Such a Pretty Girl

by Tess Diamond

  “So I see,” Grace replied, coming to a stop in front of him. This close, she was intensely aware of his size. She was a tall woman who enjoyed her heels—she wasn’t used to having to look up to men. But he was built like a warrior of yore. The span of his shoulders, the strength that seemed to ripple around him made her want to shiver . . . not in fear but in anticipation. If she closed her eyes, she was sure she’d drift back to their night together, how his hands spanned her waist, how he picked her up like she weighed nothing.

  She needed to pull herself together. It wouldn’t do at all for him to realize how much seeing him affected her. She didn’t even want to think about that.

  She smiled. “I must admit, I’m a little surprised,” Grace said. What was his real reason for being here? Paul had surely told him who he was picking up. Had he volunteered? Was this just another one of his teasing games? Or was it more?

  “Did I go against your profile of me, Grace?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest, leaning against the SUV like a cowboy in a Wild West saloon.

  She glared at him. “Not at all,” she said smoothly. “You clearly always desired more for yourself. Your ambition would let you climb only so high at DC Metro. I’m more surprised you got on Paul’s team. He’s notoriously choosy with his recruits.”

  “Harrison’s a good guy,” Gavin said with a casual shrug. “He likes rules. I like rules.”

  Grace snorted. The last thing in the world she’d say was that Gavin Walker liked rules. He was the kind of man who didn’t break them but who was more than willing to bend them. His keen mind and sharp senses had made him the youngest homicide detective DC Metro had seen in decades. And now here he was—an FBI agent. On her team.

  Dammit. This introduced the kind of awkwardness Grace tried to avoid in her life. She didn’t mix business and pleasure ever. And now pleasure—and oh, what pleasure, she could still vividly remember the searing heat of his hands on her skin—was standing there, expecting her to work with him.

  Why hadn’t she bothered to ask Paul about his new hire? Grace mentally cursed herself for being so distracted by the book tour. At least she would’ve had some prior warning before she walked out of the gala and into Gavin Walker’s orbit again.

  “I’ve got your go-bag in the SUV.” Gavin jerked a thumb behind him. “Crime scene’s in College Park, so we should get going.”

  Grace’s brow furrowed. The last thing she wanted was to get in the SUV and spend thirty minutes in traffic with him. But it seemed she had no choice.

  “I’ll change in the back,” she said, reaching for the door just as he did the same.

  Their hands brushed against each other, his skin warm and just on the edge of rough on his trigger finger. An electric shock traveled down Grace’s spine and he grinned when she moved her hand, allowing him to open the door for her.

  “Ladies first,” he drawled.

  Inside, her go-bag was sitting there innocently as Gavin hopped in the driver’s seat, started the SUV, and headed toward the freeway.

  Grace glanced at her bag and then back at the driver’s seat, heat rising in her face.

  “I promise I won’t look,” he said, and her eyes met his in the rearview mirror.

  “Liar,” she said.

  His eyes crinkled with mirth before shifting back to the road. “My mama raised me a gentleman, I’ll have you know.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” Grace said, yanking her bag open and pulling out the skirt and slightly wrinkled indigo blouse.

  Keeping her gaze on the rearview mirror to make sure Gavin was being a gentleman, she hiked up the long skirt of her ball gown, pulling on the pencil skirt from her bag underneath it.

  That, unfortunately, was the easy, less revealing part of her quick-change scheme. She unzipped the side zip of her gown and reached behind her neck, where the silver ribbons were tied. The SUV stopped at a light, and her throat went dry as she lifted her eyes to the rearview mirror and Gavin’s were staring right back at her.

  She arched a brow. “What was that about being a gentleman, Walker?”

  His brown eyes flickered with a promise that made her skin tighten. “You make it hard, Sinclair,” he said, his voice rough.

  Her eyes still on his, she pulled the tie keeping her dress up. It was a silent dare: Are you the man you say you are?

  Or are you the man I think you are?

