Page 32

Kuna, Idaho

Now

When James picked the car up from impound, the air felt like a powder keg.

Kittleson still hadn’t returned Domanska’s message. He was busy with two new cases: the suspicious death of a blue-eyed, blond-haired toddler that had been making front-page headlines for a week straight, and an officer-involved shooting that was sending shockwaves through the community.

When he saw the blinking red light on his phone, he listened to it—and made a note to call her back—then busied himself with another case that had been assigned to him that morning.

We shut down his computer twice that afternoon. It only made him take an early lunch. And then, because neither of us could stand to look at him anymore, Skye and I caught a ride with an officer and waited at the impound lot.

When James arrived at the impound lot to pick up the car, he looked different since I’d last seen him. Less at ease. Less interested in pretenses. On high alert.

April had driven him there. Kimmie and Emma were with her. None of them got out of the car.

James didn’t know what detectives knew—or rather what they didn’t know—but he knew the net was closing.

Skye and I looked at each other as James put the keys in the ignition. We both felt the pull to follow the officer back to the station. But there was something in James’s eyes that told me I should jump into the back of his car.

Skye wavered at the threshold of the police station. She saw it too. “I’m going with James, okay?” she said hesitantly. “If somebody needs to mess with Kittleson’s computer, I’m not sure I can do it.”

I didn’t want to leave her. Not now. She was right: Someone needed to follow James. I nodded. “If anything happens, get back to the station as fast as you can, okay? You know the way back there?”

She nodded. Then she jumped into the back of the Kia as he pulled out of the parking lot, behind April and the girls.