“We are trying. We’ve been working round the clock since the call came in. We’ve got three detectives and a uniform working full-time on this thing.”
Her phone buzzed on the counter, and she ducked around him to answer it.
Scott tipped his head back and tried to rein in his temper. Sparring with her wasn’t going to help. But he wasn’t going to just sit around and wait for detectives to stumble onto leads he already had. Dani was a good investigator, but her department was overwhelmed, and Scott knew better than most how things could slip through the cracks.
She had her back to him now, talking quietly into her phone, and from her tone it sounded work related. His gaze fell on the suitcase again. Where the hell was she going? And why wouldn’t she tell him?
Didn’t matter. He’d find out.
She hung up and turned around. For a moment she just looked at him. Then she walked across the kitchen and switched off the oven.
“So much for dinner. I have to go in.”
“Anything serious?”
She shrugged. “The usual.” She glanced at the piece of paper he’d left on the counter. “Look, I appreciate the name.”
“And you’ll go interview him?”
She gave him an impatient look. “I can’t discuss this with you.”
“In other words, I’m still a suspect.”
She just looked at him, not confirming or denying anything, which told him what he needed to know.
He shook his head and walked to the front door. She followed him and reached around him to flip the bolt, and he stepped outside as she glanced nervously up and down the street.
“Hey.”
Her gaze snapped to his.
“What’s wrong, Daniele?”
“Nothing.”
Another lie for the triple.
“Thank you for the lead,” she said.
“Anytime.”
• • •
Brooke waved at the security guard and stepped through the glass door into sweltering night. Working in a windowless laboratory, she tended to lose track of time, and she was surprised to see that the sun had already dipped below the trees. The mosquitoes were out in full force, and she swatted them away from her face as she made her way to the parking lot.
Nine o’clock, and there were still plenty of cars. Would she ever work at a place where everyone wasn’t a workaholic?
Doubtful.
Her profession tended to attract people who were a little bit geeky and a whole lot passionate about what they did—people who paid attention to details, but not necessarily those of a personal nature. She herself was a prime example. She’d been working seven days straight and had no break in sight. She was taking work home with her tonight and planned to be right back here early in the morning.
Her phone chimed as she neared the parking lot. She didn’t recognize the number, so she stuffed it back into the pocket of her jeans. As she reached her car, it chimed again.
She pulled it out and stared down at the screen. It could be her ex-boyfriend calling from a friend’s phone. She wouldn’t put it past him to spoof his number, either. But maybe it was a coworker.
“Porter,” she answered.
“Brooke?” The voice was low and masculine, and she recognized Sean’s Southern accent in that one syllable. “You working late?”
She looked around, instantly on guard. “How did you know that?”
“Just a guess.”
“How did you get this number?”
“I’m a detective.”
She checked the area around her car before sliding behind the wheel and locking the doors. Sean Byrne had tracked down her number. Her unlisted number. She should definitely be pissed, but she wasn’t and she didn’t know why.
“You there?”
“What is it you want, Detective?”
“First off, it’s Sean. And I wanted to see if we could catch up on some things about the case.”
“I just left work for the evening, so—”
“Same here. Want to meet for dinner?”
She stared through her windshield at the darkening woods. She hardly knew him, and he wanted to have dinner with her? The mere mention of food had her stomach rumbling.
“I assume you’re hungry,” he said. “I know I am. How about Smoky J’s?”
“Actually, I’m not hungry. I was going to go home and get some work done.”
“How about a drink, then? What about Schmitt’s Beer Garden?”
She started up her car, and her heart was racing. Was this a date, or did he really just want to talk about the case? She highly doubted that was all he wanted.
She pictured him in her lab earlier, all tall and confident and peering over her shoulder while she worked. He’d smelled good. It was a silly thing to notice, but she definitely had.
She should say no. If he really wanted to know about the case, he should call her in the morning at work, where she’d have her notes and everything in front of her.
“Brooke?”
“Yeah.”
“You know Schmitt’s?”
“What time?”
“I’m leaving the station house now. I can meet you in ten minutes.”
“Give me fifteen. But I can’t stay long.”
“It won’t take long, I promise.”
She highly doubted that, too.
• • •
Sean watched her walk into the bar. Short and slim, she didn’t attract much notice as she slipped through the crowd of beer-swilling frat boys near the counter. Sean caught her eye and waved her toward the back, where he’d snagged them an empty picnic table on the patio.
She didn’t look happy to be here, and he doubted it was just because of the frat boys and the country music.
Usually, Sean didn’t have trouble getting a woman to meet him for drinks or anything else. But Brooke Porter wasn’t usual, not in any way. Was that why he was here? Maybe. He had never been one to back down from a challenge, especially where a woman was concerned.
She stopped beside the picnic table and gazed down at him for a moment before swinging her leg over the bench and sitting directly across from him.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.”
A waitress stopped by and saved them from more small talk. Brooke ordered a Guinness. It seemed like a heavy beer for her, but he kept his comments to himself and asked for a Shiner bock.
