Chapter 29
Kipp
“So, where do you want to start?”
Hattie had come out of the cabin with a little skip in her step, looking so perfect in the sunshine that I would have taken a picture if she hadn’t been staring right at me.
My head was filled with images of her last night after she realized that I’d come inside her, those eyes still a little dazed from her orgasm, her cheeks flushed, and her hair loose around her shoulders.
It was a pretty big mistake to not have a condom on, one I’d never made before.
I always took precautions. The one long-term relationship I’d had, I’d never even considered going ungloved.
The very thought would have petrified me to my core.
Marisa had been selfish and vain, and I’d always known she wouldn’t make a good mother.
Hattie, on the other hand… I slid my eyes over to her.
She was loyal and fierce. She loved hard.
I admired that. It hadn’t escaped my notice that she hadn’t run out for the morning-after pill.
She hadn’t seemed so freaked out by the thought last night either, and that surprised me more than anything.
“Where to, Trouble?” I was already opening the door to my Jeep for her. We needed to be back for dinner, but wherever she wanted to go, we’d make it back no problem. She bit her lip, looking at her SUV indecisively for a minute. “You want to take your car?”
“No, let me just get something real quick.” She handed me her water and what looked like a couple of crappy granola bars and jogged over to her car for what looked like a tackle box. “Here’s my kit.”
Nodding, I took it from her and put it in the back on the floor without comment, even though I was dying to see what it had in it.
I was assuming she meant it was her evidence-collecting kit, and I wouldn’t bother mentioning that all that stuff was already in the Jeep.
My job was varied, and there could be times when we needed to collect evidence on site.
I also didn’t want to argue with her about disrupting crime scenes. One step at a time.
“Come on, boy.” Fish had been running between the two of us, pressing his body as close to Hattie’s as he could, herding against her legs and being a nuisance as she tried to get into the front seat.
“You’re back here, boy. Come on. Up!” He wiggled as I caught him mid-leap, trying to circumvent the back and clamoring onto Hattie’s lap.
“I wouldn’t have minded.” She reached a hand back to rub his nose. “He’s a good boy.”
Hattie sat beside me, her bag pulled tightly against her legs, the thick braid hanging over her shoulder as we headed down the gravel road toward town.
She was wearing those sexy denim shorts of hers that exposed her tanned legs in all of their glory and the cowboy boots that drove me crazy, looking like a knockout.
“He would have loved that, but he would have scratched up those gorgeous thighs.” Settling a hand on her smooth skin, I angled us towards town. “Where to today?” I expected to hear that she wanted to go to the vista area where Allison’s car was found, but she surprised me.
“There’s a tow yard in Briar Falls. Kennard Wreckers? You know of it? I have the address if you need it.”
“No, I know where it is.” Clearing my throat, my mind spun with all the information that Rhodes had given me and how to come clean with her. Instead, I asked, “How was your meeting?”
She gave an amused snort. “You don’t want to know why we’re going to the wrecking yard?”
I had a pretty good guess that we were headed there for something I wasn’t going to like very much.
Kennard’s was contracted by the Briar Falls PD, which probably meant that Hattie wanted a look at Allison’s car.
Her crew had clocked that the car hadn’t been processed, and maybe even what Rhodes had mentioned.
Curiosity was hitting me pretty hard, but so was the matter that there was no good reason for me to be anywhere near a vehicle that was part of a criminal investigation.
I was treading on thin ice in more ways than one.
My conscience battled with itself for a few minutes. “You know how to process a car?”
“I do, but I really am just there for a small sample of the seat. In the photo, there’s something that looks like blood.” She shifted a little in the car next to me. “This is a different sort of case …” She cast a look over at me that was filled with uncertainty, as if she was deciding to trust me.
“Because you think Chief Galloway is dirty?”
This was all about to get really sticky if she was right about this. Wade and I had already discussed the next step, which was to call my buddy at OSP who worked in Criminal Investigations. He could reopen the Allison Finch case, but I really wanted to bring it to him with a little more teeth.
“We do. But there are issues with that because we usually work on our cases and then hope to regain the local police’s interest so they’ll reopen it. I know you don’t understand how we operate, but I have a group I work with that helps me with the back-end stuff.”
I kept my mouth shut and made a noise that could be taken as an acknowledgment of sorts, feeling worse by the second.
Rhodes had given me the run-down on her team, so if anything, I was pretty familiar.
Geez, I felt like a dick. There was no way that I wasn’t going to have to confess that I’d done a full background on her. It was the right thing to do.
“We’ve handled cases where we knew the victim didn’t get the attention they deserved, but never where I thought the entire department was corrupt. This is a bit different. Or it could be.”
“At Kennard’s, you’re looking for Allison’s car?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t processed at all, and my team and I saw something in the picture that is pretty suspicious.”
Fish pushed his whole head between our seats and settled happily between us, licking her arm every once in a while for good measure. “Does it bother you? I can drop him real quick with Sage or East.”
“Fish? No way.” She bent so he could reach her cheek. “I love all the kisses.”
Hattie cooed to him and told Fish what a good dog he was, scratching his head while she fussed over him. I loved the way she genuinely adored animals. It said a lot to me about who she was on the inside.
“All the kisses?” Heat shot through me. Maybe I could find a secluded spot and give her even more. Her thighs clenched, and I knew she was thinking along the same lines. “You like that thought? Me on my knees for you?”
“Maybe.” She tangled her fingers with mine. “You’ll have to prove it later, or maybe I’ll get on my knees for you.” Her lashes fluttered over at me, and I thought about pulling over right now, but we weren’t even through Wildwood Meadows yet.
