In other words, Miguel suspected dirt.
“This right here? It was a particular knife. Probably bent here. It’s a distinct pattern. Very unique. Whoever did it, usedthe same weapon on this man, on the Ahumada boy, and…Jaylon Tuell. I found the similarities this morning.”
“So we need to figure out what the three had in common. And how in the hell didthisparticular weapon get into the jail to begin with?”
Dom suspected he knew the answer.
Money. It all came down to the green. Who had it, and who wanted it, and who was willing to look the other way.
He and Miguel listened to Daryn give her beginning findings, then the two men stepped out into the hall.
Something else was going on. It was written on the other man’s face. “What is it?”
“I just got a call from…a friend…who is busy working an undercover operation out of Fort Worth.” Miguel gave him everything he knew. With what details were the most relevant. “He heard rumors that someone needs toclean upsome of our forensics crews. Before certain information gets out.”
Miguel was almost prowling. Dom understood. No one threatened the ladies-of-the-lab. No one.
“I’m headed over to the Colesons. I’ll update McKellen and whoever else has found their way there. I’m staying with them as long as it takes.”
Dom just nodded. Miguel had his own lady-of-the-lab to protect now.
Even if Hope didn’t seem aware of that.
He was going to find those assholes and rip them apart. But first… “If someone is after the lab ladies, there is a reason. We need to figure out what they know that someone is afraid will get out there.”
Dom stepped outside, Miguel beside him. They were in the back parking lot now—where Haldyn had been abducted and Luke Bell had been run over by his own damned SUV. He turned to ask Miguel what else he knew when his own phone rang.
Dom looked down at the screen.
This guy…well, well, well. Tony only called when he really had something to say.
46
Madison hadn’t beenable to sleep. Something…good old Gordy had said had been playing over and over in her mind. If they were looking for something—it would be in Sol Kimball’s journals. He had been pretty emphatic about that.
Shehad copies of Sol Kimball’s journals. On her server she controlled. It had been scanned into the general TSP server by A.J. Callum the night the journals had been collected. They had been collected by…Dominic Acardi and Lila Dodson. They were authentic. And then, Madison had copied them over to her own server—the one the governor had requested she set up personally—the very next day. No one had had a chance to alter them in any way.
Madison probably had copies of everything to do with what she privately thought of as the “Jarrod Theory of Everything” case on that server. Shemore than anyone, had access toeverything.
She knew exactly what that meant. And apparently, since she didn’tsleepthrough the night anymore, she had all the time in the world to go over it.
Because going over evidence reportsreallyhelped prevent nightmares and everything.
She had everything spread out in front of her, over her dining room table, plus the take-out she’d ordered delivered. She had her spare bedroom-slash-home office, but the dining room had more wall space to tape notes to. All of her work since the night Hope and Haldyn had been shot was right there. She’d just been adding to it as the days passed. Tonight…she’d just keepworking.
Trying to forget today. Somehow.
It had been one of the hardest days of her career. Madison had spent more than four hours testifying about lab results. About what they had shown had happened to a four-year-old girl who had deserved better than what she had gotten from life. Isotopes Madison had discovered on the girl’s clothing had led to the arrest of six members of the girl’s immediate family for her death.
Those six, and the five who hadn’t been involved, had made half a dozen disruptions in the course of the afternoon. Interrupting Madison’s testimony every time. Screaming at her for just stating the results in an open courtroom. One man around her own age had rushed her in the witness box. The guards had dragged him out.
It was all aboutthem,not about what had happened to that little girl. Not one of them seemed to be grieving at all. Madison was almost certain the other five monsters in that family had had something to do with her death—she just hadn’t been able to forensically prove it.
She would keep looking though. Statute of limitations never ran out on murder, after all.
Today…had been rough.
Something about what Dom had said was stirring around in her head, too. Some…connection, she just hadn’t found yet.Madison handled thescienceof investigations, not the actual people aspect. She wasn’t good at this part. But…sometimes, someone had to put the science together to tell the full story.
