Disarming Detective (3 page)

From a great distance, she heard Logan saying, “Whoa. Are you okay?” and before she knew it, he was squeezed in next to her in the booth, his hand on her back like fire against the frost that had come over her. “Ella?”

“What is this?”

Logan studied her face with concern before looking down. “The burn on her neck?”

“Yeah.” She thought of marshes and fishermen. And images of hooks, burned into human flesh. “Could it be a brand?”

His forehead creased and he was staring into her eyes again, searching.

This close, he’d be able to see too much. Fear, maybe. Pain, probably. Recognition, definitely.

She’d seen a mark like this before, way too up close and personal. Her friend had covered it with a tattoo, but Ella would never forget how it had looked the day Maggie stumbled home to their dorm room. An angry red permanent reminder of a man the media had dubbed the Fishhook Rapist. He’d started with Maggie nearly a decade ago, then claimed a new victim every year since in a different part of the country. His last victim had been in Florida.

Ella had joined the FBI to catch him. She’d never even come close before. But maybe—just maybe—that was about to change.

“I don’t know,” Logan answered. “It’s possible. Why?”

Ella released her breath, tried to regain control as she slapped the file shut. “I’m coming to Florida.”

Chapter Two

There was definitely something about this case Ella Cortez wasn’t telling him.

The bustle of Dulles Airport seemed to fade into the background as Logan watched her walk toward him, carrying two cups of coffee. A Bureau blue duffel bag was slung easily over one shoulder and it bounced against her hip with every purposeful stride, swinging in a hypnotic arc. More than one man’s head swiveled as she passed.

Logan had come directly to the airport to change his flight and book hers, while she’d gone home to pack. And apparently to change. Instead of the all-business suit she’d had on earlier, now she wore jeans and a T-shirt that highlighted appealing curves. Dark hair that had been wound into a bun earlier was now in a loose, low ponytail that trailed to midback and made his fingers itch to slide through it.

He sat up straighter as she joined him, taking the scalding cup of coffee she offered. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” She looked distracted as she dumped her bag on the floor, pulled out her cell phone and hit Redial. It must have gone to voice mail, because she swore and stuck the phone back in her pocket.

“Boyfriend?” When she squinted at him, he added, “That you’re calling?”

“No. The friends I was supposed to go on vacation with. I can’t get them.”

Which didn’t exactly answer the subtext of his question. Not that it mattered.

He’d gotten a lot more than he’d hoped for out of his trip, which he’d booked yesterday on a whim and a hope. He’d expected to badger someone from the FBI’s profiler unit into giving him something to take home. It was how he got to the bottom of most of his cases—his ability to push until he got what he wanted. And this time wasn’t any different. He wanted to close this case. And it didn’t matter whose toes he had to step on back home.

He snuck a peek at Ella, who was frowning beside him as she pulled her phone out again. However much he’d like to believe it, she wasn’t here because of his persuasive charm. She was in this for her own reasons. And before they landed, he planned to find out what they were.

“Ella!”

The yell jolted Ella to her feet. She hadn’t made it two steps before a man and woman reached her. “I tried to call you,” the man said.

He was tall, with a sharp, intent look that pegged him as law enforcement or military. He seemed to buzz with energy, and everything about him screamed his readiness for a vacation. Logan could read his type instantly—lady killer. Ella had called him a friend, but was that all?

The woman with him was dark-haired and muscular, with pretty blue eyes. She looked exhausted, frazzled and slightly jumpy.

“You’re at the wrong gate.” The man’s eyes flicked speculatively to him, then back to Ella. “We’re at the end of the terminal.”

Ella bit her lip. “I can’t make it.”

“What?” The man’s eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean?”

Logan got to his feet, which made her friends glance his way.

Ella’s words suddenly doubled in speed. “This is Logan Greer. I have to help him with a case.” She slowed down to add, “Logan, these are my friends, Maggie and Scott Delacorte.”

Logan smiled. Well, that answered his question about Ella’s relationship with Scott, if he was married to her friend Maggie. “Nice to meet you.”

