Page 30 of Marked For Revenge

Chapter Nine

Harley worked on the ever-growing paperwork at Ava’s kitchen table while he waited for her to make a morning appearance. He could hear her in the shower, so he knew it wouldn’t be long before she joined him, hopefully for breakfast and then they could leave to go to the sheriff’s office for Marnie’s interview.

For now, Harley welcomed the quiet moments so he could try to give himself a serious attitude adjustment. Hard to do, though, with Ava’s words constantly repeating in his head.

I can’t fall for you again.

That hadn’t exactly been what he’d hoped to hear after the scalding kiss they’d shared. Not with the need for her skyrocketing. But he totally got where she was coming from. This was the absolute worst time for either of them to be distracted with things such as heat, need and kissing. It was there though.

Mercy, was it.

Harley knew he would have to stomp all of that down and focus on catching a killer. That was the only way to ensure Ava and their daughter were safe. Once they had this SOB behind bars and dealt with the aftermath, then maybe he could start trying to convince Ava to give that falling for him again a chance.

For now, he just had to work and make sure he was doing everything possible to keep her safe. Thankfully, plenty of people were doing that as well. Theo and some of the other deputies were working round-the-clock, and the CSIs had searched through every inch of Ava’s yard and the woods. The plan was for the CSI team to return today to undertake a check inside her house while Ava and he were at the sheriff’s office. Harley didn’t expect them to find anything useful, but it was one of those things that needed to be done.

Harley had higher hopes in the usefulness department with the reports that had come in from the PI, Darcel Harrison. There were twenty years’ worth, so it would take a while to go through them all. But on Duran’s okay, Darcel had sent the complete file to the Rangers and copied Theo. Theo didn’t have the manpower to assign someone to pore through them, but there were techs in the Ranger crime lab making the reports a high priority. After all, it could lead to catching a serial killer.

An email that popped into his in-box got his attention off Ava and back on the investigation. It was a report from Austin PD to let him know the photo sent to Caleb had been examined and that there was no traceable info on it. That’s what Harley had expected, but it was still a disappointment.

That photo taunt had been plenty gutsy, and sometimes killers made mistakes when they took risks like that. Apparently, though, this killer had been smart enough to use a temporary email account and had then bounced it around servers to make it impossible to track.

Since Ava and Theo had been copied on the report, Harley figured that’s what Ava was reading when she finally made her way into the kitchen. She looked up from her phone at him, their eyes locking for a couple of seconds. She didn’t come out and say anything about the kiss, about why it shouldn’t have happened, but he knew her well enough to know that was what she was thinking.

“You saw that the emailed photo can’t be traced,” she said, tipping her head to his laptop.

He nodded. “It’s a dead end, but I spoke to Lieutenant O’Malley a little while ago, and we might get something new on the surveillance footage from the shooting. He’s having the feed collected from any and all cameras for the surrounding block. It’ll take some time, but he thinks we might be able to see someone coming or going from the scene.”

Ava didn’t look especially hopeful that anything would come from that, and she was probably right. Still, something eventually had to hit. It just had to. Because Harley refused to believe there was absolutely no evidence out there that wouldn’t help them ID this killer.

“Did you read the report from the crime lab on the mannequin head?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

The report had come in an hour ago, and since Ava was checking for such things as often as he was, she would have already seen it. Heck, she’d likely studied it, combing for any details. But even with the combing, there just wasn’t anything in it they could use. Not from this initial info anyway.

“Yes,” she verified. “There’s no way to trace the garbage bag, but locating the source of the mannequin head is possible.”

That was it in a nutshell. What she didn’t add was that finding the source for the mannequin head was a long shot, especially since the killer could have bought it online or paid cash for it at a store.

Ava looked at him again as if she might say something of a personal nature, but her phone rang and the moment was lost. Her attention snapped to the screen and he could tell from her soft groan that this wasn’t a call she wanted to take.

“It’s my father,” she explained. On a heavy sigh, she answered and put it on speaker. “I’m busy,” she greeted, her voice snapping. That wasn’t exactly a lie. They did have to leave soon for the sheriff’s office for the interview with Marnie.

“So am I,” her father snapped right back. “And that’s why I’ll make this quick. I understand Duran paid you a visit yesterday. What did he want?”

Her eyebrow lifted when her gaze met Harley’s and, setting her phone down on the counter, she went to pour herself a glass of milk. “Are you saying your trusted friend and campaign manager didn’t tell you why he was here?”

“He said he was checking on you,” Edgar quickly fired back. “He claims you had questions about the PI I had on that scumbag who got you pregnant when you were a kid. Is that true?”

Harley didn’t miss the word claims. So, maybe Edgar wasn’t feeling a whole lot of trustworthiness for Duran.

“I’m sure Duran can tell you all about what Harley and I discussed with him,” Ava replied.

“Harley,” Edgar grumbled, using the same tone as he had with the scumbag referral to Aaron. “Of course, he listened in on the discussion.”

“Of course,” Harley interjected to let Edgar know he was listening now as well. Yeah, it was a petty dig, but Harley didn’t mind resorting to pettiness where Edgar was concerned. “You tried to put a wedge between Ava and me by lying to her, by telling her I’d cut you a deal in the investigation I was running on you.”

There was silence. For a long time. “You didn’t charge me with anything,” Edgar finally said, obviously going for some pettiness of his own. He wasn’t going to own up to the lie.

And that’s why Harley pushed harder.

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