Part 27 (2/2)

She shook her head. ”He's dummied up with the best Mob defense lawyer money can buy.”

”It'll be a long trial,” I said.

She nodded.

I took a deep breath.

”I need that file, Ellen.”

”What are you going to do with it?”

I knew what she meant, but instead, I said ”Go to Kinko's and copy it have it back on your desk in fifteen minutes. No one the wiser.”

She looked at me, really studying me. ”Are you going to do anything stupid?”

”Of course I am, that's my whole modus operandi.”

”I know, but something that will get you killed and leave Anna and those girls without a father?”

I shook my head. ”Absolutely not. But now that I know Benjamin Collins was most likely a hit a contract kill that changes everything.”

She sighed and pulled the file out of one of her desk drawers. I knew she didn't usually keep files there, so she had it ready for me. This was all a pretense a warning to take it easy and take it slow.

I would do my best.

I took the file and said, ”I'll be back in fifteen minutes.”

”Don't bother,” she said. ”That's a copy.”

She smiled at that.

”Thanks,” I said.

”Just trying to keep the taxpayers happy,” she said.

Forty-nine.

It had all started with the lake.

I pulled my car off Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive, parked it on an opposing street and walked down to the water's edge.

It was a calm morning, the lake a sheet of blue green gla.s.s. I had the file in my hand and I sat down on the gra.s.s. The gra.s.s was cold and damp, but somehow, everything felt good and felt right.

I felt like I belonged here.

They never found the man's body. The next day, divers had gone down to my boat which had broken up into a few hundred pieces. They found lots of debris; wood, and pieces of the radio and minutia from the boat's cabin.

But they didn't find a body.

I knew there was no way he could have survived being impaled, and then taken underwater. He would have had to somehow swim to sh.o.r.e with a devastating injury in the middle of five foot waves.

Impossible.

It didn't matter to me, though.

He was alive now in my memory. And dead or alive, I knew he would lead me to the final answer to what happened to Benjamin Collins.

That's really all that mattered.

I looked at the file in my lap. This was going to be my chance to set things right. Redemption, I guess.

I took a deep sigh and ran my finger along the inside of the file's cover.

I held my breath.

And opened the file.

THE END.

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