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“Nope. And while we might not have any names to go after, we know that Kelley had her hands on photos of the insured pieces of jewelry.”
“She really was a little sleuth, reaching out to all these people and digging up what she did. It’s quite impressive.”
“She had a knack for it, that’s for sure. I think our theory about her getting close to the killer is gaining more credit by the minute. We speculated Felicity’s killer was someone close to her, feasibly a person with whom she had face-to-face dealings. Just throwing this out there, but did she spot this person with one of those stolen items?”
“She could have, then tipped her hand. Even if not intentionally.”
Amanda’s mind bounced around the possibilities and landed on one undeniable. “She definitely knew her killer. I think we should step back, take the rest of the weekend, and come back to this on Monday.”
“You’re brave enough to give that another try?” He smiled at her.
“If you are.” She laughed, but a part of her feared that taking time off might bite them in the ass again.
FORTY-TWO
Amanda enjoyed Sunday, the day of rest as her father liked to call it, without any word from Malone or the PWCPD. At least she and Trent were afforded some reprieve. The gathering at her parents’ for Zoe’s birthday had gone beautifully, and the girl wound up with more toys than she needed. But on that point, the girl deserved the moon and stars. She had certainly rescued Amanda. And now her light was shining brightly for Amanda’s entire family and Logan.
But her buying time out for family hadn’t come without some willpower. As it was, she’d succumbed to compulsion and checked her email Sunday morning. All that was there was a message from Briggs with names and addresses for each of the fans who sent email. With the current leanings in the investigation steering them to the Chapman case, she found it easy enough to set it aside.
But now that Monday was here, it was full throttle again. Zoe would be off to spend the day with her on-again, off-again friend Maria and a few other girls at Maria’s house. Logan was scheduled back to work at the construction site his employer had been contracted for.
Amanda was behind her desk at Central at seven that morning. She’d started the day by pulling backgrounds for those select Felicity Kelley’s fans—for due diligence—and nothing sparked. No criminal records anyway.
She next turned her attention to the photographs Victoria Eaton had given them. Flipping through them, she examined each image closely. Victoria certainly hadn’t been a gifted photographer when she was younger, with so many of the shots being out of focus. Amanda wasn’t even sure what she expected to see but still held a glimmer of hope she’d recognize someone. That was long gone after going through them a few times.
“For you.” Trent entered her cubicle and set an extra-large coffee from Hannah’s on her desk.
She leaned back in her chair and let her body relax. “You are the best.”
“We take care of each other… Ah, keep each other in coffee anyway.” He lifted his cup to hers in a toast gesture.
And that wasn’t awkward…
“Any luck there?” Trent flicked a finger toward the photos, and she shook her head.
“Nope.” She told him Briggs came through with the sender names and addresses for the fan mail and that they turned up nada in the system.
“Well, we are looking at things from another perspective now. Do you still want me to contact Human Resources at Garrison & Marrow to see if we can get the list of employees that came over from Between the Pages?”
“Yep. I say go for it. Go right to Ian Moss, run it past him. It seems everyone around there needs his approval.”
Trent retreated to his cubicle while she stubbornly returned to the photos. After learning what they had about Naomi Chapman and the dynamics with her fellow interns, she was more confident than ever that one of them had killed her. The robbery was beside the point. As Dennis told them, there weren’t any other fatalities with the string of home invasions at the time. But had the murder been premeditated?
Gah.
Her phone rang, breaking her concentration. It was CSI Blair, and Amanda answered before the third ring.
After greetings were exchanged, Blair said, “Donnelly and I were able to assemble some of that shredded paperwork. We were in yesterday for a few hours to do it.”
“You two must be mind readers. I was going to follow up on that today. Tell me it paid off.”
“That remains to be seen. But we made out one thing that might help. We pieced together the letterhead for Locked Up Tight. Looks like Kelley rented a safe deposit box there.”
Amanda’s heart kicked up speed. “Did you find a key in Kelley’s possessions that could have belonged to one?”
“There was indeed.”
“Where would that be now?” If Blair had it in Manassas, that presented a delay of another hour—the drive there and back.
