JUDE: Book 2 The Justice Brothers Series (2 page)

Chapter 1

Skylar Hughes noted the blood on the woman’s inner thighs and added it to her analysis of the crime scene. She’d squashed her revulsion at the hideous montage hours ago, finding refuge in her quest for data. Sky had been to countless crime scenes, far too many in fact, for someone as young as she was. Interestingly, the scenes never ran together in her encyclopedic brain. Each one remained pristine, unique. Of course, there were the expected similarities. There was always at least one body—or in unusual cases, parts of a body. There were the weapons, the smells, and the customary clues. And of course, there was blood and other bodily fluids that always found a way to escape the human body that had once been their holding tank.

The Duluth PD CSI team that she was a part of was first-rate. Every conceivable specialty was represented on the prestigious squad. Tonight, as a group, they had waited quietly in the hallway while the lead detective huddled with his brothers at the murder site. At Detective Justice’s signal to advance, the highly-trained team moved en masse into the cavernous room. Defined by their roles in the prescribed division of labor, like a colony of scavenger ants they swarmed onto the scene and began to employ a series of complex foraging techniques. The photographers snapped pictures from every possible angle. The evidence squad tagged the location of each suspicious item before placing it in a numbered baggie after carefully identifying the contents on the outside of the plastic bag. Each member of the team focused on the particular piece of the puzzle they were trying to solve, seeking to unearth the clues the perpetrators had taken pains to hide.

To protect the scene, they all wore paper booties and latex gloves. Unlike the other members of the team, Skylar didn’t carry specialized equipment. No cameras, tagging strips, or other tools were required for her particular expertise. Not even a supply of plastic baggies. The tool kit she employed was housed in her brain. Her job was to comb through every inch of the crime scene, tallying each piece of data no matter how seemingly insignificant, and relegating it to a particular folder in her mind. Sky didn’t try to make sense of the data on-site. That task would come later when all the pieces had been assigned a level of importance. At that point, she would begin the arduous but fulfilling task of making sense of the senselessness.

As she walked slowly from one aspect of the horrific tableau to another, Sky couldn’t ignore the human drama playing out around her. She knew most of the Justice family. She’d met Jared Justice, the youngest of the infamous brothers, when she worked as an intelligence analyst in the Washington, DC DEA office.

Jared was a retired special forces major, then a hotshot DEA agent and recognized superstar. After climbing quickly to the upper echelons of the competitive agency, Jared unexpectedly declared that heading a national agency wasn’t in his DNA. To the chagrin of his superiors and the dismay of every woman in the DEA between the ages of twenty and sixty, the dark-haired charmer turned up his nose at certain advancement and acknowledged that the lure of his hometown was too strong to resist. Returning to the Northern Minnesota Great Lakes port city of Duluth, he put his investigative skills to work in the local PD, commanded by his older brother, Jake Justice.

Jared had been Sky’s mentor at the DEA. He’d fought the rule-bound DEA and inserted the brainy recruit fresh out of CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice into a protected position on his team. Without Jared’s coattails, his unsophisticated protégée would have been adrift on an infinite sea of governmental bureaucracy, a morass of culture and containment. When Jared suggested that she follow him to his hometown, Sky didn’t hesitate. Leaving her big-city life and academic contacts behind, she escaped to the land of the Ten Thousand Lakes—and more snow than she knew human beings could survive. Now, six months after becoming the first intelligence analyst the DPD had hired, she was becoming known as something of a phenomenon. Which wasn’t easy in the land of the Justice brothers.

From her first week on the job, Jared had made a point of introducing Sky to all the important ‘must know’ people in the city, as well as the Police Department. Commander Jake Justice, her new boss, was as wowed by her talents as his brother was and gladly added her to the ranks. It wasn’t long before Sky had befriended Hailey Michels, the gorgeous rookie police officer who happened to be Jared’s lover. With Jared and Hailey as her sponsoring committee, Sky became an accepted member of the usually reticent DPD and met pretty much everyone who was anyone in the entrenched city hierarchy. That included Jared’s older brother Jorden, the Assistant US Attorney, and his formidable grandfather, known simply as the Judge.

