Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
Amanda and Trent split up the two case files.
He took Paul Archer, and she worked on Abigail McGee.
There still wasn’t any word from the lab on the results of the blood in that room, or even an update on that blue fabric found near Paul’s body.
She could follow up with CSI Blair, as Amanda heard she and Donnelly were working today, but if they had something, they would have called her.
After all, they were committed to finding the Archers and locking Hernandez up for life too.
As Amanda sat looking at a photo of Abigail from the crime scene, she focused on the gunshot wound. Her earlier epiphany crystalized. She set the picture down, got on her computer, and started typing.
All they had to do was build a case against Hernandez, and they’d get a search warrant for his home.
He might finally see that his power was limited and want to make a deal.
A lighter sentence for information on where the Archers were.
It might be the only way she could get the evil monster behind bars.
She found a slew of felony charges brought against him that made it to trial and reviewed the associated court files. After a couple of hours, pages deep into a trial from fifteen years ago, she found something. “Trent, come here.”
He joined her in her cubicle. “Success?”
“I’m not sure, but there’s this…” She pointed at her screen.
Trent leaned in to read the court’s transcript and was pulling back a few minutes later.
“Oh.” He faced her, putting their noses mere inches apart.
A waft from his woodsy cologne caught her off guard.
But it didn’t seem she was the only one impacted by how close they were. Trent was deep-diving in her eyes.
He has to feel this too, right? She tried to free herself from the pull she felt toward him.
No one was around. There was nothing standing between them except for Kelsey and Carter and the jobs they wanted to keep…
their partnership. Her heart was racing.
The memories of kissing Trent in the past were resurrected and breathing fresh air.
Push it aside! She faced the screen. “Right, so he walked from murder charges, but he was accused of killing a man with an HK45. And they take…”
“Forty-five-caliber ammo,” they said together.
Trent cleared his throat and stood to full height. “Anything more said about the gun?”
She brought up the logged evidence and scanned through. “Just that an HK45 was recovered, but ballistics could not match it to the round in the victim. But what if there’s a clue in all of this for us? Does he prefer an HK45? Or, in the least, a gun that fires forty-five-caliber ammo?”
“I’d love to say we got Hernandez, but we’re still a long way off.”
Amanda knew he was right and slumped back in her chair. All they needed was for something to break. They all knew Hernandez was a killer, that he’d either disposed of the Archers’ bodies or he was keeping them alive and captive somewhere. The latter preferred, the former more likely.
“Every minute that goes by…” Trent snapped his mouth shut.
“I know. It feels less and less likely we’ll find them alive.”
“It does, but we can’t dwell on that. So I was thinking while rereading the Paul Archer file that Hernandez’s house isn’t that far down the road from where his body was dumped.”
She sat up straighter, curious where he was going with this. “Right…?”
“Why don’t we go back out to Haymarket, have a look around? We’re at a standstill anyhow.”
“K-9 searched the Manning property.”
“It might be worth revisiting. It’s possible he had them taken there after killing Abigail. We don’t need to assume they’re dead either. He might be holding them someplace where he doesn’t think they’ll be found.”
She found it hard to decide which would be worse.
When she didn’t respond, Trent met her eye. “Want to go for a drive?”
She sprung up from her chair. There was no way they could get the K-9 unit out to search the entire countryside.
It wasn’t even realistic. That would be a fishing expedition.
There was just too much ground to cover.
But for two detectives seeing through a hunch…
? She and Trent didn’t need approval to go out and take a look, and it was better than sticking around here feeling powerless.