City Records, 5:30 p.m.
Here we go.” Lori rolled the library-style ladder to the row of upper shelves where she’d spotted the boxes marked with the case number corresponding to the Man in the Moon investigation.
Jess counted off the number of boxes involved. Holy cow! “We may need a truck or at least a couple more strong backs.” Since the case was officially hers, she wanted all the background material she could get her hands on.
Lori lowered the first box to her. “Only twenty more to go.”
Jess started a stack on the floor. “Do you remember watching these cases play out in the media?” Jess vividly recalled the disappearances that happened while she was in grade school and junior high. She didn’t remember the first one at all. Her parents had just died in a car crash and she and Lil were stuck living with their aunt Wanda. Between grieving for their parents, the men coming and going at all hours, and finding Wanda passed out on the floor every morning when they readied for school, it wasn’t exactly a charmed childhood.
Later Jess had wondered if the little girls who went away with the Man in the Moon were happy. Sometimes, during their stay at one foster home or another, she’d wished she and Lily could just disappear like that. She shuddered. Those little girls needed to be found. A big breath filled her lungs. We’re all waiting for you to find us. She could not let them down.
“I remember my mom being terrified whenever September rolled around,” Lori said, “especially after my dad died. She didn’t let me and my sister out of her sight. The disappearances stopped when I was twelve. Eventually, it seemed everyone forgot about the Man in the Moon.”
Except the parents of the missing children. Poor Dan was dealing with some of them right now. That was the hardest part of a case like this.
“Are you worried he’ll try to get close to you? Like Spears?” Lori asked, her voice heavy with concern.
Jess had thought about that the past couple of hours. “I suppose he already has, in a way. He’s been watching me, apparently.”
One of the things she tried to do, for her own sanity, was to avoid thinking about how the evil out there looked at her. “He can watch me all he wants and get as close as he dares, as long as he doesn’t start obsessing on little girls again.”
That was the critical aspect of this new case. The Man in the Moon hadn’t suddenly reemerged for no reason. He had an agenda. It was the prospect of where that agenda went from here that scared her to death.
A few more boxes made their way to the stack on the floor before Lori asked the question Jess had been expecting for the past two days.
“Do you think Spears is here?”
That was another million-dollar question. Despite having considered that scenario at length, thinking about it now had knots twisting in her belly. “I can’t say for sure.” She settled another box on the floor. “What I can say with absolute certainty is that he has someone watching me and the people closest to me.” She held Lori’s gaze as she reached for the next box. “Don’t let your guard down, Lori. Not for a minute.”
“Don’t worry,” she promised. “I have no intention of letting that bastard or one of his followers get close to me again. Once was more than enough.”
With the final box on the floor, Lori climbed down the ladder. Jess surveyed the stack. “We need Cook and Harper and a hand truck to get these over to SPU.”
Lori slid her phone from her pocket. “I’ll tell them to grab any warm bodies they can find and get over here.”
Jess searched for the boxes containing the most recent files. The perp had started with the last case. She lifted the lid from the Dorie Myers investigation.
“The guys are heading this way.”
“Great. Thanks.” Jess thumbed through the reports. The Bureau had provided a profile on the unknown subject. That should be interesting. The official BPD reports were signed off on by Deputy Chief Black. Some were completed by… Buddy Corlew, former BPD detective.
“Well, well,” Jess noted, mostly to herself. “My old friend Corlew was involved in this case.” The guy who tried to use her to get back at Dan back then and who had just recently stuck his nose into the Five case. The same old friend who, since his fall from grace with the Birmingham Police Department, appeared determined to make the BPD look bad. Or maybe he just wanted to annoy Dan now that Jess was back in town.
“That should make things interesting,” Lori noted.
Just last week Corlew had insisted BPD had fallen down on the job twelve years ago when investigating the death of a young man named Lenny Porter. The idea that the truth Jess uncovered had lent some credibility to Corlew’s charges had done nothing but inflate his already oversized ego.
