74: Clair stood in the hallway outside room 316 at the Piedmont Hotel, her hands balled up in fists and her stomach in knots. CSI had arrived ten minutes earlier and sealed off the room.
“Clair-bear?”
She turned to find Nash stepping off the elevator, unfastening his thick coat. “What the hell happened?”
Clair shook her head. She was still trying to piece everything together. “He poisoned her. At least, I think he poisoned her. I forced her to throw up. She was stable when the paramedics took her away. Still unconscious, though.”
“But alive?”
“Yeah. Still alive.” She took a couple of steps, her back to him. “How is this happening? How is this bastard able to stay ahead of us like this?”
“We’ll get him.”
When she turned back around, there were tears in her eyes. “I was supposed to protect her, and he got right past me. Tried to take her out right under my nose.”
Nash wrapped his arms around her, gave her a hearty squeeze. “This is not your fault, Clair-bear. There is absolutely nothing you could have done differently.”
“I should have seen this coming. With Randal Davies, the unsub got into their house and poisoned his coffee with lisinopril. The unsub knew only Randal Davies drank it, and he targeted him. Somehow he got poison into something belonging to Darlene Biel, either her mouthwash or toothpaste . . . she traveled regularly for work. He got into her travel bag and set his poison. After Randal Davies, I should have seen that coming, I should have . . .” Her voice trailed off. She pressed her face into his shoulder.
“Detectives?”
Clair pulled away from Nash, wiped at her eyes, embarrassed. “Yes?”
CSI Lindsy Rolfes stood at the hotel room doorway. She averted her eyes as Nash released Clair from the hug. “You were right. The field test came back positive for cyanide.”
“Toothpaste or mouthwash?” Clair asked.
“Toothpaste. We found a small puncture hole in the tube. It looks like the unsub injected it into the toothpaste tube with a hypodermic needle about an inch down from the top. Because of the toothpaste consistency, she may have used it for days without encountering the poison. Honestly, toothpaste makes an excellent delivery method—the paste acted as a primitive timer. If the unsub would have placed the poison lower in the tube, he could have bought weeks rather than days before she encountered it. I’d keep that in mind—most likely he wanted it to hit around this time.”
Clair drew in a deep breath and let the air back out before speaking again. She wasn’t going to let this guy get the better of her, no way. “Anything else?”
Rolfes pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with a gloved hand. “That’s all so far. We’re still testing her personal items. I’ll finish up at the lab.”
“So nothing in the husband’s belongings?” Nash asked.
“Nothing that we’ve found. I’ll call you if we turn up something else.” She turned and disappeared back into the hotel room.
Clair massaged her chin, walking in slow circles around the hallway. “The obituary was Darlene Biel. She was the target. That means this guy isn’t going after only the fathers, he’s going after a parent. There’s a thread connecting them—connecting the girls and connecting the parents. We just need to find it.”
“You need some rest,” Nash told her. “You’ve been running on empty for two solid days. You can’t think straight like this. Neither can I, for that matter.” He lowered his voice. “When I got here, I tried to climb out of my car and forgot to take off my seat belt. I actually sat there for a second or two, trying to figure out why I couldn’t get up. My brain is toast. We all need to get some rest and regroup.”
Clair was shaking her head. “I’m going back to Metro. I need to work the boards, see all the data. There’s something there, I know it. Their daughter is still out there, and she may still be alive. She’s only been missing a day.”
“We have half the force out looking for her.”
“I’m going back to Metro,” she said defiantly.
Nash must have known this was a losing battle. “Okay, but under two conditions. One, you try to get some sleep on the couch in the war room. And two, you let me drive you. You shouldn’t be driving. You’re still shaking from the adrenaline, and when you crash, you’re going to crash hard.”
“And I’m supposed to entrust my life to a guy who can’t work a seat belt?”
“I’m all you got.”
“God help us.”
Clair’s phone buzzed. She pulled it from her pocket and read the text. Her heart sank. “They found the truck and the missing water tank. We’ve got another body.”