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A man could hope, anyway.
“In-person meetings tend to be more productive.”
She snorted at his lame excuse. “Not in my office.”
“Let me rephrase. One-on-one meetings tend to be more productive—and satisfying.”
Their gazes locked for a second before she pulled hers away. “Let’s, uh, test that theory. I assume you reviewed the reports I sent?”
“Yes. I spotted a number of commonalities.”
She nodded as he rattled them off. “I saw all that too. Les was the lead on one of the two fires I identified in our database. I talked to the investigator on the other one, who often worked with him. He remembered them chatting about the case. I assume that’s how Les got clued in to the similarities. The fourth one remains a mystery. My boss suggested it could be from another jurisdiction.”
“If that’s the case, how would Kavanaugh have known about it?”
“After all his years in the business, he had a ton of contacts. Mostly in neighboring areas, meaning the case could be nearby. But it would take a fair amount of digging to unearth it, and there are only so many hours in the day.”
While that was true, the woman sitting across from him was the type to find those hours, even if they had to be carved out of sleep.
“You’re still going to try, aren’t you?”
She brushed off a piece of dried grass the capricious wind had pasted on the bottom of her jacket. “I’ll continue poking around whenever I have a spare minute. I noticed that in both Les’s and Adam Long’s cases, family asked about missing items from the fire scene.”
“I saw that too. I presume you’re going to talk to James Wallace and the other victim’s family, see if that’s a pattern.”
“Already done. Neither noticed anything missing, although they couldn’t say for certain there wasn’t. Nothing much wasleft to find in any of these cases. Nor did either of them recognize the other names on the list.”
“So what’s next?”
She sighed and pushed her hair back. “I don’t know. I’d like to find the name associated with the first date on the list. It’s possible something in that case would spark an idea or two.”
“But Kavanaugh had that information and it apparently didn’t trigger anything for him.”
“I know, but we also have the evidence in his case to work with as well. We know items were missing from two of the fires. Les may have suspected foul play, but the clock fragment gives that theory heft. An arsonist could have taken a souvenir.”
“That’s possible. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we divide up the nearby jurisdictions, and as our schedules permit see if we can find a name to go with the first date on Kavanaugh’s list?”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Seriously? Don’t you have a full plate already?”
Yeah, he did.
But if he didn’t offer to help, he wouldn’t have an excuse to continue seeing her.
“No fuller than yours, I expect.”
“I don’t have an ailing grandmother to attend to.”
“You have other family obligations.”
A shadow passed over her features. “Not health related. Mom and Dad are both gone now.”
So she was as parentless as he was—though he at least had Nan.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” She watched a stooped, white-haired man trundle slowly by behind a walker, her expression melancholy. “They were older when they adopted us, but I hoped we’d have them longer than we did.”
Bri and her siblings were adopted?
