All her worry fled, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and sank into his embrace. She clung to him as the passion flared between them. When she opened her eyes, they were sitting on the edge of the bed. Hez’s intense gazesmoldered its way into her heart, and she was so very tempted to shut the door and stay right here with him.
He sighed and stood, tugging her to her feet. “Let’s go watch the sunset from the pier before I forget you don’t have that ring on your finger yet.”
Hez understood her better than she understood herself sometimes. She clasped his hand and went with him.
Hez paced the empty Justice Chamber as he waited for Hope to call. He touched the plaque on the wall and murmured the words like a prayer: “‘But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!’”
It certainly looked like the river of justice had been dammed and the stream of righteousness had failed, but appearances could be deceiving. Michael had beaten them time after time, but Hez only needed to beat him once. If he could just catch Michael in one of his many serious crimes, that would be enough. Michael would be behind bars and away from Simon—and unable to interfere with Hez’s investigation of the crime that mattered most.
Hez picked up a framed picture of Ella from the corner of his little desk. She smiled up at the camera, on the verge of a giggle. “Justice is coming, baby girl. Justice is coming.”
His phone buzzed and he accepted the call. “Hi, Hope. What’s up?”
“Thanks for that email about Michael Willard and Erik Andersen. Your instincts are as good as ever.”
He fought back rising elation. “Did you arrest Michael?”
She chuckled. “If we did, the DA would hold a press conference—and he’d kill me if I told anyone before he announced it. I’m actually calling with a question.”
He leaned against the side of the trefoil window and watched the workers attaching gutters to what Pierre had planned to call Legare Hall. Savannah had done a remarkable job with it, turning it from a half-finished ruin into a Gothic Revival masterpiece. It would be a campus jewel for generations. “Fire away.”
“What do you know about Jimbo Clayton?”
Hez searched his memory. “He’s part of the Willard clan, right? The name is vaguely familiar.”
“Do you have any information about him? Anything that might give us a clue to his location?”
“Maybe. I think his name came up once or twice in the report from the PI we hired. Why?”
She sighed. “We have a warrant for his arrest, but he got wind of it and ran.”
The dots connected. “The warrant is for the murder of Erik Andersen, isn’t it?”
She was silent for a heartbeat. “Confidentially, yes. Very confidentially.”
Hez punched the air. “I knew it! He forgot to turn off his phone, didn’t he?”
“Close. He turned off his phone—but he forgot to turn off his smartwatch. We were able to track him to Andersen’s house, through Gum Swamp, and then to the spot where we found Andersen’s car. He stopped for a while in the swamp, so we took a cadaver dog out there and found a femur belonging to Andersen. The DNA just came back.”
Hez pinched his lower lip as he absorbed the information. “Michael’s phone was off at the same time, wasn’t it?”
“Nope. On its charger at his home.”
Hez rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We never catch the smart ones, do we?”
“No. No, we don’t.”
A realization hit Hez. “Nora Craft is smart.”
“Uh, I guess so. Why? Where is your brain going?”
His brain was going back to Jess’s funeral, trying to picture everyone who had been there. “You worked with the PHPD on the warrant for Clayton’s arrest, didn’t you?”
“Yes. It was in their jurisdiction and we’d caught the mole.”
“I don’t think so. Nora wouldn’t have used her own credentials to steal files from the Birmingham PD. That would have been stupid, and Nora’s not stupid.”
“So who did it? And what about the security camera picture? The angle wasn’t great, but I think that’s Nora.”
