“Head of Dynever Security. The main reason I had the party, for you and him to meet.”
He was mad after all. What she was about to say would make him a lot madder. “About that.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to get them involved.”
“Because of the chain of custody? Is that what’s bothering you?”
“You know what a defense attorney might do with that.”
He stared at her, his dark eyes inscrutable. “You’re a good detective, Laura. You always think ahead. I like that.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “But you’ve got to give me some credit. There’s no way I’d jeopardize this investigation. If you’re worried about the forensics on the computer, of course our crime lab does that. No way I’d farm that out. I’m just talking about the cyber stuff. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just air.”
Air that can kill, Laura thought.
Galaz leaned back, and the Mexican chair creaked. “I thought you had your doubts about it being Lehman.”
“I have questions.”
“I saw the autopsy report. That part about the frying pan. I find it hard to believe Lehman would walk up the road looking for those two kids.”
“I can’t speak for Victor, but I bet he’d say that Lehman killed Cary in his house and dragged him up to the cabin at night.”
At the mention of Victor, Galaz’s eyes turned stony. Something between them. She remembered what Victor had called him—a control freak.
He crossed one knee over the other and said, “What do you think?”
“I didn’t see any blood evidence of that, and there would have been a lot of blood. Even when you clean a place really well, there’s always some residual blood. Nothing came up when we used Luminol.”
“CRZYGRL12. That bothers me, too. You said yourself Detective Holland hasn’t done much.”
“To be fair, we’ve been kept pretty busy.”
“But bottom line, you’ve got your doubts.”
She nodded.
He set his coffee mug down. “I think we should try this. Before he gets another girl. Victor and Buddy can work the Lehman angle.” He saw her expression and added, “I promise you, there won’t be any repercussions.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Yes, I can. I’ll take the blame if it goes wrong, but it won’t go wrong. This guy is good. You’ll like him.”
She noticed his word tenses. Past the negotiation phase. As far as he was concerned, it was a done deal. It would have been a done deal last night, but she’d messed that up by not showing.
She realized that if she had gone last night, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place. He would have asked her in front of this man Jay, and she would have had to agree. In the DPS—as in any law enforcement agency— you never made your boss look weak. Never.
Maybe Victor was right about the lieutenant’s need for control. He certainly had it now. Might as well get it over with. She could make a token effort, talk to the guy, then tell Galaz it didn’t work out. “Okay, I’ll talk to him.”
“Good.” Galaz reached into his wallet and removed a card, set it on the table.
The card said
She stared down at the pale gray velum, the embossed letters. Heat suffused her face and her heart started to pound.
“Jay Ramsey?” she said. Her tongue felt stiff.
“You know him,” Galaz said. Not a question.
“No, not really. I only met him once.”
“Met” wasn’t strictly accurate. She’d noticed him plenty.
“He asked about you,” Galaz said. “He thinks of you often.”
“But of course that goes without saying,” Galaz added.
23
Galaz left soon after. Feeling as if she’d been whacked by a two-by-four, Laura walked out onto the porch, wondering what this all meant.
She had no particular objection to seeing Jay Ramsey. She didn’t know the man. But it had been eleven years since she had been in that part of town. There were so many memories …
A fifty-thousand-dollar thank you.
