by Jami Alden
And, of course, his subconscious loved to torture him on a regular basis with dreams ranging from the wickedly hot sex they had never had to visions of a future he’d been stupid enough to hope for, before the whole world came crashing down around them.
He told himself the dreams didn’t count. His brain, his heart, everything that mattered knew it was beyond over with Megan, that it had been the second he locked the cuffs around Sean’s wrists.
Had he been disappointed? Yes, bitterly so. But he was over it. At least that’s what he’d thought until his chance encounter with Megan three days ago.
One look was all it had taken for everything to come bursting back to the surface. Where it stayed. Simmering, seething, threatening his common sense and control.
And now, today, seeing her with that Ken-doll clone, he’d managed to add a healthy dose of jealousy to the emotional mix. An emotion so unfamiliar, he didn’t at first recognize it as the force that made him want to grab the hand covering Megan’s and snap it like a twig. Fortunately his common sense prevailed, but even with Mr. All-American out of the picture, Cole found himself struggling to keep from doing something stupid.
Pulling up confidential autopsy and crime scene reports didn’t qualify?
He was doing it to be altruistic, he told himself. For the sole purpose of putting Megan’s wild theories to bed once and for all so she could finally move on.
Sure, Ace. Keep telling yourself that it’s not just an excuse to get close to her again.
“So what’s with what’s-his-name—Nate?” He strove for casual and failed miserably, the question just this side of accusatory.
Megan slanted him a look from under her lashes. “Like I said, he was a friend of Sean’s. They met in basic and realized they’d grown up practically next door to each other.”
“You never mentioned him.”
“He was Sean’s friend, not mine. I met him only a couple times. But he saw all the recent news coverage and said he wanted to get back in touchont>
Wanted to get in your pants is more like it. “Nice of him.”
“It is. And he even offered to help me get an investigator from Dennison Investigations to help with Sean’s case. There’s no way I could afford them, but Nate offered to help cover the cost.”
Hoping you’d pay him back how, exactly? Cole kept that to himself but couldn’t suppress his skeptical grunt as they turned down Megan’s street.
“What?” she snapped as he clicked his key fob to unlock his unmarked Crown Vic, which was parked across the street from her place.
Don’t get into it, he warned himself. “You realize he wants to fuck you, don’t you?” He could have kicked his own ass for saying it out loud. He was jealous. Bleeding black with it. Nothing he could do about that. But laying it out there for her to see? Now, that was just plain stupid.
Megan looked up at him, her dark eyebrows arched over her wide, challenging stare. “If he can help me prove Sean’s innocence, maybe I’ll let him.”
The muscles in Cole’s shoulders tensed as he reached in the passenger seat of his car for a large accordion folder. “If that’s the case, you have no idea how much I wish there was something in these files that could do just that.”
When he turned back, Megan was staring at the asphalt, but her cheeks were so pink they practically glowed. Her tongue flicked out to moisten her soft, pink lips. The gesture sent a spark of lust straight to his groin.
She risked a furtive glance, and in that split second, he saw an awareness so intense the air between them crackled with heat despite the cold, damp weather.
Before he could breathe, she’d lowered her thick lashes and was walking briskly across the street, her slender back so straight it looked like she had a metal rod running up her spine.
Cole paused, momentarily dumbstruck. It was the first time since Sean’s arrest that Megan had indicated she felt anything other than hatred for him. He’d been convinced anything good she might have felt for him had been lost in the tidal wave of anger and resentment.
That hot green gaze flashed in his mind again. Apparently not.
What a fucking disaster.
It was bad enough that he’d pined after her like some pathetic fifteen-year-old the last three years. Knowing that anything she might have felt for him was dead kept him from dwelling on it too much. He could carry a torch for her to rival the Statue of Liberty’s, but it was never going to get him anywhere.
But now he knew different. Emotions that strong didn’t just disappear. Not for him anyway.
And evidently not for Megan either.