If he got wind of the reopening of this case, and he would, he’d be right back on that anti-BPD bandwagon again.
“Let’s just hope no one has to die before he cooperates with us this time.”
9911 Conroy Road, 11:05 p.m.
Two boxes emptied of their contents sat on the floor in front of the sofa. A few feet away piles of timeworn folders surrounded Jess. Her legs ached from sitting cross-legged for better than two hours, and she was far from finished.
She hadn’t brought all the files from the Man in the Moon investigation home, just the meat from the most recent cases. Interviews with family and friends. Forensic reports. Photos of the children and their bedrooms, which was the last place each little girl was seen the night they disappeared. Exterior photos of the bedroom windows and other access points for each family home.
If one perpetrator was indeed responsible for the twenty abductions attributed to the Man in the Moon, he hadn’t screwed up even once, it seemed. Each child was taken in the middle of the night. For those who had them, family dogs never sounded an alarm. Neighbors hadn’t witnessed a single thing. No sign of forced entry.
“Just like Peter Pan.” The visitor came, and the children appeared to have left with him of their own free will. Just unlocked the window and flew off with the Man in the Moon. The way she and Lil as kids had dreamed of escaping.
Only those sweet little girls hadn’t escaped… they had been taken by an evil not a soul had seen coming.
She needed more coffee.
Groaning, Jess pushed her aching body off the floor. There was a time when her body wouldn’t have grumbled so at being abused this way. Evidently that time had passed. These days she felt every ache and pain of getting the job done. She cut herself some slack—she’d had almost no sleep in the past forty-eight hours. She and Lori had hefted old case file boxes until they were ready to drop. Mainly… she was just weary of running in circles to stop Spears, and now this case that had baffled BPD for three decades was active again.
No use whining. What she needed was coffee. At the counter she twirled the nifty display rack until she decided on a blend of coffee, then she popped it into her single-cup brewer. She stretched her back and shoulders and promptly changed her mind. What she really needed was a long, hot bath and then a serious massage. A hot, sweat-inspiring series of images flashed through her weary brain. Dan making love to her… showering together… more lovemaking.
Her achy body, along with her sluggish pulse, reacted instantly.
The way she felt tonight, they wouldn’t even have to take their clothes off. A good neck rub would work just fine for sending her over the moon—no pun intended.
That was the problem. Whenever she and Dan spent too much time alone—and she was weak, considering this insanity with Spears—they ended up breaking the rules of their working relationship. She was happy with where she’d landed careerwise. Dan had made her a good offer—one she hadn’t been able to refuse. But that made him her boss. For propriety’s sake rules were essential. Their personal relationship could not interfere with work. And until they worked out where exactly that relationship was going, flaunting it publicly was a huge no-no. The last thing either of them needed was for anyone in the department to latch on to the idea that she’d gotten the job because of their personal relationship or that she got any sort of preferential treatment ever.
Case in point: his incessant need to protect her. She was a big girl. A deputy chief, for heaven’s sake. She could protect herself just like all his other deputy chiefs. Still, she was no fool. Eric Spears represented a serious threat. Just last week, she’d gotten a state-of-the-art security system installed along with nifty little motion sensors on the stairs leading up to her door. Add to that the top-of-the-line deadbolt and the Glock she kept under her pillow, and no one was getting near, much less into, her apartment without her knowing it and their regretting it.
God, how could her life be such a hot mess? Her lover was her boss. Her biggest nightmare was some malignant narcissistic freak who got off on torturing and murdering women, and now she’d gotten another admirer pretty much just like Spears, only this one targeted helpless children.
And that didn’t even count the stone-cold reality that she was days late on her period—which was the reason she was having coffee instead of wine—or the scary-as-hell fact that her sister was suffering from some weird health issue the doctors couldn’t yet diagnose.
With all that going on, how in the world could she be standing here fantasizing about neck rubs from her boss/lover? Not to mention if she was pregnant—she cringed—that would mean Dan was a father.
“Oh God.” She rubbed at her skull with her fingers to relax the tense muscles there.
