Chapter 24: Chapter twenty-three

Present day

 

Alesha flopped herself down into her regular seat at the little diner that had become their meeting place. Mike sat opposite her, looking as frustrated as she felt. The investigation into Dr. Clark’s disappearance was going nowhere. They had been looking into it off the books for over a week now and everything that looked like it might have been a lead had turned out to be nothing.

The murder of her colleague had looked promising, but was apparently a mugging by some junkie who the local police had already apprehended. The research she was doing was in next-gen prosthetics. Alesha had initially thought, based on the secret lab equipment, that a competitor might have been involved. But there weren’t any promising suspects on that front either. They had gone over witness statements from the people in Dr. Clark’s building as well as the delivery boy who had tried to drop off take-out to her only to find nobody home, but they hadn’t seen anything. They were down to calling the neighbours to ask if they had seen any vehicles that night around the time Dr. Clark went missing.

“Anyone see anything?” Alesha asked.

“Nothing around the time we want,” Mike said.

Alesha let out a defeated sigh. “I think it’s time we bring the Feds in on this. They have a lot more resources than we do.”

Mike shook his head. “Not until we know whether one of the Feds is dirty. My guy in OPR is looking into it, but it will take a while. We need to be careful. In the meantime, we’ll need to follow other leads on the Bryson case.”

Alesha didn’t want to agree, but she knew Mike was right. She hated not doing more for Dr. Clark, but the local police were already on it and she still had a case of her own to work. She told Mike as much and he grunted.

“We can’t help everyone,” he said. “We can only work the case that’s in front of us.”

Alesha nodded. He was right of course.

 

 

Mike waited until he was alone in his car to sigh with relief. He had been on tenterhooks for the last week while he and Alesha had looked into that woman’s disappearance, and the signs were beginning to show. He had acid reflux after every meal and his sleep was fitful and restless.

They hadn’t found anything, for which he felt both grateful and guilty. Grateful because he had been given strict instructions to conceal anything they did find and finding nothing meant he didn’t have to do anything he would hate himself for. Guilty because the fact he been ready to do it meant he already hated himself plenty. Giving up information about financial transactions was bad enough, but covering up a kidnapping was another thing entirely.

He could feel the weight of his sidearm on his belt and for a moment he considered turning it on himself.

But no, he wasn’t that far gone, not yet. He could still get out of this somehow and get back to being a good cop.

He told himself this, but even he didn’t really believe it.

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