They started, and while there was some overlap, it was far from conclusive. It took them some time to get through her whole list.

“Nothing you wouldn’t expect,” Adam said, leaning back in his chair. “Typical politician schedule of meetings with locals. And only a couple match with dates Greg listed.”

Mandy sighed. “Well, this is her public schedule. Who knows what she was doing in private or after hours.”

“Still more meetings, nearly 24/7 if you ask her ex,” Adam said.

“Her ex?”

He nodded. “Your dad and I ran into him once, at court, after we’d testified on a case. He’s a lawyer. Anyway, he said she was always going out at odd hours to meet with someone.”

“Cheating on him?”

Adam gave her a wry smile. “Not something he’d tell us. He was only a little more pleasant to us than she would have been. We just overheard him saying that to someone else.”

“I wonder where she was going all the time?”

“Who knows? Meetings of the Heterochromia Society, maybe.”

She blinked. “The what?”

“Sorry, bad joke.”

“Heterochromia... Isn’t that when people have two different colored eyes?”

He nodded. “She’s got one brown one, one hazel. It’s only obvious up close. Where we sadly were a couple of times, when she came to the department to chew us out.”

She was staring at him now, her eyes wide. He had no idea what he’d said that had caused the stunned reaction.

“Mandy?”

“Dad had a dog, when he was a kid.”

Adam blinked. That was such a non sequitur he had no idea what to think. Or say, so he said nothing, just waited.

“A husky,” she said. “She had one brown eye and one blue eye.”

His brow furrowed. “That’s...not that unusual with them, is it?”

“No,” she said, but her eyes were still wide, and he noticed her breathing had quickened. “But, Adam...”

“What?” he asked, starting to feel concerned.

Finally, she focused on him. Swallowed visibly. And then, her voice taut, she answered him. “Her name was Pixie.”

She couldn’t seem to go on. But she didn’t have to. He finished it for her.

“Pix,” he breathed.

They had it.

Chapter 35

Quinn watched silently as they laid it all out on the meeting table on the third floor of Foxworth. They’d spent a couple of hours translating her father’s secret file into calendar pages, combining the public records—including votes on various projects and proposals—with the damning information her father had gathered in nearly a year of work. Then they’d printed it so it could all be seen at once and brought it to Foxworth. It took up nearly the entire large table.