‘She was always an orphan in the system. Harding probably never had parental rights. They could do all the background checks they wanted and the relationship wouldn’t show up.’
Faith had let the pornographic photos fall out of her hands. She looked down at the scattered images and tried not to think about why Dale Harding had kept them over the years. ‘Good God, this poor girl never had a chance.’
‘He wasn’t sleeping with her.’ Collier stopped Faith’s protest. ‘Not recently, at least. There’s no Viagra in the bathroom, and considering what that guy had going on, there was no farmer left in the dale.’ He laughed. ‘Like, the tractor wasn’t up to plowing the fields.’
‘We need to find this girl.’ Faith started typing a text to Amanda to put out an APB. ‘She’s Harding’s legal wife. Harding was found dead or murdered in a room full of blood. If I’m his killer, then I’m looking for anyone Harding might have confided in. Whether she’s his wife or daughter, she has to know something. Just by virtue of the fact that she was living with him.’
‘Did you notice she’s not here?’ Collier’s mood had shifted. He was getting it now. ‘The TV’s gone. There’s no computer. Maybe she heard that he was dead, knew that there was a target on her back, so she sold his shit and got out of Dodge.’
‘Violet, the property manager, never met Delilah. There’s the weird closet thing. Why would you keep a girl hidden away from everybody in the neighborhood unless there was a reason to keep her hidden?’
Collier said, ‘She’s a whore, so she knows the streets. She was probably working Harding the same as he was working her. Maybe she’s the one who got him killed. I can see that happening—girl crosses the wrong guy, Harding swoops in to protect her and gets a doorknob for his troubles.’
‘Either way, she’s in danger.’ Faith asked, ‘Did records give you her last known address?’
Collier went back to his phone. ‘Renaissance Suites off I-20. My girl already called the manager, texted him a photo from Delilah’s last booking. He says he don’t know nothin’ about nothin’.’
Faith heard her phone chirp. She read the text. ‘Amanda’s put out the APB on Delilah. You need to work your back channels in the APD for information on the girl. Knock on every door to every building or house she’s ever lived in. Check into her juvie record, go by her school, whatever it takes to find out who her friends were.’
Collier had a weird look on his face. ‘Anything else, boss lady?’
‘Yeah, she was busted for soliciting, so she’ll have a pimp. Find him. Talk to him. Run him in if you have to.’ The alarm went off on Faith’s phone. She started shoving the files and photographs back into the boxes. ‘We need to find Delilah before someone else does.’
Collier asked, ‘What are you going to be doing while I pound out this awesome amount of shoe leather?’
‘I’ve got to go to the hospital and talk to the Jane Doe that Will found. She might have seen something last night.’
‘Uh, technically we found her, as in Will and me.’
‘Will and I.’ She muscled up the boxes. They were heavier than she’d anticipated. ‘I should have Harding’s banking and phone information by the time I get to Grady. I’ll go through these files and cross-check them against—’
‘Wait.’ Collier was trailing her down the hall. Again. ‘Your Jane Doe—she knows me. She’d be more likely to talk to a friendly face.’
Faith stopped. Collier bumped into her from behind. She told him, ‘Charlie Reed, our crime scene guy, will be here any minute. Wait for him, then go look for Delilah. If she’s out there, we need to talk to her. If Angie and Harding were killed for a reason, she might know the reason, and that reason could get her killed too.’
‘You really think she’s in danger?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘You’re not much of a feminist, are you?’ Collier grinned at what must have been the shocked look on her face. ‘Could be Delilah’s the one that went after both of them. Angie and Harding. Ever think of that? Women are capable of murder too, partner.’
‘If you call me partner again, you’ll find out exactly what women are capable of.’
For once, Collier took her seriously. ‘I’ll get Ng started, join him as soon as your guy gets here. Should I call you later?’
‘If you find Delilah or have valuable information, yes.’
‘What if I want to look at some more porn with you?’
Faith shouldered open the front door. She kept her head down so her retinas wouldn’t ignite. At her car, she balanced the boxes on one knee and fumbled with the door handle until she nearly dropped everything. She finally managed to yank back the handle with the tip of her pinky finger. She used the toe of her shoe to pry open the door. She threw the boxes into the passenger seat. She got behind the wheel. All the while, Collier stood in the open front doorway, not bothering to offer any help whatsoever. He was up her ass when she didn’t need him and she couldn’t get him to move a muscle when she did.
‘God dammit,’ Faith muttered.
Amanda was right.
He was exactly her type.
FIVE
Will stood in the lobby of the gleaming Tower Place 100 office building. The twenty-nine-story skyscraper was part of the Tower Place complex, which anchored the corner of Piedmont and Peachtree Road and was only partially responsible for the dense line of Jaguars and Maseratis that clogged Buckhead morning, noon and night.
He hadn’t planned on being here so much as followed the breadcrumbs Angie had left. First he’d gone home to change and get some documents from his safe, then he’d gone to Angie’s bank, which led to the store where she kept her post office box, which led him to this office building, where he stuck out like a country rube because he’d forgone his usual suit and tie for something more comfortable. He couldn’t even pass for a tech billionaire. His jeans were Lucky, not Armani. Sara had bought his long-sleeved polo from a store he had never heard of. His old running sneakers were splotched with the French-blue paint from his bathroom.
He had painted the walls a lighter color because he had realized one morning that the chocolates and dark browns he had chosen for his house were too masculine for Sara.
Sara.
Will felt his chest rise and fall with a deep, calming breath. Just the thought of her name had drained away some of his anxiety. He allowed himself a moment to remember how good it felt to wake up in the middle of the night and find Sara’s body draped across his. She fit him like the last piece of a complicated puzzle. He had never met anyone like her before. She woke him up sometimes just to be with him. Her hands on him. Wanting him. Angie had never wanted him like that.
So why was he here?
Will looked down at the thick gray envelope in his hands. The multi-colored logo for Kip Kilpatrick’s management company was in the corner. Angie’s name was typed above a PO box number. The box was located in a midtown UPS store. There were actually two envelopes inside the box, but the one with the colored logo was the one Will saw first, and his heart had stopped like a train smashing into a brick wall.
He had stood motionless in the UPS store, staring at the envelope, not touching it, trying to get over his shock. Here was a concrete link between Angie and Kip Kilpatrick and, by extension, Marcus Rippy. He should’ve called Amanda immediately, got in a forensic team for fingerprints and to run the security footage. But Will hadn’t done any of this, because among other things, Amanda would want to know how he had tracked down the post office box number in the first place.