer crash. But Violet had uncovered something potentially criminal—an admin code had been used to erase multiple files over a three-year period right before the system crashed. When they were able to rebuild the system and download backups, files were missing—all files that had to do with the Los Angeles City Housing Grant program.
As far as Elena knew, she had never figured out who had done it, and was still working on recovering the files. Craig had taken information Violet had uncovered and was using it to quietly investigate city officials—both elected politicians and city staff—to determine who, if anyone, had profited from grants that were supposed to go to homeless housing projects. Tangentially, he was reviewing all projects approved by the city council to build housing, and the costs incurred—that meant reviewing proposals, contracts, and finding out if there was fraud, nepotism or padding in any of the projects. It was painstaking work.
Why Craig was rushing this now, Elena could only speculate. Maybe there was a statute of limitations they were butting against, or maybe he finally found the smoking gun. That Violet was now missing was worrisome.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Elena asked.
“Quinn?”
“Violet.”
Lex shrugged. “I called Will, he’s still looking for her. She called him this afternoon, told him that she saw Chen shot on the street. He was going to pick her up, but she wasn’t where she said she’d be. Left her cell phone behind. One of the homeless women that Violet befriended told Will a couple of thugs she’d never seen before were harassing the homeless. They spooked Violet and she disappeared ten minutes before Will got there.”
“Maybe she recognized the shooter.”
“Why didn’t she tell Will? Come to the station? She’s been working with us for months, could have called any of us direct. She didn’t, and that makes me suspicious.”
Lex glanced up and Elena followed his gaze to the door. Peter walked in, looked around uncomfortably. Lex motioned for him to come over.
