AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’s already shaking her head before I can finish talking. Already shaking her head with a determined look on her face to stay with me and listen to what Gibbs has to say.
“I want to know. I’m not going anywhere,” she insists.
“It’s best she stays. This involves her too,” Gibbs informs us, and Mimi and I exchange curious glances.
We go back into the meeting room. She sits next to me, her knee brushes mine and she’s shaking.
“What did you find out?” I ask Gibbs.
He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out an envelope.
“I have a lot. Let’s start with this first. It’s an autopsy report. Probably won’t mean much to you but it was the first thing I got that made me look deeper. To the casual bystander it looks legit,” he points out. “Except for the name of the coroner who did the autopsy and the examination. Nobody there by that name.”
Fuck. I widen my eyes. I’ve heard of shit like this happening. I never believed it would happen to someone I knew though.
Gibbs hands the envelope to me and I take out the report. Mimi and I look
over it. I glance down to the bottom of the report and see the name Derrick Shaffer.
“How can this happen?” Mimi gasps. “How can that kind of thing just happen?”
“Someone was well paid,” I insinuate and she glances at me.
“Exactly,” Gibbs agrees. “It happens when it’s allowed to happen, so I’m guessing the report is fake. It was logged and filed correctly, all procedures looked like they were done correctly. Just the name is wrong. So I have no way of looking past that other than to look deeper into the name than I have. I only know the name doesn’t exist because I’m the guy who can find out shit like that.”
No wonder Claudius works with him.
“So you can’t figure out more about her death?” Mimi asks and Gibbs shakes his head.
“Sorry sweetheart. There’s no way. The name led me nowhere, just a dead end so I can’t do more on that front. No one can. However, I’m also the kind of guy who can find people like Adrian.”
Now we straighten up.
“You found him?” Mimi asks glancing at me with hope filling her expression.
“I did. Found him and William. Well… I can’t claim to finding William because the person listed as being him isn’t him.”
“What? He’s not him?” I narrowed my gaze at him.
“He’s not him at all. I think something happened to him. The state’s attorney doesn’t just fall off the face of the planet without anyone knowing, but if you make it look like he stepped away from politics and the legal world, you throw people off the scent. That’s what they did. Whoever they are. I’m guessing the they in this scenario are your Fontaine friends. They made him disappear. And the only way that I was able to find Adrian was by going out on the limb.”
“What did you do? You did it fast,” Mimi says.
“It’s not about fast. I just know where to look. I know the places to look when people want to disappear and fall off grid. I know the right things to say. On this occasion I did exactly that. I said Evangeline Cipriani’s daughter needed a favor. I reckoned if your guy Porter reacted the way he did when Adrian’s name was mentioned, her name might carry some weight too. It did.”
“What happened?” I ask.
He pulls a piece of notepaper from his pocket and hands it to me.
It has an address.
“Staten Island?” I say when I look at it.
“Yeah. That’s where he is.”
“That’s where I have to go.”
“I’m coming with you,” Mimi jumps in.
