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He glanced at Steele, expecting him to balk, but his fellow cop simply shrugged.
Elly took his hand, then bowed her head. “Lord Jesus, we are grateful for Your presence in keeping us safe from harm. We thank You for blessing us with this food and with Your guidance as we seek justice. Amen.”
“Amen,” Joe echoed. Maybe she was right about having God’s protection. He couldn’t explain how this guy who’d killed so many had missed Elly on three separate occasions.
“Amen,” Steele said. Then he popped a fry in his mouth. “I think we need to review our notes on this case. There must be something we’re missing.”
Joe couldn’t agree more. “Elly made a good point about the shooter possibly following either Gabrielle’s parents, Henry’s parents, or even Bart Shaw.”
Steele arched a brow. “That makes sense. Although he still made the assumption that we’d bring Elly to the precinct for those interviews.”
“Yeah.” He took a bite of his burger, trying to think of any other way this guy could have found them. “Do you think he has a two-way radio? Maybe listening in on the cop frequency?”
“Could be, but I’m confident no one mentioned Elly over the radio.” Steele shrugged. “I’m thinking our perp dug into the Finnegan family. Plenty of stories on the news about them over the past year.”
“That’s true.” Joe had been involved in a few of the situations but not all of them. Although he would have been there if asked. He and the rest of the tactical team would do anything to support Rhy. He was by far the best and most honorable boss they’d ever had.
Which made these attempts against Elly all the more difficult to comprehend.
“Maybe it’s time to call my brother, Brady,” Elly said.
“He’s with the FBI, right?” Steele asked. “Not sure Michaels will go for that. The feds tend to be stingy with information.”
“Normally, I’d agree with you. But Brady is a Finnegan,” Joe said. “He’ll be more interested in helping to protect his sister than taking over our investigation.”
Steele grudgingly nodded. “Okay, fine. We can use all the help we can get.”
“And then some,” Joe muttered half under his breath. The fact that they hadn’t gotten a hit on facial recognition with Elly’s sketch bothered him. If this guy was former military or law enforcement, they should have his name, rank, and serial number by now.
“Let me call Brady,” Elly suggested, rising to her feet. He noticed she only ate half her sandwich and fries.
She moved into her room to make the call. Joe watched her go, then felt Steele kick him under the table.
“Be careful, Kingsley,” Steele warned. “You’re letting her mess with your head.”
“I’m fine,” he shot back. “She’s Rhy’s baby sister, and I promised to keep her safe.”
“That’s my point. You’re getting emotionally involved, which is a surefire way to fail in that mission.”
Since he knew Steele was right, he swallowed another protest. “I know,” he admitted quietly. “I’m doing my best.”
“Try harder,” Steele suggested bluntly. “Seriously, buddy, you cannot let your emotions cloud your judgment.”
“I won’t.” He hoped that if he silently repeated that to himself often enough, it would come true. Steele wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. He quickly changed the subject. “Do you have any other ideas for finding this guy?”
Steele stared at him for a long moment as if trying to see into his brain. Thankfully, he let the issue of Joe’s not-so-subtle feelings for Elly go. “We can follow up on the forensic evidence, but that isn’t going to help until we find the weapon to compare. At this point, our only option is to continue focusing on the victims.”
“We need Shaw’s financial records.” It seemed unlikely the guy had hired their shooter to kill Gabrielle, but stranger things had happened.
“Yeah, but not likely on a Sunday,” Steele said.
“Maybe Brady can pull some strings on that too,” he said.
Elly returned to the table. “Brady agreed to work with his tech expert, a guy named Ian, to see if he can use AI technology to create a three-dimensional human version of my sketch to send through their facial recognition program.”
“That would be great.” He was glad she’d made the call. “Any idea on how long that will take?”
She grimaced. “Not sure. He planned to reach out to Ian right away, but it is Sunday. And Ian was working on a missing child case from prior to the parade shooting. We may not hear back until tomorrow.”
