Page 7 of Bad Mother

“It could have been written by the victim, I guess, though the name Danny Boy says otherwise.”

“Unless she was writing a story?”

“Anyway”—Ingrid took the letter contained in the clear evidence bag and put it back in her briefcase—“another piece of the puzzle. I’m going to search the database and see if I get any hits on missing women that fit her description, specifically ones that disappeared from work in the last few days, and any crimes that have similar elements. If we don’t get any leads by the end of the day, we can consider doing a presser and asking the public for some help identifying her.”

Kat slipped the notepad she’d been writing on into the folder in front of her and closed it, then slid her chair back. “We’re going to compile a list of casinos where she might have worked based on her uniform, and then we’ll be off to the Emerald Isle. Ready, partner?” she asked Sienna.

The Emerald Isle.

Whereheworked.

As ready as she’d ever be, which was to say, not at all.

CHAPTER FOUR

Damn, it’d been a bitch of a day. Gavin tossed his coat over the living room chair, loosening his tie as he walked to the minibar and poured himself a generous splash of bourbon.

They’d had an upgrade on their systems, and everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. Not to mention he’d been locked away in a small, windowless room for most of it, which had done nothing for his mood. He took a much-needed sip of the alcohol, letting it burn down his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d required a stiff drink simply to relax the tension in his shoulders after a workday, but this one had been brutal enough to warrant it. He stood in front of his window, the top floor of his condo building providing a stellar view of the Reno skyline and the desert beyond. The last of the liquor was smooth going down.All’s well that ends well.He set the empty tumbler on the side table next to him and rolled his neck, bending it left and then right. His muscles were less tight now. Better.

Of course, his mom would tell him he needed to find a good woman who would rub his shouldersforhim so he didn’t have to depend on a shot of bourbon or a good half hour in the sauna he’d had built into his bathroom to ease his stress.

Maybe so. And perhaps someday soon he’d get serious about looking. But so far, he hadn’t met anyone he was interested in for more thana brief, uncomplicated relationship. Ifrelationshipwas even the right word. He sighed and massaged the last of the tension out of his neck.

His mind wandered, the bourbon causing a pleasant fuzziness. The problem was, he compared all women toher. And they all came up short. Which was ridiculous at this point. He’d put her on a pedestal in his head because he felt guilty for what he’d done. Add that to the fact she’d been his first love, his first everything, and of course she was going to stand out. It was simple psychology, and he needed to get over it. Move on once and for all. Give someone else an actual chance to knock her from that lofty place she still held inside his heart.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose to ward off the dull headache he felt forming.

Jesus.Why was he thinking about her right now anyway? Gavin hadn’t thought about her in a long time—at least not cognizant musings. “Stress induced,” he muttered to himself as he turned away from the window, grabbed his glass, and returned to the minibar. A couple of drinks after a long day never hurt anyone. He picked up the remote control, turned on the flat-screen TV mounted to his wall, and collapsed onto his couch, where he sprawled, taking a sip of his second drink while sinking back into the buttery-soft leather.

He put his legs up on the ottoman in front of him and changed the channels until the news came on. He would have liked to have tuned into a game or something easier to zone out to, but there was nothing on. He tried to stay updated on current events in his city, though—in security, it was always good to know what was going on around you—and so the news would do.

“We go live now to a press conference at the Reno PD, where they’re asking for help from the public to identify a woman found murdered last night.”

Gavin swirled the last of his drink, his brow lowering as he looked at the sketch of the woman on the screen. She didn’t look immediately familiar, but then again, she also didn’t have any very definingcharacteristics. She was about his mother’s age, a little haggard looking in that way that usually meant life had been less than kind or bad choices had been made consistently enough to leave a mark, so to speak.

Still... someone’s mother... or maybe grandmother, sister, or wife. It’d be a kick to the gut to find out on the evening news your loved one had been murdered. He didn’t think the police generally went that route unless it was a case they believed needed solving ASAP because others might be at risk.

The camera panned to the side for a moment, and Gavin jolted, pulling himself completely upright and blindly setting his glass on the ottoman.

It missed, dropping to the floor instead but not shattering on the thick area rug. He left it there, instead reaching for the remote and turning the volume up.It can’t be.

The camera angle widened again, and Gavin stared.Holy shit.Sienna Walker. He felt stunned, as if somehow his very recent thoughts had come about because he’dfelther presence close by. He glanced at the news station logo, wondering if maybe he’d turned the TV to some national station and she was actually standing at a press conference with the New York City PD, where he assumed she still worked. But no, she was here, in Reno, standing among city cops, their uniforms ones he knew well because he sometimes worked with officers on some security-related issue or another. And more often than that, he had needed to call them to the casino due to some drunk and disorderly patrons who needed to be forcibly eighty-sixed.

His nerves were strung tight again, but he sat back, taking in the information the detective was presenting as she asked the public to call them about anyone who had gone missing in the past few weeks or days who resembled the woman in the drawing. Apparently, there were no suspects at the moment and no missing person cases that fit the victim.

He felt a little bit dizzy, his eyes trained on Sienna. Even with her hair pulled back tightly and her simple pair of gray slacks and whiteblouse, there was no denying her beauty. She’d been beautiful eleven years ago, and she was even more beautiful now, and he was honest enough with himself to admit that the stirring in his gut was longing. It hit him like a sledgehammer.

He’d never let go.

Even if he’d ensured she would never again be his.

CHAPTER FIVE

The bar was mostly empty, lighting low, “Fly Me to the Moon” playing softly over the sound system so it was nothing but muted background noise. Sienna picked up a fry, dipped it in ketchup, and popped it in her mouth as she turned a page on the initial autopsy report.

She’d gone over all the case details that afternoon, but sometimes something stuck out that hadn’t before if you looked at a report or a piece of evidence under different circumstances and in an alternate location, and so she did that now as she ate alone.

The bus driver hadn’t been able to offer them any information at all, and so they’d spent the afternoon scouring casino websites for pictures of uniforms and then narrowing it down to ten. They’d gone to each of those locations, but there were no employees unaccounted for, so that had been a dead end. Of course, there could be other workplaces—restaurants, bars, hell,strip clubs—where they wore similar uniforms, so it had been a crapshoot (no pun intended) to target the casinos first anyway. She couldn’t help wondering how much demand there was at any strip club for a fifty-something woman who wasn’t all that attractive, but decided to move on quickly from that particular line of question.

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