“Still. You’ve spent at least eight hours a day with the man for the last couple of years. Did he give you any indication that something was off?”
“He’s an agent. He works crappy hours for government pay in one of the most stressed-out units in the FBI. Does he have problems?
Hell, yes.” Rafe ran a hand through his hair. “He drinks too much. He sleeps around. He’s got a bad temper.” Well, Cam couldn’t blame the guy for that. He had a bad temper himself. This was going nowhere. He could bring up all kinds of stuff from their past, but it wasn’t hard evidence. Hell, he’d have taken a little soft evidence. But it looked like everyone had some dark secrets.
“I don’t know what I thought I would find in here. I need a board. We need to skip the profiling crap and figure out who was where on the nights of the murders.”
That was something he could use.
Rafe stepped back and started to pace around the small motel room they had checked in to but never used. While Cam had been hacking into systems, Rafe had packed up the few things they had left here on the morning they had checked in. They wouldn’t be coming back here. They would move into Laura’s cabin.
Cam thought of all the things he was going to have to do to make the cabin livable. Locks. Lots of locks. An alarm system. Motion detectors. He might have to buy a guard dog.
God, his heart felt like it would stop every time he thought about the fact that this guy was after his woman. Until he was caught, how was Cam supposed to think about anything else?
“When do you get your gun?” Rafe asked, pulling him out of his dark thoughts.
That was a good question. “As soon as the paperwork is done, but I bet I could convince the sheriff to give me one now. And there can’t be a shortage of shotguns around here. You don’t need a license to carry a shotgun in Colorado. Hell, up here I bet people expect you to carry.”
He would feel better once he had a gun in his hand. For now, Cam felt completely impotent. He couldn’t defend his woman. He couldn’t even figure out who he should defend her against. What use was he?
The least he could do was hurry so she wasn’t alone. Cam trusted Nate. More importantly Laura trusted him, but Cam wouldn’t feel better until she was in his sight.
Cam looked down and made sure he had all the files he planned on taking. He could very cautiously review them at the police station.
Maybe he could piece together some dates from the information. He would hole up in Nate’s office, and Rafe would make sure he wasn’t disturbed while he tried to put together what he needed.
The last file he was waiting on, a police report, downloaded. On instinct, Cam opened it up just to make sure he’d gotten it all. He flipped through the report to the pictures the police had filed. A woman lay on her back, her unseeing eyes face up to the camera. It wasn’t anything Cam hadn’t seen before, but something about her lips triggered his memory. That color, a shiny mauve. It stuck out like a sore thumb.
Laura’s words came back to haunt him.
He put lipstick on me. It was the weirdest thing. It was like he was making me up to be someone else.
It was the one thing the killer had left on all of his victims. A high-end lipstick called Purple Passion. The same lipstick on the woman in the photo. Cam had just found the Marquis de Sade’s first victim. The one the killer had never planned on sharing.
Rafe opened the door letting the sunlight in. “Damn it, Cam, are you ready to go? It’s been an hour.”
Cam turned, his stomach in his throat. It was far worse than he’d ever expected. “I know who the Marquis de Sade is.”
Laura forced herself to get out of Nate’s Bronco. All she could think about was the fact that Jana was dead, and there was no denying the truth. The Marquis de Sade was here in Bliss, and he was someone she knew.
Someone she knew had tortured her. He’d drugged her and tied her down and cut her. He’d terrified her and caused her more pain than she’d imagined she could survive.
He’d taken pieces of her.
“Laura?” Nate stood in front of her. He reached out a hand. “Stay close to me. I won’t let anything happen. I promise. Your men will be here before you know it.”
Her men. She liked the sound of that and the way Nate and the rest of the men had welcomed them. Rafe and Cam wouldn’t find it hard to fit in here.
She knew they would hurry. Rafe had sounded miserable when she’d talked to him earlier, but the truth was, she wanted that information. Anything Cam could pull out of the system, legal or illegal, would be welcomed. She wanted to sit down and build a profile. It was there, she just knew it. It was all there in the background. Now that she had concrete suspects, all she had to do was fit the pieces of the puzzle together. The truth would be in their history, hidden in the small documents that made up a life.
She could catch him if she tried.
But first, she had to get through this.
“I’d like to see the letter he left for me.” She didn’t really want to see it, but she had to. It could give her insight.
Nate nodded. “They have it inside. They brought the physical evidence here, but the body was taken to the morgue. I can probably get you in there if you want to witness the autopsy.” She shook her head. Laura had attended many an autopsy, but never one on a person she’d known. She couldn’t imagine being forced to try to view Jana in clinical terms. Despite the trouble they had, they had been friends once. She just couldn’t see Jana that way.
This was precisely why cops didn’t investigate crimes against their families or loved ones. Joe should have taken Rafe and Cam off the case the minute he realized she was involved with them. “Just try to see if Caleb will get me a copy of his findings. I know it’s not protocol, but…”
“Since when do we stand on protocol? You’ll have a copy as soon as he’s done.” Nate settled his hat on his head and led her through the double doors.
The station was buzzing with activity.
“Sheriff.” Hope, Nate’s secretary, stood up and greeted him. She was in her twenties, but she dressed much older. Laura and Holly had talked about the admin’s odd wardrobe choices. Today she was dressed in a long, shapeless skirt and a button-down brown shirt. The ensemble made her look heavier than Laura thought she was. Her dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, as it was every day. Her scrubbed-clean face was hidden behind large glasses. “Logan went back out to the crime site. He said the special agent in charge came in and asked him to take out extra evidence bags. They’re apparently trying to be very thorough.”
