Harlequin Intrigue May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  Who was he kidding? Tess hadn’t allowed that. She’d been horrified when Jake told her about Fiona’s request, and promptly blamed him.

  “I’m working on a case, just like I always am, but I was watching TV when you called and thinking about bed.” Well, that last part wasn’t too far off the mark. He had been thinking about going to bed...with Kyra.

  “Boring.” Fiona made a disgusted sound. “Just let Mom know I’m for sure coming to your place for Christmas.”

  “We will continue to discuss it, I promise. Remember, fighting with your mother over everything is not going to help your case.”

  “All right. Love you, Daddy.”

  Jake’s throat got tight just like it did every time he heard those words from Fiona. God knew what he’d done to deserve them. “Love you, too, Fiona.”

  When the call ended, he put his phone back on the charger and texted Kyra to let him know when she got home. He didn’t know what game was being played, but this guy knew too much about Kyra’s past to be ignored.

  And before these pranks turned physical, Jake intended to put a stop to them.

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Jake rolled out of bed with heavy eyes and a fog invading his brain. His single beer the night before hadn’t resulted in a hangover. He’d call it a Kyra Chase hangover.

  He stepped into the shower and cranked on the water. Two nights in a row, he’d had his plans for seduction waylaid—once at her place, once at his. Maybe next time, they should try for neutral ground.

  He scrubbed away most of the residue of disappointment from his body with soap and warm water and got ready for work.

  As he drove to the station, he had one thought on his mind...two thoughts—tracking down the phone that had left him the text message about the Harmons, and Kyra.

  When he got to the task force conference room at the station, his gaze slid to the side, taking in Kyra’s empty desk. She’d texted him when she made it back to her place, not including anything else in her message—no apology, no explanation as to why she bolted.

  Kyra must’ve known it was his daughter on the line. The kid scared her away. She knew he had a daughter, but maybe it was another matter to hear him actually speaking to her. Kyra didn’t strike him as the motherly sort, so she just might back away from any relationship that included children.

  He shook his head and grabbed the coffee cup that magically appeared on his desk. Nodding thanks to his partner, he said, “Any luck with the footage in the surrounding areas of the crime scenes?”

  “We’re getting there.” Billy picked up his phone. “I have a few more homeowners to contact.”

  While Billy made his calls, a pinprick of guilt needled the back of Jake’s neck. Billy was hard at work on their case, and he was trying to track down a phone that had texted him about Kyra’s foster family.

  Jake rolled his shoulders, sloughing off the guilt. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Kyra’s history was inextricably linked to the killings happening recently. To sort out her past could only help him in this investigation.

  He ignored the little voice that hammered in his head telling him that sorting out her past would help him protect her, too.

  He got on the phone with the tech guys on the task force and gave them the number that had texted him the info about the Harmons. The techies didn’t even ask what connection the text had to the case. They assumed anything the task force leader sent over was valid—and they were right.

  As soon as he hung up his desk phone, it rang. “McAllister.”

  “J-Mac, this is Sergeant Montiel downstairs. We just got a call about a dead body, an apparent homicide, in a home in Los Feliz. Has all the earmarks of your guy.”

  Through narrowed eyes, Jake scanned the activity in the room—people buzzing around like busy bees. In two seconds, he’d be prodding the beehive.

  He took down a few details from Montiel, including the address, and stood up. “We have another body.”

  His words had an instantaneous effect on the room. People dropped what they were doing. Some rushed from the area. Some picked up phones. Some fired up their computers. Everyone had something to do.

  Jake clapped Billy on the back. “Let’s hit it, Cool Breeze.”

  Billy rose from his chair and ducked his head. “Victim?”

  “She’s not African American, so this freak is an equal-opportunity killer.”

  Grabbing his jacket, Billy said, “Doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  Jake drove to the crime scene with Billy riding shotgun. Jake shot a sidelong glance at his partner, his jaw tight, his shoulders braced for the crime scene. Jake knew Billy cared just as much about this victim as Andrea and Crystal, but he wouldn’t have the added torment of thinking about his sister and her fate. Billy was only cool breeze on the surface. Each murder they investigated burned a hole in Billy’s soul. He and his partner dealt with the trauma in different ways, and that trauma never went away.

  Jake pulled up to the crime scene, which patrol officers had already marked off. The yellow tape wafted in the light breeze, waving them over in a desultory manner. The neighbors formed knots at various locations along the sidewalk, craning their necks to watch the action. He and Billy would be giving them plenty of action in due time.

  They strode up to the officer on the perimeter, his arms folded, his sunglasses repelling anyone who wandered too close. They flashed their badges, and Jake said, “Officers inside?”

  The patrolman held up two fingers.

  When they reached the second officer, stationed at the front door, Billy said, “Are we the first detectives here?”

  Officer Nance stepped aside from the front door, which was gaping open. “When my partner and I saw the vic, we didn’t waste time with anyone else. We called Sarge immediately to report to the task force.”

  “Appreciate it, Nance.” Billy held out his fist for a bump and Nance complied, reddening to the roots of his ginger hair.

