“And?”
“I don’t know anything else, but I can go find out.”
“I need to see the last twelve hours ASAP and then get a full review copy.”
“I’m on it.” He steps right and then pauses to eye me again. “I’m proud of you kids. Who knew you’d grow up to be a law enforcement dynamic duo, but you sure did.” He winks and hurries down the stairs.
I blink at his departing back. He’s proud of me? I’m confused. I didn’t know he knew much about the adult version of me, and I’m not exactly a person people compliment. I don’t handle it well. It makes me and others uncomfortable. And now, I’m the one who’s uncomfortable, but Jack isn’t, bless that old bastard’s heart.
I re-enter the bedroom and remove my mini camera from my bag. Yes, CSI takes photos, but I like to take my own for easier, quicker access. As I begin to shoot, I make observations. The room is tidy, the bed made. She wasn’t hanging out in here. Still, someone else might have and I ensure my images capture every part of the room.
I glance in drawers, scanning the notepad I find by the one near the bed, but it holds nothing except a grocery list. And proof that I get along better with dead people. She liked anchovies to the extent they made her list. Setting aside that disgusting habit, I continue to hunt for clues to her death. Eventually, I end up back in the closets and the bathroom. Once that search is complete, I exit the bedroom to the hallway with the intent to search the extra rooms, but pause at the steps as I find North standing at the bottom of the stairs, seemingly waiting on me.
I bite, and start walking down the stairs—not literally bite, not yet, but that could happen. I never rule out anything. Apparently eager to talk to me, he meets me on the bottom step.
“I spoke to her mother,” he says. “You were right. That’s not Emma Wells’ wedding dress.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Paranoid people get on my nerves almost as much as stupid people. Some people, even smart people, become paranoid after doing a bad thing, say getting rid of a dead body. Andrew is paranoid right now. He’ll see this as proof that this case is about me and Kane.
I, on the other hand, am not ready to read too much into the engagement ring on my finger and the wedding dress on the bride-to-be. Even if it’s not her actual wedding dress.
“Then we need to know where the hell it came from. I’ve asked to see the security system feed.”
“About that,” he says, “her security system is down. The security feed is knocked out.”
“Of course it is,” I reply dryly. “Where is the mother now?”
“At her house a few miles down the coastline. She’s going to meet me at the station in an hour. I suppose you want to sit in.”
“I believe in you, North. You handle it.” I step around him and deeper into the foyer, planting my feet right there, imagining the victim answering the door and accepting the box that ended up on the bed. She would have opened the box and then put on the dress. We think. We really don’t even know what was in that box. And why put on a wedding dress that isn’t yours?
I’m back to some sort of kinky game because what the fuck else could it be?
Outside of someone forcing her to put the dress on, of course, but that doesn’t fit the walk to the kitchen for a bottle of water. I’m back to her having a visitor. I turn to find North standing just behind me, hands on his hips. “Did we find her phone?”
“We didn’t. It’s not on the body or anywhere on the lower level. We’re still looking and I’ve started the process to retrieve her phone records.”
“Her phone and clothes are missing and the security system is off,” I comment, processing out loud for my benefit, not his.
He replies anyway, adding, “And with the property lines wide and fancy, we have no camera feed from anywhere else. Someone covered their ass.”
Maybe, I think, but what I say is, “Do we have her phone number?”
“Actually, I do. I just called it in for the phone records. Why?”
I remove my phone from my field bag. “I thought I’d call her and ask her what happened,” I say, just blinking at him as I do.
“Right,” he says dryly. “Obviously that was a stupid question. No better way to find it than to call it.” He grabs his phone and reads the number off to me.
I’ve just keyed it into my phone when someone calls his name from somewhere I prefer him to be myself—outside. He grimaces, cursing under his breath, and steps around me. Bye-bye, birdie, I think. Fly far, far away.