And it didn’t do him a goddamn bit of good. All it did was make his chest ache that much more, make the regret that mch keener over what they’d lost. What they should have had.
It was as hopeless as it had ever been, yet he couldn’t silence the voice in his head urging him to use what he’d discovered to get her to open up to him, just a little bit. Tempting him to see if he could get that flash of lust to come blazing back up to the forefront.
You can’t have everything. But maybe you don’t have to settle for nothing.
His cock thickened behind the zipper of his trousers. He was pretty sure he’d identified the source of that voice.
Never one to let his little head do his thinking, he shoved the thought aside and followed her across the street, up the flight of rickety wooden stairs that led to the apartment she rented on the second floor of the house, doing his damnedest to keep his libido in check.
That was easier said than done when he stepped into the warm darkness of her apartment. He immediately steeled himself against the memories as the familiar vibe of Megan’s place assailed him.
It was small and cozy, full of overstuffed furniture and colorful pillows that invited a person to flop down and relax with a warm cup of coffee or a couple fingers’ worth of good whiskey. It was the opposite of his town house, which was little more than a place to sleep and store his stuff.
And that smell… He’d always loved the way Megan’s apartment smelled. A combination of the spicy black tea she drank, the green smell of her many plants, the fresh scent of clean laundry. And under it all, the sweet, spicy smell of the woman herself.
It was all Cole could do not to close his eyes and inhale a deep, lusty breath.
“You can hang your jacket in the closet. I’ll make some coffee.” Cole shrugged off his coat as Megan moved past him into the front room and flipped on a table lamp, flooding the room with golden light.
As she rattled around in the postage-stamp-sized kitchen, Cole did a quick survey of the place, confirming his initial impression that nothing had changed. Same pillows. Same oversize armchair parked in front of the television.
Same couch.
His core temperature spiked as he was suddenly hit with the memories of the last time he’d been in Megan’s apartment. The last time he’d been on Megan’s couch.
Smooth, hot skin under his hands. His lips sucking the bullet-hard tip of her breast. The feel of her hands stroking the skin of his back and arms, her mouth sucking at his like she couldn’t get enough. Never get enough. The hot, sweet squeeze of her sex around his fingers. Tight, slippery wet, aching for him to slide inside…
The sharp trill of the phone jerked him out of his flashback.
Megan picked up the phone, checked the caller ID and grimaced, but she didn’t answer. Avoiding the couch, Cole settled himself at Megan’s small kitchen table and set the folder down on it with a thud.
The answering machine clicked on as she spooned coffee into the filter.
Cole smiled when he heard Megan’s cheerful outgoing greeting. That hadn’t changed either. “Here in the twenty-first century,” he said, unable to resist a dig, “we have something called voice mail.”
She rolled her eyes at him and hit the coffeemaker’s power button.
Any trace of humor fled her face as a man’s voice filled the apartment. “Hey, Megan, it’s me, Jimmy. I really wish you’d call
me back. I just want to talk to you. You know how to reach me.”
Cole settled back in his chair and tried to ignore the twist in his gut. But it was obvious from Megan’s pale, strained face that this Jimmy was important to her, whoever he was. “Boyfriend?”
Megan’s sharp, “Hah!” cracked across the kitchen. She filled two mugs with coffee, put cream and sugar in one and left one black for him. “That,” she said, inclining her head toward the answering machine, “was Jimmy Caparulo.”
Cole had a flash of recognition. “That was the bouncer from Club One, right? The guy who testified at Sean’s trial.”
Megan nodded, her mouth pulling tight. “It was more than that. He was Sean’s best friend growing up. They joined the army together after they graduated from high school. They were even in the same class in Ranger school. That’s where they met Nate.” Megan gave him a sad little smile and set a mug in front of him, and then settled into the empty kitchen chair. “They were as close as brothers until…”
“Let me guess—until Sean got arrested.”
