Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
“This is it! This proves I didn’t do it,” I said, clutching the paper like the lifeline it was. My hands shook as I stared down at the blurry letters and numbers. This was it, the reasonable doubt I needed to convince SSA Briggs to widen his investigation and look at literally anyone other than me.
“It’s not that simple,” Noah cautioned. I knew he was right, but my emotions were clouding my logic. The possibility this could all be over in a matter of hours made it hard to think straight. I couldn’t go back to the instability and uncertainty of living on the lam and keep my sanity intact.
“But if Vienna Quinn killed Monica—” I said, shaking my head at the overwhelming implication.
“She has an alibi,” Noah cut in, dashing my hopes as quickly as they’d reared their ugly heads.
“It seems that Briggs has known about this photo since day one, and part of the reason it took so long to get to your interview was because they’d brought Quinn in to question her about it.
But she was caught on tape at a gas station in Woodbridge when Monica was attacked. ”
“Then why show me this?” I asked, trying to decide if I ought to be angry at him for getting my hopes up or if there was something to this I wasn’t seeing.
“Because it means Briggs isn’t out to get you,” Noah replied, and I made a face at that.
His actions certainly felt targeted. “Listen, he didn’t turn his suspicions on you until after looking into other options.
That means that he can be convinced that you’re innocent.
And this license plate is proof that someone in D.C.
needed Quinn to clean up a mess in the same area as Monica half an hour before she died. ”
“Monica could have witnessed something,” I suggested, but even as I said the words they felt wrong.
If Monica had been witness to a crime worth killing her over, then she would have done something in that half hour to alert the FBI.
And even someone as skilled as a fixer would need more than half an hour to find out who I was, how to draw me to Monica’s, and where to find my prints in order to put them on the murder weapon.
“No, wait. Quinn must have been there to make sure the frame job went off without a hitch.”
“That’s definitely an angle Briggs wouldn’t have thought to follow,” Noah agreed. “And having a solid alibi for the exact window of time that Monica was killed in is too perfect. It tells me she knew what was happening and that she was actively protecting herself from the fallout.”
“So, what do we do with that?” I asked, shaking my head. This wasn’t the golden ticket to freedom I first thought it was, but it was a lead and it felt solid. Someone hired Vienna Quinn to ensure that the incredibly intricate frame job went off without a hitch.
“We convince Briggs to look into Quinn again,” Noah replied. “Or rather, I do. You focus on keeping your head down until your name is cleared.”
Noah was right. No matter what I did to find the truth, I still needed procedurally sound evidence to clear my name, and that meant convincing an active FBI agent to find the truth as well.
And in the meantime, I was back at square one, living on the lam and looking over my shoulder at every little sound.
If Noah did find out that the police were in my apartment looking for me, there was no way I could go back to being Hale Hastings.
And despite knowing better I had gotten attached to this new life and the new version of myself.
To Rogue, who was technically a foster until I could sign the adoption papers.
If I had to go on the run I would bring him with me, but was that breaking another law?
It would be a minor charge compared to everything else, but the alternative was to go back into Street Dog Hero and sign the adoption paperwork which probably wasn’t going to lead directly to my arrest, but I would have to be careful about it.
I frowned as I realized I was spiraling into the details of a scenario I really didn’t want to go down.
I had told Noah that I was done running and I meant it.
But just because I didn’t want to run anymore, that didn’t mean the FBI was done chasing me.
And there was still Monica’s killer to consider, and what they might do if I ever ended up in cuffs again.
“I hate this,” I told him.
“I know,” he replied, “But this isn’t forever, Avery. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I told him, even as I realized how strange it was to hear my own name again.
I’d become so used to responding to ‘Hale’ that my given name was beginning to sound false in my own ears.
I wasn’t Avery anymore and even if we figured out the truth and proved to the FBI that I hadn’t killed Monica, I wasn’t sure that going back to being Avery McHale was the right path for me.
Not when she had endured so much and even more had been taken from her.
“I’m going to keep this one,” Noah said, shaking me from my thoughts. I looked up at him, our eyes meeting as he took on the fiercest expression I’d ever seen. “Whoever did this isn’t going to get away with it.”
The image in my hands caused nothing but frustration as I chased one question after another with the same damn answers.
Vienna Quinn knew something about Monica’s death, but she had an alibi.
Noah was the only person who believed in my innocence, but he had no jurisdiction to investigate.
And it appeared that Briggs was just doing his job, but he was falling for the evidence that Monica’s killer put right under his nose and losing evidence that would exonerate me.
