Page 5 of Free to Judge

Rubbing his temples in resignation, he challenges, “At what cost, Dec? What will it cost you personally?”

My head hangs low, the weight of his despair and desperation making it hard to hold up. “Maybe that’s exactly what’s needed. I failed to save her. I lost her. How many more lives won’t be saved if I don’t take this next step?”

“We all lost Tanya, Dec. Not just you.”

I flinch and can’t reply because while I know he’s right, he’s also wrong. She wasmineto protect. Something in my face must reflect that because Holder swears under his breath. After a long moment, he reaches into his desk, pulling out a packet of matches. Without any further discussion, he lifts the file we’ve been discussing, drops it into the trash, strikes a match and drops it atop of it.

Together, we watch as a list of my accommodations and the crucial paperwork OPR has been cultivating about my life turns into ash. When the fire smolders out, he hands me the metal bucket.

I stomp down on the remaining embers, each movement obliterating my ties with the FBI more so than the simple resignation letter he received in his email earlier today. Then I head into his en suite, fill the bucket with water, and transform the blackened remnants into useless sludge before flushing the slime away.

Unknown

The files are gone for good. No chance of recovery.

When I enter back into his office and hand over the bin, I meet his gaze. Regret is heavy in my voice when I show him the text, “There’s nothing to stop it now.”

He winces before ordering, “Get the hell out of my office before someone catches us.”

I jerk up my chin. Just as my hand touches the knob, I hear him call out, “Dec?”

I don’t turn around. “Yeah?”

“See you on the other side. We’ll make this okay, yeah?”

Without another word, I open the door and vanish into the night, each silent step affirming that there’s no turning back—a haunting promise that nothing will ever be the same again.

CHAPTER TWO

ONE YEAR LATER

Boston smellslike filthy snow and back-to-back cars in the winter. It doesn’t matter if it’s morning, noon, or night—the white crap that falls from the sky absorbs the scent of exhaust from the vehicles that trudge their way into the city at all hours of the day.

I keep my head down, walking carefully over the salted and cracked sidewalk from my apartment toward the front office of Byrne Litigation—a clean front for the laundering operation buried underneath.

Technically, I work for them now. Or at least, they think I do.

The reality is that I’m here to help Hudson Investigations clean house, investigate a string of dirty contracts and politicians getting rich off their name.

Not blow my cover.

Not get noticed.

Unfortunately, I’m good at my job—too good. And I spent the night out on my freezing balcony trying to make certain the backstory about my case history would substantiate what I found in the files I’ve been reviewing—that one of their own had been systematically ripping them off for years.

While I’m not here to make friends, I’m definitely not trying to get killed. Coughing into my gloved hand, I’d also like to avoid too many conversations in below zero weather unless I want to pay for a trip to urgent care. As tough as I know I am, it’s been years since I’ve gone through any kind of arctic training.

I stop to hack up a lung in front of an electronics store, causing the people in front of it to scurry by as if they’re afraid they’ll catch the plague. I want to reassure them what I have isn’t contagious, but something catches my eye from the wall of television screens through the glass.

And it’s not the StellaNova logo playing on each one.

It’s her.

Over and over.

She’s posing on the red carpet in an intricately pleated dress that shimmers navy and purple beneath the camera lights. Her black hair, piled high, gleams as brightly as the jewels wrapped around her neck. When she turns to give the paparazzi a better angle of the masterpiece she is, my tongue thickens in my mouth at the sight of all her creamy skin on display.

Someone says something to her off camera, and her eyes light up. Her smile broadens and her head falls back with genuine laughter.