Page 43 of Cold Case Discovery

“But he leaves the scrapbook,” Laurel added. “Keep rolling the footage,” she told the man. “Because that scrapbook isn’t there anymore.”

Which meant sometime between when Hart went out of the parking lot and Jack and Laurel went out to the car, someone took it.

They watched. No one suggested they fast-forward the footage. They’d all investigated too many cases to let impatience get in the way of good police work. Seconds seemed to drag by, and tension settled into the air like a lead weight, wrapping around each of them asnothinghappened on the screen. Minutes of just the trees blowing in the breeze and the sun slowly setting.

And then,finally, something showed up on the screen. A small figure, shrouded in a dark hoodie, moved quietly and stealthily up to the car, scooped up the scrapbook, and walked off the opposite side of the screen.

Laurel swore again. “I knew we should have kept it.” She glared at Chloe. “What’s in it?”

“How the hell should I know? I didn’t even know it was in that chest.”

“It’s been in her garage, undisturbed for years. Anyone who wanted it could have gotten it easily. For years.”

“Not if the person who wanted it was in prison,” Laurel returned.

“If my father wanted it, he knew where it was and how to get to it. He could have sent Ry, and I wouldn’t have thought twice about my brother hanging around my place. Detective, you can look into my father for anything you want, but it doesn’t make sense to bark up that tree right now.”

Laurel was still scowling, but she didn’t argue with Chloe. “Here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to go back home and let me do my job.”

“Who else is briefed on the case besides you?” Jack demanded.

Laurel’s expression was stern. “I’ll catch them up.”

“We’re going to look for him, Detective. With or without your permission or cooperation.”

“I could have you arrested for tampering with an ongoing investigation.”

Jack didn’t take offense to the threat. He understood all too well what it was like to have no answers and someone you cared about in the middle of confusing danger. But he didn’t bend either. “Or you could just let us help.”

THEYWEREGIVENthe grunt job. They had trailed after Laurel as she’d gone from department to department, barking out orders. Then, when she’d finally stopped and turned to them, she’d told them to go search Hart’s house.

Which was the grunt job because clearly Hart wasn’t likely to have been there since before his shift today. Still, it was a necessary job, and Chloe and Jack drove from the police station over to Bent proper.

She couldn’t blame the detective for keeping her out of most of it. Someone was going to call that parole officer in Texas and see where her father was, and if he wasn’t verifiably in Texas tonight, he would be a top suspect.

But it didn’t add up. Not to Chloe. Her father was shady as all get out, but he could have gotten that scrapbook whenever he wanted.

“There’s something off here, Jack,” she said, scanning the quiet street where Thomas Hart lived. She didn’t know much about Thomas Hart’s personal life, but according to Laurel, he lived alone in the little house they pulled up to.

A neat yard with no frills. A well-kept house with a porch light on in the dark.

Jack stopped the truck, and they both got out and studied the house from the front in what little light the porch and streetlamp offered.

“There’s a lot of things off here, I think,” Jack replied. “You don’t have your gun on you. I want you to—”

“Follow behind. I know,” she muttered, following him up to the porch. They’d knock on the front, then check around back. But Chloe didn’t think they’d find anything here.

“The only person who knew about that scrapbook, far as I know, is my father. Nothing happened to it when it was only my father knowing. So what happened? Who got wind of it being with the cops?”

“Maybe that was the problem,” Jack replied, rapping on the door. “Your father didn’t want it with the police.”

“Iamthe police.”

Jack just shook his head as they waited. Chloe peered in the sidelight while Jack studied the front window, looking for a glimpse of anything. No one answered the door, no flicker of light or movement of curtains. Just stillness and silence.

Jack jerked his head, and Chloe nodded. They’d move around the east side of the house now. The street was quiet, the night heavy. As they moved around the side of the house, Chloe’s nerves began to hum. In the front, the quiet had seemed like a comfortable small-town evening, but things were darker around back. Chloe kept even closer to Jack.

There were no lights on back here, so the postage stamp backyards all ran together like one big shadow. Some houses had lights on inside, shining in little cracks around curtains, but not many.

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