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“Answer it!” Brecia instructed, sliding across the desk until she was right in his face. Then burying her face in his ear.
I flinched. I knew he couldn’t see her, but it looked awkward as all hell. “Does that really work?”
“Sometimes.” Brecia sat back on the desk as Kittleson walked out of the office without answering the phone. Her expression darkened. “Not always.”
I scooted in with her, to listen to the message in the empty room.
The blinking red light flashed as a woman’s voice responded to the recorded prompt.
“Detective Kittleson? I hear you have James Carson’s car impounded. This is Detective Domanska, in Salt Lake City, Utah. I need you to call me back as soon as possible.”
31. MEGHAN
Salt Lake Valley, Utah
Now
By the time the detective from Idaho called Domanska back, it was nearly dinner time. She’d given him her cell—which rang right as we were about to walk out the door with Joey.
I’d never seen Domanska lose her cool before. Not with the eggheaded waitress from Gracie’s. Not even with James Carson himself when she’d questioned him face to face.
But when she heard that Detective Kittleson had released James Carson’s car out of impound—before even calling her back to report on the fingerprint he’d found—she ripped him a new one.
He tersely agreed to make sure my fingerprint was run in the lab that night.
When he muttered something about overtime and staff shortages, Domanska blew up at him again.
Kittleson hung up without saying goodbye, and all of us—including Joey—made a beeline back to the office to send over the file with my fingerprints.
32. BRECIA
Kuna, Idaho
Now
When James picked the car up from impound, the air felt like a powder keg.
Kittleson still hadn’t returned Domanska’s message. He was busy with two new cases: the suspicious death of a blue-eyed, blond-haired toddler that had been making front-page headlines for a week straight, and an officer-involved shooting that was sending shockwaves through the community.
When he saw the blinking red light on his phone, he listened to it—and made a note to call her back—then busied himself with another case that had been assigned to him that morning.
We shut down his computer twice that afternoon. It only made him take an early lunch. And then, because neither of us could stand to look at him anymore, Skye and I caught a ride with an officer and waited at the impound lot.
When James arrived at the impound lot to pick up the car, he looked different since I’d last seen him. Less at ease. Less interested in pretenses. On high alert.
April had driven him there. Kimmie and Emma were with her. None of them got out of the car.
James didn’t know what detectives knew—or rather what they didn’t know—but he knew the net was closing.
Skye and I looked at each other as James put the keys in the ignition. We both felt the pull to follow the officer back to the station. But there was something in James’s eyes that told me I should jump into the back of his car.
Skye wavered at the threshold of the police station. She saw it too. “I’m going with James, okay?” she said hesitantly. “If somebody needs to mess with Kittleson’s computer, I’m not sure I can do it.”
I didn’t want to leave her. Not now. She was right: Someone needed to follow James. I nodded. “If anything happens, get back to the station as fast as you can, okay? You know the way back there?”
She nodded. Then she jumped into the back of the Kia as he pulled out of the parking lot, behind April and the girls.
33. MEGHAN
