Part 7 (1/2)
”Bulls.h.i.+t,” replied the other. ”How?”
”Good behavior, if you can believe it.”
”Unreal. We're talking, what...almost a full year?”
”Something like that.”
”Someone is pulling some strings somewhere,” came the reply.
Avery knew the name Desoto well. After all, she had managed to take him down, along with four of his best men. It was one of the cases that had made Avery something of a figurehead around the A1. Desoto was the head of at least two gangs-maybe more-and had gained such a boogeyman status that a lot of people had not even believed he really existed-not until Avery had brought him in. And now that there was a chance he was getting out early...
That's another little treat to look forward to, she thought. He'll be looking for revenge right away when he steps foot out of prison.
”You good?” Ramirez asked her, gently nudging her arm.
She blinked her thoughts away and nodded. ”Yeah, I'm good,” she said, taking a sip from her beer.
”You really don't feel good about Adam Wentz, do you? You really don't think he's our guy?”
”No, I don't. And I think it's almost criminal to hold him.”
”Yeah, but even if he isn't our guy, he might know something, right?”
”I doubt it. He would have told me when he started to crack. He was crying like a baby when I left that room.”
”So tell me this: if we did find out it was him and tomorrow this case is closed, would you be okay being wrong?”
She thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. ”No. It's never okay to be wrong. But in this case, there's no worry. I'm not wrong.”
He sighed and then chuckled. He ordered another beer as one of his work-buddies came over. His name was Eldridge and although he was a d.a.m.ned good cop, he was also something of a frat boy at heart. Finley, who had become a good friend to Avery over the last few months, was shadowing him.
”You guys having a love spat or something?” Eldridge asked.
”Hardly,” Avery said.
”I know s.e.xual tension when I see it,” Eldridge said. ”I can say this with full confidence because the tension stage is about as far as I ever get.”
”A stand-up specimen like yourself?” Avery asked sarcastically. ”I don't believe it.”
”What are you two doing here anyway?” Finley asked. ”A long day of work, I think a better reward than a beer would be some stress-s.e.x.”
Avery decided not to say anything else. She didn't know if they were insinuating something or if they knew about them somehow. She and Ramirez had been teased about a s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p before, but never as bad as they had been over the last day.
Apparently picking up on Avery's s.h.i.+ft in mood, Ramirez recovered for them both. ”If you two think she'd sleep with me in the first place, you're s.h.i.+tty cops. She's got standards, man.”
Eldridge and Finley laughed at this and after some further goodhearted ribbing, they got their drinks and headed back to their end of the bar.
”Sorry about that,” Ramirez said. ”Look...I haven't told anyone.”
”I didn't say you had.”
”Maybe it's just the afterglow,” he joked. ”Maybe the s.e.x is so good, we have an aura about us or something.”
”Getting c.o.c.ky now, are we?” she said, her voice low.
”Are you kidding? I slept with you last night and woke up with you this morning. So yeah...I'm feeling a little arrogant.”
She smiled at him and a large part of her thought Eldridge might have been right. Maybe she would rather be in a bed with Ramirez than in a bar. On the other hand, if they left together that would only add more fuel to the fire. And she hated to be in the spotlight...especially over something like this.
”They might be on to something, though,” Ramirez said. ”You want to get out of here?”
”I am after this beer,” Avery said. ”But I'm going home alone.”
”You sure?” he said.
”Yeah,” she said. ”And that's nothing against you...I just need to try to get ahead on this case.”
He nodded and smirked. ”That's one of the reasons I like you, Avery.”
She finished her beer and returned his smirk. ”Careful,” she said. ”With talk like that, people might start to think there's something going on between us.”
When she was in her apartment with the case files spread out around her, she knew she'd made the right decision. And she was pretty sure Ramirez knew her well enough to know that she had, too. She looked over the notes that Forensics had mocked up and although they made little sense to her, she knew enough about them to know that there were no answers there to be had.
The one thing of note they had managed to come up with was that there was a chemical present in the ashes but it was so disintegrated that it was hard to make out what it was. It could have been anything from basic rubbing alcohol to a toxic agent.
Probably some kind of burning accelerant, she thought. Could be something as simple as gas or kerosene.
Midnight crept up on her faster than she'd expected. When she turned out the lights and readied herself for bed, she thought it would be nice to have Ramirez there. She nearly called him but did not want to seem needy. In fact, she wasn't needy at all. What had happened the night before had been nice but she did not want him to think that she needed it. She had never needed a man in order to feel complete and she wasn't about to start now. Yes, she supposed she cared for Ramirez, but was she ready to settle down and commit herself to a relations.h.i.+p?
That was a stretch...
She lay in bed for fifteen minutes before she realized that sleep was not going to come as quickly as she hoped. There was just too much on her mind. The case, Ramirez and the complications he brought with him, and, perhaps most burdensome, Rose.
Thinking of Rose, Avery sat up in bed and flipped on her bedside lamp. It was too late to call her, but maybe a text that she'd get in the morning would be okay.
Avery considered it for a moment but then decided not to. Instead, she opened up Facebook. Sadly, Facebook had been her only reliable outlet over the last year to see how her daughter's life was going.
She pulled up Rose's page and saw that she had been blocked.
She knew it should be a silly offense at most, but it actually hurt her. She checked Instagram and Twitter as well but she was blocked there, too. Apparently, her backing out of their girls' day had been the last straw.
The h.e.l.l of it was that Avery didn't blame her. She'd just have to figure out a way to make it up to her-if Rose would even let her try, of course. And at this point, there was no guarantee that she would.
She sadly set her phone down and tried to drift off to sleep. When she finally did, it was a fitful sleep. There was no real rest, just a frantic mind trying to relax while also sorting through the chaos that its owner's life had become.