Then she and Nate were alone. She would have preferred to have Logan here as well. Two bodyguards were better than one. It was broad daylight. Nothing was going to happen to her in a police station.
Nate nodded at Hope. “I appreciate it. Is there anything else I should know?”
“Your wife came by.”
Nate’s face became thunderously fierce. “Callie left the cabin?
She better have a damn good reason for leaving the cabin. I left explicit instructions that she was supposed to stay there with Zane.” Laura half expected the little mouse to run away, but Hope merely frowned at her boss. Her eyes rolled just slightly as though she was utterly used to her boss losing his temper. Maybe she wasn’t so shy.
“Zane brought her in. They brought your lunch and a thermos of coffee. I believe they thought that since Stella’s was closed today, you might have a hard time finding something to eat. And not eating makes you crankier than normal. It’s sitting on your desk. The special agent in charge used your office while you were gone. He had a call with DC. I hope it was okay. He didn’t really ask me. He just kind of told me he was going to do it.”
“It’s fine. Damn, I hope these guys are gone soon. I want my station back. It’s too loud. And I haven’t been fishing all damn week.” Nate growled a little and opened the door to his office. “Where are they now?”
“Special Agents Conrad and Lock are talking to the cameraman.” Hope motioned toward the back of the building where the small interview room was located. “It took them a while to get him to talk.
He was trying to make a news story out of this.” Nate grimaced. “Asshole. I hate reporters. You go on into the break room and grab a cup of coffee. Take fifteen or twenty minutes to yourself, Hope. But you make damn sure there are people around, you understand? I’ll answer the radio.” Hope nodded gratefully and disappeared down the hallway.
Laura walked into Nate’s office and sat down. She thought about calling Rafe up on the radio, but decided against it. She’d already talked to him, and she didn’t want to disrupt their work. The sooner they got done, the sooner they would come for her.
Nate took off his hat and sat behind his desk. There was a paper sack and a thermos sitting in the middle. It spoke of sweet domesticity. She would have to make sure Cam had lunch when he started coming to work.
The door opened again, and Brad Conrad stuck his head in. He was dressed in a perfectly pressed suit and tie. If he’d been in the field, he didn’t show it. Apparently Brad was one of those guys who didn’t get his hands dirty. He looked down at Laura. “You came in.”
“I told you I wasn’t going to run again.” Was he the one she was running from? She rather thought not. Unless he was a spectacular actor. He seemed too emotionally undisciplined. Though he had asked her very leading questions. He’d seemed to delight in her discomfort.
“I heard you wanted to talk to me.”
“Yes,” Brad replied. “We’ll get to you soon enough. Don’t leave the station. I don’t want to have to track you down.” Yeah, she kind of hoped it was that asshole.
“Hey,” Nate called out to the special agent. Brad turned, his face bunched in an impatient frown. “Could you show her the letter?”
“Sure. She should know what’s coming for her. It’s really just a whole bunch of quotes,” Brad explained.
She could guess who the bastard was quoting. “From the Marquis de Sade?”
“Dunno.” Brad held his hands up, impatience apparent in his stance. “Someone’s looking into it. It’s a bunch of crap about how morals are arbitrary and destruction is nature’s mandate. It’s all pretentious shit. I think this guy is stuck in a college phase.”
“Just get her the letter,” Nate said, his eyes narrowing on the special agent.
“I’ll see if Joe is still around. He’s been running all over today.
It’s been hard to pin that man down. He has the letter.” Brad shut the door.
Nate sighed and sat back in his chair. There was a weariness to the sheriff’s eyes. How hard had this been on him? Callie was pregnant, less than a month away from giving birth to their first child. Nate should be at home getting ready for his kid and taking care of his wife, but he was dealing with feds and autopsies and playing her bodyguard.
“Nate, I’m so sorry about all of this.”
“What?” Nate asked, clearly surprised. “Don’t you apologize.
This is none of your doing. This is my job. I might complain some.
Fine, I might complain a lot, but I love this town, and I’ll protect every citizen with my life. Except Max. I’ll protect him with my toe or some limb I’m not real attached to.”
“Point taken.” She wasn’t alone.
Nate reached out and grabbed his thermos, opening it. Laura was immediately assaulted with the smell of coffee.
“You want some?” Nate asked. “I can get you a cup. If I know my wife, it’s some froufrou flavor. She never just makes plain ordinary coffee even now that she can’t drink it. Zane has gotten just as bad as Callie. He claims he needs to push the taste envelope because he’s a restaurant owner. It’s a bar. He makes wings and burgers, not high-end coffee. What the hell does he know? Bullshit, I say. Coffee is best when it tastes a little like overused motor oil.” Laura leaned forward. “Do you drink a lot of overused motor oil, Sheriff?”
He smiled, his handsome face splitting. “Maybe not, but I like a masculine coffee.” He took a long drink and grimaced slightly.
“Vanilla.”
“Then yes,” Laura replied. “I would love some. And I’m still hungry, so if you want to split that lunch of yours, I’ll take it. You closed down the only diner in town.”
Nate frowned. He opened the bag. “It’s just a sandwich. I don’t know if that will feed me. Hope was right. I get cranky if I don’t have proper sustenance.”
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