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  “I didn’t really think you would,” she murmured, feeling foolish now. She apparently didn’t understand the culture of these people. Hudson included. He seemed to fit in here, while she was the outsider, even though it was partly her influence that got them this meeting in the first place.

  “I won’t get into the nitty-gritty details of the investigation,” Daniel said. “I’ll leave that to you, Joe. I just have a couple of rules. The first is that Elizabeth not do any fieldwork on her own. She’s not trained as an investigator, and I won’t have her exposed to any danger.”

  “But I want to help!” Elizabeth objected. “I pretty much caused this mess. I should help with fixing it.”

  “You can help,” Hudson said. “We’ll work together, all of us. There are plenty of things you’re probably good at—phone calls, combing through records, surveillance...”

  “Whatever you need,” she said with genuine enthusiasm. “Really. You need me to make a food run, I’ll do that.”

  Joe grinned. “Maybe a shoulder rub when things get tense— Ow!”

  Raleigh scowled. “Knock it off, Kinkaid.”

  “No offense taken,” Elizabeth said. She wasn’t part of this club, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be treated like a delicate china doll.

  Hudson seemed to think she needed protecting. He stared daggers at Kinkaid until the other man’s grin faded. “Just trying to lighten things up,” Kinkaid murmured.

  “One more thing,” Daniel said. “No one says anything to the press, under any circumstances. The less publicity this case receives, the better, because a media circus is not conducive to any investigation. Hudson, Elizabeth, you two need to avoid being seen together in public. Anytime you’re out, be aware of who might be watching you or following you. In fact, if either of you ever wants a driver to come pick you up, just to make sure you’re not followed, say the word. I don’t have to tell you how relentless, and pitiless, the media can be. The Mandalay murder is huge news. It’s been picked up by the national press, as well. Even a small amount of snooping will dig up you two as possible suspects, so brace yourselves.”

  “What should we say if we get a microphone stuck in our faces?” Hudson asked.

  “You say, ‘No comment,’” Daniel replied. “They’ll try to provoke you. They’ll push your buttons. You show no emotion. You say nothing except those two words. Don’t give them anything they can use as a sound bite. And don’t talk to the police without an attorney present.... That goes for both of you.”

  “Got it,” Elizabeth said.

  Hudson nodded his understanding.

  Elizabeth couldn’t deny the disappointment she felt that Daniel forbade her to take an active role in the field. In the back of her mind she’d pictured herself investigating closely with Hudson, riding around with him to interview witnesses, long nights with heads bent close, studying evidence. She probably had a highly romanticized image of how crimes got solved. Hudson had said she would still be included, but the more likely scenario was that she would be out of the loop, left at home wondering what was going on.

  Daniel issued a few more cautionary remarks, then left things in Joe Kinkaid’s purportedly capable hands. He seemed awfully young to be in charge. Then again, Hudson would run the actual investigation.

  Mitch gave Hudson and Elizabeth cell phones. They were strange-looking, silver devices with no brand name visible. “Use these phones when communicating with each other and anyone at Project Justice,” he instructed. “They’re specially encrypted. No one can trace calls made with these or locate you through the phone’s ping. They’re already preprogrammed with everyone’s number you might need.”

  “Holy cow.” Hudson examined his new phone with a mixture of awe and disapproval.

  Suddenly Elizabeth remembered something. “One other person saw us together, Hudson. The burglar.”

  “The burglar?” Kinkaid raised one quizzical eyebrow.

  Hudson recounted the incident with the tattooed housebreaker.

  “You didn’t think that was important?” Kinkaid asked. “Some guy trying to kill you the night of the murder?”

  “Agreed—we need to find him,” Hudson said a little testily. “He had a gun, and he was in the area.”

  “So if he figures out who I am,” Elizabeth said, thinking aloud, “we’re toast. One anonymous call to the cops...”

  “We gotta find him before that happens,” Hudson concluded. Then he laughed. “Maybe Daniel could send him on vacation, too.”

  “The guy tried to kill you. He belongs in prison, not on vacation.” She shivered, thinking about that moment. Hudson had dodged a bullet...literally. She’d been so scared she’d almost collapsed, her legs had trembled so hard. He’d downplayed the danger, but for the difference of a few inches Hudson wouldn’t be sitting here today.

  “So let’s find this dude,” Kinkaid said. “Can I get a description?”

  “He’s got a big fish on his arm,” Hudson answered. “How hard could he be to identify?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  RALEIGH HAD SOME papers for them to sign. It was standard cover-your-butt stuff, promising that Hudson and Elizabeth wouldn’t sue Project Justice if things didn’t go as planned and absolving the foundation from any responsibility. There was also a confidentiality agreement. Raleigh explained that some of the foundation’s methods were unorthodox, others involved proprietary information—confidential informants, things like that—and their clients had to promise not to divulge anything about how the operation worked to any third party. Hudson scribbled his signature without hesitation. Elizabeth read the documents through carefully first, but she also signed.

  Raleigh took the contracts and left.

  “What else do you have to go on?” Kinkaid asked. “I assume you’ll start with the victim and move out.”

