JD and I headed back to the station and filled out after-action reports. We surrendered our weapons, then headed to the hospital to check on Denise.
Getting hit in the chest with a bullet is a painful proposition, even with a vest. It's a high-energy dump into a small area. Like getting hit with a sledgehammer.
By the time we arrived, the bruising had already set in. Her chest was black, blue, purple, and shades of yellow and green. It hurt to breathe, and she had localized swelling. According to the X-rays, she had a hairline rib fracture. There was always the possibility of bruised lung tissue and swelling that could worsen over the next few hours.
Denise would be admitted to the hospital and kept overnight for observation. It was the safe play. Denise didn't put up an argument.
A monitor beside the bed blipped with the craggy peaks of her heartbeat. It read out vital statistics like oxygen saturation and blood pressure.
"You almost got me killed," she said.
"I thought you wanted to get into the field," I teased.
Denise sneered at me. "I'm not sure that's exactly what I had in mind.”
She winced as she took a breath.
"Comes with the territory, kid. Make sure this is something you really want to do. And make your peace with it. There are no guarantees out there.”
She sighed. "I know."
“Hey, you got a bad guy off the street.”
“Well, I think you did that.”
We stayed with her in the ER until she got transferred to a room in the hospital. They gave her some pain medication, and it didn’t take long for her to doze off. I kissed her forehead before we left and wished her a speedy recovery in a whisper. She was out cold and didn’t hear it, but maybe it bounced around in there somewhere.
It was late by the time we got back to theAvventura.
Seeing Denise like that really got to Jack. It bothered me too. I had a lot of feelings for Denise. We’d been through a lot together. A few inches higher, and that bullet would have hit her in the neck, and that would have been all she wrote. I didn't think I could handle something like that.
Sometimes the adrenaline is worse when the excitement dies down, and you realize just how close you came to disaster. I still vibrated with nerves.
Needless to say, I didn't sleep well that night.
Isabella called the next morning. "It took a while, but I was able to pull a single frame from the raw file. It was the only one that wasn't corrupted. I'm gonna text it to you now. I think you'll find it quite interesting."
My phone buzzed with the image a moment later. It was a grainy, blocky screen grab. The drone had captured the image through a window.
A man with platinum hair appeared to strangle a young blonde who resembled Riley. He had his hands around her throat. It was hard to mistake the action for anything else. It sure didn't look like a consensual act to me. Riley was on the bed, the assailant on top of her. From the camera angle, only the back of his head was visible, along with his upper torso, his shoulders, arms, and hands. There appeared to be a tattoo on his right shoulder.
Together with the markings on Riley's body, it was damning evidence. Enough for a warrant. But this wasn't Richard Pearson.
46
Isabella gave me instructions to tell the IT guys how to recover the file from the flash card. It was a simpler chain of custody if our guys figured it out.
In the meantime, I looked up Sean Pearson’s social media profile. His dark hair was dyed platinum blond. I was able to find a few pics of him shirtless on a boat, the tattoo in plain view. It could only be him.
Richard Pearson was covering for his son.
With the same build, it was easy to mistake the two from grainy drone footage, apart from the tattoo.
Sean had a juvenile record. It was sealed, and I couldn't tell what the offense was. Something told me it might have been related to sexual misconduct.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the sheriff growled.
“Solving a murder case.”
