Brandon reached out and pulled her into his arms. She went still for a moment, and then her arms came around his waist and she rested her head against his chest. She felt warm and soft, but the tension in her shoulders was unmistakable.

“Why would someone . . .” Her muffled voice trailed off.

Brandon eased back. “I don’t know.” He slid his hand to her shoulder and rested his thumb against the soft skin of her neck. “I’m going to try to find out.”

His phone buzzed, and he cursed inwardly as Leigh pulled away from him. He took the phone from his pocket and checked the screen. Antonio.

“Hey,” he said.

“Did you take off already?”

“Yeah.”

“Tate’s looking for you. You know the latex gloves from that dumpster? The one near Leigh’s law firm?

“Yeah?”

“We got a hit on the prints.”

*   *   *

Antonio exited the watch room and spotted Brandon cutting through the bullpen.

“Who’s in there?” Brandon asked, nodding at the interview room. The door was closed, and several detectives stood in the room next door, observing the action on closed-circuit TV.

Antonio smiled. “You know the convenience store holdup from Friday? The lieutenant has the shooter’s girlfriend in there. She just confessed to driving him to the scene.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. Guess the week wasn’t a total loss.” Antonio looked Brandon over. “I didn’t know you were coming back tonight.”

“I want to see that report.”

“It’s on my desk. Here.” Antonio led him to his cubicle and grabbed the lab report off the top of his inbox. He handed it to Brandon and then sat down to log in to his computer. “It’s a forensic hit. Those same prints turned up at a crime scene in Florida. A five-year-old burglary case.”

Brandon skimmed the report. “Home burglary?”

“No. A workplace.”

“Where in Florida?”

“Tampa. And listen. I already reached out to the detective. They never made an arrest, but he remembers the case because it involved a shit-ton of oxies stolen from a clinic. More than twelve hundred pills, with a street value of almost forty thousand dollars. They got the DEA involved but still they couldn’t manage to crack the case. And get this—”

“Mason Lloyd worked at the clinic.” Brandon looked up.

“How did you know that?”

“He used to live in Tampa.” Brandon looked at the computer screen. “At least, according to Leigh he did.”

“Yeah, well, Leigh’s right. By the way, did she ever figure out what someone was trying to steal at her law firm?”

“No.”

“She has no idea at all?”

“No.”

“What about you?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

Which meant he had an idea, but he wasn’t talking. Maybe he hadn’t firmed it up yet. Brandon didn’t like to talk about random hunches.

“So, are you thinking these are Mason Lloyd’s prints at both crime scenes?” Brandon asked.