Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

was obvious when Elle got to the station that something was in the air. Homicide and Crimes Against Children sat near each other—often, unfortunately, working cases together. She walked through the doors and signed in at the desk, surrendering her handgun before turning toward Ayaan’s office out of habit. The commander was sitting at her desk, staring intently at her computer screen. It was the same look she’d had on her face when they were digging into the Jair Brown case together—that don’t-talk-to-me-I’ve-almost-got-it look. Damn. Elle was really hoping she’d get Ayaan on her side before talking to Sam Hyde.

Bracing herself, she turned on her heel and headed toward his office alone.

Sam was waiting there for her, leaning against his doorway with a scowl wrinkling his brow. He gestured for her to come in and take a seat, then closed the door and sat on his side of the neatly organized desk.

“Sixteen weeks,” he said when he sat down.

“Sorry?”

“Sixteen weeks. That’s how long it takes to get through the police academy. Then you’ve got about half a year of field training, and boom, you’re an officer. If that’s the career you’re after.”

“Thanks for the recruitment info,” she said. She was dying for a cup of coffee. The messages she’d gone through last night had kept her awake. She hadn’t told Martín, didn’t want him to worry. Instead, she’d stayed awake alone, staring at the ceiling in the dark and jumping at every rustle and creak of the house.

Sam looked annoyed. “Do you want to explain what you were thinking, going around and interviewing my witnesses before I even got to them?”

Elle shrugged. “I didn’t know you hadn’t gotten to them. I mean, the ex-wife seems like a pretty obvious first step. I would have thought you’d talk to her right away.”

The pale skin on Sam’s neck turned scarlet. “Just because you run some radio show where you like to play detective and it’s worked out a couple times doesn’t mean you can come in on an active murder investigation and do whatever the hell—”

“All right, you’re right. I’m sorry.” Elle let out one short, harsh breath. “I swear, I wasn’t trying to interfere with your murder investigation. I really wasn’t. I was . . . I was trying to figure out if anyone knew Leo well enough to know what he was going to tell me about a case I am working. The case I was there to talk to him about when I found his body.”

“TCK.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t understand, what could his ex have helped you with?”

“I thought maybe if he really knew who TCK was, he might have told someone. I’d ask his business partner, but I’m guessing he’s still on the run?”

Sam shook his head. “No, local PD pulled him over the night of the murder, speeding toward his place. He and Leo were definitely running a chop shop business, and the guys in Robbery have been building a case against him for that. But between the time Leo talked to you on the phone and when you walked in, we have a pretty narrow time of death, and Duane was captured on security footage at the gas station down the block just five minutes before you walked in. We found no murder weapon at the scene and nothing at his apartment or workplace, but our best guess is the uniforms got him before he even made it home. So, either he ditched the gun on the way or he isn’t our guy.”

The hair on Elle’s arms stood up. “You mean he didn’t kill him?”

“Can’t say for sure, but we didn’t have enough to hold him. He’s been out since Friday afternoon.”

He was going to tell me who TCK was. Leaning forward, Elle put her elbows on the desk and rested her forehead in her palms. The room was spinning, so she took a deep breath through her nose.

“Are you all right?”

“Shh, I’m thinking.”

Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the apartment exactly as it looked when she got there. Leo was on his back on the floor, Duane kneeling next to him. The room had been undisturbed, the bare furnishings worn but tidy. Duane didn’t have a weapon on him, not that she could see. There was no one else in the room. Could someone have been hiding by the door, slipped out when she walked in the room? No, one of them would have noticed. They must have just missed the killer. Maybe whoever it was had passed her on the stairs, although she couldn’t remember seeing anyone. He might have gone one level up in the stairwell, waited for her to go in. That would imply he knew she was coming, which made her shiver.

She was dying to ask about the flash drive in Leo’s pocket, whether the police had gotten access to it yet. Her best guess was it was sitting on some stack of evidence right now, waiting to be processed. Even if it had been, there was no way Sam would tell her, and he seemed just vindictive enough to charge her for rummaging around in a murder victim’s pants.

Finally, she looked up at him. “I know you’re not a fan of independent investigators.” He opened his mouth to respond, but she continued. “I promise to try to stay out of your way, but I can’t promise to stay out of this case. If Leo knew something about TCK, I’m going to find out what it was. And if he died because he was going to give me that information, I owe it to him to find out who killed him.”

For a moment, Sam stared at her. Then a smile spread across his face, parting his lips in an expression of disbelief. “You think TCK killed him.”

Elle could feel her cheeks getting red, but she refused to look down. “I did not say that.”

“But you do. You think this guy got shot by TCK because he wrote an email to your podcast?”

The way