I moved down the hall from the kitchen and entered the first floor guest room, shutting the door behind me.
“I’m listening.”
“Ralph White.”
I frowned, trying to recall the name. “Doesn’t ring a bell.” Nowhere had that name come up in this entire investigation.
“It probably shouldn’t. The death certificate we pulled says Ralph died over thirty years ago, before his fifth birthday.”
“It’s an alias.”
“Bingo.”
“But that’s the name that came back matching the blood that was found in Jodi’s house?”
“The very one. I’ve got Bass working, doing a backward trace to find out the real name of the guy who goes by that alias. Should come back with it before the end of the night.”
“He better.”
Sy let out a short laugh. “You’re always serious about work, but this case appears to hold particular significance to you, Boss.”
“It does, smartass. Which is why it would serve your ass to remember to not fuck with me about it,” I sharply replied.
For the first time in a long time, Sy was silent. I could only assume he was stunned by my tone and the deadliness that accompanied it.
He cleared his throat. “We’re on it. We’ll have the name for you before your head hits the pillow tonight.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
“Do you want me to send an update to Jodi as I’ve been doing?”
“Hell no,” I blurted out before I could get a hold of myself.
“You said—"
“I know what I said. That shit’s old now. I’ll be giving her any updates she needs to know about from here on out. Only me. Got it?”
Again, there was silence on the other end of the phone for a surprising amount of time.
“Understood,” he finally answered. “Call you when we’ve got a name.”
“Good.”
I pressed the end call button and ran my hand through my hair, wondering what the hell I was doing. This woman had me wearing my hair down because she said she liked it, and now, she had me lying to her face. The truth was, I’d been untruthful for nearly a month since the night of her attack. I hadn’t told her that my team had been able to obtain a proper DNA sample for analysis. I had it sent out to one of the labs we worked with for testing.
Initially, I figured I’d wait until we got more information to tell her. Now, I knew that was bullshit. The closer we got to these fuckers, the less I wanted her involved.
“Hey, Micah, you in here?” My father’s deep voice pushed through the closed door.
I stuffed my phone in my pocket and opened the door. “Yeah. Steaks finished?”
Joel didn’t answer immediately. He looked me up and down, those deep brown eyes of his unflinching.
“What?”
A slow, deliberate grin rose to his lips. “It’s finally happened to you.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “What has?”
