“Let’s see if we can pull DNA off this. Could be nothing, but if whoever the cup belongs to was in the store, he or she might have seen something. We may have a survivor here who we missed.” She handed him the baggie. “Tomorrow. Go home, Silas. It’s been a long day and it’s late.”
“You first.” Silas glanced at his watch. “Pizza?”
She scrubbed her hands down her face. “I just want to climb into my bathtub and see if I can put myself back together.”
“You don’t have running water,” Silas said.
“Thanks for that.” She followed him to the door, grabbing her satchel from the rack. “Samson promised he’d turn the water on.”
Silas pushed open the door, out into the night. Overhead, stars spilled across a dark and desolate sky, pinpricks of hope, the moon an eye upon the city. She followed the puddles of street lamps out to her Escort. Silas stood at her door and hung a hand on it as she opened it.
“You sure you don’t want pizza?”
He stood there, his blond hair swept back and tucked behind his ears, hazel eyes imperative.
“I gotta tell you something.” He shifted, blew out a breath and adjusted his shoulder strap on his backpack. “I don’t think you should be hanging out with Stone.”
“I’m picking that up. Calm down, it was just lunch—”
“He didn’t reveal all his secrets in that memoir of his.”
She slowly rose from her seat. “I’m listening.”
Silas stepped back from her door, and she closed it, then leaned against it, arms folded.
“Listen, I’m not trying to get him into trouble. It’s just—”
“Tell me.”
He ran his hand across his jaw. “Okay, so there was a case involving this missing four-year-old girl.”
“We talked about it today, over lunch. She was kidnapped from Minnehaha Park.”
“Yeah. Took them three days to find her—and when they did, she was dead.”
“Sad—”
“Horrifying, because she’d also been raped. And when the coroner found that out, rumor is that your friend Rembrandt sort of lost it.” He blew out a breath. “See, it was after they picked up the perp, and when the semen analysis came back, it was from…well, her father. And although there was nothing to tie the father to the kidnapping, he had contact with her either before or during the abduction. But the guy alibied out for the entire time, so…”
A chill had started in her core, begun to wring through her.
Silas seemed to be considering his next words, the way he stared out into the street, watching late night traffic cruise down the strip. The heat of the day had released from the sidewalks, now simmered in the air, mixing with the dirt and must of the city. A siren shot through the silence, whining in the distance.
“What happened?”
Silas met her eyes. “No one can prove it, but…well, the father was found beaten, nearly to death, outside a bar in St. Paul. One witness said they saw a Camaro parked on the street, but retracted it later.”
“A Camaro?”
“Black.” Silas’ eyes narrowed. “Stone drives a black Camaro.”
His words dropped through her like a stone. “You don’t think…”
“I absolutely do think. Everyone knows he’s a fighter—works out with his partner all the time at a local boxing ring.”
She just stared at him. “He wouldn’t…” she said softly.
He shrugged. “IA did some investigation, but rumor was Burke confirmed his alibi. Of course.”
She made a non-committal noise. Then, “I might be on his side, just a little.”
Silas raised an eyebrow. “No doubt it strikes a nerve in all of us to think about that little girl…and…” He shook his head. “But he nearly killed the guy, Eve.”
“Supposedly.”
“Really?”
“You don’t know. And he was cleared.”
Silas held up his hands. “All I’m saying is that the guy has a dark side. Don’t get too close, okay?”
Huh. But she nodded.
He let her climb in her car, and stood there watching as she backed out. Waved before heading to his own car.
She pulled out, driving through the darkened streets toward Lake Street, then past Lake Calhoun, glistening under the moonlight in Technicolor with the lights of the city.
When she pulled up to her house, Samson’s truck was parked out front. Moths played kamikaze with her lit porch light as she opened her door.
Inside, the kitchen light beckoned her and she found Samson sprawled under her sink, in his stocking feet and grout-splattered jeans. But along her kitchen counter, below the cupboards and along the back splash of her new stove, ice-blue tiles lined the walls, grouted with a foamy blue. And shoot, but Sams was right.
“Nice,” she said, dropping her satchel on her countertop. Samson climbed out, knocking his hat sideways.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” she said.
“I have beer in the fridge.” He climbed to his feet.
“I just need a bath. Please, please—”
“The water will be on in a jiffy. I need to finish connecting the new faucet.”
She noticed it now, a stainless goose neck. “The place looks good, Sams.”
He disappeared again under the sink. “Thanks. I know you had a rough day, so I wanted to finish it for you before you got home.”
Sweet. She opened the fridge, grabbed a couple beers and when he slid back out, handed him one. He opened it, then hers and tapped their beers together.
They drank in silence.
“Is it okay if I crash on your sofa?”
She grinned. “Yeah. Or in the second bedroom upstairs.”
“Great. Because I’m bushed.” He picked up his pipe wrench, dropped it into an open toolbox, then closed it. “I’m going to put this in my truck.”
She followed him to the door and walked out onto the porch as he went down the steps, then strode out to his Ford.
Sinking down onto the steps, she stared at the skyline in the distance, the purple lip of the IDS Tower, the shiny white of First Bank Place, and the glass curtain wall of the Piper Jaffray Building. A wall of clouds had moved in behind it, now starting to clutter the sky, and the scent of rain stirred in the hush of
