“The crime scene guy said it was real, but that’s all he’d say.” I tried to banish thoughts of cut off fingers. “I can’t see how it was a joke.”
“It’s no joke,” Aiden said grimly.
I hopped off the desk, feeling a little light-headed like usual after a panic attack, but my breathing had normalized, and I could think again. “I’ll go to the station and see if Pierce knows anything. There was no way I was getting any work done this afternoon. A bloody stump of a finger did that to a gal. I reached over and rolled the chair closer to my desk.
“I’m headed that way to interview a prisoner and will drive you.” Aiden looked me over. “Your plan is a good one, but there’s one problem. You have glitter all over your ass.”
A tall blondewith killer legs nearly knocked me over as I tried to enter Pierce’s office. Her hair was up in a fancy do, her makeup flawless, and her heels Prada. The suit she wore was a green linen skirt with matching jacket, and she smelled like lavender. She stormed out, and even her high heels kicked up irritation as she swept by me, heading for the stairs to the main floor.
I gulped, pausing, and then poked my head in his door. “You okay?”
Pierce sat behind his desk, his jaw tight, his tie looking like he’d yanked it to the side. “Yeah. What’s up?”
I looked down the empty hallway, steeled my shoulders, and moved inside to gingerly sit in one of his guest chairs. “Should you go after her?”
“No. That was a breakup.” He didn’t sound horribly upset, but he didn’t sound happy, either.
“Why?” I figured we were kind of friends.
He looked at the papers, case files, and empty coffee cups on his desk. “My job. Like usual.”
I swallowed.
Then he cocked his head to the side. “How do you handle Devlin’s job? He’s not even in town very often.”
I shrugged. “Well, he handles mine, and I figure we can deal with situations as they arise.” I tried to dig deeper. “I guess I’d rather have him in my life and not my town than in my town and not my life.” It was as philosophical as I got.
“Humph,” Pierce said, picking glitter off his arm. “We all look like we’ve been to a strip club.”
That was more than an opening, and it looked like he didn’t want to discuss the end of his relationship with the sexy blonde. “Any news on the finger?”
“Just that it’s a finger that was removed postmortem,” he said. “The prints, or rather print, was all cut up and destroyed, maybe with a droplet of acid, so that’s no help.”
Shoot. I figured maybe a print would lead us to the owner of the finger. “Well, somebody has to show up, right?” Postmortem? At least the person hadn’t lost a finger while alive. “From what I saw, the finger didn’t look too decayed.” The reality of that fact had a lump of granite dropping into my stomach. “Which means that the person hadn’t been dead very long before having the finger removed.”
Pierce’s gaze narrowed. “Yep.”
“So we have a dead body out there without a finger.” I shuddered, wishing I didn’t have to follow that train of thought. “The finger looked male?” Although it had been swollen and apparently desecrated, so I couldn’t be sure.
“Running DNA now, and we’ll know later today or tomorrow. Called in a couple of favors,” Pierce admitted. “For now, we need to keep somebody on you.”
I had no problem with that. “I left the uniformed officer at the office for Clark, Violet, and the boys since I’m here.”
Pierce reached for a pen to tap on the desk. “That’s fine, but again, I don’t think I can spare anybody at night. The flu is still kicking us in the teeth, and I’m down several officers.”
“That’s okay. I’m armed and so is Aiden.” I was grateful Aiden was back in town. I needed to take Violet over the hill to Silverville and get her out of the line of fire. Just one more night and she’d be safe and away from me. Hopefully she and Aunt Yara would like each other. I couldn’t imagine anybody not liking either one of them.
Pierce’s phone rang, and he lifted it to his ear. “Pierce.” He pushed several notebooks out of the way and pulled a case file off the bottom of a pile. “Yeah. I have that right here. I’m thinking the witnesses—”
I stood, waved, and exited his office.
He didn’t look up. One thing about Pierce, when he was on a case, he was a bloodhound. The lavender-scented blonde apparently hadn’t understood that fact.
My phone dinged and I scrambled in my purse for it. “Anna Albertini,” I answered.
“Hi Anna, it’s Florence,” Florence said quietly. “I finally read Lawrence’s letter, the one the lawyer gave to me?”
My heart rate sped up, and I leaned against the wall, ignoring the hustle around me. “Yes? What did it say?”
