Conspiracy

Chapter Fourteen

I dropped the file on the ground and Bailey moved out of her chair to grab it. She looked at it and then looked at me. "This can't be real," she said. Angelica started talking again while I was trying to process, "We didn't think so either at first. We've had it analyzed and no one can find anything to say that it isn't exactly what it looks like." I grabbed the file back from Bailey, because I wanted to really look at it. I needed to know the truth. It was a picture from what looked to be a security camera, she was walking into a building of some sort. I looked at the picture, I looked for marks, or blemishes, for something that said that this wasn't her. Then I saw it. She was wearing love sleeves but they had slid up just enough that I could see the top of the heart. I looked at my own wrist tracing the heart that was tattooed there. When we were graduating high school we got matching tattoos on our wrists. If this was edited what are the chances someone would think about the portion of what little of the tattoo that was sticking out. "It's her," I whispered. Bailey was shocked and I was pretty sure the look on Angelica's face too. "No way Mc, come on," she came back over to me and looked at the picture and I pointed to the wrist. Then she saw it too, "Oh fuck." Obviously Angelica and Crow wanted to know why we were sure or at least partially sure. So I told her about the tattoos but now I had too many questions, "Where was this picture taken? And when?" I wasn't sure if I should sit down but I was afraid my legs might collapse if I didn't. "This was taken down the street from the first shooting the week before it happened. We were going through any and all footage leading up to shooting and happened upon it." We would get to how they recognized her later but for now she was close to a shooting that her father was connected to. "Have we figured out if Justin is connected to the Lawyer?" Angelica didn't seem to want to answer the question but her face told me the answer. "It was the same thing as the others, a long list of shell companies that eventually lead back to him." I had known Amy forever so I had known her dad just as long. I may have not been a cop then but I thought I always had a good judge of character, I didn't think it was possible that he was connected to whatever the hell this was. "Is there anything to say that Amy is involved?" Crow shook his head, it was the first thing he said about the whole thing but I was happy to hear it, "No it doesn't look like she was connected in any way but fact that everyone thinks she's dead we don't really know what to think. There is nothing on Amy Richardson after the accident so it makes sense that she's using another name. Justin might be as well since we really haven't been able to track him down either." I started going through the rest of the file that was in front of me when there was a knock on the door and what looked like a young inter standing in front of us with a couple of boxes. "The files you asked for Detective." I pointed over to the table on the side of the room, "You can put them over there, thank you." Bailey had already known what they were but I'm sure that Angelica and Crow figured it out too. After the intern left we spent the next few hours going through the accident report. For the first time I was looking at the pictures from the accident. The first pictures were of the car, there really wasn't a lot of damage to the car. The windshield was smashed where she had "gone through" but now that I was looking at the pictures the more I wonder how no one questioned what had happened. I knew that the more pictures I flipped through that I was going to be coming across the picture of the body soon and I still didn't know if I was ready for that even if she was alive. When I finally got to it I was shocked at the very little reaction I did have. I was right her body was in the same position, but my eyes went to one place, her wrist. "Fuck," I said out loud and got up and slammed the papers down on the table. "What?" Bailey asked a little worried and came over to see what I was looking at. I started pacing, "If I just looked at them soon, if I wasn't so stupid. I can't fucking believe this." At this point I was rambling and probably looked insane but I couldn't help feel like I was going crazy. Bailey looked at the picture and saw what I saw and slid it down the table to Angelica, "You could never have known Mc. Come on give yourself a break. No one would expect you to look at these. You weren't even a cop when it happened." Angelica looked at the pictures and passed it over to Crow. They both saw it, no tattoo. If I had looked at the picture at any point over the last few years maybe I would have known. Maybe these people wouldn't be dead. If I knew she was alive I never would have stopped looking for her. I sat back down defeated and I felt Bailey's hand on my shoulder, "Why would she do this to me?" Silence filled the room and then Bailey tried to reassure me, "Maybe she had to Mc, maybe she was trying to protect you. I was there, she loved you, she wouldn't have left on her own." I wanted her to be right but it's been years and she hasn't even tried to get a hold of me. Not a letter or a call or anything. Then it hit me, "Holy Shit." This seemed to be the way things were going with this whole thing but I clearly had blocked out more than I thought. I spun in my chair and looked at Bailey, "Remember right after?" Her face got sad, of course she remembered. "Remember I thought I was going crazy. I thought I kept seeing her." She looked at me kind of dazed, "That's normal when you lose someone, no one ever thought you were going crazy." I knew that she meant that but that wasn't my point. Angelica piped in, "You think that maybe it was really her." I shrugged, I didn't know if that was case, but it hurt a lot less than thinking that the love of my life walked away from me without any explanation and didn't care. "I don't know but I'm sure as hell going to find out." They all got up, "Where are going?" Bailey asked. "To find Justin, you coming?"

