Night Watch

by Susan Sleeman

  She was curious enough to drive by the building before, so even if Erik hadn’t told her about the two towers gleaming in the moonlight, she would’ve known what to expect. They rose up into the night, two columns of hope for people seeking answers about parentage and relatives, and hope for law enforcement officers desperate for leads to close their investigations. A skybridge connected the towers at the top as did a building on the ground floor. But Erik didn’t park in the lot out front. He wound his truck up the ramp to the sixth floor of the parking structure.

  He got out without a word and opened the door to the building by pressing his fingers on a biometric reader mounted outside the door, then took her down to the lobby to get a security pass before boarding the elevator again to join Sierra in her lab.

  “You weren’t kidding about security here,” she said as he punched the button for the fourth floor where the trace evidence lab was located.

  “The Veritas staff needs tight security to protect evidence,” he said. “And also people who don’t get the answers they were expecting with DNA can sometimes get out of hand.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Just remember to wear the pass at all times and don’t go anywhere in the building without one of us escorting you.”

  She nodded her understanding and they fell silent for the ride.

  In the hallway, she glanced around, impressed with what she could see through lab windows. “I’ve always wanted to tour this place. We keep hearing people compare the labs here to ours, and you know we’re the best.”

  He feigned an exaggerated gasp and turned to look at her. “Don’t let anyone around here hear you say that.” The playful grin she could hardly resist spread across his face again, and her heart somersaulted.

  Great. She’d meant to waylay the lingering tension, and she had. At least outwardly, but not in her heart.

  Not seeming at all affected by having her nearby, he led her to the back of the building, where a sign mounted on the wall read Trace Evidence and Fingerprint Analysis.

  More fingertips pressed on a reader, and he opened the door then stood back. “After you.”

  She entered the spacious lab, the air tainted with a chemical smell despite what she knew had to be high-priced exhaust hoods. She stopped just inside the door to take a good look at Sierra’s set up. The top-of-the-line equipment lining the walls and sitting on counters so fascinated Kennedy that she forgot all about the pain in her hand. She was surprised she wasn’t drooling.

  She shifted to take in the stainless steel lab tables filling the middle of the room, where techs wearing lab coats hunkered over them even at this time of night.

  Sierra sat behind the table closest to the wall and waved them over. “Glad you could come by.”

  “Wow.” Kennedy approached. “This place is as high tech as the FBI lab. I thought the gossip was exaggerated.”

  “Of course not.” Sierra grinned, looking very much like Erik.

  “You have something for us yet?” Erik asked.

  “A few things.” Sierra grabbed a black gel lifter like the ones Kennedy often used. The high-quality elastic sheet of rubber had a low-adhesive gelatin layer on one side made especially for lifting latent prints and dust impressions.

  Sierra shone a bright light on the lifter to display a subtle dusty footprint. “I lifted a few of these prints from the deck surface before the rain hit. They’re likely from male boots, size twelve or so.”

  “Unless my mom had a guest who wore boots, which I doubt, it’s from my intruder.” At the thought of the threatening male standing over her with the gun while she was pinned and helpless, Kennedy’s legs went weak, and she dropped onto a nearby stool. “He wore combat boots. Khaki, I think. Large feet. So this matches.”

  “And he was dressed in camo,” Erik added.

  “Could be former military,” Sierra suggested. “Or a paid assassin.”

  Kennedy gasped.

  Erik ground his teeth, but he didn’t look surprised by the comment. “I agree on the military, but assassin? If so, he likely wouldn’t have given up on finding Kennedy and stayed to finish the job.”

  Kennedy shuddered. “Maybe he saw you coming.”

  “I was too far away.” Erik tilted his head. “Was your mom connected to any extremist groups?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Kennedy shook her head. “My mom was such a rule follower that she wouldn’t even consider driving a mile over the speed limit.”

  Erik’s eyes narrowed. “Then we need to look into military connections.”

  “I don’t know of any,” Kennedy said.

  Erik stared over her head for a long moment before focusing on her again. “I don’t want to speak ill of your mother, but I do want you to keep an open mind about what we might locate in our searches. Everyone has secrets. Even our parents.”

  Uncomfortable under his study, Kennedy moved her attention to Sierra. “I assume you’ll have your staff try to identify the boot make and size. Maybe we can narrow down suspects that way.”

  “Not my staff. Not for you.” She planted her hands on the edge of the table. “I’ll do it personally.”

  “But your leave.”

  “Reed’s still on leave too, and I can easily run up to feed Asher when needed or if I can’t stand to be separated from him.” She grinned.

  Kennedy never expected Sierra to do this for her, and maybe once she learned why Kennedy had broken up with Erik, she’d regret offering her time. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. You’re family. Or almost were anyway.” Sierra jutted out her chin and looked up at Erik.

  “What else do you have?” he asked, but his eyes had darkened.

  She looked at Kennedy. “I lifted a single stray hair from under the table where you spotted the suspect. It doesn’t track with anyone in your family. Plus, I processed prints. Lots of them. But if our intruder’s a pro, not likely his prints. I need to take both of your prints for elimination purposes. Finley’s too. Also, Emory will need a DNA swab for you, Kennedy. She’s our DNA expert, and I might as well take it while you’re here. And Emory will need the same for Finley. If you could get her over here as soon as possible so we can get her DNA running and I can review the prints, that would be great.”

