Unholy Shepherd, Robert Christian [fastest ebook reader TXT] 📗

sample that Dr. Winherst had you collect from the first crime scene, right?”

Derrick nodded.

“What did you find out about that?” Manny asked. “You know, did you confirm that it wasn’t from a dog or anything? Any hits from the FBI database?”

“Um, let me check,” the young man replied. His fingers clicked on the keyboard for what seemed to Manny like an unnecessary amount of time to answer his question. “It doesn’t look like the FBI came up with any match in the database,” he said, turning around and facing them.

“But it is human, correct?”

“Yes.”

So their perpetrator wasn’t in the system. It certainly fit with Manny’s theory that the pile of vomit at the first scene was the result of the uneasy stomach of a rookie killer. If that was the case, it told him that whoever was responsible wasn’t a psychopath.

“Okay,” he said to Derrick, “what about the second sample I sent in a few days ago for comparison? Did that DNA profile match the first one?”

Derrick clicked away again for several agonizing moments. Manny turned his head toward Maureen. She was watching everything with her arms folded across her chest. She looked stern, but still pretty in the bluish laboratory light. He found himself hoping with all of his heart that there would be no match, wincing inside at the thought of potentially having to handcuff her again.

“The data indicates no match.” Derrick’s voice brought him back to the moment.

Manny felt a smile of relief break across his face. “Good,” he said, realizing that he was still looking at Maureen.

She tilted her head and furrowed her brow, as though she understood what he meant.

Manny turned back to Derrick and slapped the young man on the back. “That’s good work. I think that’s everything I need. Thanks, Derrick.”

Manny stuffed his notebook back into his pocket and nodded to Maureen that it was time to leave. She turned and walked out of the room a step behind him. Manny could feel her eyes on him. They reached the double doors of the laboratory and walked through into the hallway.

“So vomit, huh?” Maureen’s voice ricocheted off the wall and into his ear.

“What’s that?” he said, hoping he could avoid answering any questions about the subject. Somehow, he knew he couldn’t.

“You said you found a sample of vomit at the first crime scene,” she pressed.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“And you think that it came from the person who killed that kid?”

“Maybe. I was thinking that the person who killed Jacob Lowes had never killed someone before, and they got a little queasy at what they had done. I’m thinking it was the first time they’d killed anyone.”

“And then you said you sent another sample for com-parison.”

“Did I?” he said.

They had reached the front doors of the building. Manny stopped to hold the door open for Maureen. She stared at him and stood a pace from the threshold, shaking her head. Manny rolled his eyes and walked through the door, propping it open for her to follow behind.

“I threw up in the jail cell after I had the nightmare about the second kid,” she continued her suspicions.

Manny didn’t say anything. Instead, he quickened his pace as they made their way to his truck.

“I was waiting in the interrogation room for you for a pretty long time after that.” The volume of her voice had risen with the effort that she was exerting to keep up.

Manny reached his truck and quickly began to open the driver’s side door, but Maureen had caught up and slammed it shut. She spun him around by the shoulder and slammed him in the chest with an open palm.

“That second sample you talked with that kid about was my puke, wasn’t it?”

Manny took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. They burned with an odd look, neither furious nor dispassionate. “I figured it would either rule you out,” he said, finding his voice after a moment, “or it would make the case against you. I needed to know.” Manny hoped he didn’t hurt her feelings too much.

“Okay,” she said, almost cheerily, patting him on the shoulder and heading around the truck to the passenger’s side door.

“What do you mean okay?” Manny called after her, stunned by her reaction.

“You said ‘good’ when that Derrick kid told you that my sample didn’t match the other one,” she called back over the roof of the truck. “That means you were hoping for that result. And now you might actually trust me. That’s good for me. I know I didn’t kill those kids. And now if I got another person on my side, so much the better when the rest of the shit crashes on me.”

Manny couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The nerve of that woman! he thought as he yanked his door open and jumped into the driver’s seat. She followed suit as he turned the key and stepped on the accelerator.

“You know, I actually felt bad about doing that,” he said to her as they drove down the road back toward Sycamore Hills proper.

“Don’t. I don’t blame you. You did what you had to do, so just forget about it.”

“Yeah, but you’re innocent. I just feel bad that I judged you as quickly as I did.”

“You’re just falling for my charms,” she said dryly. “Better be careful, Detective. I’m not guilty of any murders, but that doesn’t mean I’m innocent.”

They drove for several minutes in silence while he tried to focus on the next destination and how to best divide the work between the two of them once they arrived.

“Isn’t that the road to your place?” Maureen said as she pointed to her right.

“Yeah, but we’re not going back there yet,” he replied. “We got another stop to make.”

“Where to?” she said, looking about her, as if trying to zero in on where they currently were. “The only thing this way is the community college, isn’t it?”

“That’s exactly right,” he said.

They had to research a couple of things and the library of