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We creep through the house like ghosts, but we don’t find anything promising on the first floor. I keep glancing at the time on my phone, acutely aware of every minute as it passes.
On the second floor, we finally come across what looks like a home office—a large room with a massive mahogany desk and wide windows that flood the room with natural light. The file drawer is locked, but River finds a key in the top desk drawer, and my heart jumps when it works. We grab files out as quickly as we can, flipping through them before putting them back right where we found them.
Most of it is incredibly boring. Legal documents and records of bill payments and things like that.
I’m starting to wonder if we’ll even recognize anything “off” if we see it. I don’t know enough legalese to interpret half the shit I’m reading.
Come on, you fucker. Come on. There has to be something.
Goddammit. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Judge Hollowell just reacted strangely when I said he killed Iris for getting pregnant because he didn’t expect me to know about the baby.
But I swear, I saw it in his eyes.
Surprise.
Maybe even something like guilt.
And then relief.
There’s something else he’s covering up.
“Last two files,” Chase murmurs, dragging my attention back to the room as he pulls out two folders, handing one over to River.
I cast my gaze down at the filing cabinet, closing the file I’m holding. We’ve been here for almost two hours, and we’re starting to push our luck.
But we can’t go yet.
“You guys go through anything else you can find in here,” I whisper. “I’m going to see if I can find his bedroom.”
Linc immediately straightens. “I’ll go with you.”
I nod, and the two of us head toward the door. We’re almost there when River’s voice stops us.
“Wait.”
My gaze jerks toward him, my head moving so fast I almost give myself whiplash. He’s staring down at the open file in his hand, his brows furrowed as if he’s trying to translate the contents into another language.
“What?” I ask as Linc and I change course, heading back toward the others. “What is it?”
He doesn’t see my lips move. He’s so caught up in what he’s looking at that he doesn’t track the activity around him like he normally does. He chews on his lip and shakes his head, and when he looks up, I step forward and repeat the question, craning my neck to see what’s on the paper he’s studying so intently.
My heart falls.
It’s just a receipt from a dry cleaner. A refund, it looks like. I don’t know what River’s seeing that’s made him go so still and quiet.
I nudge his shoulder, dipping my head to catch his eye. My heart is beating out the milliseconds like a metronome set too high, echoing the nervous energy I can feel coming off him in waves.
“River. What?”
He blinks, still looking stunned and scared.
“Look at the amount.”
I glance back down at the paper, and my eyes practically pop out of my head. I didn’t even register it at first because no legit dry cleaner would ever give anyone this amount of money. It’s insane.
When I shift my gaze to River, he reads the expression on my face and nods grimly. “I know the name on the bottom too. Niles D’Amato. I’ve seen my dad talk about him with his lawyer buddies. He runs a drug trafficking ring that moves opiates through Connecticut.”
My mouth opens, and my gaze flies back to the papers in River’s hand.
