Night Watch (Kendra Michaels #4)(41)

She knew that recipe. It wasn’t Lynch cooking.

She tore off the covers and bounded into her living room. Olivia was standing over her kitchen stove.

“Olivia, what on earth are you doing?” she asked.

“Omelets,” she said matter-of-factly.

Lynch emerged from the spare room, smelling of aftershave. “I invited her. I knew Olivia was an early riser, so I gave her a call. I thought she’d be concerned about what was going on with you. It was her idea to make breakfast for us all.”

Kendra nodded. Smart. Lynch had obviously brought Olivia in as a buffer. And it was working. Any awkwardness between them was rapidly dissipating with her friend’s presence there.

“Great,” Kendra said. “Olivia’s a better cook than I’ll ever be.”

Olivia turned from the stove. “Well, Lynch helped identify the ingredients for me. Your gift of sight has made you terribly lazy about organizing your pantry and refrigerator.”

“Many apologies,” Kendra said. “I guess he filled you in on everything that’s going on.”

“Oh, yes. And so has your mother. I got an e-mail from her yesterday.”

“Naturally.”

“She said that if I can talk you into going to Hawaii with her, she’ll bring me along, too.”

“I’m not going to Hawaii.”

“She knows that. She’s just covering her bases.”

Kendra turned to Lynch. “Sleep well?”

“As well as I thought I would,” he said noncommittally. “You?”

“The same. But at least I put my time to good use.”

“You’ve taken up scrapbooking.”

“No.” She picked up her tablet and flipped open the cover. “Something occurred to me before I went to sleep. The products used in Waldridge’s hotel room to make any blood invisible to Luminol. They were household products, easily obtainable at a moment’s notice. But you said there were better chemical solutions available.”

“There are, and they’re also available to anyone. You would just have to order them online or go to a chemical-supply store.”

“Exactly. So maybe they had to settle on this Iron-Out and hydrogen peroxide mix because they hadn’t planned ahead of time. Maybe they had to go out and get it the night after Waldridge was taken.”

“Like at Home Depot?”

“All the Home Depots were closed at that time.” Kendra raised her tablet and showed a city map on which she had used a stylus to circle two destinations. “But there are two twenty-four-hour Walmart stores within an easy drive of the hotel, and they carry these products. What if we get the FBI to request that these stores check and see if someone purchased these items from them that night?”

“And pray they used a credit card?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

Lynch nodded. “Good idea. Put all that in an e-mail to Griffin.”

“I already did. Before I went to sleep. You really think I’d wait to run it past you?”

“In my dreams.” He smiled. “What a team.”

Yes they were, and the reminder was probably deliberate. Regardless, it was oddly comforting at this moment. “I haven’t heard back from Griffin yet either to say he’ll do it or for me to go to hell.”

“He’ll do it.” Lynch checked his watch. “It’s only seven-thirty. We’ll call him at nine and harass him.” He turned toward Olivia, and said lightly, “Until then, we’ll occupy ourselves with what promises to be the best breakfast I’ve had in a while.”

*

GRIFFIN CALLED TWENTY MINUTES LATER, just as they were finishing Olivia’s delicious chicken-pepper omelets. Kendra put him on speaker.

“It’s early, Griffin. You’re working long hours for a government worker.”

“Blame it on the lunatic who tasks me with silly errands in the middle of the night.”

“So … I’m the lunatic?”

“Yes.”

“Just checking.”

“I should have trashed your e-mail after that ping woke me up, but you happened to make sense. So I forwarded your request just a few minutes after I got it. The office reached out to both stores.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“As you pointed out, those stores are twenty-four-hour operations. So’s the FBI. But I guess you’re aware of that since you saw fit to disturb my well-earned sleep.”

She thought it best to veer away from that last sarcastic comment. “Good. Any idea when we’ll hear back?”

“We already have. We got a hit.”

Kendra and Lynch exchanged a glance.

“Where?” Kendra asked.

“The Walmart at Baldwin Hills. Someone came in and purchased Iron-Out, hydrogen peroxide, sponges, and cleaning cloths at 10:16 P.M. that very day.”

“How did they pay?”

“Cash.”

Damn.

“I know,” Griffin said, as if reading her mind. “But they promised me they have razor-sharp security cameras there. They’ve scanning for the footage as we speak.”

“Okay. Good. Lynch and I will drive up to L.A. It shouldn’t take us more than—”

“Don’t bother. “They’ll be e-mailing the video to my office.”