She nodded. “But it’s just a—”
“Hunch.” His smile stirred coals deep down inside.
No, no…she shook her head, not smiling. “A hunch only gets you so far. You need evidence to close a case.”
“Fair enough,” he said, his expression turning serious. “And was there any evidence?”
“It was a hit and run, so…no.”
He gave a grim nod.
Silence hung between them.
“If I could go back in time, I’d tell myself not to ask Dougie Randall to the 10th Grade Sadie Hawkins dance.”
He raised an eyebrow, one side of his mouth tweaking up. “Yeah?”
She ran her hands up her arms, not sure why she’d said that, but she liked the sudden spark in his eye, so, “I called him up, asked for Doug, and then rattled off an invitation to the dance. But then it got real quiet on the other line and this deep voice finally said, ‘I think you’re wanting to talk to Doug Jr.’”
Rembrandt’s eyes widened. “You asked his father to the dance?”
“I wanted to die, right then. I never talked to him again.”
His laughter was deep and rich. It washed through her like summer rain.
“That is fantastic, Eve.”
“Okay, what about you? What would you do over? Your regrets?”
His face turned solemn. He considered her for so long, she wanted to look away. His voice softened. “I think I would start all the good things sooner.”
She frowned, “You’re twenty-eight. What on earth could you start sooner?”
He didn’t answer, just looked at her.
Her heartbeat pounded in her throat. No. She barely knew this man.
But she couldn’t escape the sense that somehow she was part of his answer.
He got up, and took a step toward her, so much in his gaze it seemed to pin her to her chair, shuck away her breath. “Eve, I—”
The door slammed and steps sounded on the cement. She landed on her feet as if she might have been caught making out in the car, her heart thundering, her palms sweaty.
What now?
Silas slid into view. “I got the test results of that cup back.” He wore his backpack over his shoulder, and frowned only for a moment after his gaze landed on Rembrandt.
He’d edged over to the table and was looking at the bomb fragments.
“And?”
“They belong to Ramses Vega, that guy who—”
“—I ran down today,” Rembrandt finished, jerking his head up. He snapped to look at her. “What cup?”
“We found it on a side street near yesterday’s bombing.”
“What side street?”
She walked over to the table with yesterday’s sketch of the crime scene. “Here. Across the street to the northeast, in front of the grocery store.”
He stared at the map, then, “Do we have a map of the area?”
“I think so.” She had used a city map to construct the former location and grid of the Daily Grind. Now, she pulled it out and unrolled it onto the table. Rembrandt leaned over it, searching for—
“Here. It’s the Immigrant Learning Center.” He trailed his finger south, along Nicollet Avenue. Tapped it. “If Ramses was on his way to school, he would have been heading the opposite direction. Instead, you found the cup here, across the street from a bus stop. Even if he was waiting for the bus, the next stop lets off another block further from the ILC. It’s closer to walk.”
Rembrandt grabbed his jacket. “I think we need to take another look at Ramses.”
Litter fell out of his pocket and he reached down to pick it up.
Eve caught his arm. “What is that?” It looked like burlap. She eased it from his hand, “What are you doing with this? This is evidence. From yesterday’s bombing.” She set it on the table, and tried to keep accusation from her voice. “Where did you get this?”
“I picked it up on the street. Today.”
Oh. She really couldn’t have missed this, could she? Eve pulled on her gloves and flicked on a light, reached for her magnifying glass and held the scrap under it for inspection. “See these three green leaves, these two brown dots? This is the logo for Green Earth coffee. The same coffee that Daily Grind uses.”
She motioned with her head and Rembrandt followed her over to the body of evidence, cataloged and labeled from the Daily Grind fire. She found the appropriate bag and handed it to him. “See the logo?”
He stared at it, then looked up at her and a slow, almost languid smile slid across his face. “I could kiss you,” he said softly.
Oh. Oh.
He put the baggie down, set his jacket back on the chair and said, “We’re going on a bean hunt.”
Chapter 15
I’m rewriting history.
That’s my only explanation for the fact we’ve found a twenty-year-old lead to a case I’d poured over a hundred times.
The thought has me buzzing, as if I’ve downed too much coffee, jittery and on fire. I’m not sure why we never saw the connection before, but I can’t ignore the old rush of a hot theory filling my veins.
“Let’s Google it,” I say, holding up the baggie with the burlap label, and when Eve just looks at me, I realize I’ve made yet another time-warp blunder.
Not unlike my suggestion for a digital facial recognition search. Good job, Slick. I’m not sure how much of my inadvertent future knowledge will affect the past, or, uh, the future. Except, now might be the time to invest in Google stock, right? Too bad they don’t exist yet.
Eve shoots me an appropriately odd look. “Do what?”
I rack my brain for a few seconds. “I mean Yahoo.”
She frowns but nods. “Sure. Yahoo.”
She pulls up a chair to a desktop computer stationed in a nearby cubicle and I flip around a folding chair and straddle it, leaning on the back.
I can feel the heat of the spark still lingering between us, the one I lit with my words, “I think I would start all the good things sooner.”
For a crazy second, the smell of her, the look in her eyes, something of surprise, even hope, ignites a different sort
