Touch of Red (Tracers #12)(11)

“That’s fine.” He was sure he’d have more questions, but it would be good to let her mull things over. “If you think of anything else that would help, call us.” He handed her a business card.

She looked at the card and bit her lip. “One more thing. The news said . . . they said she was stabbed?” Amy gave him a pleading look.

Sean nodded, and her face crumpled.

“Oh, that’s horrible. Horrible. Sam doesn’t deserve this. Nobody deserves this.”

The door opened, and it was Aiden and Callie. The boy had a gold police-badge sticker on his T-shirt and icing on his chin.

“Aiden tells me his ear hurts,” Callie said.

“Come here, sweet pea.” Amy scooped him up and shifted him onto her hip. “We’ll get you your drops, okay?” Then she looked at Sean. “I hope you find the person who did this. I hope you find him and nail him to the wall.”

? ? ?

Brooke swept her UV light over the seat for the third time, and for the third time she found nothing. She crouched beside the car and examined the floorboards.

“Any chance we can get some lights on in the next hour?” Roland Delgado asked.

Brooke glanced across the lab at him. He was seated at his computer in the corner. His spiky dark hair looked jet-black, and the screen cast his face in a bluish hue. Up to now he’d been patient with the on-again, off-again lighting in the lab as Brooke examined Samantha Bonner’s car.

Brooke shoved up her goggles and flipped on the light switch, illuminating the cavernous room. “This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t feel like a drug addict’s car to me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Roland didn’t take his eyes off his screen. “What does a drug addict’s car feel like?”

“You know. Messy. Disorganized. Crap everywhere.”

“Not everyone’s a slob.”

“Okay, but two grams of coke in the glove box, and nothing anywhere else? I’d expect to find a trace of something. I mean, what do addicts do when they go make a buy? They pull over and get a fix, right? Or they race home to do it. Are we supposed to believe this woman went out and bought more than a hundred dollars’ worth of coke and then left it in her car overnight? Who does that?”

“I dunno.”

“Plus, she makes twelve bucks an hour. So why’s she buying cocaine in the first place and not something cheaper? The whole thing doesn’t add up.”

Brooke crossed the lab to the fume hood and took another look at the plastic baggie inside the rectangular glass chamber. She’d fumed it again using cyanoacrylate, but hadn’t developed any additional fingerprints besides the one distinct thumbprint at the top of the bag.

“And look at this baggie. One thumbprint, and it belongs to the victim.”

“So?”

“So, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Evidence doesn’t lie, Brookie.”

“What about prints of whoever she bought it from?”

“Maybe he wore gloves.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Hey, it can happen.” Roland still hadn’t looked up from his screen. “He could be one of those rare drug dealers who hasn’t fried half his brain cells.”

“Okay, but one thumbprint and it conveniently belongs to the victim? I mean, how do you even hold a bag that way?”

Roland swiveled around in his chair. “Are you saying it’s a plant?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would someone plant coke in her car?”

“I don’t know. To throw off investigators, maybe? To confuse them about motive?”

Roland leaned back in his seat and laced his hands behind his head. “You’re the one who’s confused, Brooke. It’s the detectives’ job to figure out motive. You’re a trace-evidence examiner. You should worry about examining trace evidence. Full stop.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. They’d had this argument before. But Brooke couldn’t work a case—or couldn’t do her best work—unless she thought about the big picture. She discovered a lot more clues that way.

Roland grinned at her. “You’re trying to throw the whole case into a tailspin, aren’t you?”

“I’m not trying to throw anything into a tailspin. I’m trying to make sense of it. Her house is just as weird. No drugs there, either.”

“Maybe she only recently had a relapse.”

“We vacuumed the sofa, the chairs, the rug. We tape-lifted the tabletops. We swabbed the sinks. Nothing. All we found were some coffee grounds and a few dog hairs on the couch.”

“So, she wins the Good Housekeeping Award. So what?”

“No drugs in her purse. Not so much as an aspirin. But she did have three one-year sobriety chips from Alcoholics Anonymous.”

Roland shook his head. “You’re determined to make life complicated. Why do I bother?”

“Don’t you want to help solve the case?”

“Yes. By analyzing trace evidence. That’s my job. Let the detectives do theirs.”

Brooke sighed. “How’s that footwear impression coming?”

“I submitted it. Still waiting to hear back. It’s only a partial, so it takes longer.”

Maddie walked into the room. “Hey, I thought you guys would be gone by now.”