Reese squatted down and shone her light over the man’s face. She didn’t know him. Light sandy hair, cut short on the sides and back; no facial hair; clean, even features. His eyes were closed. His clothes were business casual. Tan chinos, navy blazer, a dark polo shirt—new, upper end of the price spectrum, suitcase wrinkles in the pants. His shoes were dark brown loafers, polished, well soled. His skin appeared waxy white. Matching two-inch-wide trails of black coagulated blood ribboned down either side of his neck, ending in an irregular pool beneath his head and shoulders. The wound itself gaped open several inches with the severed ends of muscles, tendons, and a circular ring of tracheal cartilage visible. Carter was right—this was a deep, killing cut. A practiced cut. Most amateurs involved in a knife fight stabbed or slashed at their opponents, generally inflicting superficial damage or shallow punctures. This wound took strength, intention, and cold

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calculation. She lifted the edge of his blazer with a pen and noted the holstered weapon on his hip. A Glock 22 or 23.

Reese rose and regarded Carter. “He looks like a cop.”

“That’s what I’m thinking too.” Carter regarded Reese with a puzzled expression. “But what the hell? If he was, why don’t we know about him? And what’s he doing out here in the middle of the night?”

“I don’t know.” Reese fought down her anger. If he was a law enforcement agent and there was some kind of official investigation going on, she should have been notified. If he’d had backup, or if she’d known there was a potentially dangerous situation brewing, he might not be dead. If it turned out he was a civilian and not a LEO, which she doubted, his murder was still in her territory. Her town. “But I intend to find out.”

“Looks like the coroner has arrived,” Carter said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait to see what she has to say and then give Bri a hand checking the area.” She eyed the crowd, which had grown in the last few minutes. “He could still be here.”

“This might be a revenge killing,” Reese said. “Someone recognizes this guy and decides to take him out in retribution for something that went down in the past.”

“It might,” Carter said carefully.

Reese appreciated both Carter’s expertise in handling the scene and her diplomacy in not expressing her disagreement with Reese’s theory. Carter was not only a good cop, she was also a good team player, despite the reputation she had gained as a loner and a rebel.

Reese suspected Carter’s rep was more about doing what had to be done to complete her assignment, rather than an inherent desire to buck authority. “But it doesn’t smell like revenge. For one thing, this guy was probably taken from behind. When you kill someone for revenge, you want them to see your face. You also want to see them suffer for the injustice done to you, so there tends to be overkill. Multiple stab wounds, not one quick one. If the kill is over too fast, there’s no time to enjoy the revenge.”

“I agree,” Carter said, nodding to Tory as she joined them. “This looks like an ambush.”

“Or an execution.” Reese turned to Tory. “He’s wearing a weapon.

We don’t have an ID yet, so I’d like to turn him as soon as possible to check for a wallet.”

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“I understand. Can you get the lights focused on him a little more?” Tory looked at Carter. “Do you have a video camera in your squad car?”

“We’ve got a dash mount. I can get that.”

“Good. I want you to walk the perimeter and video his position from three hundred and sixty degrees.”

Reese added, “See if you can get the crowd too.”

“Got it,” Carter said, moving away.

Tory opened her emergency kit, removed a camera, and handed it to Reese. “Photograph the body. I’m going to have to move his clothing to get a core temperature. It’s getting colder out here by the minute and I don’t want to wait until we finish the scene photos.” As she spoke, she withdrew a twelve-inch temperature probe. While she was doing that, Reese took several shots of the undisturbed corpse and then Tory carefully pulled his shirt from beneath the waistband of his trousers, palpated the lower edge of his anterior rib cage, and inserted the sharp stainless steel probe through the skin and into the core of the liver. The digital readout when compared to the ambient temperature would give her a very good approximation of the time of death. However, she could tell when she touched him that he had not been dead very long. His skin was still pliable, and even through her gloves, she could feel that his body was not cold.

“He hasn’t been here very long,” she murmured.

“Any doubt that he was killed here?”

“None. I’ll take some soil samples and see if we can extrapolate the volume of blood underneath him, but from the looks of the extent of spread, I’d say he bled out here and very quickly.”

As she spoke, Tory removed paper bags from her kit and secured them around the victim’s hands to preserve any evidence that might have resulted from an altercation. “There’s no indication of trauma on his hands—no scrapes, lacerations, or bruises. It doesn’t look like he fought back. It’s probable he never saw his attacker.”

“Came up behind him?”

“That will have to wait until I have him on the table where I can examine the wound more carefully. It’s too dark out here and the wound itself is too deep for me to tell the direction of the slice. This kind of injury, though, is almost always inflicted from behind.” Tory shook her head. “But you don’t need me to tell you that.”

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“Your observations are more important than mine at this point,”

Reese reminded her quietly.

Tory reached into her kit one more time and took out a small recorder. She quickly recited the date, the time, the location, her name, and the general appearance of the body, the surrounding ground, and other facts that would help her to write a report that might at some later date be crucial to convicting a killer. While she spoke, she concentrated on being thorough and accurate. She did not allow herself to wonder about the victim or the fact that Reese thought he might be a law enforcement agent. She especially did not let her mind veer toward the dangerous territory of imagining that the body on the ground might have been her lover’s. Although this man was dead and she could not help him, her job was critical to ensuring that his killer was brought to justice—that was all she could allow herself to think about right now.

