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Probably both.
“Hey, Rocky, I’ve got Anya here to see you.”
“Great, thank you.”
She gave a little nod and stepped back out, Anya stepping in her place. Angel snuck out behind her, waving a hand over his shoulder as he shut the door.
Anya stood with well-earned confidence, rocking an artfully torn-up jean jacket with a dozen different patches sewn into the arms and chest, adding pops of color that matched with the various colorful rings she had placed into her long dark braids. She was Stonewall’s helpful neighborhood hacker and came highly recommended by the rest of the detectives. I had only recently met her after needing her assistance on Hazel’s case. Unlike most people I’d met, she seemed to have clicked with me right from the start.
“Hey, Rocky. Nice little office you’ve got.”
“It’s not the penthouse view like you have, but I’ll take it.”
“I can hook you up with some cool VR goggles—it’ll be like you’re up in a penthouse all damn day.” She came over to the chair in front of my desk and sat down, posting an arm on the back of it.
“I think I’ll pass for now.”
She placed a black USB on my desk. “All right, well, forget the goggles, then. Let’s get to the important stuff.”
I grabbed the USB drive and plugged it into the computer. Almost instantly, a folder popped up with a couple of different files. I turned the screen so both Anya and I could get a good look at it.
“Click that one first.” She tapped on the last file in the row. When it opened, grainy black-and-white surveillance footage filled my screen. We were looking out into a parking lot. It was Sam’s parking lot. I could see his building in the distance.
“Where’d you find this?” I asked, leaning in.
“There’s a closed-down outlet mall on the other side of the parking lot. Thankfully, one of their cameras was still plugged in and grabbed some footage I think you’d be interested in.”
Two shapes moved in the video. It was hard to discern who they were exactly, but just judging from the tall and slightly overweight build, I could see which one was Jesse. He was facing the camera and was making out with someone. It happened quick, and when it was over, Jesse could be seen looking around, practically whipping his head in a full 360-degree turn. The long-haired girl he was with didn’t seem all that bothered. She even tried to initiate another kiss, but Jesse pushed her off.
And then the girl turned.
And my jaw cracked open.
“Wait a second,” I said, leaning in. The girl who the neighbor had witnessed kissing Jesse, and the one I was assuming was with Jesse now, wasn’t a girl at all. “Who is that?”
“That’s Jesse’s best friend, Nick. And this was taken ten minutes before the murder.”
“Holy shit…”
I watched as Nick and Jesse seemed to have a short shouting match before Jesse started to go up to his place, Nick following close behind.
Nick, the homophobic asshole, was the very last person to see Jesse. And he was there when the murder happened.
The video cut out. “Do we have any video of the moments after the murder? I want to see what Nick does.”
“The rest of the footage is corrupted. I’ve been trying to fix it, but I can’t work miracles, unfortunately.”
“Fuck.” I needed to talk to Nick. I’d been wanting to for weeks now, but I couldn’t track him down. All I had was an old place of work, and they hadn’t seen him in months. His social media had been filled with all those hate comments, but nothing telling me where I could find the bastard.
“All right, now click the next file.”
I exited the video and clicked the unnamed file.
“Anya, take back what you just said.” I smiled as I read what was on my screen. “You really are a miracle worker.”
“Wellllll.” She shrugged and brushed off some imaginary dirt from her shoulder.
Filling up my computer screen was a phone bill, registered to Nick Ricks, but it wasn’t the charges that interested me. It was the address at the top left corner. Nick’s address.
“Wait a second.” I narrowed my gaze, reading over the street three times before I spoke again. “He lives down the street from Stonewall… are you fucking kidding me? He’s been down the block this entire time?”
“Yeah, crazy, huh? When I found this bill, I thought it had to be some kind of cosmic joke. So I dug around some more. The next file is a copy of his driver’s license. Registered to the same address.”
“Holy… shit.”
I clicked out of the files and grabbed my phone from the desk, standing up from my seat and startling Anya.
“Thank you, Anya. You’re a boss.”
“And you’re about to go confront Nick, aren’t you?”
“You’re also a fortune teller,” I said, smiling. I felt like this was the biggest crack in the case yet, and it could be exactly what I needed to finally get Hazel off the suspect list. If Nick was the one who murdered Jesse, which it was seeming more than likely based off timing alone, then I had to focus all my energy on putting him behind bars. And if he wasn’t the killer, then he must have known who was.
