Chapter Twenty-Seven DAWSON

Chapter Twenty-Seven

D AWSON

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

9:45 p.m.

As Dawson lay beside Margo, he savored the warmth of her body and smell of her perfume.

“Tell me what’s bothering you,” she said. “And don’t tell me you’re worried about HR. You couldn’t give a shit. What’s on your mind?” She held up her wrist ringed with the red marks of his cuffs. “I know when something is bothering a man.”

He traced the red circling her wrist. Instead of smoothing his fingers over it, his hold tightened around the bone. “How did your visit with Scarlett go?”

“She’s very closed. She doesn’t remember Sandra, and she helps Tiffany because she says she owes her. She’s had no contact with Lynn Yeats.”

He relaxed his hold. “Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know. Survivors of captivity are very good at hiding their true selves. I’ve seen it dozens of times before. It’s a survival mechanism.”

“She’s completely closed off to me, but I have that effect.”

“She stares at me as if she’s searching for something. The first time we met, she called me Della .”

“Della? Really?”

“I’ve read enough of the files to know Della isn’t real, but it’s odd she’d confuse her with me.”

“You’re not the first. She’s called in reports on three different women over the years.”

“Interesting.”

“What does that mean?”

“If I could play into her fantasy, she might be more open to talking.”

Dawson had no doubt that Margo could handle herself; still, he couldn’t resist the warning. “Tanner might have turned her into a monster.”

Frown lines etched deep in her forehead. “How’s she a monster?”

“What if she knew Sandra? What if she killed her or helped Tanner hide the body? The timelines work. There’s the SC bracelet found on Sandra’s body. Sandra vanished nine and a half weeks before Scarlett, but the medical examiner can’t lock down a time of death. Maybe she struck Sandra in the head or saw Tanner do it. Maybe she helped him wrap the body.”

“Would you hold her responsible for the things Tanner forced her to do?”

“That’s for the jury, judge, and lawyers to sort. My job is to find out who killed Sandra. She was a kid.”

“You already believe it was Tanner. Why go after Scarlett?”

He shoved out a breath. “She was willing to help Tanner kidnap Tiffany. And we can place her at the site of the call to dispatch July 2.”

She was silent for a moment. “Maybe she slipped the bracelet in Sandra’s purse as a call for help.”

“You believe that?”

“How else was she supposed to let the world know she was alive?”

“If the bracelet is hers.”

“Ask her,” Margo said. “You interviewed Tanner a decade ago, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you dropped the ball.”

Her bluntness cracked across his skin like a whip. “Yes.”

“Scarlett wasn’t the first kid to make an impossible choice. And you’re not the first cop who didn’t see the entire picture immediately. It’s called being human.” Her hand slid down his leg.

“Do you believe in coincidence?” he asked.

“No. Why do you ask?”

“What’re the chances that the past and present collide right now?”

She rolled on her side and climbed on top of him.

“Someone called in the location of Sandra’s body for a reason.”

“From a burner near Jeremy’s drug house, where Scarlett happened to be. Scarlett knows more than she’s saying.”

“Maybe. But I’d wait for the medical examiner’s final report. There will be more details there.”

Dawson stared into her eyes, trying to see what Scarlett saw. “Why did she call you Della?”

She shook her head. “You said yourself, she’s called in reports before. I bet there are dozens of others you don’t know about.”

“You a psychologist or something?”

Teardrop earrings swayed as she shook her head. “Or something.”

“Maybe you should push her. She might say or do something that’ll break this case.”

“I can do that.”

Her hand slid to his groin, and she angled his growing erection toward her entrance. His hands gripped her hips as he savored her warmth. The case clung to him even as her body pulled him away.