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Wednesday. Mark
“Were you able to get in any work last night?” Mark asked as he took his jacket off the next morning.
Darby glanced up from her screen and shook her head. “No, Holly had me out too late.”
“Girls’ night out? Hope you’re not hungover,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes. “Have I ever been plastered before?”
He sat down and waved his screen on. “There’s a first time for everything.”
She snorted. “You?”
“What, am I hungover?”
She threw a wadded up napkin at him. “No, dolt, did you get any work done?”
“You know, all work and no play makes Marky a dull boy, right?” Teasing her—even with the lingering tension from their fight a few weeks ago—was one of the simple pleasures in his life. He was glad to see her mood had improved.
“Would you knock it off?” Her smile widened. “Did you or didn’t you?”
“Yeah. It was boring. I didn’t see how any of it was going to help.”
“Ah. That’s about what I got out of what I was reading.”
“Sad but true,” he agreed. “If this keeps up, we’ll be spinning our wheels.”
“We are spinning our wheels.” She reached for her coffee, took a sip, then leaned back and stared at her screen. “What are we missing?”
Mark shook his head. “I’m going to go back over the neighbor’s statements. Maybe we missed something there.”
“Don’t bother. That’s what I’ve been doing since I got in.” She set her coffee down and undid her ponytail, trailing her fingers through her honey blonde hair. It had gotten long lately. She’d been wearing it above her shoulders for a while, but now it dipped lower than her shoulder blades.
It made her look more feminine.
And much more attractive.
Tamp it down. He cleared his throat. “So, you don’t think anything’s there?”
“Half the neighborhood was out for one reason or another. The rest were watching the football game.” Deftly, she tied her hair back again, securing it into a bun this time. Give her a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and she’d be a sexy schoolmarm.
Yeesh, Herman, he chided. It’s not happening.
He’d waited too long to respond. Her easy smile had shifted into a frown. What was more, she was giving him a very strange look. What was that about?
He cleared his throat. “Ah. Well, surely someone noticed something.”
“I can’t find anything. We could have uniforms canvass again.”
“We may have to.”
“Look.” She leaned her arms on her desk, hunching near enough he could smell a light floral perfume. “I want there to be something there as much as you do, but I’m not seeing it.” She paused a beat and looked at him through her lashes. “All the houses within a block have been covered. No one noticed anything.”
“Maybe I can help you see it. Look at things from my perspective.”
She blinked, her mouth popping open a little.
Mark held her gaze for a long moment, then finally nodded. “Fine. I’ll look at them tonight if we don’t have any better leads come in today. In the meantime, you want to head to the crime scene, walk through it again?”
“Sure, let me grab a refill.” She waved her screen off and stood.
“How many cups you up to so far?”
She paused. “Does it matter?”
He nodded. “After what happened yesterday, absolutely.”
A tendril of her blonde hair had come loose. She swiped it away, tucking it behind her ear. “This will be number four.”
“And when did you get in?”
“Five-thirty, but I spent forty-five minutes in the gym.”
“Your head?”
“Better,” she said through gritted teeth. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and her face relaxed. “Sorry. Yesterday scared me too.”
He wanted to reach out, to cover her hands and reassure her, but he stopped himself. Memories of their fight on the plane were still too fresh, even three weeks later.
He folded his arms over his chest instead. “Well, go get your refill. I’m going to check e-mail and give a report to the captain. Join me in his office.”
She nodded but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Okay.”
Then she darted off.
Darby joined him and the captain after Mark was partway through his oral report. She stood beside him and quietly drank her coffee.
Captain Stanley Moustakas nodded as Mark finished going over the details. “Well, it seems you’re doing everything you can. The computers were delivered to CSU yesterday.”
“We’re aware, sir,” Darby said. “Hoping they’ll get some information soon.”
“Good. Stay on point, and watch each other. I don’t want any shenanigans with the DSHA.”
“You won’t have any caused by me, sir,” Darby said quickly.
“Well watch it. I’ve already had one memo from up top. The DSHA is trying to make a stink.”
