Page 52 of Dark Memories
He put his hand on her lower back, guiding her into Mike’s office. “Mike, this is Detective Harrison. Delaney, Mike Lowery, my director of security.”
Mike stood and held out his hand. “Detective, nice to meet you.” He glanced at Zach. “We should have caught this sooner, but our attention was diverted by trying to follow the subject on the city’s…” His gaze darted to her. “Ah—”
“It’s all right. Zach told me that you’ve hacked the city’s cameras.”
“Okay. Good. Anyway, you both need to see this.”
He pressed a key on his monitor, and she watched as Davidson appeared.
“He’s headed for my car,” Zach said. “What’s that in his hand?”
She leaned closer to the monitor. “It’s a wedge and a pry bar. Standard tools of a car thief. He’ll have the door open in a matter of minutes.”
“Damn it.” Zack frowned. “I’m getting real tired of this guy. When did he do this?”
“Shortly before he confronted Jackie.” Mike pointed at the screen. “It looks like he put a note inside.”
“Has anyone gone to the car since then?” She’d noticed that Davidson made no attempt to avoid leaving his fingerprints on the car, nor had he tried to hide his face. Why was he blatantly coming after Zach instead of making a sneak attack, and leaving behind evidence that would easily send him right back to prison?
“You’d think he’d be worried about us getting that on camera,” Mike said. “It’s like he wants Mr. Jamison to know it’s him.”
Zach glanced at her. “He’s playing mind games. Wants me looking over my shoulder, wondering when he’ll come for me.”
She nodded, wishing she could disagree. But there was more to it than that, and she didn’t at all like where her mind was going. “Excuse me for a moment. I need to make a phone call and get our lab people out here to get his fingerprints. Also, we’ll need… How is the feed from your cameras stored?”
“In the cloud. I’ll make you a DVD copy.”
“Great. Both of him at the car and confronting Jackie. Make sure no one touches that car before we can get it dusted for fingerprints.”
Zach’s gaze was on her as she walked out, and she knew he wondered why she needed to make the call in private. She wanted to run her theory by Gabe first before saying anything to Zach. After calling in a request for a lab technician to come out, she called her partner.
“Listen, I have a really bad feeling. Davidson broke into Zach’s car this morning before he approached Jackie. He made no effort to disguise himself, and he left his fingerprints on the car. He left a note behind, but I’m waiting for the techs to get here, so I haven’t read it yet.”
“Makes me wonder why he’s being so obvious.”
“Right? I don’t know, Gabe. Something feels off about this. It’s like he knows this thing isn’t going to end well and doesn’t care. Why would that be? I just don’t see him wanting to go back to prison, so why give us all this evidence to make that happen?”
“You don’t think he plans to go down in a blaze of glory or some such shit, do you?”
“The thought has occurred to me.” That was why she’d wanted to talk to her partner. They thought alike, but in this case she wished they didn’t. “If that’s his plan, wouldn’t you think he’d have a reason? I mean, whowantsto die? We’re missing something.”
“Such as? You’ve done a thorough background on him. Nothing popped out at you that would give us an answer?”
“No, but I wasn’t looking for reasons he’d be willing to die just to get his revenge. I also didn’t pay much attention to his time in prison. See if you can get the warden on the phone. Maybe he’ll have something useful to tell us. Meanwhile, as soon as the techs finish here, I think Zach and I need to have another chat with his brother.”
“Will do. See you later tonight.”
“We need to talk to Robbie because?”
She whipped around to see Zach standing a few feet behind her. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know you need to talk to me.” He moved until he was in her space. “This is my life he’s messing with, the people I love he’s threatening. Don’t hide things from me, Delaney.”
“I’m not. I wanted to get Gabe’s input first, see if we’re on the same wavelength.”
“And are you?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It’s just a theory at this point.” She told him her suspicion.
