Fairmont hung his head, looking at the table. He had nothing to say.
A fact that only made Nate more convinced than ever that the man they were looking at was not their killer.
“Why did you run from us, at the house?” Nate asked. He had to clear up this one thing, and then his doubts would be taken care of. But there was still this one thing.
“I was confused,” he said. “Drunk. You woke me up and told me you were the FBI. Of course I ran.”
Nate raised an eyebrow. That didn’t necessarily sound like a standard, expected response. Just because the FBI turned up, you didn’t run. Not every person they spoke to ran.
Laura looked at her cell phone, which was silent. “We’ll be back in a moment,” she said. Figuring this was some kind of ruse to pretend they’d just had a new update or a new piece of evidence, Nate followed her when she got up and walked out of the interview room. He didn’t like it, though. It was frustrating, having to second-guess what she was thinking—and having to follow along with tactics she’d decided on without discussing it.
Outside, once the door was closed, Laura retreated down the hall a way before turning to face Nate.
“He doesn’t strike me as guilty,” Nate said, deciding to take control rather than letting her dictate the conversation.
“Nor me,” Laura admitted. “But we can’t let him go just yet until we’re sure. He did still run from us, and he’s the only link we have. Plus, with no alibi…”
Nate nodded. “We can leave him to stew for a bit. Maybe send in Frome or someone else to keep talking to him every now and then, try and get him to give us the truth. If he isn’t telling it already.”
“Agent Frost?”
Nate turned at the unfamiliar voice, to see a shy-looking young officer standing behind them. Given that he’d been the one to react and look at her, she started toward him, but then Laura spoke up.
“That’s me.”
The officer flushed a little at her mistake, clasping her hands together in the air. “We’ve got a delivery just came through for you. Patient records—the note with it says that they’re related to a Dr. Fairmont?”
Laura nodded sharply, walking past Nate to join the officer. “Show me,” she said firmly, leaving Nate to watch them and then trail after them a moment later.
He hated the feeling of being left out. Being the last to know. It was like this was Laura’s investigation, her suspect, and he was on the outside looking in.
He was self-aware enough to feel a spark of chagrin at the fact that was probably how she felt when he reverted back to professionalism only, changing their relationship completely. She was
only doing to him what he’d already done to her.
That just didn’t make it feel any better—or make him want to back down.
He gritted his teeth, following Laura to the documents, with the hope that they would shed some light on this whole sorry mess and get them back home to D.C. Where, if things still hadn’t improved, he might just think about putting in for a partner transfer after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Laura sifted through the first few documents in the box, already feeling despair settle over here. There were so many of them.
Dr. Fairmont was a specialist in multiple births only, but he also delivered single births when other opportunities didn’t present themselves. The hospital hadn’t taken the time to narrow things down for them. They’d just sent over everything, the whole filing cabinet worth of records. Every birth that Dr. Fairmont had been involved in.
There must have been hundreds of them.
“The first thing we should do is get someone to filter out all of the twins,” Nate said. He was standing look at the daunting stack of boxes with his arms folded over his chest. They came up almost as tall as he did from the top of Laura’s desk, and there were two piles of them. “It’s busywork, but someone has to do it.”
“Might as well be us,” Laura sighed. “It’s not like we have any other leads right now. We don’t even have a good suspect.”
“Then why are we even bothering to look through his records?” Nate ground out. “All we really know is that twins are being targeted.”
Laura shrugged, almost helplessly. “It’s something. Both of them being delivered by him. It’s not a hell of a lot, but it’s something. And it’s all we have.”
“What if it’s just coincidence? Just the fact that he always delivers the twins in this city, so of course it was bound to be him?” Nate argued.
Laura rubbed her temples. “How many twins are there in Milwaukee?” she asked.