Chapter 28 Lash
LASH
I wake up on Stiff’s couch feeling like I got hit by a bus. My arm is a dead weight hanging from my shoulder, and Stiff is snoring like a bull. I feel around numbly for my boots, manage to grab the top, and then sling it across the room.
“Ow! Fuck! What the Jesus Christ was that?”
Jackal?
It all comes back to me. The party, sneaking Dakota into the loft, coming back to Stiff’s room to continue the evening. Where’d Dakota go? My phone buzzes. It’s not her, but there is a message from her in the long list of notifications. Something about her going back to the apartment.
“You both need to shut the fuck up or get out of my room,” Stiff grumbles.
“Check your messages. Poe got the data from Georgia’s phone.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’ve collected Dakota and we're in the tech cave Poe has set up in the old office of the school.
A rack of computers hums and blinks against one of the walls, connected to all sorts of shit that I have no idea what is, but keeps us with internet and surveillance cameras and crap like that.
Poe's desk is arranged so that no one can walk in on him and what he's doing without him noticing, but he waves us around to watch something on his laptop.
“Alright, first off, fair warning, the most interesting thing I’ve found is a video of someone getting shot. I don’t think it’s anyone we know, but if you don't have the stomach for it, this is your last chance.” Poe looks pointedly at Dakota, who blanches, but shakes her head.
“No.” Her lips straighten in determination. “If it’s on Georgia's phone, I want to see it.”
He gives her a searching look, but nods. “Your choice.”
I put my arm around her shoulder, and notice Jackal’s hand resting on her lower back. She's stiffer than a board. “If you want, we can watch first and tell you if it’s bad.”
“No, I’m not a delicate little flower. I wouldn’t be here if I was,” she snaps.
Jackal nods. “Roll film.”
Poe double clicks a file and a vertical video clip pops up.
It's shaky, and the angle’s bad, with something covering a strip on the left.
Two men are in view, talking. The one facing us I don't recognize, and the other guy has his back to us.
They're obviously not having a good time. The one we can see is fucking pissed. He’s gesturing angrily, and misses when the other guy puts his hand to his back and starts slipping a gun from his belt.
“You're too fucking deep!” The sound's a little muffled, but it's the guy whose face we can see. “If you don’t tell them, then I will. I can't just let this pass, you fucking know it.”
“Jesus, Ross. I'm just making sure they trust me. It's all for the job.” The voice itches a spot in my brain. I’ve heard it before.
“Bullshit. This whole thing is fucked. I’m out, and you should be, too.” The guy shakes his head and starts to walk away.
“You're not gonna do that. Come on, Ross, how long have you known me?” Jay. The guy with his back to us is definitely Jay.
“Sorry, man. It’s for the best. They’ll put you on a year of desk work to give your trail time to cool and then you’ll be right back out there.” Ross pats him on the shoulder and moves to leave again. “Don't make this harder than it has to be.”
When Ross has his back turned, Jay pulls the gun. “Stop.”
Maybe Ross was a good cop, but he must've been a real shitty judge of character, because when he looks behind him, he seems completely shocked that Jay would pull a gun. “What the hell are you doing? Stop fooling around, man.”
“I'm not gonna ask you again.” Jay's voice quavers. Not a hardened killer, for sure, but Poe pretty much spoiled the end for us. “I need this. I’m so close to breaking into the next level.”
“This is what I’m talking about, you’re—”
The gun goes off twice, throwing Ross backwards in a spray of blood.
The shots echo off the alley walls and the video spins and goes dark, like she shoved the phone in her pocket or something.
Georgia's gasp is just audible under the shuffling, in time with Dakota's right next to me. “Gi-gi, it’s not what it looks like,” Jay shouts.
“What the fuck are you—” The video cuts out.
Dakota's hand is clapped over her mouth, stunned.
“Now I'm regretting letting that asshole live instead of putting his ass down when we had the chance,” I growl.
“You tracked him down?” Dakota asks. “When?”
Stiff nods. “At the apartment, remember? When we got the key?”
“Key? That's Jay?” Dakota's voice is a whisper.
“Yeah, who did you think it was?” Jackal asks.
“That's Officer Dillard. The policeman who showed up at my apartment to ask about Georgia and then when I had the break-in.”
The fuck? Playing pieces shift around in my head, settling into new spots. Not two people working together. One person with two identities. “You're sure?”
“Definitely him.” Her voice quavers and her hand grips the edge of the desk, knuckles white. “He was in my home. He talked to Logan!”
Poe looks at her, skeptical. “You really never saw your sister’s boyfriend? The guy she was with for years?”
“No! I think early on I saw him go into the building once when I was dropping off Georgia, but she said he knew I hated him, and he didn’t want anything to do with me.
Considering I did hate him, and pretty soon had Logan to worry about, no, I made no attempt to try to get closer to her shitty boyfriend.
” She stalks away, leans against the wall and slides down until her butt is on the floor.
“What do we do now? Call the police? When did Georgia take that video?”
Poe checks the file. “Friday morning.”
“Not long before she picked Logan up from pre-school,” Dakota whispers.
“She was running scared. And that asshole tried to cover his tracks by making sure nobody would look into someone like her when she died. The gun.” She looks up at us.
“The gun from Georgia’s apartment. If that’s the same gun, he probably knows we have it. This is so messed up.”
Poe closes the video window on his laptop.
“I’ll go through everything just to be sure, but there might not be much else related to this.
I just thought you guys needed to see that ASAP.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to grease the fucker. He sounds like a grade A piece of shit.” He catches Dakota's attention.
“I'll give you all the files once I'm done.
I'm sure there's a bunch of personal stuff you'll want just because it was your sister. “
“Thanks.” Her smile is tired, but the gratitude is real, and I think Poe understands that. He's a smart dude.
On the way back to her apartment, Dakota stops and looks up at the sky. She closes her eyes and soaks in the sun after a day of rain and hard truths. “At some point, I’m going to have to explain to Logan that his father killed his mother. Maybe not directly, but I don’t know if that matters.”
Me, Lash and Jackal share a look.
Jackal is the first to speak. “I wanted to wait until there was a good time for you to talk to him personally, but we had a talk with Priest, one of Ice’s buddies from back when he and Georgia were a thing. He’s pretty sure Logan is Ice’s kid, not Jay’s.”
She blinks at me. “How sure is he?”
“Very,” Stiff. “He’s pretty sure she got pregnant when things started going bad in the club, and Ice wanted to keep her clear of the trouble.”
“So why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t she go back?”
“Because by the time things were safe, he was dead.” Jackal’s voice is soft, but the message isn’t.
Dakota presses the palms of her hands against her eyes. “I have to talk to Priest and think a bit before I can say anything to Logan.”
I put my arms around her. Her whole body radiates tension at first, but then the air leaves her lungs in a soft rush and she relaxes into the hug. “We can’t make this right, but we can make the right people pay.”
“Good.” A single word is enough.