Mark laced his fingers behind his back, subtly stretching his chest muscles. “We’ll keep things professional.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
They packed up their gear and headed to Prairie Rasmussen’s home.
With the front door open, Darby looked back to him. “Do you have the scene photos up?”
“I’ll get them.” He withdrew his glass screen, then tapped into the CSU photos and the Rasmussen case file. When it was up, he handed her the glass. Mark preferred to take in the crime scene as it was after the removal of all evidence. Darby liked to see both images at the same time. It helped her focus.
They were quiet, each of them taking in their own angles. Mark kept an eye on Darby but mostly wandered through the lower level. His shoes squeaked on the wood floor.
At some crime scenes, he’d get the sense crime was a frequent visitor to the location. The gang hits especially. Murders, drug deals, prostitution even.
But this house was different. Quiet. It shouldn’t have seen the likes of a murder, especially not one as brutal as Rasmussen’s.
Mark circled the room where Prairie had died. CSU had cut a hole in the carpet and pad, leaving bare wood where she had bled out. Blood had seeped through the carpet and into the subfloor.
“So,” Darby said from near the double-doors leading into the office. “She spent the morning with her boyfriend, then said she had some work to do. She comes in here to work—”
“It is her office, after all.”
Darby glanced down at the glass in her hand. “She comes in, she works, we don’t know for how long.” She put all her weight onto the rear leg, putting one hand up in a thinking pose. “Think the techs will be able to tell us what she was working on or when she last used the computer?”
Mark shrugged. “Hopefully. They should have prelims soon.”
“Yeah...So, is there a knock on the door, or did someone break in?”
He bit his lip, calling up the original scene from memory. “My money’s on the knock at the door. No overt signs of a struggle to indicate she put up a fight.”
“I agree.” She crossed to the front door. “So she opens the door, the killer comes in. They must have gone back to her office since there was no indication the body had been moved.”
Mark followed her. “Yeah, seems right. They probably talked. Maybe Prairie was showing them something on the computer, made the killer mad?”
Darby shrugged. “Could be. Were there any knives missing from the kitchen?”
“No, all accounted for. But Holly said the wound tracks weren’t from a knife.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Wanted to make sure.” She slid him a glance. “Yesterday was a bit crazy.”
“About that...” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Better take this window to talk. She might not give him another. Could’ve picked a better place to do it, but it would have to do. Wouldn’t be the first time they’d talked about personal stuff at a crime scene. “I was probably a bit hard on you.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “A bit?”
Was she really going to ask for more? He grunted. “Okay, I was quite hard on you.”
“You realize I’m a big girl, right?”
She liked to point that out, any time he pointed out her weakness.
Anger edged into his voice. “You say that, but you can’t keep up this pace. It will kill you.”
There was no doubt in his mind that it would happen if she didn’t step back. And he was afraid she couldn’t see it. In spite of everything, losing her scared him more than anything right now.
The fact she couldn’t see it drove him mad.
She furrowed her brows and looked down at the glass. “We have a dead woman back in the morgue. I’d like to revive her by the weekend.”
Mark sensed her frustration but didn’t care. “I want to get this off my chest, and I need to do it now.”
“Mark—”
“No, hear me out. Please.” He closed the distance and put his hand on her arm, sliding down until he grasped her wrist. Electricity fired into his hand, emboldening him to say what he’d decided that morning he needed to tell her again, ignoring all the happenings three weeks ago. It didn’t change matters like this, not all that much anyway, even with her lies. “We had an agreement a couple years ago. If my feelings hadn’t changed, I’d tell you.”
She stared at him, a deer in the headlights. Under his hand, she trembled. “Why are you doing this now?”
Dammit, he should have waited, maybe settled the other issues first. “Darb, I care for you, more than I’ve cared for anyone else. Each day we work together, it gets stronger. I really think this electrical connection we have is because we’re supposed to be together.”
She shivered. “Mark, I—”
“Hush.” His voice got husky as he closed the distance between them and put his other hand on her opposite arm. The desire to kiss her had built to a point where he couldn’t resist. Something had short-circuited in his brain, compelling him to do it. Everything would change if he followed through.
He bent down.
