Grace stiffened at that. She stared directly into Alonzo’s eyes.

  “I spoke with Chaplain Stone earlier today, so I imagine she will speak to you about that. This interview, between you and me, must remain confidential until the end of my investigation. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” Grace swallowed, her heart pounding.

  “Good. You can go back to your desk now.”

  Grace stood and walked to the door. When she reached it, she turned around, her eyes wide. “Uh…sir, do you mean back to desk duty?”

  He grinned and stood to reach over for another paper on his desk, handing it to her. Skimming the form, Grace recognized it immediately as the one she had been searching for earlier, except the date was that day rather than nearly two weeks before.

  “You have been cleared for active duty, Detective, so please, get back to solving your cases.”

  “Yes, sir.” She handed the paper to him and left his office.

  The walk to Missing Persons was one of the longest she had taken. She was sworn to secrecy, and she knew why. The answer to everyone’s question floated through her mind, and she had to pause in the hallway for a few deep breaths before she walked back into the office and pretended like everything was normal. She couldn’t and she wouldn’t mess up Alonzo’s investigation. As much as she didn’t like where it was headed, she had to let it play out. She didn’t want to be working for someone who broke regulations.

  Old Money

  It was the end of the week before Grace managed to get Diego into the station for an interview. He had been very resistant about coming, but with some help from Paige, she’d managed to convince him it was a better idea. Something about showing him a picture of something they had accidentally left in the office, which was a line of utter bullshit, but it had worked.

  Grace set Diego up in one of the interview rooms and left the room with a uniformed officer standing by to watch him and make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. She had her line of questions all written out and ready to go, but she wanted to let him sit and fester for a bit about why he was there. The room itself would hopefully lend to some different answers than she had been receiving.

  Paige sat on the corner of her desk when Grace went back. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her dark brown hair fell almost to her shoulders around her face as she stared down at a piece of paper.

  “Reading something interesting?” Grace asked, surprising Paige, who responded with a start.

  “Yeah, your questions.”

  “Comments from the peanut gallery?” Grace sat in her chair and pulled out the bottom right hand drawer and grabbed a small baggie of dried bananas to snack on.

  Paige snickered. “No.”

  “Well, that’s a first,” Grace muttered.

  “Actually, now that you mention it. You should ask this question toward the beginning.”

  “What question?”

  “This one.”

  Grace stared down at the paper where Paige pointed.

  “Where is the ring?”

  “Yeah, ask that one first. Just get it right out there that you want to know that.”

  Grace spoke around the banana in her mouth. “I’m pretty sure he already knows that.”

  “So make it clear.”

  “Why?”

  “See what his reaction is to you blatantly asking him. If you want to find that ring, then you have to actually find it and ask about it. And what the hell is this question?”

  Grace looked down again at the question on the paper Paige pointed to. She shrugged. “Figured that would be my curveball question.”

  “We’ll see.”

  They waited another five minutes before they headed in to the interview room. Grace sat on one side of the table while Paige stood near the door with her arms folded over her chest, putting on the bad-guy persona she had kept up with Diego the entire time. Diego stared from one to the other.

  “Hey, Diego, thanks for coming in today.”

  “Didn’t have much of a choice. What did you want to show me?”

  “We’ll get to that. First, I want to know where the ring is.”

  His eyebrows rose, and again he refused to look at Grace in the eye. “What ring?”

  “You know what ring I’m talking about.”

  He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I don’t know where it’s at.”

  “Here’s the thing that’s confusing me, Diego. You are the only one who has mentioned anything about this ring. No one else has said anything about it at all, so that leads me to think you’re the only one who knew about it.”

  He paled. Grace inwardly smiled. She had him on the right track.

  “So, where is it?”

  “I told you, I don’t know!” His voice rose, echoing in the tiny room.

  Paige shifted behind Grace, and Grace knew she was preparing for anything that might happen. Grace let out a breath and calmed the room considerably. “No reason to get upset, Diego. I just want to know about it.”

  “There ain’t nothing to know.”

  “Well, if it was the only thing left on Joseph when you found him, then yeah, it’s a bit relevant to the case.” Grace leaned back into her chair and opened her body so Diego wouldn’t feel threatened. She wanted him calm and complacent but nervous at the same time. She wanted to keep him on his toes.

  His head shook from side to side. “I don’t know where it is.”

  “Okay, why do you tell me again what happened that night.”

  “Are you serious, lady?”

  “She’s deathly serious,” Paige interjected just over Grace’s right shoulder, her voice lower than it was when she normally spoke to give off the air of command and anger. “Tell her what happened that night.”

  Diego groaned. “I was driving that night and stopped out back behind the buildings when I saw the kid lying on the ground.”

  “You stopped because you saw him?”

  “Yeah.”

  Grace sent Paige a look with wide eyes that Diego couldn’t see. “How did you see him?”

  “My headlights shined on him.”

