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Bethenny blew out a breath, looking over the bloody scene in front of her.
She stuck her head out in the hallway.
“Please finish securing the scene,” she said, and the officers came back into the room.
Her eyes returned to the desk. Bethenny pulled a pair of gloves from her pocket and began searching the drawers. She always hated doing this—it felt like an invasion of privacy—but it had to be done.
Her eyes scanned receipts stuffed into the drawers, some of them recent. She bagged them. They might not be evidence, but they could act as a diary, helping to verify where she’d been in recent days and who she might’ve crossed paths with. They could also pull the security footage from the stores she’d visited.
Bethenny pulled out a notebook, flipping through the pages. At first she’d thought it was blank, but then she realized some pages had been torn out.
Based on the dark-blue ruled lines of the page, she knew it wasn’t the paper the note had been written on—those lines had been a faint blue. She examined the daybook journal more clearly, determining two pages had been ripped—pages dated almost a year ago, though, so it might not have anything to do with this case.
She passed the notebook to the homicide crew. “Please bag this. Pages have been ripped out. Ask forensics to determine if there are any scripted markings on these pages,” she said. Whatever was written on the pages might be completely irrelevant, but she knew that in cases without any witnesses, every piece of evidence mattered, and if the writer had pressed hard enough, a clue might be sitting there, invisible to them at this very moment. Few things in this world were truly invisible.
The notebook was bagged and added to the mounting evidence collection.
Bethenny continued searching the drawers. Pens, gum, a loose key with a tag that readShed, more gum, and a fluffy pink highlighter.
Bethenny grabbed the key, then left the rest of the homicide team to finish securing the crime scene.
She stifled a yawn as she walked down the hallway, sidestepping the team of people bustling around swabbing, photographing, and measuring the blood trail.
“Did you see which way Lachlan went?” she asked as she neared the front door.
“Yeah, he’s out there,” the officer said, motioning to the front yard.
Bethenny stepped outside. “Lachlan, come on,” she said, motioning to the backyard where she assumed the shed was. There was likely nothing in it of forensic value, but she wanted to take a look anyway.
Lachlan puffed out a bellow of cigarette smoke, dropped the butt, and squashed it beneath his foot.
She hadn’t taken him for a smoker, but maybe it was a stress related. He wouldn’t be the first detective to use cigarettes as a crutch.
He was soon in step beside her. “Where are we going?”
“To take a look at the shed,” she said. “You okay?”
“Fine,” he said, using the word Bethenny hated most in the world. Fine meant anything but fine.
“Okay,” she answered. If he didn’t want to talk, she wasn’t going to press him. She was his colleague, not his therapist, and he certainly wasn’t about to become some project for her. She knew well enough that only God could rescue him from himself. Humans could help each other, certainly, but truly changing a heart—releasing a person from their invisible chains—that was God’s work.
“I found a key to a shed. I’m assuming it’s this,” she said, motioning to the dilapidated structure ahead. With every step they took, she became more certain there would be nothing inside except spider webs and rusting garden tools.
However, the heavy chain indicated otherwise.
“That’s a serious chain for a garden shed,” Lachlan said, obviously coming to the same conclusion.
“Let’s see if the key fits,” she said, inserting it into the lock. It turned easily and the padlock popped open. Bethenny unraveled the thick chain and opened the doors.
“Now this is interesting,” Lachlan said.
LACHLAN
His eyes scanned the photography lab that lined one wall of the garden-shed-turned-studio. The inner walls of the shed were lined with drywall and the shed was segregated into two very different parts.
“What does this make you think of?” Lachlan asked vaguely, not particularly wanting to voice his first thoughts in case he was completely off the mark.
“This side,” Bethenny said, pointing, “a photography studio. This side...” She scrunched up her nose. “Red velvet couches, lighting... It looks like things are filmed here, and I’m not referring to the Hallmark video channel. Maybe it’s just the red velvet couch that makes it look like a porn set.”