  “There’s a prostitute,” Hudson reminded everyone. “Her street name is Jazz, but I don’t have a last name. I arrested her maybe eighteen months ago in a sweep, but I cut her loose before she was booked. We were after the johns, not the prozzies. If she’s in the system at all, it’s not under that name. She might not be a direct witness to the murder, but Mandalay had some business with her. They were arguing, and he was pushing some cash on her—more than a normal amount a street ho would earn.”

  “Don’t call her that,” Elizabeth said sharply.

  Hudson, Kinkaid and Mitch all looked at her funny. “Would you prefer ‘lady of the evening’?” Hudson asked. “‘Fallen lamb’?”

  “Prozzie, ho—they’re derogatory terms implying judgment. Most of the prostitutes out there aren’t there by choice. They’re victims of poverty and abuse and exploitation. They’re often dragged into that life as children. Then they get hooked on drugs, or they have a pimp who takes over their lives and they can’t get away—”

  “Elizabeth,” Hudson said. “They’re breaking the law. And they do have choices. This is America, not some third-world country. If they’re on drugs they can get rehab. And if their pimps are holding them prisoner, they can flag down any police cruiser and get help.”

  “You are so completely clueless.” She shook her head.

  “How do you know so much about prostitutes?”

  “I talk to them every day at work. They come in because they’ve got an STD, or because they’re sick and their pimps won’t pay for a doctor. Do you have any idea how hard it is for a girl in that life to even talk honestly to a doctor or therapist? They’re scared to death. Their pimps keep them scared of what will happen if they try to leave. And with no other authority figure to turn to—”

  Hudson held up a hand to halt her tirade. And it was a tirade, she realized. He’d hit one of her hot buttons.

  “If I agree to stop using the word ho, can we move on?”

  “Sorry.” She could worry about saving the world some other day. Today she needed to worry about saving herself.

  “Whatever was going on in that parking lot,” Hudson said, “Mandalay was pretty keen
that the police stay out of it. The accusations against me might have been more than an attempt to get out of being arrested.”

  “Maybe I can find this girl,” Elizabeth said. “I can ask around, talk to some of my clients—”

  “Daniel said to stay out of the field,” he reminded her.

  “He can’t stop me from chatting with my own clients at my own place of business. I do it all the time. Speaking of which—” she glanced at her watch “—I should get to work soon.” Though she would have liked to take a few more days off, the Los Amigos Clinic really needed her, and she’d promised to return that afternoon. “I can take time off if you think I can be helpful, but if you’re going to just pat me on the head and reassure me that the big boys are taking care of things and I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head, I’ll leave it to you. I have clients who need me.”

  “Actually, there’s something you can help with. Do you have access to your father’s house?”

  “Yes.” She’d spent last night at the house, in fact, beginning the process of tying up the loose ends of a life ended suddenly. She had reassured the staff that they still had jobs, for the moment. Her father had insisted she be a cosigner and beneficiary on his bank accounts so that she could take care of things if anything happened to him. Despite the fact Franklin Mandalay was gone, there were still bills to pay and decisions to be made involving the running of a large estate.

  “Can you take me there?” Hudson asked. “I’d like to look around.”

  “Sure. Meet me there this evening, around seven, if that’s convenient. The housekeeper, Mrs. Ames, is off tonight, so no one will see you there. But I don’t know what you think you’ll find. The police were already there. They tore the place up pretty good looking for evidence.” Elizabeth had been shocked at the mess the cops had left. They’d gone through her father’s home office like a horde of barbarians. They took the computer and had removed the contents of every drawer. They’d sprayed chemicals all over the place, hoping to find blood evidence, she guessed. When they were done, they’d carted off boxes and bags of supposed evidence, and they hadn’t even issued an apology.

  This was the victim’s home. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if they decided to tear up the home of a suspect—her home.

  “You never know what they might have missed,” Hudson said. “Anyway, they were looking for evidence to implicate me. Or you. I’ll be looking for evidence that points to someone else.”

  “Do cops really do that? Come up with a theory early on, then only search for evidence that supports that theory?”

  “We’re not supposed to. We’re supposed to keep an open mind. But it’s human nature to look for answers that support what you already believe. If you have a strong suspect, you look for evidence relating to him. You tend to attach more significance to the clues you like and less to the ones that don’t fit. The Project Justice files are filled with cases of people arrested and convicted despite evidence that strongly suggests their innocence—evidence that wasn’t discovered because no one was looking for it, or was discovered but overlooked and dismissed, or out-and-out covered up because the cops were positive they had the right guy.”

  At least he had the good grace to appear disturbed by such frequent miscarriages of justice.

  “I like to think I’m not like that,” he said. “But, like I said, human nature is human nature. Mistakes get made.”

  “Which keeps this foundation in business,” Kinkaid added. Elizabeth had almost forgotten he was in the room. The air was so thick with tension between her and Hudson that she’d telescoped out everything else. With Kinkaid’s words, the tension broke. Elizabeth breathed a small sigh of relief. She needed to put some distance between herself and Hudson, so she stood, clutching her shoulder bag in front of her like a shield. “I’ll see you tonight. Let me know if I can help in any way. And if there’s more news—good or bad—let me know that, too.”