Everything was out of control.
The decadent smell of a gourmet dark blend called caramel drizzle helped put those unpleasant thoughts out of her head. The warm mug felt good in her hands. There wasn’t time right now to worry about personal problems. She had a very old, damned cold case to solve.
“If we’re lucky it’ll stay cold,” she grumbled.
Feet shuffling across the wood floor, she refused to consider the other option. If something had roused this killer’s evil urges, he could be planning to strike again.
“One month.” The thought made her stomach roil. Thirty or so days from now there would be a harvest moon. Finding him before that was imperative.
An alarm chime, set to go off when someone started up the stairs toward her apartment door, jarred Jess from the troubling thought and sent a spike of fear right through her chest. Heart pumping, she almost dropped her mug of coffee getting to the small monitor that showed the landing outside her door. No matter that a cop was watching her apartment above a kindly old man’s garage and that she had the fancy new high-tech security system, the reality was Spears had walked right up to the car of one of her former Bureau colleagues and slit his throat.
She had a new motto where safety was concerned: always be smart and never underestimate pure evil.
Harper.
A couple of deep steadying breaths were required before she got her fingers working well enough to release the locks. The instant her door was open he visually sized her up as if he’d feared the worst, just because she couldn’t get the door open the first time he knocked. God, they were all on edge.
Pull it together. Smile. That she was barefoot and sported lounge pants and a baggy tee was no reason to feel embarrassed with Harper. “Sergeant. What brings you out at this hour?”
“May I come inside, ma’am?”
Anticipation had her pulse picking up speed again. “Is everything all right?” She backed up to allow him inside.
He waited until the door was closed and locked behind him. “I did what you asked.”
The air in her lungs felt abruptly too thick to exhale. “You sent the message?”
He nodded. “The response came maybe twenty minutes ago.”
Jess hated to ask this next question but it was essential. “Did you tell anyone else?”
He shook his head, regret on his face and in his posture. Jess understood she was asking a lot. Keeping this from Lori was difficult for him. For Jess, too. Detective Lori Wells had become a very close friend.
“What’d you tell her?” Lori was no fool. She would understand something was up with him coming over here at this hour.
“She went to see that new chick flick everyone’s talking about with her mom and sister. They missed the seven o’clock showing, since we were at the office late, so she won’t be home for a while. Today’s her mom’s birthday. They decided on a girls’ night out.”
Jess nodded. “I see.” She imagined Harper did as well. Her mom’s birthday or no, Lori obviously needed girl time with the two women closest to her, probably to discuss her relationship with the man closest to her.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the two were moving a little fast, in Jess’s opinion. Like she had any room to talk. Just last week she and Dan had confessed their love for each other. They’d both known it was there, but somehow it was different saying it out loud, face-to-face.
As life-altering as that moment had been, there was no place for the distraction just now. Spears had responded to the message she’d had Harper send.
Three more seconds elapsed before Jess had the nerve to hold out her hand for the phone. The hesitation made her all the more furious at herself, but she was flat out worried. No point kidding herself. She was damned worried about what Spears would do next… and about this other monster who’d latched onto her recent infamy.
More than anything else she was terrified for three young women who might very well have no idea that one of them was about to become the main character in a terrifying and lethal game.
Holding her breath, Jess tapped the necessary functions and read the two text messages.
Why waste your time with more games, Eric? Let’s do this.
Since Jess had been stuck with Dan and Black until she’d come home two hours ago, she’d asked Harper to send the text to the only contact number she had for Spears. Her detective hadn’t liked it one bit, but he’d known she would find a way to do it herself if he refused her request.
Truth was, Harper had his own reasons for wanting the Player. Spears’s protégé, Matthew Reed, had almost killed Lori. Harper had a big stake in this game, too.
Braced for another disturbing layer to this nightmare, she read the response from Spears:
Your impatience intrigues me, but this game is for you, Jess. Hold on, it’s going to be a thrilling ride!
