That automatically made him think of Jules. Why was she back in his mind? Hadn’t he just said she was out of his system? “I have work to do,” he said, standing to his feet. “It was nice to take a few days off, but I need to catch up on some things.”
Before he reached the door, Jace asked, “Did you notice Stonewall on your trip?”
Dalton glanced over his shoulder and couldn’t help but smile. “He was there but stayed inconspicuous as much as possible, which I appreciated.”
Jules had appreciated it, as well. The man was the only one who knew their secret. Well, it really wasn’t a secret, just no one else’s damned business. There was a difference. “See you later, Jace.”
Twenty-One
Jules glanced across her desk at Manning and smiled. “You’ve been busy.”
Manning leaned back in his chair. “Just doing what you’re paying me for.”
They both knew that was a lie. He was an over-achiever. When you gave Manning an assignment, he always went above and beyond. She looked at the stack of files on her desk. “I need to begin reading.”
“And I need to get out of here in a few hours. Dad has a doctor’s appointment today.”
She lifted a brow. “He’s okay?”
Manning smiled. “Yes, he’s doing great. This is just a routine checkup. Getting them to move from Boston was the best thing I could have done.”
Jules agreed. Making the decision to move to Charlottesville from Boston had been hard on Manning, because that meant leaving his parents behind, with the responsibility falling on the shoulders of his younger sister and older brother. He’d soon discovered his frequent trips back home hadn’t been enough, and when he saw the opportunity to make his parents’ dream of one day owning a restaurant a reality, he made it happen. Now the senior Carmichaels were happy and so were Manning and his siblings. His sister, Deborah, had even relocated to Charlottesville and was working on her master’s degree at the University of Virginia.
Two hours later, Jules stood to stretch her muscles, specifically to get the kink out of her neck. It was her opinion that the police officer that’d been called to the scene had done a terrible job recording details. The impact of Imerson’s hitting that utility pole had been so great that he’d been killed instantly. One thing she found interesting was the officer’s notation of there being two sets of tire tracks at one point. That could have meant a couple of things. Either someone had tried dodging Imerson on the road if he’d been driving erratically, or Imerson might have been trying to flee from the second car and lost control of his vehicle. Of course, for now, the latter was just a theory.
Another thing she found interesting is that no one had tested Imerson’s blood-alcohol content. It had been the officer’s opinion that testing was unnecessary since the victim’s body reeked of alcohol and a half-empty bottle had been found open on the front seat of the car. It was merely speculation on Jules’s part but for her, the entire scene was too tidy. What if someone had staged things to appear as if Imerson had been drinking heavily? According to the police report, an unidentified caller had reported the accident but hadn’t stuck around until the police arrived. She found that interesting, too. As far as the police were concerned, the case was pretty cut-and-dried, so there had been no investigation into the anonymous caller. In that case, why had the police report been sealed? The only reason that made sense was to hide the number of red flags that should have been investigated more.