Page 22 of Crime Lab Cold Case (Pacific Northwest Forensics #2)

Now, they just somehow had to convince the police.

Nobody knew the necklace found on Sierra belonged to the missing Katie, and that was her fault because she’d never told the police that Katie was wearing her pendant.

Sierra’s mother hadn’t seen the necklace before, but that didn’t mean anything.

How many teenage girls hid items of jewelry or clothing from their parents?

Sierra wore so many bangles on her arm, nobody would’ve known if one were missing, and nobody but Penny could attest to an unknown bracelet around Alma’s wrist. The bracelet hadn’t even been logged in the evidence.

And who was going to believe a mother who’d been grieving for thirteen years that her daughter’s missing bracelet was found on the dog of another murder victim?

All she and Michael had was hearsay, supposition, disgruntled parents looking for justice, a suspect in his wife’s murder and a lying FBI agent.

They also had a cop who’d been too close to the victims and the crime scenes.

Maybe Michael could talk to Max Reynolds about Alma’s bracelet.

Michael would be telling the sheriff’s department about the return of Peaches, and he’d have to mention the bracelet.

Whether he told him his suspicion about the bracelet was another matter.

She leaned back in her chair and popped open the bag of chips.

She stuffed a few in her mouth and cracked open her water, then wiped her greasy fingers on a napkin.

She pulled out her phone and tapped on the picture of the seed pearl bracelet.

Then she texted the picture to Penny along with the million-dollar question.

She placed the phone on the desk and stared at it while she continued to crunch through the chips.

As she tipped the crumbs from the empty bag in her mouth, she heard her phone buzz.

Letting the bag drop to the floor, she lunged for her phone.

The first two words of Penny’s text slammed against her heart.

It’s hers.

A million thoughts rushed through her brain at once, causing a severe crossing of wires. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to breathe in and out, slowly. Then she opened her eyes and read through the questions in Penny’s text, none of which she could answer right now.

She did her best to placate Penny, and herself, before packing up her laptop. She had to break the news to Michael, but in his heart, he already knew the truth, just as she’d known it.

She gulped down the rest of the water and tossed the chip bag in the trash, and the water bottle in the blue recycling bin. She could always order some room service if she felt hungry when she got back to the hotel, but she didn’t think she’d be able to eat the rest of the night. A drink, maybe.

She rubbed her hands together, still feeling the residue from the chips. She’d make a quick trip to the ladies’ room to wash her hands before going back to the hotel. She left her stuff in the conference room and headed toward the bathrooms next to the lunchroom.

She pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She bumped it with her hip but got the same result. Maybe the janitorial staff locked up the bathrooms at night, but that didn’t make sense if people were working here. Maybe they locked up certain bathrooms.

Natalie leaned over the staircase railing that looked into the lobby to ask Miles, but he must’ve been on rounds. All the labs were downstairs, and it made sense if the bathrooms in the lobby stayed unlocked. Made sense for Miles to keep track of the people in the building, too.

She jogged downstairs and swung to the right for the hallway leading to the restrooms. The fluorescent lights above flickered but never went on completely. She should’ve just brought her stuff with her to save a trip back upstairs.

This time when she pushed on the door, it eased open with a creak. A tiled wall separated the door from the rest of the bathroom, and she skirted it and parked herself in front of the mirror.

She patted her hair, which had frizzed out from all the moisture in Michael’s backyard.

There was only so much she could do with her curls in this weather.

She even had a smudge of dirt on her chin, which nobody had bothered to tell her about, and the bruises on her arms from the airbag had reached the dark purple stage.

Sighing, she cranked on the faucet and squirted some soap into her palm. She lathered up her hands under the water and rinsed them clean, even rubbing the dirt spot on her chin.

When she removed her hands from beneath the faucet, the water stopped, and she turned to yank a paper towel from the dispenser. She reached for a second and froze, as she heard a creak from the door.

Holding the paper towel from her fingertips, she looked at her reflection in the mirror, her wide eyes staring back at her. A shuffling noise and another creak had her spinning around, but she couldn’t see the door due to the privacy wall.

If someone wanted to use the bathroom, why didn’t she just come in? Maybe it was Miles or the cleaning crew. She crumpled the paper in her hands and called out. “Hello?”

A hooded figure appeared at the corner of the wall, and Natalie screamed.