“I don’t believe so, no.”
Patrick stood in his father’s back room, looking at a carefully assembled dossier attached to a dead man, a chill settling over him. Whoever Anthony Varro was, he had resources and the ability to build a cover that held up under routine scrutiny.
And not because he wanted to chill off-grid.
“What about the hair sample?” Patrick said.
“Mick ran it through a standard tox screen. It’s clean,” Ian told him. “Nothing a standard tox would flag.”
“But?”
“Mick said the clean result was interesting, given the presentation Morgan described. He and Nicki want to run a targeted panel.”
Cleanwasn’t the same thing asnothing. There were plenty of toxins, both natural and manmade, that would leave some kind of trace. Whatever had been used to stop this man’s heart had been chosen specifically because it wouldn’t show up. That required specific knowledge and access to things that weren’t available at a pharmacy or a hardware store.
Patrick picked up the sheet again. Stared at the bogus employment history. Thought about the image that placed him at one of Morgan’s crime scenes and the parking garage she used.
His phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
Morgan: Any word?
The timestamp read 11:53 PM.
Something moved through him—quick, instinctive, not entirely rational. She was awake and waiting and didn’t know about the results he now held or what they might mean. He thought about telling her now, over text, in the middle of the night, and rejected the idea.
He set the phone face down on the desk and looked at the wall of screens without really seeing them. The almost-feral instinct to stand between Morgan Sullivan and whatever came next was no longer as surprising as it had been. He’d been feeling some version of it since that first day in the coffee shop. What was interesting was how powerful it had become.
He’d grown up with enough Callaghan family history to know what that kind of pull meant. He wasn’t prepared to go there yet. But he wasn’tnotgoing there, either.
“Are you going to tell her?” Ian asked, flicking his gaze to Patrick’s phone.
“Yes, but not tonight, and not over text.”
Ian nodded.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He tucked the sheet into his jacket pocket, said goodnight, and let himself out.
Patrick waited until he’d turned onto the main road before he used the hands-free to call Morgan. Was he going to tell her everything? No. But he had to tell her something.
It barely rang once before connecting.
“Hey.” Her voice was alert. She hadn’t been asleep.
“Hey. You’re up late.”
“I could say the same.” A pause. “Did something happen?”
“We got some hits,” he confirmed. “Better discussed in person though. Can we meet tomorrow?”
The silence was filled with questions she was smart enough not to ask before she said, “Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll come to you, if that works. Mid-morning?”
“Don’t wait that long on my account,” she said. “I’m up early.”