Maggie gave him a nod while Scott studied him with narrowed eyes before saying, “You, too.”

“The three of us grew up together,” Ella continued, still talking fast, as if trying to keep her friends from returning to the previous subject. “Maggie and Scott lived down the street from me. I probably spent as much time at their house as my own.”

It took Logan a few seconds too long to deconstruct her words and realize Maggie and Scott weren’t married, but brother and sister. By the time he’d figured out a response, Scott had turned to Ella again.

“You have a case?” Scott pushed. “You’re supposed to have two weeks of vacation. We planned this months ago.”

Ella’s whole face twitched as she told them, “I don’t have a choice. My boss made me cancel. If I can wrap it up fast, I’ll fly out and join you.”

Logan tried not to let his surprise at her lie show on his face, but from the way Scott squinted at first Ella, then him, he was pretty sure he’d failed.

Maggie, though, must not have noticed. Bloodshot eyes full of disappointment locked on Ella’s. “There has to be someone else who can take the case.”

Ella couldn’t seem to hold Maggie’s gaze as she said, “I’m sorry.”

Just as boarding for their flight was announced, Scott’s hand closed around Ella’s arm, pulling her off to the side. It was probably to keep him from overhearing, but Scott’s voice was too loud when he asked, “Can’t you get your boss to reassign it? Did you tell him...”

Scott glanced back and Logan figured it was at him until Maggie sighed. “Let it go, Scott. She’ll fly out if she can.”

The scowl lurking on Scott’s face shifted to resignation as he gave Ella a quick hug. “Okay. I guess you can’t refuse orders. Good luck with the case. Wrap it up fast and join us, all right?”

Maggie hugged Ella with a barely audible, “Don’t worry about it,” and then she was shaking Logan’s hand with surprising strength. “Which field office are you out of, Logan?”

“I’m—”

Ella jumped in. “Logan’s not Bureau. And he’s got a case down South I’m going to help him with. Hopefully, it’ll be quick and then I’ll grab a flight to California.”

Her answer brought more questioning looks from Scott, but then final boarding for their flight was called and Ella grabbed her bag, looking relieved.

Logan waited until they were belted into their seats in the last row of the small plane and the doors were closed. “Are you planning to let me in on the big secret?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Okay. What I mean is, why did you tell your friends you were assigned the case and couldn’t get out of it?”

She turned sideways to face him, her knee jabbing his thigh, and raised an eyebrow. “You want me to get out of it?”

Logan grinned as the engines started up. “It’s a little late to change your mind now.”

Ella leaned back in her seat. “This vacation was kind of a big deal. I didn’t want to tell them I’d taken the case unofficially.”

She was extremely close to Maggie and Scott, that was easy to see. And from the way she’d twitched and changed the subject as fast as she could in the airport, it was clear she rarely lied to them. Which meant that whatever she’d seen in the case file, whatever had persuaded her to come to Florida, was big. “So, why did you take the case?”

“Why? Because you were right about having a serial killer. Because you need a profile. And because it didn’t seem like you were about to get one from anyone else.”

“That’s why you took the case?”

She shot him a look full of exasperation, color rising high in her cheeks. “Yes.”

“You want to try that again?”

She looked sideways at him. “Okay, fine. There’s a chance it could be connected to something I’ve seen before.”

She held up a hand to forestall any argument, but he’d been focused more on the movement of her lips than her words, so by the time his brain caught up, she’d moved on.

“If it looks like it really is connected, I’ll tell you about it. Until then, we need to focus on this victim.”

“If you’re here because it might be connected, shouldn’t we look at the old case, too, so we don’t miss anything?”

“No.”

Ella turned to face him, bringing her knee back into contact with his thigh and sending his mind way off track. Jeez, he either really needed a date other than the ones his well-meaning family set up for him, or Ella Cortez was going to be a distraction. One he’d better learn to ignore. And fast.

“If it’s not the same perp, we could just go in the wrong direction,” Ella said.

“So, what’s it going to take for you to decide if these cases are connected and let me in on the secret?”

Her lips tightened but her tone was calm when she replied, “Trust me. I’m good at what I do. I’ll tell you if you need to know.”

