“Shit! That’s the sickest thing I’ve ever seen,” Brynn shivered as her stomach rolled in revulsion. “I’m out of here. I’ll never get that out of my head.”
Both Emma and Greyson were a bit skeeved out too, but not enough to escape the autopsy.
“She’s right. That’s creepy,” Emma admitted, moving closer to her husband’s side almost automatically. His arm protectively went over her shoulders, holding her to his body. When he dropped a few kisses across the crown of her head, she slid her arm around his waist, holding on for reassurance.
“Yeah, I’m with you on that one,” the doctor admitted. “I’ve found things in mouths before, but never two eyes.”
“We need a photo of this, so it can go in the file to the profiler. This has to be significant of something, right? I mean, he took her eyes out, and put them in her mouth. All the other pairs he kept.”
Croft held his wife closely by his side. His own skin crawled as he stared down at the sightless blonde with eyes in her mouth. It was like some sick twisted movie horror scene. “I’ll get it,” he said, pulling his phone out and snapping the picture to send to his partner. He refused to let go of his wife and could feel her shaking a little under his arm. Until now, she’d held up, but this rattled her.
Maybe that was the point.
To shake them all up, but why?
Once it was snapped, he sent it to Briggs, warning him of the content. No one wanted to be shocked by what was in that email.
Continuing the autopsy, Emma didn't even pretend to be strong. She was holding onto her husband and back in the spot he’d originally picked to stand. Her body was pressed to his, and she was deeply inhaling his scent. The familiar fragrance of his aftershave lulled her, returning her heartbeat to its normal rhythm. It was times like this, she was glad he was there.
He murmured in her ear, offering complete reassurance that it would be all right. Croft would admit that Emma needing him and her willingness to lean on him fired everything in his body. His woman was relying on him to hold her up and offer peace. It was how it should be, and he never wanted that to change. It was the primal relationship between man and woman.
Yeah, it was official. He’d definitely lost any hope of returning from Neanderthal-land. Greyson was now a permanent resident.
As the skull cap came off, the doctor rooted around in her head, pulling the brain out and examining it. “Yeah, the blow to her cranium did her in. There’s a major hematoma. Death was almost instant.”
There was a little reassurance. “At least she didn't suffer.” Emma hoped that where ever she was, this woman wasn’t looking down at her own eyes crammed into her mouth. Talk about hell in the afterlife.
“Can you send us the reports when you’re done, Doctor Bentley?” Croft inquired. He wanted to get Emma and himself out of there. She was still shaking, and he wasn’t far behind. Sometimes, creepy was just too much.
“Can do. It’ll be over in the next few hours. I don’t have any more bodies to work on today. It’s a slow day in the ME office.”
They headed for the door. “Talk to you later, Doc,” Emma said, really glad to escape. Now, she needed to stop thinking about it and move forward.
Yeah, that had a zero to no chance in probability.
Outside the autopsy suite stood her partner, and she looked like hell. Emma didn't think that the eyeballs were the only cause of this misery.
“I’m going to take her for a coffee, Grey,” she whispered. “I think she needs to be de-brigged.”
He got the meaning. “I’ll see you later. I’m going back to my office for a little while. Text me when you’re heading back to work. I’ll meet you here.”
Emma went up on her toes to give him a gentle kiss. It wasn’t earth shattering, but it spoke of her gratitude of having him by her side to help her heal. “I love you, my scoundrel pirate,” she whispered, pulling away.
“Does that make you my sexy wench?” he asked grinning lecherously. “Want to go home and walk my plank or shiver me timber?”
It took everything not to laugh, but Emma managed to pull it off.
He slapped her on the ass. “See you later, sweet stuff.” He turned, heading in the opposite direction as he pulled out his phone. When his partner answered, he spoke. “Be outside in three minutes. We’re going back to the office for a while. I need to check in.”
Looking back over his shoulder, he found her watching him, and it made him feel even more proprietary towards her. She was his woman and always would be. He began whistling as he exited the building.
Emma watched him leave, and then focused on her partner. “Come on. We’re taking a ride.”
“Where too?” she asked.
“We’re going to get your head back into the game.”
Her partner stared at her, trying to come up with some excuse and then gave up. A million justifications ran through her mind, but none of them seemed to feel appropriate. It was time for the plain, simple truth. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
Emma nodded, leading her to the parking garage. “Yeah, it is.”
Sitting in the café, Emma stared across the table at her partner. They both were sipping their coffees, yet to speak. She knew they needed to get this off Brynn’s chest, before it caused even more tension between their team.
“Spill it and you’ll feel better.”
Brynn sighed. “Okay, I went to dinner the other night with Curtis, and I thought we had a good time.” She told her about their conversation about one-night stands, the kiss, and him moving in with her as a roommate.
“I’m with you so far,” Emma stated, drinking her coffee.
“Then, we came back from work last night, and I went to take a shower. When I came out to talk to him, he was gone. No note, no clue, just abandoned ship.”
This was a precarious position to be in, since Emma was in the middle. She now had two sides to the story. “What went on between you and the FBI tech?”
