Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHASE
D amn. I missed her again.
I stepped out of the building where I’d taken my last statement and into the Uber car that awaited me. It was 8:30 according to the dashboard clock on the car. That is, 8:30 p.m. California time, which made it 11:30 at night in Tennessee. And 11:30 was around two hours later than Violet typically went to bed. We’d texted a couple of times—I’d even done FaceTime over the computer with her and the kids—but it wasn’t nearly enough.
For one, there was the distance. Not being with her wasn’t the same. I couldn’t touch her or hug her through a text. But on video calls, I could see her face and hear her voice. It should have gratified me—should have found me reveling in being able to see her and knowing she was okay. But I could tell in her face and in her voice, she was not.
Not wanting to prod her into telling me what she was struggling with in front of the kids gave me even fewer chances to dig in. She’d been somewhat tight-lipped and at a distance despite my reassurances, though she did confess that things had gone sideways with the building she wanted to buy. At the same time it made me feel for her, it reinforced the sense that she was drifting away.
I did what I could from where I was. I was relying heavily on Cody to hold together the farm and I had a small army of other friends helping look out for Violet. I had an agent friend looking into her real-estate situation and chef friends from The Noble Pig dropping off food. But I’d still left her at the worst possible moment. The trial was coming up and she was getting nervous about the case. If there was any way for me to do what I needed to do and still be there for her in person, I would.
But there wasn’t any way. The meeting Forrest and I had jumped on a plane to get to had opened a can of worms. Our interviewee had been on duty the day of the incident—a dispatcher who had reported irregularities that had been swept under the rug. Since his dispatching days, he’d joined the military—the navy to be exact. By the time we found him, he’d been on the brink of deployment. Hours after we took his statement, he’d shipped out.
But not before giving us the keys to the case. His recollections had been precise. He’d even kept a little black book, a personal log from his shifts. He’d been glad to hear from us—said that fire had always haunted him—and that it was high time someone told the truth about that day.
Beyond his own opinions, he’d given details and named names. It had left us with so many leads, we’d been in California a full ten days. Now, I was on my way to the airport, to catch the red-eye to Washington, DC. Forrest was already there.
The good news was, we’d cracked the case. But what had really happened that day was an awful truth. Reckoning with all of it was putting me through my own hell. The only thing keeping me going was Violet—knowing we were that much closer to delivering justice, not just for her, but for Todd.
Night, darlin’
I’ll be there as soon as I can
You got this, girl.
I had to let her know I was thinking of her. My hope was that she was already asleep. She was good about turning on her Do Not Disturb when she wanted to rest. She would need all she could get tonight because tomorrow was a big day. It was the first day of her retrial.
After I sent the texts, I pocketed my phone and laid my head down on the seat rest. It would be a long drive to SFO and I needed my own rest to get ready for the flight. Despite the fact that it was the red-eye, I would not be sleeping en route. I would be finalizing the evidence file.
Forrest had started working on it. He’d worked on it all day. He’d flown ahead in order to guarantee that at least one of us would be there to beg. Our findings hadn’t even been turned in yet, let alone reviewed or vetted. We needed far more than that in order for them to be admissible in court—we needed them to be declassified.
Declassifying documents was every bit as complicated as it sounded. It was a process that typically took months—time that we absolutely did not have. Based on our findings, there could be reasons not to ever let the truth come to light.
Not only had Todd’s death been wrongful. The lawbreakers at the center of it were powerful people. People who could make things political for the Secretary. We had no way of knowing where her allegiances were. It meant that, despite all she had tasked us with and regardless of the hard evidence we’d uncovered, our findings might never see the light of day.
Violet might never know the truth.
The thought alone gave rise to pain in my chest. Because, if this didn’t work, I could never tell Violet. Without justice to serve along with it, it would only pain her to know that Todd didn’t have to die.
My phone buzzed in my pocket minutes after I drifted off. I was incredibly exhausted, having burned the midnight oil for days. When I woke up, I was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, the dark city sprawling before me. It was Violet, answering my text on a delay.
Where are you?
I responded immediately, elated to hear from her even though I didn’t like her being up at this hour. It meant she couldn’t sleep because of the trial.
On my way back to SFO.
She responded just as quickly.
Thank God. You’ll be here tomorrow morning for the trial.
My heart sank at the impression that I’d given her.
Sorry, Vi. I’m on a plane to Washington tonight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.
I looked at my phone expectantly, hoping vainly for more dancing dots to foreshadow a response. But no further message came. And there was no way to give her an explanation. For now, I was relegated to the status of the asshole who was abandoning her in her darkest hour.
I prayed then—prayed all the way to the airport, all the way through the security line and as the plane taxied down the runway—that the Secretary would do the right thing, and that Violet would forgive me for all of this.