When they were alone again, Sean looked her over. “You know what I want to talk about?”
“No, but I can guess.” She glanced around the bar, and he could tell Schmitt’s wasn’t her scene. “You don’t like my findings.”
Not what he’d expected her to say. “Like doesn’t figure into it. Findings are findings. I’m an investigator, so it’s my job to be objective.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, and he noticed her eyes were an unusual shade of . . . something. Not really blue or green, but somewhere in between.
“So you’re not buddies with the suspect whose prints are all over the murder weapon?” she asked.
“Nope.”
She didn’t say anything.
Sean smiled. “What, you don’t believe me?”
She shrugged. “Law enforcement’s a tight community. He’s testified in a lot of cases involving your department.”
“True. But I barely know the guy. And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. Fact, I’d think you’d be the one with the problem, seeing as how you two work for the same forensics lab.”
Another shrug. “Delphi’s a big place. I don’t know him.”
The waitress dropped off their beers. Sean watched her sip the foam off the top of hers.
“I’ve been thinking about your results and I wanted to ask you a question.”
She waited.
“You said you recovered prints from the grip and the slide. Not the trigger?”
“Trigger pulls are narrow. We don’t always get prints there.”
“I understand. What about the
rest of the weapon?”
“Are you suggesting I’m not thorough?”
“I’m sure you’re very thorough. But you said yourself you’re not a gun person.” He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. “Scott Black is, though.”
“And?”
“And a guy like him, he doesn’t just own a gun, he uses it. He handles it. Practices with it. Fieldstrips it and cleans it between uses, too. You see where I’m going here?”
“His prints would be on the inside.”
“All over the inside. So the fact that you didn’t find his prints there, when you found them all over the rest of the weapon? That raises some questions in my mind.”
She sipped her beer and watched him. “You’re right.”
“I’m right about . . . ?”
“Well, as I said when you stopped by my lab uninvited, I wasn’t finished with my examination yet. I make it a habit to go through everything twice, and on my second pass I did, in fact, recover a print from the back of the recoil-spring assembly. Unfortunately, it’s only a partial.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did. It’s in the report I sent over. I emailed it to Ric”—she pulled out her phone and tapped the screen—“exactly three hours ago. You didn’t read it?”
“Not yet.” He watched her for a moment. “A partial, huh?”
“Yes, and it’s not consistent with anything we have on Scott Black.”
“Is that right.”
“That’s right. You know much about fingerprint identification?”
“Not near as much as you.”
She ignored the compliment and leaned forward. “Well, you’re basically looking at various ridge characteristics and analyzing points of comparison. You’re looking for three basic patterns: loops, arches, and whorls. The more of a print or prints you have to look at, the more places you have to make a comparison. The standard varies as to how many matching points you need in order to draw a conclusion, with eight points being on the low end and twenty points being on the high end.”
“And this partial print?”
“I found zero points of similarity. However, the print is small. There aren’t a whole lot of ridge details for individualization.”
“But you can rule out Black?”
She nodded. “I can rule out Black. That print was left by someone else.”
He noticed the spark in her eyes. She was excited about this finding, and her excitement was contagious.
“You may be interested to know that the print is comprised of oil,” she continued. “Do you know Mia, our microbiologist up in the DNA lab?”
“I know her.”
“After microscopic examination, she believes the substance is CLP oil. Which is consistent with what you’re talking about.”
“Gun oil. He left the print when he was cleaning it.”
“That would be my guess.”
Sean looked across the crowded courtyard, running through scenarios. “And then he wiped the gun down—almost completely—sometime before Scott Black got his hands on it.” Sean shook his head, not liking the scenario at all. If it was true, then Dani was right and they were dealing with someone extremely cold and calculating. And this crime had been premeditated not just days or weeks but months in advance.
He looked at Brooke for a long moment. “That’s a good lead.”
“How? I told you, it’s a partial fingerprint. A small one. With so little ridge detail to go on, you may never be able to use it at trial.”
Yes, but its existence on an otherwise squeaky-clean part of the murder weapon told him a lot. “I’ll let the lawyers worry about that.” Sean nodded at her almost-empty glass. “You want another round?”
“No.”
He flagged down the waitress and pulled out his wallet.
Brooke’s gaze narrowed. “Where are you going?”
“Back to work.” He smiled. “It’s a damn good lead, and I’ve got to follow it up.”
• • •
Dani tossed and turned in her bed. She had way too many images tumbling through her mind.
She thought of Tessa Lovett sprawled facedown in the dirt.
She thought of Scott’s steely gaze as he’d sat through that interview with Reynolds.
She thought of Scott at the bar, of the fierce look in his eyes when he’d grabbed her and kissed her. She’d been just as shocked as the first time, and heat spread through her system as she remembered the way he’d smelled, the way he’d tasted, the way his strong, hard body had felt pressed against hers.
