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“They’ve been notified.”
“I sure didn’t expect to hear that after all these years.”
I waded right into the deep water, the actual reason for my call. “Sir, is it true that the Benson family pushed to get my uncle Jack out of the Phoenix office?”
“Who the hell told you that?”
I didn’t answer.
“Nobody pressured me to get rid of him. Exactly the opposite. I was ordered not to discipline him, and that could only have come from your father’s friends, not the Bensons. I hate to break this to you, but your uncle was a fuck-up, a loose cannon, and I didn’t want him screwing up another one of my cases.”
I waited for him to go on.
“He got that little girl killed—at least we thought so at the time. He was so far off the reservation, he might as well have been in fucking Poland. I did the only thing I could do. I chained him to a desk until he found a place in another FO. I wasn’t letting him out in the field again on my watch to fuck up any more lives.”
“And the Benson family didn’t have anything to do with it?”
“Listen here, Cartwright. If you want to insult me by asking the same fucking question twice, come over here and do it to my face, man to man.” He hung up.
I hadn’t scored any points with HQ today. But I’d listened to his words, and judging by the tone, I had no reason to doubt them.
Uncle Jack had lied to Dad about the transfer, as well as the case.
Up had become down, and down had become up.
My family had wronged the Bensons, not the other way around.
I looked out. The street was still empty, which was good. I needed time to get my head around this. Dad had always insisted DNA was destiny, and all the Bensons were a bad lot.
But that had been based on backwards information from Uncle Jack. I mean, Dennis was still a jerk, but maybe the rest of the family wasn’t. Turns out my name had a bad rap in the Bureau for good reason, and it had nothing to do with the Bensons. If DNA really did determine fate, I wasn’t cut out for the Bureau. And I wouldn’t accept that.
I checked the street again before heading to the tiny bathroom. Several splashes of cold water on my face focused my thoughts.
The man that looked back at me from the mirror. Who was he?
If I was being honest with myself, redeeming my family name at the Bureau had been the reason I’d joined. Learning the truth had turned out not to help at all. Everything Dad had told me had been a lie.
Until today, the Cartwright name had always been one I wore proudly. The truth of Uncle Jack’s past undid that.
How many lives had Uncle Jack upended? And what did Dad really know? What was he hiding?
After wiping my face dry, I returned to my lookout position, determined to forge a better path forward—one I could be proud of.
Not all the Bensons were model citizens, but Kelly was certainly blameless, and she deserved better than the way I’d treated her.
I couldn’t bear to look at the keyring anymore, and put it back in my pocket.
The past couldn’t be repaired, but the trajectory of the future could be changed, and I intended to start tonight.
Chapter 19
Kelly
We lockedthe doors and shut down the exit station for our scheduled quick lunch in the cafeteria with the entire inventory crew.
I was following Hal when I scraped my arm on the corner of a counter while entering the cafeteria, and I surprised us both by crying out. I didn’t do that normally.
Hal looked at my forearm. “You’re bleeding.”
