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“You couldn't know, Aiden,” she says quietly. “It’s not like you look at his financials. He’s the boss, right?”
“I should've known, though. All this time he had me working bullshit cases that I could solve in my sleep and despite it all, I figured it was a learning thing, earning my chops. Now you’re saying it’s all just part of some elaborate plan? But why? And for what? I'm nothing. I'm no one.” I pace my apartment, talking to myself more than anything.
“He's your friend and you've known him for years. He has never let you down so why would you suspect him? But now that we know something isn't right, we can find out exactly what's going on.”
“Damn well hope so,” I spit out. If I wasn’t working tonight, I might just consider drowning myself in liquor.
“And for the record, you’re not alone, Aiden. You've got me,” she replies, like it's really that simple.
“That’s sweet of you to say, but we both know that’s a lie,” I say, my anger vanishing and a resigned sadness taking its place. “Not anymore.”
“Aiden…”
“No. It’s OK, Beautiful. You’re just top of the now long list of people I’ve fucked over in my life that I’ll regret until the day I die.” She goes quiet, long enough that I pull the phone away from my ear to check that the call is still connected. “Marls?”
“It’s not like that Aiden. Have I ever been someone to say something I don’t mean?”
“No, but—”
“But nothing. It’s just that now is not the time to talk about anything but the case. We will though, we’ll get our chance once all of this is over. OK?”
I open my mouth to respond but grit my teeth instead. Story of my life—the timing is never right. At least she is open to talking about it at least.
“The main focus now is keeping our cover intact and gathering all the evidence so can close this case,” she says, changing the subject.
“What does that look like? I can't do shit when I'm mainly in the control room during my shifts.”
“I’m not sure yet. That’s a logistical issue we’ll need to be flexible on and maybe take it as it comes,” she says with a rush of breath. “Decker has invited me to meet him at the club this weekend so that could give us an opportunity.”
“If Justin is in, he’ll be locked in his office, which means I’ll be in charge of security anyway.”
“OK…” she says, as if waiting for me to elaborate further.
“It gives me a little more leeway in terms of delegating the control room watch to others and monitoring the club floor.”
“Anyone else would think you’re planning another supply closet kidnapping?” she says with a smile.
I chuckle. “Not sure it would work a second time since I’ve lost the element of surprise now.” She laughs and I close my eyes, committing the sound to memory. “What I mean is that it’s likely we might run into each other on Saturday.”
“Hmm.” And as hard as I try, I can’t work out what her ‘hmm’ might mean. Before I can try, she moves on. “Does Justin spend a lot of time in his office?”
“Never used to, well not since I’ve been there. Something changed a week or so ago.”
“Would that be about the same time Jason turned up at the club?” she asks, and just like that, another connection is made.
“Come to think about it, yeah…”
“Interesting,” she says, tapping her fingers against the keyboard in the background.
“That reminds me, I looked up the footage from the night Jason turned up and there’s no recording of it. It’s just gone.”
“Really?” she says. “Why would they be so obvious? Decker would know that destroying evidence is the first sign of guilty. It almost seems a little sloppy. Overwriting or deleting video footage is always a dead giveaway.”
“Who knows,” I reply. “But just to be safe, I checked the tapes for an hour either side of when it supposedly happened and there was no disturbance, no scene. It was all smooth sailing from what I could see.”
“Dammit. I really hope that’s not why I can’t get hold of Jason either.”
I groan, hating how this case keeps going from bad to worse. “He’s missing now too?”
