Give Me Grace(143)

My jaw ticked, suddenly furious on Casey’s behalf. “And the victim?”

Burns sat back in his seat and swiped a hand across the stubble on his jaw, the strain in his demeanour showing through. “Grace Paterson.”

“Bullshit,” I growled and Tate tensed at my side. Getting to my feet, I jabbed a finger across the desk at my boss and shouted, “Bull-fucking-shit!”

“Lock it down, Valentine,” he ordered.

Hands on my hips, I paced for a moment. The ramifications of what this would do to so many people I loved weighed on me.

Probable homicide meant there was no body but there was enough evidence to indicate survival was extremely doubtful.

Grace.

I closed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath. Gaining control, my eyes opened directly on my boss. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

Tate leaned forward in his seat, his jaw ticking.

“You two are not running this case.” I opened my mouth to argue and he kept going, his voice gaining volume in order to deter an interruption. “You’re too close, Mitch. I’ve pulled you both in as a professional courtesy to Jamieson and Valentine Consulting. I don’t believe for a second Casey would do something like this, but the evidence is stacked so high against him that my hands are tied right now.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Tate bit out, “you need to share that evidence.”

Burns nodded his agreement. “I will. Just as soon as—”

A rap came at the door to his office, interrupting him.

He glanced up. “Ahh, here she is.”

I turned and froze.

“What the fuck?” I bit out.

“Cabron!” Gabriella growled at the same time.

It translated to ‘bastard.’ A term I’d heard pass her lips many times in the past when she was pissed at me.

Long gone was the sexy black dress of earlier. In its place was a tight pair of black jeans, black calf-high boots and a fitted long-sleeved black top. A police badge hung around her neck. My eyes locked on it, my head spinning. Had I woken up in a parallel universe this morning? “What in the goddamn hell are you doing here?”

“Mitchell Valentine,” she hissed, using my full name in her rolling Spanish accent. She’d never shortened it to Mitch like everyone else and hearing it on her lips when she was naked and writhing beneath me had always got me hot. “You work here?”

Burns looked between the both of us. “You two know each other? Good,” he said without waiting for a response. “Come in, Detective.”

“Detective?” I echoed as Gabriella stepped into the office.

“That’s correct. Detective Gabriella Valdez, you obviously know Detective Mitch Valentine…” he nodded at me, and then at Tate “…this is his partner, Detective Tate Miller.” Burns shifted his gaze to Tate and myself. “Valdez joined our team yesterday, coming in from another department. She’s going to head up the Paterson case.”

“Nice to meet you, Miller,” she said and Tate stood so he could shake the hand she held out. I simply glared as she withdrew her hand, my eyes telling her we would be having a chat later. A big one.

I turned to face my boss. “Can we get the pleasantries out of the way,” I bit out, “and get to the evidence you mentioned?”

Burns took a minute to bring Gabriella up to speed before tapping the keyboard of his computer and then turning the screen to face us. “This is the security vision of where Grace was last sighted.”

The four of us focused our attention on the black and white footage as it came to life. First it cut to Grace exiting a cab out the front of Sydney airport. My brows drew together. She was still wearing the same dress from the night before. I checked the time of the footage. It showed midnight—just twenty-five minutes after her argument with Casey at the party.

I drew a deep breath as she headed around the side of the building. Why was she heading that way?

“Watch here,” Burns said.

The office was silent as a man came on screen, following behind Grace. The camera only caught the back of him. He was tall, with mussed dirty-blond hair, and wearing what looked like a tux, the bowtie hanging untied around his neck. My pulse quickened because if someone asked me if I knew this man, without a doubt I would’ve said it was Casey.

To Burns, I said, “That could be anyone.”

“Agreed, but we also have eye-witness accounts from people inside the party and outside the bar that attest to a volatile argument between the pair. One man said Casey threatened him where he stood with friends out the front. His friends corroborated his account.”

“So why are you making the call of probable homicide?” Tate asked.