  “They’re sisters,” Erik said. “Can’t you identify unknown samples by comparing to Kennedy’s profile?”

  “Not really,” Sierra said. “Siblings share only about fifty percent of their genotype, so we need samples from both.”

  “I’ll give her a call and get her over here as soon as possible,” Kennedy said.

  “I’ll let my staff know to expect her, so if I’m not here, someone else can do the prints and swab.” Sierra reached under the table and lifted up a biometric fingerprint reader.

  Kennedy recognized the model that was smaller than a toaster flipped on its side. The model tenprint and rolled fingerprint scanner provided liveness detection and was top-of-the-line. Not surprising. Everything Kennedy had seen so far was the best quality.

  “Nice machine,” Kennedy said.

  Sierra stroked it. “This baby is so new it’s almost a virgin. Put your fingers on the screen to see how the advanced optical system captures plain fingerprint images and rolled fingerprints. Takes only a second.”

  Kennedy rested her fingers on the screen, and the prints instantly displayed on Sierra’s laptop screen.

  “We good to print the hand with the turtle bite?” Sierra asked.

  Kennedy held out her hand. “Bite is higher than the pads.”

  “How’s it feeling?” Sierra asked.

  “Painful,” Kennedy said but didn’t belabor the point, as Erik was looking at her as if he took it personally that she’d been hurt on the dive.

  Sierra grimaced. “I’ve had my share of injuries while working scenes, including animal bites, but never a turtle.”

  Erik frowned at Kennedy. “I wish I could convince you to call it a day and get some rest.”

  Kenned
y ignored him and gingerly placed the fingers of her injured hand on the screen. Her behavior might be rude, but they’d already discussed resting due to the injury, and she’d told him she wasn’t going to be babied. Sure, she might have difficulty performing normal tasks without full use of her dominant hand, but she needed to be involved in this investigation, and if she knew Erik, he wouldn’t be going to bed. He would hunker down behind his computer and start researching.

  Sierra looked at Erik. “You’re up.”

  “That really was fast.” Erik rested his fingers on the screen.

  “Beats the equipment you were used to seeing in PPB booking.” She faced her computer. “Okay. Perfect. Other hand.”

  He switched. “Now tell me that you think you recovered some viable prints.”

  “I lifted several latents from the table we think the suspect touched.” Sierra leaned back and looked at Kennedy. “Your mother’s prints would’ve been taken at her autopsy, but they wouldn’t include them in your copy. Means we’ll need another way to get them for elimination purposes.”

  “I wonder if they’d release them if I made a request,” Kennedy said.

  Sierra shook her head. “A detective would have access if we wanted to persuade them to ask. Still, I lifted a lot of similar prints at her house, and since she was the former resident, I think we can reasonably determine which ones are hers. But it won’t hold up in court, and we’ll need something official for that.”

  “I wish I had connections around here so I could get them, but I don’t,” Kennedy said.

  “We’ll need to get help from a detective,” Erik said. “I’ll check that out.”

  “I recovered touch DNA, too,” Sierra said. “I’ve given it to Emory, and she’s rushing the tests for you.” Sierra put the reader back on the lower shelf. “She’ll have the results in twenty-four hours or so.”

  Sierra looked up, a frown on her face.

  “Why the frown?” Erik asked.

  “I also recovered prints from the crowbar, but that or the DNA really does us no good. We can run them against our limited database, but we can only query law enforcement databases with official approval from law enforcement. As much as you want to keep this in-house, it’s time to get PPB involved.”

  Erik groaned. “Odds are good that they’ll confiscate the evidence and not share the results.”

  Kennedy stared at him. “So we could be left in the dark?”

  “Yes.” He curled his fingers into fists at his sides. “If so, let’s pray that my prior service on the force can sway them our way.”

  5

  Kennedy had to get out of Sierra’s lab and do so now. Before she blurted out why she left Erik. Kennedy had always gotten along well with Sierra and confided in her in the past. But now? No. Kennedy couldn’t share why she’d left Erik, and the longer she stayed in the lab, the greater the odds that Kennedy would say something about witness protection.

  Besides, Erik deserved to be the first to know. The break-in could be related to WITSEC so she had to tell him and not in front of his big sister. Or his brothers. Alone.

  In the hallway and after the door closed soundly behind them, she faced him. “I need to talk to you before the meeting.”

  He clenched his jaw. “That sounds ominous.”

  “It’s about our breakup, and it could be relevant to what happened to my mom. Your brothers will need to know too, but I need to tell you first. You deserve that.” She didn’t know what she expected him to say or do, but his expression didn’t change at all.

  “We can stop at my condo.” He gestured for her to precede him down the hallway to the elevator. On the way, she fired off a text to Finley to ask her to come over for the DNA and prints, and her sister replied right away.

  Kennedy stowed her phone to board the elevator. “Finley will stop by before work, and I’ll also give her all the details then.”

