Mo cried out. “Whatever this woman told you, Officer, I swear to you that I did nothing inappropriate in the restroom of the Walmart!”
Roddy frowned at him, his eyes ping-ponging between us.
I interjected before Mo could regale Roddy with our drama in the men’s room. “I’ll be down in a few minutes, Roddy. Dr. Sharif has generously offered to help me with some very important tool mark questions. Right, Doctor?”
Mo nodded emphatically. “I am happy to cooperate with this woman—and the police—in any way I can. Just please don’t make me go with you.”
“That was easy,” Vero muttered. “Roddy and I will go find the kids’ luggage and wait for you in the lobby.” The classroom door closed behind them as she led the children out.
Mo sagged, clutching his chest.
“The bullet Pete gave you,” I said, still a little out of breath, “I need to know anything you can tell me about the gun that fired it.” This man was my last hope for giving me anything…anythingat all that would help me identifyEasyClean. Feliks was loose and Marco clearly knew we were here, but if I could find out whose gun fired that bullet,there might still be time to give Feliks a name and negotiate with Kat for that duffel bag full of incentive money.
Mo searched frantically through the loose papers and books on his desk, plucking the bullet from a small plastic tray. He carried it to a lab table, turned on a microscope, and set the bullet on the stage. Wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, he leaned over the eyepiece and adjusted the dials. He studied it, using a set of tweezers to turn the bullet this way and that before removing it from the stage and passing it to me. “The caliber is 9mm,” he said, gesturing for me to leave. “There’s quite a bit of damage.”
“That’s it?” I asked, refusing to budge. “Can’t you tell me anything else… a model number or something?”
He held open the door and nudged me through it. “Lots of models are compatible with 9mm rounds,” he said irritably. “All I can tell you is the name of the manufacturer. The rifling marks suggest it was fired from a Glock.”
CHAPTER 28
When I descended the stairs toward the main entrance of the building, Vero, Roddy, and the kids were nowhere in sight. Steven was pacing in front of the vestibule, arms crossed, casting impatient sideways looks at Nick, Georgia, Samara, and Joey, who were huddled close, having a tense conversation at the edge of the hall. Nick glanced up, his eyes trailing me as I crossed the lobby and tapped Steven on the shoulder.
Steven whirled. “Hey,” he said, spreading his arms wide to hug me. I held him back by the chest.
“Where have you been?” I asked in a harsh whisper.
“Look, I’m sorry I had to leave Delia and Zach with your mom. An emergency came up.”
“Didn’t you get my messages?”
“I did, but I was a little busy.” He held up a hand and dropped his voice to a whisper. “And before you ask, the package you left with me is fine. Carl is right where we left him.” Steven grimaced. “Or at least that one part of him anyway. I checked as soon as I got home last night. What the hell’s going on? You sounded worried.”
Obviously, I hadn’t sounded worried enough for him to bother calling me back. “Nothing. I’m handling it.”
“Where are the kids?”
“Vero’s bringing them.”
His eyes grew wide. “She’s here?” He looked over my shouldertoward the knot of cops across the room. “We need to talk about your babysitter,” he said urgently. “That girl is a criminal.”
“She’sa criminal? What the hell were you doing breaking into my house?” The low hum of the cops’ conversation quieted. They all turned toward my raised voice. Steven put an arm around my shoulder and ushered me down the hallway. As soon as we were out of earshot, I shook him off.
“I went to the house to handle those repairs we talked about. Since when do you keep a vibrator in your nightstand?”
“You were snooping in my room!” I whispered.
“I wasn’t snooping. I was looking for a flashlight. Does that thing really need so many goddamn batteries? There were enough Duracells in that drawer to power a Tesla.”
“You have exactly ten seconds to explain to me what you were doing in my house.”
“I know you said the repairs could wait until I got home, but I wanted to surprise you.”
“Oh,” I said through my teeth, “you definitely surprised me.”
“While I was there, I found something suspicious in Vero’s room. She’s been lying to you, Finlay. Ruiz isn’t her real name. Her last name is actually Ramirez. I saw it on her college acceptance letter. Did you know she dropped out of the University of Maryland last—”
“That’swhy you broke into my house? So you couldspyon her?”
