Page 94 of Bring Them Home

“That’s all you’re going to do? Just pass this along?”

“You know how things work, Steele. We just need to trust that Deputy Holden will be held accountable if he is corrupt.”

Do we need to trust? She knew despite the best of intentions, sometimes there wasn’t justice. “And Judge Anderson?”

“You don’t accuse a judge of wrongdoing without having a solid case to back it up. And from what you’ve told me, his reasoning for turning down Abigail’s testimony doesn’t completely flag for me. You know the man. He’s respectable. He must have seen room for reasonable doubt.”

“The entire case against him hinged on her testimony. And Hernandez’s phone records would have proved he was on a call with one of his men at the time Abigail heard him telling him to ‘kill them all.’” She paused, chilled by another thought, then said, “Access to them would have been authorized, surely. That was the day of the raid.”

“From what I remember, yes, it was a full-blown war between the PWCPD and Hernandez and his organization.”

“Then…”

“Amanda, all I’m asking is that you keep an open mind unless you can prove Anderson is dirty.”

“He denied the search warrant for Hernandez’s residence. It should have been straightforward,” she argued.

“Amanda.”

“Fine. I’ll let it sit for now.” Her entire being soured, and she ended the call.

“Don’t hate me for agreeing with Malone, but there is a small possibility that Judge Anderson made his decision based on information we don’t have,” Trent said.

“How I’d love to believe that.” Her phone rang, and it was CSI Blair. “Detective Steele,” she answered on speaker.

“Isabelle and I are still processing the well, and we’ll be going to the hospital for their clothing to check for any particulates that might lock up this case. Though I’m sure Valerie Archer is all too happy to testify.”

“Not exactly,” Amanda said and told her how that had gone.

“Huh. Well, I guess we need to do our jobs more than ever then. I have a couple of updates for you. I received a call from a lab tech. The bullet fragments taken from Abigail McGee were from a forty-five-caliber round.”

“Which Rideout told us,” Amanda said, disappointed if that was all Blair had to share.

“Right, well the ballistics isn’t giving us anything else to narrow things down, unfortunately.”

Amanda turned to Trent. “He must have used a different gun than he was accused of using in a past trial.”

“What trial?” Blair asked, and Amanda filled her in. “Can’t say the accusations against this guy surprise me, but moving on… The blood from the basement in Hernandez’s rural property puts Paul Archer and Abigail McGee there. Other forensic trace ties to Valerie and Brooke Archer. This should give you more than enough to throw Hernandez in jail for life.”

Amanda wished she could believe that. But the man’s record of getting off scot-free destabilized her faith. If anyone else had a body found on their land, with a connection to the victim, they’d have been charged with murder already. Meanwhile Hernandez was walking free. “We’ll get there. We can only hope.”

“You’ll do it,” Blair encouraged her.

“I was curious about that blue piece of fabric you found near Paul Archer’s body. Anything more on that?” Amanda asked.

“It wasn’t anything special. Light cotton.”

Not exactly Christmas… “Okay.”

“Chin up.” With that, Blair ended the call.

Trent looked over at her. “That should be enough for a warrant.”

She was about to point out that Hernandez walked when a dead body was found on his property. What had changed? The only difference was the violence was indicated in the house itself. Her phone rang again, and she answered at the sight of Briggs’s name and put him on speaker.

“We’ve got him, Amanda. Hernandez isn’t going to get off this time.”

Tingles ran through her entire body. “Tell me you found some valuable video.”