Melt (Steel Brothers Saga #4)(49)

“How in the hell can you find fingerprints?”

“We can’t reveal our sources,” Johnson said. “Could lead to—”

“Shut up, Johnny,” Mills said.

Right. On the up-and-up all right. But they left their scruples at the front door.

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” I said.

I was going to call Steve Dugan, a Snow Creek police officer. If he had heard of these guys, I’d let it go for now, but I was still going to call Grand Junction and Denver tomorrow.

I walked down the hall into Talon’s study and closed the door. I dialed Steve Dugan’s cell number.

“Dugan.”

“Hey, Steve. Jonah Steel.”

“Joe? Why are you calling at this hour?”

“Talon’s got these two high-priced detectives in the house. I wanted to know if you knew anything about them.”

“Mills and Johnson?”

“Yeah, I think that’s their last names.”

“They’ve come around a few times, offering services. They seem to be legitimate. I mean, legit in that you pay for their services and they deliver. I don’t know whether everything they do is legal. I think they’re probably hackers, and I imagine they do their share of breaking and entering. How else could they solve crimes that we can’t?”

“Have you talked to any of the larger police forces about them?”

“I haven’t personally,” he said. “But the sarge has. He seems to think they’re okay.”

“All right. Thanks. I’m going to call the police in the city tomorrow. Sorry to bother you, Steve. Good night.”

I heard him yawn into the phone. “No problem, Joe. Anytime.”

I ended the call, went back to Jade’s old room, and found it empty. The two men had gone back to the kitchen and were talking to my brothers and sister and Jade.

Johnson had sat back down at the table and was examining the card with his gloved hands through what appeared to be a jeweler’s loupe.

“A-ha,” he said.

“What did you find, Johnny?” Mills asked.

“There’s a tiny brown smudge on the edge of this card. I didn’t see it before because it’s only on the edge, not on the card itself. Someone wiped the card clean. But the glossy finish doesn’t extend to the edge.”

“What is it?” Talon asked.

“My best guess?” Johnny twisted his lips. “Blood. Looks like whoever had the card got a nasty paper cut.”

“Well, that doesn’t help,” Talon said. “This was weeks ago. Any paper cut would have healed by now.”

“Yeah, but we can get DNA from the blood.”

And it hit me. The Band-Aid on Tom Simpson’s right index finger. I hadn’t thought anything of it, but he said he got paper cuts a lot.

My God. I was jumping to conclusions, just as Talon was with Nico Kostas.

But I knew it in my soul as much as I knew the sun would rise tomorrow.

Tom Simpson’s blood was on that card.

Mills and Johnson would check the fingerprints. Larry’s would be on file, and his fingerprints would be on that card. The second set would belong to Colin himself. And the third set…

The third set would match the blood.

The blood of Tom Simpson.

My best friend’s father. The fucking mayor of Snow Creek.

That blood was his.

I just had to figure out how to prove it.





Chapter Twenty–Four





Melanie




I sat, biting my lip, in the conference room on the mental health wing of Valleycrest Hospital. The phone call I had received before I left for dinner with Jonah had been from the Chief of the Psychiatric Staff at Valleycrest, who also happened to be my colleague and Erica Cates’s physician, Dr. Miles Bennett. I’d tried to put this meeting at the back of my mind while I had been with Jonah, and I had actually succeeded. But after Jonah got the call from Talon and left so abruptly, I had turned back into a pumpkin. This phone call and meeting had gotten into my mind and wouldn’t let go. I tossed and turned all night, getting only an hour or two of sleep. I had to have Randi reschedule two therapy sessions to make room for the meeting this morning. I hated canceling on my patients. Regular therapy was so important to the work I did, and when I had to cancel, patients got off schedule. But I couldn’t miss this meeting.

Miles sat across from me, and next to him sat a young woman who I knew as Dr. Eva Wilson, the chief psychiatry resident this year at Valleycrest.

“I hope you don’t mind, Melanie. I’ve asked Eva to join us.”

“Normally I wouldn’t, Miles, but I don’t even know why you’ve summoned me here. Until I know the reason for this meeting, I’m not very comfortable having anyone else attending.”

“Dr. Carmichael—” Eva began.

“It’s all right, Eva,” Miles said. “Melanie, everything in this meeting will be held within the strictest confidence. Eva can be trusted.”

I nodded. “Fine.” I didn’t have the energy to protest anymore.

“Erica Cates’s husband, Rodney Cates, came to me yesterday. He was a mess. Said he had just been with you. It was nearly six o’clock, and I was getting ready to leave the hospital, but he insisted upon seeing me.”