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“Wait! Wait!” Sherman got the words out before Zbirak even had time to turn around and head toward the exit. “Please don’t hurt them. This is between you and me.”
“No, Mr. Sherman. This is between me and Rose. You are merely a means to an end. As is the rest of your family.”
“I have her phone number.” Sherman hung his head in defeat. “We bought it for emergencies. She won’t answer for anyone but me.”
“Ah, Mr. Sherman.” Zbirak smiled. This was good news, indeed. “I knew you were holding out on me.”
29
Cassie held her breath, waiting for Harris to say something. Harris stared off into space, as though reliving the worst days of her life. Rose shifted uncomfortably on the bed, breaking the spell. Cassie took a step forward.
“Adelaide, what are you—”
Harris stood. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“Stay out of it, Cassie. You can’t fix this.”
“I’m not trying to fix anything.” The anger and sadness that had been building inside burst from her chest. There was a growl in her voice, and she took Harris by the shoulders. “I lost David, too, Adelaide. And I want and deserve to know why. I knew that man for ten years. He was my best friend. The only person I could go to when shit got hard. I can’t live the rest of my life thinking he was paid off by Aguilar. There’s got to be another reason. Some explanation for why he’d do that.”
Harris looked at Cassie, and for a moment, she thought the detective was going to snap back. Instead, she deflated in her arms, sagged back down onto the bed, and put her face in her hands. “I don’t know everything.”
“I don’t need to know everything. Just what’s weighing on you. Maybe I can’t change anything, but you won’t have to deal with this all on your own.”
Harris groaned and looked up at Cassie. Something in her eyes seemed wild and unhinged. Desperate. But blinking it away, she was Adelaide again. “At the beginning of my career, I fired my gun and killed someone. A nineteen-year-old kid. The situation was complicated.”
Cassie kept her voice gentle. Encouraging. “Complicated?”
“I caught him trying to rob a convenience store after hours. Later I found out his dad owned the store. Someone had called it in, though, and I responded.” She took a deep breath. “He was aggressive, high on something, and ranting and raving. When he pulled a knife, I pulled my gun. It was just meant to be a warning. Hell, I didn’t even have it raised. Then he charged.” Lifting her sleeve, she showed Cassie a thin white scar on her arm where she’d blocked a blow. “I managed to get him off, but he raised the knife again. I panicked and fired.”
“You were defending yourself.”
Harris shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I should’ve found another way.” The detective looked up at Cassie like she wanted the woman to hate her. “He had a knife. I had a gun.”
“But he was still dangerous.” Cassie knelt in front of Harris. “What if he took your gun, or stabbed you. You were protecting yourself.”
“He was nineteen.” A sob escaped, but Harris was quick to pull it back. “With his whole life ahead of him. He could’ve turned things around, but I took that from him.”
There was nothing Cassie could say to make her feel better, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. “You were cleared to go back to active duty, right? They would’ve investigated. You’re still a detective.”
Harris shrugged. “He had a record. He came from a family of criminals. His father was Luca White, one of the biggest drug traffickers in Savannah. No one felt bad about his death. Except me. And David. He knew how I felt. He understood how hard it was.”
“Why do you think this had something to do with David and Aguilar?”
Harris re-centered herself, her voice steadier now. “White went on a rampage after this. He was gunning for me. Half the force kept detail on my house for a month. It wasn’t a good time for me.” She rubbed the scar on her arm. “David stayed with me the entire time. He said he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. That he’d take care of everything.”
“I’m assuming they arrested White after that?”
Harris shook her head. “He was sloppy. Not really keeping a low profile.
One day, White turned up dead. Shot pointblank. Aguilar filled the vacuum after that. No one can prove it, but I always thought he killed White. Took over his operations.” She nodded toward the computer, where the flash drive was. “That first date on David’s record was only a few months after I shot White’s son.”
Cassie tried to keep up, but there were too many puzzle pieces, and she couldn’t see how they fit together. “But David wasn’t getting paid. It looked like he had a debt with Aguilar.”
“You mean like David paying Aguilar to kill White before White had a chance to kill me?”
Cassie shook her head. She didn’t want to think about it. “David would never do that.” But she didn’t feel so sure. White was a bad person. And David would’ve been trying to save Harris. Cassie looked over at Rose, who had been sitting on the other bed with wide eyes for far too long now. “Do you have any idea? Did Randall ever mention David?”
