Justice Delayed (Memphis Cold Case #1)(52)

Andi refocused on the top drawer, where she found a sheet of paper with a list of items and serial numbers, and she scanned it. Laptop, tablet, printer, cell phone, TV. In the margins were notes where Lacey had contacted technical support for the printer. Andi needed to make herself a similar list—she always had to look up a serial number whenever she called for technical support.

Twenty minutes later, energy surged through her as endorphins released in her brain. That’s what she’d been waiting for. She reached for the square wicker basket on the corner of the desk. Her heart kicked up a beat as she realized the basket was where Lacey kept her writing supplies.

She picked up a pale blue box with a ribbon around it. Inside was light blue stationery, just like what was in the fireplace . . . and maybe Jimmy’s letter. She imagined Lacey sitting at the desk writing letters. Would she take out several sheets or one at a time?

Several, she decided, and examined the top sheet. Sometimes people pressed hard enough that impressions were left on the underlying paper, but this sheet looked clean.

She’d read about the technique of shining light across stationery at a low angle. Supposedly, it created shadows on the paper. There had been a flashlight in one of the drawers. Andi found it, then looked for a spot in the room with low lighting. She tried it, and her shoulders slumped. The stationery was smooth as satin. Maybe Lacey was like Andi and didn’t like to use the first sheet of a tablet. She tried the second sheet.

A minute later, Andi caught her breath when letters appeared under the light. Her heart leaped into her throat as she made out a name. Jimmy.

“Will! Brad! You better come here. I think I found something.”

As she moved the light over the paper, more words appeared, but many were unreadable—as words seemed to be superimposed on other words. Still, Jimmy’s name was plain. He’d been telling the truth about Lacey writing him.

“What’d you find?” Will asked as he came from the office.

“This.” Andi pointed to the stationery. “It’s blue, like the paper Brad found in the fireplace. And watch this.”

She shined the light across the sheet again, and Will leaned forward. She couldn’t keep from grinning when he caught his breath.

He straightened up and grabbed her in a bear hug. “There was a letter!”

“What are you talking about?” Brad asked as he joined them.

Will pointed to the stationery as the doorbell rang. “Proof that Lacey wrote to Jimmy. Show him,” he said over his shoulder as he walked to the front door. “Or wait. David’s here, and you won’t have to go over it twice.”





18


THE MEN SHOOK HANDS, and then David cocked his head toward Andi. “Doing a story on this case for tonight’s news?” he asked, sliding a questioning gaze at Brad.

“No, she’s not,” Will said quickly.

“Actually,” Andi said, “Director Kennedy approved me being here. I’m putting together a documentary for WLTZ on cold cases, and I believe this case may be linked to my sister’s death. I found something that I was about to show Brad.”

“Then by all means, continue,” the lieutenant said.

Once again Andi shined the flashlight so the letters appeared. All three men bent over to look.

“I took a photo of it, and if we had a printer, we could print it out.”

“I have a better idea,” Will said. “We have equipment downtown that will take care of deciphering what’s on the paper.”

“But the long and short of it is,” David said, “it looks like Lacey Wilson wrote your cousin a letter.”

“That was stolen,” Andi said.

“And the person who may have stolen it is lying in an ICU bed fighting for his life,” Will added. One look at Brad’s face told him he didn’t agree with the direction they were headed.

“Where are your facts?” Brad said. “The guard probably just had an accident, and Wilson’s death may be a suicide. And even if she wrote Jimmy a letter saying he didn’t kill Stephanie, with her problems, she may have been lying.”

“Believe what you want,” Will said. “But I think Lacey Wilson was killed to shut her up. Same thing with the guard, only he hasn’t died yet.”

“Can I make a suggestion?” David said.

Brad and Will turned to him.

“Can we go over what we do know?”

“Here?” Brad asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Will said. “Why don’t we sit at the kitchen island?”

Brad rubbed his jaw. “Andi’s not a cop, and I don’t like her being involved. It’s too easy for civilians to get hurt in an investigation.”

“Get over it,” Andi said.

David handed Brad his phone. “I just checked my email, and this is from the director. You’ll have to take it up with him.”

As they gathered around the island, Will swallowed a grin that Brad wouldn’t appreciate. He was certain Andi was hiding one as well when she bent over her purse.

Andi pulled several sheets of paper out. “I talked to Maggie again, and she’d gotten the name of the psychologist Lacey was seeing. I added it to this list I compiled with the names and addresses of people Lacey and Stephanie were involved with,” she said. “I’m sure the psychologist won’t talk to me, but I plan to interview the others for the documentary. You’re welcome to come along. Saturday Maggie and I are going to look up Jillian.”