Red_Roses_and_Black_Dahlias_-_Macy_T

I chuckled, and put the spoon back on the counter before grabbing her by
the waist. She squealed and bursted out laughing as soon as I started tickling
her. Her laugh was music to my ears. I didn’t know how or when but this
little girl had wormed her way into my heart and decided it was her home
now.
It had been close to a month since that whole debacle at the park, and we
had fallen into a perfect routine. On some mornings, when I started work
later than Sofia, I drove Valentina to school, then Sofia usually came to
retrieve her at the end of the school day.
Sometimes she and I met at lunch to eat together, out of town, since we
didn’t want people to speculate. We did our best to eat dinner all together
every night, although there were some times we couldn’t, when Sofia had to
study or work a later shift at the cafe, or when I stayed in late at the station to
work on their parents’ case.
Chief Pierson insisted we take on other cases since we refused to label
theirs as a robbery gone wrong. He was getting more and more adamant on us
moving on. Especially since nothing related to the case happened after the
fire that took away everything that remained of the Raymond household.
Still, I worked on it whenever I could, and Adam helped me too. We
interviewed Harold’s old accomplices from other felonies he had committed,
even tracked down the last remaining members of his family and searched his
trailer over in Ravenbridge, but nothing so far.
We did a more thorough background check on Conan too, but on paper
nothing was wrong with the guy. After the funeral though, I had heard he had
gotten up the ranks and joined the city council after one spot was made
vacant by the now honorary mayor they had elected. We had convoked him a
week ago to interrogate him, which he apparently didn’t take kindly. He
didn’t like being treated like a criminal in a case revolving around the man
he had admired for a good chunk of his life. His words, not mine.
Sometimes I thought to myself, that maybe it had just been a robbery gone
wrong, that the second man had long left the city, or even the state.