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The door opened, closed. She glanced up. Brian.
He sat down across from her. “I shouldn’t be here, but I wanted to tell you that I just finished interviewing Natalie Brown. She agreed to go for a blood test. I told her we suspect that Calderon had drugged her the nights he went out.”
“It’s been forty-eight hours.”
“Some drugs can be seen for days, maybe weeks.”
A stretch, she thought. “We don’t have proof that he raped anyone.”
“Actually, we do,” Brian said. “We sent his body directly to Portland for autopsy, made sure that Mac wasn’t in the morgue at the same time as Calderon’s body, because of his relationship with you. Portland ran his DNA, and it matches the first crime scene. Better, it matches blood found at Maggie James’s apartment. We got a warrant, and I searched his townhouse. Found souvenirs from all his victims in a drawer in his bedroom.”
Skye stared at him. This couldn’t be happening. And she had to endure five hours of interrogation when IA knew all this?
“And? What does this all mean?”
“It means you were right. He was guilty. And now we have the proof.”
“But he’s dead. Where’s the justice in that?”
She had wanted to see Trent Calderon humiliated in court when he stood trial, his victims coming up one by one to seal his fate.
Instead, the only thing that would be sealed was his coffin.
XVIII.
She’d been suspended, unpaid, for two weeks. There was a mark on her record, and she would likely never be promoted.
But she had her badge. She was a detective again. She would be watched closely for months, maybe forever, but she was on the job, starting tomorrow.
The time off had sharpened one truth: Her father, Mac, and the job were all she had left. Justice, too, though she’d stopped pretending it always wore a uniform.
She hadn’t wanted Trent Calderon dead. She’d wanted him in a cage. Still, she slept just fine. He wouldn’t hurt another woman, and she could live with that.
Her last night of leave, she walked to her father’s bar, cheeks stinging from the icy wind. Nick Truman looked up from the taps and gave the half smile he saved for her alone. She slid onto her usual stool. He poured a stout without asking.
“You walked,” he said, nodding at her damp jacket.
“Mac’s picking me up after his shift.”
He set the glass down. “Things solid between you two?”
She smiled and nodded. “Very.”
A beat of relief crossed his face. “You go back tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” She drank, enjoying the smooth microbrew. “They found enough in his townhouse to bury him twice over. DNA, trophies, the works. Case closed.”
Nick wiped the bar, slow and deliberate. “You never should’ve been suspended,” he mumbled.
“I fucked up, Dad. I let him get under my skin. If I’d kept my head, maybe—”
“Don’t.” His voice cracked like a whip. He poured himself a short beer, something he rarely did before closing, and stared into it. “I believe in the system. Same as you. But sometimes the system’s a joke.”
She waited. Her father had never been a man who rushed, and he clearly had something to say.
He finally spoke. “You were four. I was new to Major Crimes. Cocky as hell. If your mom were here . . .” He got a wistful look.
“Mom was always proud of you,” Skye said.
