Dead Don't Lie

by L. R. Nicolello

  She shook her head, not sure how to respond. “You’re right. I let my guard down, and all my emotions came flooding out. I’ll get it under control. I promise.”

  Their phones buzzed simultaneously. A message from Captain Kessler illuminated the small screen.

  Need you in my office. ASAP.

  Evelyn set her jaw stubbornly. Had that bastard Sanderson really had the balls to submit a complaint against her? She looked up at Ryan. “I need to be on this case.”

  “I get it, kiddo, I do.”

  Evelyn zipped up her jacket, hunched her shoulders against the cold rain and followed Ryan out to the car.

  Did he really?

  CHAPTER SIX

  SPECIAL AGENT MARCUS MORETTI didn’t move from beside the captain’s desk, just watched as the two detectives stepped out of the elevator. If he hadn’t all but perfected his poker face during his years at the Bureau, he’d be a lost cause.

  Evelyn Davis wasn’t just beautiful—she was a knockout of epic proportions.

  The rumors of her past life as a supermodel paled in comparison to the goddess staring back at him. He locked eyes with her sapphire gaze and his stomach tightened. He swallowed hard.

  Focus, Moretti.

  He saw Kessler motion them forward. Evelyn tossed her coat over the back of her chair and said something to her partner that Marcus couldn’t make out. Her partner smiled a tight, wary smile and followed her to Kessler’s office. Shit. Nothing like starting out on the defensive.

  Marcus pulled his gaze away from Evelyn’s lips and studied the two detectives as they approached. He’d requested both their files before accepting this case. Ryan O’Neil’s jacket had all the typical information. Evelyn Davis’s, on the other hand was surprisingly thin, especially for someone with her reputation. She was the reason he’d said yes to this assignment. With her experience and skill set, he definitely wanted her on his team. But he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, something was off, and he had to get to the bottom of it first. He needed to find out what, exactly, was missing from her file.

  Evelyn walked into the office, her expression cautious yet questioning, reminding him of a black panther coiled to spring. He tried to read whatever he saw swirling just behind her guarded gaze, but he got nothing. He’d hate to play against her in poker. He got the feeling she would wipe the floor with his ass.

  He smiled at her. She didn’t return the gesture. Well, okay, then.

  “Captain?”

  Kessler motioned toward him. “Detectives, this is Special Agent Marcus Moretti. The mayor called in a personal favor to have him consult on this case. Special Agent Moretti, these are my lead detectives on the cases in question, Ryan O’Neil and Evelyn Davis.”

  Marcus moved from his spot and extended his hand. Ryan leaned forward first, shook Marcus’s hand, then moved aside for his partner. Marcus looked between Ryan and Evelyn as he stepped closer to her. There’s always an alpha in a partnership, so which of you is it? She reached for his hand and nodded. He locked eyes with her again. Her soft but firm grasp surprised him. He let go and crossed his arms over his chest, resuming his seat on the edge of Kessler’s desk.

  The captain cleared his throat. “The mayor requested the chief bring the FBI in to consult on this case. Last night’s murder was the second in just as many weeks. We need all the help we can get to shut this down, and fast.”

  “Great. We’ll get set up down the hall.” With that, she turned and walked out, followed by her partner.

  Marcus’s eyebrows arched in surprise. He’d expected her to push back, not usher him into the middle of their investigation.

  Kessler stood. He motioned to the door. “After you, Agent Moretti.”

  Marcus followed behind the two detectives and couldn’t help but notice the way Detective Davis’s titanium-colored suit hugged her in all the right spots. Not boxy, like so many of his counterparts, but sharp, professional and feminine. The Bureau office gossip hadn’t been wrong. The woman walking into the conference room was smoking hot.

  Factoring in his time as a Navy SEAL—when his life, and the lives of his team, depended on reading people—and his stint with the Behavioral Science Unit at the Bureau before being tapped for the black-site task team, Marcus could read her body language like a well-used playbook.