The one Justice brother she hadn’t met before tonight was Jude. The tall, overwhelming detective had just arrived from his stint as the lead homicide detective in the highflying LAPD. Prior to that, like his brother Jared, he’d served six years as a Delta team member. Arriving in Duluth, his commander brother had appointed him to head up the homicide division. All the Justice brothers were sinfully good-looking, and Jude was no exception. Watching the shaggy, dark-haired man with the piercing emerald eyes direct the investigation, Sky was struck by how much he resembled his younger brother Jared. Except that Jude was even more dangerous looking than Jared, which was akin to comparing Charlie Hunnam to Travis Fimmel. Like the rest of the family, Jude was clearly accustomed to a leadership role. He commanded the CSI team with few words. His powerful aura ensured that everyone on site, including his commander brother, deferred to him.

Skylar had met Carol and Henry, or Hank, Parker at one of the Justice Mansion summer bashes. Glancing at their tortured bodies swaying grotesquely above her, Skylar tried to remember them as they had been at the fancy party. Mr. Parker was a man who had oozed power. Not the sexy kind of power that was second nature to the Justice brothers, but rather, the basis of Henry Parker’s authority was financial. He reeked of money. In her litany of introductions, Hailey had told Sky that the Parker family was richer and as powerful as the Justice family. Both Henry and Carol certainly looked and acted the part. Mrs. Parker could have been chosen by central casting for the role of a wealthy, sophisticated woman. While both members of the accomplished pair had been pleasant and patient while briefly chatting with her, it was clear that Skylar didn’t meet their exacting standards or share their elite stature.

Not wanting to dwell on the incongruence of her memory of the two people before they had been tortured to death, Skylar thought instead about their children. Hearing Detective Justice tell his brother and grandfather that the Parker siblings were on their way, Skylar conjured up the memory of the sophisticated people she’d met at the party. The three sisters, all in their early to mid-thirties, were as cultured and aloof as their mother. It didn’t take their designer clothes or sculptured spa bodies to make Skylar feel inferior, which she always did in the presence of stylish, well-spoken women. Their brother, Blake, clearly the adored “baby” and only son of the family, bore a striking resemblance to his handsome father. Unlike the sisters, Blake had set his sights on her, at least pretending to be interested in her unusual background.

Along with the rest of the CSI team, Skylar stood back when the shattered Parker offspring entered and saw the hideous corpses of their parents. Somehow, the Justice men managed to keep the screaming sisters and their brother from collapsing. After many too-long moments of shrieking questions, sobbing entreaties begging to hear that the horrendous scene wasn’t real, and asking again and again, “Why? Why? Who? Who could have done this?” the Justice men led the devastated group from the library.

Jared had his arm wrapped tightly around a sobbing Blake while his grandfather and Jorden were each holding, half-carrying the wailing sisters. Seeing the troubled expressions on Jake and Jude’s faces as they watched the distraught party stumble from the room, Skylar was surprised to feel moisture on her cheeks. Sky rarely acknowledged her emotions, but even she couldn’t tamp down the surprising grief she felt at the hideous family tragedy playing out in front of her. But then it would take a heartless automaton not to be affected by the catastrophic event she was peripheral to.

After the family left, the CSI team went to work. Murmured questions and Detective Justice’s clipped orders were virtually the only sounds as the industrious team worked steadily for the next several hours. At one point Commander Justice announced that there was coffee in the hallway. Skylar heard him but was too intent on her observations to consider leaving. A moment later, Jared tapped her on the shoulder and handed her a bottle of water. When she started to refuse, he shook his head, removed the cap and said curtly, “Drink it, short stuff. We’re hours away from being done.”

Skylar stepped back against the wall and sipped at the water. Preoccupied as she was, she hadn’t realized how thirsty she’d become, and acknowledged Jared with a grateful smile. When she drained the last drop, she walked out into the hallway to dispose of the bottle. Eager to get back to her work she returned to the library, determinedly shoving her glasses higher up on her nose. It was a nervous habit she had since she began wearing the thick lenses after her elementary school nurse had declared her almost sightless. Walking by Detective Justice, she saw that he was studying her. Realizing that he likely didn’t know who she was, she thought about introducing herself. But given the deep frown creasing his brow and the rigid set of his jaw, she decided introductions could wait.

