Colt Crawford - Chapter 16 (Wednesday)

“I just got a call from the CSU guys.” It was early Thursday morning, but Colt could tell from the sound of Krissy’s voice that she had been awake for a while.

“What time is it?” he mumbled into the phone as he tried to focus his eyes on the clock in the hotel room.

“I’ll meet you at the station in 30 minutes,” Krissy said without answering his question before hanging up. Colt’s eyes finally made out the time. It was just after five a.m. Still groggy and wishing for another hour of sleep, Colt peeled the sheets off of himself and slowly trudged to the shower.

“What’s so important that you call me before dawn?” Colt asked a half hour later as he approached Krissy’s desk with two cups of coffee in hand.

“Get this,” Krissy began. “Kevin’s car was wiped clean. No fingerprints. He had been shot twice in the chest. The angle of entry suggests that the shooter was outside the car, probably a foot from the driver side window.”

“And no shattered glass, so the window was down,” Colt added.

“Exactly.”

“Meaning, it was someone that Kevin knew,” Colt concluded. “Destiny?” he assumed.

“It’s not that easy,” Krissy cautioned. “Remember how he was holding the envelope? The one with pictures of my parents”

Colt nodded, his eyes telling her to continue.

“Well, that was placed there after he died. It only makes sense. Why would the guy hug pictures of my family just before he died?”

“I’m following you,” Colt said.

“The crime scene guys found traces of saliva on the tab of the envelope and guess what? It doesn’t match Destiny.”

“So where does that leave us?” Colt asked.

“The DNA clearly indicates that our shooter is a man.”

“Mathis?” Colt asked.

“We don’t have a DNA sample from him to compare, but I’d bet week’s pay it was him.”

“A lot of people have bet a week’s pay with him before and lost,” Colt reminded her.