Page 142 of Cold-Blooded Liar


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Kit shushed Navarro. “He’ll go slower if he’s stressed out.”

“I can hear you,” Ryland snapped. “Go get some coffee. I’m not rushing this.”

“I’ve had way too much caffeine,” Kit said. “I’ll bust out of my skin if I have another cup of coffee.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” Ryland snarked.

“Very much so,” Kit murmured. She was tired, but her brain was far too wired to even attempt to rest. Reaching in her pants pocket, she stroked her thumb over the cat-bird carving, hoping she wasn’t rubbing off the detail. Carefully she pulled it out and held it up to the light.

It was unblemished. Harlan must have treated it so that she couldn’t hurt it. He knew her too well, after all.

“What’s that?” Navarro asked.

“Pop made it.” She held out her hand, the cat-bird nestled in her palm.

“I don’t know how Harlan gets them so detailed.”

“He’s a master. He made a heart for Baz,” she added, thinking about the affection on Baz’s face as he’d held it in his hand when she’d visited him in the hospital hours before. “An anatomically correct heart.”

Navarro chuckled. “I like your father.”

She returned the cat-bird to her pocket. “Everybody does.”

“Okay,” Ryland called. “I’ve got the first hard drive copied. No booby traps and no encryption, which surprises me.”

Kit’s jitters returned. “He probably figured he’d never get caught. What’s on it?”

“Videos,” Ryland said. “It’s crammed full of movie files.”

Kit stood next to Navarro behind Ryland’s chair, trying not to beg the man to hurry. Ryland was notoriously methodical. Evidence he processed usually held up in court, so Kit didn’t complain.

Ryland tapped his keyboard and a video file filled his monitor.

Kit sucked in a harsh breath. The camera had captured a sofa from the back. A teenage girl sat on the sofa in a nicely decorated living room—not Driscoll’s living room. There was a wingback chair to the side of the sofa. The walls were decorated with several framed posters from Broadway musicals, including West Side Story, Wicked, and Phantom of the Opera.

“He likes musical theater,” Navarro murmured. “There’s the connection.”

Then the girl on the sofa turned around to look at the camera, her smile nervous.

Oh my God. “That’s Jaelyn Watts,” Kit rasped out.

Navarro was vibrating like a plucked string. “And a man. Not Driscoll.”

“Not built the same,” Kit agreed. Her heart was pounding, because the man had just walked in front of the camera, his back filling the frame. But then he was moving again, away from the camera. He was leaner than Driscoll and not as tall. Maybe five-eight, five-nine. Driscoll was six feet tall.

“Driscoll’s killer?” Navarro whispered.

“Same body type as the guy in Maureen’s video,” Kit whispered back. A sharp pain in her hand made her realize that she was gripping the cat-bird again. She withdrew her hand from her pocket, crossing her arms over her chest.

They’d see the man’s face any minute. Any second now.

The man walked toward the sofa, a glass tumbler in one hand. He sat next to Jaelyn, then turned his face toward the camera.

Kit leaned forward, shocked. “What the fuck?”

Because the face was Colton Driscoll’s.

“That’s...” Navarro sputtered. “What is this? His body type is all wrong.”

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