She twisted out of his grasp then pushed him away. “No, we’re not doing this, not again, and most certainly not here. Mark, get control of yourself.”
He took a step toward her, not totally willing to back off yet.
She trotted away. “Don’t. If you want to discuss this off shift, fine. We’ll do it, but not here. I don’t want this screwing with my head.”
“Damn it, Darby. I need to do it now.”
“Stay back.” She wore the look of a cornered animal, wary and a little scared.
What could she be scared of? Other than him kissing her a few times a couple years ago, he’d never done anything that he could think of that would have made her believe he’d hurt her or force himself on her.
“You want me to stay back, I’ll stay back.” Probably better to keep distance anyway. Or he’d try to kiss her again.
He raked a hand through his hair then stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Darb, I know we’ve got a lot we need to talk about. And even though you’ve done nothing to deserve it these last couple years, I still love you.”
She flinched.
“I’m angry at you, yes. But I think I’m angrier because I expected more from you. You betrayed me, Darb.”
She opened her mouth.
“I don’t want excuses. I want to know why.”
She glanced away, pressing her lips together.
“You not answering me isn’t going to resolve the problem. If you won’t tell me now, I’ll keep asking. Every day until I get a response I can wrap my head around.”
She frowned, looking like she was on the verge of crying.
He quieted his voice. “How about an easier question? Do you love me?”
She whipped back to face him. Softly, she said, “I don’t know.”
He smiled without a lick of humor. “Liar.”
Her lower lip quivered. “I can’t just tell you what you want to hear, Mark. I’m not going to do that to either of us.”
“Then tell me the truth. For once in your life. Do that.”
“I am telling you the truth. I just. Don’t. Know.”
He made a couple steps toward her. While she was angry now, the scared look had disappeared. “Why not? What’s keeping you from deciding if you love me or hate me?”
The anger disintegrated. “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you, Mark.”
“If that’s the case, let’s give it a shot. Let’s explore whether there could be more. Give you a chance to figure it out. We can go out, dress up, have a meal that’s not on the go. Hell, discuss something other than murder.”
She inclined her head and sighed. “We do that already. Don’t you see? I should have this figured out by now. I don’t. We spend so much time together already, I should know this.”
“Why? What’s in the way? Are you seeing someone else? Someone you haven’t told me about? Is that what this is about?”
She pressed her lips together and held out her hand. “Take my hand for a second.”
He did, their fingers wrapping around each other.
The electricity started flowing immediately along every millimeter they touched.
“And the other one.”
He took her other hand. Electricity magnified two-fold.
“What do you feel?” Darby asked. “Any pain?”
“Like I’m three years old and stuck my mom’s butter knife in an electrical socket. But no pain. I’ve never had any pain from this, except when you’re hurt.”
“It’s different for me. Right now, my arms ache as though I just benched twice my weight fifty times.”
He started to pull back.
She tightened her grip. “No, it’s fine. But this is an everyday thing. Every time you brush my hand. Every time I bump your shoulder. Or when we’re messing around. Or when I’m back to back with you, clearing a room.”
He stared down at her. That explained some stuff, especially why the couple times they’d kissed, the feeling had lingered for close to an hour after they’d parted. “Why haven’t you said anything before?”
She shrugged and finally loosened her grip. Their fingers slid apart. “I don’t know. Never really had to, I guess.” She darted her eyes back to his. “Don’t you see? You’re asking me to knowingly step this up, knowing that instead of pleasure, I’d be in pain most of the time I touch you.”
“Most of?”
She nodded. “It’s not every time. More than half, though.”
Mark rubbed the back of his neck and turned slightly away from her. “I never...”
“I never told you, either, so don’t blame yourself. Look, most of it boils down to this: How am I supposed to have a relationship with you? How do we make this work?”
“You mean you want to?”
She shook her head. “You’re jumping the gun. I keep coming back to those questions. And I just don’t know how to answer them.”
“We can figure this out.”
“How? I’ve searched through every record I can think of. No other superhuman has ever had anything remotely similar happen with a normal.”
“I’m not normal, though.”
She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Yeah. I think that may be part of the problem.”