At Close Range

by Laura Griffin

  “Thanks.” She filled a mug and found some sugar in a canister beside the coffeepot.

  “Travis called.” He guzzled water. “We caught a big case last night. I have to go in this morning.” He pulled the towel from around his neck and tossed it on the counter. Then he stepped over to her and wrapped his arms around her. “You working today?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Mmm.” He kissed the top of her head. “You smell good.”

  “Thanks. Whose shampoo is that?”

  “What, the white stuff? You can use it.”

  “I did.” She tipped her head back to look at him. “Who left it there?”

  He gave her a crooked smile. “No one. I got it for you.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, it’s the kind you like.”

  She stared at him.

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “Nothing.” She pulled back and glanced down at her feet. “I’m just . . .” She looked up.

  He was watching her expectantly. “You’re just . . . ?”

  “I thought some woman left it in your shower.” She rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. Picturing you with other people makes me crazy.”

  “Well, don’t.” He stepped closer, resting his hands on his hips as he stared down at her.

  Her heart was thrumming now, and she couldn’t read his expression. Was he annoyed? Feeling stifled? It was hard to know because he didn’t talk about his feelings.

  She took a deep breath, and her chest felt tight. She had to face up to her insecurities. Not just about other women, but about everything.

  “Scott . . . what are we doing here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should talk about it.”

  She looked at his eyes and had a flashback to the motel room right after she’d kissed him and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

  You’re going to be sorry you did this.

  But she wasn’t sorry. The last several weeks had been the craziest, scariest, and happiest of her life, and she wasn’t sorry, no matter what happened.

  “You remember back at the motel in Big Rock?” A troubled look came into his eyes. “You said how commitment wasn’t my thing. You remember that?”

  A strange calm came over her and she nodded.

  “That bothered me. A lot.” He gazed down at her. “You were right that I haven’t had a lot of long-term relationships. None, really. But it’s not because I can’t commit. I just never met the right person.”

  He eased closer. Dani’s heart was pounding. It was thudding so loud she felt sure he could hear it.

  “When something matters to me, I stick with it. I stay the course.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “You matter to me.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “I love you, Daniele. And I want to be in your life if you’ll let me.”

  Her throat felt tight. Tears blurred her vision, and he dipped his head down, watching her reaction.

  “Hey. What’d I say?”

  “Nothing.” She laughed through her tears.

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. It was deep and long, and she felt flooded by so many emotions she couldn’t keep the tears from spilling over.

  Then everything went from sweet to hot, and his hands were under her shirt and pulling her against him.

  “Let’s not work today,” she said. “Let’s stay here and do this.”

  “I have to go in.” He kissed her, stroking his hands over her back. “And so do you. We can wait for tonight.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  He kissed her again, and when he finally pulled away and gazed down at her, the tenderness in his eyes made her chest hurt.

  “Daniele . . .” He searched her face. “What about you?”

  God, she hadn’t said it. In her storm of emotions, she’d forgotten to say it back.

  She went up on tiptoes and kissed him. “I love you, too.”

  He pulled her against him. “Then we’ve got all the time in the world.”

  Don’t want to leave the thrilling world of New York Times bestselling author Laura Griffin’s Tracers?

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next book in this award-winning series.

  Coming Fall 2017 from Pocket Books!

  It was like any other Wednesday night. Until it wasn’t.

  Samantha Bonner had just finished sweeping up. She’d emptied the dustpan, sanitized the sink, and wiped down the pastry case. The burnt smell of coffee beans hung thick in the air, overpowering the vinegar solution she’d run through the machines. But it was quiet. She stood for a moment and let the silence surround her, glad to be free of the acoustic guitar music that had been looping through her head all day.

  Sam grabbed her purse and locked up. Crossing the rain-slicked parking lot to her car, she darted a look into all the dark corners. It was a safe neighborhood, but you never knew.

  She turned out of the lot, relieved to be heading home after pulling a double shift. Raindrops pitter-pattered on her windshield as she made her way through downtown. She switched the wipers to low, and her phone lit up with an incoming call. Amy.

  Sam stared down at the phone for a quick moment. Then she put the call on speaker.

  “Sam? Can you talk?”

  “What’s up?”

  Amy sounded undone. More than usual.

  “It’s Jared. He wants to move back in.”

  “He called you?” Sam asked.

  “He came by to drop off Aiden. I didn’t let him in or anything.”

  Sam didn’t respond as she came to a stoplight. In most areas of her life, Amy wasn’t a pushover. But her two-year-old boy missed his daddy, and his daddy knew it. He used the kid as leverage.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Amy said. “And I just want to talk through it, figure out what I’m going to tell him. Can you come over for a bit? I can make us some coffee.”

  The mere thought of coffee made her want to retch.

  “Sure,” she said anyway. Amy was sniffling now, and Sam didn’t have the heart to say no.

  “Or we could talk on the phone,” Amy said. “You’re probably busy. Tonight’s your night off, isn’t it?”

  “No, I closed up tonight.”

