Chapter 20
OLIVIA
C arlos is remarkably devoted to his job, to doing the right thing. Most importantly, he is dedicated to doing the right thing the right way, which, in my experience, is a rarity. A noble man, through and through, Carlos meets me once a week to give me updates about his investigation into Marcus.
“I’ve already told the guys about this,” he says, pushing a new folder across the table for me to look at.
We’re at the diner in between the breakfast and lunch rush, which gives me an opportunity to sit down, sip on some lemonade, and scarf down a tomato and mozzarella panini before the lunch crowd comes in.
“Hey, kiddo,” Melinda says, greeting Carlos as she comes to our table with drinks and food, most of it for me. “Made you your favorite.”
“Chorizo and red cheddar. Thank you, ma’am,” he replies as he welcomes her affection and food. “Did you?— ”
“Toss in a little of that mango chutney you like? You’re damn right I did,” she says with a wink.
“Melinda, you’re a star.”
“Don’t I know it,” she quips, then looks at me with a concerned half smile. “You’d better stay off your feet for as long as possible, missy, and eat. I’ll check back in a minute.”
I can’t help but laugh. “My God, Mel, I’m not an invalid.”
“Yeah, well, we take care of our people around here, especially those bold enough to carry two buns in the oven,” Melinda replies. “Don’t worry about getting up for at least another half hour, darling. It’s Wednesday. Wednesdays are always slow.”
“Thank you.”
She gives me a wink and walks back to the counter, getting busy with the cutlery and napkin boxes, the usual prep routine before the lunch hour.
I’m not sure about Wednesday being a slow day, though, not with what Jim cooked up for today’s specials.
I can already smell the roasted veal and the rosemary potatoes, mingled with the scent of peach and apricot pies baking in the convection oven.
My mouth is watering, and I dig into my panini while Carlos gleefully discovers the mango chutney layer in his.
“So what am I looking at here exactly?” I ask him as I flip the folder open with my spare hand, turning page after page and taking mental notes of the information printed on each. “At first glance, I see credit card receipts, Excel spreadsheets, and court filings.”
“My IA guys have started digging deeper into Marcus’s finances and his arrests, along with his entire professional record dating back to his first day, when he was fresh out of the academy,” Carlos replies with a mouthful. “Damn, this is a good sandwich.”
“I know. Nobody makes them like Melinda,” I chuckle and bite into mine, delighted by the balsamic glaze she slathered within.
“Yeah, as I was saying, they’re digging deep, as much as the law will allow without a warrant,” he replies, giving me a hard look. “If you have anything that might help us get one, Olivia, now is the time.”
“You’re not getting much out of what you have here?” I ask and look at the folder. “Surely, there are plenty of inconsistencies to explore. His financial transactions alone should give you a pattern to follow up on.”
“Not serious enough to warrant IA going after him. He’s the sheriff of a large district and a very influential man within law enforcement. Nobody’s going to go after him based solely on breadcrumbs. We need more, Olivia.”
I’d hoped pointing Carlos in the right direction would be enough.
“Marcus is careful, isn’t he?” I ask, rhetorically.
“Extremely careful, and I didn’t expect anything less from a man who has amassed so much power within the department at his age,” he says. “I don’t like this any more than you do, Olivia. But you said you had something, something short of nuclear to burn this guy.”
“What I have might not be enough,” I sigh. “I thought it would be, but a good lawyer could still?— ”
“Whatever it is, I need it, if only to get a judge to sign off on a warrant. That could get the ball rolling to open an official IA investigation and maybe even get the New York City DA on board. We need more ammunition, and you’re the one who’s got it.”
I show him my wrist, on which a charm bracelet rests. It’s one of the few items I am rarely without. “I’ve had this for as long as I can remember. Marcus got it for me on my twentieth birthday. A token of his love, he called it. Every time I found a new charm, I’d buy it and add it to this chain.”
It’s a sterling silver chain, now holding twenty-five small pieces of jewelry, each one found at some little shop or street corner over the years.
One, in particular, catches Carlos’s eye, and for good reason.
It’s a four-sided die covered in acrylic black with white dots, a fine line running along the middle.
Carefully, I remove the die and open it, revealing a tiny USB pebble.
Carlos can’t help but smile. “Smart girl.”