Brynn stared at her. “What? Nothing! I brought him to the room and I smiled at him. That’s it!”
Emma didn't say anything. She wanted her partner to put it all together on her own.
“He’s mad at me because of the conversation I had with a man I just met?”
She shrugged, keeping everything Curtis shared locked away in her head.
“That’s insane. What man acts that territorial for no reason?”
The laughter was right there below the surface. She could have raised her own hand and pointed out that her husband was pretty much the king of the brutes. Newbie caveman Briggs was learning from the best. It could be Neanderthalism by proxy.
“I can’t believe he’s upset because a man smiled at me.”
Again, walk a mile in her shoes.
Now the bewilderment was gone, and it was filled with growing irritation. If he was going to be a jackass, there wouldn’t be a first date.
“So, what should I do?” she inquired, staring at her partner. “You know him better than I do.”
Emma shrugged. “My advice to you is the same that I gave to him. If it’s meant to be, then you can’t stop fate from leading the way, but we can’t work with this tension. Keep it out of work.”
She got the message. It was affecting their job, and apparently, Curtis already discussed this with Emma.
“If I can tell you’re stirred up, so can everyone else around you. If you’re wondering if you should sleep with him or not, do it or don’t. But make sure it’s not bleeding into our work. We have a big enough mess as it is going on.”
“I get it.”
Emma knew she would. Now, if she could just figure out what the hell was going on in the mind of the killer, they’d all be set.
After finishing their coffee, they headed back to work. As Detective Westmore drove, Emma whipped out a text to her husband, telling them they were in route back to the station.
They exchanged a few private ones that heated her blood and made her want to crawl all over her very sexy husband. His words
made her stomach flip, and her heart began to pound in her chest. When they pulled into the parking lot, her partner glanced over at her and began laughing.
“Newlyweds are fun to watch,” she stated, grinning. “You’re blushing and haven’t said a word.”
Emma laughed as she hopped out of the SUV to join her partner as they crossed the parking lot.
Neither woman was paying attention to their surroundings, and before Emma knew it, someone had grabbed her arm from behind and jerked her to a stop.
Standing there with an angry scowl on his face was Detective Sawyer Laden.
Brynn immediately went on alert, scanning for anyone else in the parking lot. She knew there was tension, especially after what happened at the warrant search. His partner, Detective Bristol, was nowhere to be found and that could mean trouble. The Native man was generally the calmer of the two, keeping Laden in line.
In fact, the detective didn't have his weapon or badge and was in clothing he wouldn’t normally wear to work.
“I hope you’re happy, bitch,” he growled at Emma, staring down at her with so much animosity in his eyes. “Thanks to you, I’m on non-paid vacation for three days, and my partner has asked for a transfer.”
Emma didn't have a clue what he was talking about. “Are you out of your mind?” she asked, wrenching her arm free. “I don’t know what the hell you’re whining about.”
He stared her down, not believing a word she said. “I was reported to Ford. I’m on suspension for letting a suspect attack a fellow officer. Your husband left Ford’s office and I get the boot, and then my own partner turns on me.”
Slowly, realization dawned. “You think I asked my husband to rat you out to our boss? You’re an idiot, Sawyer. I didn't say a word to either of them.”
Oh, Greyson, what have you done?
This had the fingerprints of her husband all over it. In fact, earlier at the crime scene her boss had been decent to her too. She’d bet her badge that he’d had a ‘talk’ with Ford. When she got her hands on him, she was going to… she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but there’d be hell to pay. Her anger was building. By even opening his mouth, he’d inadvertently made it ten times worse. Emma got his need to protect, but this was an unmitigated disaster.
“Yeah, your big strong Fed went to our boss. I was called in and Ford reamed me a new one. He also took my gun and badge until I’m back from leave. I don’t doubt you had something to do with this. It’s totally a woman thing to complain when she can’t take the heat from a man.”
That pissed her off. She’d fought to be in the boy’s club for over ten years, playing by their rules and now this. She knew what it was like to have to go toe to toe with them.
“It wasn’t me.”
“You’re a liar,” he said, grabbing her arm again.
Emma knew this was escalating into something that was going to cause so many more issues. The detective was putting his hands on another detective in anger. If IAB got wind of this while he was on suspension, his ass was going to be more than on vacation. He would be fired.
Detective Westmore moved closer to her partner, trying to deter the man from doing anything stupid. She’d never seen Detective Laden this far over the edge before. Yeah, Brynn had witnessed him in interrogation crossing the line, but never with another cop.
Emma could see her husband and Briggs pulling into the parking lot, and this was about to get even worse. If Greyson caught the man touching her, he was going to go nuts.
“Here comes my husband, and if you don’t get your ass out of here fast, he’s going to beat your face off the building,” she hissed, giving him the opportunity to get away. She kind of owed him, since her husband went to Ford and ratted him out.
He looked around and released her arm, unsure what game she was playing. “This isn’t over,” he stated, moving away.