Jude knew most of the CSI squad from his previous life. Almost all of them had grown up in the port city or somewhere on the Iron Range, if not one of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. He sniffed, conceding that Minnesotans were a closed bunch. Particularly those who grew up in the Northwoods. No matter how distant or how prestigious the colleges they attended, like the migrating birds that lived in the Northern clime half of the year, they managed to wend their way back to the land of ice and snow and stunning blue skies. Even those like the Justice brothers, who had traveled the world from one hellhole to the next in their military careers, sooner or later found their way back home. Which made the dark-haired pixie working the crime scene an outlier.

Through the fog of the murder investigation Jude had noticed the young woman early on. Unlike the rest of the squad who came armed with their specialized equipment and who all seemed to know one another, the small woman was clearly a loner. Not only was she sans equipment, but he never once saw her speak to any of the team. Rather, she moved from spot to spot inches at a time, as if each square inch held the answer to an unasked question if she only stared at it long enough.

Jude had intended to ask Jake or Jared who she was, but in the flurry of hideous activity he hadn’t bothered. As the night wore on and dawn was threatening, he saw Jared bring the newcomer a bottle of water. For a moment he focused on her, noting again how young she seemed. And frankly, how unappealing. Her short, spiky coal-black hair looked like it had been chopped by dull scissors, likely wielded by their owner. Her body wasn’t bad, at least what he could see of it. The shapeless black t-shirt hinted at some nice curves, but her baggy cargo pants masked her ass, making it impossible for him to judge its worthiness. He realized that her would-be stylish platform sandals were intended to make her look taller. Which was a problem. Being as big as he was, Jude avoided short women. He liked his women tall and leggy. Like Hailey Michels, his brother Jared’s latest stunning squeeze.

Seeing the intent young woman shove her glasses higher up on her nose, he huffed dismissively. Along with her short stature and misshapen clothes, Jude decreed that the thick lenses were a decided third strike against the unfamiliar woman.

Sidling up to his brother, he nodded in the direction of the pixie. “Who’s the squirt, Jared? The one with the specs?”

Jared laughed. “Her name is Skylar Hughes. I brought her with me from DC.”

Surprised, Jude stared at his smiling brother through narrowed eyes. “She a cop?”

When Jared shook his head, Jude pressed, “Agent?”

Jared shrugged. “Nope, neither.”

Worn out by the night’s hideous work, Jude’s temper flared at his brother’s flippant non-answers. “Then what the hell is she doin’ here, bro?”

Jared shrugged again. “She’s an intelligence analyst. I introduced her to Jake and he hired her on the spot.”

Not satisfied, Jude persisted. “Is she badged?”

Jared chuckled. “Nope, but relax, brother. The weapon she carries is more powerful than all of ours put together.”

“Huh?” Jude glared at his amused kin and asked in a low voice not hiding his annoyance, “And what weapon might
that
be, asshole?”

Jared paused, then pointed to his head and grinned. “Her brain.”

Chapter 2

Jude strode into the conference room at 7:00 a.m. sharp. He was gratified that most of the team was already in place. Grabbing a mug from the sidebar, he filled it to the brim with what was sure to be the first of many cups of the steaming hot brew. The three large coffee urns on the counter, none of them labeled decaf, confirmed that like the rest of the DPD, the kitchen staff understood that they all had a long day and night ahead of them. The sight of the ubiquitous pile of sugary doughnuts turned Jude’s stomach. Christ, whoever could choke down five hundred empty calories of artery-clogging fat and refined sugar after seeing what they had seen last night had a stronger stomach than he did. Tossing his sheaf of papers in front of him, he assumed his place at the head of the table.

Glancing up when the door opened, he chided his brothers. “Glad you decided to join us, Commander Justice, and you too, Agent Justice. Been catchin’ up on your beauty sleep?”