Karen Vail 01 - Velocity Read Online Free PDF

“Let’s swing by the B&B, pick up your clothes, and head over to my place. We’l get some sleep, eat something, and approach this with a fresh perspective.”
    Vail leaned back against the headrest. “Yeah.”
    They drove without further discussion until they pul ed into the B&B’s smal compacted gravel parking lot. Dixon shoved the shift into park and got out.
    Vail fol owed and met her at the door to the room, fifteen feet away. She reached her hand into the front pocket and pul ed out the key. Stood there staring at it.
    “What if we never find him, Roxx? What if Mayfield—”
    “Stop,” Dixon said. “We need to keep an open mind; let’s try not to let the negativity creep in. Until we know, it’s al speculation—and that’s not going to find him.” She leaned forward and they embraced.
    A long moment later, Vail said, “Thanks, Roxx. I needed that.”
    Dixon sniffed back tears. “I needed it, too.”
    MORNING CAME and Vail pried open her eyes. She and Dixon had sat on her living room couch and finished a bottle of Peju Cabernet, Dixon lamenting the loss of Eddie Agbayani and Vail . . . trying to be a good friend, listening to the stories of Dixon and Agbayani’s intense but less than smooth relationship.
    And trying not to let Robby’s absence consume her. The wine helped with that.
    Dixon’s white standard poodle, Margot, lay in her owner’s lap, sensing her emotional void and seeking to fil it as only a dog can do. Her black one, Quinn, stepped gently onto the couch and sidled against Vail’s body.
    “They think they’re lap dogs,” Dixon had said as she stroked Margot’s curls of cotton-soft fur.
    Vail swal owed a mouthful of Cabernet, set down her glass, and began rubbing Quinn. “But they’re huge.”
    “Don’t tel them that. But it’s very comforting. I don’t mind.”
    “Apparently they don’t, either.”
    Margot remained in Dixon’s lap—Quinn had settled his front legs across Vail’s thighs—until Dixon drained the last drop from the bottle and decided they should try to catch whatever sleep either could get.
    Vail lay awake until sometime in the early morning hours. And now Dixon was knocking on her door. “Yeah,” Vail said. She swung her legs off the bed. “I’m here.
    Sort of. I think.”
    Dixon pushed open the door and the usual y head-turning blonde was a disheveled mess. “Slept like shit.”
    “Me, too.”
    “Can you be ready in twenty? I just got a cal from Matt Aaron. He’s at the B&B, and he found something.”
    MATTHEW AARON’S forensic kit was splayed open. A bottle of luminol was on the bathroom vanity and a square of carpet was missing from an area partial y beneath the large overstuffed bed.
    Vail and Dixon stood in the doorway. Oh, shit. Her mind added it up in mil iseconds: Luminol. A sample cutout. He found blood. Robby’s blood?
    “You want us to put booties on?” Dixon asked.
    Aaron waved a hand, welcoming them in. “Maid already cleaned it, right? So forget about it being a useful crime scene. But I vacuumed anyway, did a ful workup, just in case. I’m about ready to close up shop.”
    They ventured in, Vail stopping by the conspicuously defiled carpet. “You found something.”
    “I did. I covered the place in luminol—the proprietor probably isn’t going to be too happy with me—but I’m glad I did. I got a hit right there.” He nodded to the area beside the bed. “So I cut away the carpet and sprayed again. When you have heavy blood loss, it seeps down into the carpet fibers—”
    “And into the pad,” Vail said.
    “And into the pad. It lit up like a purple battlefield. So I took the pad, too. We’l run it for DNA and see what it shows.”
    Vail’s shoulders slumped. She sat cross-legged on the floor beside the void in the carpet. “It could be from something else. It might not be Robby’s.”
    “That’s what the DNA wil tel us. Do you have an exemplar we can use for comparison?”
    “I can get you one.” Vail’s