  When Jake stepped into the house, the odor of death tickled his nostrils. The air-conditioning emitted a low hum, but the AC wasn’t blasting enough to chill a body.

  Jake did a half turn. “Any signs of forced entry, Nance?”

  “None, sir.”

  The officer didn’t have to tell them the victim was in the bedroom, most likely in her bed. Jake followed Billy down the short hallway where another two officers stood at the entrance to a room.

  “We’ll take it from here, boys.” Billy jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “If you haven’t done so already, check all the doors and windows for break-ins. We have a bunch of lookie-loos out there. Start canvassing. We’re especially interested in security systems. Anyone who has a camera, let them know we want the video.”

  The officers fled the room, one of them absolutely green around the gills.

  Jake had pulled on his gloves as he walked into the room and approached the bed where a young woman lay neatly against her pillows, staring sightlessly at the ceiling with the queen of spades between her lips. A splotch of blood stained the covers where the woman’s hand with the finger severed must be.

  Just as in the other two slayings, the bedclothes were neat and orderly, but the killer had to have been on the bed, over the victim, in the position to strangle her.

  Billy used a gloved finger to lift the woman’s hair from her neck to expose the angry purple marks on her neck. “These crime scenes are almost antiseptic, aren’t they?”

  “He’s a careful guy. That’s why he lies in wait—no struggle, less hassle.”

  “I’m going to check the closet in the second bedroom. We haven’t even been able to tell where he’s been hiding in the house.”

  “It’s another house without a camera, though. That’s one of his criteria.”

  “What about the rest of his selection process?” Billy’s gaze flicked
over the dead woman. The officers hadn’t given them her name yet. “At first we thought he might be targeting young African American women. This victim doesn’t qualify.”

  “She’s young, lives alone, no camera. She lives in a house, not an apartment, and is probably careless in some way about the security of her home. The killer does not want to work hard.”

  “Probably stalked her like the others to learn her habits.” Billy pointed to the door. “I’m going to have a look in the other rooms, garage, too.”

  Jake flicked back the covers and peered at the bloody stub on the woman’s hand. Fingering the woman’s long brown locks, he murmured, “Did you take her hair again, freak?”

  He was no expert on hairstyles, but strands of hair on the left side of the woman’s head did appear shorter than the ones on the right. He’d taken his trophy.

  Eyeing the neat covers, Jake patted them with his gloved hands. As he brushed one hand off the edge of the bed, something crinkled beneath his fingers. He turned his hand over and brought it close to his face.

  His heart skipped a beat. Stuck to his glove was a piece of tape. At Andrea’s house, he’d felt something sticky on the bedspread, and the lab had identified it as the substance on the back of tape. Now he’d found the tape.

  “You left something behind this time, freak.” He held up the tape to the light streaming through the bedroom window and sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Are you ready for us, J-Mac?” Clive Stewart, their fingerprint tech, hovered at the bedroom door with his black case.

  Jake looked up with a smile stretching his lips. “You’re just in time, Clive. We have a fingerprint.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kyra jerked her head up, nostrils flaring. The mood of the task force room had shifted, and a whispered undercurrent swept through the space, almost ruffling papers in its wake. She held her breath until it reached her corner.

  She leaned across her desk and whispered to one of the patrol officers tasked with checking home security video. “What happened?”

  He raised his eyebrows, his glance shifting from side to side as if the entire room didn’t already know. “Copycat 2.0 just messed up. He left a fingerprint.”

  Kyra wriggled in her seat like a birthday girl at her own party. “That’s fantastic news. I hope he’s in the system.”

  For the next hour, she glanced up every time someone walked into the conference room. Finally Jake came striding in with a kick to his step.

  She raised her hand, tentatively, not sure if he was mad at her for skipping out on their...encounter last night.

  When he nodded at her and winked, she let out a long breath and got back to entering family members for Copycat 2.0’s latest victim, Mindy Behr. The task force usually let the press dub the serial killers, and 2.0 had taken off after the murder of Crystal Monroe. She preferred it to the Copycat Player, which had been Jordy Lee Cannon’s name and had given her a jolt whenever she heard it.

  Despite the noise in the task force headquarters, she got lost in her work, tuning it all out until someone behind her cleared his throat. She twisted her head over her shoulder and knew she’d be looking into Jake’s hazel eyes. Her radar seemed to pick up his presence.

  She held up a finger, added more data to her file and saved it. “Fingerprint, huh? That’s huge.”

  “Yeah. The guy thought he was pretty clever by using tape to get rid of any hairs or fibers on the bedclothes, but he left a piece of it behind. Clive already lifted it, and we’re going to enter it into the database.” His lips twisted into a frown, and she couldn’t help the little shiver that ran down her back at the thought of those lips on hers.

  She blinked. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s not a perfect print, which might prevent us from getting a clean hit.”

  “But it’s something.” She glanced over his head to make sure everyone was too busy to listen. “Are you free for lunch?”

  “I am, and I have something to tell you.” He rose from his crouch. “Hang on. I have a few more things to do.”

  “How about I meet you at your car? I...uh, need to hit the restroom anyway.”

