Page 74 of Dangerous Deception

The color fades from the man’s face slightly, but he still nods. “Sure, I know Carlos.”

“What did he come to see you about?”

“I… listen, I was only doing my job, okay? I’m really not that high up in the grand scheme of things.”

“So you can’t call the mayor?” Vito remarks coldly.

“I can! I just can’t promise he’ll answer. I’m sorry. Are you going to kill me now?” His face screws up and tears leak down his cheeks. “I don’t want to die.”

“What did Carlos come to see you about?” I ask, unholstering my gun and resting my hands in front of me, interlocked at the wrist. “I won’t repeat myself again.”

“He came to see me about his sister. She, uh… she died and he had some questions.”

I tap my gun against my knuckles, signaling my impatience. Hank pales further.

“I’m sorry,” he says weakly. “Carlos was investigating his sister’s death. It never sat well with him that they said she overdosed because he claims she never did drugs. She never sampled the product or whatever. He was chasing rumors, mostly.”

“What rumors?”

“Toxicity levels in the city’s waters. He found… he found other people who shared the same symptoms as his sister. At a distance, it could look like drug use, but he was insisting it wasn’t. The city ruled her death an overdose and he was furious. I don’t know how he did it, but he got a private autopsy and learned that she didn’t overdose at all. He was right.”

“How did she die?” Vito asks.

“Prolonged toxic consumption,” Hank says hurriedly.

“Someone was poisoning her?” I raise a brow. “And you’re connected how?”

Hank drags a hand down his face, trying to remove the buildup of sweat. “He was following rumors about toxicity in the water supply that feeds into the city from the reservoirs up in the hills. Rumors like that don’t have much merit, but once he started asking, he didn’t stop. He was so persistent, and I felt soguiltyabout the whole thing.”

Hanks looks like he’s about to shake apart at the seams. He clutches both his hands together and rocks back and forth.

“He asked around about those rumors and something led him to you?”

“Yes.” Hank nods repeatedly. “He found my name on a few old documents and learned through asking the right people that anyone with a complaint about the water was directed to me. And… and it was my job to bury those queries and concerns. Anything about water quality concerns, I buried or–or destroyed. Including?—”

Hank chokes like the words are strangling him from the inside.

I step forward and lean closer. “Including?”

“Including concerns that people were getting sick and–anddyingfrom the water.”

Slowly, the puzzle starts to slot together in my mind, like pieces falling slowly out of the box. “How many concerns did you bury, Hank?”

He shrugs and lowers his head. “A couple of thousand. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

That many concerns? Vito and I exchange a look as the heat of anger licks at the fringes of my mind. “You told Carlos this?”

“Yes.” Hank nods, breaking down. “His concerns about his sister’s death was one–one of the concerns I buried.”

Shit.

“Is it true?”

Hank looks up at me with wide eyes. “Is what true?”

“The complaints, you fucker. The concerns. Is there something wrong with the water from the reservoirs?”

“Yes,” Hank sobs, crumpling before my eyes. “There has been fordecades.”

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