Blood & Water

Chapter 21

Sitting behind Kevin's desk, Carrie snooped through his computer. She could hear Coco, Gilly and Angel in the other room ribbing each other while she skimmed emails and past calendar appointments. She didn't know why she wanted to read it all, at least not in the forefront of her mind, but subconsciously she missed him deeply.

"You're faking," Gilly hollered loudly. "You can take more than that light shit."

"Nah man, it fucking hurts," Coco said ardently. "Shit ain't no joke. How bout I shoot you in the fucking arm?"

"Shut up, man," Angel chided.

She smirked to herself, their constant bickering and jabs were, usually, amusing, and she needed a little chuckle right then. Just as she was about to set everything up for Coco to miraculously find something in an email subject line caught her eye,

"Partial DNA match."

Hesitating for barely a second, Carrie clicked the email to find Kevin was still on the Galindo/EZ chain and his secure government emails were being forwarded directly to his personal account.

"Jesus Kevin," she sighed. "They would have roasted you for this shit if it got out."

Her eyes skimmed the email, nothing really interesting, until the forensic results came up again. The reports from his murder were back and Carrie didn't once hesitate to try to read them.

"What we expected, hispanic male, mid to late thirties, priors but no ID," Heimler wrote. The email also went out to Bowen and a few other names she didn't recognize. "Tons of print hits, the wife and cousins," names we never used in emails for confidentiality reasons, "As we expected, but some others we didn't, all known to the victim."

She immediately went through the prompts to attempt to read the full report but when she typed in Kevin's credentials she was instantly locked out. As was procedure, Kevin's login and credentials were deactivated.

"Of fucking course," she hissed. "It's done," Carrie whimpered. "You have to move on."

"Babe?" She heard Angel call out from the stairs. "You up here?"

"Uh yeah," she answered. "Just getting some pictures and stuff."

The door opened and he frowned, seeing her sullen expression. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said with a huff. "Just, you know."

"I know," he nodded. "We were gonna hit this room next," he said. They shared a look and she nodded. "Just let me know when you're done."

"I will."

Carrie took another minute at the desk, overwhelmed by emotion, and let out a sob. It was a brief moment of weakness, one she indulged, but calmed herself and, after setting everything up, was out in the hall in just a few minutes. In her hands were a few frames, ones she truly did want to keep, when she yelled down to Angel.

"All done," she frowned.

"You wanna get outta here?" He asked her. "I know you got shit to do for Christmas."

"I don't know," she sighed. "I'm just really tired, I don't want to do shit."

As they were talking Gilly and Coco came up the steps, still joking with each other, and went right into the office.

"You should take a nap then," he said sweetly.

She felt too restless and anxious to nap but rather than be contrary she just nodded. "Yeah, I think I will."

Angel kissed her cheek and walked her down the steps. "I can pick Joey up when we're done here. Okay?"

"Thank you," she smiled. "Everything else goes. Goodwill pickup will be here at four o'clock."