AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The papers from HR burned a hole in his gut. Made him feel sick from the bile. The HR clerk had been nice about it. The department had been doing an audit. His paperwork wasn’t fully in order. Some things had been missing. He knew why they were; Wichita Falls liked to play with their grunts’ paperwork sometimes. Screw things around.
Hide things. Twist things to use against their grunts when they had them under their thumb. Well, the HR tech had noticed his next of kin, his beneficiary, that kind of thing. Paperwork was missing. They needed it replaced.
There had been pity in her big green eyes when she’d looked at him, when he told her the only family he had was dead now. Told him he needed to update his life insurance policy today.
Girl was right. It was time.
But who in the hell was he supposed to leave his shit to now? He didn’t have as much as he’d had before the divorce. And he doubted his ex would want it at all. She’d told him flat out she wanted no memories of what had happened before. Why would she?
She was marrying that dental hygienist next month. He had three teenagers she was going to help him raise. She was forgetting Sol and Maribeth forever. Damn her.
He would never forget their baby girl like that.
Not that he thought Margie ever would either. But she had three other kids to focus on now.
But he wanted his ex happy. He truly did. She deserved it after having to put up with Sol for so long. But he didn’t want what he’d worked for his whole life going to that hygienist’s kids or nothing.
He just sat there. It was a three-hundred-thousand-dollar policy. He’d always supplemented the premium, far above what the TSP had been willing to pay, so that his family would be taken care of if something happened to him and all. He hadn’t wanted them to struggle.
Now, it was just useless. No damned point to it at all.
He had the two cars he’d restored. Classics. He had spent a lot of time working on those damned things. They were both worth about forty grand each or so. He had another one hundred twenty grand in savings. From moving that damned OPJ. With the cars and the life insurance, hell, he was worth a good half a million. More, considering the value of his house and that cabin he had over in Louisiana and everything. Maybe close to three-quarters of a million, even.
Not bad for a fifty-two-year-old cop with only a high school diploma.
And no one to leave it to if he keeled over right now.
Sol stewed about those damned papers too long. Sol opened the drawer to grab a new pen. And there that photo was. Of his baby girl.
The HR girl had given him a form to fill out. Marked it with one of those little post-it arrows where he needed to sign or write something. Like he was an idiot who couldn’t figure it out.
He wrote down a name. Stared at it in the blue ink.
As it sank in what he was thinking to do. It was right. Fitting, really.
He didn’t regret what he’d written at all.
At least if he died today, someone’s life would be a little better than it was the day before.
But he’d need more information. He turned to his computer. System would have what he needed. He had no doubt about that. He just had to find it. Sol typed in a name.
And began to read. Recognized the second name there. Fifteen minutes later, rage had him shaking so hard he wanted to scream. Sol just sat there, horrified.
Not believing what he was seeing at all.
What that bastard had done.
61
Miguel shut the door to his truck. It had been a hell of a day. He was almost regretting taking on the Homicide division now. There were far too many cases sitting there unsolved, without any clear answers. Newcomb had been a complete dumbass. Wichita Falls was welcome to him.
But now Miguel had to clean up Newcomb’s mess.
Ricky Ahumada’s case was just the latest homicide that had a few fishy parts floating around. He’d worked on figuring that out all afternoon. Until he’d lost track of time. He was paying for that now—probably literally.
Miguel had fifteen minutes to get across town to get the kids from the sitter’s before she charged him five dollars every fifteen minutes per kid. That added up fast. He was running late, again.
The move to Homicide was supposed to mean slightly less erratic hours than what they were turning out to be. But that wasn’t anything that could be controlled. He’d burned through two other sitters in the last year. Finding a daycare he could afford with variable hours wasn’t something he had managed yet. When the older two were in school, things would be a bit better. He hoped.
