Chapter 18
Jordan dialed one of his HRT colleagues, Seth Hopper, as he jogged across campus toward the National Laboratory building.
“S’up?” Hopper answered sounding breathless.
“What’s the name of Zoe’s friend, the hot forensic scientist?”
“Coco Monserrat. Why? One woman not enough for you?”
Jordan caught the caustic edge to Hopper’s tone and bristled. “You talking about Daisy?”
“I thought something was up between you two last month.” Disapproval dripped from his friend’s tongue.
Jesus. He couldn’t explain the truth on a cell phone. And it was better if the guys believed the two of them were an item, for now. He went with flippant. “You can’t help who you fall for—”
“There’s a code, Jordan. You mess with family, you break the code.”
Even though the words coming out of Hopper’s mouth reflected Jordan’s own values and beliefs, they sounded like old-fashioned bullshit coming from someone else. Daisy was rubbing off on him. “Maybe she messed with me.”
“You couldn’t fight her off?” Hopper huffed. It sounded like he was working out.
“The same way you fought Zoe off when you were her bodyguard?”
The silence on the other end of the line told him he’d struck a nerve.
But Seth was the one standing in a glass house with a brick in each hand.
Jordan wasn’t afraid to shatter a few windows, but he’d rather find Bocharov and stop a potential terrorist threat than untangle the mixed feelings and emotions he had regarding Daisy.
“Ackers tell you what’s going on?”
“Yeah. I called Zoe and told her to cancel her upcoming visit. The last thing I want is to put her in danger.”
“Copy that.” Jordan was at the lab now. The sun was starting to set, sending cool white rays through the thin gray clouds reflecting off the wall of windows. Urgency scraped along his nerves like fire ants on the hunt.
“You really think it’s the guy who killed your family?” Hopper’s voice was soft now. Ackers had obviously filled them in on everything.
“Yeah.” Jordan braced himself for sympathy.
“Let us know when we can help bring this motherfucker down. You don’t have to do this one alone, no matter what anyone tells you, comprende?”
Gratitude caught him at the back of the throat. They’d gone from bickering to willing to die for one another in the space of a minute. Because that’s what family did.
“Comprende.”
“Watch your back. And keep both eyes on Ms. Montana.” Dark amusement laced Seth’s voice. Less judgment, more acceptance. “She’s a slippery one.”
Seth was right about that. Jordan hung up and pressed the buzzer to be allowed entry to the laboratory building. At the desk, he asked for Dr. Monserrat and waited. Five minutes later, the elevator opened and a beautiful woman with light brown skin and curious deep brown eyes came over to meet him.
They shook hands as he introduced himself. “I need to find evidence from an old case and have it re-examined for DNA. Tonight. It’s urgent.”
Curiosity turned to disappointment. “I’m afraid that’s not how it works. You can’t just walk in here—”
“Wait”—he thrust his cell at her—“talk to the director.”
Coco took the phone in surprise and stared at the screen.
Jordan stood behind her shoulder. “Director Rhodes, I need you to authorize Dr. Monserrat to rerun the DNA from the original sample for the case we’re working.”
The director tilted her head to one side.
“I want to examine the material and make sure it’s what I actually submitted then compare it to the other samples.”
The director squinted and then nodded slowly. “Get to work. I’ll send the order through in the next five minutes, but don’t wait.”
“I’m a forensic anthropologist.” Coco didn’t look impressed with either of them.
“Do you know how to run the DNA samples?” the Director demanded.
“Yes,” the skin between her brows puckered, “but far better for me to find one of the scientists who are experts in their field and intimately familiar with the equipment we have here if you want it fast and accurate.”
“Then find one,” the director ordered and hung up.
Jordan winced. “Sorry for the dramatics.”
Reluctant amusement danced in her eyes. “No, you’re not. Come on. We’ll pull the evidence and see who’s still in the lab. What’s the case number?”
Jordan reeled it off from memory.
They headed down in the elevator to a temperature-controlled room. Coco sauntered—the movement was too sinuous to describe as simply walking—over to the woman who sat at the counter.
“Hey, girl. What can I do for ya?”
“We’d like the evidence boxes for…” She turned and looked at him expectantly, and he repeated the case number.
The woman punched it in and then disappeared through a glass door and came back with a paper envelope with a sign-out sheet printed on the back. The tech made Coco sign for it.
