“Is she still in the biting stage?” Simon asks with a dark chuckle.
“Only dudes she really doesn’t like. Or who smell like french fries,” I say with a smile.
“Excellent. Anything else?” Simon asks, sounding almost chipper.
Oh shit, Johnathan is so fucked. Good, fucker deserves it.
“Yeah, what are the chances of me getting a secure phone? I’m good on guns for the time being. I figure we’ll try to be out of here by tomorrow, tops. We’ll need a window to get out, even if I have to ditch my car to do it,” I say, trying to build an image in my mind of what the landscape around this neighborhood looks like.
“I’ll have the phone easily, the window as well,” Simon says, and I hear him still typing in the background, but now it sounds like a machine gun on full auto spray.
He’s onto something.
“Can I also get a laptop that’s top of the line with a direct line to you? I’d like to see if I can put together any strings I get from Sophia. Also, any info you get, you can dump directly down the line to me,” I say.
“That should be easy enough. Although I’ll have to run a couple of filters to ensure it’s all put into some sort of order. I plan on doing a complete hack of all the department files,” he says.
“Any chance you can send it both ways? Not sorted and sorted?” I ask.
“Of course, but why?” he asks, the typing stopping.
“Because sorting could compromise the true nature of how things got passed around. Also, it might show us a pattern that wasn’t meant to have one,” I say.
“Chaos theory,” Simon says.
“Exactly. Who’s to say that random reports of excessive use of force filed in different years don’t have a basis to be something else?” I say.
“Why, James, do I have to worry about you taking over my job? That’s quite a brilliant thought,” Simon says, intrigued.
Chuckling, I say, “Fuck no, Spider. I’d kill myself if I sat and stared at computers all day.”
“Good, it will save me from having to poison you.” Simon laughs to himself. “I’ll have your requested items soon.”
“Sounds good. Let me know if any more strings get connected,” I say,
“I will, and James?” Simons says with what sounds like a smile.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Thank you,” he says before he disconnects the call.
Heading back to the bedroom to wait for Sophia, I can’t help but laugh. “Johnathan is so fucked.”
5
James
Sitting at Sophia’s desk, I try to see in my mind the way things are connecting so I can put together a picture of how the fuck we got in this exact position.
In the middle right now is Chief Cronin, and I need to figure out who he was connected to besides us. Somewhere there are strings I’m missing being added, and somehow, I feel like Morrison is in the picture more than we thought.
Morrison, his son Trent, and Dickers.
Those three are in the diagram, and so are any who are connected to them.
I bet Trent was trained by Dickers.
I’d love to get my hands on the reports about them all. See what has been said, and if they’ve had complaints of any sort. Simon is more than likely going to download every single file in the department and surrounding precincts. That, I think, will give us a better picture of the current landscape.
But it doesn’t, as of right now, answer why the Chief was needlessly killed.
It could have truly been an accident, but I don’t think it was.
While my brain turns over the facts of what we do and don’t know, I hear a quiet sob through the wall, above the sound of running of water.
Sophia.
I know she’s been holding on as strong as she can, but she’s finally at that point. The one that says things will never be right again. The one that hurts the least and the most at the same time.
Because her thoughts are right, nothing will ever be like it was again.
The water doesn’t stop though, it keeps running and running. I know this house has a huge water heater from the files I could pull up, but that doesn’t mean it’s endless.
Going to the door, I don’t even ask her for permission to enter. I just squat down and pick the lock as if it’s not even there. Locks have always been like that for me, mechanical and easy to understand.
Humans are trickier.
If I could pick the lock to let myself into her mind and help assuage her in some way, I would. But I have no clue how to do that stuff.
I’m a fuckboy, honestly.
I’m the guy who fucks someone’s world to hell then disappears.
I find her curled into a ball, pressed up against the glass wall of the walk-in shower. Curled so tight she’s almost like a small, helpless child.