“Son of a bitch.” Jess struggled not to lose it in front of Harper. If she’d ever wanted to kill another human being in cold blood she had no recall of the time. She wanted to kill Spears. She wanted to watch him die, a slow merciless death by her hand.
“What now?” Harper’s voice was strained with a fury he visibly struggled to conquer.
Anything she did carried some amount of risk. But she had to do something. “I can taunt him with this new interest from the Man in the Moon in hopes he’ll get jealous and make a move to take me out of this other perp’s reach.”
That fury flattening his lips now, Harper shook his head. “This is wrong, ma’am. You’re taking too big a risk.”
“What should I do then, Sergeant? Tell me.” She almost sloshed coffee before she remembered the mug in her hand. The anxiety crushing her rib cage prohibited an adequate breath. “How do I get his attention? Divert his path? Because if I don’t figure out a way to intercept his plan one of those women”—she pointed to the duplicate case board she’d created on her apartment wall—“is going to pay for my lack of ingenuity.”
Harper took the coffee from her and carried it to the sink. Jess tore off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She fought for the calm that had totally evaded her since the arrival of that damned package containing the photos.
As if he understood she needed a moment to pull it together, Harper steered her to the sofa and ushered her down. He sat beside her and waited a minute or two before he spoke. “So what do we do?”
Jess stared at the prepaid phone in her hand and struggled to find the right words. Slowly she tapped the impotent letters into the text box. “How about this?”
I’m a little busy with a new case. You aren’t the only admirer of my work.
Harper read the warning. “What if instead of coming after you, he just speeds up the game he’s already set in motion?”
Pointing out the rest wasn’t necessary. Jess glanced back at the photos on her wall. Three beautiful young women who had done nothing to deserve this. God knew this sort of push-the-killer strategy she was contemplating had backfired on her before.
“Thank you, Sergeant.” She deleted the words. “You’re right. You can’t second-guess a psychopath. You’ll lose every time.” She typed in a new message and then hit Send. “Okay.” She handed the phone back to Harper. “You can dispose of that. I won’t need it anymore.”
Harper read the message she’d sent. Simple and to the point:
I can’t wait to watch you die, Eric. See you soon.
“Ma’am, I really am concerned about how this is going to end. What if we can’t protect you? Or anyone else in his path?”
Jess mustered up a smile for him. “I’m going to end this, Sergeant. The only variable is whether or not I can get the job done before he kills again.” If she accomplished nothing else before she took her last breath, she would get this done. She understood part of Harper’s fear was for Lori. Being Jess’s friend could be hazardous.
According to Agent Gant, her former boss at the Bureau and the man in charge of the Spears investigation, there was evidence the Player had slipped back into the country. He could be anywhere… right outside watching the cop who was watching her, for that matter.
Dear God, what if she was pregnant? That was another life she needed to protect.
Don’t borrow trouble, Jess.
Harper gestured to the stacks of files on the floor. “How you coming with this one?”
Jess took her place on the floor once more and picked up the file she’d reviewed last. “The idea that this perp was able to get his hands on each child without obvious breaking and entering, without confrontation, and without anyone seeing him makes me believe he’s a familiar.”
Harper joined her on the floor. Jess resisted the urge to grin at how totally uncomfortable he looked sitting there in that suit with one leg curled under him and the other bent for an arm prop. “None of the families are connected—at least not in any way that was discovered in previous investigations. Different neighborhoods, schools, churches. Nothing in common at all was found.”
“The investigative work was relatively thorough.” She couldn’t deny Black and his predecessor had done a pretty damned good job. “But there will be something, Sergeant. We just haven’t found it yet.”
“Like the girls, Andrea and the others, who were abducted by the Murphys?”
That was the case that had brought Jess back to Alabama—back to Dan. “Yes, exactly like that. This unknown perp saw these children somewhere. Watched them. Maybe even interacted with them. Typically, a hunter has a preferred territory—a comfort zone. The Man in the Moon will have had a place he felt confident doing his hunting. That’s the connection. All we have to do is find it.”
