Conspiracy

Chapter Thirteen

I sat there kind of shocked, kind of in disbelief. Justin had always been an amazing guy. Him and Amy were so close and when she came out he didn't even bat an eye. After she died him and I stayed close for a couple years but eventually he stopped coming around and I heard he moved to the outskirts of town. No one had really seen him in a long time but it was hard to believe that he would be connected to anything that was going on. "What does that have to do with Amy?" She looked at me with the face that said you're a detective you know better. "Ok fine, but you still could have told me. We don't know what's going on but the fact you were here to find out info on my dead girlfriend's father and decided to sleep with me instead is shady." She put her head down. "I know. I came here for work, I wasn't expecting to like you so much." I kind of laughed, "Sorry." She shook her head, "You know what I mean Kel, I know you get it even if it sucks for you right now." She wasn't wrong, if the situation was reversed I probably would have done the same thing. I stopped thinking about Angelica for the moment and was thinking about Amy and her dad and how this might all be connected. I thought about her body position when I saw her laying on the road, there were tears falling from my eyes again. I took a couple deep breaths before I spoke again, because something had just dawned on me, "Do you think this had something to do with her death?" I had never thought that it was foul play but there was something that never sat right with me. Maybe it was why I was never able to let her go. She swallowed deep before speaking again but then whispered, "I'm not sure she's dead." I didn't even know what to say. I was staring into space for who knows how long. It must have been a while before I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. She was sitting next to me now. "Kelly," she said at a whisper. "No, there's no way. I was there. I buried her," I stood up and walked across the room. "If she was alive I would know. She would never stay away from me," I couldn't imagine a world where she was alive and I wouldn't know. Everything inside me said there was no way, "That's what I thought. That's why we came here in the first place. I thought that if she was alive you guys would be in contact." I really didn't know what to say. I was pacing around the room going through that day in my mind. Picturing her body laying in front of the car and then I started thinking about the things in my safe. "We've got to go pull the case file. I grabbed my jacket, keys and gun and was going to head out the door when she grabbed me. "Kel, stop. You need to breathe. It's late and we can look at it in the morning. You need to sleep." There was no way that I was going to sleep after all this, but she was right I did need to breathe. I was walking away from the door when there was a knock. I looked over at Angelica who shrugged, it was likely only one person. I opened up the door and when I saw Bailey I realized that there was one question I didn't have answered. I grabbed her by her shirt and kind of dragged her in the room, I knew I was yelling but I didn't care. "DID YOU KNOW?" She looked confused but I was seeing red and I didn't know what to trust right now. "DID YOU KNOW?" I could hear Angelica behind me and I felt her trying to pull me off Bailey. I finally let go and walked back over to the window trying to control my anger. Bailey was straightening her shirt and she looked scared, "Know what. Jesus Mc, what the fuck is wrong with you." I couldn't get the words out but Angelica spoke up, "She didn't know Kelly. She only knew that I knew who she was." That was a relief to me, it was bad enough she didn't tell me that part but if she knew there was a chance she was alive I don't know what I would do. "Is someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on?" I sat down on the windowsill and put my hands in my head. I shook off the tears that I knew were going to start flowing and looked back up at her, "They think that Amy might be alive." The shock on her face confirmed what Angelica had said she didn't know. She knew Amy too and she was there to help me pick up the pieces of my broken life after I lost her. "What are you talking about?" She walked over and sat down next to me. "I'm going to go, I'll see you in the morning," Angelica said as she walked towards the door. I just nodded to her while I tried to find the words to talk to Bailey. "She said she thinks that Amy is alive," she just looked at me puzzled. "Apparently the two other restaurants where the shootings happened track back to Justin," She stood up and I could see her mind was going the same way mine was. "Ok that's weird but what makes them think that Amy is alive. That's a big jump." It dawned on me that I didn't get the chance to even ask Angelica why she thought that because I was too busy losing my mind, "I don't know. Going to find out in the morning I guess." We just stood there for a few more minutes in silence before I heard her pick up the phone. Weird she wasn't using her cell I thought at first, until I heard her speak, "Hi yes, can I get a bottle of Jack Daniels to room 1404 please? Yes I'm aware that's fine. Just send it, quickly, thanks." I walked across the room and flopped down on the bed, "This really can't be happening can it. She couldn't be alive?" She had just grabbed the bottle from the guy at the door, they had apparently listened when she said quickly and she came over and laid on the bed next to me. We were just staring at the ceiling and I felt her grab my hand, "I don't know Mc, but right now we don't think about it. Right now we drink." We both sat up and got a drink and then sat back in the bed and turned on the TV. We didn't talk, we just sat there until we fell asleep. Both of our alarms went off in the morning after probably only an hour of sleep, but we definitely both bounced up and were ready to go. I didn't know what we were going to find but I knew that I was going to get the whole story today no matter what.

