“Of course.”
“Have you called Mom lately?” He didn’t get Kate on the phone often, but had promised never to let her go without trying to connect.
He could hear the gears in her very linear brain shifting from professional to personal. “She’s on a cruise with three of her girlfriends from church.”
“She’s actually back. I saw her two days ago. She says she’s left you messages.”
“I’m working a case.”
Kate was obsessive when she was working. “Call Mom, Kate. She worries.”
“Understood.”
“When are you going to do it?”
She sighed.
When they had been kids, he had teased her a lot, and he always knew he had gotten under her skin when she sighed.
“I’ll wake her up if I do it now.”
“She won’t care, Kate. Call now.”
“Will do.”
“Perfect.” He dropped his voice a notch. “Be careful.”
“Back at you.”
The line went dead, and he returned to Brogan. “Any sign of anything else she might have dropped?”
“Nothing other than the backpack. The paramedics did say she was wearing her service weapon.”
“I’ll check at the hospital and find out what was in her pockets. How long will Agent Crow be in surgery?”
“She won’t be out for a while, and that’s assuming she makes it that long,” Brogan said.
“I want a look at her hotel room. And let’s see if we can track down her brother. Maybe she made contact with him, and he can shed light on what the hell his sister was up to.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tuesday, June 26, 4:30 a.m.
Faith hadn’t been asleep when Hayden had called. She’d been fully awake, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows play overhead, wishing away the night.
But after his call, she immediately got out of bed, worried and sure something terrible had happened. Hayden was not the type of man to just call to hear the sound of her voice. That wasn’t him. Or them.
Unable to shake the growing sense of worry, she called Tina at the shelter.
Tina picked up on the third ring. “Faith?”
“I’m sorry to wake you. Call it a bad feeling, but can you do a quick bed check for me. Is Kat where she’s supposed to be?”
Tina cleared her throat. “Give me a second.”
Faith paced her room as she waited for Tina’s return. What was it that had torqued her up so much? Why did everything just feel so wrong?
“Faith,” Tina said, sounding more alert. “All present and accounted for, including Kat.”
The information didn’t ease the tension banding the muscles in her stomach. “Thank you for checking. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You okay?” Tina asked.
“My brain is working overtime.” She threaded her fingers through her hair. “Again, I’m sorry.”
“No worries.”
Even after she hung up, the sense of dread would not leave her, so she simply made tea and sat on the couch. Her feet curled up under her, and with a warm cup in hand, she watched a Home Shopping Network show advertising some new line of dipping bowls created by two Virginia-based designers.
For reasons she didn’t understand, her mind kept drifting to Hayden’s odd question about Jack Crow’s daughter. He had actually sounded worried and a little unsure. She feared that hit-and-run victim would be in her office soon.
Finally, at five, she laced up her running shoes and went to the community gym, where she logged four miles on the treadmill. Work and life had gotten in the way of her runs lately, and it felt good to break a sweat and stretch. By seven a.m. she was showered, dressed, and walking through the front door of the medical examiner’s office.
She spent the morning responding to phone messages regarding recent autopsies. She often received calls from family members who needed medical terms translated into plain English so they could better cope with their loved one’s death. These people were vulnerable and emotionally distraught, and they relied on her professionalism and kindness to survive the grief.
The last message was from Kevin, the man who’d bumped into her at the hotel last night. He’d tracked her down. “I wondered if you’d like to meet for coffee.” Amused, she hit delete.
She imagined Hayden kissing her, his hand to her breast and her heart beating a lot faster. “Sorry, Kevin, I have enough complications right now.”
As tempted as she was to call Hayden, she left it to him. He’d said he’d call, and that was good enough for her.
She spent the next hour writing up her final reports on two autopsies she had performed two days earlier. The first patient had been a seventy-year-old woman who’d been on the golf course with her friends when she’d suffered a massive stroke. She was dead before the ambulance had arrived, and her children wanted to know if she had suffered. The subject of her next report was a fifty-three-year-old male, successful by all accounts, who’d died of an overdose of painkillers and alcohol.
She filed both reports and met Nancy in the autopsy suite.
It was close to noon when she checked her office voicemail and discovered another phone message. It was from the principal at Kat’s school.
“This is Principal Boswell at the high school. Kat Jones hacked into the school computer system today. She didn’t disturb anything, but she proved she could do a lot of damage if she chose to. According to our school records, you’re her emergency contact.” Kat hadn’t mentioned this tidbit about assigning her as the emergency contact. “We’re sending her to the shelter. She has a three-day suspension.”
Faith closed her eyes as the principal rattled off her name and number. “Damn it, Kat.”
“Did I hear my name?”
Faith looked up and found the girl standing in her doorway, backpack slung over her shoulder and two cappuccinos in her hands. She set one on Faith’s desk. “A token.”
Faith sipped the coffee, glad it was hot and strong. “Computer hacking? Really?”
Kat sat, tapping her finger against the side of her cup. “I didn’t screw with anything. I was just nosing around.”
“And showing others how to do it?”
“Teach the children, as they say.” She sipped her coffee. “Besides, the next three days will give us bonding time.”
“I have work to do. You have class assignments to turn in. You are going back to the shelter.”
Kat’s brow furrowed with frustration that went deeper than any worry over a school suspension. “I’m ahead of the teachers. I show them how to solve problems. Makes them feel threatened and challenged. And I get bored. And the kids at the shelter are fucking morons.”
“Enough with the swearing.”
“So now we’re in 1900? Do you want me to wear a hoop skirt, too?”
“Wrong historical reference and we’re in my office, so don’t swear.”
“So what do we do?” Kat asked.
“I take you back to the shelter. And then I return at 5:30 p.m. and take you to your ob-gyn appointment.”
“I hate it at the shelter.”
Faith reached for her purse. “Let’s go.”
“You’re still wearing scrubs,” Kat persisted.
“I’m coming right back.”
They made their way through the building, and when they were seated inside Faith’s car, her phone rang. It was PJ. “Buckle up.”
More eye rolling as Kat clicked her seat belt.
Faith accepted the call. “PJ.”
“So a little bird, meaning my mother, tells me you broke a few records with your fundraising last night,” he said.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to Tina or Margaret yet, but I’m headed to the shelter now.”
“You will be pleased. You did an amazing job.”
“It wasn’t me. You mother needs to take all the credit. No one organizes an event like that better than her.” She put the car in gear and
drove to the parking lot exit.
Kat turned on the radio and chose a rap station.
Faith turned it down, shooting her a badass glare that made the girl chuckle. “What else is up, PJ?”
“I also wanted to update you on something else. Remember when you asked me to look into your adoption?”
“Sure. Right after your dad died.” As Kat reached for the radio dial, Faith tossed her a warning look that dared her to try. It did the trick.
She turned right onto the street and made her way to the first stoplight.
“Well, I found a name for you. I’ve been digging through your father’s files for the last few months, and I found nothing. Then it occurred to me to check his old datebooks. I retrieved them from archives a few days ago. Your father was a stickler for keeping meticulous details of his appointments. The book I’m looking at now dates back to 1987.”