  Grace’s heart rate sped up. “And that’s how you saw him? Not because you had to stop to pee or stop for a smoke break?”

  Diego stilled. Grace knew he’d just made the connection about his mistakes in retelling his story, that had she not pointed it out to him, he never would have known he was saying different things.

  “Which is it, Diego?”

  His lips parted.

  “Did you stop for a smoke break and find him? For a piss and find him? Or were you driving by and your headlights shone on him?”

  “I…I don’t remember.”

  “Okay, we can come back to that and maybe you’ll have some time to remember.” Paige grunted behind her, and Grace knew she had done a good job. Shifting her in her chair, Grace prepared for her next line of questioning. “Why don’t you tell me about the hospital?”

  “About what?”

  “Why did you go visit Joseph?”

  Diego shrugged and stared down at his hands. He was trying to play off nonchalant, but it wasn’t working. Grace knew he was tense, he was scared, and he had no idea where she was going with the conversation.

  “I wanted to see how the kid was doing.”

  “You haven’t visited him in four years. Why now?”

  “I didn’t realize he was still in the hospital. I figured he’d gone home, you know?”

  Grace shifted back in her chair to how she had sat before. “Okay, say I believe you, why did you go visit him twice?”

  Diego paused for a moment before shaking his head and tossing his hand up in the air. “First time I didn’t get to talk to him.”

  “And you did the second time?”

  “No.”

  “What did you want to tell him?”

  Diego slowed down. Grace waited with bated breath for his answer, truly curious as the reason he would give. When he didn’t answer, her frustration grew.

  “Look, Diego, I don’t have all day. Just tell me why you went to visit him. We’re almost done with this interview anyway.”

  “I went to see if the kid was all right.”

  “Hmm, and what did you determine from that?”

  “Kid’s in a coma.”

  “He is. And he likely will be for the rest of his life. Don’t you think he deserves a family?”

  Diego nodded.

  “So where is the ring?”

  He glared at her. “I don’t know. I don’t have it. I don’t know where it’s at.”

  Grace paused the conversation. While she wanted him on edge, she didn’t want him so close to it that he couldn’t and wouldn’t answer any of her questions because she still had a doozy of one to ask. Paige shifted behind her. Grace knew they could stay in the tiny room all day if need be. They’d give Diego breaks here and there, but he still wasn’t a prime suspect in anything. She was looking for who Joseph was. But something about Diego pulled at her.

  Pulling a photo out of the folder she’d set on the table in front of her, Grace slid it across so Diego could stare at it. She said nothing as she watched each and every one of his reactions, no matter how small they were. His eyes widened, his cheeks paled, his jaw clenched and then loosened. Diego’s hand on the table fisted then he shifted it into his lap. She heard his shoes rustle against the floor as he moved in his chair. He was uncomfortable—insanely so.

  “Who is he?” Grace asked, her voice soft in the suddenly tense air of the room.

  Diego shook his head.

  “Who is he?” Grace repeated.

  Pushing the picture back at Grace, Diego collapsed in on himself. His shoulders tightened, his arms wrapped around his stomach, and his lips were shut tight.

  “Diego.” Grace tapped the picture in front of her. “Who is this man?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She didn’t believe him that was for sure. He knew exactly who he was, and frankly, so did she. It hadn’t taken her that long to track him down through the hospital system as soon as she had figured out he’d actually worked there.

  “His name is Angel. He works at the hospital, and surprisingly, he also has a vested interest in Joseph.”

  Diego didn’t respond, not that she expected him to. Grace slid the photo back into her file and then planted both of her feet onto the floor. Paige was still behind her, supporting her in whatever way she took the conversation.

  “What I can’t figure out is why you care so much about Joseph to go visit him twice in the last few weeks or why Angel keeps checking in on him. Do you know why, Diego?”

  Diego shook his head.

  Grace nodded slowly and pursed her lips. “I think you do.”

  “I don’t.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Am I free to go?”

  Grace shrugged. “Do you have anything else to share with me?”

  Diego pushed back from the table and stood up. “No.”

  “Then thank you for coming down today, Diego. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.”

  He rushed from the room. Paige walked him out of the station as Grace went to her desk and sat down, inputting all the information she had learned from the interview. It had been short, but it had been well worth it.

  “Are you just going to let him go?”

  Grace turned to look up at Paige. “Yeah.”

  “What the hell, Grace?”

  “I need him to tell me what the connection is between him and Angel and Joseph. Without that, I have nothing.”

  “You have nothing now.”

  Grace glared. “I’d like to see you do a better job. No one in four years figured this much out. No one even had an inkling about any ring or Angel.”

  “I think the ring is a bunch of bullshit.”

  “Whatever. What crawled up your ass today?”

  “Nothing,” Paige muttered and went to her desk, sitting down with a huff. She scooted her chair in and sent Grace a glare.

  “Good, because I need you to go do me a favor.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” Grace stood her ground. “I do you favors all the time, you can do this one thing for me.”

  “What?”

