The rookie button-hooked a right and walked up to a blonde who wore a gray pantsuit beneath a black parka with a fur-lined hood. The blonde had her head down but seemed vaguely familiar.
She looked up, and a pair of smoky blue eyes collided with his. Every neuron in his body sparked to life as recognition slammed into his gut. Her pupils dilated, but apart from that, she betrayed no visible reaction.
Fuck.
There was no smile. No “Hey, how’re ya doin’?” But then their last encounter had been conducted under very different circumstances. Horizontal. Naked. Panting.
She’d turned him inside out in a way no one else ever had, and that was before he’d found out she was married.
He glanced at her left hand. Bare.
His pulse sped up, as if he hadn’t learned his lesson the first time. She tucked her fingers up her sleeve, perhaps sensing his gaze.
The rookie spoke into the blonde’s ear, and the woman narrowed her eyes, clearly weighing the professional implications of his presence rather than the personal ones. Darsh stared right back. Under his jacket, he wore black tactical pants, a black T-shirt, ATAC boots—much the same as he’d been the first time he’d bumped into her in a bar after spending an intense, sweaty day training with the FBI’s HRT. She’d been at Quantico doing a training course for law enforcement. He’d been about to go undercover and was supposed to be keeping a low profile. He hadn’t told her he was part of the FBI’s BAU—but his omission didn’t come close to hers. And it still burned that he’d slept with a married woman.
Her mouth turned down at the edges, and he tried to forget the fact he’d spent hours kissing those lips—and every other inch of her body. As if reading the direction of his thoughts she glared at him and turned to the evidence tech she’d been talking to, dismissing Darsh like he was a nobody.
He shoved down a grin. If it hadn’t been the scene of a double homicide he’d have laughed. He was used to working with women who busted balls for breakfast. He actually enjoyed the challenge of them. He stood waiting patiently until she deigned to speak to him. Forty-six seconds later, she walked across the room to where he’d planted himself beside the door.
“You’re FBI?” She held out her hand for his creds. Took them and examined them carefully. “Not a Marine then?” she muttered under her breath, proving she definitely remembered their night together three years ago.
“Once a Marine always a Marine,” he told her truthfully.
“Semper Fi,” she muttered sarcastically.
Always faithful.
“Well, that’s my motto.” He plucked his creds out of her grip, and she flinched.
Up close, those unusual eyes stood out against creamy skin and thick dark lashes like a wash of color in an otherwise pale complexion. There were shadows beneath them, bruises of fatigue dappling tender skin, speaking of a double shift dealing with brutal reality. He told himself it didn’t matter. All that mattered was helping catch this killer and making sure the local cops weren’t incompetent hicks.
“This isn’t a federal case.” Irritation frosted her tone.
Hell, snowmen were warmer than this woman appeared on the surface—except he knew that beneath the icy exterior was a core of molten fire. “No, ma’am.”
“Detective,” she corrected, those sharp eyes of hers apparently tracking his thoughts. “Detective Erin Donovan.”
“Detective.” He inclined his head, inexplicably relieved she hadn’t lied about her first name. He’d taken one look at the sexy blonde and been smitten. At first they hadn’t exchanged surnames or life histories, both wanting a no-strings hook up. But by the end of the night he’d wanted to know everything about her—except the one thing he’d discovered. He cleared his throat. “Your chief requested assistance from the BAU. I’m it.”
Her boss, at the urging of the governor, had indeed called the FBI for assistance. None of the local cops needed to know the DOJ was also involved.
“BAU? You’re BAU?” Her expression became less antagonistic now that she knew he wasn’t a field officer who might try to wrest the case from her. But the question remained in her eyes—why lie about being a Marine all those years ago? A spark of apparent understanding lit her eyes, but he couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking.
“I guess we both lied to get what we wanted,” she said in barely a whisper.
A night of burning-hot sex. The memory of it seared the air between them, and that pissed him off. As a trained sniper, he never made the same mistake twice—that went double for his personal life. He kept his voice to the same low whisper. “Only I didn’t have a spouse back home waiting for me.”
