30. Thirty

thirty

Phoenix

Istood back and watched, stricken and horrified while Spike, Captain Burgess, Harley, Chief, and the handful of CSIs went nuts, plundering through Karl's things and disrespectfully hurling anything and everything to the floor like his household items were nothing but straight garbage and didn't cost hard earned dollars to replace. I always tried to be respectful of people's belongings while conducting a search, but any time we had a full team dispatched, there was never anything I could do.

It always ended in chaos.

Karl lived in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, and if I was being frank, it was a rather nice spot. He had a large living room, a decent sized kitchen, and based on all the items that were now thrown along some area of the residence, Karl had pretty expensive taste. Given the inside of Charlotte's house, the house they'd once shared together, yeah…it made sense.

And he was clean too. Insanely clean. Like the guy had massive OCD or something.

Then again, it didn't really take much effort to keep a place tidied up when you lived alone. Trust me, I'd know. I'd been living alone since I graduated from the police academy over ten years ago.

Time passed on, and as we investigated room after room, Karl's bedroom being the next to the last, the only thing we'd found so far was a laptop on his nightstand. The warrant demanded for all electronics as far as computers, tablets, and cell phones to be confiscated. Aside from the computer, nobody had announced finding any burner phones or most importantly, masks of any kind.

"Hey," a familiar voice spoke to me, making me shake my head fast and look away from Spike, who was plundering through Karl's dressers.

It was Kendall.

"Oh," I greeted her with a slight eye roll. "Hey."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you?" I asked through gritted teeth. "I'm lucky Crow didn't skin my ass alive."

"Don't you dare treat me like this is my fault. When I called Kendra, I told her to keep things quiet as a favor for me. Whatever went wrong, I don't know. Maybe Crow has her phone bugged or something. At the end of the day, I did as you asked. Whatever happened after that is not on me."

She reached inside her jeans pocket and then pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, handing it over.

"You don't have to pay me for my help, Phoenix. I did it because I owed it to you after all these years."

"You don't owe me—"

"But I do, Phoenix. I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry. I can't take it back, but I do hope that maybe we can move past all of this bullshit and at least be friends."

She left it at that and then walked away, down the hall and into the spare bedroom. The other CSIs accompanied her as well as Harley, Captain Burgess, and Chief.

"What the hell was that about?" Spike asked, sweating horribly as he approached me.

"Nothing," I answered. "She was just apologizing for the shit with Crow."

He nodded to that, saying nothing other than, "Look, man, I hate to admit it, but I'm starting to think maybe I was wrong about—"

"I've got something!"

Spike and I shared a look, then dashed down the small hallway inside the spare bedroom, which consisted of nothing but a bed, dresser, TV, and an empty closet.

Kendall and a few of her fellow lab buddies helped pull the bed frame from against the wall, and it almost sounded like something had scraped down the wall and fallen onto the floor in an angry thud. It was hard for us to see thanks to Kendall, her colleagues, plus Harley and both of our bosses blocking our path, but silence filled the room instantly when everyone fled back like a flock of frightened sheep, revealing Kendall's gloved hands holding a burner phone in one, and a blood-stained bull mask, plus Delilah's broken beaver mask in the other.