Quest For Justice. Kathleen Tailer
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Название: Quest For Justice

Автор: Kathleen Tailer

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Короткие любовные романы

Серия: Mills & Boon Love Inspired Suspense

isbn: 9781474069908

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ the morgue. I need to take you over there to identify him when you’re ready.”

      “Is that why you kept me here so long?”

      Kennedy nodded. “It’s one of the reasons. I didn’t want you to see him in the trunk of that car. That shouldn’t be your last memory of him. By the time we get downtown, they’ll have him cleaned up a bit.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Bailey. I really am.”

      She nodded and was silent for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. Okay. Kennedy had scored two points today in the humane category. They could never be friends, but at least some of her anger toward him had dwindled. Maybe he didn’t hate her after all. Six years ago, Kennedy had pursued her relentlessly and had finally caught her red-handed with the stolen medical equipment that her mother needed to survive. She’d been convicted and sentenced, but, even so, she doubted he counted it as a victory.

      They both knew the prosecutor had failed to gather enough evidence to convict her of her more serious crime—stealing a little over a million dollars to pay for her mother’s medical bills. However, her mother had died shortly after the theft, and Bailey had actually spent very little of it. It was currently hidden away in an offshore account, well concealed from local law enforcement and the forensic accountants they’d hired.

      She pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the here and now. A new thought hit her. “So who were the two men behind my father’s building?”

      Kennedy shrugged. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

      She narrowed her eyes. “You’re kidding, right? I think I have a right to know who killed my father.”

      He pursed his lips, apparently unwilling to answer her.

      She pressed on. “Were they American?”

      He still didn’t answer.

      “Oh, come on, Kennedy. You won’t be giving away government secrets by letting me know what my father stumbled into.”

      “That’s Detective Kennedy, Bailey, and I meant it when I said I’m not at liberty to say. There’s an ongoing investigation in place. That’s really all you need to know.”

      She fumed inwardly but could tell that he wasn’t going to budge. At least not today. She let the issue drop for now but resolved to revisit it once things settled down. She was going to find out why her father had been killed. That was the bottom line.

      It was time to go. She needed to get the viewing over with and then hide away in her apartment so she could just be alone in her pain. “Let’s do this,” she said quietly, trying to mask her grief. They left the interrogation room and she gathered her phone and keys from the desk sergeant as they left the station. She didn’t protest when Kennedy held on to her guns and knife, knowing her objection would be futile. She wasn’t actually surprised at his precaution since he had seen her temper flare so much today. Probably the last thing he wanted was for her to lose it again and have her gun in her hand at the same time.

      He always seemed to catch her at her worst. Even though she’d made admirable attempts to turn her life around, Kennedy would always see her as a criminal.

      They arrived at the morgue and were greeted by a worker who took them to a small room with a window covered by thick, dark curtains. Kennedy met her eye. “Are you ready?”

      “As ready as I can be,” Bailey answered. “Go ahead.”

      Kennedy pushed the button on the intercom near the window. “We’re ready.”

      The curtain opened and showed a medical room behind the glass. She gasped as the attendant pulled back the sheet. The body was definitely her father, but she hadn’t been prepared for the damage the bullet had caused. It was a horrible image that she was afraid was going to stay with her for several years to come. She nodded and the attendant quickly put the sheet back over the body. She gripped the handkerchief, praying she wouldn’t start bawling right here at the morgue.

      “I’ll take you home,” Kennedy said softly.

      She glanced up at him and their eyes connected. There was compassion there, yet still the determination and grit that she had always seen in him since he had first snapped the cuffs around her wrists six years ago. But, in this case, his determination was a good thing. If he was assigned to solve her father’s murder, then he wouldn’t give up until he had the culprit behind bars.

      “Are you going to be working this case?”

      “I am,” he confirmed.

      A wave of satisfaction swept over her. “So am I,” she said vehemently. “One of those two goons in the alley probably pulled the trigger, but there has to be more to this. I’m going to find out who and why and make them pay.”

      He put his hands up. “No, you’re not. You’re going to go home and stay out of the way while I do my job. I don’t need or want your help.”

      “That’s not the way it works, Detective,” she said grimly. “He was my father. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, no matter what it takes.”

       THREE

      Bailey opened the office door, then bent under the crime scene tape and closed the door quickly behind her. She ignored the light switch and instead flipped on her small flashlight, seeking out her father’s desk. After her long night at the police station and the morgue, she’d tried to sleep at her apartment but hadn’t been able to keep her mind off her father’s murder. Once night had fallen again, she’d decided to start her investigation, which meant going back to her father’s office and looking for clues.

      She continued her perusal of the desktop and noted that her father’s laptop was missing, but she didn’t know if the police had taken it as part of their investigation or if someone else had acted. It didn’t actually matter either way. Her father was a Luddite, tried and true, and kept meticulous paper files for every case. She looked around her father’s desktop for any notes or hints regarding the case he’d been working on when he’d texted her, but she found nothing. Either the notes had also been taken or he hadn’t written anything down.

      Maybe she was missing something obvious—she couldn’t know for sure. She wasn’t the experienced investigator her father was. But Bailey’s computer skills were unparalleled, and she had been able to help her father close several cases during her short tenure by finding old emails and other items that the perpetrator had thought he’d deleted, or by tracking down trails on the internet that led to the party’s guilt. The internet was a gold mine of information if a person knew where to look. Nothing was ever really erased. Thankfully, she was a really good miner.

      Thankfully. She thought about that word for a moment. Despite everything that was happening in her life, she always tried to recognize and appreciate the good things going on around her. Even with her father’s death shadowing her, she was still thankful that she was alive and both willing and able to pursue the case so the murderer would be brought to justice. She also had her health, a small savings account and she shouldn’t have any trouble finding another job once this investigation was over. That was a lot to be thankful for.

      She made her way over to the filing cabinet, unlocked it and pulled out the first few files that were classified as Pending. The first file was a simple divorce and didn’t СКАЧАТЬ