Page 16 of Night Watch
She tossed him a bath towel.
“Thanks. I washed everything off and stored it, then locked the closet,” he told her before he made a huge mistake and complimented her on how well those jeans fit her curves.
“Thank you.”
His focus went to the white gauze she’d wrapped around her hand. “Does it hurt much?”
“Yeah, but that’s not going to stop me from finding my mom’s killer. Nothing will.”
And there it was. The thing he hadn’t been able to put his finger on while she was diving. The thing that had him pacing the deck. The thing that he had to figure a way to work around or he might just fail her when she needed him most.
Kennedy flexed her hand in Erik’s truck, cinnamon air freshener spicing up the air. Why she wanted to move her fingers, she didn’t know. The wound hurt like crazy, and moving it only made it worse. Maybe she believed she deserved some pain. Perhaps as a consequence of hurting Erik. She’d always known she’d hurt him, but knowing it and seeing his pain were two different things.
Please help him to heal.
“Home sweet home,” he said as he turned intothe Veritas Center parking lot.
Kennedy had always wanted to tour the Veritas lab but with Sierra on staff, Kennedy had stayed away. How she hadn’t heard about Nighthawk Security forming and officing out of the place was a small miracle with the way news traveled in law enforcement circles.
She was curious enough to drive by the building before, so evenif Erik hadn’t told her about the two towers gleaming in the moonlight, she would’ve known what to expect. They rose up into the night, two columns of hope for people seeking answers about parentage and relatives, and hope for law enforcement officers desperate for leads to close their investigations. A skybridge connected the towers at the top as did a building on the ground floor. But Erik didn’t park in the lot out front. He wound his truck up the ramp to the sixth floor of the parking structure.
He got out without a word and opened the door to the building by pressing his fingers on a biometric reader mounted outside the door, then took her down to the lobby to get a security pass before boarding the elevator again to join Sierra in her lab.
“You weren’t kidding about security here,” she said as he punched the button for the fourth floor where the trace evidence lab was located.
“The Veritas staff needs tight security to protect evidence,” he said. “And also people who don’t get the answers they were expecting with DNA can sometimes get out of hand.”
“I can imagine.”
“Just remember to wear the pass at all times and don’t go anywhere in the building without one of us escorting you.”
She nodded her understanding and they fell silent for the ride.
In the hallway, she glanced around, impressed with what she could see through lab windows. “I’ve always wanted to tour this place. We keep hearing people compare the labs here to ours, and you know we’re the best.”
He feigned an exaggerated gasp and turned to look at her. “Don’t let anyone around here hear you say that.” The playful grin she could hardly resist spread across his face again, and her heart somersaulted.
Great.She’d meant to waylay the lingering tension, and she had. At least outwardly, but not in her heart.
Not seeming at all affected by having her nearby, he led her to the back of the building, where a sign mounted on the wall readTrace Evidence and Fingerprint Analysis.
More fingertips pressed on a reader, and he opened the door then stood back. “After you.”
She entered the spacious lab, the air tainted with a chemical smell despite what she knew had to be high-priced exhaust hoods. She stopped just inside the door to take a good look at Sierra’s set up. The top-of-the-line equipment lining the walls and sitting on counters so fascinated Kennedy that she forgot all about the pain in her hand. She was surprised she wasn’t drooling.
She shifted to take in the stainless steel lab tables filling the middle of the room, where techs wearing lab coats hunkered over them even at this time of night.
Sierra sat behind the table closest to the wall and waved them over. “Glad you could come by.”
“Wow.” Kennedy approached. “This placeisas high tech as the FBI lab. I thought the gossip was exaggerated.”
“Of course not.” Sierra grinned, looking very much like Erik.
“You have something for us yet?” Erik asked.
“A few things.” Sierra grabbed a black gel lifter like the ones Kennedy often used. The high-quality elastic sheet of rubber had a low-adhesive gelatin layer on one side made especially for lifting latent prints and dust impressions.
Sierra shone a bright light on the lifter to display a subtle dusty footprint. “I lifted a few of these prints from the deck surface before the rain hit. They’re likely from male boots, size twelve or so.”