“Before September nineteenth,” he suggested.
“Preferably.” If his past record was any indication, once he’d taken the child there was little hope of stopping him or saving the child. Then again, they had only one set of remains. There was no way to be certain what had become of the other children. So far the remains, presumed to be Dorie Myers, had told them nothing as to manner of death. However the little girl died, she hadn’t suffered any broken bones. Still, there was a whole array of other ways to die that included tremendous suffering.
Not to mention the fear the child must have felt.
Jess shuddered inside.
She felt bad for Dan that he’d had to face those parents only to tell them basically nothing. And then to do the same in the press conference. But it was the truth. They had nothing, and until those remains were officially identified there was nothing to tell other than that some freak had decided to play with the department’s newest deputy chief.
Sucked to be popular.
“Why reach out to you, Chief?” Harper thumbed through a file. “After all these years of silence, why now? Why you?”
She considered his questions. They’d talked about this in the briefing, but Harper wanted her gut instinct. Problem was, she didn’t have much of one yet.
Jess hunched her shoulders, let them drop. “I wish I could answer those questions, but I don’t have enough information to create an accurate assessment. Burnett could be right in that the perp is ill and wants to be caught. Sometimes they want someone to stop them but this guy appears to have stopped himself. The one thing I can say with real accuracy at this point is that there’s been some sort of change, more than once, in his life. First, there was a major change that prompted him to stop killing, assuming he has. Something else has occurred more recently to prompt his coming out like this.”
“Maybe he was in prison? Or maybe he lived somewhere else for a while.”
“Prison is a possibility,” Jess agreed. “But if he lived somewhere else and continued his same pattern of abductions, we’d likely know about it. There’d be something in one database or another.”
“Yeah, I did a search on similar cases,” Harper said, sounding as dejected as Jess felt. “I didn’t find anything relevant.”
“Changing an MO isn’t entirely unheard of.” But Jess knew the stats. “It’s highly unlikely unless there’s a compelling reason. An injury or abrupt change in circumstances can put a killer off his game. Sometimes the change is calculated, more often it’s not.”
“So he didn’t go anywhere, he just went dormant for some reason,” Harper proposed.
“Yes, I believe he’s here.” Jess thought of all the evils she had studied in the past. It never got easier, and she never ceased to be amazed by their relentlessness and their resourcefulness. “He’s always been here. Something just awakened that old urge, that’s all. He may have reached out because he doesn’t want to kill again. But there would have to be a very compelling reason he finds himself in this quandary.”
“A .38 slug to the brain would take care of the problem.”
Jess laughed, though the sound was a little weak and a lot dry. “It takes a certain level of courage to put a muzzle to your head and to pull the trigger to save someone else, Sergeant. The one thing I can guarantee you this very sick individual does not have is that kind of courage. Some of the most evil are the most self-absorbed and the biggest cowards when it comes to personal sacrifice. Their own self-value is far too overinflated to consider harming themselves.”
“Even if he doesn’t want to keep killing, he wouldn’t end it that way?”
“Probably not.”
Harper pushed to his feet. “I’ll never get that.”
Jess wished she could just spring up like that. She was feeling every day of her forty-two years tonight. Thankfully she didn’t have to shame herself since Harper offered his hand. “Don’t bother trying to get it, Sergeant. You’re one of the good guys. Self-sacrifice is in your DNA.”
“I should get back before Lori comes home and wonders where I am.”
Jess stopped him at the door. “Thanks, Chet.” She rarely used his first name, just didn’t feel right. At the moment, it felt exactly right. “It means a lot to me that you were willing to indulge my desperation.”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
The outside alarm sounded again. “Maybe Lori’s already looking for you.”
Harper made a face. “Hope not. She won’t like that we’re keeping secrets from her.”
Something else for Jess to feel guilty about. The less Lori knew the better. Jess didn’t want her dragged back into this any deeper than she already was by just being a part of Jess’s life.
