Apparently, something had changed.Sue’s eyebrow did not suggest she’d be willing to go into details on what.
“If you can’t,” she said briskly, tucking the files closer to her ribs with her elbow, “no hard feelings.I can fit it in.”
“No,” Javi said quickly.Whatever had inspired Sue’s change of heart wasn’t immediately relevant.He might not have expected her to put her neck out for him, but they’d gotten on well enough that he didn’t think she’d play along with any of Kincaid’s sabotage.Besides, again, if it came down to it, Javi could just argue he was doing his job.“I can take that off your plate.”
Sue looked unsurprised as she nodded.
“I appreciate that,” she said.It sounded genuine, maybe with a hint of dry humor around the edges.She dropped back out of step with him as she reached up to her earpiece with one hand.“I’ll send the files through.And sorry about that, Mel.Yes, we need any CCTV you can pull off the corridor from Joel’s house…”
She walked away.
Javi glanced at his watch to check the time.Based on the time and how willing the agents would be to blow through the speed limits on their way back to town, he had roughly an hour before he had to intercept Joel’s husband.Not a lot of time, but the window they were working with was narrow.He’d at least be able to look for anything out of character.
Theforty-eighthoursbeforeSSA Joel walked out of her life were fiscally unremarkable.
No large withdrawals or deposits.No out-of-character purchases.Nothing out of place.
It would have been easy to pinpoint, too.SSA Joel was a creature of habit.The move to Plenty hadn’t changed that.The first gas station she’d filled up at was the gas station shealwaysfilled up at.Her groceries were delivered.At least twice a week she ordered takeout from one of three restaurants in a two-mile radius of the Airbnb.
Anyone else’s file and Javi would have considered the consistency suspicious, but it fit Joel.She’d been the same in Phoenix.Javi remembered working late with her, and she’d always ordered the same meatball sub from the same sandwich shop.They’d known her phone number.
The thought skipped through Javi’s head in passing.It was just a relevant detail to the case.
He almost got away without the familiar pang of guilt/grief/shame that the memory was due.Luckily for him, his mind filled in the details he needed to make it hurt, with the sharp sensory recall of sauce and sourdough on the tongue of the man Javi shouldn’t have been kissing.
It had been Eric who kissedhim, Javi recalled.It had been unexpected, an impulse born of opportunity as Joel stepped outside to check in with Kincaid about their relief.The excuse tried to pull itself up into the light.Javi shoved it ruthlessly back down under the surface.That wasn’t the point.
Eric, a mob accountant who’d had a crisis of conscience after his father’s death, had been within his rights to kiss whoever he’d wanted.It was Javi who’d had a professional code of conduct and duty of care.
So it wasn’t about who’d kissed who first.It wasn’t even about Kincaid, who should have known better than to see that brief moment of connection as an opportunity rather than a slip.It was that Javi was a man who liked to make excuses, and that led to a bloody operating theatre, guilt, and a career hanging by a thread.
The guilt kept him on the straight and narrow.It wasn’t a punishment, it was a boundary.
And one, Javi reminded himself as he glanced at his watch, that had done its job.So there was no need to wallow.He definitely didn’t have the time for it.Joel’s financials had seemed promising, but since they’d turned out to be a dead end—
Javi stopped mid-irritated swipe to close the file on his tablet as something caught his eye.
Verizon.$14.99.
It was just outside of the forty-eight-hour window Javi had imposed on his review of the files.Mostly for convenience, partially because Joel’s disappearance didn’t have any of the telltale markers of premeditation.Someone would have marked it eventually, but he’d almost missed it.
Something told him that would have mattered.
Unhelpfully, though, not why.
Javi grimaced and rubbed his thumb on the tense spot between his eyebrows.He had a personal line, so did Joel.Why was that…
Because Javi recalled abruptly, his introduction to doing Joel’s scutwork had started with reviewing the office personnel files.Including updating her details once she’d officially onboarded in the suboffice.Her personal line was on her husband’s T-Mobile family plan.
This wasn’t it.
Javi tapped the charge to pull up the details.His phone buzzed with an incoming call in his pocket, the plastic rattling against his hipbone as he ran his eye down the information.He stifled an exasperated curse—they had to arrivenow—as he fished the phone out.
“Merlo,” he said shortly.
The charge was a direct debit.It came out once a month and had been set up…eight years ago.
“We’re just pulling in to the Center now,” the agent told him.Javi glanced up to confirm that and saw the navy blue Dodge stop at the curb outside the front door.“Should we let him go on in?”
