Son of a bitch.

Rio glared at the empty space on the top shelf of the B-block scaffolding. The empty space that was supposed to contain the two evidence boxes for the Rachel Blaine case. He glanced at the piece of paper Phil Perry, the day shift locker officer, had written the case number on—BL-49786.

The number was right. The docking slot was right. The boxes just weren’t the fuck there.

“Damnit.” Holding the paper up for quick referral, he slowly walked the length of the shelving unit, scanning each box as he passed. None of them carried the combination of letters and numbers he was looking for.

A kernel of suspicion unfurled. Missing case files? Perhaps there was something to Rebecca’s claim after all. Or maybe the boxes had just been stuck in the wrong spot. After walking both sides of the shelving unit to no avail, he headed back to the evidence locker’s desk. Maybe Phil had given him the wrong case number.

“Check the computer again,” he said, leaning a shoulder against the chain link that wrapped the front corner of the evidence locker, creating a cage of sorts for the locker officers. “The name was Rachel Blaine. Suicide.”

“That’s what I gave you.” Phil’s graying eyebrows bunched over his nose. “What’s up?”

“No boxes.” Rio shrugged. “Just empty space.”

“Ah, hell.” After a few grumpy pokes at the computer’s key board, he turned the monitor toward Rio. “Rachel Blaine. Case BL-49786. Rack twelve, shelf five, far left.”

Rio held up his slip of paper, comparing the numbers to those on the computer screen. They were the same. “Fuck. The boxes aren’t there. Who was the last person to check them out?”

Phil turned the screen back around and leaned in closer, squinting. They really needed to wire in more lighting down here. With no windows, ratty lights and a constant war on mice, the place was too damn dark and dungeonesque.

“It hasn’t been checked out since it was docked,” Phil finally announced, straightening with a hand to the middle of his back.

“Who caught it?” Rio tried to get a look at the intake form, but the screen angle made it impossible to see.

“Colin Foster,” Phil said, after another lean in and squint.

“Great,” Rio scoffed.

Didn’t that just figure? Foster had retired right around when Rio had joined the SDPD and died not long after. Rio blew out a frustrated breath. He could eighty-six the idea of running the case details down through the detective in charge.

“Let me take a look.” Phil unlocked the cage door.

Shrugging, Rio stepped aside. “Knock yourself out.”

He followed Phil’s tall, lanky frame back to rack twelve and around the corner. They both stopped at the fifth shelf and looked up at the empty spot in the far-left corner.

“Ah hell,” Phil said, a sour expression dragging at his long face. “I’ll start a sweep. Someone must have docked the boxes in the wrong place.”

And nobody had stumbled across them in the past sixteen years? How likely was that? The knot of suspicion tickling his mind swelled even more.

With an irritated grunt, Phil headed back the way they’d come. “At least it was a suicide, eh? Low importance level.”

Rio grimaced. “The victim’s daughter found some new evidence. If the information is legit, it could mean COD wasn’t suicide. Which makes those boxes essential evidence.”

“Ah hell.” Phil’s face darkened as if he were visualizing a sudden shit storm descending on him.

If Phil didn’t find those boxes, the poor bastard was probably right, too. The brass didn’t like missing evidence. It made them look bad. Raised questions best not raised. That kind of a dust up rolled right down the ranks, and in this case, the locker jockeys would bear the brunt of the brass’s frustration. It was their job to log the evidence, check the evidence in and out and basically know where the fuck everything was twenty-four seven.

Missing evidence would unleash a firestorm. Two full boxes of missing evidence—Rio shook his head in sympathy. It didn’t matter who the box had disappeared on. They’d all catch hell for this.

“I’m going to have to update Captain Fuentes.” Rio tamped down his sympathy. He wasn’t putting his ass on the line by sitting on this development.

Phil sighed, and ran his palm over his thinning hair. “Can you give me a couple hours? Let me sweep the place. Dollars to donuts those damn boxes are in here somewhere.”

“An hour,” Rio said over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “Call if they turn up.”

While the missing evidence was disturbing, he still had access to Rachel Blaine’s autopsy report. The medical examiner’s office would have it on file. He’d know shortly whether the woman had been pregnant. When he reached his desk, he took a seat and grabbed the phone, dialing the M.E.’s office. Ten minutes later, he very carefully laid the handset back in its cradle and forced his white-knuckle grip to release the thick, black handle.

Son of a bitch…

He rubbed the back of his head, the kernel of suspicion ballooning into a fucking basketball. What were the odds that the evidence boxes and the medical reports would both go missing?

Not very likely, those were the damn odds.

Sure, evidence went missing off and on, most of the time thanks to human error. Files got labeled wrong, or boxes were docked wrong. He knew for a fact that human error was alive and thriving in San Diego. But two separate batches of evidence, from two separate departments, regarding the same closed case? Fuck, that was suspicious as hell.

He scrubbed a hand down his face. He’d given Phil an hour to locate the missing boxes, and there was still thirty minutes on that timer. But this latest news canceled their agreement. This case was starting to reek, and he needed to alert his CO to that fact ASAP.

