Fatal Secrets - Desiree Holt Page 0,28
time. If it was a pattern, then it would have been dumped after the next killing and the asshole grabbed a new car. No, I think there was some kind of DNA in there the killer didn’t want left. I’ll check NCIC to see if it might be, but my gut tells me no.”
“Which makes it personal,” she spat. “Which is what I thought all along.”
“If you can dig into that stuff,” Sean told him, “we’ll do the rest of it.” He looked at Zoe. “You and me.”
A warm feeling surged through her at his words.
“Wait just a minute.” Hank smacked his hand on the table. “You’re supposed to be keeping her safe, not dragging her into danger.”
“She’ll be safe. I promise you that.”
“Did you not hear what I said earlier about her not leaving the ranch?”
Sean chuckled, a rusty sound. “Tell me you don’t actually believe you can enforce that. You want me to protect Zoe, and I will. I’ll be sticking to her like a second skin. I’ve known her less than twenty-four hours, and I already know you can’t lock her up on the ranch until this gets settled. She’ll find a way to get off and by herself, if you try, which defeats the whole purpose.”
Zoe watched Hank wrestle with himself over this. Finally—and it was a battle—he nodded.
“Okay. But if even one hair on her head gets crinkled—”
Sean held up his hand. “It’s on my head, I get it. But take my word. That’s not going to happen.”
Zoe thought how interesting it was that for a man who was totally removed from everything at the start of this situation—or whatever the hell it was—and not even sure he wanted the “assignment,” he was now fully engaged and committed. Was it selfish of her to hope she personally had a little to do with that?
“And I’ll be keeping an eye on things, too, Hank,” Alex told him. “I’m going to start my own investigation so I’ll know if things are heating up. But I’m going to do it very quietly.”
“Fine.” Hank glared at her. “But home every night, and when the two of you leave to do anything, you make sure both Alex and I know about it.”
“Yes, Dad.” She touched his arm. “Look. I’m not stupid enough to deliberately put myself in danger. I obviously tripped somebody’s wire for them to send those two warnings. I’ll go over everything I’ve done for the past three days and be extra alert. And Sean will make sure of that. Okay?”
He gave one sharp nod.
“Good.” Alex rose from his chair. “Well, come on, everyone. Let’s get this fingerprint thing taken care of so we can get started.”
He did Zoe’s fingerprint first so they could run the ones Sean had brought against them and see if any could be eliminated. Out of the fourteen in the envelopes, eight of them were Zoe’s, which didn’t help them much. She watched as Alex ran the rest of them through AFIS—the national Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Two of them came back unknown, but the other four got hits.
“Well, well, well.” He stared at the computer screen in front of him.
“Good news or bad?” Zoe was almost afraid to ask.
“Both. Maybe. One of these is what I call a nickel and dimer. Picks up spare change doing odd nasty jobs for nastier people. Ronnie Destin. We’ll get the word out on him.”
“Is he from around this area?” Hank wanted to know.
“Mostly these three counties. He’s slippery so we might need some time tracking him down, but we’ll get him.” He looked at the prints again. “Of course, it’s been discovered that fingerprints aren’t necessarily as specific as we’d like. A report published by the US National Institute of Justice concluded that automated systems are significantly less accurate than well-trained examiners. But at least it gives us a place to start.”
“And the other one?” Zoe asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“That’s a little more difficult. The prints are barely legible. Not enough to make an identification, for sure.”
“So now what?”
“First thing,” Alex said, after exchanging glances with the other two men, “is to pick up Ronnie Destin and see what we can squeeze out of him. If his half a brain is working, I’m sure he’s not hanging around here close to us, so I’ll put the word out to neighboring counties. No other prints to check at the moment?”
“No.” Sean shook his head.
“Okay. I’m going to quietly put some feelers out and see