FRIDAY, 9:02 A.M.
BRIDGER COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE
Harper recognized and accepted that she had been shut out of taking part in this bomb investigation since all manner of federal and state law enforcement had arrived. Fine by her. She definitely didn’t want to be in the middle when it hadn’t even been decided who would lead the investigation.
“Taggart’s not here,” Heath said. “We’ll have to see if we can catch up to him at the scene.”
“That won’t be easy,” Liam said.
“I want to go ahead and give the memory card to Meghan, if I can find her.” Harper left the men and pressed her way down the hallway and into the cubicle area, searching for Meghan. She found her in the back corner.
Meghan blinked up at her. “Harper. Hey.” She held out her hand. “Do you have it?”
Harper nodded and handed over the memory card.
“Thanks. You can have a seat here next to me. I’ll download these to a hard drive and make a backup copy. What we need is an audit log system so we can track what happens to the images, but we’re not there yet.”
“I emailed you my log to go with the photographs.”
“Thanks. I got it.”
“I did my best to make sure they could be used as evidence documentation, if needed. What I really need is to get back out there today. Yesterday was chaotic. I was rushed.”
Meghan smiled, then lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder. “I know he was glad to have someone with your skill level available for the pictures.”
Then she pulled up the images on her computer as she downloaded. “This is much more than crime scene photography.” Tears choked Meghan’s words.
“How could I be impartial?” The scene was still playing out. People were still suffering.
“You’re truly gifted. You captured the emotions too. I . . .” Meghan’s eyes teared up. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t realize . . .”
Harper understood the deep emotional impact the pictures had on Meghan. This was her town, after all, and someone had committed the worst kind of crime against it.
“Oh, Harper.” She pressed a hand against her arm. “And you were out there when the bomb went off, but you weren’t hurt?”
Unable to speak, she shook her head. Heath protected me. What if he had died and she had survived? Those words remained at the edge of her mind and heart. “I’m okay.”
Heath found her in the cubicle. “Sheriff Taggart called and asked me to look into something. Are you okay to stay here for a while?”
She nodded. “Sure, Meghan and I can work on this.”
His features grim, he nodded and left her. She watched Heath—part rancher, cowboy, and deputy—head out. Would Sheriff Taggart offer her a job and give her a legitimate reason to stay? He’d asked her to take these photographs and she wasn’t entirely sure if she was getting paid, but she would have taken them anyway.
She zeroed in on Meghan’s computer.
Once the images from Harper’s camera were downloaded, Meghan skimmed through other pictures to file away. Images that others had taken.
“These are from everyone else who was out tagging evidence, scraps, things to identify the explosion pattern. So much to look at, and it’s going to take a lot of people. They’ve set up in the conference room to start, but they’re going to be moving everything to the high school gym.”
“What do they know so far?”
Meghan shrugged. “They don’t tell me anything. I don’t think the state or the feds are going to share with Sheriff Taggart either, even though they claim to want to work together.”
“That’s why he wanted me to grab as many pictures as I could. He doesn’t want to be out of the loop. Wait.” Harper leaned in. “Can you magnify that fragmented piece of pipe?”
Meghan nodded. “Okay, it’s magnified. What are you looking at?”
“Are those . . . initials carved into it?”
“I don’t know. It looks like P. L.” Meghan gasped. “I stayed up late last night researching bombings. Domestic terrorists. I hope that’s not what this is. One guy supposedly put what authorities believed were initials in his bombs. They called him the Firebomber. Sometimes he purposefully misled them with false clues, so they never caught him. This could be nothing, but I need to tell the sheriff.”
Harper knew a P. L.—Pete Langford. But it couldn’t be Pete. She wouldn’t let herself believe that. She would mention it to Heath—he was a deputy, after all.
To warn him.
“Meghan.” A woman approached the cubicle. “The fingerprint reader is broken. And Moffett’s two-way radio is only one way.”
Meghan nodded. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” With a resigned sigh, she handed over Harper’s memory card. “Listen, I have a ton of work to do. I wish I could let you help, but beyond what you’ve already done for us, there’s nothing I can have you do unless the sheriff okays it.”
“I understand.” Harper wished she was officially hired so she could be working too. At the moment, she felt completely useless. “Thanks.”
“I’m one of only two IT people here at the department, which means I get to work on anything with an electronic pulse, including radios and fingerprint readers. I’d say you could wait here, but you’re not an employee, so . . .”
“It’s okay.”
“But I’m sure you’re fine to hang out in the kitchen. Get some coffee.” Her eyes lit up. “And maybe some donuts.”
“I’ll be fine.” She followed Meghan out into the hallway, then stopped at the kitchen, where Meghan left her. She’d have to wait to mention what she’d seen to Heath. He might not like her suggestion that Pete had anything to do with the bombs. All she needed now was a task to keep her from going crazy. Harper knew just the thing, though she dreaded going back.