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  Most of the task force had some idea that she and Jake had more than a working relationship, but she didn’t want to highlight that fact. She closed her laptop and stuffed it into her bag. She did make a detour to the ladies’ room, but only to check her hair and makeup. If he’d agreed to lunch that easily, he must’ve already forgiven her for leaving his place last night without a word.

  She retouched her lipstick, straightened her skirt and smoothed back her ponytail. Lunch and information. She’d hit the jackpot today.

  Several minutes later, she waited nonchalantly by his unmarked LAPD sedan, pretending she was looking for something in her purse anytime someone walked by.

  Jake put her out of her misery by showing up just a short time after her, his long stride eating up the parking lot between them. He beeped his remote before he reached her, and she slid into the passenger seat.

  Scooting behind the wheel, he cocked his head at her. “Big hurry, are we?”

  “Is it against the rules or something for us to be...more than coworkers?” She tugged her skirt over her knees.

  “Are we?” He started the car and turned down the AC. “Seems to me, forces beyond our control are keeping us apart.”

  “Yeah, about that.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry I dashed out of there. I knew you were talking to your daughter. I—I remembered her name was Fiona. I didn’t want to interrupt or make you feel like you had to rush off the phone with your daughter.”

  “I get it. The call sort of...spoiled the moment.”

  She opened her mouth, snapped it shut and started again. “Is everything okay? With your daughter, I mean?”

  “She’s fine.” With his hands resting on the top of the steering wheel, he pointed out the windshield. “Dandelion Café okay with you?”

  “Perfect.” She kept staring at his profile. That was the first question she’d asked about his daughter. Did he not want to tell her about Fiona? Wasn’t that what people did in relationships? Opened up?

  He glanced at her and flexed his fingers on the wheel. “Just regular teenage angst—she’s fourteen. She and her mother argue about everything these days.”

  “That’s normal at her age.” She tapped her temple. “I know these things. I wrote the book on teenage angst.”

  “Yeah, but you—” He broke off, a flash of red on his neck.

  “You’re right. I had it worse than most, but to every teenager, his or her situation always feels like the worst. Does she have a best friend?”

  “I, uh...” The flush on his skin deepened. “She’s mentioned a few friends. I’m not sure if she considers one a best friend. Does that make me a terrible father?”

  “Of course not.” She patted his thigh. “Even if you knew the name of her best friend, it might change tomorrow.”

  Staring out the window, Jake sucked in his cheek. “I messed up. We were too young for kids. I hadn’t even been a cop for a year, and Tess was still in law school.”

  “But you managed and, despite teenage turmoil, Fiona is a happy kid? Well-adjusted?”

  “She seems to be whenever I see her. She does well in school, has friends, plays on the high school soccer team and takes guitar lessons. No boys—that I know of.”

  Kyra rolled her eyes. “If you’re anything like Quinn was when I brought any boys around to meet him, those guys are in for it.”

  “I hope I get that opportunity.” Jake’s hands tightened on the wheel before he cranked it to the right. “Maybe we can get a table before it’s too crowded.”

  They snagged a table on the patio with ease. Although the Dandelion was no cop hangout, the hostess seemed to have a soft spot for Jake. What woman wouldn�
��t? He exuded such a tough-guy attitude, you just knew he’d take care of you in a jam. His hotness quotient didn’t hurt, either.

  How had she been able to walk out on him twice? First time had been for her sake, second for his. Maybe fate wasn’t smiling on them, but she’d revealed so much to him already that she didn’t want to give up on him. And when had fate ever stopped her before?

  They sat in the shade on the patio and ordered iced teas.

  As Kyra shook out her napkin onto her lap, she said, “Tell me about the fingerprint.”

  “At the first crime scene I picked up some sticky substance on the bedspread, which turned out to be the glue on the back of tape. I figured then he was patting down the bedclothes and the area to pick up any threads or fibers—clever. I noticed the same thing at Crystal’s. I checked for it again at today’s crime scene and found a bit of tape. When I held it up to the light—bingo—I saw a fingerprint. His hands must’ve been dirty when he touched the tape—maybe before he put on his gloves.”

  “Good. He slipped up.” She planted an elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm. “If he’s been arrested before, his prints will be on file. Heck, if he has a driver’s license in California, he should have a thumbprint with them.”

  “It’s not like we can run it through the Department of Motor Vehicles database, and the DMV doesn’t take a full set for a license. All we have is one finger. It would have to be the same fingerprint with the DMV.” He shook off the negative attitude when the drinks came and sucked down his tea straight with no sugar. “But it’s something. More will come. I’m feeling confident about the security systems in the areas of the victims’ houses. He didn’t just appear in one spot and disappear. He had to have walked or driven. We’ll get him.”

  Kyra stirred two packets of sweetener in her tea. “Sometimes I wonder how cops ever solved crimes without DNA and CCTV.”

  “It was a lot harder, for sure. Look at all the cold cases we have. Anyone who committed a crime prior to 1986 and left DNA has to be sweating bullets today. That knock on the door is gonna come.”