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“Good morning,” Trent said.
She winced. “Do you have to be so loud?”
“I wasn’t.” He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Could have fooled me.” She was an idiot three times over. First, kissing Trent. Two, confessing this sin to Logan. Three, downing a bottle of wine.
“Oh.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, and he disappeared into his cubicle and came back with a bottle of Aleve, which she happily accepted from him. “You’re my hero. Thank you.” She took one with water.
“Rough night?”
She didn’t answer, just held eye contact.
“Tell me you didn’t tell him.”
She blinked slowly.
“Crap. And I’m to gather that he didn’t take it well.”
“Solid detective work, Ace. He left me.”
“He what?”
There was no way she was going to repeat herself and risk breaking down like a blubbering idiot. “Forget about me. We have a job to do. Katherine was taken three days ago.” Her phone rang, and the sound drilled into her skull. She rushed to answer. Anything to stop that blasted ringing. “Detective Steele.”
“It’s CSI Blair.”
She put the crime scene investigator on speaker and motioned for Trent to stay put.
“The ballistics results are in, and the same Glock 19 was used to kill both Leah Bernard and Lynnette Johnson.”
“What we figured,” Amanda said. “Thanks for letting us know. Did you get any hits on the shooter’s face?”
“Unfortunately not. I know that wasn’t what you wanted to hear.”
Facial recognition databases weren’t without their limitations. “You can say that again.” Amanda ended the call and shook her head. Frustrated, overwhelmed, heartbroken, hungover.
“We’ll find him,” Trent said.
“I don’t see how.” Everything was lost starting with Katherine and ending with Amanda’s relationship with Logan.
“We start at the beginning.”
“Which is essentially where we are.”
“Not entirely true.” He stiffened, obviously taking offense to her summation of events. “We just need to reassess, talk it out. If money wasn’t the initial motive, I’d say we’re back to revenge.”
“Uh-huh. This guy likes to feel he calls the shots. Take as an example his last call to May. He said he’d be in touch within two days, which leaves May in hell.”
“He must enjoy causing pain and emotional torment. It’s not good enough he’s hurting Katherine, he wants to inflict agony on someone she loves too.”
“It sounds personal.” Amanda rubbed her forehead, thankful the pain pill was helping somewhat, but she was still having a hard time focusing. “How did Katherine wrong this person?” She got up and paced, thinking through the investigation thus far and the leads they’d followed. All of them had been dead ends. Think personal, she nudged herself. Then an idea hit, and she dropped into her chair. She opened her email and brought up the small evidence list from the Fill N Go that Blair had emailed. She stopped on the mention of the silver locket.
The photo of an oval-faced woman with black hair that framed her cheekbones.
Amanda recalled thinking she’d looked dimly familiar. Then she snapped her fingers, and Trent flinched. She laughed, elated she might finally be on to something. “Sorry,” she told him.
