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Victor held his hand up. “That,” he said. He crouched, which made him wince, but he kept doing it until he reached the corner between Brady’s bookshelf and desk. And then, amidst the silence, a soft mewling broke through. “Shit,” Victor said.
He moved slowly, and there, beneath a heap of fallen laundry, a malnourished cat blinked back at him, whimpering.
“Damn it,” Victor cursed softly, but his hands were gentle as he scooped up the creature, cradling it against his chest. The cat didn’t move, didn’t try to dart out of the way. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you now. Check to see if Brady had any food out for the cat, Grayson?”
“On it, Vic,” I said.
I rummaged through the scattered mess on the kitchen counter, eventually finding a half-empty bag of cat food. “Looks like Brady was taking care of this little guy,” I said, pouring some kibble into a bowl I found nearby. The cat’s emaciated form perked up at the sight and smell of food, eagerly devouring what we had given it.
Sofia knelt down beside Victor and gently stroked the cat’s matted fur. “Poor thing must have been terrified,” she murmured, her voice filled with a mixture of compassion and sorrow.
“We can’t just leave him here,” Victor said. “He must have been so scared. His water bowl is empty, he was probably drinking from the toilet.”
Sofia’s gaze softened as she looked at Victor. “I agree,” she said, her voice filled with determination. “We can’t abandon him after everything he’s been through. We’ll take him with us. What’s his name?”
I glanced at the collar around the cat’s neck, where a small tag dangled. “It says his name is Oliver,” I replied, a hint of a smile tugging at my lips. “Seems like Brady had a soft spot for him.”
Victor’s eyes softened as he continued to cradle Oliver in his arms. “Well, Oliver, looks like you found yourself some new friends,” he said, his voice gentle and soothing.
“We’ll keep looking while you tend to Oliver, Victor,” I told him, looking up at Sofia. “Anything that looks off or anything that might link him to the Viper would be a good find.”
“Of course,” Sofia nodded, her eyes filled with determination. “We won’t stop until we find the truth.”
As Victor settled Oliver into a makeshift bed of clothes to comfort him, Sofia and I ventured deeper into the apartment. We meticulously searched every room, every inch of space, hoping to uncover any clues that would shed light on the motive behind Brady’s framing.
In the study, I found a stack of notebooks tucked away on a bookshelf. Carefully flipping through the pages, I discovered that Brady had meticulously documented his translation projects, noting down every client, every project detail. One particular entry caught my attention—a recent job for a prominent businesswoman named Nicole Monroe. Captain Monroe’s wife, if I recalled correctly.
This was good, but if exonerating Sam meant trying to pin his crimes on his direct boss, that was going to be very tricky.
I fingered the phone in my pocket…Sofia’s phone, the one Sam had when we found the orchids in his house a lifetime ago. The one I had never given back.
I set it down on Brady’s nightstand, next to his copy of Song of Achilles, took a deep breath and thought about what I should do.
About whether this was a good or bad idea.
I didn’t like lying to Sofia, but this might be our only choice.
So I did what I had to do.
I cleared my throat and called them in.
Sam I
The steering wheel felt sticky in my hands, a tangible reminder of the Florida humidity that clung to everything, even as night descended. This little beater was the car I drove when I wanted to get away from everything and I couldn’t be sure that the cops wouldn’t be following me. Of course they would pull my records, but they were stupid enough to only rely on what they had seen, and what they had seen was the car I drove to work almost every day.
I maneuvered through the labyrinth of Orlando’s forgotten streets, where shadows clung to the corners like cobwebs and the city, which once felt vibrant with pulse, felt like it was dying under my father’s coil.
I hadn’t wanted to believe my sister, but when I thought about everything she had said, I had to admit that it made sense.
There was no other reason someone would be targeting just the two of us.
I hadn’t wanted to believe it, so I called my friend Morgan Phillips, who worked in the evidence locker and asked her to pull the records for my parents’ accident. She did, and she paused for a second as she looked at something.
“That’s so weird…” she said. “Did your dad wear dentures or something? He wasn’t elderly, was he?”
I swallowed. “No?”
“Yeah, so this is strange,” she said. “We identified your father, Eduardo Reyes, not from his remains but from the ID he had on him. But he had no teeth, it turns out, because someone asked for dental identification for both your dad and your mom.”