  Sam slowed for a bend in the road. Stately oak trees and manicured lawns soon gave way to weeds and chain-link fences. Then came the railroad tracks. White-collar to blue in less than a mile. The people in Sam’s neighborhood commuted to work at all hours and didn’t stop for lattes on the way.

  “I’ll be over in a little,” Sam said, turning onto her street. “Give me twenty minutes.”

  “Are you sure?” Another sniffle.

  “I’m sure.”

  She pulled into her driveway and rolled to a stop in the glow of her back-porch light.

  “Thanks, Sam. I mean it. I just need to hash this out. I mean, what if he’s legit this time? I owe it to Aiden to at least think about it.”

  Sam kept her skepticism to herself. For now. She slid from her car and noticed the white bike propped against her back deck as she walked up the driveway.

  “Sam? You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  She mounted the steps to the deck and reached for the door. A blur of movement caught her attention an instant before pain exploded at the base of her skull.

  Sam dropped to her knees and pitched forward. A big arm wrapped around her neck, hauling her backward. The smell of tobacco registered in her brain, filling her with bone-deep fear as the arm clamped around her windpipe.

  “Sam?” Amy’s voice was far away.

  Pain roared through Sam’s skull. She struggled to move, to breathe. A glove-covered hand tipped her head back, exposing her neck.

  No.

  Sam clawed at the arm, trying desperately to buck, to kick, to scream for help. No, no, no! From the corner of her eye she spied her phone on the ground. She tried to call out but the cries died in her t
hroat.

  “Sam, are you there?”

  Fear became panic as she saw the glint of a blade.

  “Samantha?”

  • • •

  Brooke Porter beat the detectives, which surprised her. But then again, she’d made good time. When the message had come in coded 911, she’d dropped what she was doing and rushed straight over.

  She parked beside a police unit and grabbed her evidence kit from the trunk as she surveyed the location. It was a small bungalow, like every other house on the block. In contrast to its neighbors, though, this particular home had a fresh coat of paint and looked to be in decent repair. Potted chrysanthemums lined the front stoop, where a uniformed officer stood taking shelter from the cold drizzle.

  Brooke darted up the path and ducked under the overhang. The officer was big. Huge. Brooke had met him before, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember his name.

  “Jasper Miller,” he provided, handing her a clipboard. “Your photographer just got here.”

  So he knew she was with the Delphi Center. The San Marcos Police Department typically called Brooke’s lab in to help with their big cases.

  Brooke scribbled her name into the scene log. “You the first responder?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded at the driveway. “Victim’s around back. Looks like she was coming home from someplace, and he surprised her at the door.”

  Brooke eyed the little white Kia parked in the driveway. She wanted to see things for herself and draw her own conclusions.

  “Medical examiner’s people got here about five minutes ago,” Jasper added.

  “And the detectives?”

  “On their way.”

  She handed back the clipboard. “Thanks.”

  Brooke picked her way across the stepping-stones in the grass, trying not to mar anything useful. At the top of the driveway, several uniforms stood under a blue Delphi Center tent that had been erected beside the back porch.

  Brooke’s stomach tightened with nerves as she lifted the crime-scene tape and walked up the drive. She noted the chain-link fence, the thick shrubbery, the trash cans tucked against the side of the house. Plenty of places for someone to hide.

  A camera flashed as she reached the tent. The Delphi Center photographer had already set up her lights and had started documenting the scene. Brooke unloaded some supplies from her kit. She zipped into coveralls and pulled booties over her shoes, then tugged on thick purple gloves as the uniforms looked on silently.

  Beat cops thought she was an oddity. She showed up at death scenes with her tweezers and her flashlights and her big orange goggles. She plucked bits of evidence from obscure places and then scuttled back to the lab to do her thing . . . whatever that was.

  The detectives got her. Well, maybe not totally. But they’d at least learned to appreciate what she could do for them. Which ones had been assigned to this case? And where the hell were they?

  Brooke pulled her long dark hair into a ponytail. She picked up her evidence kit and sucked in a deep breath to brace herself before turning around to take her first look.

  Blood was everywhere.

  “Holy God,” she murmured.

  A woman lay crumpled at the back door, her neck slashed open. Her hair, her clothes, even the wooden decking beneath her was saturated. Dark rivulets had dripped down the stairs and were now coagulating in little pools on the lower slats.

  “Watch your step.”

  She glanced up as the ME’s assistant crouched beside the body. He was reading a thermometer and making notes on a pad.

  “It’s slippery,” he added.

  Brooke walked up the wooden stairs and eased around him, taking care not to step in any puddles. Maddie Callahan stood beside the door, photographing a scarlet arc against the white siding.

  Arterial spray.

  She lowered her camera and glanced at Brooke. “The detectives here?”

  “Not yet.”

  The breeze shifted, and Brooke got a whiff of blood, strong and metallic. She glanced at the gaping wound again, and stepped back to grab the wooden railing.

  Maddie looked at her. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Brooke should be immune to this stuff by now. But that neck.

  She steadied herself and looked around. A set of blood-spattered car keys lay near the victim’s hand. Brooke glanced at the woman’s face, partially visible beneath blond, blood-matted hair. Brooke didn’t see a weapon near the body. And any trails the killer might have left as he fled the scene had likely been obscured by rain at this point. The back door stood ajar. Had he fled through the house?

