Chapter 8
Eight
Michael couldn’t get Eddie’s voice out of his head. His pitiful cries the night Michael had found him in that cupboard, and again at the park. Finn sat at the desk across from Michael, looking at other cases of break-ins, trying to find a connection.
The phone calls they’d spent the afternoon making to the store employees had offered no leads.
Eddie was the closest witness, but he was already traumatized and not talking.
Flora Donner had even called back and answered their questions, but she had no clue where Gary could be, and she’d had no direct contact with him in years.
Finn rolled back in his chair and stretched. “Well, that was a bust.”
“No luck?” Michael tried to snap out of his own musings. “We should try—”
“It will have to wait till tomorrow, partner. Time to clock out.”
“It’s only three.”
“But with our late-night call, we run the risk of overtime, and you got the same memo I did. The captain doesn’t want to authorize any more of that than he has to. We can start fresh tomorrow.”
He’d let Finn go home, but Michael wasn’t going to sleep well with all the loose ends to follow up on. He could investigate off the clock.
“Right.” Michael closed his folder of notes. Call him old-school, but it helped him to remember details better if he wrote them out with pen and paper. He only had a bunch of questions at the moment though.
Finn stood and pulled on his jacket. “Let me guess. You’re gonna let me leave while you stay up all night beating down more leads.”
Michael said nothing. Just clicked his pen a few times.
“Don’t your brothers have a game tonight?”
Aw, shoot. “They play North Eagle.” Hopefully it wasn’t obvious Michael had completely forgotten about it until Finn said something.
“The rivals. Well, you certainly don’t want to miss that, now, do you?” Finn’s pointed smirk said he hadn’t missed a thing.
“Fine. I’ll leave.”
“Good. I’d hate for you to track down leads and investigate without your partner. In fact, maybe I’ll see you at the game. I’ve got nothing better going on.”
Translation: He’d follow up on this and make sure Michael was there.
“No hot date?”
Finn laughed. “Just whichever sister of yours will sit next to me on the bleachers, I guess.”
Michael tilted his head and stared his partner down. “Not funny.”
“Oh, ’tis a wee joke. Keep your head, Mick. I’m gonna work out at the gym, and I’ll find you at the game.”
They walked out of the station together and went their separate ways. Finn took the bus to his downtown loft. Michael walked to the parking garage and found his dependable Chevy Tahoe. When he opened his car door, a waft of fragrance, floral and bright, met him. It still smelled like Dani.
Dani. She could give him a rundown on Donner’s finances.
And she probably needed a ride home. Rideshares were gonna get expensive real fast, and according to his mechanic’s message on his voicemail, her car was going to need extensive work.
Even with a discount, it was going to be a hefty bill.
If nothing else, he could give her the bad news about Princess Buttercup in person. He called and offered her a ride.
“Really? You don’t mind? I’m not at the office though. I’m out by the interstate.”
“That’s fine. Are you ready now?”
“Believe me, I am more than ready.”
Something in her voice concerned him. With four younger sisters, he could smell drama from miles away. Then again, this was Dani. Drama seemed to be synonymous with Dani Kim. “That bad of a first day, huh? Good thing I’m an excellent listener.”
“Well, I’d tell you all about it, but then I’d have to kill you.”
He chuckled. “Just text me your location.”
“Thanks, Michael.”
Leaving earlier at least helped him avoid traffic as he drove through downtown Renegade and out to Dani’s location. She was standing outside the small office building when he pulled up.
“So…a trucking company?” he asked as she hopped in the passenger seat.
“Don’t get me started,” she snorted. She undid her white blouse a couple buttons and pulled down the visor mirror right away. Before he could ask, she dumped her bag out over her lap, revealing a pile of makeup.
“What does the FBI have you doing way out here? Are you going undercover as a trucker?”
“I wish.” She held a small brush and a palette of colors so bold he couldn’t tell if it was eye makeup or a face-painting kit. “But no. They have me undercover as an accountant.”
“You say that like it’s a dirty word. What’s wrong with an accounting job?”
“I did not join the FBI to be an accountant. In fact, I joined the FBI because I was dying at my bank job.” She brushed shimmery pink across her eyelid.
“Dying, huh?” Teasing her was one of the first times he’d felt like his old self. Like the old days, before his mother’s murder had cast its dark shadow over their lives.
But instead of taunting him back, Dani put the makeup down. “It felt like it.”
