“Reopen the—” Now he was the one who stared. “Eden, I can’t reopen a case because Simone got a basket of violets.” But he could inch closer to starting a new investigation if the lab found anything useful. Cole prided himself on knowing Eden better than she knew herself, but at this moment, she’d dropped a curtain around herself he couldn’t pull open. He couldn’t see, couldn’t identify, but he knew, without a doubt, something was twisting inside of her that even she couldn’t stop. “There’s more to this than you’re letting on. What aren’t you telling me?”
She pursed her lips, as if keeping the words locked inside her. He could almost hear the words, hear her begging him to let the subject drop.
“Eden—” He pushed a little harder but she backed up a step.
“Run the tests, Cole. Or don’t. I’ll see you back at the boat.”
He didn’t know what struck him harder. The defeat in her voice or watching her walk away.
* * *
“LT.” Cole knocked on the door frame of his boss’s office after the final shift change of the day. “You wanted to see me?”
“Come on in.” Santos waved him forward. “I swear if I’d known this much paperwork was involved with being head of a department, I’d have stayed in uniform. If Selena ever leaves me, she’ll be able to claim the department as a respondent in the divorce papers.” He slapped a file folder shut. His brows knit as Cole closed the door behind him. “How goes our vampire hunt?”
Cole smirked. “We’re making progress. I’ve made copies of all of Eden’s notes, and they’re ready to go up on our boards in the conference room. Eden’s working her way through the list of doctors Mona provided and I came across a number of support groups for patients with blood disorders.”
“Speaking of Eden.” Santos cleared his throat and leaned in. “Heard you had a bit of a row this afternoon.” The lieutenant looked wary. “Everything okay with you two?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” He settled into his seat. He knew he could trust his boss. “I can’t decide if I want to debate her or...” How had he let her get this far under his skin?
“The or might be a more productive use of your time.” Santos stretched and rolled his head against the back of his chair. “Test results came back, by the way,” he said before Cole could think of a diplomatic response. “The ones you had Tammy run on that basket of flowers. Want to fill me in?”
So much for keeping this quiet. “Depends. Did she find anything?”
“Enough to make me worry.” The lieutenant nudged a thin file toward him. “About you, anyway. We’re both aware of how the Chloe Evans case has affected you in the past. Now isn’t the time for you to go to the dark side, Cole.” Santos’s penetrating gaze was more effective than any lie detector on the market. “I need you on top of your game. You know that, which tells me you had a very good reason for requesting the tests. I also know how persuasive Eden can be. Especially when she wants something.”
“It wasn’t Eden,” Cole said, hearing the defensiveness in his own voice. “It wasn’t only Eden,” he added at Santos’s dismissive snort. “Simone did, too, and made it official. Yes, Eden was angry and forceful and demanding—”
“What else is new?”
“But Simone.” Cole shook his head. “I remember that look from when she was a kid, Lieutenant. She was lost. And scared. Simone does not scare easily. And she doesn’t cry wolf.”
“And you? What did you think when you saw those flowers?”
That he’d been hurtled into a past that continued to haunt all of them. “Truthfully? I wanted those tests to prove them wrong. Someone’s messing with them. Someone who knows their history.” A stalker, an obsessive, they could manage. A child killer?
As far as Cole was concerned, there wasn’t a more vile or evil creature roaming the earth.
“Well, whoever it is, they know the case,” Santos said. “Your hunch about the soil samples was dead-on. They’re a match to the field where Chloe was found.”
Whatever reassurance the lieutenant’s company had provided evaporated. Instead of rushing off, he pushed to his feet, walking the few steps to the window in an attempt to lose himself in the growing darkness of the city. “What now?”
“I’ve scheduled a meeting with Captain Montague in the morning.” Santos’s reference to his superior in the Office of Investigations offered both hope and dread for the coming weeks. “I’ll fill him in on what’s going on. Maybe give Simone a heads-up in case he wants to talk this over with her in her capacity as assistant DA before any decisions are made. But I want you to listen to me, Cole. However this shakes out, whatever happens down the road, I will back you up. I understand how you feel.”
Cole clenched his jaw. Impossible. His lieutenant hadn’t helped Chloe pound the heck out of a donkey piñata when she was six years old or hoisted her onto the ladder leading to the tree house in Allie’s backyard. Or wondered every day if there was something he could have done to prevent the little girl’s disappearance and murder.
“I was three weeks out of the academy when Chloe was killed.” Lieutenant Santos continued, “I helped work the crime scene. I went with the lead detective to notify her parents and brothers. I remember what that case did to this city. While I’d love to lock up the creep who killed her, I’m not in any hurry to reopen those wounds.”
“I want in,” Cole said before he could think too long on it. “If it’s reopened.”
“Get in line,” Santos said. “But for now you’ve got enough on your hands with the Iceman, Cole. Let me run with this for the moment. Let me shoulder it, and when and if something develops, I will let you know. But for now, put it as far out of your mind as you can.”
“Yeah.” Sure. No problem.
“Agent Simmons has been patient, but he’s getting antsy again. He wants an update.”