She’d shooed him out of her house tonight, but she hadn’t wanted to. What would have happened if he’d stayed?
Dani flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. She hated insomnia. She hated that Scott had the power to get her worked up like this. He’d always had that power, and he could do it with only a look. God help her if he ever really touched her. Really, really touched her. Not just a kiss.
She closed her eyes. She tried to focus on work and block out everything else. Crime didn’t stop just because she was in lust with her brother’s best friend. Or because she had a big homicide case. Tonight’s callout had been a simple holdup at a fast-food place off the interstate. No injuries, thank goodness, but plenty of legwork all the same. After three hours at the scene, she’d left Minh there fingerprinting the glass door the perp had touched. With any luck it might lead to something because the perp had been either too stupid or too tweaked out on drugs to think about wearing gloves while committing an armed robbery.
Even if the prints didn’t yield anything, a side view of his face had been captured on the restaurant’s security cam. The footage would be running on local news stations tomorrow as part of the department’s Crime Stoppers program. Ric was sure they’d get an arrest.
If only all her cases were so easy.
She blew out a sigh. Sleep wasn’t happening tonight, at least not right now. Maybe after some TV. She tossed back the covers and reached for the lamp.
Creak.
Dani froze. She listened. Was that—?
Creak.
Her heart skittered. The sound came from the kitchen, near the back door. Quietly, she reached over and slid her Glock from the holster on the nightstand. Her phone was there, too—a rectangular shadow in the darkness. She eyed it anxiously. She could call 911, but they’d send a patrol car, and if it turned out to be a raccoon on her back porch, she’d never hear the end of it.
Sliding out of bed, she picked up her cell and muted it. Clutching her phone in one hand and her Glock in the other, she crept to the door of her bedroom, her pulse thrumming as she strained to listen. She held her pistol pointed upward, her index finger on the trigger. It was loaded and ready—thirteen in the magazine, one in the chamber. The habit had been ingrained by her father, but even if it hadn’t been, she would have known anyway from the weight of it. Thirty-two ounces had a familiar feel to it.
Slowly and silently, she crept through her doorway and into the darkened hall. She hadn’t heard any more sounds. The more she thought about the noises, the more certain she was they’d come from near the back door. The utility room was an add-on, an old one, and the slats on the porch back there were weathered and creaky. Maybe she had a possum.
She stayed in the darkest shadows, hugging the wall, her gaze trained on the opening at the end of the hallway where the shadows were paler. As she neared the opening, she slowly eased her head around the doorframe to peek into her darkened kitchen.
Nothing. No shadowy intruder inside her house, no silhouette at the back door. The porch looked empty, and moths and gnats flitted around the light.
Creak.
Dani blinked into the darkness. She held her breath.
A black figure lurched across the utility room and yanked open the door.
“Freeze!” she yelled, leaping around the corner and aiming her weapon at the empty doorway.
She sprinted through the kitchen and into the utility room.
She tripped over a laundry basket and tumbled forward, hitting her chin on the dryer. The teeth-rattling smack was followed by a yelp of pain as her temple connected with something hard.
“Shit!” Her phone clattered to the floor and she lunged for it, tapping the emergency call button as she scrambled to her feet. Miraculously, she’d held on to her Glock when she tripped, but it had cost her, and now pain was shooting up her elbow.
“Nine-one-one. Please state your emergency.”
Dani raced outside and ducked low behind the deck railing. Where had he gone? She saw no person, no movement, not so much as a shadow.
“Hello?” The dispatcher’s voice sounded far away, and Dani rattled off her address and the words “potentially armed intruder.”
Movement near her driveway.
Dani sprinted after the shadow, but it darted behind her neighbor’s hedge. Dani raced to the cover of her truck and peered over the hood.
Where had he gone?
A dog started barking, pulling her attention across the street in time to see a black-clad figure two houses down, pulling himself over a fence.
“Police! Stop!”
She ran toward him, arms and legs pumping. She dodged around a fire hydrant and then hurdled a scooter that had been abandoned at the end of a driveway. Lights went on in the house where the dog was barking its head off now. Another dog started up, and another, and pretty soon there was a chorus of hysterical barks.
Dani tossed her phone to the ground and used her free hand to haul herself to the top of the fence, scraping the wood for purchase with her bare feet. She hauled herself over and landed in the dirt, clutching her weapon. She was in a backyard with a pool. She looked around frantically.
She glimpsed a shadow near the garage and raced after it. A gate opened with a squeak, slammed shut. Dani dashed across the yard in pursuit. He’d thrown a trash can in her path. She shoved it aside, then yanked open the gate and rushed through. She sprinted down the driveway and took cover behind a car as she glanced up and down the street.
An engine roared to life at the end of the block. Brakes squealed. She took off after the dark pickup, but her heart sank as she did because she knew it was hopeless. It was too far away to catch, too far away to even read a plate. Another squeal of brakes as it careened around the corner.
At Close Range Page 10