GUARDIAN ANGEL

FOX COUNTY FORENSICS

BOOK EIGHT

CARA MALONE

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 CONTENTS

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue

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 1

LENA

D
etective Lena Wolf stood in the forest at the edge of Fox County, eyes
adjusting to the enormity of the task before her.
Police officers and volunteers were fanned out all through the
trees, preparing to commence the grid search that Lena’s boss, Arlen, was
spearheading. Two bodies had already been found and they were out here to
find out if there were more.
"Alright, everyone," Arlen called. "We're looking for more remains, but
we’re also searching for evidence connected to the two bodies we already
found. Keep your eyes open and flag anything that’s not part of the forest.
Anything at all. I don’t care if it’s just a crumpled beer can, I want to know
about it.”
The first body had been discovered about three months ago by one of
Lena’s fellow homicide detectives, Julia. It had been nothing more than
skeletal remains long ago buried. The second, however, had been
discovered just a few days ago and was much, in Renee’s words, “fresher.”
Two bodies in just a few hundred square feet of each other, hidden in
the forest, and suddenly the Fox County Police Department had a massive
search effort to coordinate.
As the search party moved in a linear fashion deeper into the woods, the
atmosphere grew from excitement to tension. Every snapped twig and rustle
of dried leaves was like a thunderclap as everyone silently focused on the
task at hand. They had about twelve hours before night fell and the search
would have to be paused if they hadn’t cleared the area.
Everything Lena had learned in the academy, and in her detective
training after that, was buzzing at the forefront of her mind. Her gaze darted
between the ground and the trees, scrutinizing every detail.
“Officer?” a volunteer called out, drawing Lena's attention.
Detective, she silently corrected. “Find something?”
The young woman pointed toward a mound of leaves and sticks near the
base of a tree. “Maybe nothing. I don’t know.”
“Better to be sure. Good job,” Lena said. “Hold the line while I check
this out.”
The woman resumed the search and Lena crouched down, snapping on
a pair of latex gloves. One of the Medical Examiner’s Office investigators
came over and photographed the mound untouched, then Lena carefully
sifted through it.
"Nothing," Lena said finally, not sure if she felt disappointed or
relieved. The last thing this community needed was another body in the
woods, but it would have been exciting to get her hands dirty, so to speak.
Lena hadn’t had a real case of her own since she joined the department.
She’d just been watching her fellow newbies get all the good detective
work while she ran for coffee and did database searches.
She stood and brushed off her knees, then took up her place among the
searchers.
Renee made her way over as they all progressed forward. Tall and
toned, with bronzed skin and a confident stride, she looked totally in her
element out here. “Anything?”
“Just a pile of leaves,” Lena said.
“I appreciate your help out here,” Renee said. “Who knew my first case
was going to take up the resources of the whole county?”
“Oh, you love it,” Lena teased.
Renee had showed up ready to kick ass and be the alpha dog on day
one, and she’d pretty much defended that position against everyone except
Julia, who was gunning for the same role.
Lena would settle for being competent and respected.
"Keep at it," Renee said, nodding at Lena before turning to address the
rest of the search party. "Remember, every clue matters, no matter how
small. Stay vigilant."
As they continued their search, Lena watched Renee. She had
experience working homicide before she got to Fox County and it showed
in how she interacted with coworkers and volunteers alike – she was firm
yet diplomatic, and knew exactly how to get what she wanted from people.
 If only they could put that in a bottle and sell it, Lena would be the first
one in line.
As the search wore on and the sun climbed higher in the sky, the noises
of the woods intensified. Rustling branches, snapping twigs, and an increase
in chatter as more police and civilians joined the search.
"Make sure you're checking under every rock and inside every crevice!"
Renee's voice carried over the din as she circulated among the searchers,
making sure that everyone knew their role.
“Let them do their job, Duvall,” Julia chided. “You don't have time to
babysit everyone."
Renee narrowed her eyes at her rival, no doubt readying a snarky reply.
But then their boss, Arlen, came through with a diffusing word. “Taylor is
right. You can’t look under every leaf. Trust that the searchers know what to
do.”
Renee nodded, her jaw tensing. It must have hurt to hear that Taylor is
right, but she hid it well. “I just want to make sure we don't miss anything."
“We won’t,” Arlen reassured her, then smirked. “Unless we get too
caught up in silly rivalries and forget to keep our eyes on the forest.”
She went on her way, and the others resumed searching in silence.
Renee got called over to look at something that turned out to be a long-
discarded plaid shirt, and Julia walked beside Lena for a while.
“It’s so bizarre how much time passed between body one and body two
were buried here,” Lena said. “It’s like someone was using these woods as
their own personal cemetery.”
“Could be a coincidence," Julia pointed out. "Two unrelated body
dumps in the same area.”
"Maybe," Lena said. It was pretty isolated out here once you got away
from the hiking trails, but what were the odds two people would choose the
exact same place to bury a body, even if they did choose that place a decade
or more apart?
They marched onward, the summer sun baking down on them beginning
to make Lena sweat through her button-down. She popped a couple of the
buttons at her collar open and twisted her long, tawny hair up in a bun.
"Detective Wolf," a gruff voice called out.
Lena turned to see her other boss, Detective Tom Logan, approaching
from the direction of the command center at the edge of the search
perimeter. He still slightly favored his wounded leg as he walked, but if you
weren’t looking for it, you’d never know he was shot in the line of duty a
few years ago.
“Sir?”
“Call just came in, somebody found a body dumped in a construction
site on the east side of town,” he said. "I need somebody to meet the
Medical Examiner over there.”
“Me?” The word came out squeaky and uncertain, and Lena could have
kicked herself for it.
“Unless you’d rather I give it to Sterner?”
“No,” she course-corrected, standing a little taller. “I’m ready.”
“That’s what I want to hear,” he said, then handed her a slip of paper.
“Here’s the address. I’m going to stay here. We need every available hand,
but you call me if you get stuck.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lena had to suppress the urge to skip all the way up the trail to the
parking lot, and once she was sure she was out of view of all the other
police officers and volunteers, she did indulge a little hop of excitement.
Her first solo homicide case, at long last!
“Whoever you are, I will make sure justice is done,” she promised the
unseen victim as she slid behind the wheel of her unmarked car.

