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What the hell plans was he talking about?
When my father ended the call abruptly, I stared at the phone for no other reason than he usually berated me until I was the one who ended the call. More than that, I had no doubt he meant what he was saying. I just couldn’t figure out why.
I tapped my finger on the keyboard, clicking through the crime scene photographs. There were ugly scratch marks on the victim’s throat, but no fingerprints. The girl had likely been trying to fight for her life against whatever was used to suffocate her. A pillowcase or a bag could have been used given there was no sign of rope burn or another implement tied around her neck. The coroner had listed the girl’s death as asphyxiation, but her larynx hadn’t been crushed.
The thought of being unable to breathe was horrifying, prickles appearing on my skin. I was extremely claustrophobic, unable to go scuba diving without panicking.
I shifted to her personal information. A straight-A student at Georgetown studying criminal justice. Given her father was a state senator, the similarities between Claire and me were somewhat uncanny. Or maybe I was just trying to put the pieces together. Oh, what did it matter? I was thankfully no longer on the case.
But was I sincerely happy about that? Wouldn’t it be nice to sink my teeth into a murder case, trying to prove a good man’s innocence? If Davidson was a good man. I was also jumping to conclusions about him as well. Maybe I could check to see if there was any dirty laundry in the press.
Here you go again. You’re not on the case.
Yet even after the reminder, I continued pressing, studying pictures of the items discovered on her person when she’d been found. Everything had been photographed, including the items from her small clutch. Lipstick. A phone. Tissue. Eye drops. Then I noticed a business card. On the front was a single letter embossed in gold, a capital E. On the back was a room number. The hotel room where she’d been killed. What the hell did the E stand for? Certainly not the hotel. Entertainment?
With no notes or other information on whether it had been found, my guess was the detectives were at a dead end. And there I went again, playing amateur detective myself.
Laughing at my thoughts, I almost spilled the water on my laptop when a Taylor Swift chorus started jamming on my phone. I’d picked an appropriate song from the artist’s collection to match Jackie’s vivacious pain in the ass personality.
“Jesus. You almost gave me a heart attack,” I told her by way of how I answered the phone.
“Lovely to talk to you as well. I heard you were off the case.”
“News travels fast, huh?” It was time for a drink but scotch at four in the afternoon wasn’t the best way to start an evening with a man like Lachlan.
“Maybe it’s because of all the grousing and yelling Trent did after your chat.”
“Great.” My boss had hidden his disapproval from me. I found an open bottle of cabernet, shifting to search for a wineglass. At this point, I might drink it straight out of the bottle. “Who did he assign it to?”
“Jeffrey Carter.”
While Jeffrey wouldn’t have been my first choice, at least he had a decent track record, even if he was an odd bird.
“He’s had a hell of a lot more time in the courtroom than I have. He’ll be perfect for Mr. Davidson.”
“The man is a freaking weirdo.”
“Don’t be so harsh.”
“I guess whether he’s perfect remains to be seen but I’m glad you made your choice,” she teased.
“Did you call to gloat or for a real reason?” Thank God, I found a glass, or I was about ready to use one of Lachlan’s ‘gone fishing’ plastic cups. Wait a minute. Lachlan fished?
“You have zero sense of humor. Yes, I called for a reason. Other than the single phone call he made today trying to get in contact with you, your father hadn’t made any calls to the office.”
I’d purposely ignored my father’s voicemails as well as his terse texts. The fact I’d been stupid enough to answer the phone without looking at the screen would never happen again. I didn’t need to hear one of his lectures on everything I was doing wrong in my life, including being around Lachlan. “That’s good to know.”
Since he’d learned in record time, that likely meant Ernest had called him.
“What difference does it make anyway?”
“Nothing now that I’m off the case. However, it’s still good information to keep in the back of my mind.”
“Are you going to be hanging out at your new club anytime soon? It might be fun to stop by,” she cooed. The woman never gave up chiding me for my less than stellar love life.
“Never again,” I said, laughing at her tenacity.
“Well, go have fun. I’ll see you back at work after your wicked tryst ends.”
