“On a flash drive. In my purse, at home,” Drue said.

“What’s your next step?” he asked Hernandez. “You’ll reopen the case, right?”

“It was never closed,” the detective said. “My next step is to go home, crawl in bed and get a couple hours of sleep. Then I’ll try and sweet-talk my husband into skipping golf so he can take Dez to that baseball tournament. Then, I guess I’ll go pay a visit to Neesa Vincent.”

“I want to come too,” Drue said.

“No way. You’re not a cop. You’re not even a lawyer.”

“But I know where she lives, and you don’t,” Drue pointed out. “And Neesa likes me. You think she’ll really talk to a cop? In fact, I’ve got an idea. A great idea, of how we can get her to talk.”

Rae Hernandez pushed herself up from the booth and grabbed her laptop. She fixed Brice Campbell with a malevolent stare.

“She’s your kid, all right.”

51

“No,” Brice said. “Out of the question. At the very least, if you’re right, this woman aided and abetted a brutal murder.”

“Oh, hell no,” Rae Hernandez said.

The three of them were standing in the parking lot of the Waffle House on Gulf Boulevard, clustered around the hood of Hernandez’s Honda Odyssey.

“I hate to agree with your father, but that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of. Neesa Vincent is a wild card,” Hernandez said.

“Which is why it makes sense to at least give it a try,” Drue urged. “Rae, I honestly think this could work. The night I met her, we clicked. She approached me, not the other way around. And if this doesn’t work, you can still do it your way.”

“Come on, Rae. Admit it. You never would have figured any of this out without me. I found Neesa and got her to admit to her connection with Byars. You owe me that much. You owe Jazmin.”

“No! I absolutely forbid it.” Brice slapped the hood of the minivan with his open palm.

“Easy there, Perry Mason,” Hernandez said. “Watch the paint job.”

“Dad?” Drue spoke up. “No offense, but I’m thirty-six years old. I don’t need a signed permission slip for this field trip.”

She turned pleading eyes toward Hernandez. “I’ll call her later this morning, after we’ve both gotten some sleep.”

“I don’t know,” Hernandez said uneasily. “Let me think about it. There’s no rush, right?”

“We don’t know that,” Drue said. “I mean, right now, Brian Shelnutt probably has no idea why a woman named Drucilla Campbell was skulking around that room at the Gulf Vista earlier tonight. But if we wait, he might put it all together and realize why I was trying to get into that particular room. We don’t know if he’s involved in Jazmin’s murder or not.”