Page 12 of Justice for Daesha

“I tried to put nice touches on everything here. I’m not one of those people who redecorates every three years, so I wanted things I’d enjoy for a long time. I’ve been in here for six years now and I’m not tired of it yet, so I guess I succeeded.” He watched as she did something under the counter and in seconds, he heard the dishwasher kick on. “There we go. All cleaned up. Let me get those files.”

Minutes later, they had papers scattered out on the coffee table. Amos looked at all the photos of the crime scene, including the ones of her sister’s body just as it had been found. Something about the whole thing bothered him, and it wasn’t the goriness of it. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but there was something…

“See anything?” she asked.

“No. But that doesn’t mean there’s not something there that’s been missed. It’s just a first-time once-over, and I need to look at them again and again in little batches to make sure my brain processes everything.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

“This was particularly violent,” he murmured, mostly to himself.

“That’s what I keep saying.”

Amos took a quick glance at her face. “I guess looking at these must really freak you out.”

She shook her head. “Not anymore. Yeah, at first, but now, I just want to figure this out and find who did it. It’s become almost like I’m looking at someone I didn’t really know, just a body. I mean, look at her face and look at the picture of her from Christmas that year. They beat her until she was unrecognizable.”

“Yeah. And they ran all the DNA?”

“Yep. Nobody in the system that it matched.”

“Hmmm. Have they run it again lately?”

“That I don’t know. Why?”

“Because if somebody came into the system since then?”

“Oh! Of course! I dunno, but I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

“No. Never does.” He pointed to something in the picture. “This was her car?”

“Right after she and Max separated, she bought a new Mercedes.”

“Wasn’t that kind of unusual?”

“Not if you’re on the dating scene again, I guess not.”

“But I thought she wanted to keep them together?”

Daesha shrugged. “That’s what shesaid, but that’s why I think she was seeing somebody.”

“Uh-huh. That makes sense.” Amos glanced over everything again. “Would you mind if I took all this with me? I’d like to take it to the office and spread it all out, let the other guys look at it, see if they see something you or I haven’t.”

She hesitated. “Well, um, I guess so. I mean, it’s the only copy of all this stuff that I have, so please?”

“Oh, no. I’ll take good care of it. I’ll treat it like it was my sister’s file, okay? It’s just that sometimes a fresh set of eyes?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I get it. Sure. Go for it. I’ll get it back from you when you’re finished with it.”

“Would you mind if I made copies?”

She shrugged, her eyebrows in her hairline. “If you want. I don’t have a problem with it.”

“Good. I’ll do that and then I can just give it back to you.” Amos started pulling everything back together and putting it in the folder. But he was a little puzzled.

The whole time he’d been sitting there, he’d been waiting, sure Daesha was going to move closer to him, or lean into him, or put a hand on his shoulder as she scooted in closer to look at whatever he was looking at. But she hadn’t, and he found that weird. Of course, he wasn’t attracted to her, so it would’ve been awkward if she had.

Or would it? He watched her from the corner of his eye as she straightened and stacked papers. It was almost as though she hadn’t noticed he was a man, that he was just a sexless being sitting there beside her. Just a friend. Women had always been attracted to him, and it confused him a little, so he decided to try something. “You know, I was a little worried when you invited me over. I was afraid you were going to see this as a date or something.”

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