So it already felt a bit personal. Dani understood. “Where’s Bentley at for this one?”
Miranda mostly stayed in St. Louis to run the unit, but when she couldn’t, she had a support system to make sure Bentley was well taken care of. Dani was a part of that support system, too.
“He’s on break from Brynlock right now. My parents have him in Masterson County. He’s working at the inn, he says. My dad is paying him five dollars an hour for two hours a day to do odd jobs and chores. Bentley is very grown-up, you know.”
Miranda came from a family that owned a historic inn in Masterson County. Dani thought it was one of the most beautiful, romantic places in the world.
Talk turned toward the case details and less personal. Dani spread everything out on the table in front of her. Most of her work involved computer screens—but sometimes she worked better with everything where she could pick it up and touch it.
She was still poring over the paperwork when he walked in. Him.
The one member of the Cold Case Unit she just did not understand much at all. Not that he’d ever been rude, it was just the way the man watched her. He had the most disconcerting eyes she had ever seen. “Hello, Agent Ward.”
She was on a first name basis with everyone in the Cold Case Unit, and seventy-five percent of the rest of PAVAD. But not this guy. Something about him…
“Hello Danielle, Knight sent me to get an update about the latest case.” He stepped into her lab, and the room just seemed to shrink immediately. Like he’d sucked up all the air with him.
Dark blue eyes were just watching her, and his mouth was in that little smirk that he had. It drove her crazy.
This guy freaked her out, he knew it, and she suspected the man did it on purpose. Dani turned toward the files in front of her. She would give him what he asked for, and then get him out of her territory. Fast.
It was the only safe way to deal with this man. Period.
Chapter 8
Miranda had spent most of the morning interviewing what remained of Derek and Aimee Gibson’s family and close connections, starting with Aimee’s brother, and ending with Hannah, Derek’s ex-girlfriend. This was her final interview for today. And…the most important. None of the DNA through blood or semen samples taken at the Gibson scene had come back to thirteen-year-old Terra. Her homework and a half-consumed bottle of apple tea on the desk in her room had also been found. Those were the only indications that the little girl had been home at the time of the murders. But even that was not one hundred percent definitive.
Then she disappeared forever.
From the photos she had seen of Terra, including one that PAVAD computer forensic techs had age-progressed, she would have looked a great deal like the sister sitting across the table, staring at Miranda now. Except for the hair. Terra had had very pale blonde hair—much like one of Miranda’s own sisters.
Hailey Gibson was in her early thirties, very pretty, and a single mother to a three-year-old girl. She worked as a paralegal for the most established law firm in Jasper, Indiana—one county south of where they were now.
She reminded Miranda of countless other young women she had met in this job who had been touched by the darkness. The shadows were still in the woman's blue eyes. Those damned ghosts—once they got in a person’s soul they never left.
Miranda knew that far too well.
Hailey Gibson reminded Miranda most of her cousin Dusty. Dusty had that same quiet and reflective manner. The same expression in her eyes, most times.
One that said she had seen darkness and had survived. Searching for light.
Miranda thought it was because her cousin had almost died at the age of fourteen from a heart condition they hadn't known she'd had and from some dark things that had happened to her since. Dusty had almost not survived, but she was doing okay now.
Hailey's came from what she had seen that day. What she had found. Miranda hurt for the girl she had been that day—for the woman she was. Miranda would never forget the kind of hurt she’d seen in her own baby sister’s eyes when Miranda had been only eleven and a man with no business near children had had Marin in his clutches. Sometimes, she thought what had happened to Marin had led Miranda to what she did now.
They all had their ghosts. That was where good old Knight would say they all had life scripts caused by the events and traumas they had experienced and how they were personally impacted. So clinical, at times. But Miranda…no. Sometimes, she really did believe in ghosts.
"I want to say again how sorry I am for what happened to your family," Miranda said, taking the chair. They were in a small interview room at the Daviess County Sheriff's office. Miranda opened her soda quickly, while the other woman just a year or so older than she was settled across the table. Hailey rubbed her arms, to ward off a chill in the room that just wasn't there.
Miranda understood. Ghosts could be so cold when they walked across your soul like that.
Hailey nodded. Then met Miranda's gaze head on. "Why is the FBI suddenly interested in our case now? Fifteen years is a long time for no answers. I’ve waited and waited and written emails to all sorts of people and—nothing. So why now?”
"First Sergeant Pierce Asher...is relocating to Texas soon. He put in the request for our division’s help. Detective Asher's sister joined our division several years ago. So we agreed to look at the case, and it met our Cold Case division’s parameters. It’s a newer division."
"He stood with me. That day. He just stood with me. I’ve never forgotten him. People, cops…they ask me questions sometimes. Others just want to pry. I just want answers. I want to know what happened to my sister. I just…I know she’s dead. I just want to know what that bastard did with her."
Miranda nodded. She could understand that on the most elemental level, too. "I understand."