  She turned to the ME’s assistant. “Was this door open like this?”

  He glanced up, looking annoyed. “We haven’t been in the house.”

  Brooke turned to the victim again. Her head lolled weirdly to the side, and flies were already hovering, despite the cool temperature. Brooke stepped past the ME’s assistant and slipped into the house.

  She found herself in a dark utility room that smelled of fabric softener. The room was small and clean, without so much as a scrap of laundry on the floor. She switched on her flashlight and swept it around. No footprints.

  She stepped into the kitchen, maneuvering around an open pantry door.

  “Was this open, too?” she asked Maddie, who had also come into the house.

  “Yes. And I haven’t shot the kitchen yet, so don’t move anything.”

  Brooke stood still, giving herself a few moments to absorb the scene. She always tried to put herself in the perpetrator’s shoes. Had he been in here? If so, what had he touched?

  The kitchen was dim, except for a light above the sink. Using the end of her flashlight, Brooke flipped a switch beside the door, and an overhead fixture came on.

  No dirty dishes on the counter or food sitting out. Eighties-era appliances. A drying rack beside the sink contained a glass, a plate, and a fork. On the counter, next to a microwave, was a loose key and a stack of mail. She stepped over to read the name on the top envelope. Samantha Bonner.

  Brooke zeroed in on the key. It was bronze. Shiny.

  In the breakfast nook, a small wooden table was pushed up against a window. A brown bottle of root beer sat on the table unopened. Just below room temperature, judging from the condensation.

  Brooke returned her attention to the pantry. Soup, soup, and more soup, all Campbell’s brand, and she felt like she was looking at an Andy Warhol painting. Tomato, chicken noodle, vegetable. The shelf above the soup was stocked with paper goods. The bottom shelf was filled with healthy cereals and gluten-free crackers and a package of those pink and white animal cookies with the colored sprinkles.

  “Brooke?”

  “Yeah?” She leaned her head out to look at Maddie.

  “Just finished shooting the door if you want it.”

  “I definitely want it,” she said, moving back into the utility room. She put on her orange goggles and switched her flashlight to ultraviolet, looking at the floor for any fluids that might not be visible to the naked eye. Nothing.

  She examined the knob a moment, and then selected a powder from her kit. Outside on the deck, the ME’s assistant was busy covering the victim’s hands with paper bags in preparation for her transport to the morgue.

  Brooke glanced back at the kitchen, her attention drawn to the key again. It looked like a house key, and she wanted to know if it fit this door. But she couldn’t move anything until Maddie finished her photos.

  Brooke opened the jar of powder and tapped some into a plastic tray. Using her softest brush, she loaded the bristles and then gently dusted the knob. She worked slowly, methodically. When she finished dusting, she cast her light over the fluorescent powder and was pleased to see a pristine thumbprint on the side of the knob.

  “Maddie, can you get this for me?”

  “Sure.”

  Maddie stepped over and photographed the knob from several angles. When she finished, she moved into the kitchen wit
h her camera.

  Brooke took out a strip of clear polyethylene tape and lifted the thumbprint off the curved surface, taking care not to smudge it. She picked out a black card for contrast and gently placed the tape against the card.

  One lift done, probably a hundred to go. She closed her eyes a moment and inhaled deeply. When she got laser-focused, she sometimes forgot to breathe.

  Brooke heard the detectives before she saw them—two low male voices at the front of the house exchanging clipped police jargon.

  Sean Byrne and Ric Santos. She’d know them anywhere.

  Brooke labeled the card and tucked it into her evidence kit. So, Sean and Ric on this one. They were experienced and observant. Sean noticed everything she did, even if he seemed to be interviewing witnesses or talking to other cops. He observed where she spent her time and how, and if she lingered in a particular spot, he always asked about it later.

  Brooke noticed him, too. With his athletic build and sly smile, it was hard not to. But mostly she noticed his attitude. He had an easygoing confidence she found attractive. Nothing ever seemed to rattle him.

  Of course, being a cop, he also had an ego.

  The voices grew louder as the detectives stepped into the kitchen. Brooke didn’t look up, but she felt a jolt of awareness as Sean’s gaze landed on her.

  • • •

  Sean watched Brooke for a moment and then turned to Jasper.

  “You say the neighbor found her?”

  “That’s right,” the officer said. “Lady let her dog out, and he started barking like crazy, so she went outside to see what was going on and spotted the victim in a pool of blood there on the porch. Name’s Samantha Bonner. She works at a coffee shop.”

  Sean raked his hand through his damp hair, scattering drops of water on the floor. “Married? Kids?”

  Jasper shook his head. “Neighbor says she lives alone.”

  Sean unzipped his SMPD windbreaker and glanced at Brooke again. She was on her knees by the back door, lifting fingerprints. Just beyond her was the victim, and the ME’s people were already unfurling the body bag.

  Damn.

  Sean was accustomed to seeing Brooke surrounded by blood and gore, but this was bad. He studied the victim, noting the position of the body, the clothing.