Elaine hated feeling like she was being left out. She’d intended to try to get some sleep to get through the pain of the dislocated shoulder, but the combination of the pain, a lack of proper pain relief, nerves at being left alone in a comparatively unpredictable environment, and being entirely without a method of contacting Brad or even Jolene if the stars lined up in such a way that Jolene was her last hope all but ensured that she wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon.

Not that she could fault Brad in this situation. If their conditions were reversed there was no way in hell she’d let Brad go into danger. But something here just felt wrong. She was armed. She was trained to deal with dangerous situations. And yet, here she was. Alone. With a bum shoulder. Cursing Brad’s lack of any sort of pain medication, or, hell, even any alcohol.

Even without all of that, even without her anxiety over entrusting her friend’s safety to a complete stranger who had tried to kill her earlier, even without her irritation at her hurt shoulder, even without her absolute anger at feeling completely out of control, even without just being cranky at how tired she was, she was just so bored.

And since she’d ditched her comms device, there was no way to get an ETA from Brad on when his meeting with that hacker lady would be finished.

Eventually Elaine found herself flipping through the news and entertainment feeds on the screen in the lobby. As much as she hated to admit it, Elaine had a soft spot for celebrity gossip feeds. The back-and-forth cattiness was often just as entertaining as any scripted drama show. Though scripted drama shows usually had better-choreographed fights, rather than two angry drunk people awkwardly slapping at each other.

She scanned over other news feeds, half-expecting to see herself on a wanted poster as a “person of interest” in the Cortez case, but nothing I was coming up.

In fact, there wasn’t anything about the murders at all.

She blinked. Surely there had been some reports about Vince’s death, at least? Elaine swore she’d read something about it, but try as she might to find the initial article, even that was gone.

Vince’s published work was still there, as was Jill’s name on the police roster. Just…nothing about the deaths. As far as the public knew, they were still out there, just living their everyday lives.

Why would the police be trying to bury this case? What could be gained, besides maybe keeping a lid on things before they had concrete evidence to report as a way of preventing public speculation?

No, news companies would be all over that. Easy money there, just left on the table. Someone—Matsumoto—was definitely trying to hide this. But how could he pull this off? Due to his rank in the police force, his salary wouldn’t be much higher than Elaine’s. Financing a media blackout, as well as making two extremely public figures disappear, neither would be cheap.

Elaine’s line of thinking was interrupted by the jiggling of the doorknob at the entrance of Brad’s office. Unfortunately, in order to preserve the old-timey noir aesthetic of his office, Brad had put frosted glass in the door, so while one could see the silhouette of someone outside the door, that person’s identity would remain obscured until they entered the office.

It also provided an easy entry point, as shortly after the jiggling of the doorknob, the window itself was smashed in.