“I’ll make a copy and have one of the guys give it to you,” I say. “I’m not parting with this.”
“It’s the original.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll need to authenticate it at some point.”
“But can you work with a copy until then?” I ask.
“Yes, what’s on it?”
My stomach tightens at the thought of what it contains. My appetite is about to take a nosedive as I remember the minutes I stole late at night, copying files onto this drive, making sure Marcus wouldn’t hear me.
“I got these off his laptop and his phone while he was sleeping,” I say. “Contacts, emails, photos, scanned documents. A lot of things that didn’t make much sense to me, but if you run them against his arrest record, you might find some red flags.”
“It won’t be considered fruit of the poisonous tree because it came from you,” he concludes, already thinking about ways to introduce it as evidence.
“There are also report files from the work I did for him: doctored transactions modified records and their originals, each organized in specific, accurately dated folders,” I tell him.
“It’s the one thing I had the presence of mind to do right, I guess.
” I take another deep breath. “There is a problem with this, though, with me handing it over, I mean.”
“What is it?”
I lower my gaze in genuine shame. “It will inevitably incriminate me, too. I was aware of the illegality of my actions. I did it anyway because I loved him, because I wanted to protect him and help him.”
Carlos needs a moment to think about it.
The guys don’t know the details of how dark my work for Marcus got before I left.
It’s too shameful. I still blame myself for the part I played in his rise to power.
In a way, I feel responsible for the deaths of Chloe’s parents.
His audacity stems from what I helped facilitate for him as the sheriff of Devon, NY.
“Did you know that he was doing it to hurt people?” Carlos asks me .
“No,” I reply, shaking my head. “He gave me this whole story about doing things that way because there were corrupt officials within law enforcement that would try to stop him, because the drug dealers he was going after had the DA in their pocket, all stories I believed, until I realized that those same pockets were actually his. And the money he said he was making from those dealers… he wanted to reinvest it into our drug-ravaged community.”
“That alone tells me you were lied to, Olivia. You had good intentions.”
“The ends don’t really justify the means, though, do they?”
“Not always. But given what we’re up against, I’m sure we could work out a good deal with the DA to keep you out of it,” he says.
There it is again. That flicker of hope burning in my heart. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Carlos. I don’t want to have my babies in jail.”
“Do Dax, Leo, and Beck know about the extent of your involvement?” He leans closer as he asks the question.
My face burns red and hot. I feel vulnerable, almost ready to crumble, as I realize how easy it was for him to read me the way he just did. I lower my gaze once more.
“I haven’t found the courage to tell them yet, not the nitty-gritty parts, anyway,” I admit. “I acknowledged and accepted my part of the blame, and they were so understanding, so forgiving. I’m not sure I’d hold up as a reliable witness in court, though.”
“Whatever happened, it’s in your past, Olivia. And knowing the guys as well as I do, I doubt it’ll even make a dent in your relationship. ”
“Are you trying to reassure me?” I ask and chuckle nervously.
“It should come from you, not me, where they’re concerned,” he says, then takes a deep, decisive breath. “Alright. Let me see what I can work out with an outside DA. Jocelyn is out of the question.”
I scoff lightly. “Yeah, she’d much rather see me rot in prison.”
“It’s not her jurisdiction, anyway. I need a NY-based district attorney. All I can do is provide them with information and proof and make sure they do something with it,” Carlos replies. “A copy of that stick will go a long way, for sure.”
“Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Once you go over the contents of this drive, you won’t think too harshly of me.”
Carlos laughs out loud, then takes another bite of his chorizo and red cheddar panini, once again humming as the taste of mango chutney hits his tongue.
“Goddamn, this is soul food at its best,” he says.
“Listen, Olivia. I can’t think too harshly of you because I understand how manipulative people like Marcus can be.
Jocelyn? Well, she’s got a nasty side, and I fell for it—bad.
It almost ruined my friendship with the guys, so I get it.
If anybody in this town gets you, it’s me. ”
That’s one aspect of Carlos I haven’t had the chance to dig into. And while I’m all for hearing both sides of the story, Jocelyn is the last person I’d want to reach out to at this point.
“Tell me about her,” I say, “Jocelyn.”
“What did the guys tell you?” he asks, raising a curious eyebrow .