I smile in spite of myself, and then we’re both laughing, and then a big guy steps out of the 7-Eleven, yelling at the woman trailing behind him. Ginny and I fall silent and I remember why we’re here, what we came here to do, and I suddenly want to puke.
“Hey,” she says softly. “You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s the only idea I have left.”
Ginny nods. “If you change your mind—or if something starts to go wrong—text me a code word or something.”
“Like a safe word?”
Ginny’s upper lip quivers with laughter. “Yes. Sort of.”
I laugh, because I don’t know what else to do, and it feels good. “What should it be?”
We kick around a bunch of phrases straight out of an erotica novel before remembering how serious this is and settle on stop.
My fingers tremble around the seat belt buckle. As I reach for the door handle, Ginny says my name.
“You’ve got this,” she says. “I have faith in you.”
At least someone does. I give her a nod and head through the double doors into the police station.
I’ve never seen the older woman behind the front desk before, but she knows who I am. “Officer Carlino’s gone for the night, hon. PBA dinner.”
“Oh, I know. I wanted to say hi to Uncle Mike.” I have never once called Mike “uncle.” But this woman doesn’t know that. I hold up the McDonald’s bag and flash an innocent smile. “I brought him dinner.”
“How sweet of you,” the woman says. “I think he was just about to take his break. You know where his office is?”
“Down the hall and to the left.” I smile at the woman again and she grins back, nodding for me to walk on back.
This is going to blow up in my face.
I drop my shoulders, trying to look relaxed and not like I’m about to commit a felony as I push open the counter gate and make my way down the hall. In one of the cubicles in the larger squad room off the main entrance, the officer from the assembly—Officer DiBiase—is drinking a Big Gulp and clicking around her computer. She doesn’t notice me.
Shit, shit. I should have known Mike wouldn’t be the only officer on duty tonight. I slink past the main squad room down the hall, texting Ginny: The woman is here too!
She immediately responds: Don’t panic. Remember the 911 call.
I inhale. Mike’s office door is open. I rap on the frame and wait in the doorway.
Mike looks up from his computer and beams, happy to see me. “Hey, kid.”
“Hi. I brought this for you.” I set the McDonald’s bag on his desk.
Mike’s eyes light up as he rifles through the bag. “What’d I do to deserve being spoiled like this?”
“Nothing,” I say. I could die from the guilt right now. “I heard you were alone, so I figured you might not get a dinner break.”
Mike’s eyebrows lift. “You need a favor, don’t you?”
I feel my cheeks go pink. “Just a small one.”
“I’m a little insulted you felt like you had to bribe me,” Mike says, but he’s already tearing into the Big Mac. He swallows, a string of lettuce clinging to his lower lip.
“Well.” I sit in the chair on the other side of his desk and balance my phone on my knee while Mike is wiping his mouth. “It’s the kind of thing I feel uncomfortable asking Tom for.”
“In other words, you don’t want him to know about this.”
I shift in my seat. Mike sets his burger down. “You in trouble or something?”
“No, nothing like that. My friend needs help looking for her dad. He left five years ago and she hasn’t heard from him.”
Mike steeples his fingers under his chin. Nods.
“And it’s just that…Tom doesn’t know I’m friends with this girl. Her dad had a bunch of DUIs,” I say. “I don’t want him judging her or anything.”
Mike lifts the bun from his Big Mac. Examines the patty. “You remembered the extra pickles.”
“Of course. So do you think you can help?”
Mike looks away from me. Wiggles his mouse, springing his computer monitor to life. “I don’t see you. You were never here.”
I exhale and stare at the computer screen as Mike clicks an icon on his desktop. His wallpaper is a picture of him with his wife, Anna, and his stepdaughter, Danielle. Cheeks mashed together, pumpkins in their arms. I think of Mike’s little family at home, his pregnant wife giving Danielle a bath.
My palm goes sweaty over my phone, imagining sending the text to Ginny. Stop. One word could shut this down.
Mike will be terrified on the drive to his house. It will be the longest drive of his life, worrying about the safety of his family.
But it will only last for ten, fifteen minutes tops. And now that I’m here, I only have two choices: try to get into that file or abandon the plan completely.
I take my hand off my phone.
“Okay. What’s your friend’s dad’s name?” Mike asks. On the screen, he’s pulled up the database I saw a few weeks ago on Tom’s computer. I look at his computer tower; an ID card with Mike’s photo is resting inside the same card reader Tom has at home.
I have to swallow to clear the sound of blood pounding in my ears. “Phil Cordero. How are you looking him up?”
“If he was arrested, like you said, he’d be in the state database. If I can pull a license plate or something, it’ll be easier to track him down.”
Now that he’s on the database, I need to pull the trigger. I push away the thoughts of everything that could go wrong, like Mike taking his ID card out of the reader before he leaves or him insisting I leave his office with him—
I text Ginny. Do it. Go.
My ears ring as Mike scrolls through the hits the database gives him for Phil Cordero. “He used to live at 84 Pond Way?”
I nod. “Yeah. My friend and her mom still live there.”
My pulse ticks steadily. Mike hums to himself, scrolling, scrolling.
And then the radio on his desk crackles.
“Dispatch, I need an officer on North Howell’s Road. Woman walking her dog called in a suspicious person climbing a fence, possibly armed—”
Mike snatches the radio up. “What’s the address of the house?”
“She thinks it was one fifty-six…she wasn’t sure.”
Mike shoots up from his chair. Wipes his hands down his face. My stomach sinks to my feet.
“Monica, I’ve got to go,” he says, his face ashen. “I’m really sorry—that’s my house.”
My voice quavers as I stand. “I hope everything is okay.”
When he turns and grabs his coat from the hook behind his desk, I elbow the giant Diet Coke. It makes a slushing sound as it pours onto the tile, ice scattering everywhere. Mike jumps back to avoid the splash.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I’ll clean that up,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mike says, but before he can argue, tell me to leave it, he’s out the door. Shouting for the woman behind the desk in the lobby to call his house, to tell his wife to lock the doors and shut the windows.
Then he’s gone. The only sound in the office is my heartbeat. I can’t remember a time when I felt more disgusted with myself. Not even after what happened with Brandon.
My phone vibrates with a text from Ginny. Just saw him leave. The other cop went with him.
I shove my phone in my pocket and sit in Mike’s desk chair. A photocopy of Phillip Cordero’s driver’s license is up on the screen. I click back to the landing page and search for Juliana Ruiz.
RUIZ, JULIANA. HOMICIDE.
STATUS: UNSOLVED/INACTIVE
I can’t do this. There are things in here that I won’t be able to unsee. Pictures of the crime scene. Pictures of them.
But Ginny already made the call. Mike is on his way home, and even though he’ll find out there’s no intruder in his yard, he and his family will spend the night in fear. If I don’t get the file, it’ll all be for nothing.
I wipe my sweaty fingertips on my knees and open the file.
There are dozens of subfiles. Folders marked with jargon I don’t understand. My heartbeat quickens; I can’t possibly go through everything before Mike gets back, or before the woman at the desk realizes I’m still here and comes looking for me.
I scroll down, stopping when I see the label on one of the folders: Written Affidavits