  The guarded glances his way and the tiny muscle in her jaw tweaking. Oh, yeah. She was more than slightly pissed at his presence. He got that. Most Feds and local law enforcement had a standing feud. Each thought the others were incompetent, and unable to work a case as efficiently as they could.

  He, however, didn’t subscribe to that line of thinking. Did she?

  Marcus pulled out a chair, settled back and addressed the officers. “You know, contrary to popular belief, Detective Davis, agents at the FBI aren’t idiots.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. A smiled played on her lips, and her eyes sparkled with silent laughter. She sat. “I don’t think FBI agents are idiots, Special Agent Moretti.”

  “No?”

  “Nope. As a matter of fact, one of my closest friends is FBI.” She picked up a file and tapped its edges against the long conference table. “However, I do know that some federal agents don’t like to play nice with the local police. They tend to hold their cards close to their chest while citing the oh-so-familiar, yet still completely infuriating, need-to-know line. And if we want to catch this guy before he kills again, we can’t have that. We’re on the same team, in here and out in the field. End of story.”

  Marcus smiled. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Tilting his chair back, he laced his fingers together and hooked them behind his head. He watched her for a moment, intrigued. Then he leaned forward again. A sharp thud bounced off the walls as the front two legs of his chair reconnected with the floor. “Your close friend is FBI? How’d you two meet?”

  There was that guarded look again.

  “It’s a long story, and a personal one at that.” She stared at him, expressionless. “My apologies if this comes off as rude, but I have no intention of sharing it with you.”

  He chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  She motioned to the case file in front of him, changing the subject. “So what do you have so far?”

  This one’s all business. He normally liked that. It was his own mode of operation. But he was trying to build rapport with her. So much for that idea. He sighed, then picked up the files. “This is what my teams have pulled.”

  He slid the matching files across the table. Evelyn and Ryan reached for theirs simultaneously. Marcus took note of how in sync the pair was. Was there something going on outside of the station? He made a mental note to check.

  “We have info on the two families—the Garlands and the Middletons. They both lived on Mercer Island on waterfront properties. Both are families of four. Both have two daughters—”

  “What are their names?” Evelyn interrupted.

  “Pardon?”

  “Their names? The children. What are their names?” Marcus could have sworn the piercing blue of her eyes deepened as she stared at him. “These are not just victims, Agent Moretti. Just a few days ago, they were full of life, hope, dreams.”

  “I understand—”

  “I don’t think you do. It’s easier to distance yourself. But it’s tragic when a person whose story just got cut short is objectified to nothing more than the title of ‘victim.’”

  “Ev...” Ryan murmured in a soft warning.

  She ignored him.

  “Their names, Agent. You know, Cynthia Garland, age fourteen. Christina Garland, age twelve. Cynthia was caught up in the latest wave of team whoever.” Evelyn waved her hands in the air. “Christina loved all things Disney.”

  She stared straight into Marcus’s face and locked eyes with him. Marcus knew she meant
it as a challenge, but strangely, he didn’t feel it. He only felt drawn to her. His pulse quickened. Definitely not what he was expecting.

  “Ashley Middleton, age six. Samantha Middleton, age four. Ashley loved horses and recently won her first blue ribbon at a show. Samantha wanted to be an astronaut and, according to the neighbors, liked to walk around with a flight helmet on.”

  “Ev.” Ryan coughed into his fist.

  She stopped short, blinked at Ryan, then glanced down, seeming flustered.

  Marcus waited. Watched her closely to see how long it would take her to collect herself. She raised her head less than three seconds later. Impressive.

  Marcus smiled, put down the file in his hand and calmly picked up where she’d left off. Maybe, just maybe, he’d found the last member of his special task-force team.