Right. “I’ll give him a call first thing in the morning.” He faced his boss. The lieutenant was right. He couldn’t afford any distractions, not with Eden’s life at stake. He needed to focus on the case.
And on her.
“Go home, Cole. Relax, talk to your girlfriend—”
“She’s not my—”
“And you call her stubborn? I couldn’t do this job without Selena.” He knocked a knuckle against the photograph on his desk. “Knowing she understands this job, that she understands me, that she’s waiting for me, even at—” he glanced at the clock above the door “—ten at night, ready to listen to me, or let me sulk, it’s why I’m sane. Eden might be one of the most infuriating, demanding and aggravating people I’ve ever met in my life, but she gets you, Cole. And when the chips are down, I’m not the only one who will have your back. She will, too.”
* * *
The sound of footsteps on the deck above woke Eden out of a fitful doze. She shot up on the sofa, sending the files on her lap sliding to the floor, eyes narrowed against the table lamp beside her.
“Cole?” She rubbed her eyes as his feet appeared on the ladder. “Is that you?”
“Sorry I’m late.” He ducked inside and pulled the hatch closed. Instant warmth enveloped the cabin. “I wanted to get my desk cleared and I had a meeting with the lieutenant. Plus—” he held out a shiny new manila folder “—I was waiting for this.”
Eden bit her lip and accepted the results. He’d run the tests.
If he cared about the mess she’d made of his boat—dozens upon dozens of notes, photographs and reports taped to the walls, stacks of miscellaneous bits of information all over the table and floor—he didn’t say. Instead he headed for the fridge and grabbed a beer.
Eden looked down at the file, the thank-you stuck in her throat. “Did Tammy find anything?”
“No prints, not even a partial. No DNA or prints on the note or envelope, either.” He took a long drink and leaned his arms on the
kitchen counter.
“So you were right.” She’d been so sure. Especially with what had happened at the newsstand.
Or she’d been paranoid. Just as Cole had suggested.
“She also ran the dirt samples from the flowers themselves.” He cringed, as if the beer had slit his tongue. “The soil content is identical to the readings from the field where Chloe was found.”
“How would she—”
“Because I drove out there and collected a sample this afternoon.”
Eden closed her eyes so tight she saw stars. She should have known he wouldn’t let her flounder out there on the edge alone. “So what now?”
“It’s not conclusive enough to reopen the case. But it’s got the lieutenant’s and the DA’s attention. The latter probably due to Simone.”
“You told her about the results?” So if they weren’t reopening the case, what were they doing?
“She waited for a while, but I called her when I was driving home. Nice of you to leave her behind, Eden. How did you get back, by the way?”
“Bowie drove me. He was coming off shift.” Nausea rolled in her stomach. “And I told you I’m a rotten friend.” A friend who wasn’t sure Simone or Cole would believe her about the perfume. She’d sounded crazy enough for one day, hadn’t she?
“You’re lucky Simone isn’t.”
Luck had nothing to do with it. “So what happens now?”
“Now we leave it in my lieutenant’s hands and focus on the Iceman.” He took a deep breath and stood up straight, as if he expected her to argue. “I know how important this is, Eden. I’m not going to let it go. I need you to believe me.”
Anyone else, she might not have. “The Iceman first,” she said softly with a nod. As determined as she was to track down her friend’s killer, Chloe didn’t deserve any less than Eden’s best. And that would only come once they closed the book once and for all on the Iceman.
“Figured out who the Iceman is yet?” Cole asked with what she could tell was forced humor. “Tell me my boat hasn’t been sacrificed in vain.”
Was that a tease or a taunt? Or a distraction? “Before we get into all that, there’s something I’d like your opinion on.” She retrieved her laptop from the kitchen table and passed it to him. “It’s my blog post for tomorrow. I’m not asking your permission, but I wanted you to be aware of what I was doing before I did it.”
“And you’re going to do it whether I approve or not. Never mind.” He held up his hand in surrender. “Let me read it and we’ll go from there.”
“Why don’t I fix you something to eat while you read.”
He eyed her with suspicion. “You don’t cook.”
“I can make a sandwich and open a bag of chips.” More than one, as evidenced by empty bags in the trash. Her iron levels might be normal, but she’d bet her sodium was sky-high. “Besides, it’s after ten and I’m betting you haven’t eaten anything.”
“I had a candy bar from the vending machine.”
She didn’t care for this new way they had of interacting, as if both of them were walking on eggshells.
She missed her friend. She missed the Cole she could tease or goad without wondering if her words were destroying their relationship, whatever relationship they had. But she also couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities he’d talked about this morning. Or how he’d made her feel last night. What if she was missing out on something that could be...what she never thought she could have?
“Ham and cheese okay?” She moved around him as he settled down at the table.
“Sounds great, thanks.” He was already reading, his eyes flying side to side as if he were gobbling up her words.
“I’m not walking away from the case,” she said as if what she’d written weren’t clear enough. “I’m not letting him scare me off. I can’t. Not if I want to be an effective voice for victims and their families who think they’ve been forgotten.”
