Page 19 of Yuletide Hero

“The medical examiner found injuries that were inconsistent with a fall. Numerous old broken bones dating back to when she was a toddler suggested abuse, especially given her father’s violent past with his wife. And there were the recent injuries, a broken nose and cheekbone. According to the ME they were less than twenty-four hours old.”

“And the marks on her shoulders and wrists,” Jessica added.

“We suspected that her father had chased her up onto the roof, caught up with her, held her around the wrists, and dangled her over the edge of the building before finally shoving her by the shoulders off the roof.” Just thinking about it was enough to get his blood boiling. What kind of fully grown man attacked a thirteen-year-old girl? Everyone they had spoken to had said that Leah was quiet and shy, but very sweet and a polite kid, she hadn't deserved what her father had done to her. Even if the teenager was a nasty, rude, mean-spirited kid, she wouldn’t have deserved what her father had done to her.

“Then we talked to Leah’s friends at school. None of them knew anything about a boyfriend. They said that Leah wasn't confident around the boys in her class, and although a lot of them were interested in her and thought she was pretty, she didn't date. She focused on her schoolwork because she wanted to be able to get a scholarship to college so she could get away from her home.”

“From all accounts, Leah wasn't a troublemaker, and it seemed unlikely that she would be sneaking out of her bedroom window in the middle of the night.”

“Unless her father had broken her face that evening after school and she’d had enough and decided to run away,” his partner suggested.

“Doesn’t seem to fit with the profile,” Adam countered. “If she was going to leave, I think she would have just gone to an adult and told them what was going on. And she was smart. I think she knew her father would probably receive minimal prison time, be ordered to enter some sort of rehab, and then even if she’d been put in foster care, she would be sent right back home for the abuse to start over again. She wanted out permanently, that’s why she was already thinking about college. Besides, I don’t think she would have left her little sister behind and alone at the mercy of their abusive, alcoholic father.”

“Which brings us to Kinsley.”

“Right.” He nodded, thinking of the little girl and the look on her face as her father had darted past him and Jessica and run down the path to the street, slamming into Hayley. The child had been understandably upset, and it had taken him and Jessica a while to calm her down. Kinsley was only a year older than Claire and had already been through so much in her short life.

“The day after Leah’s death, she drew a picture of her house with her sister lying dead on the ground and her father on the roof. Her kindergarten teacher knew about Leah’s death, and when she saw the picture, she thought it was odd Kinsley had put her father on the roof and asked her about it. Kinsley said that her daddy had been on the roof arguing with Leah and then Leah fell. The teacher noticed bruises on Kinsley’s wrist, and when she asked the little girl, she said her daddy had done it. She immediately called CPS and the precinct to tell us what Kinsley had told her.”

It had been three days since Leah Turner fell—or was pushed—to her death and two days since Kinsley had told what she knew. A day since they had removed the child from her home afraid that she was in imminent danger of being harmed, and Jay Turner was still a free man. At first, they had nothing but a crayon drawing and a story from a five-year-old told secondhand through her teacher, not enough to get an arrest warrant. Yesterday they’d had the man in custody, but he’d gotten bail claiming he was just a desperate father driven into a blind rage at having his only remaining child ripped away from him.

But Adam knew that was a lie.

Jay Turner didn't care about his children in the way most fathers did. To him, they were merely possessions that he could do whatever he wanted with. They—specifically Hayley—had taken Kinsley away from him, he couldn’t do anything but try to finish what he started and kill Hayley.

They needed to find him before he tracked her down and took a second shot at her.

Right now, they only had one definite way of getting the proof they needed that Jay had killed Leah.

Kinsley.

The injuries and marks on Leah’s body were circumstantial. Any defense lawyer could invent a story about how she came to have them, possibly blaming the imaginary boyfriend. The only way to prove murder in court was Kinsley’s account of what she had seen and heard that night.

“We need to speak with the social worker assigned to Kinsley Turner, make sure she has a lawyer appointed to her, and then we need to make a time to go and interview her.” Adam wanted Jay Turner in prison before Christmas Day so at least Kinsley could begin the process of moving on. Who knows, maybe with husband and father out of the way Maria and Kinsley’s lives would be better. Then he wanted to go home and enjoy Christmas with his own little girl.

* * * * *

12:33 P.M.

“You ready for lunch?”

“Not yet.” Hayley looked up from what she was doing. “We’re not finished yet.”

“Silly me,” Brian said with a smirk. “Of course, we can't stop to eat until we’re finished assembling your Christmas village, even though we’ve been working on it for six hours now and haven't stopped for a break.”

Hayley couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey, usually this takes me a whole day or more to get everything just right. Six hours and we’re nearly done is pretty good.” They’d been working on the village ever since Brian had told her the boxes were in his garage. It had been a great distraction from what was going on with Jay Turner, and she and Brian had been having so much fun. He’d even sacrificed his dining table so she had somewhere to set everything up.

“It usually takes me less than an hour to decorate my whole house for Christmas,” Brian said.

“That’s because you only have a tree with lights,” she shot back, pointing to the Christmas tree in the corner of the room.

Brian shrugged. “Between work and volunteering I’m hardly ever here, and we always do Christmas Day at my parents’ house, or one of my uncles, or your parents, so there doesn’t seem much point in going all out.”

“I live alone, and we never do Christmas at my house, and I still decorate every room.”

“That’s because you're Christmas crazy.” Brian poked his tongue out at her.

She laughed again. They’d really had such a wonderful morning, and Brian had been so patient as she fiddled with each of the buildings trying to decide how they would best fit onto the table. At her house, she had the village spread out over a specially designed two-tier table her dad had made for her when she first moved into her own place.

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