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“I think so.” Was I being too optimistic? I wanted to laugh—no one had ever accused me of being an optimist.
“Okay,” Craig said. “That’s what we want. Who did it, what they deleted and those deleted files if you can retrieve them.” He looked at both Elena and Lex and they nodded their agreement.
I was getting excited. If these people—people in a position of power—believed they could do something to end the corruption, it gave me hope I never had before.
“I can do that.” I sounded confident. And then, at that moment, I realized I was confident. This was my area of expertise.
“I’d like you to report directly to me as you gather information,” Craig said. “I have a staff investigator who will be following up on what you learn. So if you get just a name or an entity, pass it along, and we’ll do the background. Do not discuss this with anyone other than us in this room, and it would be best if you didn’t even do that—you never know who might be listening.”
“Violet is extremely trustworthy,” Will said. “I would never have brought her this far if she weren’t.”
I felt my face heat up. Was I blushing? I hoped not.
After Craig and the two cops left, Colton came up to me. “You did good. Relax.”
“You’re going back on the street, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “I’m heading out to Northridge. One of the entities you flagged is out there.”
“Sunflower Group Homes.”
“Yep. They have several facilities, some just for women, some for vets like me. I had to get fake documents, but I know the lingo.”
“What you’re doing—I couldn’t do it. Living on the street is hard.”
He shrugged. “What you’re doing, I couldn’t do it. Computers give me a headache.”
I laughed.
Then, Colton said quietly, “I haven’t found your mom yet, Vi.”
I tensed. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to. You’re worried about her, and you should know how she’s doing. As soon as I’m done in Northridge, I’ll keep looking. A week ago, I met a woman—Army, serious case of PTSD, got hooked on oxy after shrapnel took out a chunk in her leg. I don’t know how reliable she is, but she recognized your mom’s picture. The one you gave me?”
I nodded, remembering. It was the most recent picture I had of her, one we had to get for her benefits.
“My friend thinks she went to Venice Beach. Something your mom talked about when she wasn’t high.”
My mom used to love the beach. When I was little and my dad had to work weekends, Mom would take me to the beach. Usually Santa Monica. We’d walk, make sandcastles, get snow cones, and sometimes we rented bikes. Before she started doing drugs. Before everything fell apart.
“So I’ll check there next,” Colton was saying, “but if you want to go out yourself, Will says there’s a cleanup in a couple weeks.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He shrugged, gave me a half smile. “Anytime. Will knows how to reach me, if you need anything. Be careful over there at city hall. They might be a bunch of loafer-wearing elitist politicians, but some of them are dangerous.”
Tuesday, October 8
19
After Michael and Kara left to track down Will Lattimer, Matt had a conference call with his boss in DC, checked in with Ryder Kim, took care of a lot of paperwork—the bane of his existence—and tried to reach Lieutenant Gomez. She didn’t answer. He sent her a text message that he’d like a few minutes, then he headed over to the courthouse to meet with Detective McPherson.
McPherson and his small team had taken over a tiny office in the courthouse near the main security office, and welcomed Matt in with a wave toward a table of coffee and pastries. Matt helped himself to coffee. It was surprisingly good.
“What have you learned since yesterday?” Matt asked.
“We’ve learned a lot, but still no ID. I had teams working all night going through security footage. He came in—in the disguise we saw on camera—thirty minutes before the lockdown. Then we caught a glimpse of him on camera two blocks away—not positive it’s him, but general build matches. Then poof. The image isn’t clear.”
