Angie dropped her gaze to the numbers the judge had scrawled, and then she glanced at the check. She had to focus on not blinking or catching her breath.
“This would be taking advantage of you,” Angie said, carefully refolding the paper.
The justice held up both hands as Angie tried to give it back. “No. It’s me who is taking advantage of your expertise and your time. I can afford to. Indulge me, Angela. Indulge an old woman with some answers before she dies.”
“I can’t. By law you cannot hire me to work directly for you. I really am sorry.”
“Just take it, take this box, take the reports, take the retainer check. Find a way.” She creaked to her feet, wincing as she pressed her hand to her back.
“Did it ever air?” Angie said.
“What?”
“The documentary.”
“What documentary?”
“Women in the Stream, the film Rachel Hart was making on the river.”
The justice looked confused suddenly. Then her eyes showed panic. “Gudrun! Where are you?”
The housekeeper came bustling in.
“Show ... uh ... Ms.Pallor ... Palloridio the way out. Make sure she takes that ... that box with her.” The judge shuffled hurriedly toward a door that led off the living room. “If you have questions, Angela, give me a call.” She began to sing as she reached the door, her words soft at first, then rising in strident tenor. Her voice was remarkable. Stunned, Angie stared at the judge’s back. She recognized the tune—a song about being in the arms of an angel and finding comfort there.
Angie stared after the judge as she disappeared through the door.
Gudrun said, “A song for an angel’s cradle child.”
Angie faced the housekeeper, confused.
“She’s losing her mind,” Gudrun said. “When she gets tired, her memory suddenly goes. It’s a terrible thing for a woman with a formidable intellect to lose. She’s bored. She has the money to pay you. You should do this for her.”
“So I’m to be paid entertainment?”
“There are worse things to be.” The woman paused. “Like unemployed.”
She’d been listening at the door.
Gudrun replaced the photos and files in the box and picked it up. “Come, I’ll show you out.” She carried the box as she escorted Angie back to the front door.
In the mudroom, as Angie shrugged into her coat, Gudrun said, “Rachel Hart, the filmmaker, is still alive, if you’re interested. She’s in her seventies, lives in Metchosin now. There’s a list of everyone who was on the trip in the original SAR and coroner’s reports from twenty-four years ago. And no, the documentary never aired. The sponsors killed the film after the tragedy. Just take a look at it.” She held the box out to Angie. “Please.”
Inside her car, engine running, heater on full blast to clear the fogged windows, Angie rummaged quickly in the glove compartment. Relief sliced through her as she found her engagement ring where she’d secreted it. Angie stared at the ring, thinking of Maddocks, of their last phone call. Anxiety twisted in her stomach.
She fastened the chain and ring around her neck and hesitated, her hand wrapped around the ring. She wanted to call him. Yet she didn’t want to call him.
Reaching forward, she put her Mini Cooper in gear. She’d wait until he returned from his trip. It would give them both a bit of a breather. It would give her time to decide what to do about the bodyguard job offer. Because she really couldn’t even begin to consider taking the old judge’s money.
For one, it would not be legal, and she could jeopardize any chance of ever being able to open her own PI firm. For another, Angie had pride—she was a good investigator, not hired entertainment. For another, taking money from an old woman going senile was a kind of abuse.
But as Angie drove through the gates of the Monaghan residence, she cast a fast glance at the leather-sided file box on the passenger seat.
Maybe she’d take a quick look at the files when she got home. If anything, it would keep her mind off her own problems on a Saturday night alone in her apartment.
CHAPTER 12
The makeshift whiteboard Angie had glued to a wall in her apartment to investigate her own cold case was still in place, her computer and printer still neatly positioned to the side of it. And as she laid out the contents of Justice Jilly Monaghan’s box on her dining room table, the act of embarking on a fresh investigation felt comforting and familiar. An escape.
