I stayed silent, and Kobe sighed heavily, knowing my answer wouldn’t change.
“Okay. Fine. So that’s what? Anywhere from early morning on the twenty-fourth to Christmas afternoon-ish?”
“Yes.”
Kobe didn’t speak for a long minute, and I let him think as the rumbling sound of water boiling filled the dark kitchen. I clicked off the kettle before the button popped and poured hot water over the tea bag I’d dropped in my favorite mug.
“I’m sorry I can’t be more accurate.”
“No, it’s okay. I understand. Can I send you a picture?” Kobe asked as I impatiently squished the tea bag with the back of a spoon, encouraging rapid infusion. My mother wouldtskmy impatience.
“Go ahead.”
The phone buzzed with an incoming text, and I drew up the image so it filled the screen. A picture of a familiar woman stared back at me. Persian, luxurious dark hair, glowing skin, a seductive turn of her mouth.
“Who is this?” I asked as I tried to place the woman’s face. “I recognize her, but I don’t know why.”
“Fatemeh Kordestani. She goes to your gym.”
The light bulb inside my brain illuminated. Typically, I saw her in gym shorts and baggy hoodies, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail. “That’s right. I’ve seen her there.”
“Was she there on Christmas morning when you went?”
I stalled, thinking backward in time. Those weren’t details I concerned myself with. I had been locked in the zone.
Kobe spoke before I could reply. “I have a call in to the owner of the facility and a warrant drawn up for a judge to sign so I can confirm if she was there. I’m not sure it matters. That window you gave me is huge, and she claims to have been at home alone for most of that time frame anyhow. Any honesty she gives us will probably check out, but it proves nothing. This woman is cunning and hasn’t been entirely truthful to this point. Something about her rubs me the wrong way. She’s smug and confrontational and so fucking confident.”
“Do you believe she’s responsible?”
A pause. The distant sound of a beer can opening came through the line. “I believe she’s capable, but that’s not the same. She’s clever enough to get away with murder. Maybe that’s what I see. It’s like she’s daring me to call her out. But… there are things that don’t line up.”
“Like?” I sipped my tea, but it was still too hot, and I burned the tip of my tongue, so I set it aside.
“Shoe size. She wears a woman’s ten. We took a print at the first scene, and it was made by a man’s Timberland winter boot in a size ten and a half.”
“I see.” Hesitating, not wanting to encroach on Kobe’s investigation or mislead him by offering an opinion, I mulled over what to say. At the same time, a sense of urgency forced me to speak. “Maybe you shouldn’t rely so heavily on data.”
“What do you mean?”
“Numbers mean little, particularly in this case. Could Navid have left behind an old pair of Timberlands? Roll a pair of socks in the toes, and Fatemeh could get by with wearing them. She’s intelligent. Why not go to lengths to deceive?”
Kobe huffed. “I’m not sure this woman’s fashion sense would allow that. Fatemeh is arrogant, vain, egotistical, self-loving—”
“You sound like a teenager with a crush.”
He laughed. “Oh, I assure you. I’m not. Either way, I’m not eliminating her yet. Something doesn’t sit right. Rue will hopefully be back tomorrow. I have one of the administrators coming in at nine for a formal interview. He gave a vibe the last time we talked to him, and Golding is insisting we cross our t’s and dot our i’s. His daughter went to school with our three uni vics but split the second her older sister graduated for reasons the man couldn’t or wouldn’t explain. His daughters both have dark hair. Rue thinks it’s irrelevant, but I don’t.”
“Let me know how it goes.”
“I will.” Kobe sighed. “I miss you.”
“You should have come here instead.”
“It’s the middle of the night. I didn’t want to assume, and I figured you’d be asleep.”
“Nope. What are you doing right now?”
“Lounging with a beer. Decompressing. I need a shower and sleep, but my head is spinning.”
