She rushed out of the room, opening the door awkwardly with one hand holding the bundle of images against her chest, and almost collided with Shelley in the corridor.
“In here,” Shelley said, her voice harder and flatter than Zoe had ever heard it before. She barely had time to register what was going on before they were both sealed away in the observation room adjoining the interrogation room, where on the other side of the black glass James Wardenford was getting up to leave.
“How much of that did you hear?” Zoe asked, hating the tremor in her voice as she asked it. Hating the fact that there was something she hadn’t wanted anyone to hear at all.
“More than enough,” Shelley said, shaking her head. “Zoe, there’s something else you need to know. Forensics already came back on those hair follicles. They didn’t get a match in our database.”
“That does not mean anything,” Zoe pointed out. “Only that our suspect has not been previously arrested. We will be able to find a suspect eventually, and then we can test them against the hairs.”
“We already have a suspect,” Shelley said. Her voice was low and soft, but Zoe still flinched away when Shelley reached out to put a hand on her upper arm. “Z, we have to follow through on this lead. You know we do. We have a professional obligation.”
“There is no lead,” Zoe snapped. “I simply wrote it down wrong. I will go back to our files and work out where I went wrong. There is absolutely no real connection here. Taking a sample slice out of the equations—you could make them resemble anything, if you wanted to.”
“I know you don’t want to see it,” Shelley said. Her tone was still soothing, but there was a determination in her eyes that Zoe understood fully. There was no getting away from this. “Call Dr. Applewhite and find out where she is. We have a responsibility to ask her to submit to a DNA test.”
“It will not show anything. She is not connected, not in any way,” Zoe argued hopelessly. She knew that Shelley was right. She wouldn’t even be able to submit paperwork omitting this without risking her job. She could even go to court for withholding something this serious.
“Then she will be ruled out. But, Z, you should prepare yourself.” Shelley gave her a stern look. “We have to obtain a DNA sample from Dr. Applewhite. And if it matches, we will have to arrest her for murder.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Zoe had a sick ache in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t tell whether she was about to throw up, lie down and die, or give birth to some kind of monstrous child. The feeling had been growing by the second since Shelley had laid down the law, and now it was threatening to totally consume her.
Zoe had had no intention of implicating anyone, especially not her beloved mentor. She could see clearly that it had all been her own mistake. There was no connection—truly, none at all.
She just couldn’t get Shelley to see that.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter what either of them believed. The wheels were in motion now, and procedure dictated that they follow every possible lead. If they were found not to have followed this through later, they could both lose their jobs—and it could even jeopardize the case once they brought the real killer to trial. Defense lawyers loved nothing more than loose ends.
Zoe didn’t need to call Dr. Applewhite to know where she would be: in her office, as she was every day at this time. Likely meeting with someone from her case study group. She was a busy woman, and this interruption to her working hours would no doubt cause her no end of hassle. Zoe felt guilty even to be bringing this to her door. With every minute that passed, she was thinking up another reason why this was quite possibly the worst thing that she had ever done.
“How can I help you?” the bespectacled receptionist in the cool white room that served as Dr. Applewhite’s foyer asked them, if not with suspicion, then certainly with curiosity. She must have known that no one was due to come in at that moment.
“We need to speak with Dr. Applewhite,” Zoe said, feeling bile rise in her throat as she said the words.
“She’s occupied at the moment,” the receptionist said, glancing up to check the clock. “She’ll be out in about twenty-five minutes, I should think.”
Shelley took out her badge and laid it on the desk for a moment, keeping her fingertips in contact. “It’s rather urgent,” she said.
The receptionist’s mouth formed a shocked “oh” of nude lipstick, and she was reaching for an internal phone when Zoe stopped her.
“We will wait,” she said, gesturing to the nearby chairs for Shelley’s benefit. The last thing that she wanted to do was to embarrass Dr. Applewhite by bursting in on something scheduled. Especially given that this was nothing at all to do with her, and only Zoe’s own mistake. Dr. Applewhite could not be anything but innocent. There was not even the shadow of a doubt in Zoe’s mind that this was all about to be cleared up, albeit painfully and awkwardly. It was that part that she was dreading.
The minutes ticked by interminably. Even for Zoe, who normally had an impeccable inner clock, it seemed to drag on for hours. Then there were only ten minutes to go, and she began to really sweat about what was to come. As soon as that happened, time altered itself again: ten minutes flashed by so fast that Zoe had to double-check her watch when Dr. Applewhite’s door opened.
“Great work. I’ll see you next week,” Dr. Applewhite was saying, ushering a young man out into the waiting room. He ambled past them with a curious look, even glancing back over his shoulder as he heard Dr. Applewhite greeting her former charge.
“Zoe! What brings you here? More news on the case already?”
Zoe could barely look her in the eye as she got up from her seat, nodding her head. “There has been an update. We have a new body, with a new equation.”
“Do you have a copy for me to look at?” Dr. Applewhite asked. Her head was swinging from Zoe to Shelley, no doubt confused by their unhappy expressions. It was like a pendulum in a clock, ticking onward almost at an even rate of seconds. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“It would be better if we could talk to you in a more private setting,” Shelley said tactfully.
“We can use my office.” Dr. Applewhite gestured back toward the open door, and even took a few steps back before Shelley interrupted her.
“No. We’d be better off in our office, so to speak. We need to ask you to provide a voluntary DNA sample.”
Dr. Applewhite paused, looking over at Zoe. Zoe looked up and met her eyes, and instantly wished that she hadn’t.
“What is this about?” Dr. Applewhite asked, her tone less sure now.
“We need to eliminate you from the case,” Shelley said, simply.
Dr. Applewhite was still looking to Zoe, as if waiting for confirmation. All she could do was give a single, sharp nod, the shame weighing heavy on the back of her neck.
“All right,” Dr. Applewhite conceded, uncertainty flooding her voice. She glanced over to her open-mouthed receptionist and nodded to her, receiving a nod in return as the other woman began shuffling through an appointment book.
Zoe allowed Dr. Applewhite to walk out of the office first, Shelley behind, with Zoe trailing last. This was the last thing that she wanted. She just hoped that it would be over quickly, so that she could apologize and make it right.