  Just as the silvery material began to slip down her chest, his eyes returned to the road. He cleared his throat, and she watched as his fingers clenched the steering wheel—hard.

  She smiled to herself, shrugging on the blouse and pushing her gown down her waist and to the floor of the SUV.

  Once her clothes were in order, she waited for the next stoplight and then crawled from the back seat to the front.

  “So, are you going to fill me in?” she asked, tucking away a stray strand of hair that had come loose from her braids.

  “Harrison didn’t give me too many details,” Gavin said as they merged onto the highway on-ramp. “His last text said something about a sniper attack.”

  Grace frowned at the address on the GPS. “At a Chinese restaurant?”

  Gavin shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “How many casualties?” Grace asked.

  “One.”

  That made her brow furrow even more. Snipers usually liked to cause more damage than that. They liked chaos, to put people on edge, to create mass hysteria with just a few bullets.

  They fell quiet as he drove them to the crime scene, time ticking by until finally, he broke the silence: “What’s that big profiler brain of yours thinking?” Gavin asked.

  Grace glared at him, not liking his tone.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I realize that you come from a type of police work that’s all about gut instinct and gumshoeing it, but you’re not a detective anymore. You’re playing with the big guns. And I’m the biggest gun on Paul’s team. You should keep that in mind.”

  Gavin whistled. “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s some friendly advice,” Grace said. “Paul never would have recruited you if you didn’t have what it takes. But part of working on a team like this means respecting each other’s specialties.”

  “So you think I don’t respect you,” Gavin said, flipping the turn signal on and changing lanes. Their exit was coming up.

  “I know you don’t respect what I do,” Grace said.

  “You’re wrong,” he said simply.

  It startled her. She’d expected a bigger protest, some male blustering. Instead he just calmly took their exit and turned onto the main street of College Park.

  She could see blue and red lights getting brighter and larger as they pulled up to a pair of police cordons. Gavin flashed his badge at the officer standing in front of them, who motioned them forward.

  Grace reached for the door handle when his voice stopped her. Made her turn back to him. “I respect what you do, Grace. It’s not how I do things, not how I see things. But I respect it.”

  She looked at him, searching for any shred of deception in his face or voice.

  “But you don’t respect what I do,” he continued. “You said gut instinct like it was a bad word. That’s not very nice.”

  There it was again. That damn teasing in his voice. It riled her up. It pissed her off.

  It made her . . . want things.

  She looked him up and down, slowly, deliberately. And when she met his eyes, they were hot, gleaming in the flashing lights of the police cars all around them.

  “Do something worthy of my respect and I will,” she said.

  Without another word, she opened the car door and marched toward the crime scene.

  Chapter 4

  Gavin watched her stride across that parking lot like a queen.

  Grace Sinclair was a living puzzle. So beautiful she could’ve gotten anything she wanted by just standing there and batting her eyes. But instead she wielded that beau
ty like a weapon. Used it to lull people into a false sense of security. A man was helpless against a woman like that.

  God, it had been agony to keep his attention on the road as she changed in the back seat. He could hear every rustle of fabric against her skin, the excruciating sound of her zipper being drawn down. It had taken all he had in him not to turn around. Or pull the damn SUV over and crawl into the back seat with her.

  And she knew it. Of course she did. She knew everything.

  He hadn’t been joking when he’d mentioned her big, bad profiler brain. She was brilliant, the kind of smart that went over his head. In the desert, he’d learned to rely on his gut and his instincts first, because in a world of spies, that was often the only thing he could trust. It was a black-and-white worldview: us and them. Bad and good. Right and wrong.

  But Grace saw things differently. She saw the shades of gray. She saw the root of evil. She sought it out with no fear, always digging, always curious. She put herself in those bad men’s shoes, day by day, and it amazed him that kind of darkness didn’t rub off on her.

  “Are you coming?” Her voice interrupted his thoughts. She’d turned in the parking lot, about thirty feet ahead from him.

  “Yeah,” he said, hurrying over to catch up with her. “Hey, we should probably talk about what we should say,” he told her.