They turned to leave when he checked the back of the envelope and then asked, “When was the last time this was checked out according to your records?”
The woman went back to her computer. Peered at the screen.
“It was only ever checked out once by Dr. Nygen who retired a couple of years ago now. Lovely man. He had it for a week to run DNA.” She peered over her reading glasses.
“He had a tendency to bring everything back at the end of the week in one go, rather than go back and forth.”
“Thank you.”
He followed Coco up to her office, where she offered him a clean lab coat, and they both donned surgical gloves, hair covers, and face masks.
Sexy, it wasn’t. Then he followed her into a pristine DNA laboratory packed with machines and fume hoods.
Two other scientists worked in the far corner of the room.
Coco walked over, as they eyed him with curiosity.
“Either of you two have time to help me out? I’ve been ordered by the director herself to get this DNA sample run ASAP. I did explain I was a forensic anthropologist and should ask an actual expert.”
They shared a joint eye roll.
One woman checked her watch. “Sorry, I have to go straight from here to pick up my kids from soccer practice.”
The bigger woman crossed her arms over her ample chest. “The director, huh?”
Jordan pressed his lips together. “It’s important.”
“Most of the cases we examine are from murder cases or sexual assaults. What’s more important than that?”
“This is.” Jordan held her flat, brown gaze.
She relented and huffed out a sigh. “Fine, I’m Dr. Espuna.
Let’s have a look at what we’ve got, shall we?
” She donned fresh gloves, sprayed down the surface inside a fume hood with alcohol solution, dried it off, and then laid down a sterile plastic tray.
She carefully shook the envelope until a piece of bloodied material fell out.
It was a hand-sewn, white linen handkerchief that had yellowed around the edges with age.
An elaborate J and K were embroidered into one corner.
White on white. Each stitch sown with love.
A small hole showed where a portion of the material had been cut out.
“Excellent. Snot and blood.” Espuna smiled.
“You collected this?” Coco watched him carefully.
He fought the unexpected reaction at seeing that old hanky.
Cleared his throat. “Yeah. A fight started in a club, one of many, and some guy clocked Bocharov.” Konrad’s last name was on the envelope beneath the file number, so it wasn’t as if he were revealing information the scientists didn’t already know.
“I thought the bouncer was going to crap his pants, but luckily for me—I was the bouncer—it turns out Bocharov enjoyed a good fight. Bocharov punched the other guy, but the offender was smart enough not only to bolt, but to get the hell out of town. I offered Bocharov the clean handkerchief I had in my pocket.”
“Did you arrange the fight?” Coco asked, amusement in her tone.
He smiled. “Lucky for me, I didn’t need to that time.”
“Your DNA is possibly still on here, as is potentially the other man involved in the fight.”
“Yeah, his DNA is in the system as he ended up doing time for assault with a deadly weapon in Minnesota. My grandmother’s DNA is probably on there too. She sewed the handkerchief for me.”
“Can we get an elimination sample from her?”
“No.” Memories of strong, soft hands that had baked a thousand loaves of bread and eyes crinkled with a concertina of laughter lines surrounding them flowed over him with a mix of love and grief. “She’s gone.”
The loss hit him anew.
He had so few physical reminders left of any of them that, when he saw one, it snapped his head back like the perfect uppercut.
The fire had destroyed everything. All the seemingly inconsequential things from kitchen utensils to well-thumbed family recipe books.
He had some photographs. A favorite mug.
A blanket his mother had knitted him. A medallion his sister had gifted him one birthday.
A few letters they’d written to him while he’d been deployed overseas.
That was it. That was the sum of all the generations of his family’s history. The rest had been reduced to ash.
The knowledge that his grandmother’s DNA mingled with that of the man who’d ordered her death repulsed him, but he pushed the emotion away. She’d been a practical woman, his baba. She’d have understood. “I assume you’ll be able to compare her DNA to my DNA profile which is on file.”
Lines gathered between Dr. Espuna’s brows as Coco pulled up the online profile. “I don’t really understand why I need to run it again. Dr. Nygen already got the FBI a sample that is in the system, and the case is closed, correct?”
“Whether the case is closed or not depends very much on your results. I need to know if whatever’s in the FBI’s system is the same as what’s on that handkerchief.”
Espuna turned sharply to face him. “You think the samples might have gotten mixed up?”
Did he lie?
“Or someone got inside your system and switched them out.”
She shook her head. “Impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible.” He held her gaze.