  “Go pick up Angel before Diego can call him.”

  “You should have done that before you interviewed Diego.”

  Shrugging, Grace turned toward her computer. “Then you better get moving quick.”

  “Fucking hell, kid.”

  Grace ignored her and went to work. She didn’t have time nor desire for workplace drama. Focusing on her own case, she catalogued the interview and made record of it, and then she prepared for her next one.

  ###

  It took Paige only thirty minutes to get back with Angel, and she put him in the exact room Diego had been in. Grace finished prepping out her questions as Paige came and leaned on her desk as was her custom when she wanted information but didn’t want to ask.

  Her arms were crossed, and she gnawed her lower lip as she stared over Grace’s shoulder and back toward the interview rooms. Grace sent up a few glances in her direction before focusing on the computer in front of her. She wanted everything to go perfectly this time around.

  When she was done, she printed her questions and leaned into her chair, fully staring at Paige. “He give you any issues when you picked him up?”

  “No. Quiet as a clam.”

  “So he said nothing?”

  “No.”

  Grace cocked her head to the side. “Did you ask him if Diego had talked to him?”

  “No.”

  “You know any other words?”

  Paige glared, and Grace knew she had her.

  “What crawled up your butt, seriously?”

  Paige shoved her cellphone in Grace’s direction after pulling something up on it. Grace glanced down at the object in Paige’s hand before taking it and reading the text message exchanged. She recognized the number instantly even though Paige hadn’t put a name into the contact yet.

  Raising an eyebrow, Grace handed the phone back. “So you got dumped.”

  “You made her dump me.”

  “Really? You think I have that type of control over Crystal? I did no such thing. I haven’t even talked to her in like a week. I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to mess with your love life.”

  “She said she didn’t want to date her best friend’s partner.”

  Grace closed her eyes and sighed. Crystal had used that excuse before, but it hadn’t been with someone she’d slept with or gone on an actual date with. She typically used it whenever some guy asked her out because he clearly didn’t get the hint she was gay. Grace gave Paige a soft and empathetic look.

  “I’m sorry she said that. I don’t care if she dates my partner or not, which I will make clear to her next time I talk to her.” Grace wouldn’t have that conversation, knowing Crystal most likely used that excuse as a way to get out of something she really wasn’t interested in. “You guys only had one date, right?”

  “We went on three.”

  “Seriously?” Grace’s eyebrows rose. “And she said it was because of me?”

  Paige nodded.

  “Got me then. I haven’t talked to her in a while. We don’t talk every day, you know.”

  “Fine.” Paige shoved her phone back into her pocket. “We going to talk to this kid or not?”

  “Yes. Your attitude going to change?”

  Paige stood and then stopped as she stared down at Grace. “Maybe.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest.”

  They went into the interview room and took the exact same stances they had with Diego. Angel looked far more frightened than Diego, and when his eyes lit up on Grace, she knew she had him. He recognized her just as much as she recognized him.

  “It took me a bit to figure out your name, Angel,” Grace said as she slid into the chair across the table from him. “But you work at the hospital, so it wasn’t that hard to figure out who you were.”

  He nodded. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “I saw you walking by Joseph’s room three times the other day when I was there. Do you have a vested interest in him?”

  Angel’s lips remained closed, but his jaw was tight with tension, and his chest rose and fell unevenly. His cheeks paled, and Grace knew he was holding information that would be useful to her. Whether or not she could get that information in one interview was another story.

  “How do you know Joseph?”

  Again, Angel didn’t answer. He remained utterly silent and mostly still. Grace sent Paige a look over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow, trying to silently tell her she wasn’t quite sure what to ask next. Paige stepped forward in the tiny room and slid into the chair next to Grace.

  “Angel, we’re trying to find Joseph’s family. Don’t you think he deserves a family?” Paige’s voice was soft and tender as she spoke, washing away the hard exterior she normally wore and using compassion to her advantage. “He’s been on his own for four years.”

  Angel seemed to completely shut down. He stared at the top of the table, refused to look at either of them. Grace had patience, but after Diego and her conversation with Paige, her patience was wearing thin. She drew in a deep breath. “How do you know Diego?”

  “He’s my cousin,” Angel answered, his voice quiet but it rang through in the small room.

  “So you two grew up together?”

  Angel shrugged. “When we were kids. I ain’t seen him in years.”

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  Not answering, Angel continued to stare at the table top. Grace’s foot bounced against the cement floor, and Paige moved her hand out to still her knee, giving a gentle squeeze. Grace bit the inside of her cheek and debated whether or not to move Paige’s hand but opted not to.

  Grace repeated her question. “Why haven’t you seen Diego in years?”

  Angel gave the slightest of shrugs.

  Paige leaned forward, her voice quiet and her hand finally off Grace’s thigh as she closed her fingers together and pleaded with Angel. “You’re not in trouble for anything, Angel. We’re just trying to figure out who Joseph is and where his family is.”