Obsession (17 page)

“Speaking of the therapist,” he ventured, “I don’t think she’s going anywhere tonight.” They had been parked across the street from her place for two hours.

And though Dan couldn’t say he hadn’t enjoyed becoming familiar with Jess’s unique scent and soft sighs again, it was different now. She was a married woman. Somehow that intrigued him all the more. Twenty years ago her fragrance had been wild and ferociously ambitious. Her sounds mostly of impatience. She’d tasted wild and sweet, too. Untamed and unstoppable. In the early days she’d made him feel as if anything were possible.

But reality had shattered the dream she’d inspired in him a long, long time ago. That she somehow resurrected those feelings of anticipation made him wonder if his most recent failed marriage had precipitated a mid-life crisis. There was no other reasonable explanation for how she seemed able to stir those less rational sensations. He’d denied the responses for better than twenty-four hours now.

During the last two he’d run out of excuses.

Case in point, the interior of his SUV felt considerably smaller now than it had two hours ago. The space was filled with her. The sound of her voice…the smell of her skin. All those little sighs and soft sounds she made while considering some aspect of the case.

History and experience should serve as better defenses. He and Jess were far too different, each too focused on their own goals and definitions of who they were to compromise. How had twenty years of experience and understanding of the way life works evaporated in hardly more than that same number of hours?

“I’m surprised,” Jess complained, intruding into his self-deprecation. “I’m sure Williams probably told her to stay put before he left.” She stuffed her Pepsi can in the cup holder next to his coffee. “But I had her pegged for having more moxy than that.”

Dan heaved the last of his thoughts from the forbidden to the reality of what was and shot her an
are-you-serious
look. Didn’t matter that she couldn’t see his skepticism had she bothered to look at him—which she did not—it made him feel better to do it.

“You haven’t even met her. How did you peg her as having moxy or not?” He wasn’t actually trying to be a smart ass. He was curious. About her…the Jess of the present.

Just another item to add to the growing number on the bulleted list of examples proving his inability to control his baser instincts where she was concerned. The same thing had happened in about five minutes ten years ago. There was a pattern here and he hadn’t figured out a way to change course before repeating it.

“I did so meet her.” Jess twisted in the seat to face him, kicked off her racy high heels and curled her legs under her. “She was in the entry behind that bull-headed attorney. I saw the look on her face.”

Her tone had taken on that pouty quality that said she was tired but right, whether he believed her or not. Just listening to her evoked images of the way she used to scowl at him when he annoyed her, lips puckered in frustration.  She glowered at him that way right now. The faint light from the streetlamps and the moon prevented the full impact, but his imagination filled in the missing details. The fitted suit she wore was an earthy brown. Elegant, conservative. But whatever she wore under that jacket was lacy and sexy. The lace adorned her cleavage, allowing the tiniest peek at her lush breasts.

And she belonged to someone else.

Okay, time for a walk. “I’ll be right back.” Clearly, one date in six months was not sufficient bonding time with the opposite sex.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she argued. “You ask me a question, the least you can do is listen to my answer.”

Don’t look at her. “Fine. I’m all ears.”

“I thought you hated that word.”

“Jess, you had a point to make.”

She released a big, frustrated exhale that filled his senses with the smell of mints and chocolate M&Ms. She carried both in that huge bag of hers. “I read her professional bio. Scanned a few of her contributions to psychology journals. She’s very type A. She’s not married which tells me that a traditional relationship is too confining. Her house is ostentatious, indicating she needs to display her success for the world to see. And she doesn’t like to be wrong. Otherwise she wouldn’t have crossed the line with a patient by sending a personal plea through a social network. Moxy should be her middle name.”

If Jess had concluded all that from a little reading and a fleeting look, what did she deduce about him? “When did you have time to do all that research?”

“I didn’t.”  She leaned her seat back a little further and snuggled into the leather. “Detective Wells sent the info to my email.”

“Do you walk around profiling everyone you meet or just the persons of interest in a case?” He hadn’t exactly meant to ask that. Now that he had, he wanted to hear the answer. For his own peace of mind.

