High-Risk Affair

He pondered the details he had learned from his interview with Megan Vance. “If someone knew the mother was a light sleeper and that she made it a habit to check on the children in the night—especially the boy with his medical condition—they might have been trying to buy a little more time.”

“How would a stranger know that?”

“Damn good question.” One he unfortunately couldn’t answer at this point in the investigation. “Where do things stand with the state crime scene unit?”

“They’re still working the boy’s room. Mrs. Vance just cleaned the room two days ago. Because the kid has allergies, too, she’s a pretty thorough housekeeper in there. Preliminary reports showed no sign of forced entry and no fingerprints but family members’. Megan’s and Cameron’s are the only ones we can find on the window or the windowsill. I think CSU is still working the scene if you want to hear the details from them.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks.”

At that moment, someone came out of the command center and called for the sheriff’s attention. Galvez sighed and turned away. “Let me know if you need any other information,” he said to Cale before he headed back the way he had come.

Cale paused for a moment, looking at the bustle of activity. Then on impulse, he walked around the house to check the perimeter of the building for more clues. He was pleased to find a state crime scene detective he had worked with before, Wilhelmina Carson, taking pictures of the outside of the two-story log home.

“Hey, Willy. What have you got out here?”

“Hang on,” she ordered in a distracted voice, still clicking away. After a few more shots, she dropped the camera and he saw surprise register in her eyes when she recognized him.

“Davis! I hadn’t heard you were back on the job.”

How long would it take before people stopped looking at him as if he were going to go freaking mental at any minute?

“You know me. I can’t stay away.”

She cleared her throat and he braced himself for what he knew was coming. “I’m really sorry about what happened to you, Cale,” she said quietly. “I worked the Decker scene. I know you did everything you could.”

He wasn’t sure he would ever be as convinced about that as everyone else seemed to be, but this wasn’t the place to argue the point. Instead, he gestured to the home’s exterior. “Have you seen any sign at all of forced entry?”

After a moment, she turned back to the case, though he could still see concern in her eyes. “Not much. The screen was in backward, with the tabs on the outside, indicating whoever put it back did it from out here. I don’t know if that’s significant at all.”

“No ladder impressions or anything like that?”

“Nothing. But keep in mind we had a solid rain for two hours between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. That’s a sure way to screw up a crime scene.”

Which meant someone could have used a ladder or driven up to the house with a damn cherry picker, for all the evidence they could find.

He studied the exterior of the building. It was a straight shot from the boy’s second story window to the ground. He supposed it was possible Cameron could have jumped, but that was a mighty long way down for a nine-year-old kid.

When he was nine, he used to escape the hell of home by climbing out a conveniently situated tree out his bedroom window whenever he could. The only tree near Cameron Vance’s bedroom was a sycamore a dozen feet from the house. Though the trunk was thick and sturdy, no branches extended anywhere near the kid’s room.

He studied the distance. No way. The tree was too far from the house to provide any kind of useful escape route.

So how would he climb out the window to the ground if he were trying to sneak out in the night? If his shoulder didn’t have a bullet hole in it, he probably would extend out the window, grab hold of the roof line and move hand over hand to the corner of the house, where he could use the gutter spout to climb down, praying the whole way down it would hold his weight.

But he had two feet in height over the kid and years of climbing experience.

He looked at the log exterior of the house again and this time caught sight of something he’d missed before.

“Son of a bitch,” he exclaimed, moving closer for a better look.

Chapter 3

“What have you got?” Willy hurried toward him, her gaze sharp and intent.

He was always glad to work a case with the detective. She had a quick, analytical mind and always took a second or third look at the facts to make sure she wasn’t missing anything.

She wasn’t bad on the eyes, either, with tawny skin and the long-legged grace of a natural athlete. Not that he had ever spent much time noticing, but maybe he should. These last few weeks had made him painfully aware of the loneliness of his life outside of work. Somehow he had focused all his energy on the job, leaving nothing for a personal life.

When the job went wrong, he had been left with nothing.

Not that he wanted that kind of complication right now. But if he did, he ought to think about hooking up with someone tough-shelled and resilient, like Wilhelmina Carson.

He certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to waste his time taking a second look at someone breakable like Megan Vance.

“Did I miss something?” Willy asked.

He put any thought of soft, fragile women out of his head, then slipped off his shoes and socks, gauging the wall carefully as he did. “I don’t know. See those holes up there?”

She looked baffled but studied where he pointed. “Those little things? I thought they were just screwholes or imperfections in the logs or something.”

“They’re a little too evenly spaced to be imperfections. Hang on.”

He stuck the index finger of his right hand in the lowest three-quarter-inch hole, then extended his left hand to the next highest. Pain radiated from his shoulder but he ignored it, as he’d been trying to do for two long weeks. As he suspected, the holes were about three feet apart, just about the width of a nine-year-old’s outstretched fingers.

“Damn. This kid is amazing.”

Ignoring the strident cry of protest from his shoulder, he pulled himself up the logs using the conveniently placed fingerholes, pausing about halfway between the ground and the boy’s window.

“You are frigging crazy, Davis!”

Below, he caught a clear view of Willy’s consternation. “You’re two weeks out of having your shoulder ripped open, you idiot. Let me find you a damn ladder.”

“I’m good. Just hang on.”

“Do I have to go find McKinnon to drag you down?”

Okay, this hadn’t been the smartest idea. His shoulder wasn’t anywhere near ready for this, especially when he was wearing a shirt and tie and his second-best summer weight slacks instead of Lycra and climbing shoes.

“I’m done.” He jumped the five feet to the ground. “You’re going to want to find that ladder now and dust those finger holes I didn’t use for prints.”

“You really think the boy climbed out on his own using those dinky finger holes?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time a kid climbed out an open window.”

“That took time and effort to drill those holes. This wasn’t something that happened overnight. Could someone else be involved?”

“Possibly, but I’m beginning to doubt it. Those holes are custom-set for a nine-year-old’s arm span. Did you notice how awkward they were for me to use, spaced so close together?”

Willy shook her head in disbelief. “All I saw was an agent with the Federal Bureau of Idiots trying to kill himself. Good grief, Davis. This kid is only nine years old! How the hell could he pull it off?”