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Ash joined him on the sidewalk. “You doing okay?”
He gave it a second before he answered, checking in with his feelings. He felt… nothing. At least, nothing concerning Darcy. She was still dead to him, he realized, but he was no longer grieving.
He nodded and glanced over at Ash. “Can you take me to the airport?”
Ash cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Sasha’s there. We’re flying to Vegas tonight and getting married.”
Ash stared at him for several heartbeats, then gave a small laugh. “Of course you are. I’d expect nothing less from you. Yeah, man, I’ll give you a ride. Congrats. She’s a good one.”
Donovan grinned. “Too good for me?”
“Absolutely.” Ash lightly punched his shoulder. “But after all this shit, you deserve some happiness. Now let’s go meet your bride.”
“Hey, Ash,” Donovan called as the guy turned away. “You deserve to be happy, too. Maybe take a vacation, huh? Before you burn out.”
Ash just shook his head and opened the driver’s side door of his Tahoe. “You coming or what?”
Darcy was booked.
Tiago was dead.
Sheriff Jerry had admitted to misleading the investigation to save his son, who had come home that night covered in Darcy’s blood.
Mark and JT were flipping on each other and trying to wiggle out of their charges since the woman they allegedly killed was still drawing breath—and actually now booked into the women’s wing of the prison they currently called home. But they weren’t getting out. They still had to face rape charges and probably attempted murder. The photos Mark had kept all these years were too damning to ignore.
Ash sighed as he dropped into his office chair and wondered how many other cases had been mishandled under Jerry Tennison’s watch. He had to investigate everything Jerry touched now—re-examine the closed cases, and take a good, hard look at all the open cold cases.
And he knew exactly where to start.
He created a new folder on his computer and dragged over the picture of the burned bones from the Cantrell case file. He labeled it.
2023- Double R Fire Jane Doe.
When preliminary tests indicated the bones belonged to a female who had once broken her wrist, everyone was sure the DNA would come back matching Darcy—including him. The plate in her wrist and the resulting scar had been a well-documented fact in her file. He’d never even considered the body might be someone else until the DNA test results came back negative for Darcy Cantrell—but, surprise! Darcy’s DNA was a match for a woman currently living in San Francisco.
What a fucking mess.
“I’m sorry, Jane,” he whispered. “I promise I’ll find you justice.”
He stared at the picture a moment longer. The blackened skull grinned at him.
Then he got back to work.
