Page 25 of Claimed By the Deputies

The three men exchange brief glances.

Lucas steps forward, arms crossed over his massive chest. His blue uniform shirt stretches over his muscular arms and sculpted shoulders. Suddenly, my mouth feels as dry as a desert.

“No, it isn’t. Your place burned down. You’re staying with us because you’ve got nowhere else to go. I thought we settled this yesterday.” He lifts an eyebrow. “You’re still an employee in charge of the evidence room. That hasn’t changed, nor has the circumstances of said employment. You’ve given us no reason to doubt your capability to perform this job at the stellar level you’ve already proven. That being said, your observations and your conclusions regarding the evidence we recovered from Tanya’s house have brought us a suspect. Your contributions have changed the way we’re going to handle the case going forward.”

All I can manage is a weak, “Okay.”

“We thinkyou might be able to help us even more,” he continues. “All we need you to do is take a look at the boardand the evidence—including what’s coming from Dina Kellogg’s house—and tell us if we’ve missed anything.”

“The DA will not take this to trial without an ironclad case,” Mitch says. “We trust your instincts and your judgment.”

“You do?”

“We absolutely do,” he shoots back with a reassuring smile.

“Alright. I’ll do it,” I say, turning back to the board.

“Let’s start with the basic observations,” Lucas suggests.

“You’ve got two murder victims. Both addicts. Both of them high-risk. Both frequent visitors of the Hamilton drugstore where your suspect works, correct?” I ask.

“Yes,” Tyler replies.

“Other than that, there’s no other connection between the victims. Right?”

“Not that we can see,” Lucas responds. “But that’s where you come in.”

“From what I can see in their timelines, they used to be model citizens,” I add, going over the yellow post it notes appended to each victim’s photograph. “It says here that Dina was first arrested for possession two years ago. Tanya around the same time. Up to that point, both were squeaky clean.”

Tyler nods once. “That is correct.”

“What do their medical records tell you?”

Mitch smiles, the dimples in his cheeks showing through that neatly trimmed beard of his. “Dina had a back injury on the job.Tanya was in a car accident that left her with some serious hip pain. Surgery didn’t help much, apparently.”

“And your prime suspect works at a Hamilton drugstore.”

“Yes,” Lucas replies, as he jots things down on a legal pad.

“You should be able to establish a more accurate timeline if you can determine where Dina and Tanya got their first painkiller prescriptions filled,” I reply. “It could’ve been at that specific Hamilton drugstore, and that’s how they met this Jade guy. Does he have a criminal record?”

“He was suspected of dealing, but we could never pin him down for anything,” Lucas sighs. “Whatever put him on our radar was small enough for us to determine at some point that he wasn’t worth chasing.”

Tyler speaks next. “Here’s the thing, Tassia. We’ve been dealing with a massive flow of drugs through Frost Valley. It started a few years ago and it’s only gotten worse. We’re talking both prescription and illegal narcotics here. We suspect the Silver Stallions to be part of the distribution network, but other people are working behind the curtains. The real managers of the operation. We don’t have any suspects. We have persons of interest, but as of now, we’ve yet to come up with anything beyond circumstantial.”

“And you believe the two murder victims are connected to this ring,” I mutter.

“Had you not pointed us in the right direction in the first place, it would have taken a lot longer to figure it out,” Lucas says.

“Having this murder board in front of me is fine and dandy,” I declare. “But it might help me to see the crime scene. At leastDina’s, because I’m assuming Tanya’s place has already been cleaned up.”

“We can show you Tanya’s house too. The crime scene cleaners did their part and left everything else intact,” Lucas says.

Half an hour later, we’re at Dina Kellogg’s townhouse, wearing gloves and shoe covers so as not to disturb any potential evidence. I need a moment to get used to the faint smell of dried blood and death. The crime scene cleaners have yet to intervene since the techs are due back for another round of fingerprinting along with a handful of other things.

“I know it’s gruesome,” Lucas says quietly, standing next to me.

A couple of feet away, a large dark brown stain spreads across the sub-floor. The carpet and padding have been cut away and taken to the lab. A fan hums from the bathroom to my left, where more dried blood awaits under a cold, white light.

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