He merely nodded and let her talk as he dipped French fries into ranch dressing.
“You were right,” she concluded. “He was just this big, overgrown boy who thinks fart jokes are funny. How did I not see that sooner?” She groaned and pushed the last of the sliders in his direction along with her remaining fries.
Pouring herself more wine, she tucked her bare feet under her and snuggled into the corner of the couch facing him. “You still don’t think I saw Lindy.”
“Truthfully, I don’t know what to think. I called the judge and he had someone pick up the scarf to take to the lab. Apparently he is pulling some strings until the time when we have to call in law enforcement. I noticed there were numerous strands of blond hair caught in the fabric.”
“If they’re Lindy’s, then she’s alive.”
He couldn’t bring himself to go that far. Lindy was dead. The police wouldn’t have misidentified the body. But if it hadn’t been Lindy who was found murdered behind the house, then who was it? Some random blond girl passing by?
They watched the television show for a while, making fun of the couple arguing over the size of the master bathroom.
“It’s really over with you and Daniel?” he asked after a while.
“Don’t sound so happy about it,” she said and sipped her wine, glowering at him over the rim of her glass.
“I’m not happy. I’m sorry. Truly. But he wasn’t right for you.”
“And you are?”
He let out a nervous laugh. “I didn’t know I was an option on the table.”
Her cheeks flamed and she looked away. “Don’t pay any attention to me. I don’t know what I’m saying. Grief and wine. A bad mix.”
“Grief?”
“I’m burying my relationship with Daniel.” She started as her cell phone rang. He worried it was Daniel coming to his senses.
Charlie answered it. “She is? No, I’ll be right there.” She disconnected. “It’s my friend from work, Tara. She’s in labor. Her husband is taking her to the hospital now. I promised I would be there.”
Shep put down his wineglass. “Let’s take my truck. You can navigate.”
Just as they entered the hospital, Shep got a call from the judge. “I’ll find you,” he said and stepped back outside.
“I just heard back from the lab,” the judge said without preamble. “There were two sets of fingerprints on the doll, but only the one set was in the system.”
Shep waited impatiently for a few moments before he said, “And?”
The judge cleared his throat. “The clearest set, the one in the system, belonged to Lindy Parker.”
Shep couldn’t contain his shock. “How is that possible?”
“She must have handled the doll.”
“She’s been dead fifteen years.”
“Because of the surface material, the prints obviously stayed. Fingerprints can last on some surfaces as long as forty years.”
Shep knew that was the reasonable explanation, but it wasn’t going to be one that Charlie accepted. She was convinced that Lindy was alive.
“And the other prints?” Shep asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine until we have a suspect to compare them with.”
* * *
CHARLIE WAS TIRED after a long emotional night, but still in awe on the ride back to her apartment. “It was so...incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that before. Did I tell you that Tara is going to name her daughter after me?”
Shep chuckled. “You mentioned that.”
“I was holding Tara’s hand when the baby came into the world. The doctor placed the baby girl on Tara’s chest.” Charlie looked over at him. “You should have seen it. I cried harder than the baby. She is just so...perfect. So small and so beautiful.”
She took a breath and frowned, remembering he’d gotten a call just as they arrived at the hospital. “Did the judge call you earlier?”
He nodded and glanced over at her.
“It’s bad news, right?”
“Not necessarily,” he said without looking at her. He sounded irritated that bad news had been her first thought. Wait until he got to really know her. “The lab found prints on the doll.”
Charlie held her breath as she stared at him. Clearly he didn’t want to tell her, which told her that she already knew. “Whose were they?”
“Lindy’s.”
Expecting nothing less, she still gasped.
“Now, don’t go jumping to conclusions,” he warned quickly.
How could she not?
“The judge said because of the doll’s surface material, the prints must have been on there from fifteen years ago.”
Charlie let out a snort. “And you believe that?”
“The judge told me that fingerprints can last up to forty years on some surfaces if not disturbed.”
She found that hard to believe, but if the judge said it was true... “But the doll had been disturbed.”
He seemed to ignore that. “There was another set of prints, but they didn’t come up in the national AFIS system, he said.”
Charlie fell a chill rattle up her spine. “I guess we’ll know when the blond hair on the scarf comes back, won’t we?”
Shep said nothing as he parked the pickup in front of her apartment and they got out. Her earlier euphoria hadn’t dimmed with the news. Lindy had touched her doll. But when?
* * *
SHEP SENSED SOMETHING was wrong the moment Charlie started to unlock the door to her apartment and he saw the fresh marks in the wood near the lock.
“Don’t move,” he whispered close to her ear and quickly stepped past her to open the door.
It didn’t take but a minute to search the small apartment. The place had obviously been broken into but the intruder was long gone. He could guess what the person had been looking for. The scarf.
He came back into the living room to find Charlie where he’d left her.
“It was Lindy,” she said. “I can smell her perfume.” Shep caught the familiar scent as well. “She was looking for the scarf.”
“Someone was looking for the scarf,” he said, only able to agree to a point.
Charlie sighed and took off her coat to hang it by the door. “At least she didn’t make too big of a mess.” She began picking up the coats that had been thrown on the floor by the coat rack.