  “Perfect,” he said, but his mind seemed elsewhere. They were quiet until they reached his condo.

  Once he had the door open, he looked at her. “I should warn you. I adopted a dog this year. I named him Pong. He’s very well trained and won’t bother you, but I’ll still take him to Drake’s place with me.”

  “You named him after a video game.” Vintage games had been his favorite way to let off steam, and it looked like that hadn’t changed. “I should’ve known you’d do that.”

  Erik grinned, a cute little boy grin that melted her heart. “He’s a golden lab, and he’s trained as a sniffer dog for electronics.”

  “Oh, wow,” she said. “Interesting. I’ve read a few articles on dogs like that, but haven’t seen one in action.”

  “He’s something to see.” Erik’s eyes lit up with a sparkle they’d once held when talking about their future together. “I can have him demonstrate for you if you want.”

  “Sure. I’m always glad to learn more about forensics work.”

  He flipped a light switch and stepped back. “Excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”

  Curious about his home, she stepped down a long hallway that opened into a great room with an open kitchen boasting contemporary wood-toned cabinets. It smelled like toast and coffee.

  She heard the dog whimpering from the living room and peeked to see him dancing to get out of his crate. The far end of the room held a big dining table, and the largest remote control model helicopter she’d ever seen sat on top of it.

  She looked back at him. “I see you’ve upped your RC helicopter game.”

  “Don’t you know it.” That grin appeared again, and memories of how she’d once hoped to have children who had the same smile haunted her. “That baby is one of the biggest on the market. Blades alone are twenty-six inches.”

  Eyes lit with joy, he went to the crate, and Pong darted out the moment Erik opened the door. “Sit.”

  Pong’s expression said he objected, but he sat and remained sitting in that spot when Erik came back to the table.

  She set down her small suitcase that Erik had offered to carry, but she’d declined, and went over to look at the orange-and-neon-green remote control aircraft. “And you can really get this monster off the ground?”

  “Sure thing.” He patted the body. “I’ve been giving it a tune-up and was going to take it up this weekend. You should—” He shook his head and faced the other way. “I’ll take Pong out for a quick break and then pack my things and change the bedding. Once that’s done, we can talk and head up to the office.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I got it.” He jerked a thumb at the kitchen. “Help yourself to anything you want. Drinks. Snacks. But remember to stay in the condo.”

  Kennedy nodded but didn’t move as he hitched up Pong’s leash and exited the condo. Her thoughts went to his family. Soon she would see Aiden, Brendan, Clay, and Drake for the first time in years.

  She chuckled. Without realizing it, she automatically ran through their names in alphabetical order. She’d always thought it was cute the way their parents had named them, but Erik? Nah. He’d gotten tired of it. Still, the brothers often did things in order without thinking, like lining up or choosing who went first.

  Just the thought of seeing all the brothers together had her dropping sideways into a nearby chair and resting her arm along the back. She was going to have to tell them about WITSEC. She didn’t think a pyramid scammer like the guy her father testified against would kill anybody, certainly not by administering excess blood pressure medicine, but then who did such a thing? More likely it would be someone with access to pharmaceuticals. People like the thugs who wanted to stop her mother’s research.

  If the break-in hadn’t occurred, Kennedy might’ve started to believe Finley and the medical examiner and let it go. But now she’d gotten Erik and his brothers involved, and they would help her figure out what happened to her mother once and for all.

  She closed her eyes and rested her head on her arm.

  Please. Let us find the answers I need. And keep eve
ryone safe.

  She lost herself in prayer, completely focusing on God and the power He held over her life.

  “We’re back,” Erik’s voice startled her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay. I was just praying.”

  “Praying is always a good thing, but if you’re worried about your safety, you can trust us to keep you safe.” His eyes narrowed as he assessed her.

  She worked hard not to show her discomfort under his study. “I know you will.”

  “But?”

  “No but. Can we talk first and then you do the other things?” She pointed at the chair next to her. “I really want to get this off my chest.”

  Forehead furrowed, he unhooked Pong. The lab looked at her. “You two should be properly introduced.”

  Erik dropped to the floor and urged Pong to step nearer to Kennedy.

  She held out her hand. “Hey, fella. Good to meet you. I’m Kennedy.”

  Pong shoved his head under her fingers, and the silky smooth hair tickled her skin. She’d had a dog growing up, and she couldn’t resist kneeling next to this one, even though she should be telling her story. “Is it okay to hug him?”

  “He’s a big old softie and loves hugs.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he scooted closer. She inhaled his pungent earthy dog smell. She relished the warm unconditional affection he was offering and used it to gain the strength to share her story.

  She looked at Erik over Pong’s head and decided to launch right into things. “My dad was once an accountant. He fell in with a really bad person named Harrison Waldron. He was running a pyramid scam, and my dad fudged the books for Waldron, which helped him scam thousands of people.”

  She paused for a breath and to wash away the thought of her dad being the man who could do something so callous. “My dad was arrested, and to keep from going to prison, he testified against Waldron. This guy had a violent rap sheet and threatened to get back at my dad, plus he was running one of the largest pyramid scams in history, which is why they let us into WITSEC.”