Croft parked the Denali and stared out the window. What he saw happening caused his blood pressure to go through the roof.
Some man had his hands on his wife.
When Greyson found him, he was going to kick the shit out of Laden. Now, he just needed to find out what was going on, so he could align his alibi.
Briggs saw everything happening and knew it was going to be escalating fast. “Stay calm, boss,” he muttered, watching his partner jump out and slam the door.
Greyson was across the parking lot and to his wife’s side immediately. “What the hell was that all about?” he growled, staring off into the direction that the man had headed. Seconds later, they all heard the squealing of tires from the other side of the lot.
Emma had two choices. Tell him the truth, and then try to stop him from going to jail for caveman related homicide, or lie her ass off and let the chips fall where they may. She took what she believed to be the lesser of the two evils.
“It was nothing.”
Before she could catch her breath, he was staring down at Emma, the anger now directed at her. The silver of his eyes had heated up, going molten as they bored into her soul, seeking the truth.
Unbelievably, his wife had just lied to him. It wasn’t what he expected, and he flashed back to his past, to the other woman who had once betrayed him. Emma was privy to the details and knew he wouldn’t tolerate it. For him, it was a relationship breaker.
Now was it a marriage breaker too?
“That was nothing?” he stated again, giving her the opportunity to retract her comment and rectify the situation.
“It was nothing but a misunderstanding.”
Now, he was furious. He stepped back from her body, no longer wanting the contact with her. The love of his life just broke the big promise she’d made him- the one where she’d never lie to him, no matter what.
Here it was, staring them both in the face. Now, it was up to him as to what happened next.
“I have to get over to the theater and do the interview,” she said, following her own advice of not letting private lives bleed into work. “Are you coming?”
He stared at her, wondering if she really believed he would. After all this, could she be that naïve? “No, I won’t be joining you.” The chill dripped from the words shared between them.
The Ice King had cometh…
Emma moved past him, scared, hurt, and worried. She was scared, because he’d never spoke to her with that degree of coldness in his voice, hurt because he’d crossed a line by going to her boss behind her back, and worried that they couldn’t fix this.
Croft watched her leave and let her go. For the first time, he was unwilling to follow.
When he turned back, the anger and pain were clearly etched into his features. Briggs was at a loss for words. “Want to get to work?” he asked, trying to distract his boss. It was the best he could do.
“Yeah, let’s do our damn job,” he practically growled.
Emma buckled in and started the vehicle.
“Are you going to be okay?” Brynn asked, noticing the emotion on her partner’s face. The situation was bad all around.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I didn't have a choice. This has all gone too far,” she said, softly. It killed her to lie to her husband, building that wall between them. If she’d been at home, she would have burst into tears. Unfortunately, she recalled just telling her partner to keep personal out of work.
Great freaking timing…
“You didn't have a choice.”
Emma knew that was a lie. She had a choice, but now, she needed to see if she made the right one.
This was the biggest gamble of her life.
~ Chapter Eight ~
Thursday Mid-Day
Pulling up to the crime scene, they expected to have a few people morbidly hanging out to check out where the showgirl had perished. What they didn't expect was a full blown media spectacle happening.
Standing in the middle of the scene was a man who was dressed to kill in a dapper suit. He was working his audience with nothing but dramatic flair oozing from him. His arms wer
e waving, and his face showed a myriad of emotion as he accounted his personal depiction of what he believed had happened at the theater.
Emma and Brynn stood in the back of the media crowd, simply watching and listening as the man made the spectacle seem like it was something amazing to behold. By the time the reporters had asked another question, once again, he’d directed it to be all part of the history of the mighty Crassmount Theater.
Apparently, many Vegas icons came there in the past, escalating it to the grandeur of a Hollywood elite club. There was murder, mayhem and mystery surrounding the place, and the man was enjoying his captive audience.
Once he began speculating, on what had happened to the woman, the detectives stepped in and took over by shutting him down.
“That’ll be enough of this bull,” stated Emma, holding her badge up above the crowd of reporters. “I see we meet again,” she stated, recognizing some of them from this morning’s free-for-all.
“Are you denying everything he’s saying?”
Detective Westmore took this one. “Move along. Fairytale time at the Crassmount is over for today.” That said it all.
Immediately, the reporters began firing questions at the detectives as they pushed through the crowd towards the angry man.
Glaring at them, he didn't like how they’d stolen his thunder. The audience was eating out of the palm of his hand and was enthralled.
Now his free publicity was gone.
When they reached his side, he hissed in anger. “You screwed up my sound bite.”
Emma didn't care one way or another. “I take it that you’re Harrison Tyler, owner of this establishment.”
The reporters swarmed, assuming he was under arrest as the detectives led him towards the front door of his building. The look of horror and fear he staged on his face didn't help either.
Once inside, it was gone again.
“I needed that publicity!” he demanded. “Do you know how expensive the upkeep is on a place like this? You just ruined my moment!” he raged, waving his arms around like a lunatic.
Vegas is Dying (A Croft & Croft Romance Adventure Book 2) Page 19