Stolen Daughters (Detective Amanda Steele)

“Oh, not just the long hours, but still looking the way you do.” He smiled. “You’re beautiful.”

“You caught me after I caked on makeup with a spatula, but I’ll take the compliment.” She grinned. She wanted to open up to him about the investigations that had her on the go at all hours, but why darken his day? She lifted the flowers. “Thank you for these.”

“Don’t mention it. But do call me. We’re past due for some quality time.”

“That we are.” She remained at the door, appreciating the view as he walked off and got into his black Dodge Ram. Logan was one good-looking man, and she was grateful for his attention, but she was determined to keep a level head and not get too attached. She knew all too well that good things had a way of being taken away.

She put the bouquet in some water and headed out the door for Central. She grabbed a coffee at Hannah’s Diner on the way. Then, she settled at her desk.

The first thing she did was send a copy of the mystery man’s photo to CSI Blair asking if she could run it through facial recognition. Getting a hit there would mean their guy had a record. Next, she searched the internet for white of eyes black. She had enough time to read some results before Trent arrived.

“Mornin’.” He put a to-go cup on her desk and smiled at her before heading to his cubicle.

She eyed the brown cup with the small, scripted H in a circle. It was from Hannah’s Diner. “You have impeccable timing. I just finished the one I was working on.”

“I know how much you love their coffee.”

“They’ve got the best I’ve ever had.”

“As you’ve said before.” Trent laughed. “It’s pretty good, but I think you might be stretching it a bit… or you need to get out more.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She couldn’t get too angry at him though; he had brought her coffee—and she rather liked the frequency with which it was happening these days. “Just before you got here I googled what could make the whites of a person’s eyes black. The guy could have a rare case of severe kidney or liver failure, wear black sclera contact lenses, or he had the whites of his eyes dyed.”

Trent’s jaw dropped, and he lowered into his chair. “Dyed. Are you kidding me?”

“Add it to the list of the strangest things I’ve ever heard. But it’s called scleral tattooing. It’s where a dye is injected between two layers of the eye and the color spreads out.”

“Yikes. The thought sends shivers through me.”

“Makes two of us. Unless he’s wearing contacts, the black is a permanent feature of his appearance, so it should make this guy easily recognizable.”

“That’s true. So how did you make out last night?” Trent asked, then pressed his cup to his mouth.

She’d taken Crystal to Washington by herself and let Trent go home and get some rest. “It was an emotional night.” She stopped there, impacted by the memory of Crystal’s face upon seeing her parents. There was spite that had flicked across her eyes, and then there was sorrow. The teenager had ended up bawling as hard as her father.

“I can understand that. Did you tell the Fosters everything—about Ashley, and how Crystal might have something to offer our investigation?”

Before she’d taken Crystal back home, Amanda and Trent had discussed it might be useful if Crystal sat with a police sketch artist and have them draw the woman and the man with the black eyes. “I did. I gave them a heads-up that a police sketch artist might become necessary and gave them the very basics, saying that Crystal might be able to help the police. I recommended to the Fosters that they keep a close eye on Crystal for the next while I also called Detective Robbins to notify Lynch’s family.”

“Yeah, it seems we have no doubt it was Ashley Lynch now. But how did the Fosters handle everything?”

“About as well as can be expected. They just want to shelter their daughter now that she’s back, and I can’t blame them.”

“Maybe it won’t come to needing a sketch artist, but it would be nice to make a dent in this ring.”

“You could say that again.” Her gaze caught on an incoming email. It was from CSI Blair, subject: Graveyard & Memorial Notes.

Amanda opened it and read. The card from the memorial didn’t have any useable evidence on it, but they knew its origin now. The note found at Lindsey’s grave, along with the envelope, were clean of prints except for Amanda’s. Blair said if they found a printer, she could confirm if it was the one used to print the label and message. She might as well have said “go find the needle in the haystack.” The envelope itself had been a peel-and-stick, so no saliva mixed with the glue. Blair also said that she had a look at the photo Amanda had sent of the mystery man and could tell immediately that it wasn’t of high-enough quality to run through facial recognition. Just one more dead end in trying to get the name for Tom Cruise’s lookalike. She recapped everything for Trent.

“It was almost too much to hope for something,” he said. “Just like trying to read this killer’s mind is proving impossible.”

“Challenging, sure, but not impossible.”

“If we think of him as being mission-oriented, why these girls who are already victims? It’s not like he’s really cleaning up the world. If he wants to do that then he should kill the guy with the devil’s eyes.” Trent was getting himself worked up, but Amanda could empathize. It was frustrating not knowing exactly what was motivating their killer—or how to stop him from murdering more people. Trent added, “Our killer’s actually targeting victims, and I’m not sure what to make of that.”

“Maybe we should worry less about motive, and just follow the clues. Let’s revisit the interviews conducted with people from the crowd. And maybe the ones from the door-to-door canvassing are in now too.”

“Detective Steele!” Malone was rushing toward her, and he rarely moved fast.