  “What we should say?” she asked, looking at him, confused.

  “About us. How we met. How we know each other. Harrison’s already asked me if we’ve crossed paths when I was a cop.”

  “I’ll handle it,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

  They walked toward the restaurant, only to be intercepted by Harrison.

  “Walker, nice to see you again,” he said, holding his hand out. Gavin shook it. “You two get to know each other on the ride over?” he asked.

  “We already know each other,” Grace said.

  Gavin frowned. He’d been prepared for a lie. He wasn’t the kind of guy to brag about his sexual exploits. Or to throw her under the bus like that to her boss.

  “Oh, yeah?” Harrison said, handing her a pair of gloves. “How?”

  “I slept with him two years ago,” Grace said casually, snapping them on.

  Gavin coughed, trying not to turn red as he watched Harrison’s mouth drop open. Grace’s matter-of-fact manner was almost funny, but he knew better than to laugh.

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Men,” she muttered.

  “Yes, we’re so indiscreet,” Gavin deadpanned.

  And there it was: a glimpse of that playful fire in her eyes. It was just a flash and then it was gone, but he’d seen it.

  She was amused and refusing to show it.

  Her mouth curved disapprovingly instead. “Where’s the body?”

  “Um, this way,” Harrison said, clearly thrown. Gavin shot him an apologetic look and got a puzzled smile back. “Let’s get to work,” Harrison said. “We can get into . . . er, history later.”

  The street was lined with old brick buildings, a Chinese restaurant with blinking neon signs at the very end of the street.

  The smell of grease and sweet-and-sour pork curled in his nose. A group of police mingled on the sidewalk ahead, making sure the perimeter was secure.

  “So, what do we have?” Gavin asked Harrison.

  “Female. Early twenties.” Paul led them to the crime scene tape blocking off the alley next to the restaurant. “Jogger, from the looks of the outfit.”

  “She was probably using the park trail,” Grace said.

  “Kind of late,” Gavin said.

  Grace shrugged. “Some people like running at night. I do.”

  “You’ve got self-defense skills, though,” Gavin said.

  “Maybe she did too,” Grace pointed out. “The weapon used was a sniper rifle, wasn’t it?”

  Harrison nodded. “Forensics has determined that from the angle and the bullets, it looks like a sniper.”

  “Is Zooey here?” Grace asked. “Have you met her yet, Walker?”

  “The blue-haired one, right?” Gavin asked. “We got to talk a little when I met the team. She was telling me about some experiments with maggots and decomposition. It went a little over my head, though, I’m afraid.”

  Paul smiled. “Zooey’s a little kooky, but she’s the best there is.”

  “She is not kooky,” Grace said. “She’s original.”

  She moved in front of them, staring up at the tops of the buildings. Gavin followed suit, wondering what she was thinking, what was putting that frown on her face.

  So he asked. “What are you thinking?”

  She looked from the roof to him, her gray eyes widening in surprise at his question. “Snipers are meticulous,” she said, looking back up at the top of the laundromat across the alley from the Golden Lantern. “Do we have forensics up there yet?”

  “Half of Zooey’s team is headed up there,” Harrison said.

  Gavin stared up at where Grace was fixated. “This doesn’t feel right, does it?” he asked.

  “I’m not much for gut feelings myself,” she remarked, but her eyes were still flicking from building to building, and he knew she was drawing the same conclusion as he had the second he’d seen the alley.

  “This place had terrible sight lines for a sniper,” Gavin said.

  She raised an eyebrow, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “And how would you know that?”

  “I’m not just a pretty face,” he told her. She snorted. “I did four years in the Army,” he explained. “I was a sniper.” Her eyes flickered and his stomach clenched. Was she buying it? “The angles here are all wrong. It’s too tight a space.” He lifted his arms, to show how narrow the alley was.

  Her mouth—painted a deep, distracting red—quirked up. She knew he was right and she wasn’t too proud to admit it, but it would take her a second. That way she had more control.

