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“Miller …”
“No.”
“I didn’t even say anything yet.”
“You were going to apologize. Again. We both decided to get to Aggie that away. If we go down for it, we go down for it together. We knew that was a possibility from the beginning.”
“It’s not the same,” Nick protested. “You have a wife, two kids, you have a family to support. I have no one. If I go down for this then no one will get hurt, but if you go to prison, what will happen to your family? Who’s going to look after them? Who’s going to …?”
“Whoa, you are getting way ahead of yourself. Right now, we don’t know what's going to happen. I doubt we’re looking at prison time, but we are probably going to lose our jobs. Maybe we can get a job at the private investigation firm Naomi Candella works for. Which reminds me, how are the Candella sisters and Detective Dawson?”
“All lucky to be alive. That car was a mess. Jonathon and Clara had only minor injuries, cuts and bruises. Naomi’s injuries were more serious, but thankfully she’s stable now. A colleague of hers is keeping watch over her, and Jonathon is watching over Clara, so both of them are safe for now.” That still left Aggie alone and unprotected. Andrew too, but it was his concern for Aggie that was very nearly crippling.
“You don’t know where she is?” Miller asked quietly.
“No. After I talked to her last night she must have taken off. I’ve tried calling her, but her phone keeps going straight to voicemail. She doesn’t know about the car accident, if she did, she would have gone to the hospital. Which means she doesn’t know that she’s in danger and I have no way of telling her.”
“I’m sure her brother or sisters will tell her what happened.”
Shaking his head, he had already considered and rejected that notion. “If they could tell her then she would be there at the hospital already. She’s shut off all communication with everyone so that I can't get to her. Because of what I did she’s in danger. Sebastian is going after his kids, and nothing is stopping him from getting to her, she’s completely unprotected.”
“If the rest of her family doesn’t know where she is then her father probably doesn’t either,” Miller attempted to console him.
“But Aggie isn’t the only one who has disappeared. Sebastian is gone too, and we still don’t have enough for an arrest warrant,” he snarled. They needed to get Sebastian Candella off the streets. He wasn't just a danger to his ex-wives anymore, he was escalating. He could be a danger to anyone. “There has to be a way to get that warrant.”
“We only have the one bit of physical evidence, and you know what his lawyer argued, that he still owns the same car as when they were married, that it isn’t strange at all to find signs that Emily Hadden had been in his car. This whole case isn’t even circumstantial, it’s basically just one gigantic coincidence. The forensic evidence, what little we have, doesn’t help us.”
“We have to find something else then.” Nick was desperate, Aggie’s life might depend on it.
“We aren’t even supposed to be working this case anymore. We’re not supposed to be working any case anymore, we’re suspended.”
“If you want to go then go, but I'm not giving up. I will work this case unofficially until I get something to prove Sebastian’s guilt.”
“Proving her father is a killer isn’t going to help you win Aggie back.”
“I know.” The pain in his heart when he thought of the possibility that nothing he could do could win her back was near excruciating. But he had started this to put an end to Sebastian’s murder spree, and he would follow through no matter what.
“All right then, let’s get to work.” Miller set down his coffee cup and picked up a file.
“What about Naomi’s car?” Nick asked. “If we can get something that links him forensically to that it could at least prove he tried to kill his daughters.”
Miller shook his head. “Even if CSU turns up something, his lawyer will only say the same thing, that he’s her father, of course he’s been in and around her car.”
“But this time we have Naomi.”
“Who’s recovering from life-threatening injuries in the hospital,” his partner reminded him.
“She told both of us that she hasn’t had much to do with her father since she turned eighteen. Why would he be around her car?”
“Who knows? Realistically he wouldn’t. But you know as well as I do that Sebastian’s lawyer will come up with another excuse, it only has to be semi-plausible. We need something else.”
Nick was restless. He wanted to walk, to pace, to dosomething. He was going crazy. He needed Aggie. Physicallyneededher. But he couldn’t have her, not now, maybe not ever. But hecouldmake sure she stayed safe. Picking up the file from Sandra Candella’s accident, he flicked through it. He didn’t know what he hoped to find in the twenty-one-year-old file of Aggie’s mother’s car accident, but he felt like he should start at the beginning.
He was halfway through when he froze.
“What?” Miller looked up.
“In the reports from Sandra's car accident, it says she was found with blood between her legs.”
