Page 37 of Spark
“Two to three weeks.”
Chloe threw every effort into not letting her jaw fall all the way to the floor.“I’m sorry.Did you sayweeks?”
“I know it feels like forever,” Tara said.“But if we don’t follow chain of custody rules to the letter, then Navarro’s attorney will have grounds for a motion to dismiss the forensic evidence altogether.He’s already foaming at the mouth over the search warrant.We need to make sure every part of the process gets done properly to prove that nothing was tampered with or compromised.”
Just because it made sense didn’t mean Chloe needed to like it.“Okay, but isn’t two to three weeks an awfully long time?”
Tara shook her head, although not unsympathetically.“The backlog can be up to three months, and with how many evidence kits may have been damaged in last night’s fire, two to three weeks is a gift.The best we can do right now is wait out the process and hope the DNA is still viable.”
Tyler cleared his throat in a low rumble from his spot beside Chloe at the table.“Okay, so, what happens in the meantime?What’s the plan?”
The question was so direct that it knocked the wind out of Chloe’s spiraling emotions, allowing her to focus on Tara’s answer instead of her own slamming heartbeat.
“We keep investigating,” she said, no hesitation.“I know the search was a bust, but there’s got to be somethingsomewherethat connects Navarro to this murder.That knife is distinct, so let’s start there.Plus, it didn’t just disappear into thin air.If it isn’t in the bottom of a river, I want it.”
“Copy that,” Sinclair said, and Addison chimed in.
“What about this fire?I know Nat and her team have to investigate”—she sent a nod to the arson investigator—“but if Navarro is responsible, we could get him for arson.I mean, I think we can all agree that, at the very least, this fire looks suspicious.”
To Chloe’s frustration, Tara played Devil’s Advocate.“What it looks like and what we can prove aren’t always the same thing.”She turned to look at Nat.“What do we know about the fire so far?”
“Well, it caused an extensive amount of damage, so the investigation will be ongoing for a while,” Nat said.“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and we have to wait for the forensics team to properly remove all of the DNA kits before we can get started.But from what we’ve pieced together so far from Gates and Dempsey’s scene reports, the burn patterns strongly suggest the fire started on the second floor, in the lab.”
“Any idea what caused it?”Sinclair asked, and here, Ryan spoke up.
“Gates and I found three open containers of ethanol once we got past the cleanroom doors.It’s highly flammable, and burns in a pretty distinct, yellow-colored flame with a blue base.That was definitely the accelerant.”
“Could it have been a spill of some kind?An accident?”Tara asked.
Tyler shook his head.“No.The whole containment system experienced catastrophic failure.No alarms, no sprinkler system—we even had to break into the cleanroom.Those doors are specifically designed to stay unlocked if there’s an emergency, so no one gets trapped inside.”
“Could that have been a glitch?”Maxwell asked.“Or caused by damage from the fire?”
Tyler’s “no” was more forceful this time, and it collided with Nat’s “probably not”.
She raised a brow at him before saying, “Containment room doors are programmed to automatically unlock when the power goes out, or an alarm goes off.It’s notlikelythat they malfunctioned because they’re faulty, and multiple points of failure in a single system definitely suggests tampering, but we’ll have to investigate to know for sure.”
“Understood,” Tara said, “but let’s move fast.If Navarro—or anyone else whose DNA kit was stored in the facility—had anything to do with this fire, I want proof.”
Nat nodded.“We’ll work the scene with Intelligence.”
Sinclair added, “And we’ll keep digging on Navarro to see if we can turn up that murder weapon or some connection to Brinkman that we haven’t found yet.”
“Good,” Tara said, turning her stare first to Tom, then to Chloe.“I know it’s hard to be patient, but given all the maybes here, we have to keep this investigation confidential until we know what we’re dealing with.”
The implication hit Chloe like a pinprick, sudden and sharp.“Wait.You don’t want to tell Esme about this, either?”
Tara’s hesitation answered the question even before she said, “She’s been through a lot, and she’s not in any danger right now.I don’t want to upset her if we don’t have to.”
“I don’t, either, but it’s not fair to keep her in the dark.Look”—Chloe took a breath, trying her best not to argue with someone who A) she admired, and B) had made an entire career out of winning arguments—“I understand that we don’t know about the DNA yet, and that it’ll be a little while before we know for sure.There’s a chance the evidence is viable, and you’ll arrest Navarro as planned.”
She steadied her words, but damn, she had to choose it.“But there’s a chance that DNA is ruined, and that Esme is the only thing standing between Leo Navarro and his get out of jail free card.I promised to act in her best interest.If there’s enough potential for bad things that we’re all in this room discussing it, then she deserves to know, too.Especially if her testimony becomes the only thing that proves Navarro’s guilt.”
“You’ve got to admit, she’s got a point,” Addison said after a beat, and Tom punctuated the sentiment with a nod.
“Esmehasbeen through a lot.There’s no denying that, and there’s no way this news won’t upset her.But she’d be even more upset if she finds out we knew all of this and kept it from her.”
It was the truth.Chloe’s relationship with Esme, as tentative as it was, was built on trust.She’d promised to be on Esme’s side and fight for her, no matter what.Even when—hell,especiallywhen—things got scary.
