Page 533 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

She read the label on the burlap.Green Earthcoffee, out of Brazil. On the table next to it lay a coffee cup, bagged, slightly crushed.

“Where was this found?” Item number forty-four—she found its number on the map. Silas came up to look over her shoulder.

“It looks like it was picked up on the sidewalk across the street. Maybe from a patron who’d just ordered their coffee and was headed to the bus stop?”

“It was on the side street, away from the shop. The bus stop is further up the street, on the opposite side.”

“And there’s nothing else there but the backside of the grocery store,” Silas said.

“So, he was standing outside, watching?” Eve heard Rembrandt’s words pinging inside her. “He thinks the bomber is trying to make a point. The early time suggests he wasn’t as interested in massive casualties as he was in making a point.”

“Which means he wanted to make sure it went off.”

“Let’s see if we can pull DNA off this. Could be nothing, but if whoever the cup belongs to was in the store, he or she might have seen something. We may have a survivor here who we missed.” She handed him the baggie. “Tomorrow. Go home, Silas. It’s been a long day and it’s late.”

“You first.” Silas glanced at his watch. “Pizza?”

She scrubbed her hands down her face. “I just want to climb into my bathtub and see if I can put myself back together.”

“You don’t have running water,” Silas said.

“Thanks for that.” She followed him to the door, grabbing her satchel from the rack. “Samson promised he’d turn the water on.”

Silas pushed open the door, out into the night. Overhead, stars spilled across a dark and desolate sky, pinpricks of hope, the moon an eye upon the city. She followed the puddles of street lamps out to her Escort. Silas stood at her door and hung a hand on it as she opened it.

“You sure you don’t want pizza?”

He stood there, his blond hair swept back and tucked behind his ears, hazel eyes imperative.

“I gotta tell you something.” He shifted, blew out a breath and adjusted his shoulder strap on his backpack. “I don’t think you should be hanging out with Stone.”

“I’m picking that up. Calm down, it was just lunch?—”

“He didn’t reveal all his secrets in that memoir of his.”

She slowly rose from her seat. “I’m listening.”

Silas stepped back from her door, and she closed it, then leaned against it, arms folded.

“Listen, I’m not trying to get him into trouble. It’s just?—”

“Tell me.”

He ran his hand across his jaw. “Okay, so there was a case involving this missing four-year-old girl.”

“We talked about it today, over lunch. She was kidnapped from Minnehaha Park.”

“Yeah. Took them three days to find her—and when they did, she was dead.”

“Sad—”

“Horrifying, because she’d also been raped. And when the coroner found that out, rumor is that your friend Rembrandt sort of lost it.” He blew out a breath. “See, it was after they picked up the perp, and when the semen analysis came back, it was from…well, her father. And although there was nothing to tie thefather to the kidnapping, he had contact with her either before or during the abduction. But the guy alibied out for the entire time, so…”

A chill had started in her core, begun to wring through her.

Silas seemed to be considering his next words, the way he stared out into the street, watching late night traffic cruise down the strip. The heat of the day had released from the sidewalks, now simmered in the air, mixing with the dirt and must of the city. A siren shot through the silence, whining in the distance.

“What happened?”

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