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“Because that’s the name I heard the other night when that guy got shot,” she trembles. “The young one, the one who died, he was saying Vallejo’s name. And then the woman on the news, Miranda—”
“Fucking London,” Archer rumbles across the room. “Always talking. Never helping.”
“She kept saying Gregory Vallejo, too,” Rory finishes. “She was saying his name every hour since it happened. And then she started showing footage of me.” Her eyes swim with unshed tears. “You can’t really tell it’s me,” she explains. “Because it’s super blurry and stuff. But I know it’s me. I know I was the one running through that restaurant. I was running away.” Her breath hitches. “Instead of helping, I ran away.”
“And you lived to help another day,” I press. I fold my back and lower until she meets my eyes. “They were going to kill you, Aurora. They want you dead, so if you’d doneanythingexcept run, you wouldn’t be here today.”
“I didn’t help,” she whimpers. “Maybe he has a family at home. Or a pet going hungry right now. Maybe he has parents who miss him. Or a—”
“You can’t help him if you’re dead too,” I repeat. “If you’d done anything else the other night, he’d still be dead and without justice. At least by staying alive, you can help him now.”
“How?” she demands jerkily. “How can I make any of this better?”
“You need to tell us what you know,” Archer murmurs. Slowly, he wanders up on my right and comes to a stop beside us. “We’ve been looking for you, Rory. Trying to figure out who you are.”
“How did you…” Curious, she brings her gaze back to me. “You?”
“I have a history with Vallejo,” I concede. “I knew him a long time ago, and because his name was floating around on the news, it was the logical next step for Detectives Fletcher and Malone to find my name connected to his.”
“Why?” She drops her phone into her pocket and goes back to flicking her nails. “Why is your name connected?”
“Because I used to be DEA. A long time ago. He was one of my cases before he killed my partner and blew our case into pieces.”
“He killed your partner?” she blanches. “Like…deaddead?”
“As dead as they get,” I sigh. “But then I killed him.”
Her brows pinch tight. “Your partner?”
Finally, a real smile breaks across my lips and laughter comes out in the form of a soft exhalation. “Vallejo. I put a knife in his throat and a bullet in his belly. Then I got out of that place before his men killed me. That was five years ago, and until this morning, I believed him to be dead.”
“But he’s not…” Her eyes well up and spill over, her emotions dangerously close to the surface. “I saw him.”
“You saw Vallejo?” I question. “With your own eyes? You saw him?”
“I mean…” She swallows nervously. “I saw these men. I saw them. And Lorenzo Lombardo, the one who died? He said Vallejo’s name. Then the man he was talking to, the one he called Vallejo, turned and looked into my eyes.”
“You wanted to know how you can help Lorenzo?” Fletch comes up on my left to join our small group. He looks into Rory’s eyes and does that bedside manner thing he’s known for, taking her hand and giving it a gentle pat. “You want to know why being alive matters and how you can bring justice to him and his family? You help us.” He squeezes her hand and brings her focus down. “You come with us to the station. You identify the men you saw that night. And when the time comes, you speak in front of a judge, and you tell him what you saw.”
* * *
The detectives stay until after nine. Asking their questions. Pressing for details. They get Rory a fuck load of tissues, and they say nothing about the stench of her clothes, though we can all smell the dried vomit in the fabric she wears.
They explain what it would be like to identify killers on record. And how it would be to take the stand and put a powerful man behind bars. But fuck them, because neither explain that by doing so, she’s agreeing to witness protection from now until Vallejo and his men are behind bars.
They don’t explain the danger she’s in, or the freedoms her participation takes away.
Detectives Malone and Fletcher don’t clarify shit. They only give her the “do it for your country and fellow man” pep talk cops spout off when they want to sweeten a witness and get them on side.
And because they do that, I move them out before ten. I hurry them along and slam them in the ass with the door when they don’t move fast enough. Because maybe they’re good cops. Maybe Malone isn’t as crooked as his kin. Maybe they really do care that Rory lives.
But I can’t know that yet. I don’t trust them.
And I sure as fuck don’t trust them to keep the girl alive, when her only crime is to happen across someone else’s bullshit.
“I guess this means I can’t go home tonight, huh?” Sniffling, the young woman who is only, barely, twenty-one-years-old, casts a longing glance toward the single crutch we managed to bring with us. But it’s by the mini fridge, and she’s on the couch.
She wants to get up. She wants independence. So I cross the room and grab it for her, knowing if she tries, she just might fall.