“You’re going to have me rock hard all day.
Trouble, I tell you.” I gave a wink, but moved my hand back to the wheel as we pulled onto the main road toward Briar Falls, so I kept the Jeep on the road where it belonged.
She smirked back, knowing she’d gotten to me.
“Alright, let’s talk about this car situation from a law enforcement angle and reopening the case.
” Clearing my throat, I tried to gather my thoughts a bit.
“There’s a friend I could go to with the State Police who works in Criminal Investigations.
If there’s enough for him to reopen the case, he could do it.
If the car wasn’t processed properly, you’ll see it in the paperwork.
There’s that stain in the photograph, and with the other things you found that could tip him over. ”
“Yeah? You think so? It isn’t very convenient to work around cops with the podcast, but in the end, what we want is justice. That’s why we do it. If he’d reopen the case, that’s what I want. Nobody really looked for her.” She swallowed hard.
We were about ten minutes from the wrecking yard, and I really wanted us to agree not to go in because once we did, it would create another problem.
If she tampered with evidence, it could become an issue.
It might contaminate anything there that could be found.
If I was going to call Casper, it couldn’t involve me aiding and abetting.
“Why don’t you give me the rundown on what you have, and then we’ll pull over so I can call him. If there’s a chance of him bringing a forensic team to go over the car…”
“Right. We could mess that up.” She nodded, chewing on her bottom lip as she thought it over. “I was going to send a sample over to a lab tech we know, but it’d be best if a real forensic team came in. Let me tell you what we know so far.”
I listened while she caught me up on what they had uncovered so far, and to say I was blown away was an understatement.
Hattie’s team, which she affectionately called her ‘squad,’ wasn’t messing around.
They had even gone so far as to run full background checks on every person who had volunteered for the search and rescue, then cross-referenced them for commonalities.
Apparently, that was something they typically did.
It was a massive undertaking, but Hattie shrugged and said that one of her guys had an app he’d coded for it.
Most of what they did wasn’t legal by any stretch.
Ninety percent, but I didn’t bother saying so.
Hell, I’d had Rhodes run a search on Hattie, and I didn’t have cause.
Some of what they did was definitely a little more suspect than others.
They had information I wasn’t sure how they’d gotten, but I might leave some of that out.
Chewing on the facts of the case and what I knew of Galloway, I considered my pitch that I’d need to make for Casper.
He owed me a favor, but nobody liked to step into a puddle of shit, which was what this was going to be.
Still, whatever happened to Allison was more important than my feelings or Casper’s.
Hattie had a case here, and she’d followed good instincts.
Now I needed to make sure that OSP stepped in as much as they could.
Just as we entered Briar Falls, I found a spot and pulled over. “Okay. I’m going to make a call.” I gave her a stern look. “You’re not here. No matter what.”
Hitting dial on Casper’s contact, I let it ring. It was a Sunday, but Casper had no social life, so I was pretty sure he’d answer. The guys always gave him shit about it, but Casper was a great cop.
“I thought you forgot my number,” he deadpanned.
“I thought you forgot mine.” It had been maybe two months since I invited him fishing, and he’d declined.
“Maybe I did. What’s up? Did you need help cutting down a tree?” Hattie looked like she was about to start laughing at any second.
“Why does everyone always think I just cut down trees because I mill my own damn lumber? It’s responsible forestry.” I threw a hand through my hair and rolled my eyes at Hattie. “I’m actually calling about work if you have a minute.”
“What you got?”
“Well, I have a tenant at my cabins now.” I let Casper give me the necessary ribbing while Hattie listened, a red flush creeping up the back of my neck. “Anyway … she’s the host of The J it was his investigator voice. He wanted facts. “Tell me about this case.”
Starting with the basics, I reviewed Allison Finch’s disappearance and her relationship with her husband. Then I went over the bank account, the cam work, and her last known movements.
“Seems skimpy. What do the locals say?”
“Well, the local chief of police is Dale Galloway, and he doesn’t always color in the lines if you get my drift. I won’t be the first to throw stones, and generally he does his job, but this time around the car didn’t even get processed.” Casper gave a low whistle. “And he didn’t call in SAR.”
“Connection to the victim on the cam site?” he asked.
“I’m wondering, but there is some…” I cleared my throat. “Alleged information that the son did some chatting on the cam site behind a fake profile. Also, the son, Barry Galloway, is friends with the victim’s husband.”
This was a hot mess from a legal perspective.
The information on the cam site all needed to go through proper channels.
It wasn’t admissible. Casper went ahead to say as much, and then added, “But the car … the car is a starting point. If the podcast has started to open this can of worms, then let’s use that.
She already kicked the hornet’s nest, so I’ll get a team to pick up the car. Where’s it at?”
I gave him the specifics for Kennard’s and let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “Thank you, Casper. I really appreciate it.”
“Man, isn’t that what we’re here for? If this woman’s case didn’t get the fair look it deserved, then it’s our job to make sure it does, even if it pisses some people off. Fuck this guy. If he didn’t do his paperwork, that’s too bad, and if he did worse, then he gets what he deserves.”
Hattie was practically vibrating in her seat next to me, joy glowing as she had an arm thrown over Fish and her eyes shining. I had wondered throughout the conversation if she would be upset that her investigation was being preempted by OSP, but she looked thrilled.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“I’ll keep you posted, and hey. I want to meet her.”
I laughed. “You couldn’t even keep her away, but I’m guessing if you listened to her podcasts, you already know that. Talk to you later, man.”