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Kit had to bite back so many swear words. “That is none of your business.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “You’re right. It’s not. I apologize for that. But Reeves got information out of all the people you’d already interviewed. He got blood from all the stones. And he could be legit. But he could be manipulating us every step of the way. Doesn’t that make you a little bit concerned?”
Yes. Yes, it did. That it was impossible to consider made her even more concerned. “Let’s run the background checks for Orion’s staff and board.”
Rolling his eyes, Connor returned to his desk. “Fine.”
Sam Reeves was not guilty. She was sure of that—and she really shouldn’t be.
“I’ll do backgrounds on the board of trustees,” she said stiffly, “if you’ll start on the staff.”
His nod was clipped. “Fine.”
But she couldn’t focus. All she could see was Sam Reeves with his green eyes and his sincerity. All she could hear were Connor’s very practical arguments.
She cleared her throat. “What would eliminate Dr.Reeves as a suspect in your mind?”
Connor’s expression softened from outright hostility to grudging respect. “I don’t know yet. Let me think about it.”
“Okay.” She opened the background check software and began her search.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hillcrest, California
Wednesday, April 20, 9:00 a.m.
Siggy, stop barking. Please.” Sam pulled his growling dog away from Joel’s front window, where Siggy had burrowed underneath the drawn drapes so that he could look out onto the street. Siggy spent his days in an apartment, so he wasn’t used to watching the world go by. Everything in the neighborhood was making him bark.
Siggy went right back to his post under the drapes, but at least he’d stopped barking. Sam got some pain reliever for his headache and downed it with a gulp of coffee. And checked his phone. Again.
He’d been watching his phone since dawn, hoping for at least a text from Kit telling him what—if anything—they’d found in Colton’s backyard. Surely they would have started digging by now.
And, of course, with every minute that passed, he became more convinced that something had gone horribly wrong and that she suspected him again. Which was stupid.
“You’re being paranoid,” he muttered to himself. “It’s all the coffee.”
Which was part of it, for sure. But it was mostly the stress of the entire situation. He’d heard from Vivian that morning. She’d asked if SDPD had confirmed his alibi for the time that Skyler was killed. If they’d established that he’d been in Joshua Tree all weekend. When they did—“When, not if, Sam,” she’d said—then he could return to work. She still believed in him, at least.
The problem was, he didn’t know the status of his alibi. Kit had promised she’d locate the park ranger. Had she done that? Was the special master finished reviewing the location tracking on his phone?
Would he ever get his phone back? Would he ever get his shoes back?
Would he ever get his life back?
He was going crazy. He couldn’t leave the house unless he had a babysitter.
Relax. It’s not like you’ve been trapped inside for a year. It’s been less than twelve hours.
He needed to do something.
So he gathered the runaway reports he’d downloaded from the California clearinghouse for missing persons. He knew Kit would continue to search for the victims of Colton and his partner, but she wasn’t infallible.
After all, Sam had gotten a lot of information that Kit hadn’t been able to extract. It was a small comfort to his battered ego.
There were so many runaways. He wasn’t sure staring at the photos of missing teenagers was going to improve his mental health, but this was the task he could do until it was time for Laura to take him to Colton’s third ex-wife.
He made another pot of coffee and spread the reports over Joel’s kitchen table. Time to make himself useful.