The monitor showed Dan approaching. Irritation niggled Jess. “My surveillance detail must have told him you were here. Dropping off a file I forgot,” Jess added with a hitch of her head toward the piles in the floor.
One quick rap on the door later, she went through the paces, unlocking first one then the next lock. As she opened the door, it occurred to her that there could be a new development. Spears may have struck… or Lily could be in the hospital again. Renewed fear had Jess’s heart ramming against her sternum.
She was definitely putting the wear and tear on the old ticker. Just one more thing to worry about. Her sister’s sudden health issues had been a major wake-up call about mortality for both of them.
“Has there been a breakthrough in your investigation?” Dan asked, looking first at Jess then Harper.
Jess made a frustrated sound and rolled her eyes. “Harper dropped by the file I left in his car, since he has to drive me everywhere I go.” She heaved a breath. “Thank you again, Sergeant.”
“Any time, ma’am. I’ll see you in the morning.” He gave another nod to Dan. “Chief.”
Still visibly unconvinced, Dan stepped aside. “G’night, Sergeant.”
Jess headed back to her work. Dan’s relentless hovering was making her crazy. She’d thought she could deal with it, because she knew his compulsion came from the heart, but the last couple of days had been too much. But what really bugged her was the idea that he was immediately notified when a member of her own team stopped by.
“Did you have dinner?”
“Didn’t your spy tell you I ordered pizza?” Not that she’d been able to get more than a few bites down. The rest had gone into the fridge. She had no appetite.
“What’re you talking about, Jess?”
“Obviously the cop watching me called to tell you I had company.” She snatched open a folder and stared at the photo of the innocent young girl inside. God, how could she be worrying about Dan and his overprotectiveness when there were nineteen more little girls out there whose families wanted desperately to bring them home again?
Dan peeled off his suit jacket and joined her on the floor. She realized then that he’d apparently just left the office. “You haven’t been home yet?”
“No. I’ve been at the morgue.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” If there was news he should have called. Damn it. Those frustrating feelings of desperation and helplessness warred with her determination to stay focused and strong. How was she supposed to do this if he kept treating her like she was a porcelain doll instead of a cop?
“That’s what I’m here to do, Jess. Somehow I thought it was important to tell the parents first.”
“Oh my God.” The few bites of pizza did a somersault in her belly, and she felt like a total ass for feeling sorry for herself. “Then it is Dorie Myers?”
He nodded. “It was pretty simple. We already have dental records on file for all the missing children in that case. Over the years when we had unidentified remains we checked for these kids.” He stared at the piles of folders. “Sylvia stayed late to do the confirmation.”
Sylvia Baron was a new and unexpected friend… sort of. She was also the associate coroner. And Dan’s ex-sister-in-law. More small-town coincidences.
“I’m sorry. I know that was difficult.” No one wanted to have to tell a parent their child was dead.
He shrugged those broad shoulders of his. “It’s been thirteen years. This outcome was what they were expecting. They just want to bring her home.”
Somehow Jess had to make sure this Man in the Moon never got the chance to take another child ever again. “Did you figure out how word got out to the parents who showed up at your office?” The last they spoke about it he was still furious with Gina Coleman.
“The receptionist at Channel Six. She went to school with the mother of one of the missing kids. She made the call.” He heaved a weary breath. “I had to apologize to Gina.”
A hint of jealousy pricked Jess. Gina and Dan’s sort of relationship had never been a big deal, he insisted, just recreational sex between two consenting adults. Still… she was another of his exes. The man seemed to have one on every corner. God, Jess, get over it.
Men who looked like Dan Burnett and had the kind of financial and public power he wielded were always highly sought after. Not to mention he was kind and a gentleman and sweet… and charming as hell.
Unlike frumpy ex–special agents who were persnickety and grouchy and thought they knew everything.
“She wants to be more closely involved in this case,” Dan said. “Maybe do a special on the Man in the Moon mystery.”
Jess’s hackles rose hard and fast. “Who?” He’d better not say what she thought he was going to say.