“Gold star for Agent Singh.” She looked him in the eye, raised that stubborn chin of hers, and got back to the job at hand. “Serial crimes generally involve more than two bodies, and have a cooling off period between crimes. Why is BAU involved here?”
“Because after the rape trial last year this town doesn’t need a killer on the loose.” A little truth went a long way. “The faster you solve this thing, the better.” They held each other’s gaze, but he didn’t back down. Neither did she. “You have anyone photographing the crowd outside?” Divert her attention. Give her a reason to value his input.
Her eyes widened, and she swore. “Geoff,” she spoke to a man packing up his photography gear. “Get some more exterior shots and make sure you get plenty of the crowd in case the perp came back.”
“Right, boss.” The photographer unzipped his camera with the resigned air of a man not getting any sleep that night.
“We did it earlier, but I should have thought of doing it again a few hours later. The perp might have gotten curious as to what was going on. Thanks.” She nodded curtly.
“The bodies are still here, correct?” He got a much better sense of the killer’s mindset when he saw victims in situ. And this was a volatile situation and a sensitive case. The quicker they figured out who’d killed these girls, the better for everyone. He took a step toward the stairs, but she side-stepped, blocked him, and they collided hard. He grabbed her upper arms so she didn’t fall on her ass and tried to ignore the fact her soft breasts were pressed up against the hard wall of his chest. The dilation of her pupils and flaring of her nostrils told their own tales, even as her jaw flexed and eyes narrowed. They stood glaring at one another like angry lovers—or a couple of wary dogs going head-to-head over territory.
Chapter Three
Darsh was amused. Was the detective really going to try to stop him from doing his job? Considering the top of her blonde head came to his chin, and he outweighed her by seventy pounds, it wasn’t the smartest move. Although she did have a gun.
Evidence techs and other cops were watching with keen interest, and Darsh wasn’t about to give them a show. He let her go and took a step away from her. Touching her made his blood heat, and he couldn’t afford to get distracted.
“You have a problem with me being here, Detective?”
Something faltered in her gaze. She papered the cracks in her composure with a smile that said not only did she not trust him, she didn’t like him very much either. But she’d liked him well enough in Virginia.
“I need to talk to my chief before I’ll allow anyone near those bodies. I need to check you’re not some reporter or whacko off the street with really good forged credentials. I owe it to the victims and their families not to take things at face value.”
He regarded her quizzically. Technically he didn’t need her permission, but he appreciated the thoroughness in checking with her boss, and he appreciated the fact she seemed to care about the victims—although that could cloud judgment when an investigator got too close.
“I’ll wait,” he said patiently.
She stepped away, already pulling out her cell. He wandered into the kitchen and looked around. A stack of washed dishes drained next to the sink. The place was clean if a little tatty and worn. Typical female student accommodation, except for the picture of Erin Donovan s
tuck to a dartboard, riddled with holes, and two darts carefully piercing each eyeball, the third sticking out of her mouth.
The woman in question followed him into the small room with its rickety table piled high with bills. She spotted his raised brows as he looked at the dartboard, and grunted. She put her hand over the microphone. “Cassie Bressinger wasn’t exactly a fan of mine. I assume you know she was Drew Hawke’s girlfriend?”
He hadn’t. That put a whole new perspective on the case.
Conflict of interest, anyone?
The problem was the police department here was so small they probably didn’t have anyone who hadn’t been involved in the serial rape case last year.
He walked to the back door and surveyed the yard. A concrete path led to a gate in the back fence. The lawn consisted of a couple of strips of brown grass and some empty plant pots stacked to one side. It looked like someone might actually make an effort to cultivate a garden in summertime. Empty wine bottles sat in plastic recycling containers. A five-foot tall wooden fence enclosed the property.
A dog started barking next door.
Donovan came up beside him. “Okay. Chief Strassen vouched for you. Come on.”
