Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(62)

Melissa snorted. “Oh, yeah, that sounds plausible.”

“Come on, I already covered for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” said Melissa.

“You’re the best.”

Melissa paused. “Be careful, Dana,” she said. “And I’m not talking about Ethan.”

“I know,” said Dana, and hung up.

When she went back, Ethan had Uncle Frank’s case files out, and Dana could see that the folder was thicker than it had been before. She watched as Ethan made his sketch of the rubber bands and then carefully removed each one. He brought the folder over to the couch.

“Todd’s stuff is in there?” she asked, sitting down next to him.

“Yes. It’s pretty nasty, too,” said Ethan.

“After today,” she said, “I can handle anything.”

It was a big honking lie and they both knew it, but they were each smart enough not to mention it.

Dana opened the folder and looked at what had been done to Todd Harris.

It was as bad as Dana imagined it would be. And it was strange. When his car supposedly crashed, he had been thrown through the windshield, but the collar of his heavy jacket had caught on a broken piece of the crumpled hood. In the crime scene photos, the smashed car was perched on a pair of rocks at the bottom of a steep hill, and Todd hung suspended, his toes inches above the ground. It was grotesque and looked like pictures Dana had seen of criminals hanging from a gallows.

She closed her eyes for a moment as the room took a spin. The dizziness from earlier was still with her, and seeing this kind of horror did not help.

“You okay?” asked Ethan.

“No,” she said.

“Me neither.”

There were a lot of photos in Todd’s file. Because the car had rolled down the hill, the crime scene investigators had needed to photograph every piece of debris. She flipped through more than eighty pictures, going fast through the ones that showed a fragment of a red taillight lens or a blown-out piece of tire. Then she stopped at one that showed the ground below Todd’s feet. The photoflash had caught the gleaming surfaces of a bunch of pocket change that lay scattered among the torn weeds. The photographer had taken three photos of the coins. Dana paused there, caught by the image without knowing why. An accompanying note gave an inventory of the coins. Fifteen nickels, eleven dimes, three quarters, and one silver dollar.

“What is it?” asked Ethan, leaning over to see what pictures held her interest.

“Nothing, I guess.” She replaced the photos and went through the rest of the folder. She almost closed the cover, then stopped, frowned, and went back to the photos of evidence and debris found at the scene. She bent and examined one picture in particular, and her blood turned instantly to ice. “Ethan! Look at this.”

He leaned closer. “What?”

She handed him the photo, which showed bits of broken glass, a few metal splinters, part of an orange brake light lens, and several coins scattered across a stretch of stony ground below where the body had been hanging. “See what they found on the ground below his feet?”

“What?”

“The coins,” she said, tapping the picture.

It took Ethan a moment. “Sure, some change that fell out of his pocket.”

“No,” she insisted. “I think those coins were placed there.”

“What? Why?”

“Count them.”

“Okay. Fifteen nickels, eleven dimes, three quarters, and one silver dollar.” Ethan did some quick math. “Three dollars and sixty cents? Three-six? Are you going to tell me that it’s a Bible reference? Chapter and verse, something like that?”

“No,” she said. “Fifteen, eleven, three, and one. Add that up.”

He did. “Thirty coins.”

Dana shook her head. “No,” she said. “Thirty pieces of silver.”

He stared at her. “What…?”

“How did Judas die?” she asked.

Ethan took the diagram of Todd Harris’s injuries and ran his finger across the line that had been drawn across the throat. “Judas ‘went and hanged himself,’” he murmured, repeating a biblical quote, one of the few that had ever stuck in his head. “Oh, man…”

“It all fits,” Dana said, slapping the file closed. Ethan took it from her, added it to the big folder, replaced the rubber bands, and locked it in the drawer.

They sat together, and this time Ethan took her hand in his. His smile was gentle and he curled his fingers around hers. There are times to talk and times to say nothing. This was a time to let silence wrap itself around them. They were behind locked doors, safe inside, together, and all the storms and darkness were outside.

When she finally got up to go, he said, “I should walk you home.”

“No,” Dana said quickly. “It’s not far. I’m okay.”

“No one’s okay.”

The image of Saturo sprawled on the dojo floor with a broken nose filled her mind. Remembering that didn’t fill her with pride. It made her feel like an animal. But a tough one, at least.

“Really,” she said, “I can take care of myself. Besides, if I come strolling up with a guy, my dad will kill both of us.”

“But he’ll be cool if you walk home alone?”