“Clue in, Shiloh, I’m not going. You had a shit week, mine hasn’t been much better, I’m starving, my brain hurts from reading reports all day, yours likely hurts worse. We’ll eat and veg out. Watch a mindless movie and relax.”
My brain did hurt. Sitting on the couch staring at the TV not thinking sounded heavenly. And if I weren’t so scared of Luke it would sound even better doing that next to him. But I was scared of him. He had the power to dismantle the carefully crafted fortress I’d built around myself. Hell, who was I kidding? He’d already ripped it apart, going straight to the foundation I’d laid and the rest crumbled down.
“Why was your week shit?” I asked.
“It started with a group of new three-gun shooters that were there for training but knew it all because they’d spent a shit ton of money on guns and gear. Collectively, they might’ve had a thousand rounds downrange. I had to listen to all the lingo until my ears were bleeding. This lasted nearly an hour. Then one of the guys explained to me how a reflex sight worked. Thank God, Brady’s back from his honeymoon and he can take his classes back over. I don’t know how he does it.”
Three-gun was a competition shooting sport. I’d never competed but for training, we ran some of the same drills, alternating between handgun, rifle, and shotgun. When my team trained we didn’t go for speed the way a competition shooter would; we trained for accuracy.
“Let me guess; the guy had a red dot on his shotgun.”
“Yep. He swore up and down his target acquisition was faster and more accurate than my iron sights. Ten minutes later he learned differently.”
I smiled against his shirt, picturing a disgruntled Luke with a shotgun.
“That doesn’t sound like a fun day on the range,” I noted.
“It wasn’t, and the rest of the week sucked, too. Only good part about it was I drove to Montgomery and got prints to run on the Harpers’ contractor.”
“You went to Alabama?”
Why did the thought of Luke driving out of state and me not knowing he was gone give me a weird feeling?
“Yep. Jeff Shepard moved there. His prints aren’t in the system and I needed something to run against the prints in Becca’s room.”
I didn’t know much about the case. I wasn’t a cop when the little girl was murdered, but being as it was still an ongoing investigation, I knew a little.
“You think the contractor did it?”
“I think Detective Winshaw was hamstrung by the chief who was too worried about the media. Winshaw did what he was told and hit the parents hard. I haven’t cleared the dad, but Jeff Shepard had access to the houses—the abduction site and the vacant rental that served as the dumpsite. Keys to both places. Shepard’s wife left him six months before and took their seven-year-old daughter with her down to Savannah. Stephanie was six. The girls were both small for their ages, with brown hair and brown eyes. I talked to a man who worked for Shepard back then. He said Jeff was undone when his wife left him. Wife was cheating on him with his business partner. Barely functioning.”
“But prints and DNA would be expected in both houses. What’s to gain confirming that?”
“Jeff Shepard swears he was never in Becca’s room. There’s a set of unknown prints on her nightstand, on the inside of her bedroom door, and a partial on the inside knob. If I can prove he was in that room, Ethan can get him back into interrogation. My guess is, Ethan won’t take it as easy on Shepard as Winshaw did.”
“Ethan doesn’t take it easy on anyone in interrogation. I’ve never seen it but word is he’s so good even the older detectives watch him.”
“Might have something to do with who his dad is and some old Army techniques his uncles taught him.”
“Unfair advantage.” I laughed.
“What are we ordering for dinner?” Luke asked and tension sprang up fast. “Babe, I skipped lunch. I’m starved and I wanna sit and relax. What are we ordering?”
“What are my chances of talking you into going home and getting dinner on your own?”
“None.”
Damn.
Okay. Maybe I can do this. I made it through talking about his week while in his arms and didn’t spontaneously combust. Surely I could sit next to him and share a meal.