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“This knife?” He produced the knife she’d retrieved and then handed over to the forensic team when they arrived on the scene.
She stared at the baggie. “Yes.”
“And you found it beneath the carpet. What made you look there?”
Her stomach wobbled. She needed to come clean and say that Bryson thought to flip back the carpet and look. But that sounded too close to her accusing him of something. “Tripp was close to his niece and recognized the bench was out of place. It occurred to me that it was possible it had been moved for a reason, and that’s when I found the knife.”
“Is this steak knife what you found in the house under the carpet, Alexia?”
Her brain redirected like a GPS when somebody missed the turn. She zeroed in on the knife in the baggie.
She blinked.
This small-town team in no way knew what they were looking at. They were calling that a steak knife? It was clearly military.
Her heart jerked against her ribs in a painful crash. She wasn’t military trained, but she knew a tactical knife when she saw one, and that object clearly was meant to be carried as a weapon to dispatch something.
She swallowed hard. Again, the urge to protect Bryson left her head spinning.
It wasn’t just because she was blurring lines with him, was it?
No. She really believed he wasn’t involved in the case, and hadbeforethey fell into bed together.
She stared at the knife, committing its size and details to memory to later describe to Bryson. Just in case he—understandably—didn’t get a good look.
It was long, with a fixed blade. The handle had enough of a grip to keep it from slipping in a sweaty—or bloody—hand.
Detective Heifner eyed her. “Bryson Tripp had been in the house when visiting his niece. He knew the furniture arrangement was off.”
She cocked a brow, surprised that he put that all together himself.
She leaned over the table. “Funny that there weren’t photographs of the scene to show the furniture arrangement at the time it happened. Would that have been your oversight, Detective?”
The man slanted a look at the thick, unopened file on the table between them.
She blew out a slow breath. “What’s in that file? Are you withholding information?”
Surprise lifted his brows. “You never received a copy?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen any file that thick come across my desk. I’d remember. So why don’t you get your secretary to scan it all into the system so I can get a copy?”
A text caused her phone to buzz. She glanced at the screen to read another message from Bryson.
They’ve messed up everything about this case. Tell them as much and get out here.
His bossy command shouldn’t make her shiver inside or want to do his bidding, but it took everything in her to remain in her seat.
He had been right thus far, but she wasn’t about to tell the cops that.
She was a little uneasy about sharing when she sat there looking at a file that never crossed her desk. Ever. Between their bad investigation, not adhering to protocols and failing to provide her—a state employee who worked investigating cold cases—withallthe information, she felt it was fine not to give them all the answers to their questions.
Questions they shouldn’t be grillingherwith in the first place.
On top of all this, as soon as the body had been collected, the time of death would be determined. They’d already know that Caden was murdered soon after Kelsey, absolving Tripp entirely.
She swung her stare back to Detective Heifner. “I want a copy of that”—she pointed—“within the next hour. I want answers as to why I never received the file in the first place. And I want to speak with the head of the cleanup crew and find out why things weren’t put back in exactly the same spots as they found them.”
She shoved her chair back and stood. Without another word on the topic or offering another answer to a single question, she walked out of the station.
