Claiming His Family

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Dex leaned forward in the booth. “The page you signed in on in the visitor’s log was missing. Do you know anything about that?”

Cohen bit into his burger. When he finished chewing, he shrugged. “What is all this about, Dex? You think I helped Smythe stage that recent rape? Shades of Fitz?”

Dex tried not to notice Alyson squirm beside him. She raised her chin in that damned determined way of hers. “Did you?”

Cohen turned his smile on her. “Although I can almost understand Fitz using the system for his own profit, I do still have enough scruples left not to unleash a rapist scumbag like Smythe on the public. To answer your question, no, I didn’t help Smythe.”

Dex narrowed his eyes. He wanted to believe Cohen. But then what one wanted to believe and what was true often weren’t the same thing. God knew, he should have learned that lesson long ago. He’d had enough teachers.

He glanced at Alyson. Her forehead knotted with worry. Her lips tightened into a line.

Following Dex’s gaze, Cohen watched her, as well. “Sorry to disappoint you, Alyson. But I guess I’m not as bad a guy as you thought.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that, John. We just need to find out who did help him.”

“Hmm. Maybe I can help, after all.”

Dex tensed. He leaned over the table. “Spit it out, Cohen.”

“There was a hearing for the jail assault case a week ago, and I had to spring Smythe for a day to testify. He had a girlfriend in the gallery. At least, she seemed like a girlfriend, smiling at him, lots of eye contact when he was on the stand. Sick woman.”

“Who was she?”

“That’s the interesting part. I ran into her one other time this week. She testified in one of my cases. Her name is Jennifer Scott.”

Alyson gasped.

Dex turned to her. “Do you know Jennifer Scott?”

Alyson nodded and swallowed hard, as if trying to find the courage to face something she didn’t want to face. “She’s a forensic chemist. She works with me at the crime lab.”

“HAVEN’T YOU HEARD?” Valerie D’Fonse looked down her generous nose at Alyson, a conspiratorial grin on her face.

Alyson wasn’t in the mood for guessing games. Last night had been hell. She’d spent it in Dex’s guest room again after he’d refused to let her stay in her home until a security system was installed. She’d have rather stayed alone. He hadn’t said two words to her all night. He’d merely retreated into his library with the telephone. So much for his promise not to shut her out.

She bit the inside of her bottom lip. She didn’t know if she could stand one more night without Patrick safe in her arms. She needed answers. And fast. She’d come straight to Valerie for just that reason.

A brilliant but lonely forensic chemist, Valerie had made other people’s business her hobby. She spewed gossip the way Fourth of July fireworks spewed sparks. And that’s why Alyson was circulating in the crime lab’s break room to learn what she could learn. “I’m so out of the loop, Valerie. I haven’t heard anything. What happened?”

Valerie’s eyes sparkled as if all the gossip she packed into her mind was gunpowder and by asking the question, Alyson had just set flame to fuse. “Jennifer Scott doesn’t work here anymore.”

Alyson’s heart plummeted. “Why not?”

“She quit two days ago. Didn’t even give notice.”

“Two days ago?” How coincidental that Jennifer should quit the very day Smythe was released from prison. “No notice?”

“Not a peep. I didn’t even know she was going to quit. But that’s not the good part.” She lowered her voice and leaned toward Alyson over a table littered with candy wrappers and a paper bag lunch. “You’ll never guess where she got a job.”

Back to guessing games again. “Where?”

“Think big company, lots of bucks. And they don’t hand out jobs like candy at a parade. Let’s just say she must have an in.”

“Where, Valerie? Where did Jennifer get a job?”

Valerie grinned, her whole body tensed with the excitement of being the keeper of gossip in demand. “Smythe Pharmaceuticals.”

The name hit Alyson like a well-aimed fist. Now they were getting somewhere.

DEX COULD TELL Alyson had news the moment she poked her head into her lab where he was sitting in front of her computer, waiting for her. Her eyes sparkled like emeralds under a jeweler’s glass. Her cheeks flushed with color. The way she used to look, back when their biggest troubles were deciding which restaurant to choose among the dozens flanking State Street.

So different from the drawn look of fear she’d worn for the past few days.

She motioned him across the hall and into the vacant trace evidence lab and shut the door behind them, leaning back against the barrier.

“So?”

“Jennifer Scott quit two days ago. She has a new job.”

The news zinged along his nerves like an electric charge. “Don’t tell me. Her new job is with Smythe Pharmaceuticals.”

“Bingo.”

Dex reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “Do you have a number for them?”

Alyson nodded. She disappeared from the lab for a few moments then reappeared with the Madison phone book.

Dex paged through the thick book to locate the number and punched it into his phone.

“Smythe Pharmaceuticals,” a professional-sounding woman’s voice answered.

“I’d like to speak with Jennifer Scott, please.”

A pause stretched over the line. “I’m sorry, there’s no one here by that name.”

“Are you saying a chemist by the name of Jennifer Scott doesn’t work there?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Thank you.” Dex punched the end button and slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket. “Damn. Is your gossip guru known for inventing stories?”

Alyson watched him, the sparkle gone from her eyes, a furrow between her delicate brows. “No. Usually she just sticks to repeating them. But why would Jennifer tell Valerie she had a job at Smythe Pharmaceuticals if she didn’t?” Alyson stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Unless Jennifer expected to be offered the job but the offer never came.”

“We won’t know until we find her.”

“So now we have two missing persons. Jennifer Scott and the alleged rape victim, Connie Rasula.”

He nodded. “That’s what it looks like.”

“I suppose we’d better get looking.” She turned and grasped the doorknob, but didn’t pull it open. “Wait.”

“What is it?”

She spun to face Dex, the sparkle back in her eyes. “Maybe we don’t have to find Jennifer to learn whether she stole that sample of Smythe’s blood from the crime lab.”

“I’m listening.”

“When we take a blood sample for DNA or serum testing, we have to add a preservative to it so the liquid blood doesn’t coagulate and start to decompose like blood normally would. The preservative is called E.D.T.A.”