Velocity (Karen Vail #3)(29)

“We’ll have that COFEE device tomorrow morning,” Aaron said. “We can post an officer outside the house to make sure no one touches the PC before it gets here.” He set down his kit against the wall. “Find anything that’ll help you locate your missing guy?”

“No,” Vail said. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Shame.”

“You know what,” Vail said, advancing on him, before Dixon grabbed her arm with an iron grip.

“Let it go,” Dixon said. “We’ve got more important things to deal with.”

Vail shook off Dixon’s hand, then spun and headed past Brix, out of the garage. No, we didn’t find anything that’ll help us find our missing guy. She craned her neck skyward. A passing cumulus cloud stared at her as it blew by. I leave in a matter of hours and we’re no closer to finding Robby than we were before.

Vail leaned her back against the Ford’s door and faced the house.

That’s when she saw it.

A leather jacket. She pushed off the car and walked forward, eyes focused on the coat. It hung on a hook on the wall behind the Audi, innocently draped across a wood hanger. She stopped in front of it and stared at it. A shiver ran the length of her spine.

“Roxx,” she called out, unevenly. “I may’ve just found Robby’s jacket.”





18


Dixon and Matt Aaron joined Vail a moment later.

“This?” Aaron asked, nodding at the lone coat hanging from the hook.

“No,” Vail said, “the other jacket.”

Aaron set his jaw and gave Vail an icy stare. The two had established a relationship as smooth as grit-studded sandpaper, and it was apparently destined to remain that way.

Aaron broke the standoff by retrieving his fingerprint kit, then applying dust.

“Full workup,” Dixon said. “DNA, too. We’ve got a sample of Detective Hernandez’s DNA en route.” She waited a second for Aaron to reply, got nothing, and continued. “Give me a buzz as soon as you know something. Most important thing is, does this jacket belong to him, or not?”

Aaron dropped his hands to his sides and turned to Dixon. “I’m plugged into what’s going on, Ms. Dixon.” He moved his fingerprint brush back to the jacket. “You can go. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“You got a TOD on the Hall of Justice vic?”

Without looking at Dixon, he said, “Prelim estimate is approximately 1:00 PM. Give or take an hour.”

Dixon turned away from Aaron. “If she was dropped there, that means she was killed before he arrived at the Hall of Justice complex, right?”

Vail folded her arms across her chest. “Right.”

“So let’s say she was there for what, ten minutes before someone saw her and reported it? Fifteen?”

“Okay, sure.”

“That means if we’re thinking she was killed between noon and 1:00, and we discovered her at 1:20, she was probably killed about thirty minutes from downtown Napa.”

Vail nodded slowly. “You’re establishing the radius of the UNSUB’s kill zone.”

Dixon shrugged. “Makes sense. We could map it out and see if we can focus our efforts. But give or take thirty minutes in any direction is a lot of real estate.”

“Not as much as not having the radius.”

“True,” Dixon said.

Brix burst through the door leading into the garage from the house, holding up his cell phone. “Roxx—TTB came through. We got a twenty on Herndon Vineyards.”





19


The needle on Dixon’s speedometer zipped past 65—in a 50 zone. After Vail had stuck the light cube atop the car, they were silent, intent on what they might find—and what they would ask if, and when, they found James Cannon.

Leaving Owens at Mayfield’s house, Brix was following behind them in his own vehicle. As they zigged around slower-moving tourists, Dixon took a call from Gordon and Mann. NSIB had secured Cannon’s current home address—and four investigators were en route to meet Gordon and Mann as backup.

Before they hit the frenzy of their pending arrival at Herndon, Vail’s thoughts turned to what they had found at Mayfield’s place. “The jacket. Robby bought it a few days ago.”

Dixon slowed behind a limousine. “You sure it’s his?”

Vail worked it through her mind. Closed her eyes and tried to remember him walking into Bistro Jeanty, the restaurant where they’d eaten only a couple nights ago. “Yes.” She shook her head. “No.” She sighed. “He bought a jacket just like it when he went to the outlets to buy us new clothing after the fire. I only really saw it once. And Robby and Mayfield could be about the same size.” She bent her head forward and massaged her temples. “I don’t know.”

“Hopefully Aaron will be—”

Vail snapped her fingers and sat up straight. “Wait a minute. That funky water bottle. The one in the garage. The Platypus. I’d seen it recently but couldn’t remember where.” She turned to Dixon. “At the gym. Fit1. Cannon had it when we were there working out. What’s it doing in Mayfield’s garage?”

Dixon zipped around the limousine and moved back into her lane. “They’re big and hold a lot of water. Mayfield and Cannon were friends, they worked out together, maybe they both had one.”