Oh. She was serious.
“I’m sorry, Dani. I wasn’t—”
“No, I get it. I know I can be a lot. I exaggerate and embellish, but—never mind.” She lifted the little brush again.
“Dani, tell me. Please. I want to hear.”
She released a little huff. “The truth is, I was in a pretty bad place this time last year.”
“How did I not know? Did something happen?”
“No one knew what was really going on with me, so how could you know? And no. Nothing was happening. That was the problem.”
This wasn’t making sense, but Michael stayed quiet a beat. “Maybe you could elaborate?”
She shifted her body toward him. “Everyone says your twenties are supposed to be, like, the best years of your life, but I felt like I was drowning.” Her voice cracked a little.
This wasn’t Dani being melodramatic. This was Dani being real. “How so?”
“Like the harder I tried at work to climb the corporate ladder and all that stuff I was supposed to do, the worse I felt. And the worse I felt, the more I partied. And I sat on this rooftop club one night, and I actually considered…”
Michael didn’t like the heaviness of her silence. Dani was life and energy. But he’d always known there was a lot more to her than she showed on the surface. “What did you consider?”
“You know. What would it be like if I was…gone. Who would care? Not my wealthy clients. Not my boss, who didn’t even know my name. Not even the so-called friends I was with that night.”
Michael instinctively reached over and squeezed her hand. “I care. Your brother cares. Dani, please know that there are so many of us that care.” He hadn’t seen her in years, but the thought of a world without her sent a shaft of pain through him.
She smiled and squeezed back. “I know that now. I was just seriously depressed, and I needed a change. And one of the girls there that night threw out a crazy question. ‘What if you went for the one dream you never thought possible?’ And I knew right then. I was in that job, in that place, because I was trying to do what everyone else thought I should do, but what I needed was to do something that mattered, you know?”
“Yeah. I do. Kinda like how I left med school too. I needed to do something different after Ma died.”
“See? You get it! I don’t know why my parents don’t. I tried. I really did. But it was killing me inside.”
Her whole life, Dani had cared about making other people happy.
And she did it effortlessly. She had a way of brightening up any space she occupied.
Yes, she usually created some havoc in the process, but he’d never minded.
She was spunky and bright, never backed down when things got difficult.
Kinda like his feisty mother, who hadn’t simply navigated the craziness of raising seven kids and having a high-stress job but had somehow thrived in it all.
“I have to admit, I did wonder if your earlier career path was more about keeping your parents happy. Being a federal agent makes a lot more sense.”
He didn’t see as much as feel her look at him. “You believe that?”
“Yeah. It’s a much better fit for the girl who is tough as nails and knows how to keep her head in chaos.
Remember that camping trip, when Maria hit her head falling off the dock?
You jumped in and saved her before I even knew what was happening.
And I never really pictured you staying behind a desk.
Not with all those times you played spies with my sisters.
You never wanted to be the damsel in distress. You were always the hero.”
“And yet I’m stuck running numbers. Again.”
“I’m sure you’ll show the office all you’re capable of and you’ll be moving on to bigger and better things.”
“One can hope.” She went back to her makeup and mirror. “What are you working on these days?”
He told her about Isaac Carter and Eddie. About the break-ins and Gary Donner.
He didn’t tell her how Donner was connected to his mother’s cases though. Some things a man needed to keep to himself. And since she was already sick of accounting, he didn’t need to get into the financial stuff right now.
“That’s quite the case load.” Dani finished dolling up and threw all the makeup back in her purse.
“And it keeps growing. We’re piling more problems on than we can solve.”
They stopped at a red light, a Renegade Waste Management garbage truck right in front of them.
Dani sat up straight. “I have a crazy idea.”
“What?”
She pointed out the windshield. “How do you feel about going to a garbage dump with me?”
“A garbage dump?”
“I have some questions for my investigation too. I want to see the different kinds of disposal they do. One of the workers definitely didn’t want me poking around the recycling and garbage areas, which is too suspicious to ignore. And I happen to know someone who works at RWM.”
“Of course you do. You know someone everywhere you go.”
“Comes in handy. Here.” She pulled up the navigation on her phone. “We’re not far from the main office. Let’s go.”
“Shouldn’t you check in with your boss? We’re supposed to—”
“Aw, come on, Mikey. Give me something exciting to do. And maybe we’ll make a dent in my case. If not, no biggie.”