Cole held up a finger. “Reading, here.”
“He needs to know I’m still onto him. That I’m going to use whatever and whoever I have to in order to stop him. I didn’t put anything in there about the blood or Mona’s tests—”
“This will go faster if you stop talking.”
She almost ripped the plastic zip-top bag apart. Would he pick up on the fact that she agreed with what he’d said? Or what she’d been doing since she’d left his office?
Hence the wallpaper job she’d done on Cole’s boat. She had a plan of action now, beginning with what would probably amount to a tour of every medical facility in the city. Good thing her hospital paranoia had ebbed in the last couple of days.
She set his sandwich on a plate, added a handful of his favorite multigrain chips and placed it on the counter beside him on top of her files.
He looked at her, that unfamiliar expression on his face making her stomach do a combination somersault. “Well?”
“It’s good.” He nodded, a slow approving smile stretching across his lips. “It’s colder than your regular posts. More determined, detached even. Focused. It’s like you’re speaking directly to him.”
“I am.” And here she thought he was going to blow his last gasket over this. “You’re not mad?”
“Mad? No. Concerned? Always. What you allude to will only make him guess and question what you plan for him, which should keep him off his game. He already messed up once coming after you. There’s a chance he might again.”
“Something I’m ready for.” It was a risk, but she’d rather he come after her than another innocent victim. “And it’ll be good timing since the Tribune is going to run the first feature of my blog in the morning.”
“Something we’re ready for. I had a feeling you were going to do something like this, especially after what happened today with those flowers. Which is why starting tomorrow, you’re going to have police protection around the clock.”
“I have police protection. I have you.”
“Let’s just say I think my judgment where you’re concerned might be a bit cloudy these days. I need some more objective eyes on you. For my own peace of mind.”
“Even if it drives me out of mine?” She didn’t like the idea of being followed. By anyone.
“You won’t even know they’re there,” Cole said. “This is nonnegotiable, Eden. You post this tomorrow, that’s the price you pay. You’re putting an even bigger target on your back, not only for the Iceman, but for whoever is playing with you and Simone.”
“Are you giving her an armed escort, too? What about Allie?”
“We can talk to her tomorrow, see if she’s noticed anything strange.”
“Like weird flower deliveries? She’d have told us.”
“She’s also been testifying in court all day. Simone rarely leaves her office, but there will be a couple of officers assigned to watch her apartment, as well. We’ll also talk to the security team in the building. Not that she’s any happier about it than you are. We want to keep things under wraps for now. Until we see what else develops.”
“Yeah.” She swallowed hard. “Yeah, I understand.”
“You do?”
“You ran the tests, Cole.” And her heart tipped slightly. “You’re willing to pursue whatever this is. I’ll follow your lead.” Unless he stopped leading. But that was a decision for another day.
“I appreciate that. Whether I’m happy about what’s going on or not, the truth is, if you hadn’t taunted the Iceman the way you did, we wouldn’t have these new leads to follow.” He grimaced as he scanned his once-beautiful wood room. “And the sooner we get this case solved, the sooner we can focus on other things.”
Other things. “If you’re trying to keep me confused and off guard, you’re succeeding.” Why wasn’t she fighting him? Why wasn’t she angry? Why...?
Why wasn’t she running like a scared jackrabbit the second he stood up and walked over to her?
She backed up until she’d wedged herself into the corner, nowhere to go, nowhere to direct her gaze other than at Cole as he looked her straight in the eye.
“What you do has value, Eden. I realized today I’ve never made it a point to tell you that. The truth is, you’re good at what you do despite the recklessness. It also makes me furious that you don’t give yourself the credit you deserve.”
“Ah.” She nodded and tried to duck her head, but he caught her chin with his finger. “This is because of what I said about Chloe’s killer, isn’t it?”
“That depends. Are you still clinging to the ridiculous idea he’s responsible for what you’ve made of your life? Does that mean he made me a cop or Allie a psychologist?”
“No. Yes.” She frowned. “I don’t—”
“What he did do was change our lives.” Cole continued, “He changed all our lives in a brutal, inhuman, cruel way. None of us has been the same since Chloe died, but don’t give him credit he doesn’t deserve. Don’t give away what and who you are because of someone else’s actions. You’ve been fighting for Chloe and every other victim you’ve come across ever since. That was all you. Not him.”
“There’s a but in here, I know it.”
“There’s going to be a price to pay, Eden. None of us is going to come out of this clean. Please, please don’t take any more chances than necessary. You trusted me today, you came to me first with those flowers, and I can’t tell you what a relief that is. It’s like you’ve finally heard what I’ve been telling you all these years.”
“Yeah, well, a girl can only take so much before she has to admit she’s wrong.” She nibbled on the corner of her lip, her eyes widening as his gaze fell to her mouth. Finally, she understood what he’d been saying this morning, about him wanting more than just fun-time sex. And yeah, okay, that was what she’d called it for the better part of the day, but at this moment, she knew what he was asking for. He didn’t just want her body. He wanted all of her. Her mind, her emotions. Her soul.
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