Page 66 of Girl, Sought

‘Hey.’ He hovered in the doorway like he wasn't sure of his welcome. ‘Thought you might still be here.’

Ella mustered a thin smile. ‘I’m always here.’

‘Don’t you have a home to go to?’

‘Not around these parts. What about you?’

‘I got a home, but the longer I stay away, the harder it is to go back.’

‘Why’s that?’

Reeves settled his bulk into the chair across from her desk. ‘Not sure I even understand it myself. I got a wife of 22 years. Two teenage girls. They’re asleep by the time I get back, and they’re gone by the time I get up. Sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own house.’

Same story, different detective. It was a universal requirement for anyone in law enforcement to be married to the job, despite no one asking them to be.

‘Why don’t you go home earlier?’

Reeves laughed. 'Yup, I say the same thing to every guy on the day shift. Funny, isn't it, how we never take our own advice.'

Ella stifled a laugh. ‘True.’

‘Before I depress you any more, I’ll just tell you that the team wrapped up at Carpenter's place about an hour ago. Forensics might have something by morning.’

‘Any prints?’

‘Take a guess.’

‘Figures. Do you know where Hawkins is?’

‘Hawkins? No idea. He left at the same time as us.’

Of course, he hadn't come back here. Of course he'd finally reached his limit, thrown up his hands, decided she wasn't worth the effort after all. She'd all but told him to, hadn't she? Spat it at him like acid. You never knew what you had until you'd shoved it away with both hands.

‘I was kind of a bitch to him,’ she admitted.

‘Kind of?’

‘Okay, I was a massive bitch to him. Sorry for making a scene.’

Reeves pulled out his phone. ‘That’s your business, but if you want cheering up, I got some good news at least. Remember that warrant we were waiting on? The one for Vanessa Blackburn's company records?’

Ella sat up straighter. ‘It came through?’

‘Mayor fast-tracked it himself. Guess finding a priest dead in his basement gets attention in high places.’ He gestured at her laptop. ‘Should be in your email. Full access to employee records, client files, everything. Vanessa’s probably having kittens right about now.’

She clicked through her inbox, and there it was. Federal warrant with all the trimmings, signed and sealed by someone important enough to have their own parking space at city hall.

‘Well damn. Something finally went right.’

‘I guess the place is closed now, but first thing tomorrow…’

Tomorrow. Christ. It felt interminably far and fingertips-close all at once. A thousand years and no time at all to finalize their assault on the appraisal world's most upstanding den of thieves.

But if this was the closest thing to cosmic alignment they were going to get, Ella would take it.

‘Don’t get too excited though. The lab checked out the mask and the bills that kid dropped off. No DNA or hair strands in the mask, and the bills aren’t consecutive, so they didn’t come from an ATM.’

‘No surprise. Our guy is too good for rookie mistakes like that,’ Ella said.