Making sure someone walks free.
I am the person the podcast is warning people about. The person who helps make bodies disappear into legal paperwork. The person who organizes evidence into reasonable doubt.
Making sure someone walks free.
One more year, I tell myself.
But the words feel heavier than they used to. Heavier than the boxes. Heavier than the files full of bodies and lies.
Three
Shutting the podcast off,I stretch and yawn.
The Patterson discovery is organized, indexed, cross-referenced. But between the true crime podcasts and actually being interested in the case details, I kept working. Reorganizing. Double-checking.
Anything to delay the inevitable climb to Dom’s office.
It also makes the time go faster.
Thai long gone and my boba finished, I glance at the time. 1:47 a.m.
I should have finished hours ago. Should have picked Alex up by now. But the work kept me here. It always keeps me here.
Seventeen texts from Alex tracking her progression through the night kept me going. From Bob & Barbara’s to Franky Bradley’s to Woody’s. A complete tour of Philadelphia’s nightlife while I organized witness statements in a basement.
She’s definitely drunk.
I gather up everything Dom needs for this case and begin to shut everything down. I’ll need to come back down and clean up my mess, but the only thing on my mind right now is my bed.
And picking up Alex from the club.
Holding my folders to my chest in one hand and my heels in the other, my phone clatters to the floor. For a moment I debate picking it up but instead leave it to grab before I leave and I walk back through the stacks to the elevator.
Unfortunately for me, no matter how many times I press the up arrow, it doesn’t light up.
“Don’t do this to me,” I mutter to the old elevator. It’s one of those ancient ones that Dom finds endearing. And it loves to stop working at the worst possible moments.
Like now, when I need to get to his floor and deliver the paperwork.
I press the button again. Nothing. Not even a light. My stomach drops.
It was working fine when I came down at eight. Usually it at least lights up before refusing to move.
But it’s two in the fucking morning and I’m not troubleshooting an elevator.
I eye the stairs. No one wants to climb four flights in the middle of the night.
I slam my pointer finger on the button one more time. It blinks once, then goes out.
Fuck my life.
I begrudgingly choose the stairs.
Opening the stairwell door, the buzz of fluorescent lights crawls under my skin. Dom hates them as much as the next person—they only exist in the stairwell and the basement. The rest of the building gets soft lights.
I peer up the center and sigh.
“This is why I don’t do cardio,” I mutter as I begin the ascent.
