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“This can be considered part of an active scene,” Jake, second in charge of major crimes, said.
“And evidence to the shooters’ identities could be in this room somewhere.” Haldyn pulled her phone. She had a determined look on her face. “It’s time to call Daniel. And…get an ‘official’ team here to process. To document chain of custody.”
“But who?” Gunnar asked. “I don’t want whatever we find getting out there too soon.”
“And disappearing forever,” Madison said. “Which…we all know could happen.”
“I can process. But Mads can’t. Rory helped supervise the original scene at the choir hall, but with her married to Charlotte’s father now—that leaves her out. Hope…maybe. It’s still iffy, considering,” the guardian of the evidence vault said.
It took Jarrod a moment to put it together. Hope’s niece was a victim, Madison was a victim. And Charlotte. “Then pick someone you trust.”
“That’s going to just be one person. Ashlie. Let’s get her here. And get started.”
“In the meantime, everybody else upstairs,” Lake said. “MacNamara’s springing for the pizza.”
“Hey! Who says?”
“I-I-I said.”
“Yes, dear. Your wish is my command.” Jake pulled his wife close and just held her. Jarrod’s admiration for that woman had grown leaps and bounds tonight. Shelby had almost died in this very house.
The sheer guts it had taken her to be able to come back here—the women surrounding him now were the most remarkable female creatures on the planet.
All of them.
Even the Hope-gremlin who seemed to fit in so well they were just going to keep her, too.
56
It was completely anticlimactic.
There wasn’t a smoking gun, or a big picture that said, “Here they are! The shooters are…” Nothing to point them in the immediate direction. Yet. It was going to take time.
Paperwork, business transactions, account books, zip drives, memory cards, hard drives, two laptops that were ten years old at least. And files. Just files, lots and lots of files. Police work wasn’t like crime drama exciting. It was read this, make notes on that, compare that report to this, ask questions, and hope you could put it together somehow to tell a story.
As the now technically legal owner, Powell signed everything over to the Major Crimes division of the TSP. But Haldyn was insistent—nothing was leaving the Scott house until every bit of it was scanned—and uploaded to the taskforce’s secret server. And then duplicated when possible.
It wasn’t going to disappear on her watch. It just wasn’t.
It just wasn’t going to happen.
Elliot Marshall was called. He gave special permission for Hope to help process, provided that Haldyn remained in the room with her during the entire time. Haldyn’s name would be the only one on the paperwork.
Haldyn hadn’t truly wanted to bring in another tech. Just in case.
Not yet anyway.
She’d bring in Ashlie Edds, A.J. Callum, and Peter Sarha once digital copies had been made of everything. Jarrod had called Daniel. Daniel and Lila were coming—they and four armed TSP—Sean Callum, Mike Evers, Brett Naylor and K.J. Miller—would be escorting the first of the evidence back to the TSP Major Crimes locked conference room. Where it would be waiting for Haldyn in the morning. The evidence at Scott’s house would be guarded twenty-four-seven until it was all uploaded.
But, for the first time since that shooting, Haldyn felt like they might eventually find the answers. They finally had a place to start.
57
His queen of the evidence vault was practically vibrating to get into the conference room and start going over all the goods they’d found in Victor Scott’s little hidey-hole as soon as she could. She’d knocked on the door to his suite before he’d even finished dressing. He’d wanted to drag her into his room and cuddle her until they had to go to work—and he’d told her that, too. Big blue eyes had widened and she’d yelped.
Jumped back.
Okay, so they were going one step forward, two steps back. He needed to strategize.