After a quick call to Phil to make sure the boxes hadn’t been found, which they hadn’t, he explained the unraveling circumstances and warned the locker rat that he was headed to the Captain’s office. He hung up on Phil’s plea for that last half an hour. He’d warned the man. That was the best he could do.

Fuentes’s office door was open. The sound of the police scanner the captain obsessively listened to drifted into the bull pen on bursts of nasal voices and static. Fuentes was a straight arrow. He put the job before politics and looked out for the men and women beneath his command. It was enough to float him some slack for his weird obsession with the scanner, and the collection of plants taking over his windowsill.

Rio gave the glass a light rap and waited for his CO to turn from the window ledge and the leafy plant he was messing with.

“What’s up?” Fuentes finally turned. But instead of facing Rio, he bent to pick up the small garbage pail next to his desk. Without waiting for Rio to enter the room, he returned to the window ledge and used the side of his hand to brush a pile of dried leaves into the trash can.

Rio closed the door behind him, which brought the Captain around to face him with an enquiring look in his dark brown eyes. After detouring to the bookcase behind his desk to turn the scanner off, he turned to Rio and lifted his eyebrows.

“I was asked to look into a closed case. Rachel Blaine. A suicide from sixteen years ago.”

“I heard as much.” Fuentes’s brown eyes narrowed. “She was the mayor's side piece. Or so the rumor mill claimed. “Why the relook?”

“The daughter found the victim’s diary, which included a fetal ultrasound. She’s certain her mother was pregnant, and that the pregnancy would have prevented her from suiciding. She thinks her mother was murdered.”

“I don’t remember any talk of her being pregnant during the investigation.” Fuentes shook his head, his frown a little heavier. A distant look entered his eyes as though he were trying to remember back. “Was she?”

“That’s the problem,” Rio said, his tone neutral. “The evidence boxes are missing. So are the M.E. reports.”

Fuentes froze, and then his face hardened. “They’re both missing?”

Rio nodded grimly. “Phil is doing a full sweep of the evidence locker. But the case boxes aren’t where they’re supposed to be. And the autopsy reports have disappeared from the M.E.’s computer system, along with the hard copy file.”

“What about the daughter,” his CO asked slowly, his forehead wrinkling. “If there was a child on the way, does she know who the father would have been?”

“She’s certain the father was Aaron Hart,” Rio said quietly.

Fuentes swore softly, his gaze sharpening. “Moyer was chief back then. He and Hart were golfing buddies. Longtime friends.”

“If Rachel Blaine was pregnant and Hart was the father, would Moyer have suppressed the evidence?” Rio asked.

If Rebecca’s mother had been carrying Hart’s second child, that could be something he’d want to hide. The first time the news had broken of Hart’s illicit relationship with Rachel Blaine and the child it had produced, he’d come close to losing his career and marriage. Without doubt, a second foray into that landmine would have had explosive consequences.

As for Moyer…he could personally attest to Chief Moyer’s willingness to pull strings for Aaron Hart. Although he hadn’t discovered it until years later, his application to the San Diego Police Department had been personally expediated by Chief Moyer, who’d approved the application during the middle of a hiring freeze as a favor to Mayor Hart. Hart had requested Rio’s hiring as a favor to Rio’s grandmother. Without the interference of the two men, it would have been years before Rio had been hired by the SDPD.

But approving a departmental hire was a far cry from suppressing evidence and burying a possible murder.

“I don’t know,” Fuentes said, with a slow shake of his head. “If he was involved, he couldn’t have done it alone. The M.E., hell, even the case detective would have to be involved.” He paused to look at Rio. “Who caught the case?”

“Colin Foster.”

The captain’s grimace said it all. “Talk to the daughter. Find out who Rachel Blaine’s friends were. Who she worked with. Hell, who her hairdresser was. If she was pregnant, someone would know. I’ll talk to Moyer and Dr. Henderson.”

Henderson had been the M.E. back then. He’d retired years ago. Rio nodded and turned toward the door.

“Addario.” Fuentes’s grim voice echoed in the room. “Not a word of this to anyone. I’ll talk to Phil. Have him keep the missing boxes under wraps.”

Rio nodded as he opened the door. Next order of business was to track down Rebecca. Find out everything she knew about her mother’s friends and what she remembered about the Hopewell estate. Had her mother been Hopewell’s sole employee at his La Jolla Farms estate? Or had other employees shared the house and grounds with them?

If Rachel Blaine had been pregnant, she must have confided her condition in someone.

Of course, interviewing Rebecca again meant…well, seeing her…spending time with her. Something his accelerating heart and respiration found far too titillating. He’d hoped to avoid a second encounter, hoped to starve this unwelcome attraction.

Instead, he was walking right back into the fire.

* * *

With a final goodbye, Becca hit the end call icon on her cell phone and dropped it in the side pocket of her purse.

Damnit.

She’d promised herself—promised—that she wouldn’t get dragged back into Adele’s complicated life. A promise that had lasted less than an hour after her half-sister had bulldozed her way into Becca’s hotel room.

