“It’s the senselessness of it I still can’t get my head around. And you see a lot of senseless waste as a cop. But to target loved ones to hide your crimes? To scare cops and divert them from the work?”
The hand on his forearm tightened, Sera’s gaze going wide. “Gavin!”
“What’s wr—”
“Me! How did I miss this? Arlo said he’s not been able to find any leads on that crime ring. That he can’t get a handle on what amounts to rumor on disposing of weapons.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“I have access to the files. I’ve spent all week looking at prosecuted cases, but I can also see what’s been thrown out. What never made it to trial. What has gaps in evidence.” She scrambled out of bed, clearly unaware of her nakedness, as she raced to her dresser for one of her ever-present notepads. “All we need is to get the dates forensics has estimated on the guns. I can use that to set my date criteria in the databases and work backward from there.”
It couldn’t be that easy. There was no way it was that easy, Gavin thought.
But even as he tried to keep his excitement in check, he knew she was right.
“Cross-jurisdictional work at its finest.”
She looked up from where she was making notes to grin before crossing over to him and laying a big smacking kiss on him. “And score for the local team. You and I, Mr. Hayes. We’re going to kick task force ass!”
Chapter 17
Sera wasn’t quite sure how she’d gone from the glories of an evening in Gavin’s arms and the joys of sex pizza to an all-nighter at work, but she couldn’t deny how right this felt.
Finally.
They had a lead. It was slim, and it was going to take a lot of digging, but it was something they could actually work with. He’d dropped her off at the DA’s office before heading to the precinct to run down whatever he could on the forensics work, with Arlo, Kerrigan and Wyatt heading in to meet him.
They all exchanged texts throughout the night, with a steady drip feed of dates as they got the information off the guns, which she’d cross-reference with as many files as she could find in the same time frame.
She hunted through it all. The discovery process. Briefs. And then actual trial notes and transcripts. All of it filled page after page of her legal pad, but as of yet, she couldn’t find a connection.
But she did find threads.
Sera sat back and stared at all she’d written down. There wasn’t an exact pattern, but there was a consistency. Somewhere in the discovery process, she could see references to gun activity and crimes. But by the time she got to the actual trial notes, evidence wasn’t available.
It was frustrating and slow and she’d nearly given up, vowing to come back at it tomorrow, when she saw movement outside her office door.
“Sera!” David’s smile was broad as he peeked his head in the door. “You’re here late.”
“You, too. I didn’t see you when I came in.”
“I just got here.”
At three in the morning? “Your work ethic’s impressive, David, but that’s an early start for anyone.”
“The work’s been on overdrive lately. I couldn’t sleep and had some ideas on a few cases I wanted to get down. Figured I’d get ahead of my day.”
“Of course. Justice might be blind, but she doesn’t sleep.” She made the joke, smooth and easy, just some of the simple banter she and David had shared for years.
Years.
It was the camaraderie of colleagues. Laced with the respect she’d always had for her boss.
Her boss whose name she’d seen at the bottom of each of the files she’d looked through. His bold, scrawling signature dismissing each case she’d flagged with a suspicious lack of evidence.
But it all hit her now, a vicious gut punch as dot after dot connected in her mind.
Seemingly oblivious, David waved at her from the door. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
As he moved out of her line of sight, her phone rang, Gavin’s name filling the screen. The ringer was on silent, and she opened the line, about to tap the speaker button, when David stepped back into view.
“What are you working on this late, Sera? I reduced your casework so you could take full advantage of the task force.”
“I know, David, and I appreciate the consideration.” Her heart throbbed in her throat in a heavy pounding sensation and she forced herself to remain calm. To speak in as normal a voice as possible as she made a point to use his name. “I’m actually here because of the task force.”
“Oh?”
“The work my partner and I have been doing. We’re focused on the chain of evidence. How much it matters and how much can go wrong if any team mishandles a single bit of it.”
“It’s a good angle.”
“It certainly is.” She prayed Gavin got her message, well aware she was about to take the biggest gamble of her life. “And it’s amazing to realize just how many facets of the police touch evidence. The cops first. Then the forensics team takes over. All under the captain’s leadership.”
She avoided even looking at her phone, afraid to tip David off to their audience, but she had her messaging app also open on her computer screen and saw Gavin’s text come through.
I’ve got you.
He did have her. And it was that rock-solid knowledge that had her making the final leap. “But you already know this, David. Don’t you?”
