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Cardozo closed the door behind him, leaving them alone for the first time. He pointed to the chair in front of her desk. “May I?”
“Please.” She closed her laptop and waited for him to begin.
“Burke has briefed me on your qualifications.” He smiled faintly. “He didn’t mention the roller derby fame, but that seems to have earned you a seal of approval from my son.”
“He’s a good kid.”
“He is.” The pain and fear in his eyes was like a punch to the gut. “He’s everything to me. I can’t...” He swallowed. “I can’t let anyone hurt him.”
“I’ll keep him safe. If you think you’d be more confident with someone else, that’s okay. Leaving your child in the hands of another person is a risk you have to be comfortable with.”
But she didn’t want him to pick someone else. She’d already become invested in Elijah’s safety.
“I appreciate that,” Cardozo said. “Did you see the interview Corey Gates gave this morning?”
It was an abrupt segue, his question asked almost accusingly. She took a moment to consider her reply, because while the question itself was fine, his tone was not. “I did. I’m still not convinced that Dewey Talley was the driver, because he told Elijah to run, but knowing that Rick has been communicating with Sixth Day is pretty damning. I was hoping that we were wrong, that they weren’t involved, but that’s where we appear to be.”
“I agree.” Then Cardozo narrowed his eyes. “Who is Sixth Day to you? Specifically, Dewey Talley. I saw your reaction when Burke mentioned his name. I asked him and he said that I should ask you. So I’m asking you. What is your connection to Sixth Day?”
Ah. Okay. This was the question she’d been expecting. Bracing herself, she met his gaze directly. “The former leader of Sixth Day killed my brother.”
Metairie, Louisiana
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 11:20 A.M.
“Fuck.” Noni Feldman cursed again as she got into her car in the Three Vets parking lot, waving her cameraman back to his SUV. “I’ll meet you back at the station.”
It had been a long shot, but she’d hoped for another go at Corey Gates. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be talking to him again this morning. The Three Vets Renovation office was empty. Corey Gates wasn’t here, and she’d waited as long as she could.
She’d peeked in the windows, but all she’d seen were a bunch of girlie photos on the walls. Most had been centerfolds, but there had been a few where the woman was clothed. It seemed that the three vets were Bella Butler fans.
She thought they might have come by the construction office to search for the still-missing Rick after the press conference, but maybe they’d already done so. If Corey had been right and Rick was entangled with Sixth Day, the kid was in even bigger trouble than a botched abduction attempt.
Corey had pretended to be sincere this morning, but Noni wasn’t buying it. Two weeks before, she’d gotten an anonymous tip that Corey Gates was up to no good and if she investigated, she’d get an amazing story. That was before Aaron had killed the doctor and Rick had tried to abduct the prosecutor’s son, which made Noni wonder just how much Corey knew.
So Noni had been investigating the hell out of Corey Gates, putting out feelers to several of her usual sources. One of whom—her source in Veterans Affairs—had texted her early that morning, asking her to call. They’d played phone tag for the past few hours, so she wasn’t hopeful when she dialed.
To her surprise, he answered. “Yeah?”
“It’s Noni. What do you have?”
“Corey Gates’s army discharge papers.”
“You had those already. He got an ODPMC discharge.” She’d become a walking lexicon of military alphabet soup. The ODPMC was a discharge for Other Designated Physical and Mental Conditions. Which included mental illness of most kinds. “I assumed he had PTSD.” Given the man’s eight years of service, that he’d come home with PTSD wouldn’t have been a shock. “Is that not right?”
“Not a bad assumption, but not the whole story. He’s listed as having a personality disorder. Some of the PTSD symptoms overlap, but in Corey’s case, he lost his temper and beat one of the local Iraqi women so badly that she’s permanently disfigured. He’d been counseled about the fights he’d gotten into before, so this was the final straw.”
Noni pulled up the Notes app on her phone and began typing this information. “Why wasn’t he prosecuted?”
“I guess that the army didn’t want the bad publicity and just wanted him to go away. ODPMC is sometimes used to get rid of unruly soldiers in general.”
“How do you know this about Corey?” she asked.
“I called the clerk who filed the paperwork. He owed me a favor and I collected it. I appreciated the story you did on the conditions in the VA hospitals. You gave our soldiers a voice, so I used my marker for you.”
Noni was touched. “Thank you.”
“Just don’t use my name.”