“Nope. They were on the outs weeks before Sean got arrested, but Jimmy finally convinced Sean to come by Club One so they could talk. Don’t you remember? That’s how Sean met Evangeline in the first place.”
Cole didn’t have Sean’s file memorized like Megan did, but now the little details were falling into place.
“What was their falling-out over? I don’t remember it ever coming out in his testimony.”
Megan flashed him a bitter smile. “It was because of me. Remember how Sean had a barbecue a couple weeks after he got back? I invited you but you couldn’t come because you were too deep into the Pachevsky case?”
Cole nodded. In the end, he’d had to miss it to fly to Portland, where a money-laundering investigation had revealed a link to the murder of Sergei Pachevsky, a restaurant owner with ties to the Russian mob. Cole’s investigation had consumed the better part of the month. The first time he met Sean Flynn in person, he was cuffing and stuffing him into the back of a squad car.
“Anyway, Sean had told me Jimmy was having trouble adjusting to civilian life. He was discharged a few months before Sean after an IED almost took him out. Even though he mostly recovered, he never really got over it, you know? I saw him some before Sean came home, and I knew he was drinking too much, and I’m pretty sure he was going pretty heavy on the painkillers.He was barely holding on to his job at Club One—he was a mess. Anyway, that night at Sean’s, things got kind of out of hand.”
The muscles in Cole’s back tightened. “What do you mean, out of hand?”
“When I went inside to get the stuff to throw on the grill, Jimmy cornered me in the kitchen. Told me some BS about how he’d always had a thing for me, and he was so glad to be home where there were nice girls. He went in to kiss me, and when I pushed him away, he got a little rough.”
Cole’s hands fisted against the tabletop. “How rough?”
Megan shook her head and put up a hand as though to stay him. “Nothing major—he shoved me against the refrigerator and knocked my arm against the door.”
“You told me you got that bruise when you hit it against a door frame.”
She shrugged. “And that was the truth. I really don’t think Jimmy wanted to hurt me—”
“No, he just assaulted you.”
“He didn’t assault me! I honestly think he was so messed up he didn’t realize what he was doing.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you had better things to do, and Jimmy was having enough problems without me siccing my cop boyfriend on him! Sean came in right then, saw what was happening, and yanked him off of me and told him to stay the hell away from me or he’d kill him.”
“Has he been bugging you this whole time?”
She shook her head. “No. He called a couple times after the trial to apologize.” Her breath caught and she sniffed hard. “Like that would help. I mean, I know he had to testify, but…” She squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around her waist. Cole’s own arms twitched to pull her close and give her the comfort she needed. “He called me last week when he heard about Sean.”
“Promise me you won’t go see him alone.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be an issue since I’m not even taking his calls. Even so, I don’t think he wants to hurt me or anything—”
“He shoved you up against a wall!” The thought made Cole want to plant his fist in the other man’s face.
“He was drunk. From what I’ve heard, he’s been in rehab and is keeping it together. I think he’s just sorry for how everything went down.”
“We all are,” Cole said. He made a mental note to run a check on Jimmy Caparulo when he got back to the station. Megan amazed him with her ability to see the best in people. It was a kind of faith he’d always admired, when it didn’t drive him crazy. But regardless of what she thought about Jimmy, Cole would find out everything there was to know about him and make sure he kept the hell away from Megan.
“Can we get started already?” Megan asked, indicating the thick accordion file taking up nearly the entire surface of her minuscule table. Not only was she eager to dive into the reports, she needed to distract herself from her nearly overwhelming awareness of Cole, from the memories of what had happened the last time they were alone in her apartment.
Stupid, irrational, and inappropriate, she scolded herself. There was something wrong with her, some sick twist in her DNA. That was the only explanation for how, after everything that had happened, she still felt that same electric buzz along every nerve when she got close to him. How his scent—man plus a hint of cedarwood—could make her want to bury her face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in as if he were oxygen. How her fingers could ache to comb through his thick, dark hair.
