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Sam sneered. “Because your CSU team left my apartment a fucking mess, that’s why. There’s fingerprint dust on the walls, the contents of every drawer were dumped, and there’s luminol on my bathroom wall. I’ve had to hire a crime-scene cleaner at my own expense.”
Constantine flinched. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Sam scoffed. “Oh. I’m going to tell my parents to go home to Scottsdale. They’ll probably fight me on it. What am I allowed to tell them?”
“Nothing,” Constantine snapped.
McKittrick held up a hand. “Can you go to Scottsdale with them? Maybe make it sound like you need to get away? You can even tell them that you don’t want to be around if the media catches wind that you were involved.”
Sam scrubbed his palms over his face. “Yeah. I can do that.” He glared at Constantine. “She has good ideas. Be like her.”
Constantine looked momentarily shocked, then he laughed, a loud, rolling belly laugh. “I’ll try. She’s the better of the two of us, for sure.”
“She’s nicer,” Sam grumbled. “Especially to my dog.”
“I apologized,” Constantine said, still chuckling. “You accepted.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “I should have held out for a treat for Siggy.”
Constantine gave McKittrick a triumphant look. “Told you I should have stopped for a dog bone.”
McKittrick dug in her jacket pocket and pulled out a bone-shaped treat half the size of her palm. “There’s a bakery near the precinct that makes them. They’re good for dogs. My poodle Snickerdoodle loves them. Siggy will like it, too. Give it to him, compliments of SDPD.”
Sam took the treat, charmed despite himself. “Thank you.”
She smiled at him gently. “Take care, Dr.Reeves. If you think about anything that Driscoll said in session that would be helpful, please contact us. And if you do go to Scottsdale, I’d appreciate it if you’d shoot me a text letting me know.” She drew a card from another pocket and scribbled on the back. “This is my cell phone and my partner’s as well. If you run into any trouble, let us know. We’ll do what we can to help.”
He took the card, believing she was telling the truth. Or, more correctly, he believed that she believed she was telling the truth. “Thank you, Detective.”
Hoping he wouldn’t need to call, Sam slipped the card into his wallet as they got out of his vehicle and walked away. And then later, when this was all a distant, bad memory, he could call her number and ask her out for coffee.
Dream on, Sammy. Dream on.
CHAPTER NINE
Balboa Park, San Diego, California
Sunday, April 17, 4:35 p.m.
Kit was supposed to be having Sunday family dinner with Mom and Pop and all the others, but a call from Navarro had sent her speeding toward another park. A teenager with a metal detector had found a human hand. A female’s hand, her nails neatly trimmed.
The teen had called 911 right away and Navarro had been informed.
Now she and Baz stood shoulder to shoulder under the tent CSU had erected to keep reporters with long-range lenses from spying on their recovery effort. They waited silently, watching as CSU patiently removed dirt from the body.
Just don’t have pink handcuffs. Please.
CSU’s Sergeant Ryland was working on the victim’s midsection while his assistant removed dirt from her face. Sergeant Ryland would brush the dirt away from the young female victim’s joined hands any minute now.
Kit gripped the little cat-bird in her pocket while she watched, holding her breath. And then... No.
Sparkly pink handcuffs.
“No,” Baz whispered, the one word filled with anger and devastation in equal parts.
“Yes,” Kit whispered back, horrified.
Another one.
