Chapter 48 The Fire In His Hands
“Where is she?” I said to the nearest desk sergeant.
He blinked as if I’d asked for something unreasonable. “We have procedures, Mr. Simmons…”
“Procedures don’t kidnap innocent people,” I cut in. “Bring me the duty officer. Now!”
A young cop tried to block my path. I let him realize the mistake of stepping in front of me.
He moved.
They sat us in the little visitor area with its single plastic plant and cheap magazines.
I didn’t read. I watched the glass partition like a farmer watching a storm.
Minutes later the officer in charge came over, calm as a man wearing a mask that fits too well.
“She's under detention,” he said. “We’ve got a…” He trailed off when he saw my face.
“Take me to her.” I didn’t bother with niceties.
He leaned back. “Mr. Simmons, we can’t…”
“I’ll sue this station until the paint peels off from every wall in this building,” I said. The words landed colder than I expected.
“Call the Mayor,” I ordered Collins.
Finally, they moved.
I watched through the glass as they wheeled a cart past the corridor and then, there she was.
She looked smaller than the picture in my head.
Hollow at the cheekbones, eyes rimmed with the red rim of too many sleepless hours, hair still damp in odd patches.
She mouthed something against the glass.
I stepped forward with my hand on the pane and she put hers up to meet it. The cold of the divider shocked me; the softness of her palm broke something taut inside my ribs.
“I’ll get you out,” I told her, and I meant it with a hunger that tasted like iron. “I swear.”
She looked at me like she wanted to say something more, but the words came out in a whisper instead.
“Don’t fight them. It’s bigger than you think,” she breathed.
She pressed her forehead to the glass for a beat and then they dragged her away.
The sound of her heels on tile was the only thing that mattered after that.
Back in the SUV the city stitched past, traffic and rain and the soft glow from office towers.
Collins didn’t speak until I asked him to.
“What’d they say?” I asked.
He ran a hand over his face “They have witnesses and evidence, it might be difficult Sir,”
“What’s else,’
He hesitated. “We traced the leak. Someone in our company leaked an evidence against her to the police,”
“Carmen?”
“No Sir,” Collins shifted a bit
“It's the Chief Director, Hale,”
Hale.
What the hell did Hale have to do with this? He had a tight connection with the government.
If Hale was the one who’d handed them the file—
“Call him,” I said flatly. “Right now.”
Collins’ fingers already moved. “I can’t reach him directly. He’s supposed to be in a meeting,”
My instinct was a simple, animal thing; burn the man alive with my bare hands.
I pictured him in an expensive suit, squirming as I asked him why. I wanted to rip him apart slowly and make sure every excuse tasted like ash.
“Wait,” Collins said, voice steady and practical.
“We don’t have proof yet that he is directly involved,”
“If we go public with accusations and we’re wrong, we’ve given them exactly what they want—chaos,”
He was right, we should act out of baseless accusations.
I let the fire simmer down long enough to breathe. “We will get the proof,” I said.
Collins nodded, but I could see the worry in his eyes. “Sir, your phone just pinged.”
My phone had flashed once while we were talking. I’d ignored it.
But it beeped again.
You’re playing the wrong game, Mark. Check the body.
Again, the same kind of strange messages I received from unknown numbers.
Who was this person and was he walking for me or against me?
Beneath the text, was an address, and a time stamped.
I didn’t need to think. My pulse ratcheted. I told Collins we were going to the morgue.
The city's light raced passed behind us as Collins accelerated the gear.
By the time we reached the county facility the lights were dim, the staff polite but defensive.
The attendant at the desk tried to keep the exchange bureaucratic.
“We need authorization,” he said.
Collins handed him some Id. He murmured some words then the attendant made a call, his voice softer after that.
He opened the door for us.
They led me down to the cold room where bodies wait politely for their paperwork to catch up to them.
The air smelled of antiseptic and old sorrow.
The drawer labeled for Asher’s case was closed.
The technician hovered there, blinking at a clipboard. I watched him flip through pages as if they could speak. I forced myself to breathe in slow counts.
“Open the drawer,” I told the man. Open it.
He did.
The neatly folded sheet stared back at him.
“Where is he?” I asked.
The technician blinked. “There…there’s nothing in there, sir. The cadaver unit shows that it was processed this morning but now—” His voice faltered like a candle in the wind.
He was utterly confused and visibly shaken.
A missing corp.
I stared at that empty drawer until the lights seemed to dim. Someone had moved him.
Someone had known enough to move him before anyone more official got there. Someone with access, with motive.
My hands curled into fists. That text, Check the body, wasn’t a taunt.
It was a trail. Someone wanted me to find nothing. Someone wanted me to feel the absence.
I thought of Becca’s whisper through the glass: It’s bigger than you think.
Bigger. Of course it was bigger. Of course Davenport’s poison ran deeper than a leaked video. Of course Hale could be a puppet and someone else could be the puppeteer.
I stepped back from the table as if the stainless steel burned. The cold room suddenly felt like a stage and I, the only one who hadn’t yet learned my lines.
Collins touched my arm. “I will get to the root of this,”
The urge to torch everything and everyone who’d smiled at the idea of Becca’s ruin thrummed inside me like a second heartbeat.
But Collins was right.
Fury without facts is just noise. And noise kills what we love by giving our enemies cover.
I let the anger sit where it belonged.
I dialed a number I hadn’t used in years and let it ring.
“Tell me everything about Hale,” I said when someone finally answered. “And find out who pulled Asher.”
The person on the line inhaled. “You sure you want to dig that hole, Mark?”
“Dig it up,” I said. “I want to know everything that is underneath it,”
I was ging to make whoever had stolen Asher's body and stolen Becca’s name pay with whatever remained.