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Hernandez held up her hand, cutting Van off. I couldn’t hear exactly what she muttered under her breath, but I swore it sounded like, “It’s not me you need to convince.”
Van’s “who then?” made me think I was right.
Before she could respond, the door she came through earlier flew open and some schmuck who would have looked more at home at the Met Gala than the Chicago PD burst through. All those dozens of eyes that’d been watching us since we came in suddenly snapped to focus on him.
Which only made him puff out his chest as he sauntered our way.
“What’s this nonsense about witnesses?” He pulled to a stop in front of Van, tilting his head back so he could look down his nose at him. “You know it’s against the law to lie to the FBI, right?”
“You know what pushing through a wrongful conviction could do to your career, right?” Van asked, leaning forward with a smirk on his lips.
The agent stuttered, shaking his head and pursing his lips. “It’s not a wrongful conviction. I’ve got evidence!”
“You’ve got evidence against Rylan Dennis and Lee Bridgewater? Like, actual, physical evidence?”
The agent nodded, though his eyes were frantic. “I’ve got video evidence.”
“Video evidence?” My dad pushed away from my side, meeting the agent head-on. “You have video evidence of Lee Bridgewater murdering someone the night before last?”
“He was harassing Baker in his apartment complex.”
“Let me ask you something, Agent—”
“Special Agent Carlson.”
“Agent Carlson. Let me ask you, how can you have video evidence of Lee Bridgewater at Baker’s apartment complex two nights ago when he was with me, my wife, and my daughter at the hospital? How can you have video evidence of him there when the hospital has security footage of Lee being inside the hospital walls from mid-afternoon of that day until this morning when he left to go to work? Tell me that. Tell me how that works? Has he somehow perfected time travel so he could go back in time and kill someone while he was sitting at my daughter’s bedside praying she wouldn’t die?”
“It’s not—”
“Then Lee must have let Rylan borrow it too,” Joss said. She squeezed between Van and my dad, meeting Carlson face to face. “Because Rylan was with me the entire day, from sunrise that morning to noon the next day.”
“I can understand how it might be hard to take Joss’s word,” Van said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “It might even be hard to take mine, seeing as I work with them. I was with them for a few hours that night. Pretty sure the restaurant we went to has video cameras too. But even if they don’t, even if you can’t take our word for it, I think you’d be hard pressed to get any prosecutor, judge, or jury to take you seriously about Rylan being the murderer. He can’t even fucking walk without crutches right now. How you gonna convince someone Rylan hung a man out his apartment window when he can’t even stand on his own two feet?”
My chair suddenly moved. I snapped my head around and found my mom behind me, pushing the chair forward until we were beside my dad. Carlson looked down at me—not at my ratty hair or my sleep-stained face. Not at my borrowed clothes or even the wheelchair I sat in because I was too weak to stand up.
He looked right at my hand, at the bandage wrapped around my palm and my wrist, as it rested, unusable, in my lap.
“Lee was with me,” I told him, my voice shaking as I forced it past the lump in my throat. “He and Van saved my life, and Lee didn’t leave my side from the moment I got out of surgery until this morning. You can ask my parents. You can ask the nurses and the doctors, they’ll all tell you the same thing. Lee wasn’t where you say he was. He was at the hospital with me.”
Mom smoothed a hand over my hair, and for the first time in a long, long time, I didn’t want to bat it away. I wanted to soak up every ounce of affection I could get from her and my dad, because I knew now, there was no guarantee for a long life.
I’d almost lost mine, multiple times.
“This isn’t—” Before Carlson could go on, the doors behind us swung open and someone stumbled in. I hadn’t gotten turned in my chair before I caught Van’s wide, crooked grin as he snagged Joss’s arm and tugged her his way.
“I’ve got it!” The cop who’d burst in was holding a thumb drive up like it was a relay baton. He rushed forward, handing it off to Carlson while he sucked in a breath.
“What’s this?”
“That,” Van said, that crooked grin still in place as Hernandez snagged the thumb drive out of Carlson’s hand, “is real evidence. Hospital security footage courtesy of real police work.”
“Bridgewater was at the hospital, just like he said,” the cop huffed, his hands on his hips.
Carlson scowled at the cop, then turned his dirty look to Hernandez. “Did you do this?”
Hernandez lifted one of her eyebrows as the corner of one side of her mouth tipped up. “I didn’t have to. That’s called real police work.”
With a scoff and a petulant stomp of his foot, Carlson cast a nasty glare our way. “Have it your way, Hernandez. They’re free to go this time. But I’m not done with this. I will get them. It’s just a matter of time.”
