Page 18 of Night Watch
“Painful,” Kennedy said but didn’t belabor the point, as Erik was looking at her as if he took it personally that she’d been hurt on the dive.
Sierra grimaced. “I’ve had my share of injuries while working scenes, including animal bites, but never a turtle.”
Erik frowned at Kennedy. “I wish I could convince you to call it a day and get some rest.”
Kennedy ignored him and gingerly placed the fingers of her injured hand on the screen. Her behavior might be rude, but they’d already discussed resting due to the injury, and she’d told him she wasn’t going to be babied. Sure, she might have difficulty performing normal tasks without full use of her dominant hand, but she needed to be involved in this investigation, and if she knew Erik, he wouldn’t be going to bed. He would hunker down behind his computer and start researching.
Sierra looked at Erik. “You’re up.”
“That reallywasfast.” Erik rested his fingers on the screen.
“Beats the equipment you were used to seeing in PPB booking.” She faced her computer. “Okay. Perfect. Other hand.”
He switched. “Now tell me that you think you recovered some viable prints.”
“I lifted several latents from the table we think the suspect touched.” Sierra leaned back and looked at Kennedy. “Your mother’s prints would’ve been taken at her autopsy, but they wouldn’t include them in your copy. Means we’ll need another way to get them for elimination purposes.”
“I wonder if they’d release them if I made a request,” Kennedy said.
Sierra shook her head. “A detective would have access if we wanted to persuade them to ask. Still, I lifted a lot of similar prints at her house, and since she was the former resident, I think we can reasonably determine which ones are hers. But it won’t hold up in court, and we’ll need something official for that.”
“I wish I had connections around here so I could get them, but I don’t,” Kennedy said.
“We’ll need to get help from a detective,” Erik said. “I’ll check that out.”
“I recovered touch DNA, too,” Sierra said. “I’ve given it to Emory, and she’s rushing the tests for you.” Sierra put the reader back on the lower shelf. “She’ll have the results in twenty-four hours or so.”
Sierra looked up, a frown on her face.
“Why the frown?” Erik asked.
“I also recovered prints from the crowbar, but that or the DNA really does us no good. We can run them against our limited database, but we can only query law enforcement databases with official approval from law enforcement. As much as you want to keep this in-house, it’s time to get PPB involved.”
Erik groaned. “Odds are good that they’ll confiscate the evidence and not share the results.”
Kennedy stared at him. “So we could be left in the dark?”
“Yes.” He curled his fingers into fists at his sides. “If so, let’s pray that my prior service on the force can sway them our way.”
5
Kennedy had to get out of Sierra’s lab and do so now. Before she blurted out why she left Erik. Kennedy had always gotten along well with Sierra and confided in her in the past. But now? No. Kennedy couldn’t share why she’d left Erik, and the longer she stayed in the lab, the greater the odds that Kennedy would say something about witness protection.
Besides, Erik deserved to be the first to know. The break-in could be related to WITSEC so she had to tell him and not in front of his big sister. Or his brothers. Alone.
In the hallway and after the door closed soundly behind them, she faced him. “I need to talk to you before the meeting.”
He clenched his jaw. “That sounds ominous.”
“It’s about our breakup, and it could be relevant to what happened to my mom. Your brothers will need to know too, but I need to tell you first. You deserve that.” She didn’t know what she expected him to say or do, but his expression didn’t change at all.
“We can stop at my condo.” He gestured for her to precede him down the hallway to the elevator. On the way, she fired off a text to Finley to ask her to come over for the DNA and prints, and her sister replied right away.
Kennedy stowed her phone to board the elevator. “Finley will stop by before work, and I’ll also give her all the details then.”
“Perfect,” he said, but his mind seemed elsewhere. They were quiet until they reached his condo.
Once he had the door open, he looked at her. “I should warn you. I adopted a dog this year. I named him Pong. He’s very well trained and won’t bother you, but I’ll still take him to Drake’s place with me.”