It was a chemical quirk. Totally meaningless. She had more important matters to deal with than her libido, which for some unknown reason roused only around big, dark, roughly handsome police detectives who didn’t let anything as silly as feelings get in the way of doing their jobs.
With that in mind, Megan pulled her focus back to the folder. Despite Cole’s certainty that there would be nothing in the reports to help Sean’s case, Megan was buzzing with anticipation to see what was inside.
Cole was wrong. He had to be. There had to be something, something everyone had missed because they didn’t know what they were looking for. But Megan knew, and if there was any information, no matter how small, linking the murders of five prostitutes to the death of Evangeline Gordon, she would find it.
“Some of this is going to be pretty rough,” Cole said. “The photos are very grisly—”
“I’m a big girl, Cole. I’ve been over Sean’s case file literally thousands of times. Not a lot bothers me.” That wasn’t entirely true, and she hoped he wouldn’t call her bluff. Sure, the pictures of Evangeline, naked, her throat slashed open like an obscene smile, her torso nearly black with a curtain of blood, had stopped making her gag after the first dozen viewings. But Megan would never be immune to them, nor to the cold, clinical descriptions of how she had been raped and sodomized, how deep slashes had been cut into her breasts, buttocks, and thighs before her throat had been cut.
She braced herself as Cole slipped the elastic from around the folder and extracted the manila folders for each case.
Megan picked up the first one, marked Jane Doe. The Slasher’s first victim. “So thin.” They all were.
Cole ran a hand through his short, dark hair and let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s everything we have. Crime scene report and printouts of digital photos, the ME’s report, the autopsy, and toxicology reports. Blood-spatter analysis. But, yeah, it’s not much. We know nothing about her, how she ended up in that house. And nothing about the sick fuck who did that to her.” He flipped open the folder and indicated a photo with a blunt finger.
Megan suppressed a shudder and swallowed hard at the gruesome image before her. A woman
lay naked on a bed, on her stomach, her knees still bent as ough she’d been on all fours and fallen forward. Her arms were trapped beneath her chest. Her long, blond hair obscured her face, the ends matted with the blood that had pooled under her, saturating the sheets.
Her pale skin was marred with angry red slashes. Megan flipped through the rest of the photos. A shot of the blood spray that had arced from the foot of the bed onto the floor in front of it. A close-up of three slashes the killer had cut into the smooth skin of the woman’s back.
As Megan turned to the next picture, her vision started to tunnel and she heard a loud buzzing in her head. This one was from the ME’s report, after they had moved the body in preparation for the autopsy. The victim lay on a gurney, positioned on her back. With her fine features, closed eyes, and blue lips, she looked like a wax doll.
Like Evangeline, she had a gaping wound across her throat. Circular marks covered her breasts and stomach. “Cigarette burns?” she asked, fighting back the wave of dizziness.
Cole nodded and reached out to flip through some of the pictures. “He also burned her inner thighs.”
A cold sweat bloomed on Megan’s skin as she looked at the mutilated swath of pale skin. “And of course the other knife wounds.” In addition to the cuts on her back and legs that Megan had already seen, the killer had sliced at her breasts.
The last photo was a close-up of one of those wounds, cut into the underside of the woman’s left breast. There was a latex-gloved hand in the picture, lifting the breast up to show the severity of the wound.
Megan couldn’t stifle her gasp of horror. The killer had slashed the woman so deeply, he’d nearly cut off her breast. “And he did all of that before he killed her, right?” She picked up the autopsy report, as much to distract herself as to verify the information. The typed words and diagrams swam in front of her.
“Yeah,” Cole said. “Though he got a little more conservative with subsequent victims.”
“Conservative?” Megan whispered, nausea burning at the back of her throat.
“The cuts on this first victim are much deeper than with his later victims. Like he was still getting the feel for it. You’ll see with his later victims, the wounds are much shallower, the cuts much more controlled, only cutting through to the fat layer, not into the muscle. Like he’s toying with them, not wanting them to bleed out until the very end.”