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They could probably cut him a deal for that information.
A deal.
A deal wouldn't absolve him of the blood on his soul. Nothing ever could.
He sat at his damned kitchen table, those photo albums right there in front of him. He wiped at the top one. There was ketchup dripped on it, damn it. From the hamburger he'd grabbed on his way home from work.
He didn't really cook for himself any longer. Wasn't much point. Not like he had a family to cook for, like he had before.
He was nothing now.
Sol put his hand on his cell phone. He was going to do it. Call Erickson. Explain. Tell him. Tell him every sin. Erickson knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. Everyone knew the story. Erickson would at least listen.
Then again, Erickson had it bad for that little Barratt girl. The pretty realtor. She wasn't beautiful or anything. More striking, really. Tiny thing, too. Too small for a big guy like Erickson. Mismatched, that's what they were.
Erickson would want to be gentle with that one. Bright girl, rich, too. Hard worker, that was for sure. A good girl.
She hadn't deserved to be targeted by those bastards out of Wichita Falls either.
Those girls deserved better than what they were getting now.
Just like Maribeth.
He fumbled. Dropped the phone to the table, just as heavy knocking came at his back door.
Sol rose and answered it.
A big blond man shouldered his way in. Steve Wilson. Kimball despised that fucker. That smug, evil psychotic bastard. Guy was one of the Wichita Falls boys. The one in charge of Sol and the other damned camels who had driven product into Finley Creek. He had Lieutenant Joey Costovia with him. Costovia was one of the boys Sol had in his own unit at the TSP.
Damned punk. Coward, too. And greedy. Bastard was so greedy he'd sell his own mother for twenty bucks. Sol despised the little peckerhead more than words could say. "What's this about?"
"This morning. Tell us what those bitches in forensics know about what happened in the vault this morning," Wilson ordered, settling at Sol’s kitchen table like he owned the damned place. He shoved aside one of the photo albums Sol hadn’t been able to bring himself to put away yet. “I know you pulled guard duty. How convenient.”
"There isn't much to tell. Guy left no prints, no DNA, and the girl in there never saw his damned face."
But Sol knew. When he looked into the blond man's eyes. Sol knew it had been one of the two men in front of him responsible. "You fuckers. Don't even give a rat shit that you could have hurt a pregnant girl, do you?"
30
Haldyn was exhausted. He didn't have to be a rocket scientist to see that. She'd worked twelve hours, practically straight. He hadn't even dared to suggest she leave at her regular time after what had happened in the vault that morning.
Everyone in Major Crimes knew what had happened. And everyone was pissed.
Every case in that vault had potentially been compromised. Haldyn had had all of her people she could pull in verifying that evidence hadn't been tampered with. The tracking system was the highest tech on the market. There had been several donations to the TSP lab's funds after the storm had destroyed it, plus state funding had replaced what equipment had been destroyed with generous help from Houghton Barratt and his family.
Haldyn had explained the system to him before. The radio frequency identification system tracked evidence from the moment it was tagged by the forensics team through every step of the process. All the way up until the moment the case was closed and the evidence sealed.
Everything was exactly where it should have been, according to the RFID readers. But each piece would have to be visually confirmed. It was going to take days to do the evidence rooms, plus the firearms and drugs rooms.
They still had to determine what the attacker had been after. Jarrod doubted it was just a lark or a thrill run. That asshole had wanted something—and had known exactly how to get it. They hadn’t found an RFID tracker missing. But Haldyn had told him it was definitely possible to deactivate the trackers easily enough.
No system was perfect, after all.
But the guy had been after something. They’d had evidence stolen before. Four guns had been stolen—and then used in the choir hall shooting. No one forgot that for a minute.
Jarrod saw the strain in her blue eyes as he finally led her into the Barratts' castle. "We'll catch the bastard."
"I hope so. I just don't know how he knew where the cameras were. Knew exactly how and when to get in there. I'm just glad he didn't kill A.J. or the guard."
