Dead Presidents (An Aria Raymond Thriller Book 3) by Thomas Ransom (that summer book txt) 📕

have done the same thing in your place. We are supposed to go with whatever the evidence points towards. I told you before too. I know it is hard for you, but you can’t change the past. You can, however, do something about it now. Just focus on that, okay?”

“You are right. I know. I just… I am sorry. I don’t think I can face Aria, but please apologize to her on my behalf until I get the nerve to apologize to her myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t accept my apology.”

Diaz sighed, “She is a good person. I know Aria will understand.”

They drank their drinks in silence for a few minutes.

“Okay. That’s past us now,” Sanjay spoke up. “Let’s decide what we are going to do now. How is this going to work. Nicole, what do you need us to do? We must have a plan and we must be very vigilant. These people are probably on to us by now. They already know Diaz and I were investigating them… or trying to. They are going to make things even more difficult for us.”

Diaz and Jake nodded, listening intently.

Sanjay continued, “If the case reopens then at least Jake can handle things there. Make sure only a few people know about the updates and progress so that word doesn’t leak out that the case is being reopened. Jake, we can select a few people that we can absolutely trust to work with us. Keep it low key Nicole? Why don’t you fill Jake in about what you have already?”

“Honestly? I have nothing for now. We know as much as what we knew before. I haven’t found out anything else for now. One of my guys has started going through that large amount of footage we have gathered to find that mystery hoodie guy…”

“Hoodie guy?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” Sanjay nodded. “Remember, Aria told us once that there was this guy following her around? We didn’t look into it because we eventually found the murder weapon. Anyway, it turns out her stalker wasn’t actually trying to harm her, he or she was low key looking out for her… granted they weren’t doing much of a good job… anyway, we are guessing they know something, and we need to find that person.”

Jake looked skeptical, “Why do you guys think he might know something? And how was that person looking after Aria?”

“Well, I saw that same person in a café,” Diaz explained. “He almost bumped into me while I was waiting for someone and when I looked at the table, there was an envelope sitting there. It had all the emails and things inside that helped us in Aria’s appeal. While mostly it was David’s confession, those deleted emails did help. We can start looking into that too. We never actually got the chance to dig deeper into those emails. There were a lot of other things too.”

“Yeah. We should.”

Jake spoke up again, “What about that footage?”

“Well, Aria told us about the places she had seen that hoodie guy around and we got hold of the video. The problem is this person is good. They know how to avoid the camera. We can’t see their face or anything that can help us recognize the person. We then gathered more footage from surrounding roads, shops and cafés in hopes that we might catch him somewhere, but the problem is that there is way too much content. We couldn’t go through it all before Aria’s appeal and then we abandoned the effort once David said he would confess. I recently had my guys go through it. But, so far, no luck. There is still a lot of footage left.”

“Alright. Let me know the latest update,” said Jake, “Send me half of the video footage and I will have a few people go through it. That would be quicker, and we might find something sooner. In the meantime, I am going to talk to the captain and get the Coons case reopened. We will go through everything. I am sure with Coons files and Whitney’s murder; we might be able to find something. Even if it is small, it could help a lot.”

“That’s great. I will call my guys and send you the recordings.”

“Great!” smiled Sanjay. “We already have a few things settled. Let’s hope for the best. Together, we should be able to bring these guys down.”

Diaz and Jake nodded.

“I think you are right, Sanjay,” said Diaz, “It’s different this time. We all know what we are up against and we now have Jake on our side, in addition to your team. We have more resources and more information. I am pretty sure we will find something. I am confident this time that we can go after them. They tried their best to bring us down before, but we managed to get Aria out, didn’t we? We will get them. I know it will take time, but we will get them. I will get my justice. I will get justice for Ellen, Coons, Aria, and everyone involved.”

Jake and Sanjay smiled. “I’ll drink to that,” said Sanjay.

Chapter 5: Secrets Revealed

“Where have you been?”

Diaz sighed. She had just entered her apartment. He was still there. She was hoping he might have gone or gone to sleep. She had made sure to stay at the bar a long time in hopes that she wouldn’t have to deal with him. Her head was already buzzing. She was excited that she had more reinforcement now to help with her case. Jake wasn’t a bad guy after all. Who knew? Her excitement started fading away as soon as she heard his voice.

“I was worried sick. You should have called!”

“Seriously?” Diaz spat, “I told you I have work. Honestly, I don’t understand. What do you want from me now?! Why are you here?”

“I