“Two seconds.”
“You’re going to play with your toys now?”
“No. I have to dust for prints.”
“So you are going to play with your toys now.”
Charlotte laughed. “Okay. Maybe. But it’s a very handy toy right now. I remember the housekeeper resting her hand on the downspout. I want to see if I can grab a print.”
Declan leaned forward to rest his head on the steering wheel. “How many more stops before I get to sleep?”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “This is the last one. I promise.”
Charlotte jumped out of the car again to jog to Ted’s house with her kit. After unwrapping the box and selecting a vial of black powder, she sped through the instructions before tossing the booklet aside, mumbling to herself.
“I’ve seen enough TV shows to do this right.”
She eyed the waterspout, trying to remember the exact place Corentine would have gripped it and where her fingers would have touched. It took a few tries, dusting up and down the spout before she spotted two perfect fingerprints.
“Bingo!”
She found the tape for lifting the prints and gathered them. Replacing the box’s lid to use it as a table, she pressed the tape to the provided white paper and the prints appeared as if they’d been printed there.
Charlotte grinned.
“Not bad for a toy.”
Tossing everything back into the box, she strode back to the car.
“Done. Home Jeeves.”
Declan shifted into drive. “You are way too perky for a woman whose house just burned down.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Charlotte stood behind Declan as he opened his front door. The early morning sun had lost its wrestling match with the heavy cloud cover and officially given up. The hurricane would be on them by the end of the day, and the early bands of the storm stretched across the ominous sky above him.
Abby pushed past Declan to run around his house, sniffing every corner as if she’d never been there before.
Declan dodged to avoid being knocked over as the Wheaten ran past. “Don’t worry. I haven’t been cheating on you with other dogs,” he called after her.
Charlotte stretched her neck and then let her head hang behind her like a sweatshirt hood. “I’m going to hit the wall soon and I haven’t figured out anything,” she grumbled. Her eyelids had suddenly been weighted by sandbags.
Declan flipped on a light. “On the upside, you didn’t die in a fire.”
“There’s that.”
Charlotte put the fingerprint book on Declan’s kitchen counter and sat on a bar stool preparing to flip through it.
“You’re going to compare the prints now? Why don’t you get some sleep?”
She shook her head. “Someone gave this print to Frank for a reason. I have to figure out why before they try to burn down your house.”
Declan frowned. “That reminds me. I have a few things to set up too.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s call it a firebug early detection system. But first, how about I make some coffee?”
Charlotte rubbed her eyes. “That sounds like a brilliant idea.”
As Declan filled his carafe with water, Charlotte pulled out Frank’s anonymously delivered fingerprint and began turning pages, comparing the images.
“Policework must have been a nightmare before computers,” she said. Her eyes kept crossing, as if they were made of steel and she had a magnet on the bridge of her nose.
As the coffee percolated, Declan disappeared into the back and reappeared ten minutes later, clean and wearing clothes not covered in soot.
Charlotte whistled.
“Thank you. I feel much better,” said Declan, heading for the coffee.
“Not you. I think I found it. Take a look.”
Declan leaned across the counter to see.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“That looks like it.”
She pointed to the initials in the lower right corner. “C.F.”
“And those initials represent the witness’s real name? Or new name?”
“Real, supposedly, but Corentine Flores has me wondering.”
“That’s the name that woman is using now, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But let’s see.”
She opened the fingerprinting kit and retrieved the sheet with the transferred rain spout print.
The two of them compared all three prints in silence.
“They match,” said Declan.
“They do.”
“So, Corentine Flores is in the witness protection program?”
“I guess so.”
“But she didn’t change her name?”
“Maybe she kept the same initials.”
“Good way to avoid replacing her monogrammed luggage.”
Charlotte laughed. “I’m sure that was big on her mind as she left her family and everything she knew forever.” She pulled her lip, thinking. “So why was she threatening Jack?”
He handed her a mug. “Who’s Jack again?”
“Thank you. Ted’s neighbor. The one who tried to close the door on us.”
“Right. Who’s Ted again?”
“The guy who fell off a ladder.” She raised her hands to curve air-quotes around the last four words.
“Got it. If you’d just call them Jerkface and Ladder Guy that would help me out. I’m terrible with names.”
“Will do. Can I borrow your car?”
Declan scowled. “What don’t you get about me not letting you out of my sight? Someone is trying to kill you.”
“You too, probably.”
“All the more reason we should stick together.”
“But I need to confront Corentine—” Charlotte gasped.
“What?”
“I’ve got an idea. Must be the coffee. Corentine doesn’t know you.”
“So?”
“You’re so square-looking.”
Declan put a hand on his chest. “Ouch. That came out of nowhere.”
“No, I mean you’re so clean-cut and square-jawed. You could easily be a marshal.”
“You want me to go to Corentine’s and pretend to be a federal agent?”
“Yes.”
“I imagine that’s illegal.”
Charlotte shrugged. “Misdemeanor at best.”
“How will we find her?”
“She works for Sunny Day Cleaning Company. I saw the logo on her car. And we have her alias. We can probably look her up on the Internet.”
Charlotte felt her pockets and then groaned.
