“No choice?”
Sin stood face to face with him. “If I had told you, do you think anyone would have believed your news conference?”
“Yeah,” Jack punctuated. “I could have pulled it off.”
“No, you couldn’t.”
They all turned toward the elevator and watched Tiffany walk into the room. Her head still wrapped in a scarf and her hands still bandaged, she walked straight up to Sin and hugged her tight. “Thank God you’re okay.”
Tiffany kissed Sin’s cheek and broke their embrace. “I’m no actress,” she said, addressing Jack, “but if you knew Sin was alive your emotion wouldn’t have been real, and the killer would have known.”
Jack slumped in resolve. “It still sucks. Christ, I thought you were dead.”
Sin hugged him close. “Thank you for caring. It means a lot.” She then moved on to hug Gonzales. “You’ve done a great job, Rookie. I’d be proud to work with you anytime.”
“Whoa,” Jack said. “What does that mean?”
Sin thought about telling them the truth, but decided it was best for them to think the case was closed. “It means this case is over. It means you two are going back to whatever you were doing before it began. It means, Jack, that you are headed home to your wife.”
“So it’s true,” Tiffany said. “The killer was really caught?”
“It’s true. You, and the people of Miami, have nothing else to fear from the Painted Beauty Killer.”
Tiffany slumped into a chair. “Thank God,” she mouthed.
Sin left Tiffany with Evelyn and went with Jack and Gonzales to finish some paperwork. Afterward, she walked Jack to his car.
“I couldn’t have solved this case without you,” she said, as she leaned into the driver’s window.
“Who are you kidding, O’Malley,” Jack grinned. “You always were a one woman show. There is nothing you can’t do once you set your mind to it.”
Sin leaned in and kissed Jack on the lips. “Take that home to your big-assed wife.” She winked, and walked away.
Back inside, she found Tiffany in the conference room.
“What are your plans?” Sin asked.
“I’m not sure,” Tiffany said. “After everything that’s happened, I want to rethink my future.” Her lips quivered. “Maybe find a nice guy and settle down. I’ve always loved kids, and I have my teaching degree. I think I might use it.”
“Give it some time. Everything that happened is still too fresh,” Sin said.
“I know,” Tiffany agreed. “I’m just thinking out loud. For now, I thought I might head down to the Keys and just heal up.” She ran her bandaged hands over one another. “You’re from there, right?”
Sin nodded.
“Do you know some place cheap where I could stay for a week or so?”
Sin smiled. “I can do better than that.” She wrote down an address and phone number and placed it in Tiffany’s hand. “You are welcome to…wait, no, I insist you stay at my home in Tumbleboat. This is my second mother, Carmelita’s address and phone number. I’ll call her so she’ll expect you. Stay there as long as you want.”
Tiffany hugged Sin and thanked her.
“Damn,” Sin said, trying to check her emotion, “I have never been hugged this much before in my life.”
Tiffany was packing up when Sin handed her a card: Troy’s card. “Call this guy when you get settled in,” she said. “I think you two will have a lot in common.”
60
The next day, Sin and her team stepped off a small commuter plane at the Quad Cities Airport in Moline, Illinois. As soon as they landed, Sin’s phone lit up with text messages from Evelyn. A couple about Charlie and one that stopped Sin in her tracks.
“What has you spooked?”
Sin glanced at Fletcher and then looked back at her phone. “Evelyn was able to find evidence—video footage—of Miranda boarding a plane at Fort Lauderdale International. Follow up information had her booked straight to St. Louis and then on to here.”
“That’s good news,” Fletcher said. “So, why the look of confusion?”
Sin eyed both men. “She was alone. There is no evidence that George ever left Miami.”
Both men stopped walking. “You have that look, Sin. Tell us what you’re thinking,” Garcia said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Joel is in such a fragile state. If we have someone else interrogate him, he might shut down completely.”
“How about Ashley?” Fletcher said. “She seemed to be able to connect with him.”
Sin thought back to Ashley’s interactions with Joel. The more she thought, the more she was against having Ashley talk to him. “No,” she said, shaking her head, “she’s too emotionally attached.”
“Then, what?”
Sin tapped a text message to Evelyn and shoved her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. “If everything goes as planned we should be back in Miami in a few days. We’ll deal with it then.”
Grabbing her backpack, she headed out of the airport.
Their rental car was waiting, and they were soon sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Blackhawk in Davenport, a historic landmark that overlooked the Mississippi River. They sat around a small table in the expansive grand lobby of the hotel and examined a city map.
Sin pointed to their location. “The hotel sits on East 3rd Street, just off Brady. In the downtown area, Brady only runs north—away from the river.” Moving her perfectly manicured pearlescent nail, she continued to explain their position. “West of Brady is Harrington Street which runs south. The house we are looking for is on Second Street, west of Harrington.”
As she was talking, her phone vibrated. She looked at the message and swore.
“What is it?” Fletcher asked.
“A female student from St. Ambrose University hasn’t been seen in two days. She was reported missing last night.”
“Has the local police department been notified?” Fletcher asked.
“They have and they are checking with her friends to find out when and where she was last seen. They’re going through normal police protocol.”
“She doesn’t have that kind of time,” Garcia said.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Sin said. “This tightens our timeframe, we have to strike