“Depends.” She drained her Pepsi can.

“On what?” Tension tightened the few muscles in his body that weren’t already wound to the max.

“Whether the person is relevant to me or not.”

He shifted his attention back to the street. Oh yeah. She had analyzed him all right.

“Are you asking me if I’ve created a profile on you, just for my own amusement?”

Now she was a mind reader. “I imagine it would make for fairly dull reading.”

“To the contrary, chief. It’s rather intriguing.”

Now she was teasing him. He kept watch on the house and the street, didn’t spare her a glance.

“Based on what I know about you from your childhood and what I’ve read and learned since coming here—”

“You’ve been reading up on me, too?” He laughed. “I should’ve known.”

“Like you didn’t check up on me before calling me down here,” she challenged.

“That was different. I needed your help on a case.” Not exactly accurate but she couldn’t prove it. He’d wanted to know all he could for purely personal reasons as well. As crazy kids they had both been very competitive, even with each other.

“What did you find?” Her seat powered up to a more erect position.

“We were talking about what you found,” he reminded her.

“All right then. You’re driven, like always. You know what you want and you go after it. Those in your world believe you’re a nice guy but in reality you’re a hard-ass. You like things done. And you like them done your way. Your organization skills are topnotch.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Not too bad.

Silence thickened in the air like the humidity after a rain when the sun roared its victory, scorching everything in its path. Seconds turned to a minute and she said nothing else.

“That’s it?” He was a glutton for punishment.

“You mean besides your commitment issues?”

She hit a nerve with that one. “That was a long time ago, Jess.”

How could she still hold that against him? They were kids. Another extremely vivid memory zinged him. Nope. She was referring to ten years ago. He hadn’t called. He hadn’t had the guts. She hadn’t called either. They were even, in his opinion anyway.

With nothing more than the moonlight, he could see her face pinch into a frown. “I’m not talking about us, Burnett. I’m referring to three ex-wives. No children. Twelve-hour workdays. And though your home is lovely, you’ve lived there for what? Three years?”

“Five,” he groused.

 “And it looks like you moved in last week. I didn’t see a thing connected to you personally besides the framed five-by-seven your mother probably stuck on the mantel when she did the decorating.”

Damn. She was good. “I’m impressed.” As uncomfortable as hell, but impressed.

“Why did you and Annette split?”

His gaze lingered on hers in the faint light, trying to glean some motive. It wasn’t a smart move but he couldn’t resist. “I enjoyed her company. She enjoyed mine. At least for a while. Her top priority is her daughter, as it should be. Annette felt the family unit was best served intact.” The last came out chock-full of resentment. His ego had been damaged and it still stung.

“You and Andrea were close.”

“Still are.” As hard as he worked to keep that aspect of his life out of this part, it didn’t always work. He adored Andrea and the idea that she was out there somewhere hurting, maybe worse, ripped him apart inside. But he couldn’t do the job if he let that eat at him. Maybe the need for distraction was what made him so susceptible to Jess and their history.

“How would she handle this?”

“She would be strong. Careful. Smart.”

“Smart enough to properly assess her situation and make a move to escape?”

“Yes.” His voice sounded hollow. He missed that kid. A week didn’t go by without her calling, or dropping by the office if she was home from school. 

“Careful enough not to take too big a risk?”

“I think so.”

“That’s good.” Jess nodded. “The others will need her.”

“The others are hardworking, high achievers, too. Reanne might not have made it through school but her employer praised her reliability and work ethic.”

“True, but the others aren’t like Andrea. There’s still a lot of little girl in the others. Their rooms. The statements made by friends and family. The way they live reveals a great deal. They haven’t made that last little emotional leap into adulthood. Andrea is far more mature. She’s a leader.”

“I can see that.” He’d read the same reports Jess had. Hell, he’d been there. Listened to the family and friends first hand. Saw the girls’ rooms. And he hadn’t been able to put his finger on an analysis so precise. Her precise isolation of points lifted those traits from the deluge of information right to the surface.