I showered and got ready and then we stopped at Bailey's so she could change. The entire time I didn't really know what to do or say and it seemed she didn't either so it was mostly quiet. When we got into the office Captain Johnson was already in and sitting on my desk waiting for me. I looked at Bailey, and she shrugged, "You know I had to tell her." I sat down and she was just sitting there and I picked up the phone, she tried to say something but I put my hand up telling her to wait. The person on the other end picked up, "Hey it's McMaster. I need you to bring me everything on Amy Richardson's accident." There was some hesitation on the other end, "Yes you heard me right get me that file ASAP." I hung up the phone and Valerie was just staring at me, "You know I can't let you stay on this case." I knew this was coming but I didn't think that would happen so soon. "You aren't stopping me from working this Val," I got up and went to get some coffee and she trailed behind me. "Kelly, come on. It's Amy you can't." She was probably right but she also knew that I was never going to quit. "You've done your duty and warned me not can we figure out who is killing all these people and whether the love of my life has somehow been alive this whole time." I knew that saying it that way was a little bit of a gut check for her but I needed her to know that I wasn't going to let this go no matter what and I think she understood that. "Alright, keep me posted," she said and then walked away. I turned around to Bailey standing in front of me shaking her head. "I know," I said knowing I would have to apologize for that later. I looked up and Angelica and Crow were walking in, I looked over to her and basically yelled, "Conference room now." They were expecting this I could tell but it was time and I was going to find out exactly what the fuck is going on. I didn't think I could sit down so I just leaned against one of the tables on the side of the room. They came in and sat down, Bailey came too. I could tell that Angelica's nature wanted to give me shit for giving her orders but being the situation we were in she was deciding not to. Instead she sat down and tossed a file across the table I grabbed it quickly but didn't open it. I leaned back on the table and looked at her, "Talk." She took a deep breath and looked at Crow, it was obvious he was afraid of me so he wasn't going to say anything. "Alright. So like I told you last night we traced the two restaurants back to Justin Richardson. There was no clear reason how he was involved in the businesses just that he was connected. We obviously did some research on him and his life. Before he lived here he lived in both of the other cities." I was a little surprised to hear that because I had always thought he was originally from Sprucewood. She continued, "We found that he knew at least one of the victims in each place from his time living there. Which I think we can agree is a little odd." She wasn't wrong it was a little odd but hardly enough to say he's involved but she kept going, "Then we started looking into his family, he was married and then moved here where he put down roots and started a family. His wife got sick and died and then a few years later lost his daughter in a car accident." She was stating the facts trying not to talk about the emotional side of it for me. Started slowing down as she was talking which meant we were getting to some things I didn't want to talk about. "We kept investigating and found that after his daughters death he mostly went off the grid. We couldn't completely track him down. He seems to have moved around a bit but whenever we found some information on him by the time we got there he was gone." I didn't really know that he was moving around and I was starting to regret not staying in contact. "Which is how you ended up landing on me," she nodded. "Yes, when we went back through Amy's social media and old phone records it led us to you. Once we saw that you were police we weren't sure what to think and we looked into your past too." I wasn't surprised it's how it works but I think about what she knew about me already when she decided to start flirting with me the way she was. "Alright fine, so Justin might be involved in some shit and I get all the investigation but that doesn't explain," I stopped for a second and took a breath. "It doesn't explain why you think she's alive." She nodded towards the file in my hand. I still hadn't opened it and now I knew that my life was going to change. I slowly opened up the folder and the first thing in the file was a picture. After years of my life spent trying to put myself back together. After not knowing how I would survive. I was now staring at a picture of Amy Richardson, who was very much alive.