Any answer that included the words
need to know
sounded suspicious to him, but she was the expert. And since her consultation was unofficial and she could leave whenever she wanted, he decided he’d take what he could get. At least for now.

The direction he was taking in the investigation wasn’t exactly sanctioned, so he couldn’t fault her for having her own motivation. Especially since she’d soon see just how far off the approved path he’d veered.

He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes as the plane bounced up and down and then plummeted briefly as if it was aspiring to be a roller coaster. “I guess we all have our secrets.”

* * *

A
S
SOON
AS
Logan walked through the door of the Blue Dolphin, he could tell he’d made a mistake. But Ella had already gone in, so he let the door close behind him and followed through the crush of tourists and locals, through the smell of sunscreen and salt water.

Having lived in Oakville all his life, Logan knew a lot of the locals. If he hadn’t, he would have been able to separate them from the tourists by dress alone. The locals all wore layers in deference to the heat outside and the air-conditioning blasting inside. Most of them, acclimatized to much warmer weather come summer, were still in pants. The tourists sported flip-flops, cutoffs and tiny bathing suit tops, their wet hair still dripping from the nearby ocean.

Crammed around a table near the front of the deli were four uniforms who’d set their sandwiches down as soon as they saw him. He watched the smiles quiver at the edges of their lips, the laughter dance in their eyes, and knew what was coming.

Hank O’Connor was senior in the group, nearly as big across as he was tall. He gave his companions a nod, an unspoken “watch this,” then called out, “Hey Greer, catch your serial killer yet?”

The rest of the table snickered, and Ella stopped staring at the menu above the counter long enough to glance questioningly from the uniforms to Logan.

“I’m working on it, O’Connor,” Logan threw back. “How about you? Catch any speeders today?”

The smile dropped off Hank’s face. They’d taken the detective exam at the same time. They’d both passed, but only one job had opened up and since Logan had been there longer, with more experience, procedure dictated that he got it. Hank was about as happy with Logan’s position as the chief was.

Hank jerked a little straighter in his seat and Logan knew he should just have let it go. Hank had a bad temper, a long memory and a penchant for petty revenge.

“Not everybody’s daddy can buy them a job,” Hank spat.

As one, the cops with Hank went for their sandwiches again, their eyes cast downward.

Familiar frustration filled Logan, threatening to overflow, but he clenched his teeth and turned back to the counter. He’d fought this battle too many times to bother.

Yes, his family had a long history in Oakville. Yes, his father, the mayor, had been in office for years. Admittedly, it had given him some advantages in his life. But when it came to his career, it always seemed to be a disadvantage. Because no matter how hard he worked, there was always someone anxious to claim he was just trading on the Greer name.

“Your family were the last ones to see the Crowley girl, right?” Hank pressed. “You spinning your serial killer story so nobody brings
that
up in the next election?”

Logan’s fingers curled into his palms as he spun back toward Hank, acid on his tongue.

With a speed he wouldn’t have expected from a desk jockey profiler, Ella ducked in front of him and held her hand out toward the table of cops with an overly cheery smile. “Officer O’Connor, is it? I’m Special Agent Ella Cortez, FBI. I’m here because Detective Greer’s serial killer theory looks promising.”

Hank engulfed Ella’s hand in his own bear paw and shook it a few times, a startled expression on his face. His mouth opened and closed, but no words emerged. His companions looked at each other with equal surprise.

Before they could recover, Ella grabbed Logan’s arm and steered him back toward the counter, ordering herself a sandwich. Logan fought his laughter until they were both out the door and back in his Chevy Caprice with their food.

But any urge to laugh faded as he drove toward the marsh. Knowing Hank, both the fact that Logan was still pursuing the serial killer angle and the fact that he now had a cute FBI profiler in tow would make it back to his chief before the end of the day. Which would lead to a conversation that he had hoped to avoid a little longer.

Swallowing a sigh, Logan eased his unmarked police vehicle off the side of the road as close to the marsh as they were going to get. “We’re hoofing it from here,” he told Ella.