Page 17 of Night Watch
“Unless my mom had a guest who wore boots, which I doubt, it’s from my intruder.” At the thought of the threatening male standing over her with the gun while she was pinned and helpless, Kennedy’s legs went weak, and she dropped onto a nearby stool. “He wore combat boots. Khaki, I think. Large feet. So this matches.”
“And he was dressed in camo,” Erik added.
“Could be former military,” Sierra suggested. “Or a paid assassin.”
Kennedy gasped.
Erik ground his teeth, but he didn’t look surprised by the comment. “I agree on the military, but assassin? If so, he likely wouldn’t have given up on finding Kennedy and stayed to finish the job.”
Kennedy shuddered. “Maybe he saw you coming.”
“I was too far away.” Erik tilted his head. “Was your mom connected to any extremist groups?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Kennedy shook her head. “My mom was such a rule follower that she wouldn’t even consider driving a mile over the speed limit.”
Erik’s eyes narrowed. “Then we need to look into military connections.”
“I don’t know of any,” Kennedy said.
Erik stared over her head for a long moment before focusing on her again. “I don’t want to speak ill of your mother, but I do want you to keep an open mind about what we might locate in our searches. Everyone has secrets. Even our parents.”
Uncomfortable under his study, Kennedy moved her attention to Sierra. “I assume you’ll have your staff try to identify the boot make and size. Maybe we can narrow down suspects that way.”
“Not my staff. Not for you.” She planted her hands on the edge of the table. “I’ll do it personally.”
“But your leave.”
“Reed’s still on leave too, and I can easily run up to feed Asher when needed or if I can’t stand to be separated from him.” She grinned.
Kennedy never expected Sierra to do this for her, and maybe once she learned why Kennedy had broken up with Erik, she’d regret offering her time. “Thank you.”
“No problem. You’re family. Or almost were anyway.” Sierra jutted out her chin and looked up at Erik.
“What else do you have?” he asked, but his eyes had darkened.
She looked at Kennedy. “I lifted a single stray hair from under the table where you spotted the suspect. It doesn’t track with anyone in your family. Plus, I processed prints. Lots of them. But if our intruder’s a pro, not likely his prints. I need to take both of your prints for elimination purposes. Finley’s too. Also, Emory will need a DNA swab for you, Kennedy. She’s our DNA expert, and I might as well take it while you’re here. And Emory will need the same for Finley. If you could get her over here as soon as possible so we can get her DNA running and I can review the prints, that would be great.”
“They’re sisters,” Erik said. “Can’t you identify unknown samples by comparing to Kennedy’s profile?”
“Not really,” Sierra said. “Siblings share only about fifty percent of their genotype, so we need samples from both.”
“I’ll give her a call and get her over here as soon as possible,” Kennedy said.
“I’ll let my staff know to expect her, so if I’m not here, someone else can do the prints and swab.” Sierra reached under the table and lifted up a biometric fingerprint reader.
Kennedy recognized the model that was smaller than a toaster flipped on its side. The model tenprint and rolled fingerprint scanner provided liveness detection and was top-of-the-line. Not surprising. Everything Kennedy had seen so far was the best quality.
“Nice machine,” Kennedy said.
Sierra stroked it. “This baby is so new it’s almost a virgin. Put your fingers on the screen to see how the advanced optical system captures plain fingerprint images and rolled fingerprints. Takes only a second.”
Kennedy rested her fingers on the screen, and the prints instantly displayed on Sierra’s laptop screen.
“We good to print the hand with the turtle bite?” Sierra asked.
Kennedy held out her hand. “Bite is higher than the pads.”
“How’s it feeling?” Sierra asked.