The last of the lights went out in Sullivan’s house. Eventually Jess would have to admit defeat on this surveillance gig.

“My turn.” There he went again, treading into personal territory.

“For what?” She leaned forward, close enough for him to smell the jasmine scent of her shampoo. “Seems the docs going to bed.”

“We’ll give her a little more time,” he offered, “just to be certain.” Now why the hell had he done that? Maybe because his brain had stopped functioning properly with her so close.

And he wanted to know…a whole lot more.

She resettled in her seat. “Maybe she has a reason for waiting.” She grabbed her Pepsi can again, shook it, then stuffed it back into the cup holder.

To avoid the silence and because the suspense of all he didn’t know was killing him, he resumed his turn at the business of profiling. “I kept up with you for a long time.”

Maybe it was that damned moonlight, the proximity or a combination of both. The confession wasn’t planned but it needed to be said. Too many things hadn’t been said for too long. If this case wasn’t enough to make a man realize that life was entirely too short and fragile, that man was an idiot. Dan had made his share of dumb moves in his life, but he wasn’t stupid.

Gave credibility to his unprofessional curiosity.

“My career, you mean,” she countered.

He shook his head, kept his gaze on the house. “All of you.”

The little catch in her breath disrupted the rhythm of his.

“From the time you graduated from the academy, all the way through your last promotion. My liaison at the local Bureau office kept tabs on you for me.”

“You kept tabs on me until two years ago?”

“That’s right.”

She faced forward. “Two years ago, I got married.”

“Yeah, I know.” That was when he’d stopped asking and started moving on. He resisted the impulse to shake his head.
Stellar job, Burnett
.

“Things didn’t work out with that.”

There was a distinct sadness in her words. Not that tortured, rip-your-heart-out sort, but the regrettable acceptance-of-fact kind.

“You still wear the band?” He glanced at her, kept it brief. Was she saying that the marriage was over? Why the hell did he feel relieved?

“Habit.”

He laughed. “Now that’s a good one, Agent Harris.”

“At first I assumed we would work things out.”

She didn’t say anything for a bit.

“Eventually I realized it wasn’t going to happen. Funny thing is, I could never figure out why. He asked me to marry him and two months later he accepted the assignments that would take him the farthest away for the longest periods. It was only a matter of time until he accepted a permanent assignment on the west coast. One day I got home and the divorce papers waited in my mailbox. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.”

“Ouch.” What a heartless bastard. She made the statements with little or no emotion. Did that mean she was over the guy? Not in Dan’s estimation. She still wore the ring he’d given her.

“There’s a shop downtown that’ll pay you top dollar for gold.” He tapped his left ring finger. “I’ve used it more than once.”

“The ring comes in handy.” She held up her hand and considered the plain gold band. “No one asks what went wrong until the band disappears. No unwanted advances. Makes life simple.”

Sounded like BS to Dan. But that was as far into personal territory as he intended to go. That she was no longer in a relationship changed the mental boundaries he had unconsciously set. Which meant he really had to get a grip on this need-to-know compulsion before he made a mistake.

 “She’s not coming out, Jess.”

“Let’s give it another hour just to be sure.”

He’d made it this long. Surely another hour cramped up in here with her like this wouldn’t kill him.

~*~

Friday, July 16
^th
, 1:48 a.m.

The girls in the five photos spread across the sleek surface of the coffee table stared back at Jess.

“What’re you trying to tell me?” she muttered.

She had gone over the statements, the photos. Every detail. If these young women had been abducted by the same unsub there had to be a connection that linked their lives. A common thread existed. No link through the schools they had attended or the neighborhoods where they grew up. No church associations or clubs or sororities in common. No related work history or volunteer involvements.

Since they were in the same age group, it was likely that they shopped in some of the same stores. Music, movies, books…leisure activities…all those near impossible to trace categories. Jess made a note to look into shopping habits and leisure time hangouts. That aspect had been looked at already but a second, closer look couldn’t hurt.