  Grace liked control. He didn’t need to be a profiler to know that. He was pretty sure the only place she let go of that exquisite control was in the bedroom. Perhaps that’s why she never stayed. It was too much risk. Too much to lose.

  “You’re right,” she said. “No pro would choose this place,” Grace agreed.

  “You think it’s just random, then?” Gavin asked. He looked over her shoulder, down the alley, where the forensic team was swarmed around the body, taking samples and pictures.

  “Anything missing from the body?” Grace asked Harrison.

  He shook his head. “Our unsub didn’t even bother to make it look like a robbery. She’s still got her engagement ring on—and that thing’s big. He could’ve snatched it, easy.”

  “You said she had government ID on her, though,” Gavin said.

  “That’s why we’re involved,” Harrison said. “Her name is Janice Wacomb. She’s a secretary at the Department of Transportation. Since she was a federal employee, we got called in by the local guys.”

  “So she goes out for a run,” Grace said, back to staring up at the roofs of the buildings. “It’s a normal night for her. She gets in her miles in the park and then heads over here. Maybe she had a takeout order? Do you have people talking to the restaurant employees?”

  “I’ve got people asking questions there right now,” Harrison said.

  “If they get anything, yell for me,” Grace said. She turned to Gavin. “You ready?” she asked.

  “It’s not exactly my first crime scene, Sinclair,” he said, using her last name because he knew it annoyed her.

  Her mouth did that cute twisting thing when she was frustrated.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “Show me what you got.”

  It was a challenge. And Gavin never backed down from one of those.

  “With pleasure,” he said.

  They walked down the narrow alley toward the body lying on the pavement ahead.

  Chapter 5

  Janice Wacomb was on her back, her gray swea
tshirt stained with blood, her eyes staring blankly at the sky.

  Grace felt something tighten in her chest, like a fist around her heart. She couldn’t say how many dead bodies she had seen—but each crime scene was like the first time.

  “Anything new?” Paul asked the petite woman in white coveralls crouched near the body. Her neon blue hair looked practically radioactive in the bright lights. It was pulled up in a series of spiky buns topped with a vintage crocheted hairnet.

  Zooey straightened, squaring her shoulders. “Just getting some hair samples. Pretty sure they’re canine, though.” She smiled at Grace and Gavin. “Love the lipstick, Grace. Agent Walker, it’s nice to see you again.”

  “Gavin, please,” he said. “It’s good to see you too. How are the maggots?”

  Zooey’s face lit up. “They’re great!” she said. “I’ve introduced a new set to this corpse that—”

  “Zooey,” Paul said, sounding like a stern father.

  Zooey sighed. “Okay. So here’s the situation: This doesn’t look professional to me,” she said. “It’s messy. Snipers—at least the ones who are trained—aren’t messy. At least in my experience.”

  “It’s a bad spot,” Gavin agreed. “No good places for a sniper’s perch.”

  “Brawn and brains, be still my heart,” Zooey said, fanning herself. Grace suppressed a smile at her antics, though she couldn’t blame her. Gavin was the full package.

  “Gavin’s spot on,” Zooey continued. “It’s a terrible place for a sniper attack. Which is why our unsub missed. Look.” She gestured at the dumpster ten feet away from the body. “One of the bullets hit there and ricocheted into the wall. And then over here.” She pointed to the wall behind her, where two big chunks of the brick were missing. “He missed three times just to shoot her twice.”

  “Why would he choose such a long-range weapon if he didn’t know how to use it properly?” Grace mused, stepping closer to the woman’s body.

  Gavin did the same and their shoulders touched as they crouched down next to Janice.

  Her sweatshirt—a gray zip-up hoodie—was well-worn, fraying at the edges of the sleeves. Her running shoes weren’t flashy, but they were a good brand. She probably ran every day. This was someone who exercised to exercise, not to be seen. Maybe that was why she’d been running so late? Maybe she’d decided on a few quick miles before picking up some greasy Chinese and just walked into the wrong person’s crosshairs? Or were her late-night runs a habit, and she’d been targeted?