Page 84 of Night Hawk
“How are they?” Clay’s mom poured him a cup of coffee.
“Perfect as usual,” Clay said between bites.
She smiled, her face soft with the love that made him forget his frustration.
Toni swallowed her bite and picked up her mug. “Your rolls are really good, Mrs. Byrd.”
“Surely I told you to call me Peggy, but if I didn’t, please do.” His mother ran a hand over her hair. “I’m getting a bit scatterbrained with age.”
“Just a bit?” Their dad laughed.
She smiled and shook her head. “Okay, maybe more than a bit.”
She started to pour coffee for Erik but he put his hand over his cup. “I’m still wired from the op and Pong’s searches.”
Drake jabbed a finger at Erik’s plate. “But I see you’re not worried about the sugar making you hyper, considering you’re on your third roll. Not that I’m counting or anything.”
“Just trying to keep up with you, bro.” Erik grinned and took another bite.
His mom set down the pot and stopped behind Clay and kissed his head. “Must be some hard stuff you’re planning to view if you’re waiting for me to leave the room.”
She grabbed a small plate of rolls and went into the family room. He wasn’t sorry to see her go. Here he was, a former ICE agent, and his mother was kissing his head in front of a co-worker. Okay, fine more than a co-worker.
Toni leaned over to him. “I like how your mom cares for you all. My mom was like that too. I’d like to think if she’d lived that she would’ve been the same way.”
Toni’s sadness got to him, and he took her hand and held it on the table, not caring what anyone thought. But of course his mother picked that moment to come back to the kitchen for something.
“Um-hm,” she said and smiled broadly.
He wouldn’t touch that with the proverbial ten-foot pole. “Toni, why don’t you start with the most current folder, and I’ll take the next one in line. We might recognize something from our investigation.”
Clay put in his earbuds, made sure his screen was down so his mom couldn’t see, and opened the first video. He paused the file to take a screenshot of the girl’s face for their records and then named it with the date and time it had been recorded and told the others to do the same thing. Then he continued through the video looking for leads on location. The bed had the same decorative post, so he took a screenshot of that too and moved on. Once finished, he followed the same procedure for the other files. They had only a few more to go when the girl in the video, her eyes scrunched closed, tears on her cheeks, looked familiar.
He turned his computer to face Toni. “Look at this.”
“It’s Heidi,” Toni said.
She didn’t need to identify her as they both knew she was the girl who ratted out Hibbard and he’d had her killed. Problem was, they hadn’t been able to prove it.
Toni looked up. “If we’d had this when we tried to prosecute Hibbard for her death, he would’ve been behind bars, and we wouldn’t have tried to arrest Kraus that day. Maybe my dad would still be alive.”
“But seems like your dad was looking for Lisa, and he wouldn’t have stopped just because we arrested Hibbard. Plus, I think Kraus would’ve kept the business going.”
“True,” she said, a faraway look on her face.
“If Hibbard was serving time, you would never have found out about Lisa and your grandparents.”
She sat back. “I wonder if my dad would ever have told me about them.”
“Doesn’t seem likely, right?”
“Right.” Her voice broke, and her eyes were dull with pain.
Clay took her hand again.
She stared at their hands as if contemplating something big, then looked up. “Can I talk to you in private for a minute?”
“Sure.” He nodded at the deck. “How about outside? I could use some fresh air after this.”