Why in the world had she agreed to have dinner with Adele and her fiancé? Joining them for a meal certainly didn’t mesh with her intention of keeping her estranged family at a distance. She should have ignored the call once she’d realized Adele was on the other end. At least then, she would have avoided this latest mistake.

The internal complaining was halfhearted at best, though. She knew perfectly well why she’d picked up the call. She’d felt compelled to. That odd terror vibrating in Adele’s voice, and glazing her eyes when she talked about her fiancé or coming nuptials, was a cry for help. Becca was incapable of turning her back when someone needed assistance. Even if that someone was the woman who’d once betrayed her.

With a frustrated sigh—directed mostly at herself—Becca glanced out the driver’s window for oncoming traffic before thrusting open the sedan’s door and exiting the car. And here she’d thought she’d escaped the brunt of the reunion. There hadn’t been time for an in-depth catch up session thanks to this late afternoon appointment with Detective Wilbanks. After accepting the late lunch she’d ordered from room service, she hustled Adele out the door and into the elevator with the promise to chat soon. She’d barely had time to gulp down a couple of bites of the hamburger the hotel staff had brought her before she had to freshen up and head back down to her car.

The promise of a chat had been a throwaway comment, meant to get Adele out the door. She certainly hadn’t expected her half-sister to cash in on it so soon.

She closed the car door, beeped the locks, and glanced both ways before stepping into the street. Other than an older white pickup idling noisily half a dozen spaces behind her car, the boulevard was empty. On her third or fourth step, the squeal of tires against asphalt split the air to her left. She glanced over her shoulder and frowned. The pickup had pulled away from the curb with so much force its tires were still protesting.

Someone was in a hurry.

She bumped her walk up to a jog, crossed into the oncoming traffic lane and slowed back to a walk. No sense in arriving for her meeting all sweaty and disheveled.

“Hey, lady,” an elderly man on the sidewalk across from her hollered. “That truck is headed right for you.”

She looked over her shoulder again. The pickup was much bigger, the driver a blue blur with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head and shadowing his face. And sure enough, it was about to cross the center line on a collision course with her.

Her heart hiccupped. She broke into a run, racing for the two-foot space between the cars parked along the curb.

“Faster!” the man on the sidewalk shouted.

He yelled something else too, but the words were jumbled by the roar of the truck. He raised his arms above his wispy, white head and waved them like he was trying to ward off the truck.

It didn’t work. The truck roared closer. So close she could feel the vibration of its engine through the soles of her shoes.

Becca surged forward, her heart pounding hard enough to hurt. She leapt for the space between the cars, flew through it, only to trip on the curb. Her momentum carried her onto the sidewalk.

Just in time too.

A horrendous crash filled the air behind her. Glass exploded, the fragments drumming against metal and cement. She wobbled up from where she’d hit the pavement, and turned to face the destruction behind her, while her heart tried to rip its way out of her chest and up her throat.

The shriek of metal against metal quickly drowned out the tinkle of falling glass. Becca bent, propped her skinned palms on her knees and drew in deep, gasping breaths as the pickup pulled away, or tried to. Its front bumper had tangled with the driver’s door of the hatchback and the shredded metal was serving as an anchor. With a final gun of its engine, the truck tore itself free, taking the door with it. A few feet later the door hit the pavement with a metallic clatter.

Becca straightened and dug into the purse her elbow had locked against her side.

“Well, hell,” the man beside her said, dropping his arms. He glared after the truck with a disgusted scowl. “He didn’t even stop.”

Becca was too busy memorizing the license plate while it was still visible to respond. Pulling a notebook and pen from her purse, she studiously jotted the plate number down. When she looked back up, the pickup was a white haze in the sunlight a couple of blocks down.

“You okay miss?”

“I’m fine,” Becca said slowly, staring in shock at what had once been a good two feet of width between the hatchback’s rear bumper and the sedan’s hood.

The collision had shoved the hatchback into the sedan behind it with enough impact to pop and squish the car’s hood. The space she’d darted through was gone.

Her “I’m fine” response suddenly sounded like a miracle. If the truck had hit while she’d been in between those cars, she wouldn’t be fine at all.

Chills swept her, along with a moment of vertigo. If she’d been a second or two slower, she would be as mangled and crushed as the cars in front of her.

“We better call the police, and an ambulance,” the elderly gentleman said. He shot her a surprisingly piercing look out of cloudy blue eyes. “You hit the ground pretty hard. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Now that he mentioned it, her hands were starting to sting.” Her gaze shifted to the tangled mountain of metal in front of her and the stinging felt like a gift. Her injuries could have been much, much worse. “I’m fine. Really. No need for an ambulance.”

He gave a judgmental huff, as though he didn’t believe her. “Did you know the driver? I’d swear he was aiming for you.”

Becca shook her head, as the chill sank deeper. “I didn’t get a good look. But I’m sure it was an accident. He must have lost control of the truck.”

Still…her eyes gravitated back to the mangled metal where the two cars merged.

If she’d been even a second slower…