Page 44 of Fatal Vision
Chapter Eight
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WHILE HER LAPTOP’Sdead battery charged, Shelby sorted through two piles of snail mail her mother had neatly stacked for her.
As Colton and Connor worked on installing the new security system, she paid the recent utility bills, got her cable turned back on, and tossed the ball for Salisbury.
She’d seen the emotional leakage on Colton’s face in the kitchen—he actually wanted Connor to stay. The fact Connor had come to Oklahoma, regardless of whether or not their boss had ordered it, meant a lot to Colton.
Connor was lying about Beatrice sending him. He’d most likely volunteered, but knew Colton wouldn’t send him away if he believed Beatrice had ordered it.
Ah, the world of micro-expressions. No matter how long she studied it or how much she sincerely tried not to use her skills on others, the truth always revealed itself.
Colton brought her fresh coffee and her cell phone shortly after she sat down. After he went upstairs, Connor snuck in under the guise of checking the locks on the windows to tell her how happy he was she was okay. She asked about his new girlfriend and the guy nearly burst with eagerness to tell her about Sabrina Merinos.
Colton yelled down from upstairs and Connor hustled out, giving her a squeeze on her shoulder as he passed by.
Shelby sat back in her chair and smiled, happy for the man. It was a wonderful thing to be in love, to feel that spark.
She touched her lips. The kiss from Colton earlier had certainly lit her up. She could still feel the buzz in her system. Reliving the moment, her body reacted all over again.
Eighteen months had been a damn long time without him in her life, without him there to kiss her like that, to hold her and make her feel like she was the only woman in the world for him.
Of course, she could see that on his face. Even now, after all of their arguments and the divorce, he was still in love with her.
If only that were enough.
She could see past all of his facades, his lies. He used them to protect himself, to keep from getting close to people who had time and time again let him down. She couldn’t blame him for shielding himself. Everyone needed some form of emotional protection.
She’d found hers at a young age, having a father like Jack for a parent. The man had many sides, many faces—different ones for his family, his followers, the camera. Her natural ability to read people had developed from reading him, learning the micro-expressions others never noticed.
Her dad was a good man, a sincere one, even if at times his demeanor was overbearing and downright frustrating. He bordered on being a bully when he believed he was right. And Jack Claiborne always right.
Shelby eyed her laptop. The light had changed to green a while ago, letting her know it was fully charged, but she’d felt a clawing uncertainty. Every time she’d reached for it, a spike of pain shot through her right temple.
Now or never. Regardless of what her brain didn’t want to remember, she had to find the truth.
Her paper file on the veteran murders seemed woefully incomplete. Sure, the autopsy reports were missing—she remembered that. But she had a specific way of running an investigation, a system for filing her evidence, notes, and logging timelines. The folder on the table in front of her seemed to lack her usual organization. Where were her interview notes? Her Detail Report?
The DR was really a half-baked tool she used in every investigation. Partial descriptions that jumped out at her, facial expressions during interviews that didn’t jive with what the person said, anything that stuck in her brain, from times to bits and pieces of stories.
Sometimes she would list nothing but a word that kept circling her brain. All of those little tidbits looked like worthless words and numbers on paper, yet often when she linked them all together, they triggered something in her brain that led to her solving the case.
It wasn’t a procedure the FBI had taught her or would condone, which was why she always kept the Detail Report in her private file, but it worked for her. Even before the shooting, her brain had worked differently than most people’s—and one thing she had learned as a preacher’s daughter was that she had to use the gifts God had handed her.
So her gift for reading people’s faces, as well as the one that allowed her to see connections between trivial facts, were to be used for a higher purpose.
There had been times as an FBI agent when she doubted the existence of a benevolent God. All she knew for sure was that she was here to counteract the evil in the world. Her father was too. He had his religion to guide him. Shelby had her gifts.
She entered her password, watched the opening screen emerge, and ignored the messages about all the updates her computer needed. She had 1057 emails. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter…wow, she’d missed a lot.
They would all have to wait another day.
Where is it?
She clicked through several files. Where was the smoking gun?
