Page 20 of Her Baby, Her Badge

“Can your stomach handle some food?” Rory asked, fortunately interrupting the fantasy that Dutton was starting to spin about Grace.

She nodded. “Thankfully, the morning sickness passed a few weeks ago.”

Dutton had known about the morning sickness, and he’d wished it was an ailment he could have taken on for her. Grace was bearing a lot of the downsides from this pregnancy. Then again, she was also getting the upside of feeling those kicks.

Rory dished her up a plate of the eggs, bacon and toast, but instead of coffee, she had a glass of water. Dutton wasn’t sure how she managed to get through a morning without coffee, another downside to being pregnant.

“Thanks,” she told Rory, and she sat at the counter to eat. “I just got an update from the CSIs,” she said, tipping her head to her phone, which she set next to her plate. “There were no prints on the pepper-spray canister that was shot through the kitchen window. They believe it was probably launched with something like a paintball gun.”

Dutton shook his head. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Neither did I,” Grace admitted. “But this means almost anyone could have obtained a paintball gun and fired the shot. And apparently the shooter didn’t even have to be that accurate, since there was a second canister that must have missed the window because the CSIs found it on the ground. It hit the side of the house.”

So not a marksman. Well, maybe not. A lot of things could cause a person to miss a single shot. The other one had certainly been effective enough in getting them to take cover in the bathroom, which had likely been when their attacker had put that bloody note on the door.

“How about the note itself?” Dutton asked. “Anything on that yet?”

She nodded. “It’s Elaine Sneed’s blood.”

Dutton silently cursed. What a sick SOB to hold on to one of the victim’s blood to use it to write a message to Grace. This wasn’t exactly breakfast conversation, but Grace continued with both the explanation and her breakfast.

“The paper is from a standard notebook you can buy anywhere, and the handwriting likely won’t be able to be analyzed because it’s smeared block lettering. Still, they’ll send it to the lab.”

“What about the tape?” Dutton asked. “Were there any fibers or prints on it? Any way to trace it to the source? And there must have been footprints or tire tracks somewhere because the ground was muddy.”

Grace looked at him, lifted an eyebrow. “Have I told you before that you can sometimes sound like a cop?” Her mouth quivered in what might have been a suppressed smile.

Since this was probably as light of a moment as Grace and he were likely to have for a while, Dutton made a show of being insulted. “A momentary lapse.” And he did smile. But as expected, it was short-lived.

Grace sighed. “No fibers or prints on the tape, and like the paper, it’s the stuff you can buy pretty much anywhere.” She sipped some water before she went on. “No tire tracks, which means the person either parked on the road or a trail and then walked to the house.”

Dutton was going with option two. There were plenty of trails threading off the roads and into the woods, and even some of the pastures. Since these murders had started a month ago, that would have given the killer time to case Grace’s house and property and know where to park in order to remain out of sight.

“There are some footprints,” Grace confirmed, “but the person dragged their feet, no doubt to obscure them. It worked,” she added in a disappointed mutter.

This was more proof they were dealing with someone who’d planned this to aT. And it’d worked. Well, maybe it had if the goal had been to terrorize them and put that note on the door. But if the killer had hoped to get into the house and go after them directly, then that had failed.

“Eden and I are digging into Georgia’s background,” Rory volunteered. “If we find out how and why she was taken, we might be able to figure out the who.”

Grace made a sound of agreement. “Her doctor is supposed to contact us the moment she wakes up.”

None of them voiced the worst-case scenario here. That Georgia might never wake up. That she could die from her injuries. If so, that would be three deaths, which would make the snake after them a serial killer.

“Any indications that Georgia was ever a cop or was maybe married to one?” Grace asked Rory.

Rory shook his head. “The best I could find was her brother-in-law was once a security specialist in the military.”

Grace made another of those disappointed sighs, and Dutton decided he’d get his PI to do some digging on Georgia as well. It was possible the attack against her had been random, but there could be a reason the killer had chosen her. But then something occurred to Dutton.

Something that had him making one of those disappointed sighs.

“Georgia is alive,” Dutton stated. “Yes, she was barely conscious when she made it to the house, but she had the chance to say something to help rat out the killer. She didn’t.”

Grace obviously knew where he was going with this. “So the killer probably concealed his or her identity. We might still be able to get something from Georgia, though. Height, weight, that sort of thing.” But she didn’t sound especially hopeful about that.

Dutton had to agree. Georgia had likely been drugged or stunned before she’d been taken, and then stabbed. He was still considering that when the sound of Grace’s phone ringing shot through the room.

“It’s Livvy,” she told them, then she answered the call on speaker.

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