  “See you tonight, then.” Hudson’s promise sounded almost like a threat—as if he wanted to deal with the unfinished business between them that he couldn’t address with witnesses.

  * * *

  HUDSON DID HIS best to shake off the residual effects of Liz’s proximity as he followed Mitch and Kinkaid down a long hallway and through a door that opened up to a large room. A dozen desks were situated here and there, some in cubicles, some out in the open. It reminded Hudson of the bull pen at the station where he worked, which shouldn’t be surprising. A lot of the investigators at Project Justice were former cops; a setup like this probably made them feel right at home.

  These people weren’t cops, though. They were a private police force with the resources his department would have if treated to an unlimited budget. He got the idea that anything these people wanted, within reason, could be had. Frankly, he was a bit jealous. And not quite sure how he felt about so much money and talent used to free the people his department, and others like it, worked so hard to put in prison in the first place.

  Not that Hudson thought anyone should be jailed for a crime they didn’t commit. God knew if he hadn’t felt strongly about that before, he sure did now. Clearly, police made mistakes.

  But what if Project Justice was wrong? What if they freed someone who really belonged behind bars? He recalled a well-publicized case from several years ago where the foundation proved a man—a hardened repeat offender—was innocent of murder. A week after that man was freed from prison, he had assaulted and nearly killed an old woman. Daniel Logan, as well as the original investigator on the case, had quickly issued public statements of regret, but Daniel had still maintained that just because someone might commit a crime was no reason to imprison them for something they didn’t do.

  Hudson didn’t see it that way. That scumbag should have been behind bars.

  “The first thing we should focus on is the armed housebreaker with the tattoo,” Kinkaid said. “Mitch has access to a tattoo database.”

  “Really?” Hudson’s own department had a tattoo database. These days, when someone was arrested, they took his fingerprints and mug shot as well as photos of any identifying tattoos. The tattoos were good and bad news; they could be used to identify someone, but they also could be altered or removed. You got a witness on the stand swearing up and down the person who shot him had a tattoo of a swastika on his arm, and lo and behold the suspect now had some kind of flower where the swastika once was. “Is this the foundation’s private database?” he asked.

  Mitch didn’t reply, which meant he’d probably hacked into police computers. No wonder Daniel was insistent on the confidentiality agreement. With a well-placed phone call, Hudson could shut this place down, and a lot of district attorneys would be thrilled.

  “Where was this tattoo located?” Mitch asked.

  Hudson pictured the scene in his mind. “Right forearm.”

  “And it was a fish, you said?”

  “It was dark, and I couldn’t see it real clear. But Liz and I both thought it looked like a fish.”

  Mitch typed for a bit, narrowing down the possibilities. In the end, he had four candidates for Hudson to inspect. He was able to eliminate the first three without blinking.

  When Mitch clicked on the link for the fourth one, nothing happened at first.

  “What the hell?” He took off his glasses and peered more closely at the screen, as if he had missed something. Then an error message came up.

  RECORD DOES NOT EXIST

  “Huh. That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “The record doesn’t exist? If it doesn’t exist, why is there a link to it?”

  “Well...” Hudson thought about it. “Maybe it was just a blip. Things vanish on my computer all the time. Usually I just pushed a wrong button.”

  “I don’t push wrong buttons.” Mitch said this not with any sense of vanity, but as if simply stating an irrefutable truth. “No, it’s just gone.”

  “Well, sometimes we remove something from the database if it’s ba
d information or if a guy’s status changes. Like, he dies or something.”

  “Then wouldn’t the record reflect that? No.” Mitch shook his head. “This smells fishy, pardon the pun. This is the shadow of a hacker. A bad hacker. And believe me, I know what bad hacking looks like.”

  “So someone suspected we’d come looking for fish man and made sure we wouldn’t find him?”

  “Yeah, but he failed to erase all the links back to the photo.”

  “How many people have the skills to hack into the police computer?”

  “Not many. Unless they have an in.”

  “You mean they know someone who works there and borrow or steal their password?”

  “Exactly.”

  Hudson didn’t like the implications—that someone in law enforcement was involved in this mess.

  “Hell, it sucks to get that close to the guy, then not even learn his name.”

  “I’ll keep looking.” Mitch resumed tapping on the keyboard, his fingers flying so fast, they were a blur.

  “I’ll talk to some of my contacts on the street, see if they’ve heard of the guy.”

  “You might talk to Billy Cantu at the Houston P.D. Guy’s got an awesome number of contacts. And be careful out there. If someone really is anticipating your moves, they might predict that you’d talk to your snitches. They could plant fake info, set a trap, intimidate the snitches or pay them more than your going rate to mislead you. All kinds of things.”

  “Yeah, good point. I’ll be careful.” Hudson held out his hand. “Thanks, man. You have no idea how much I appreciate having somebody in my corner. I never thought about what it feels like to be a suspect.”

  “Been there, done that. It’s about the worst feeling in the world.”

  “That’s right. You were accused of killing some guy, like, back in the ’90s?”

  Mitch nodded. “I was sick to my stomach the whole time. You know you didn’t do it, but you don’t have proof.”