“Texas Rangers. We’re looking for Randy Kelly.”

Two more locks clicked, and the door opened. The guy who stood before them was shirtless, wore jeans, and his hair stuck up. “That’s me. You find the truck?”

“Mind if we come in, Mr. Kelly?” Hayden asked. “I have questions.”

Kelly nodded and stepped back. “Is my truck okay?”

“Your truck was used in a crime we’re investigating.”

“Shit,” Kelly whispered as he pulled on a shirt that had been on the floor.

Kelly’s one-room apartment had a Murphy bed, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. Several action-movie posters decorated the walls, a couple of pizza boxes were stacked on the kitchen counter, and dirty clothes were scattered on the floor around a card table holding a laptop.

“Where did you last park your truck?” Hayden asked.

“I work construction and odd jobs. I slipped into a bar to get a beer yesterday evening, and when I came out, the truck was gone.”

“What is the name of the bar, and where is it?” Hayden asked.

“It’s in East Austin. Rodney’s on Linden. I parked the car on Seventh Street and went in for a couple of hours. I came out around eleven and no truck. I called the cops right away.”

“You’re sure about where you parked your truck?” Brogan asked.

“Yeah. I’d had a few beers, but I was in good shape when I came out. I know where I parked my truck. I was supposed to work today, so I couldn’t get plowed. You said it was used in a crime?”

“In a hit-and-run accident sometime after midnight,” Hayden said.

“Shit,” Kelly hissed.

“Does anyone else have keys to your truck?” Hayden asked.

“No. It’s mine.” He scratched his head. “It’s ten years old, and it doesn’t run that well. But it’s paid for and gets the job done. Who was hit?”

“A woman.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know. And you can prove you were here the entire time?”

Kelly shook his head slowly. “I called the cops, gave my report about eleven thirty, and then came home. There will be a record of the car service. I was asleep by twelve thirty.”

“Where were you on Sunday?” Jack’s murder and Macy’s attack happening so close together couldn’t be a coincidence.

“On a roof in north Travis County. I arrived at five a.m. and worked until sunset.”

Hayden would check out the man’s story but was inclined to believe him. “All right, Mr. Kelly. I might double back with more questions.”

“What about my truck?” Kelly asked.

“If and when we find it, it’ll be impounded as evidence. So we’ll have to hang on to it for a while,” Hayden offered with no remorse.

Kelly shook his head. “What am I supposed to do in the interim?”

“You’ll have to make other transportation arrangements.”

As they left to the sound of Kelly grumbling curses, Brogan made a call to dispatch, putting out a BOLO on the vehicle. His next call to the city’s uniformed division was for a search of cameras near Rodney’s on Linden. With any luck, they’d find footage of the car theft.

When Faith arrived at her office, Nancy was waiting for her with lab results from autopsies done three weeks ago, several messages from police officers with questions about pending cases, and the schedule for tomorrow.

“Good, you made it back,” Nancy said. “It’s going to be a crazy afternoon.”

“What’s happening?” The buzz and noise of the office normally excited her, but right now it felt like an annoying intrusion.

“We have a death that appears to be an ATV accident,” Nancy said. “The victim is a twelve-year-old male, and the family is torn up and looking for some kind of closure.”

Whatever worries had been plaguing her vanished as she focused on caring for this child. “All right. What about a possible hit-and-run? Female. Did she arrive here yet?”

“We’ve not seen any case like that yet. What do you know that I don’t?” Nancy asked.

She was more relieved than she’d expected. “Good.”

Nancy studied her. “You all right?”

“Long night. Bad sleep.” She smiled.

“Let me talk to Dr. Ryland,” Nancy said. “I might be able to talk him into taking the ATV case.”

“No, I’ve got this. See you in the suite in thirty minutes.”

After she changed and quickly leafed through the reports and messages, Faith met Nancy in the autopsy suite. Neither spoke as they performed the grim but necessary task of conducting the autopsy.

After she closed up his chest and pulled the sheet back over his face, she spoke to the bereaved family, answering their questions and listening as they cried and struggled to wrap their brains around the tragedy.

By the time Faith moved behind her desk, she was bone weary. Rolling her head from side to side, she released the tension in her neck. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there like that when she heard the knock on her door.

Mitchell Hayden stood in her doorway. “You all right?”

“Sure. Always. This is a surprise.” Faith rose.

He entered her office and carefully shut the door. “I need to talk to you.”

She remained behind the desk. “Now I’m getting worried. First you call last night, and then you show up to talk?”

He walked up to the other side of her desk. “Remember the hit-and-run last night?”

She leaned on the desk, knowing she might have been tempted to lean into him had it not been there. “Did the victim die?” Her breath caught in her throat, and she thought if a heart could actually pause, hers did. “Are you sending her to me?”

“She’s still alive. She just got out of surgery an hour ago, but she’s in rough shape.”

An odd stillness settled around her, and her voice seemed to echo from far away. “Why’re you telling me this?”

He fished his phone from his back pocket and selected a picture. “I snapped a picture of her identification badge, as well as of her driver’s license. I’d like you to have a look.”

“All right.” She accepted the phone, studying his face as if somehow this mystery, which was now really scaring her, could be solved with one of his weighted glances or frowns.

When she could get no read from his expression, she studied the picture. She enlarged the image with her fingers and studied the eyes, nose, and quirky half smile that were all familiar. The hair was different, and she was wearing a necklace Faith had never seen. It was her, and yet it wasn’t.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Neither do I. When I saw her identification, I thought someone had figured out we were sleeping together and was playing a sick joke on me.”

Faith could do nothing but shake her head.

“But it wasn’t you,” he said. “Her badge says her name is Macy Crow.”

“Macy Crow. I received a voicemail from her. This is Jack Crow’s daughter?”

“The same.”

She swiped to the next picture, which was of a Commonwealth of Virginia driver’s license. The black-and-white image was no less unsettling than the color version.

“Are you adopted?” he asked.

She traced the shape of the face that was hers. “I am.”

“How long have you known?” he asked.

“Always. But it’s not the kind of thing that comes up in everyday conversation. My parents didn’t like to talk about it.”

Hayden shifted slightly and gripped the brim of his hat tighter. “Do you have any details about your adoption?”

“No. I contacted PJ Slater recently about it. I thought he might find something in the files. As a matter of fact, he called me just this morning and gave me the name Josie Jones as a possible birth mother.”

“Do you have any adoption records? An original birth certificate?”

“None.” Her head was spinning,

and she was just trying to keep calm and find a rational explanation. “Do you think I have a twin?”

“A DNA test will confirm it.”

Somewhere deep inside her, missing puzzle pieces snapped into place. “Where is Macy Crow?”

“ICU at Midtown.”

She removed her purse from her bottom drawer, took off her lab coat, and didn’t bother to change out of scrubs. “I want to see her, now.”

“I’ll take you.”

“That’s not necessary. I can drive myself.” That was a lie. Her head was whirling, and she could barely focus as she fumbled through the keys on her ring.

“No, Faith. I’ll drive. No arguing.”

Tags: Mary Burton Criminal Profiler Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net