Page 19 of Lone Star Rescue

“Go back to the time Tessa disappeared,” Bree instructed Wade as they exited the elevator on the third floor. “Why do you think she left?”

Wade’s breath was weary, and it matched his expression to a tee. “I’ve gone over that a thousand times or more.”

“I know. But please go over it again,” she coaxed. “Sometimes, by repeating it, you remember a little thing that could be important.”

Wade stopped outside Tessa’s suite. “Why? Have you found something?” But he waved that off and opened the door to let them into the room. “Get the prints and I’ll talk about Tessa.”

But Wade didn’t jump into the subject of his daughter. He stepped inside the room. And just stood there. No doubt dealing with all the memories of seeing her things.

Like the rest of the house, sprawling was the right word for this room, too, with sitting and desk areas along with the king-sized bed. Since the door was open to the ensuite bath, Rafe could see it matched the large scale of the rest of the room.

Bree had a sweeping glance around and headed to a lighted vanity table just inside the bathroom. Wade had been right about keeping things as is. The vanity was jammed with cosmetics and hair stuff.

“Tessa had been in a bad mood for weeks before she left,” Wade finally started while Bree gloved up and took the fingerprint kit from her bag. “Heck, she’d been in a bad mood since her mother died a few months earlier from breast cancer.”

Rafe knew that was true. Tessa and her mother hadn’t been close. Just the opposite. They’d been more oil and water than mother and daughter. Lots of arguments and sometimes months of sullenness where they never even spoke to each other. When her mom had died, Rafe thought that Tessa felt guilty that she hadn’t at least been more caring during those last days.

“Tessa was riled, too, because she didn’t want you to leave and refused the notion of following you around the world on assignments,” Wade added to Rafe.

Good thing, too, since there wouldn’t have been much following him around. Combat Rescue Officers spent a lot of time on deployments where their families couldn’t go.

“But I’m not saying she left because of you,” Wade insisted. “It was more than that. She was moody and restless. She was staying out all night. And, yeah, I know that’s somethinga girl her age does.A woman,” he corrected in a mutter. “But she was secretive about who she was seeing and what she was doing.”

“I have to ask,” Bree said as she dusted the handle of a hairbrush for the prints. “Do you think she was using drugs?”

“No,” Wade insisted. Then, he paused. “But she came in hungover a couple of times. I just don’t think she had direction in her life. She didn’t know what to do with herself.”

That meshed with what Rafe believed, too. Tessa had never pressed him for marriage, and she’d never done especially well in college. In fact, she’d flunked out. With no desire to help run her father’s business, Tessa had basically shopped and partied.

Rafe took out his phone and pulled up Buckner’s photo. “Did you ever see Tessa with this man?”

Wade took the phone, adjusting his glasses for a long look before he shook his head. “No. I know she never brought him here. Why? Is he a suspect?”

“A person of interest,” Bree supplied while she continued with the prints. “And, no, I’m not giving you his name because I don’t want you to contact him. Right now, I just need to talk to him.”

“But he might have killed my baby girl,” Wade muttered.

Bree finished with the prints, using the app on her phone to start processing them, and she came back into the bedroom, stopping right in front of Wade. “I’m begging you not to get up your hopes about what I’m going to tell you. Just understand that it’s speculation at this point.”

“What?” Wade’s gaze was now pinned to Bree’s.

“Ollie examined photos of the bones, and he thinks there’s a possibility that they don’t belong to Tessa.”

“What?” Wade repeated, but this time it wasn’t a demand. It was filled with anxious breath. And hope. No way for a father not to hang onto that.

“A possibility,” Bree emphasized. “That’s why the DNA is important. Thanks to Ruby Maverick and her team, we might have a DNA profile tomorrow on the bones taken from the grave. Then, we’ll know for sure.”

Wade stayed quiet a moment, obviously considering that, and even though it was apossibility, it caused him to grope around behind him for the bed. He sank down onto the mattress as if his legs had given out on him.

“DNA,” Wade repeated. “Won’t they need to match Tessa’s DNA to the bones?”

“They will,” Rafe spoke up, and he knew it was time for him to confess what he’d done. “The blood on your handkerchief will be used to build a DNA profile for Tessa.”

Wade blinked and shook his head as if confused. “My blood,” he said, and that seemed to yank him back to the moment. “Yes, that makes sense.” He stopped though, and the confusion returned. “If you have my blood, then why are you here for fingerprints?” Wade asked after several moments. “Have you got something to match them to?” His eyes widened, and his breath appeared to vanish. “The other dead woman. The one that Davy spotted with his binoculars. Is that Tessa?”

“We don’t know,” Bree answered.

That got Wade back on his feet. “I can try to ID the body.”

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