Her father was a real prize.
“As I sat in the hospital room with my grandfather, we made plans to change the business…to get it back to the way it used to be. And we decided we’d just start with two employees.” The sheet rustled as she walked. “It was just me and him. And our cold cases. With cold cases, sometimes you just need a fresh pair of eyes.”
And he was betting her eyes had been plenty fresh.
“As my grandfather and I poured over the notes, we started to find small clues. Details that others had overlooked. Our first big break came with the Sebastian Jones murder.”
Thanks to the tip-off from Dr. Battiste, Bennett had pulled up the original case file for Sebastian Jones. Sebastian had been a sixteen-year-old boy—a boy whose body had been found slumped near a dumpster on the outskirts of the city. Drug paraphernalia had been found on the boy, and he’d been shot in the heart. From all accounts, it had looked like a drug deal gone wrong—with the kid’s shooter just vanishing into the night.
Bennett had wanted to dig deeper into the case, but he hadn’t been given the time. He waited for Ivy to tell him the rest of the story.
“Sebastian was a straight A student,” Ivy said. “His mother told me that he was determined to get a scholarship. He wanted to be a doctor. He wanted to save lives. To change the world. She was adamant that he would never be involved with drugs, and the ME’s report—”
Ah, that would be her friend Dr. Battiste…
“It showed no drugs in his system. It did show gunshot residue on his hands, consistent with him fighting his attacker, trying to wrestle the guy away.” Sadness softened her voice. “In the official report, the cops noted that Sebastian’s mother had just sent him out to the grocery store. That he had one hundred dollars and that he was supposed to buy a few things on her list.” Her voice softened. “We realized he was robbed for that money, and his body was just dropped in that spot—because it was an area well-used by drug dealers. When Sebastian was discovered there, the authorities thought just what the killer wanted…”
“That Sebastian was a drug dealer.”
She turned toward him. “So the cops were focusing their efforts on the gangs and the drug trade and they didn’t look close to home…” Her smile was bitter. “Home isn’t always the safest place, you know. Sometimes, that’s where the real monsters live.”
He knew just how true that was.
“I went back to Sebastian’s home. I interviewed his mother. His step-father. I talked to the neighbors. My grandfather was starting to get better, but it was slow. All so slow…he told me not to go alone, but I had to investigate. For him. For Sebastian.” Her breath expelled in a rush. “For me. I had to prove that I wasn’t going to be like my father. I wasn’t going to take an easy way out. I just—I wasn’t.”
Her hand lifted and she brushed back her hair. “You can’t really see the scar now. And it seems almost stupid to show it…considering what you went through.”
Scar? She didn’t have a scar. He’d touched every inch of her smooth skin.
“Sebastian’s step-father kept acting odd. So jittery. His eyes were bloodshot. His answers too fast. No, he hadn’t seen Sebastian when he left. Yes, he thought the boy had been trouble—‘always acting so high and mighty when he was no better than me’. That’s what he said but…I thought Sebastian was better, way better than the image that guy was presenting to me. So I followed the step-father, acting on a hunch…and he was the one doing drugs. The one getting high before he’d go home. And I realized…he was the one who took that hundred dollars from his own step-son, and he left Sebastian to die with the garbage.”
He crossed to her. She’d pulled the hair away from the nape of her neck, and now he could see the faint, white line that sliced from just behind her ear around to the back of her head.
What the hell?
“The step-father didn’t like being followed, so he turned the tables and he started following me. He tracked me to the PI office.” Her eyelids lowered. “I didn’t realize he had the knife on him. He’d sliced me before I even knew what was happening.”
His hand rose to her neck. His fingers traced that scar.
“I hit him, drove at him as hard as I could. He fell back but jumped up and was coming at me again, yelling that he wasn’t going to prison because Sebastian had died. He screamed that if Sebastian had just given him the money, the boy wouldn’t have died. Sebastian’s mistake was that he fought back.” Her lashes lifted as her gaze held his. “I fought back, too. I grabbed the lamp from my grandfather’s desk, and I threw it at him. Even as it shattered, the office door was flying open. Hugh and Cameron rushed in. They’d heard the guy’s confession. He went to jail. Sebastian got his justice.”