“Any sign of forced entry?” He bent down to examine the lock closely but saw no scuff marks, no jimmying of the wood, no scratches on the metal. He straightened.
She shook her head, and a lock of pale blonde hair caught on his sleeve. The sight of it paralyzed him for a moment as the sensation of it drifting over his bare skin came back like an erotic tease.
Impatiently she caught her errant hair and tugged it into a ponytail away from her face. “Not that we’ve been able to tell.” He had no clue what she was talking about. “Front and back doors were both locked when we arrived.”
How the killer had gained entry. Locks. Right.
Not silky hair, or soft skin, or hot mouths. Not walls and floors and tables.
Darsh kept his expression stern and nodded. Fucking hell.
“Let’s go.” His voice was gruff from holding in his reaction to her. He wasn’t here for this. He wasn’t here for her.
He followed her through the house away from the murmur of other people working the crime scene. And as he trailed her up the stairs, he became aware of another undeniable truth that was neither professional nor appropriate. It was a God-given fact that some views had a way of distracting a man regardless of circumstance—Detective Donovan’s ass turned out to be one of them.
He shook his head. He was working. Even if he wasn’t working, he did not sleep with married women. What if he met her husband during this case? The idea made a cold sweat break out on his back. Damn Erin Donovan for putting him in this position and for making the experience so goddamn unforgettable.
He got to the top of the stairs and was plunged back into the here and now. In the room on the left, a female victim lay on the bed. The sight of her inert form snapped his focus back to the job.
She was a young adult, eighteen to twenty. Dark hair loose around her face. Fully clothed in a ruby red sweater and blue jeans. Her socks had Santa hats on them. Darsh flinched. He knew without a doubt she’d gotten them for Christmas—the same way he’d received Christmas socks from one of his sisters every year for as long as he could remember. The thought stirred his anger, and that was something he couldn’t afford. He pulled himself into the zone where his family and feelings didn’t exist. A place where red-hot sex with Erin Donovan had never happened.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, getting in the zone had allowed him to stare through the scope of his M40A1 bolt-action sniper rifle and neutralize threats to his fellow Marines without a shred of remorse. He’d pulled the trigger and smoke-checked a target, time after time, without hesitation. Ghosts might visit him occasionally in a deadly roll call, revealing their humanity and his, but he didn’t regret his actions. The lessons of dissociation had served him well in the past, and he drew on them now, trying to become the machine and leave the weakness and distraction of sentiment behind.
“Mandy Wochikowski. Twenty years old in her junior year at Blackcombe. Majored in criminology,” Donovan informed him.
“What about registered sex offenders in the area?”
“I have an officer tracking down their movements. A lot of them moved away last year, when their addresses were posted on a student blog.” She looked uncomfortable.
“Vigilantism?” he asked.
“There were no official complaints, but name someone who wants to live next to a pedophile?”
“Good point.”
He looked back at Mandy Wochikowski. The young woman appeared to have been strangled, but there were no obvious signs of sexual assault. It would be impossible to know for sure until the Medical Examiner performed an autopsy, and even then it might not be conclusive. The girl stared up at the ceiling with vacant eyes dotted with petechiae—a clear sign she’d suffocated, and her nail beds showed definite signs of cyanosis. Her limbs had been carefully aligned, arms laid close to her sides, legs straight and parallel. Feet together. Neat. Tidy. Coffin-ready.
He turned away and checked the pictures on the yellow-painted walls. There were some band posters: Nirvana. Cold Play. Fall Out Boy. A corkboard with her printed schedule mounted on it, surrounded by what he assumed were family photographs and a few photographs of friends. He recognized Drew Hawke in one of the pictures. The quarterback was a good-looking young man who’d had an NFL career waiting for him when college finished.
Blown.
Textbooks lay open on the desk. He recognized some from his own studies. A laptop sat there, the battery humming away loudly to itself. Older model. He tapped the touchpad with the tip of a latex-clad finger. Donovan began to make a sound of protest then stopped. Maybe she’d decided they were both on the same side. Or maybe she was picking her battles.
