Page 30 of Maverick Detective Dad
Noah silently repeated that to himself.
It didn’t bring the kiss to an immediate stop. No. He lingered several more moments, taking the heat and pleasure that he had no right to take or feel. He finally managed to force himself to pull back from Everly.
Their eyes met, and he saw the desire in hers. The confusion, too, and it was something he definitely understood. No way in hell should that have just happened. They were in Grayson’s office where someone could have walked in on them, and even though that wouldn’t have been good, it was the least of the concerns here. So was the fact that he should be working on the investigation.
The biggest concern—and it was a huge one, all right—was that a kiss could trigger enough of the past that it would make it impossible for them to be together even for the sake of the investigation. That couldn’t happen. They needed to stop the killer, and that had to happen while he kept Everly and Ainsley safe.
“I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time.
That caused Noah to smile even though he knew there wasn’t much to smile about. Still, it felt good for Everly and him to be on the same page despite his body urging him to believe that the kiss hadn’t been a mistake at all, that they should kiss some more. But Noah knew this was one instance where he was going to have to overrule everything but his cop’s instincts. The investigation had to come ahead of his need to take Everly as if she were his for the taking.
She wasn’t.
He mentally repeated that to himself and shifted his focus by moving away from her and going back to his computer. Noah heard her draw in a long breath and figured she was doing some refocusing as well because she returned to her own computer searches.
Noah frowned though, when he saw the email reply from Detective O’Malley. Immediately after Bobby had left, Noah had fired off a quick email to O’Malley, asking him to help expedite the paperwork to get access to Jared’s medical records. Noah had hoped for the best but had known the reality of getting that kind of access. Especially getting it when he didn’t have any evidence other than hearsay from another suspect. Still, Noah had hoped. That hope dimmed considerably when he read O’Malley’s response.
“The request was immediately denied,” O’Malley had informed him. “Give me anything you can get from the interview, and I’ll try again.”
Noah seriously doubted that Jared was just going to hand them something they could use to get into his medical records. Well, unless the man truly had nothing to hide. But even if Jared was innocent, he might not want cops poking around in his personal files simply for the sake of proving that innocence especially since Jared didn’t have a lot of goodwill when it came to the police.
Hopefully, Jared would change his mind about that access though, if Noah applied enough pressure. The kind of pressure to let Jared understand that Everly and he weren’t just going to back off until they’d gotten to the truth. That included ruling out any suspects or persons of interest.
“What’s wrong?” Everly asked.
Noah hadn’t realized he’d made any sound, but then he heard himself grumbling under his breath while he replied to O’Malley. “It might take a while for us to get into Jared’s medical records,” he settled for saying. No need for him to spell out that it might never happen.
“Yes,” she quietly agreed.
He could hear in her voice that she knew this was a slim-to-none shot with what little evidence they had. After all, she was a lawyer, and she would have fought this sort of thing for any of her clients. It was far easier to get financial records on a person of interest than it was to get anything related to medical history.
“Do you believe Bobby could be right about Jared being able to walk?” Everly asked.
“I think it’s possible, but there are other reasons why the mud could have been on his shoes,” he admitted. “He could have dragged them through mud while he was moving himself out of the wheelchair and into his vehicle. He does have a car adapted so he can drive, and we don’t know where he parks that vehicle.”
Though that was yet something else Noah would find with the deeper background check he was running. He turned to that search now and saw that Jared rented a townhouse in San Antonio, and he glanced through the info. The info about the type of vehicle Jared owned as well. It was a van.
“Jared has a garage,” Noah relayed to Everly. Of course, that didn’t rule out that he’d parked his vehicle elsewhere for a visit. Maybe a visit where he’d dumped a body. And that got Noah thinking. “Even if he can’t walk, it’s possible he could still be the killer. He looks strong so he could have maybe even lifted the victims himself. Or lured them into his van.”
That comment got Everly shifting her attention to him, and after a couple of seconds, she nodded. “Like Ted Bundy. He would feign an injury to lure in his victims.” She paused. “And someone like Daisy might not have even needed to be lured. She would have known and perhaps trusted him.”
Noah agreed. “And none of the victims had large builds. If Jared could have gotten them close to the back of his van or even parked next to their vehicles, then it would have been easier for him to disable them and shove them inside.”
Saying it out loud though led Noah to a big concern about that theory. All of Everly’s neighbors had been questioned now, and none of them had reported seeing a van or any other strange vehicle in the area.
People in small towns would notice something like that.
The killer could have worked around that though. If he’d researched Everly, and Noah was positive that he had, then he would have known when her neighbors were most likely to be around. In other words, that didn’t rule out any of their suspects.
His phone dinged, and he saw it was a text from Grayson, which he read aloud. “‘The medical examiner had to delay our meeting because he had a family emergency. A sick wife,’” Grayson had added. “I’ll reschedule, but in the meantime, you could start going over the financials that just came in. I had Theo email you copies.”
Noah immediately checked his inbox and spotted the financial reports on Jared, Bobby, River and even Daisy. He sent Grayson a quick thanks and got started.
“I can look through some of them to help speed things up,” Everly offered.
He didn’t even have to debate that. Yes, it bent the rules, but Noah was willing to venture into a gray area to find something that could stop this threat to Everly. He forwarded her the files for Daisy and Bobby, and while she got to work on those, Noah went straight to Jared’s.
Jared had a checking, savings and another account for investments, and Noah could see the man’s monthly disability payments deposited to his checking. The money wasn’t coming from social security or any other government agency but rather a monthly payout from private insurance Jared had obviously had at the time of the accident.