  “Both husbands worked in high-profile jobs. Scott Garland was the lead engineer of Boeing, and James Middleton was the founding and managing partner of Middleton and Houghes, the largest law firm in Seattle. Neither were home a lot, but they weren’t absent fathers by any stretch of the imagination. Both Meagan Garland and Kimberley Middleton were your typical stay-at-home mothers, but also socially engaged and involved in multiple charitable organizations, as well as being active in their children’s lives.” He leaned back in his chair. “All these individuals are victims of brutal acts of violence. I’m also painfully aware, Detective Davis, that they’re all someone’s family members, that people loved them and are grieving their untimely and unjust deaths.”

  He watched her face fall. What the hell? Quickly, he mentally skimmed the information he knew about her and remembered reading that she’d lost her family. Shit. He should’ve known this type of case would hit a tender spot. He’d have questioned her humanity if it didn’t.

  “We aren’t heartless animals,” he said in a softer tone. “My deepest apologies if it came across that way.”

  Ryan’s eyes widened and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The captain’s face remained unreadable as he glanced between his star detective and Marcus.

  Her next move would determine everything, including whether or not he’d continue to evaluate her for his task-force team. He needed strong team members, individual thinkers willing to toe the line when needed, but confident enough in their own ability to step off that line if justice required it. It wasn’t easy, and only a very special person could handle both.

  He hoped Evelyn was such a person.

  Color kissed the top of her cheeks, making her look all that much more appealing. He’d never met someone like the woman sitting across from him. In the ten minutes that he’d known her, she’d questioned him, put him in his place, treated him as her—

  He went rigid. He’d never met a woman who was his equal and acted like it. Sure, there had been plenty with the potential, but none that had stepped up to him like she had.

  And he had to admit, he liked that.

  Tilting her head slightly, she smiled at him. His stomach tightened again. Apparently oblivious to his inner battle between intellect and libido, she took a deep breath. “My apologies for assuming the worst. You’re right. The only animal is the one who is still on the loose.”

  Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. Impressive. He’d definitely found his last team member—if she’d only say yes. He caught her eye, nodded, then looked down at the case file in his hands. “Right, then. Shall we nail this asshole?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHE’D BEEN RIGHT. After digging through the lives and histories—and more importantly, the autopsy reports—of both families and coming up empty, they now, without any doubt, had ruled out the family annihilator label, though it didn’t make this case any simpler. If anything, it made it harder.

  The whirling of the ceiling fan stirred the warm, calm air in the bull pen. Evelyn sipped her Starbucks latte and reached for the coroner’s reports. Ryan cradled his phone between his ear and shoulder and scowled at something said on the other end. His pen tapped the edge of his desk in rhythmic bursts. Evelyn tuned out her partner and riffled through the reports again, determined to find something—anything—that would give them a break in these cases.

  Their killer had taken his time with the Garland family. She shuddered. There were no defensive wounds on the father, because he couldn’t defend himself. He’d been injected with a paralyzing agent. Evelyn’s stomach clenched. Even if he’d wanted to fight to protect his family, he’d been powerless to do so. Unable to move, he’d watched as the madman slashed his youngest daughter’s throat, then shot his oldest. Aside from the horrific, psychological last moments as her sister bled out in her arms, the oldest had died a quick death. But what he’d done to the mother, she couldn’t go over that again. Not without her rebellious mind flashing on colored photos of her own mother. Evelyn shook her head to clear the vivid images, scanned through the statement again until she landed on the detailed report of the father. He’d been tortured in ways that would make even the toughest SEAL’s skin crawl before having the back of his head off blown off.

  She put the report down and rolled her shoulders in small circles. The mayor was breathing down their necks for any forward movement, and despite the detailed and graphic autopsy report, they had nothing to offer.

  She sighed and closed her eyes. It had been a long day of canvassing the neighborhoods, researching, looking for connections between the two families and interviewing the next of kin, which had been beyond brutal. If Evelyn had to console one more grieving family member without being able to assure them of anything, she might scream.

