“All right. See you in the morning then.”
“Yep.”
Trent practically skipped down the hallway toward the parking lot while she walked to Malone’s office to let him know about their luck with ParisDobson.
She found him at his desk, flicking his monitor off. His body sagged into his chair at the sight of her.
“I was just getting ready to head out.”
She smiled and held up a hand. “And I’m not going to stop you. I just came by to let you know the eyewitness from Charmed Court identified the jogger. She was the Anaconda Killer.”
“I’ll be…”
“Yep, your well-wishing worked. Now, Trent and I have our work cut out for us. Not only do we need to find this woman and get her off the streets, we need to find out who hired her.”
“I suspect the latter will be the easiest of the two. She hasn’t operated for the last two years by messing up.”
“Sure, but as you pointed out before, she is lately.”
“True enough. Let’s just hope there’s something we can use that will lead us to her door.”
“And that our luck has changed for good.” Though she wasn’t naive enough to believe that for a minute. It would take persistence and dogged perseverance to bring this woman down.
“We can always hope. Anything else?”
“Not really. I have the PIN for Sharp’s phone, and her laptop is here. Trent’s already left, and I’ll be soon behind him.”
“Good. Recharge.”
“You too. Have a good night.”
She left his office intending to do that, but the hallway presented her with another choice. Dominique’s laptop was calling out to her, as was her phone. Either might hold the key to finding who hired the Anaconda Killer.
She walked to her desk and went for the laptop first. Opening the lid, she found a sticky note stuck to the screen with handwriting.
P: BossLadySharp$
At least that would save her a phone call. She powered up the laptop and typed in the password when the prompt came up, and she was in. Her first destination was Dominique’s email. Based on the number of messages, Dominique wasn’t good about archiving emails. There were over five thousand in total. Although these were organized into folders, there were at least a hundred of those. It would take Amanda forever to wade through all of this. And where would it be best to start?
Instead, she decided on a different tack. The sent mail.
She reasoned if someone was going to hire a killer, they would have been triggered to do so more recently. Clicking on the sent folder, she started with the most recent and worked her way backward. She stayed at it for an hour but didn’t get anywhere for her troubles. No conversations carried a threatening tone or an underlying anger toward Dominique.
After looking back a month, Amanda powered down the laptop and put it back inside the bag. She pressed the sticky note to the outside. Since the device wasn’t being logged into evidence, Amanda was comfortable leaving it on her desk when she left that night.
But before that, she wanted a quick look at Dominique’s phone. She checked out the call history and text messages, and nothing flagged.
By the time she finished, her stomach was rumbling, and by the time she made it home, she’d spent the drive fantasizing about the pieces of leftover two-day-old pizza that were still in her fridge. She’d heat them up and enjoy her meal in her air-conditioning while watching something mindless on TV. Maybe one of those house renovation shows that Trent had told her Kelsey loved so much. It could be inspiring to see how people took a rundown place and turned it into their dream home. It was a plan.
But entering her empty house, her heart hurt thinking about Zoe again. She’d love to see the girl, give her anenormous hug. If only that wouldn’t thwart her efforts to teach her independence and resilience. No, for Zoe’s good, Amanda would let Zoe stay with her grandparents for the duration of the week as originally arranged. It just so figured that the week Zoe was away, the case Amanda was working afforded some flexibility. Meanwhile when Zoe was home next week, all hell could break loose, making it necessary to arrange care for Zoe.
Such an unfair world…But at least she wouldn’t soon be burying a loved one, like Riley Lane and Spencer. Pizza could at least go somewhere toward healing her loneliness.
She started the oven, and while it was warming up, she changed into a pair of linen shorts and a breezy white tank top.
By the time she got comfortable, the oven was almost up to temperature. She laid out a piece of parchment paper on a pizza sheet and put the three remaining slices on top. Her meal was ready to go in the second the oven beeped. She set the timer for ten minutes, thinking that should be enough time to choose a home show to stream.
She headed to the living room, the couch as her goal, but her eyes drifted to the mail sitting on the entry table. Grabbing it, she took it with her. The show search would have to wait a few minutes.
