“Acardi, you might want to see this—” A female voice called out from the back of the small bungalow. Lila Dodson, a beautiful brunette with a quiet personality and razor-sharp mind, came to the end of the hallway. “Back bedroom.”
Dom nodded. He stepped away from the table, leaving the photo album behind without a backward glance. It would be looked at later. Everything would. But that girl was dead. Time to find the answers for the living was now.
He stepped into a room painted in a mix of garish watermelon green and bubblegum pink. There was a functional cheap white twin bed frame and mattress shoved to one corner.
“Above the bed.”
Dom swore, as he looked at what she meant.
A framed poster dominated the wall. The wall that was covered with what he thought were skateboarding stickers and logos. Everywhere. They wouldn’t come off without redoing the entire wall.
But it was the subject of the poster that drew his attention most.
“Are we sure her involvement tonight was just coincidence?”
Hope Coleson’s face stared back at him from that poster now. That wicked, adorable grin was unmistakable. He’d heard through the grapevine she’d been a skateboarding star when she’d been younger. Now he believed it.
“Witnesses said…he mentioned Hope’s younger days. And his daughter. I guess she was a big fan. Poor kid. How old was Kimball’s girl when she died?”
“Eighteen, I think. OD on that damned OPJ.”
“It was this that caught my attention first. I wanted you to see it—before we let just anyone in here.” Lila pointed to the yellow sticky note in the middle of the poster. Stuck right to the graphic on the T-shirt Hope wore in the poster. Hell, she looked young. Just a kid then.
In the middle of that sticky note were two sentences.Give the poster to Heather.AndThat was the best weekend of my daughter’s life—tell Hope thank you.
Thank you? How about they tell her the man wassorry?
Kimball’s bullet had struck Hope too damned close to her heart. No one would ever forget that. Dom had heard rumors she’d had a heart attack on the table. No one knew if she’d survive.
“I’ve already photographed it. But…considering…I don’t trust anyone else out there tonight. What do you want to do with it? If it didn’t mention Heather by name…Are we sure Hope was just coincidence that Wilson took advantage of? Or was it targeted?” Lila asked. The two of them worked together quite a bit now. He liked her, she was good at what she did, and calm. Nothing rattled Lila. He’d had far worse partners before.
“You think Heather or Hope pissed someone off in Wichita Falls and that’s why Wilson attacked tonight? Not to strike at Major Crimes, but to shut up anything one of them might have found?”
“I can see either theory working,” Lila said, softly. “Who was supposed to be out there tonight?”
“Second shift.”
“And that would have been Hope. Not Haldyn and Madison. Except that flu bug…”
Dom nodded. “Either way. But Hope was supposed to be lab-bound, because of her broken arm. She only went along with Madison todrive.Otherwise Madison would have been alone. You’ve photographed? Documented?” He looked at her. Knew what he was about to do could get him into some serious shit later.
She nodded. He pulled the sticky note down, slipped it into an evidence bag—Madison had trained him well, after all—and hid it in his pocket. For now.
He’d turn it over to hisdirectsuperior when he could. They had a shadow investigation now. It had been going on for months. There were a lot of things kept hidden at the TSP now.
And the governor knew all about it.
Dom looked at Lila. “Should we do as the note said? Give this thing to Heather?”
She hesitated. She was a rule-follower, this woman. Not as much as Heather Coleson, lieutenant, who came straight from the Wichita Falls IA division—but far more than Dom and the rest of his pals. He suspected Lila and Heather had been transferred into Major Crimes to help keep Dom and the boys in line.
Heather—Hope’s older sister. Dom’s teammate for the past two months or so.
“It’s a little weird that this is here, like…was he planning something tonight? I don’t know if he was, or if…this was all just random. I do think we should at least take it back to the TSP. Or see that it gets there. The forensics techs assigned to Kimball’shouse are here. Tiff and Tom. They were called in early. For this. Every tech is showing up at the building now, if they can.”
Of course they were. Haldyn was well-liked. So were Madison and Hope. Their own people had been attacked. No one would ever take that lightly.
Dom reached up. The poster frame was one of those cheap twenty-dollar plastic things sold at big box stores. There were skateboarding kitten stickers in the corners. Holding the plastic edging in place. Kitten stickers. Pink and purple.