  Her eyes burned, the hours of reading taking their toll. She and Ryan both needed a reprieve, just a brief one, to recharge and regroup. But they wouldn’t get it. Not with the predator still at large and nothing to show for their hours and hours of tedious, eye-crossing work. She rubbed her eyes, then reached for her lukewarm coffee and took a sip. Silently whining wasn’t going to fix anything.

  Her mind drifted toward the handsome Fed. He’d been called away to a closed-door meeting with the mayor down at city hall. Which was fine with her. Evelyn didn’t want to have to rub shoulders with any politician right now, nor did she want to be within five feet of the Fed. His absence was a much-needed relief—every time she was near him, her skin tingled and her heart kicked into overdrive.

  She set the mug down, glancing at the report and waiting for the black letters to refocus in front of her.

  Ryan slammed down the phone. “This is total bullshit.”

  Evelyn looked over at her partner. He ran his hand over his chin stubble and pawed through the papers on his desk.

  “We’ve got nothing. No one heard anything. No one saw anything. We’ve got no fingerprints, no fibers. Nothing.” He picked up his cup and threw it across the room. It shattered into a hundred tiny pieces and dark liquid stained the floor where it pooled. “It’s like this guy’s a ghost.”

  “He isn’t a ghost. We’ll get him.”

  “Yeah? When? When he takes out another family?”

  “Ry...” The words caught in her throat. Kessler made his way toward them, fatigue and frustration pulling at the edge of his eyes.

  “Captain, everything is under control,” she said.

  “Actually, Davis, it’s not. Both of you, go home.” He held up his hand to stop their protests.

  Their mouths snapped shut.

  “It’s not a punishment. It will all be here tomorrow. I need you fresh. Well, as fresh as can be. You’ve been running hard without so much as a break. The chief and I have noticed. Now, go home.” He put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder and gave a quick squeeze. “Ryan, tuck your kids into bed and enjoy a night with your wife.”

  Evelyn stared, dumbfounded at the rare show of emotion from the captain.

  “Davis...” He looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Do whatever you
do and be back in the morning.”

  Ryan stifled a laugh at the awkward exchange. Evelyn threw him a quick glare, but bit her lip to keep her own laugh from escaping.

  “I want you out of here in five minutes. Don’t make me tell you again. Get some sleep. I need you here before the sun gets up.” Kessler turned and headed back to his office.

  Ryan sighed. “He’s right—”

  “Of course I’m right,” Kessler called over his shoulder. “That’s why I have this office and you don’t, O’Neil.”

  * * *

  EVELYN ENTERED THROUGH the front door and went straight to the kitchen. She’d stripped the house to its studs and remodeled it entirely after moving in. Her home was her sanctuary, the kitchen one of her favorite spots.

  She pulled out a large glass goblet, reached for the Malbec and glanced at her answering machine. No blinking lights. She sighed. No surprise there. Aside from Kate, Ryan and the kids, her circle of friends was quite small.

  The job was her life. Her life, the job...and not many men understood that. She’d tried, had gone on a few dates, but finally gave up after the last man told her that being with a cop wasn’t such a turn-on after all.

  After she poured the wine, she leaned against the cool granite counter and looked out the window over her kitchen sink. She had a clear view of sweet old Craig Meyer puttering in his kitchen next door. She smiled and took a sip of wine. Maybe he was baking tonight. Occasionally, he’d bring her some pumpkin muffins, which she adored. It was the only time she ever saw him. He mostly kept to himself, but hopefully he’d bring some baked goods over soon.

  Glass in hand, she reached for the bag of lavender she’d bought before the murders and headed toward the stairs, desperate to relax. She couldn’t wait to slip into the hot water and let the strain of the past week seep from her cells. She hadn’t realized just how much this case had leached from her until now. Every muscle screamed at her. Her legs felt like lead as she slowly climbed the steps. Lavender heaven, here I come.