Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead by Lena Diaz Page B

pride myself on employing some of the best minds in the business, and having the best equipment available.”
    “How long will it take?” she repeated. “When will we have results?”
    The we in her statement reassured him even more. She wasn’t going to change her mind and have him arrested, or take the evidence back to the FBI. She was too invested to back out now. She was already thinking of herself as his partner in crime.
    He winced. Hopefully his willingness to break the rules wouldn’t come back to harm her career. But sometimes the bureaucracy of law-enforcement agencies seemed more designed to help criminals than to help catch them. It had never made sense to Matt that cops had to follow a strict set of rules when the people they were after followed no rules at all.
    His father, Alex, was an attorney, and Matt had inherited his thirst for justice. But Matt could never thrive under the strict guidelines of a law-enforcement career. That’s why he’d decided to fight for justice as a consultant. And if he occasionally bent a few rules to put murderers away and protect innocent people, he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
    Tessa turned away from the glass. “Matt?” She was still waiting for his answer.
    “Probably a few days.”
    “Can you test a portion of the letter and leave the rest alone?”
    “I could, but what if that portion was the one part that would give us the answers we need? Taking the evidence would have been for nothing.”
    She turned back to the window, every line in her body tense. Was she having second thoughts?
    If she was going to break the rules, it needed to be her decision, made with all the facts, so she wouldn’t hold it against him later. He rapped his knuckles on the glass, capturing Dr. Henry Beauchamp’s attention.
    Matt held his hand up, signaling the doctor to stop his work with the letter.
    “What are you doing?” Tessa asked.
    “Making sure you know exactly what’s going to happen. Henry there is going to examine the letter and envelope. Then he’ll dissolve the sample in a liquid solution, which will basically destroy the evidence. I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know what exactly he’ll do at that point. But when he’s done, he’ll produce a report that will identify all the chemicals and particulates, from the exact type of fibers in the paper to the type of ink in the writing. And maybe, just maybe, that report will help us narrow down our search to one geographical area of the country, small enough to do us some good.”
    Tessa narrowed her eyes. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but he’d gone too far to stop now.
    “If you’re not willing to completely destroy the evidence on the off chance that we can glean one small clue to help us,” he said, “I’ll stop this right now. I’ll go back with you to the FBI building, return the evidence, and accept the consequences. I’m not tricking you this time. It’s your decision. If you tell me yes, we’ll go ahead with the tests. If you say no, we go back into town.”
    She crossed her arms. “Basically, you’re trying to put all of this back on me. Is that it?”
    “I’m making sure you’re in this all the way, or it stops right here. I don’t want you to have any regrets.”
    She didn’t even hesitate. “I made my decision when I walked through that front door. I’m all in. Run the tests.”
    The certainty in her voice surprised him. “You’re sure?”
    “I’m sure. It’s one letter out of twenty-three. What are the odds that one letter is the one that could convict the killer and we destroyed it? I’m not a mathematician like you, but I’m pretty sure those odds are astronomical.”
    Not as astronomical as she thought, but he didn’t see the point of saying that right now.
    He motioned to Henry, letting him know to proceed with the testing.
    “I don’t think I can focus on anything else today,” Tessa said. “Let’s go back to your cabin so I can get my car.”
    He took