“Some people are actually pleased I took a serial killer off the streets. They sympathize with my history. They can see I got a raw deal as a kid and that I fought against it every step of the way to become a cop and fight for justice. Thanks to the media coverage, they’re aware of the dogged way in which I worked my own cold case. And they see all of this as a plus for a private investigator. They want me to do the same for them and for their loved ones.” She bent forward. “See? My notoriety—my so-called abrasive pit-bull personality—can actuallybringyou contracts. Certain kinds of contracts. You could benefit from keeping me on the side. If you do hire me back, I will not have CI on my business cards. I will not even mention Coastal Investigations. I will just be your quiet Pallorino Special Investigations arm. No commitment on your end other than allowing me to work on your firm’s books and giving me access to the CI databases and tech support staff.”
“You just want CI as an umbrella under which you can earn your under-supervision hours.”
“Yes. So? You get the bulk of my fee for it.”
“And then when you’ve banked all the requisite hours, you’ll walk. After using our name.”
“No, Jock, you’re not hearing me. I won’t use your name. It’ll be my own name. New business cards. I just work through your infrastructure. Sure, if CI wants to throw additional cases my way, we can discuss.” She leaned back. “Why are you even worried about me walking? You wanted me out, remember. Now you want totie me down?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Let me think about it, okay?”
“Nope.” She started to rise from the chair. “There are other firms who’ll be interested in this kind of deal with me. Client wants me on this right away.”
Justice Monaghan had opened Angie’s eyes to a hot possibility—where her notoriety, her past, could be a commodity and not a millstone.
“Okay, okay. Just ... sit.”
She reseated herself. Waited.
He looked once more at the check. “Okay,” he said. He met her eyes. “We have a deal.”
“Good. I won’t need office space or anything, but like I said, I’ll need to avail myself of some of your systems and personnel for vehicle registration searches, criminal record and background checks, that sort of thing.”
She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and extracted a document she’d prepared during the night. A sleepless night after the call from Maddocks. But this was Angie’s way forward, her only way of coping right now. She would focus on the Jasmine Gulati case. Sure, she might be providing Justice Monaghan with a diversion, a form of entertainment in her twilight years, but Justice Monaghan was providing Angie a similar service in return—distraction from her own problems. Plus a path toward her goal of opening her own firm. Which in turn was a path back to Maddocks. It made Angie feel better about taking the judge’s money.
“So who is the client?” Brixton said. “What’s the job?”
Angie unfolded the document and slid the sheaf of papers over his desk toward him. “First, the contract. We need to sign it.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’ll need our lawyer to—”
“No, Jock. No time. It’s simple. I work for CI on this case. I call all the shots on this case. The fee goes to Coastal, minus expenses, which I expect will be minimal. And minus fifty percent of the bonus if I earn it. At no time do I use your company name. Whether or not you want to mention my name or offer my individualized services to your clients—that’s up to you. This contract is solely in connection with this one job. We can go case by case in the future if you like. Or if this arrangement ends up meeting your satisfaction, we can write up something longer term.”
He inhaled deeply, then pulled out his chair and took a seat. He dragged the document over to his side of the desk. The old clock on his filing cabinet ticked as he read the contract draft carefully. Rain fell outside, and a siren sounded in the distance.
He reached for his pen, signed his name next to Angie’s.
“And sign the copy underneath, one copy each.”
He signed the duplicate, looked up. “So who’s the client?”
“Retired justice Jilly Monaghan.”
“Senator Blackford’s widow?” he said, a dark gleam beginning to light his eyes.
“Yes. The human remains discovered along the Nahamish River have been identified as Jasmine Gulati, a UVic master’s student presumed drowned in 1994. She was Justice Monaghan’s granddaughter. Monaghan wants me to fill in some missing pieces around the final months of Jasmine Gulati’s life leading up to the accident.”
His gaze dropped to the check. “Forthiskind fee?”
Angie gave a shrug. “She saw me on the news. She knows I was on that same river and that I saw her granddaughter’s grave and remains with my own eyes. She’s also followed my past in the news. She wanted to make sure she got me. See? My being on the news brought me that case.”
He grinned and leaned back in his chair. “I might get to like you yet, Pallorino.”
“Feeling’s mutual, Jock,” she lied with a smile.
“I’ll take the case,” Angie said into the phone. “At the terms discussed.”
“I thought you couldn’t. What changed?” Justice Monaghan’s voice boomed into Angie’s ear. Angie moved her cell farther away from her head to save her eardrums. She’d called the judge from her car outside Brixton’s office, wasting no time.
