“So do hundreds of other men, Emma, but I’ll stop by to see him this afternoon. And see if anyone in his neighborhood noticed his truck gone.” He didn’t sound happy about the task.
“Thank you,” she said, understanding that Jayden didn’t want to crush Bill’s chances of making it on the outside by doubting him. Hounding him. But the man wasn’t going to stay clean, no matter what Jayden did. The only question was whether or not Suzie would make it until they had enough evidence to convict Bill this time.
“The message was written in red lipstick. The lab is testing further to see if they can determine a particular kind or brand,” she told him. “Chantel said she’d send officers to canvass the local drugstores within a few miles of Heber’s place to see if someone matching his description bought any lipstick recently, but I suggested that you might want to do it yourself,” she offered the concession she’d sought for him.
“I do want to. Thank you.”
He was on the wrong side of this one, but he was there for the right reasons. She’d help where she could. Just not when it came to putting Suzie at further risk.
“What about your other cases?” he asked when she’d thought them done with business and had been wondering what he was doing with his Saturday night. “Is anyone looking into the possibility that whoever left that message on your door was someone else? Neither Luke nor Bill Heber?”
“Chantel picked up my case files this morning and already has people checking through them. Really, at this point, it kind of seems like overkill to me. All the man-hours being spent on this. It was a note on the door. No one got hurt.”
“Not yet.”
Now he was scaring her.
With reason, she knew. She just didn’t want to confront the degree of danger. It wasn’t just a note. Behaviorists would find the red lipstick significant. The fact that it was her back door, not her front, factored into the severity factor, too. And her home, not her office. Or in the mail. The perpetrator was letting her know he could get to her if and when he wanted to do so.
She’d faced some really heinous people in the courtroom over the years. Put a lot of them away. Some cases she’d lost. And some of the offenders were out now. It was a downside to her job...the fear part. She couldn’t let it get the best of her.
“I owe you a dinner,” her darker side blurted.
Emma should call Sara at The Lemonade Stand to see if she’d talked to Suzie. Or Chantel. Emma wanted to talk to Suzie herself. Maybe she’d missed something the last time she’d been up against Bill. She’d underestimated him.
Jayden hadn’t replied to Ms. Shadow’s dinner comment. Emma noticed, even though she was trying her best to stay focused on work: the one thing she did that contributed to society. Both sides of her agreed on that one.
“My bourbon pork is decent,” she said, admitting to herself that she wasn’t looking forward to the evening there alone. Had the man been at her back door the night before because he’d known she was gone? Was he watching her? Still?
Or had she just been lucky she hadn’t been home?
Of course, that all led to, what if he came back?
This person must be a proficient criminal. He’d left very little real evidence. Nothing easily traceable. Most men with an ax to grind against her, most likely had acquired that ax by being one of her defendants. Bill Heber had been slick enough four years before to get away with murder. And he could have learned a thing or two in prison, too.
“Do you want to come over for dinner tonight?” She finally just put it out there.
“I was wondering if you were going to ask.” There was a hint of...pleasure in his voice. He’d been messing with her with that silence.
He’d gotten her to declare herself.
Points to him.
“I’m wondering if you’re ever going to answer.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not your invitation is professional or personal?”
“The threat is still out there.” She couldn’t believe she’d actually said that. That she was using a serious situation in such a way. “You don’t want to keep me safe tonight?”
“I’ll keep you safe. If it’s professional, I’ll be over after dinner.”
He’d put it all right back on her.
So...fine. She wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. “My dinner invitation stands.”