Caroline kept her voice level. The flinch had been involuntary but she wouldn’t give anything else. “May I have that?” She indicated the date book in her grandmother’s hand. “They’re going to question Vernon Hicks tomorrow in Porter. I’d like Shane to know about this before he goes. So he understands the connection.”

Her grandmother handed it over.

“Thank you. I’ll be sure Shane gets it back to you when he’s done with it. Excuse me a moment please.” She took several steps away and called Shane. She stared at the name of her mother’s killer on the page. It seemed so immense for what should have been a small thing. Not the information, no that was huge. If they could make a connection tonight, they could serve an arrest warrant and a search warrant at Vernon’s apartment.

That was a whole different kind of immense.

It was the simplicity of a jotted note. A bunch of letters in her grandmother’s date book that spelled out the name of a person who had destroyed her family. Right next to paint for entry powder room.

Shane answered and she forced herself to focus. “I have the connection between Vernon Hicks and my mother.”

He rushed over to the Lassiters to take their statements and take the datebook to enter into evidence.

Mindy came back in at some point but their grandfather had made her be quiet.

“Okay, so before I call in my favors to get warrants for Hicks, run it through with me,” Shane said to Caroline. “We have a murder. We have a suspect who was seen washing blood off the night of the murder, and there’s a connection between that man and the murder victim.”

“And we have a suspect who has a history of violence. A man who has done time for manslaughter and assault. He has a history of stalking and hurting women. The murder bore really personal hallmarks. The kind a man Hicks might be. Angry at women. Obsessive. He’s got major anger problems.”

“I need some more, here, Caroline. What’s his motive?”

“I know. Damn it. Okay. He did time in the system in several places. Did he submit DNA on any of them? We could get it to the lab to see if it’s a match. You’d have a physical tie to the scene.”

“That’s a good idea. There’s a backlog but this is exigent. You’re being threatened. He’s tried to kill you. He took photos of you and the victim from your apartment. My concern is that he’s now stalking you, Caroline. We found evidence of a little sniper’s blind in a tree. The one the rifle appears to have been fired from.”

Royal cursed under his breath and took her hand.

“Well isn’t that comforting? Okay so he’s obviously stalking me. But, you don’t know that Hicks has any connection to me at all. You absolutely do need to arrest him, don’t get me wrong. But you need to run this by the prosecutor to see what he thinks. Order the DNA if it’s in the system. But if you arrest him without enough and you have to let him go before he gets charged, he might bolt. He’s changed his name multiple times, he’s moved around a lot, creating new identities.”

“Okay, defense attorney, knock holes in it,” Shane said.

“This is all totally circumstantial. So Vernon Hicks knew Bianca Mendoza when she was murdered. That’s not a crime. A nearly ninety-year-old woman who remembers blood from sixteen years ago? There’s no evidence she came forward at all with this information. You have nothing to tie Hicks to that murder but acquaintance.”

She blew out a breath and realized her sister was crying, her head on their grandfather’s shoulder. He looked absolutely wrecked as he stared at her. She tore her attention from however much they hated her for this and got back into the right headspace.

“Maybe your father would have better advice. You have probable cause to arrest, but arrest him on a stalking charge. I’m being stalked and threatened. He’s a stalker and threatener with a history of being locked up for violence and obsessive harassment of women. The current victim is the daughter of a murder victim Vernon Hicks is also a person of interest in. If you arrest him for that, you have him in while you serve the search warrant. He seems the type to trophy collect. Some of my mother’s hair was taken. The pictures from my house. He’s a collector. If he really did do it and he hasn’t had to dump it when he ran or went inside, proof should be there.”

“And while he’s in interrogation and we’re in his house, he’ll go crazy imagining us going through his stuff. Touching his trophies can probably use that fear to get him talking if he doesn’t lawyer up.”

Caroline snorted. “He’s a career criminal. He’s going to lawyer up ten minutes after you get him in a room. If you don’t find anything at his house, you’re screwed. You’ll have to let him go.” She continued to pace as she thought. “So assuming that doesn’t happen, we have ten minutes. All right. We’ve both dealt with his type before. He thinks he’s way smarter than he is. He’s got a hair trigger. Poor control means if you hit the right buttons in interrogation you can get enough to make a dent on holding him before he realizes he’s screwed up and asks for a lawyer. Especially if you find something at his apartment.”

“All right. I’m calling now. I’ll have to run this all by the prosecutor and then a judge to get those warrants. I’d like to hit him as soon as we can. We’ll need to coordinate with Porter on this obviously. I’ll let you know when I can.” Shane hugged Caroline. “It’s nearly over.”