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 2

LENA

L
ena went from crunchy leaves to gritty construction gravel.
It was nearly noon by the time she arrived at the address Tom had
given her, all the way on the other side of Fox County from the search
site. According to the signage, it was the future location of a Sterling Hotel
and Conference Center, located on a sprawling plot of land that overlooked
the lake.
Lena noted the chain-link fencing all the way around the perimeter, but
drove through an open gate on her way in. The site was a maze of buildings
in varying stages of construction, and Lena spotted a squad car and the
Medical Examiner’s discreet white van as she got closer to her destination.
"Lena," Court Wilson greeted her when she got out of her car. “They
finally sent you out solo, huh?”
“Yeah, we’re swamped,” Lena said, looking around. A half-dozen
construction workers were clustered nearby, and Court had strung a line of
police tape to keep them from contaminating the crime scene. “Which one
of them discovered the body?”
“Bald guy, reflective vest,” Court said, her voice low. “Name’s Tim
Edison. I already did a preliminary interview.”
“Perfect,” Lena said. “I’ll have to talk to him too, of course.”
Court nodded. They knew each other from The Taphouse, the bar where
a lot of the cops and investigators hung out, and on weekends they’d call
each other friends. Right now, though, they both had something to prove
and they were all business. “Maya’s still in the ME’s van getting her gear
together. She’ll be a few minutes.”
Lena nodded. “I’ll talk to them while I wait, then.”
 She and Court approached the construction workers, whose expressions
ranged from morbid curiosity to mildly ill. Lena flipped open the small
notebook that had been waiting for its chance in her pocket for months now
as she said, “Good morning, I’m Detective Wolf. I understand this is an
uncomfortable situation, but I need to ask you all some questions about
what happened here."
“I’m the one who found it,” the one Court had pointed out stepped
forward. “I wasn’t even sure it was real at first – I thought somebody was
playing a prank, wrapping up some construction debris in an old sheet and
spraying it with fake blood. But then I looked and… it was no prank.”
Lena nodded sympathetically, forming an image in her head of what
she’d see when she went to observe the scene. “Did you discover the body
first thing when you arrived today?”
Tim shook his head. “We’re the concrete guys, we did that area last
week. We were working over there,” he pointed to a distant area of the
sprawling building, “but that white sheet she’s wrapped in caught my eye.”
“Not so white,” one of the others mumbled.
“I came over to investigate – I figured at worst it’d be litter. Kids break
into construction sites to horse around and drink, it’s not uncommon,” Tim
went on. “When I saw what it really was, I called you guys right away.”
“I appreciate that,” Lena said. “Was there anything else out of the
ordinary, out of place when you got here this morning?"
“Nope, gate was locked like it should be and it all seemed normal.”
“Was your crew working yesterday?”
“Nah, yesterday was Sunday. We work Monday to Friday.”
“Quitting time is at five?” Lena asked.
He nodded.
“Do you know who was the last to leave on Friday afternoon?”
Tim shook his head, unsure, and one of the others said, “Probably Gina.
She’s the site manager, works out of that trailer over there.”
He pointed, and Lena made a note of its location. “Is she here today?”
“Yeah, hardly ever comes out of the trailer,” the man said. “She prefers
the air-conditioning in there.”
“I’ll need to speak with her,” Lena said. “Who has access to the site
outside of work hours?”
“The gate’s locked every night when we go home, but anybody who
doesn’t mind scaling a chain-link fence can get in,” Tim said. “Like I
mentioned, kids do it all the time.”
“Is there a security guard? Cameras?”
“No guard, but there are cameras at all the entrances," the other man
replied, pointing towards the nearest one mounted to a tall pole near the
fence. “Gina monitors it, but only if there’s a problem.”
“And there was no one working here from Friday afternoon until this
morning?”
He shook his head just as Court stepped up to Lena, saying, “Maya’s
ready now.”
“Me too,” Lena agreed. “Thanks, guys. Stick around in case I have any
more questions, okay?”
“We’re not going anywhere, we still got a whole foundation to lay over
on the east side of the complex,” Tim said. “And thanks to all this, we’re