The computer screen opened to an unfinished essay. The girl had stopped halfway through a sentence about serial harassment and bullying.
“Her music is paused,” Donovan noted. “Press play,” she instructed over his shoulder.
“Did Evidence dust this for prints?” He indicated the computer. Useable fingerprints were a lot harder to find than most people realized.
She nodded. “They examined it, but didn’t see any. Didn’t dust because of the risk to the computer itself. We’ll bag it to check for contact DNA before the computer boys get their hands on it.”
The detective rested her hands on her hips, and he forced himself not to notice the way the cotton of her shirt clung to the curves of her body. So much for the zone. He pressed play, and they both flinched at the volume. He recognized the band and the song—Halestorm’s “In your room.” A little too close to the bone.
He flicked it back off, and he and Donovan looked at one another in the sudden silence. “Was this music turned on or off when the first responders arrived?”
“Off.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“I was the first responder, along with Officer Mason. We were called out on an intruder alert. The music wasn’t playing then. You think the perp turned it off?”
“Someone called in an intruder alert?” This was news to him. He’d received the barest of details before he’d jumped into some tiny turboprop aircraft that had dumped him at the closest airfield.
Erin shifted uncomfortably. “Since Drew Hawke’s arrest we’ve had a spate of false reports from this address. We responded as we always do, but we didn’t take it too seriously. A third housemate arrived home when I was on the doorstep. She let herself inside. Found the bodies.” And Donovan was beating herself up over not breaking down the door the moment she arrived.
“You thought they were prank calling?”
“Not prank.” The expression on her face wasn’t bitterness, but it was a close cousin—regret. “They were deliberately provoking the police, but my chief wanted us to go easy on them.”
“Because their parents are loaded?”
Her blue eyes flash
ed. “Because I’d arrested one of their friends, and they seemed genuinely distressed by events. They were going through a bad time.” She released an unsteady breath. “And their parents are loaded.”
He looked at the body on the bed. She’d definitely gone through a bad time tonight. Had the fact they’d made a habit out of crying wolf gotten them killed? Or had the killer chosen them for some other reason—like being Drew Hawke’s girlfriend?
“You think the Hawke conviction is solid?” he asked, testing the waters.
If Erin’s teeth clenched any tighter together, her jaw would break. “It isn’t up to me to decide. I just provide evidence—”
“Cut the bullshit, Erin. Do you think Hawke did it or not?”
Her eyes flashed blue mercury. “Yes. Yes, I think he was guilty of raping those two women, and probably two other cases that weren’t prosecuted last year. But not because I have some vendetta against football players, which is what the papers keep spouting. It’s what the victims and the evidence told me.”
DNA in the form of a hair, witness testimony, even polygraphs. The case had seemed solid, but he needed to look at every detail. Darsh turned away and played the music again. He lowered himself into Mandy’s rickety chair, ignoring the way it creaked under his weight. Then he turned to face the monitor with his fingers hovering over the keyboard. Would Mandy have heard someone coming through her bedroom door with her music this loud? Would she have seen his reflection in her screen?
Or had the UNSUB burst in and quickly overpowered her, and then turned the music up to cover her screams? That didn’t make sense given there was another girl in the house—unless the other girl was already dead.
He pressed “pause” again. “Walk up behind me,” he instructed Donovan.
She did as he asked, but he didn’t see much of a reflection against the white background of Mandy’s Word file.
He glanced around the girl’s room, taking it all in, trying to imagine her sitting here just a few hours ago, more worried about an essay than the predator who had her in his sights. There was no sign of a struggle. The room was neat. Clothes folded. Darsh got up and checked the clothes hamper. Almost empty after the Christmas break. The way the UNSUB had arranged the body suggested remorse, but he hadn’t covered the face, which would have suggested the killer knew the victim.
Cold Hearted (Cold Justice Book 6) Page 3