****
An hour later, Elizabeth was staring at her hands in shock, trying to make sense of what she was being told. She kept hearing Ella’s words echo in her head—she couldn’t stop hearing them rattle around between her ears, no matter how hard she tried. My boss is partnering with the mayor to fill up the prison with drug arrests. My boss is worse than crooked; he’s full on corrupt. I’ve been working for an irredeemably corrupt man.
Perhaps it was this more than anything else that finally fed her rage so that it burned hot enough to eat through her shock. “So, the DA has a deal with the Mayor to plant evidence so they can make drug busts, in order to, what…strengthen his anti-drug campaign?”
“In this town, it’s his last foothold,” Ella said. Her voice was hollow and coarse from talking for so long, and from being so thoroughly drained by the day’s events. Elizabeth could see the dark circles under both of their eyes, even though the each of them had clearly attempted to use stage make-up to conceal them. “A lot of his voters are leaning more to the left, being swayed by their children or grandchildren. He knows he’s on his way out, so he’s pulling out all the stops, hitting them where they’re still vulnerable to alarmist tactics, or at least impressionable.”
Chase was leaning back in his seat on the couch, bouncing one muscular leg nervously in place as the two women spoke. He hadn’t said much, and Elizabeth knew now that it was because he expected to be turned to when she came to his part.
“How did you get wrapped up in this, Chase?” Elizabeth said. “How did you ever find out about this?”
“I saw them,” he said simply, and his green eyes hardened as he recalled the incident. “My cousin has been to jail for misdemeanors twice, and he’s half black, so he was an easy target for Hare’s camp, I guess. I was smoking a cigarette in a field behind his house, and I saw two cops slip into his living room. I crept up on them to watch through the window, and they put something in the cushions and slipped right out.” Chase slammed his fist on his leg, and Ella jumped at his sudden burst of movement. “Before I could get back in, the cops were beating down the door with guns drawn. I’m not proud of what I did.” The man closed his eyes and dropped his chin. “I high-tailed it out of there.” His voice choked on his last words, and as he pressed one hand to his eyes, Elizabeth realized he was tearing up. Is he really doing this? She thought uneasily. Is this a ploy to get me to believe him?
Then his broad set of shoulders began to shake, and she felt an icy tide guilt wash over her all at once. Elizabeth waited for Chase to raise his head again before speaking. “It’s a human reaction,” she allowed, keeping her gaze as gentle as possible. “Fight or flight. You’re not trained to fight, so it’s flight. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
Chase laughed bitterly and wiped his eyes. “Maybe so, but I got what was coming to me for skipping out on their blood. They saw me, and even though they didn’t catch up with me right away, they caught up with me.” He stood then, and lifted his t-shirt to show Elizabeth a six-inch long gash running from his collarbone to just below his heart. Even though it had clearly been sutured and healed over, it was such an angry red color that Elizabeth knew it had been an incredibly deep cut. She gasped involuntarily, but didn’t flinch away from the wound. This is real, she thought frantically. They really tried to kill this man for catching them planting evidence.
“Before that, I had started spreading word around, trying to see if anyone else had experienced anything similar with these guys,” Chase continued, dropping back onto the couch. “I had a little information, but most people were too afraid now to get back to me. Hare’s men sent their message, even if I didn’t die. Even so, they can’t have me living to tell the tale more…so they planted a load of synthetic drugs in my place. They even tested me when they brought me in, three times—but because they were negative, they were discarded as inconclusive, and they tried to get me to consent to another test. I didn’t, because I know the more I cooperate, the faster they can get me in prison to finish me off.”
“They can also throw you in jail for obstruction of justice, or something lesser,” Elizabeth pointed out. “Why haven’t they yet?”
“Because they’re so confident they have him cornered,” Ella said, and her cheeks were high with color as she spoke. “They’ve been sending us taunting emails from untraceable IPs, telling me I’m going to lose my “cash cow” to a sacrifice, things like that. At first it was just words, then they started sending us pictures and videos of…” Ella stopped and gasped, pressing her fingers to her mouth so hard that the skin around her lips turned white as a sheet.
“Really dark stuff,” Chase supplied for her, and he patted Ella’s shoulder comfortingly. “They took pictures of our families and loved ones and burned them, or arranged them so their bodies looked…torn up.” He swallowed his disgust and looked at Ella again. The look on his face was so tender that Elizabeth almost mistook it for romantic love, but she knew the agent was happily married for the last two years. Arrogant and spoiled though he seemed at first, Chase wasn’t a leech; in fact, being around him was completely different from what she’d anticipated, even given the circumstances. She felt relaxed and alert, and most of all, comfortable; it unnerved her, but not nearly as much as it should have. What is this cowboy doing to me?
“Okay,” Elizabeth said finally. “Say I believe you. Do you have proof—any evidence at all—of the mayor and his men targeting you?”
The silence gave her all the answers she needed to know. Great. If I don’t figure this out, a lot of people can and probably will die. How the hell am I going to get out of this?
“We have some ideas, though,” Chase said, seeing the despair on her face. “And some surveillance footage being sent from a remote location.”
“I thought no one wanted to come forward to help out?”
“Well,” Ella said, “No one who could help us…legally. This footage isn’t exactly theirs.”
Elizabeth. “You found a hacker? Great! That’s a step, honestly.” A small one, but a step. Hackers were often called as witnesses, and she could always find a way around telling the whole story about the source of the footage. Truthfully, she would have latched on to anything just about now, but this was a real, viable possibility. She stood up, excited to have a plan of action for this awful situation.
Chase sighed and stood “This is life or death for me, so I’ll try anything.”
Elizabeth shuddered at his phrasing, but she knew in her heart he was telling the truth. She couldn’t agree to represent him without evidence, but she could feel the truth of his words deep in the marrow of her bones. What had Douglass said to her? This case is going to bring our little country town lots of attention.
You’re damn right it is, she thought viciously. Just not for the reason you think.