All three of us were in the car on the way to the last place we knew Justin lived. I hadn't seen him in years but I had heard he was in the city not too long ago.  "So what was he like when you knew him?" Angelica was asking knowing that both Bailey and I could answer the question. I was lost in thought so Bailey took this one, "He was a good guy. He was always around and took good care of Amy and all of us. Their place was kind of the house that we always hung out at. Those two used to get us all into trouble." She said talking about Amy and I. I smiled at the thought, "Hey, now it wasn't always us." Angelica was laughing in the back, "Why am I not surprised that you were always a trouble maker." I looked up in the rear view mirror to her smiling at me. It had been a long time since I had talked about Amy out loud but this moment made me think about one night at Amy's with a bunch of our friends.

I was running around the dining room table while Amy chased after me trying to catch me. "I'm going to kill you," we were standing on either side of the table facing off. "It wasn't me." She rolled her eyes, "Uh huh, I'm going to get you back." She was soaking wet because I might have just poured a glass of water on her head when she wasn't paying attention. "My dad is going to kill me the couch is soaked," we kept going around the table but I knew this wouldn't last much longer. "Oh come on, he loves me and it will dry." There were another 10 or so friends in the living room still watching whatever game was on the tv. They really didn't blink when things like this happened between us we always fought like this. "Oh come on Am, you know you love me." I said as I watched her trying to figure out how she would get to me. It was then I heard a voice from the other room, "Mc, will you just grow a set and kiss her already." Leave it to Bailey to step on a moment. Amy and I had been playing kind of cat and mouse for a while but neither of us had officially made a move. She smirked at me, "Ya Mc, why don't you grow a set." Suddenly she was no longer chasing me and I was chasing her. "Oh you don't think I'll do it do you?" She shook her head, "Nope, I think you're a chicken." She looked over to the doorway, she was thinking about making a run for it. "I wouldn't try it, you know I'm faster than you." She didn't think so, so I wasn't surprised when she made a break for it, but I got to her before she could get through the door. I wrapped my arms around her and the momentum had us up against the wall. Her back was to the wall and I had my hands on her hips and she wrapped arms around my neck. She looked into my eyes and then her eyes went down to my lips. This was the moment we had been waiting for, I had known her for so long, maybe even loved her all that time too. But here we stood at 14 years old and everything was about to change. Her hand was playing with the hair on the back of my neck, and it felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. She licked her lips and I leaned in, our lips touching for the very first time. It was soft and slow as her hand on my neck pulled me close to her. I pulled her away from the wall and wrapped my arms around her body. My hand sliding up her back as her tongue slid between my lips. Things started to get to move faster, hands moving over each other's bodies. She moaned slightly and I felt the vibration through my body. We were completely lost in each other for what felt like an eternity but that I didn't want to end. We pulled back slightly trying to catch our breath. I leaned my head forward against hers as we tried to process what was happening. "Well it's about time," I heard from behind me. I turned around but I already knew who it was, "Shut up B." She just laughed and walked back into the other room yelling, "They finally kissed." There was clapping coming from the other room but I just looked at Amy and kissed her again. Now that I had done it, I never wanted to stop.

I knew I was smiling but I didn't realize how much until I heard Bailey's voice again. "First kiss?" I nodded. I looked up to Angelica and wasn't sure what to think of the look she was giving me. I didn't have the chance to ask because we were pulling up to the last place that I knew Justin lived. There was a car in the driveway so hopefully that meant something. I took a deep breath and we went to the door. Angelica knocked and it didn't take long for it to open. I was standing to the side maybe because I was nervous that she would be there. When the door opened the man standing there wasn't the one that I remembered. He looked broken and battered, his hair was unbrushed and he was unshaven. "Who the hell are you?" Angelica took out her badge to show him. "Special Agent Rivers, FBI. We need to ask you some questions about your daughter Amy." Just hearing her name caused a reaction out of him and it wasn't a good one. "I don't know who the hell you think you are but you need to leave," he moved forward coming onto the porch. Angelica instinctively put her hand on her gun and I knew this wasn't going to go well. "Justin," I said as he came he walked out. He turned quickly and I could see the rage in his eyes disappear the second he saw me. "Kelly," he said softly and he came over and hugged me. I looked over this shoulder at Angelica and Bailey not really knowing what to do. He pulled away and started walking back towards his door. "Come inside."