"Where's here?"
"The grocery store on East National Highway. We’re in a strip mall. I'm the manager. You can meet me in the parking lot. Four-thirty?"
Miranda glanced at her watch. That gave her enough time. "I'll be there."
"All right. See you then."
Ten minutes later she was waiting in the parking lot when Hannah came out. Miranda walked with her to her van. Hannah Philpott was almost as tall as Miranda, had light blond hair that was starting to go gray, and a nervous mannerism that told Miranda she was probably very reserved. Almost shy. Hannah opened the back and removed a battered box that had seen far better days. “Here. It’s probably just…junk.”
Miranda took the box from her. It smelled like dust and old cardboard that had been damp and redried. "You never know."
"Hailey doesn't know I called you. I wasn't sure if I should tell her or not." Hannah looked at the box. There were tears in her eyes when she looked back at Miranda. That was what had struck Miranda before—Hannah had loved Derek Gibson…and his other children. She’d been actual friends with Aimee. Hannah had lost people she loved that night, too. Miranda had said it before—violence poisoned everyone it touched. "I don't know if that's going to help or make it worse. Finding that."
"I'll let you know if there's anything in it."
"You don't have to. I've made my peace with it, as much as I'm going to. It's Hailey I worry about. It has taken a long time to get her to a point where she’s…emotionally healthy.”
"I understand. I know how…trauma…can hurt. And I know what it does to a mother to see it.”
“You have children?”
Miranda just nodded. She didn’t share details of Bentley on the job that often.
"I think it’ll be a lifelong process. But Hailey is doing okay now. She went through a rough spot about four years ago—but she’s good now. And my granddaughter…she’s beautiful and wonderful. Hailey is getting through. I hope you find something. I really do. My girl deserves answers. And so do Derek and Aimee.”
They all did. Violence hurt them all.
Chapter 17
There wasn’t much in the box. A few things. Papers that had faded with time. Miranda always got a bit freaked out when this kind of thing happened. The victims were who stayed with her the most. She always saw the faces of the ones she loved in the faces of those who were…lost.
She’d never forget how it had felt to watch her mother die over a period of weeks. Only to lose her aunt a short time later, wasting away from almost the same diagnosis. She always hurt for the loved ones left behind. When she stopped feeling that pain in this job—it was time to hang it up and do something else.
“You have gloves nearby?” she asked the gorgeous man hovering at her left. He was another who was probably too emotionally sensitive for the law enforcement world. She’d long suspected that about this man. Pierce felt people’s pain so deeply. She hoped he always would. Because that was one thing that made him the phenomenal man that he was.
This was a man with heart.
Pierce crossed to a cabinet near the door and came back with a box of nitrile gloves. They each grabbed a pair.
Miranda snapped hers on and lifted Derek Gibson’s coat out. Men's extra-large, Carhart brand. That mustard brown that was so popular back then.
She went through the pockets. Left front was empty. Right front had a folded piece of paper. She pulled it out, and opened it carefully. She resisted the urge to flinch; it was a child’s drawing on what looked to be the back of an envelope. A robot, it looked like, with "Best Dad Ever!!" written across the bottom in blue marker.
She had dozens of those types of drawings now, all stored in a drawer in her home office. His ‘special things’ spot. She always dated them. And when he’d had his last birthday, she’d put them in a scrapbook to keep forever. The drawer kept filling up. Miranda would keep them all. He was her little boy, after all.
"Cruz," Pierce said. “Kid was pretty good. Kai’s struggling a bit to hold a crayon right now.”
She had met his child before, when Kai had been visiting Payton for a few days. Kai was a beautiful, black-haired version of his father. He had a few delays due to some trauma related to his mother’s death, Payton had told her in confidence. But Pierce was helping him through those struggles. And Pierce Asher was one hell of a beautiful father.
Damn it. Too bad he wasn’t the man for her. But some woman somewhere was going to be a really lucky woman someday. That woman just had to catch Pierce first.
Miranda could send him Charlotte’s way…
Miranda turned the paper over. Nothing on the back. She set the drawing on the table. That drawing…it hurt. No denying that. There was a receipt in the top pocket—dated a few days before the murder. She sat it aside—she’d have it processed, and have Dani add it to the timeline.
The Gibsons had come across this guy somewhere. It could have been a gas station—people tended to frequent their favorite establishments, close to home. She did that herself.
"Just a coat," Knight said. “Unless DNA points anywhere.”
