“How does it work?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you that, Lex. You know I can’t.” He sounded genuinely sorry.
She knew the rules even if they hadn’t laid them out. He would tell her the truth where it wouldn’t give her ammunition for the AG’s investigation. An admission of guilt was nothing without proof, and Alexa had no doubt Nick would deny the confession had ever happened at all. It was why he’d put their phones in the microwave, eliminating the possibility that she would record him, that their mics could be tapped.
If he told her how it worked she could use the information to further the AG’s investigation, tell the digital forensics team where to look.
“Why?” she asked. “Why do you do it?”
He met her gaze. “I think you know why.”
“I want you to tell me.”
He took a deep breath, like he needed extra oxygen for what he was about to say. “My family was decimated after Erin overdosed. We’d lost our mother a few years before, and then Erin was just… gone. The guy who got her hooked on heroin had gotten ahold of her when she’d still been in high school. He wasn’t anything special, just a garden-variety pusher trying to hook as many kids as he could, but he went free and we buried Erin in the ground when she was barely twenty years old.”
Anyone looking at him would think he was telling someone else’s story. His face was impassive, his expression unreadable, but she saw the pain in his eyes, felt it connect with her own against all her wishes to the contrary.
“So… revenge,” she said.
His eyes flashed. “Not revenge. Justice.”
“You think justice is your job?” she asked.
“Isn’t it yours?”
“No, that belongs to judges and juries. I just compile and present evidence,” she said.
“And what happens when all that evidence leads nowhere?” he asked. “When you know someone is guilty but they get off because of a loophole or because some rookie cop forgot to read Miranda?”
“It sucks,” she said. “But that’s the way the system works.”
“Is that how you feel about Leland Walker?” Nick asked. “It sucks? That’s it?”
Her face was hot with anger. “Don’t talk to me about Leland Walker.”
“I will talk to you about Leland Walker, Lex. I get to talk to you about him because I’m the one who figured out he killed Samantha, that he almost killed you.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe you can look at what happened with the investigation into your accident, with all the other shit Walker had done to hurt people, and shrug at the fact that Leland never paid.”
“I’m not saying it’s okay,” she said. “I’m just saying there’s a system.”
“And what do you think would happen if you brought the evidence you’ve collected to Imani? If you handed the system all it needed to make Leland pay for his crimes?” He continued without waiting for her answer. “We both know what would happen: she’d say she’d look into it and two days later she’d come back with some bullshit reason why the DA’s office couldn’t pursue it because Frederick was handing out cash and favors behind the scenes. You think the system is working when a guy like Leland can hurt so many people and become a U.S. Senator?”
She’d already gone down this road, already considered her options with regards to Leland Walker. He’d just keep paying everybody off, and it would be even easier this time because Richard Delaney was even higher in the department than he’d been when he was assigned to Alexa’s case ten years earlier.
Nick was right. She just didn’t want to admit it.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to kill him,” she said. “It doesn’t mean I should.”
“It doesn’t mean Leland should be allowed to hurt more people either,” Nick said. “So where does that leave us? What do we do when the public good is best served by eliminating people who hurt innocents over and over again and never pay?”
She didn’t like the question, didn’t like the places her mind was going while she considered it. He was gaslighting her, making her feel crazy for believing in the law.
“You’re twisting everything,” she said. “Trying to make me believe you’re right and I’m wrong when I know that’s not true.”
“Right and wrong?” He shook his head. “No one’s talking about right and wrong here. I’ll leave that to the priests and televangelists.”
“Then what?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”
He looked into her eyes. “Don’t you ever get mad, Lex? About what Leland Walker did to you? To Samantha? Don’t you ever just want him to pay the price, the law be damned?”