Page 7 of Dane

“Who filed it?” I asked, but I already knew where this was going.

He grinned wider. “Public library terminal, four blocks from Brielle’s old address. Same day as one of the emails where Sutton told her not to get cute.”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, more to myself than to him. “She tried.”

Knight held up a hand. “Not saying she’s a hero. Just that it wasn’t all about her getting a career advancement. Maybe you were wrong.”

“Maybe.” I didn’t want to admit Knight was right. And the knife kept twisting in my chest every time I recalled all the horrible things I said to her. The office was quiet except for the hum of the laptops and, somewhere beyond the walls, the sound of pipes knocking. I thought of Brielle alone on the third floor, sleeping in a bed that wasn’t hers, and the look on her face as she’d ascended on the lift.

I felt the start of a headache at the base of my skull spread out behind my eyes. “Anything else?” I asked.

Knight cocked his head. “Plenty. But it’s not urgent, and I still need to dig deeper.”

I shook my head. “I want to know who’s running Sutton. If he’s that desperate, he’s not the one in charge. Not really.”

Knight’s expression sharpened. “Already on it.”

I left him to it and walked back out into the compound. The place was dead quiet like always at this hour. The last person in the hallway was a blur of denim heading down to the kitchen, and I was too absorbed in my own thoughts to pay attention. I found myself on the way to the end of the warehouse where the only window looked out on the loading docks and, beyond them, the river.

I’d often wondered why the old ladies had insisted on putting benches and tables on the patio just outside. Now I understood. There was something peaceful about the night when the sounds of the river filtered through all the industrial mess out here. I closed my eyes and stayed there until the headache faded. Then, just before dawn, I went inside to see what Knight found before heading to bed.

Knight found me before I found him. I’d barely cleared the end of the hall when he rounded the corner, nearly running into me. “Come with me.” I tilted my head as I changed direction and hurried after him. “You need to see this.”

“OK. What’d you find? Must be big.” I said, though I was already sick of new information.

He led me back to the office and dropped the papers on the desk. “You asked if Brielle was a liar. She is, sometimes. Mostly to herself.” He flipped open the top page and jabbed at a line with his finger. “This is her rent: nine fifty a month for a one-bedroom walk-up on the edge of Eastview. I checked the building. It’s a fuckin’ fire trap.” He went down the page. “Utilities, groceries, cell. She clips coupons and pays everything in cash. This is her car -- a 2007 Fusion with a two-hundred-thirty-thousand miles. Never missed an oil change. She spends more on maintenance than clothes or takeout. And I don’t mean the car is in bad shape. The woman literally spends nothing on herself other than the bare essentials.”

“Christ,” I muttered.

Knight kept going. “For six years, she made regular bank transfers to this place.” He flicked up a photo of a rundown nursing home. “Her grandmother was a resident until three weeks ago.”

“What happened three weeks ago?”

Knight shrugged. “She passed.” He tossed the small stack of papers onto his desk and leaned back in his chair. “She’s got nothing, Dane. No family, no friends, no life outside work and those weekly drives to the care home to visit her grandmother. She didn’t even tell Sutton she was leaving town last week.”

My mouth was dry. “Why didn’t you say this earlier?”

He shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “You looked like you wanted to believe she was out for herself. Like it would make her easier to hate. I wanted all the facts first, so I decided to double-check some things.”

I dropped into the chair across from him. My legs suddenly felt like Jell-O.

Again, I recalled my harsh tone with her. Accusing her of profiting while I rotted away in prison. At least I had Knuckles and the brothers at Kiss of Death. Apparently, Brielle had no one and had been fighting a losing battle for the past twelve years. Which was another thing for me to beat myself up over. I’d bitched and moaned about the time she’d taken from me. At least I’d had a time limit. I got out and had a home and a family with the club. Brielle had no expectation her life would get better. And apparently her boss had terrorized her for the last twelve years.

“She could have run,” I said, but it sounded weak even as I said it.

Knight’s tone was flat. “She could have. But she chose to stay. Probably to protect her grandmother as best she could. She put it all in a package and brought it here as soon as she was able, knowing it might blow up her life. I don’t think she gives a shit what happens to her anymore.”

I scrubbed at my face and stared at the printouts, the single sad column of Brielle Sloan’s world. “Doesn’t change what she did.”

Knight cocked his head. “Nope. But it changes why.”

For a minute, neither of us said anything. The only noise was the hum of the computer and a clock ticking somewhere, loud in the silence.

“I was wrong,” I said. The words tasted like blood in my mouth. “About her.”

Knight steepled his fingers together as he watched me with those creepy-as-fuck eyes of his. “Yeah? What’re you gonna do about it?” I ignored Knight’s question, but the bastard just plowed on. “There’s more.” Knight shifted his body to a monitor on his desk rather than on the wall. He pointed to the screen. “I went looking for the usual accounting forensics. Instead, I found Sutton’s personal ledger. Kept buried in an unrelated file and password protected. But he’s not as clever as he thinks.”

He slid the laptop around. I glanced at the page. It was a column of expenses from the year of the robbery, but instead of numbers it was all tidy little eulogies for things Sutton had burned to the ground. Lease disputes, dead projects, old employees. My name sat halfway down.