Ghosts, Matt Rogers [reading the story of the .txt] 📗

to know you’ll follow through with that?’

‘You’ll have to trust me,’ Kerr said. ‘Like I’m trusting you not to harm my baby girl.’

Violetta didn’t even begin to lecture Kerr on the hypocrisy of the care she was showing.

She let it go.

She said, ‘You go do that and get back to me.’

‘Can I speak to Melanie?’

Violetta begrudgingly passed the phone over.

Melanie said, ‘Hi,’ in a weak voice.

Then, ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’

Then, ‘No, she hasn’t hurt me yet.’

Then, ‘Okay. I’ll see you soon.’

Violetta took the phone away from her ear and killed the call to prevent Kerr from tracing it.

Then she sat in silence and stewed.

Anyone else might have found it incredibly odd that Kerr would spill her guts about her business partner and confidant. She certainly didn’t need to provide so much information.

But Violetta thought she understood.

Deep down, somewhere way, way below the surface, was a decent human being trapped, stuffed in a box for most of her adult life, wanting out.

Maybe it had taken the abduction of her daughter for the good in her to start clawing its way out, piece by piece.

Violetta was still going to kill her.

First chance she got.

At least it was nice to know she wasn’t all the way evil.

A mile from home, Violetta told Melanie to pull over, then blindfolded her and marched her round to the passenger seat. She drove the last mile to their estate herself, and pulled into the garage alongside the BMW.

62

They gathered around the kitchen island — King, Slater, Alexis.

It seemed right.

They had thousands of square feet of space for utilisation, but this had become their makeshift briefing station. They’d barely been home in two days, barely had time to stop and breathe, let alone think or plan. Now Keith Ray was dead. Alan Ward was dead. Ray’s goons were no more. The LVMPD side of things was desolate, wiped out, eradicated.

King thought, And now what’s left?

It could very well stop at Clark County District Attorney Gloria Kerr.

It probably didn’t.

It probably went higher.

Alexis sipped water and nibbled at a salad, trying her best to reignite her appetite. King could see from the look on her face she still felt sick to her stomach, and she had every reason to.

Slater downed ibuprofen, iced his ankle, and used endless amounts of compression tape to support the swollen joint. As King and Alexis sat he paced the room, wincing the whole way, but he barely limped.

King said, ‘You need to rest it.’

Through gritted teeth Slater said, ‘This isn’t over. And I don’t think it’s broken. If I’ve strained it or torn a ligament … that’s manageable.’

King saw the sweat beads on his forehead, the vein protruding from his temple with each step, the discomfort on his face.

King said, ‘It’s worse than you think.’

Slater said, ‘I know.’

He hobbled to the stool, sat down, and breathed.

He said, ‘But I don’t care.’

Alexis looked up from the salad and said, ‘I’m so glad Ray’s dead.’

‘So are we,’ King said.

She shook her head. ‘Not like me.’

Slater sat in pensive silence.

Alexis said, ‘If you’d called a minute later…’

She shuddered.

King said, ‘But we didn’t. And here you are.’

She furrowed her brow. ‘You expect me to just move on?’

‘What else is there to do?’

‘Maybe reflect on the fact I was almost raped and murdered for more than a few throwaway minutes?’ she said. ‘How about that?’

He said, ‘Fine by me.’

‘We’re not all superhuman like you.’

King said, ‘I never said I was.’

‘Is that what you do every time you come within a hair of losing your life?’ Alexis said. ‘Just “move on”?’

King said, ‘Usually.’

‘You make it sound so easy.’

‘I never mentioned it being easy,’ King said. ‘In fact, it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.’

Alexis didn’t answer that.

King said, ‘But it’s also the most beneficial. And those two things go hand in hand.’

She nodded.

He said, ‘Do what’s right, not what’s expedient.’

She nodded again.

She said, ‘I’m just so angry.’

Slater said, ‘Welcome to my life.’

She said, ‘You feel it, don’t you? I’ve seen you at your worst. King doesn’t get angry like you do. I mean, never towards me. Always towards … the scum out there.’

‘King’s unique,’ Slater said. ‘I’m not as detached as he is.’

She said, ‘In everything else you two seem just about the same to me.’

Slater smirked. ‘You should have seen me a few months ago. It was pure coincidence that I stopped drinking the night we met, but you helped me stick to it. Before that…’

King said, ‘You technically weren’t a problem drinker.’

Slater raised an eyebrow. ‘If I wasn’t, then no one is.’

King said, ‘You didn’t let it affect your life. You drank yourself into a stupor every night but you got up every morning and worked yourself to the bone to flush it out of your system. I never saw it impede your performance or affect your life.’

Slater paused, ruminating.

King said, ‘You’re relentless in everything you do. But now you have one less vice to worry about.’

‘You’re right,’ Slater said. ‘Ever since that night it’s like the weight of the world’s been lifted off my shoulders.’

‘Because you never back down from a challenge — i.e. recovering from colossal hangovers every morning — but now you have one less daily challenge to concern yourself with.’

Alexis said, ‘Do you ever get the urge to fall back into it?’

Honest.

Genuinely curious.

‘On nights like these,’ Slater said, ‘sure.’

She nodded her understanding.

He turned to King. ‘But you said it best. The daily challenge. Sometimes I like nights like this. Sometimes I only feel right when my brain is screaming at me to do one thing and I force myself to do another.’

‘That’s our careers,’ King said. ‘That’s our lives. Summed up in a sentence.’

Alexis said, ‘Please don’t go back to that. I like you how you are.’

He smiled. ‘I won’t. Trust me.’

It felt odd, this brief reprieve of conversation that had nothing to do with bent DAs and violent pimps and corrupt cops and Central American gangbangers. It was far too normal in the midst of an operation, and all three of them experienced