“Let’s turn him.” Tory crouched down, wincing as pain shot up her leg.

“Carter and I can do that,” Reese said quickly.

Tory smiled faintly and slid her hands under the victim’s shoulders.

“Remember our talk earlier about putting yourself on desk duty if necessary? Same goes for me. I’m fine.”

Reese nodded and gripped his legs. On Tory’s count, they turned him. Tory felt his back pockets and extracted a slim leather folder that she handed to Reese.

Carter, a small portable video camera in her hand, came over and craned her neck as Reese flipped open the holder and focused her Mag on it.

“Son of a bitch,” Carter murmured. “What the hell is going on?”

Tory stood and moved closer. When she saw the picture of their victim beneath the laminated overlay of letters spelling out FBI, she caught her breath.

Reese clenched her jaw, carefully closed the badge holder, and slid it into the inside pocket of her short uniform jacket. “Carter, you’re lead on this case. We don’t cede jurisdiction, no matter what.”

“You got it.”

“Tory, they’re going to want the body. Let’s get everything we can as quickly as we can. He was killed here for a reason, and whatever that reason is, it affects this town. That makes it my business. My responsibility.”

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“Yes. I understand.” Tory waved over the EMS techs who had been waiting to help transport the body. “We’ll take him to the clinic and get started now.”

“I’m sorry to rush you.”

Tory regarded the man on the ground. “You’re not rushing me at all. He deserves all the attention we can give him.”

v

He lingered in the crowd of onlookers, comfortable that no one was paying any attention to him, until they took the body away. When the officers videoed the bystanders, he ducked his head and stepped behind several other people. Everyone was focused on the comings and goings of the investigators, so he hadn’t been concerned that anyone would notice the few spots of blood on his shirt. He’d been careful, but it was nearly impossible to avoid a little bit of cast-off when the big arteries in a man’s throat were slashed.

He hadn’t planned on staying around, but when he heard the sirens, he couldn’t help but backtrack to see the reaction to his handiwork.

Then when he recognized the first responders, it felt like poetic justice.

Earlier in the evening he’d been contemplating making one of them his victim, and now here they were, players on the stage that he had set. He felt powerful and superior, watching all of them scurrying about.

The kill had been unexpectedly pleasurable. The exhilaration of feeling the body stiffen as he slashed the neck, then the almost instantaneous death tremor, had given him the kind of satisfaction he usually got from dominating a woman sexually. His body had responded in the same way, and the gratification had left him euphoric, very much as if he’d actually had an orgasm. But now that the scene had played out and everyone was leaving, he felt oddly deflated. Empty. Suddenly, he wanted, needed, to get that high back again. He wasn’t ready for another kill. But he was ready for a woman, and he knew just the one he wanted. He’d made his choice. His first, but not his last.

• 155 •

• 156 •

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chapteR seventeen

Caroline woke up with a start, her senses on high alert and her heart racing. The room was cold. She was cold. She’d gone to bed in only a T-shirt and hadn’t thought to close the window.

The air blowing through the six-inch opening felt more like November than September. She jumped out of bed, raced across the room, and slammed the window closed. On her way back, she grabbed a pair of Bri’s sweatpants from a chair, dove into bed, and pulled on the sweats under the covers. Then she curled into a small ball and wrapped her arms around herself, hoping to get warm. She loved the new apartment they’d rented from Carter when Carter had moved in with Rica, but when she was there alone in the middle of the night it seemed a lot bigger and a lot emptier than the studio they’d had before.

She shivered. That was another big reason why she hated it when Bri worked nights. Not only didn’t they get to go to bed together and have sex before falling asleep—or when waking up, or both—she missed Bri’s warmth during the night. Not just the heat of her body, and Bri always radiated like a furnace, but being wrapped up in Bri’s arms as she slept, sheltered and secure. She missed the way Bri cuddled and stroked her when they were both half asleep. Bri never let her doubt for a second that she was wanted.

Wide awake now, Caroline started thinking about the morning and what she’d do when Bri got home. Bri always came home wired, and when Bri was wired she always wanted sex. Caroline laughed inwardly and rubbed her arms, starting to feel warm all through. Maybe she’d give Bri a massage, work her up nice and high and make her wait for the payoff. Teasing her was so much fun because Bri didn’t have a

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whole lot in the way of self-control. Of course if she did that, she’d end up suffering too, because just touching Bri always got her so hot.

Caroline glanced at the clock. Almost 3:45 in the morning. Nothing happened in this town at this hour. Bri was probably sitting in her cruiser somewhere drinking coffee and bullshitting with Carter. Maybe she ought to call her and tease her a little bit right now. She reached for her cell phone. She could masturbate and then call her right when she was getting ready to come. That would be quick, she wouldn’t take Bri away from work for more than a few seconds, and hearing her come would make Bri totally crazy. By the time Bri got home, she’d be a wild woman. Caroline slipped her hand inside her sweatpants. She knew she’d already be wet. Thinking about Bri did that to her. She tapped a fingertip on her clitoris and caught her breath. Not just wet. Really hard too. She put her thumb on the number on her speed dial—she wasn’t going to have very long before she needed to call.