Page 84 of Borden 3

Hawke stood up, glaring at the shit as he began to devour it. “Might need you on this case, Graeme. You were a cop. You know how to dig deep into someone’s life.”

Graeme paused, his moustache getting covered in whipped cream as he looked up at Hawke. “What do I get out of it?”

“A beer.”

“That’s lame.”

“Bragging rights.”

Graeme looked on the fence. “I have to disappear some bodies. I just don’t have time to go digging into some girl.”

“He’s interested in this girl, Graeme. That shit’s never happened before.”

Graeme mused. “Can I have your knuckle duster?”

“Which one?”

“With the sword emblem—”

“That’s my biker ring, fuckface.”

“Is that a no?”

“That’s a fuck no.”

Graeme shrugged. “Good luck.”

Motherfucker.

Hawke stormed out of there. He didn’t need Graeme. It was just digging into some stupid chick’s life.

How hard could it be?

???

Breaking into Emma Warne’s apartment was disgustingly easy. He leafed into her boring life, wondering what it was about this poor girl that got Borden all hot and bothered. He found her IDs, the mystery books she read, stupid shit. Then he began to follow her for some time. She was repetitive. Stuck to a strict routine. Work, home, sometimes her granny’s tiny little home.

Mind numbing shit.

He broke into her granny’s house when that old bird was asleep. He snapped photos of the picture frames, found some more IDs, and then he forwarded them to his contacts, demanding information about Emma’s family. It was all relatively easy.

Until it wasn’t.

Emma’s father was a violent drunk. Emma’s mother murdered him next door to her daughter’s sleeping body. Emma was taken in by her granny, and then her mother killed herself.

What in the holy fuck.

The trainwreck didn’t end there.

Emma didn’t have a police record; she hadn’t technically broken a law, but her name had come up multiple times in her teenage years. One particular officer kept close tabs on her. Hawke dug in further, trying to understand what exactly she was doing to have caused police presence to exist at her house.

Hawke wound up at the house of her grandmother’s neighbour. An old lady by the name of Debbie-Anne had opened the door. She’d taken one look at him and blanched.

Hawke was close to threatening answers out of her, but he figured he’d catch more bees with honey. “Hi, sweetheart, you wouldn’t happen to know the goings on around here?”

He immediately saw the spark in her eye. She was the gossip type. “I’ve lived on this block for thirty years, young man. I know everything.”

“Can I test that knowledge, honey?”

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