“Gina.” He shrugged, trying to play it off. “She could be a useful resource, Jess.”
Jess opened her mouth to lower the boom but quickly snapped it shut. Allowing any trickle of jealousy to get between her and a possible resource was just dumb. She was tired. She needed to sleep. Otherwise she would never be slipping down such a petty path. And she wouldn’t be half as mad about him showing up when Harper was here if she hadn’t felt guilty. He would blow a fuse if he found out she’d sent those texts to Spears.
“Gina seems to be okay after what happened with her sister,” Jess ventured, feeling contrite. Last week’s big case revolving around a tight-knit little group of Birmingham elitists who called themselves the Five had left the city’s upper crust a little ragged around the edges. The best part was that an old case involving bullying and murder had been solved.
What was happening to this world? Where were all the normal people?
Never mind. Considering she was a little south of normal herself, she wasn’t about to start throwing any stones.
“She’s dealing with it.”
“Gina might need a strong shoulder to lean on.” God! There it was! The green monster making a midnight appearance. She resisted the urge to chew off her tongue.
“Well, she didn’t ask for mine—if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
Jess busied herself with the file on Sierra Campbell, the little girl abducted two years before Dorie Myers, to prevent saying something totally ridiculous about how his shoulders were only for her. “I wasn’t suggesting anything, just feeling bad for a friend.” She glanced up at him and smiled innocently.
“So the two of you are friends now.”
That his tone suggested he doubted it prompted her to tug at his tie. “That’s right. You have a problem with me befriending one of your old girlfriends?”
He moved his head side to side, a grin sliding across those tempting lips.
Time to pull the plug on this simmering moment before it reached a boil and she dragged him straight to her bed. “You look tired, Dan. You should go home and get some sleep.”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black.” He reached out, nudged her chin up with his forefinger. “You should get some sleep yourself.”
For a whole five seconds he stared at her lips and she ached for him to kiss her. But they had rules… this was a work night and there was a cop outside keeping watch.
“You’re right.” She leaned away from him, closed the file she’d been reviewing and somehow got to her feet without assistance and fairly gracefully. “I’ll see you out.” She went to the door and waited for him to follow, every part of her screaming for him to stay.
Just watching him move toward her stole her breath. It didn’t matter how tired he looked or how many exes he had, she just wanted to lean into him and have him hold her. To forget about serial monsters and innocent little children who’d had their lives stolen…
But that would have to wait until another day.
“I wish you’d change your mind and come home with me.”
The worry in her eyes almost finished undoing her resolve. “The whole department, the Bureau, the media—they’re all watching us right now, Dan. We have to be professional about this. My apartment is secure. There’s a cop outside and I’ve got my Glock. I’ll be okay.” Deep down, where she wouldn’t let him see just now, she wasn’t nearly so certain, but this was the right thing to do. For him. For her.
“If you change your mind I can be here in fifteen minutes.”
“I’m counting on it.”
“Night, Jess.”
She managed a smile. “Night.”
He stood there staring at her for another long moment. Part of her hoped he would just do it—sweep her into his arms and stalk back to that big old bed waiting across the room. To hell with rules and the cop keeping watch outside.
Then he brushed a swift kiss across her cheek, opened the door, and walked out.
She closed and secured the door before collapsing against it.
She was so tired but that brief kiss would help her sleep better tonight.
Her cell vibrated on the wood floor.
She jumped. Had Harper gotten home to find Lori waiting for an explanation?
Jess hurried to snatch up her phone.
Not Harper.
The room shifted around her.
Your sergeant is quite hot, Jess. I bet he’d be a handful. Maybe I’ll find out.
Terror exploded in her veins but the white-hot fury that immediately descended won out. Her hands shook with the urge to send Spears a message for him to go to hell or something equally clever… but that was what he wanted. He wanted her to react.
She threw her phone on the sofa. “I’m not playing anymore, Spears.”
All she needed was one more shot at getting close to him, and then he wouldn’t be playing anymore, either.