Not to mention that I still wasn’t convinced my cover wasn’t blown.
“What did you find?” I asked by way of answering my phone when Noah called twenty minutes later. I heard him huff a little on the other end of the line, like he was unsurprised by my lack of social pleasantries but still found it humorous.
We both knew the plan, though. I’d expected his call. There was no point in beating around the bush when he was standing in my apartment looking for evidence that someone had broken in, or that the FBI knew that’s where I’d been hiding.
“As I suspected, you’re clear,” Noah told me. “Your lamp is unplugged like you said it might be, and everything else is exactly where you expected it to be. It doesn’t look like anyone has been inside at all.”
“So then why were there police standing outside my open apartment door this morning?” I asked, pressing my phone to my ear with my shoulder as I pulled a bowl out of the microwave, hissing as my fingers hit a spot on the glass that had gotten too hot.
“I spoke to your neighbor like you suggested,” Noah answered.
“She told me they were responding to a domestic dispute from the couple in the apartment above yours and when she asked them why your door was open they told her it was like that when they arrived. She’s the one who locked and closed it after that. ”
“So you’re saying it was a false alarm,” I dashed some hot sauce on the macaroni in my bowl and set it aside, letting it cool down while we talked.
“I’m saying I don’t have any clue what happened, but whatever happened doesn’t seem related to you,” Noah replied. “Listen, I’m getting another call but I’m five minutes away. We can talk about next steps then.”
“See you soon,” I said, trying not to let my frustration leak into my voice.
It should be a good thing that Noah hadn’t found any signs of trouble, but I was still left unsettled.
I knew I couldn’t stay in this loft forever, but Trick would be gone until tomorrow morning and I was reluctant to return to my studio.
Maybe I could take advantage of his absence and get at least one good night’s sleep.
I was sprawled out on the leather couch in the living room, just finishing the last bite of my macaroni, when Noah walked back through the door. Rogue lifted his head from my lap, saw Noah, and leapt off the couch to run at him, tail wagging.
“He seems to have changed his tune,” Noah said, looking at Rogue warily for a moment before reaching out to run a hand down his back. Rogue’s tail went wild as he jumped up on Noah, nearly knocking him down.
“Off,” I ordered, and Rogue turned to look at me for a moment before pushing off of Noah and racing back to my side. “Good boy. Sorry about that, I never quite know what to expect from him yet.”
“It’s fine,” Noah said, shooting a fond expression towards the dog at my feet. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the key to my apartment. He stepped forward to hand it over and Rogue let out a ferocious bark. Noah threw his hands up in surrender and stepped back again.
“Settle,” I ordered, and Rogue’s head snapped back to look at me before he looked at Noah again, whining.
I stood, taking Rogue gently by the collar and leading him to Trick’s room before closing the door behind him.
“Sorry, there’s something that sets him off and we’re still trying to figure out what it is. But it only seems to be around men.”
“He’s just trying to protect you,” Noah said, and I smiled at my friend who always seemed to give the underdog the benefit of the doubt. He passed me my key, and I took a moment to thread it back on my key ring.
“So, we don’t think that my cover is blown, and we don’t think that Monica’s killer is skulking around my apartment, right?” I asked, and Noah pressed his lips together in a tight line.
“I’m certain your cover is intact,” he said with a surprising amount of conviction. “As for the rest of it, I don’t know. It is strange that your door was left open, but you mentioned that Kenna had been following you. Maybe she attempted to break in and accidentally let Rogue out?”
I tilted my head, thinking about that for a moment.
Of course it made sense. Gracie was Kenna’s friend, and she’d asked me to talk about Lexi when Kenna was the P.I.
she had hired to find her cousin. Now that I thought about it, it didn’t make sense for Gracie to just ask a stranger to talk about her missing cousin.
She must have been keeping me distracted while Kenna went searching through my things.
“Sonofabitch,” I muttered, shaking my head as the realization hit me. “That’s exactly what happened.”
“I would love to stick around and help get her off your trail, but it was my boss who called just now,” Noah told me. “They need me back in Portland ASAP. I’ll call you when I can. Stay safe.”
“Yeah, you too,” I replied, watching him slip back out the door and already trying to think of ways to handle this situation with Kenna.
She was only supposed to be in town for a few more days, but if she had escalated from stakeouts to B&E’s then I didn’t want to even begin thinking what she might try next.
Kenna Scott was becoming a thorn in my side, and I was certain that I needed to nip this in the bud before it got out of hand. The only question was how?