running way behind.”
“Good luck.” Lena turned to see Maya Ross walking toward her with a
bulky investigator’s kit, a look of grim determination on her face.
“Hey, Lena. Should we get to it?”
“Lead the way.”
They walked through an open doorway into what looked like it would
one day be the lobby of the Sterling Hotel. It was cavernous and skeletal, all
concrete and steel beams, and Lena’s eye went immediately to the heap of
white and crimson fabric in the corner. A slight breeze was whipping at one
corner of the sheet, and Lena glanced around at the many open spaces
where it appeared floor-to-ceiling windows would be put in.
It was entirely feasible that Tim had seen the movement of the sheet
from elsewhere on the construction site. But with the body tucked into a
corner like it was, it was hidden enough not to be discovered right away.
“Adult,” Lena observed as she took in the size and shape of the body.
“Slim build. That sheet looks expensive.”
It was shiny like silk, originally a crisp white but more blood-stained
and dirty than not. The closer she got, the stronger the smell of
decomposition became. If the body was dumped at some point over the
weekend, it’d been exposed to the elements and breaking down all this
time.
“I see a tag,” Maya said, lifting her camera from her neck to document
it. She crouched to take the picture, then said, “Mulberry Park, that’s a
luxury brand.”
 Lena jotted it down in her notebook, then fell silent as she and Court
watched Maya photograph the scene.
The crime scene investigator's dark brown hair was pulled back into a
tight ponytail, her eyes sharp and focused beneath a dark cap. She reached
with one gloved hand to peel back the sheet. Another waft of decay hit Lena
in the face and she tried to mask her disgust.
“Female,” Lena said as a pair of bare feet were revealed. “Freshly
pedicured – she took care of herself.”
Maya unraveled the sheet, revealing a nude woman lying prone on her
back. Her skin was mottled with decomposition, as expected, but Lena’s
eyes immediately went to the woman’s face. It was all but unrecognizable, a
frenzy of bruises, cuts and swollen flesh. She brought her hand to her own
mouth in horror before she could suppress the reaction.
“Oh my god,” a woman’s voice came from behind her, followed by the
unsettling sound of retching.
Lena turned to find a middle-aged redhead doubled over in the doorway,
emptying the contents of her stomach. Court hurried over and escorted the
woman away from the scene. As they walked, she mumbled miserably,
“Tim told me the detective needed me.”
Lena and Maya exchanged a look.
“That would be Gina the site manager, I presume,” Lena said.
“And today was more than she signed up for.” Maya returned her
attention to the dead woman. “This was vicious. Look here, I think these are
bite marks.” Maya pointed to a number of round, red wounds over the
woman’s neck and breasts. “Dr. Trace will be able to say for sure.”
Lena noted the dark bruises encircling the victim's throat, the
fingerprint-like impressions left behind by a vicious grip. The blonde hair
tangled and clumped around the woman’s head. The broken and missing
acrylic nails on her hands where she’d fought back.
She shivered. “Looks like a sexual assault. Who could do something
this brutal?”
“That, my dear, is your job to figure out.”
Lena nodded, anger simmering deep in her gut the longer she stared at
the woman. No one deserved to go out like that, victim to a fit of violence
and rage no human should be capable of, discarded like garbage afterward.
“Trust me, I will,” she said. “Keep me updated?”
 “Of course,” Maya said, still hard at work when Lena turned to go. She
had security footage to track down and a victim to identify. With any luck,
those bite marks would help her identify the monster who did this.
Just outside the doorway, Court had strung up more police tape to
prevent any other weak-stomached wanderers from coming in. Lena ducked
under it, then found Gina catching her breath on the trailer steps.
“Doing okay?” she asked as she joined her.
“Can’t wait to see how much respect I get from the guys after that little
display,” she said. “Lemme tell you, it wasn’t much to begin with.”
“They give you a hard time?”
“I’m the only one here with acrylics and mascara on. To say I’m the odd
one out would be an understatement.”
“You’re talking to a female detective. I get it.” Lena held out her hand.
“Lena Wolf. Are you Gina?”
The woman shook her hand. “That’s me.”
“Let’s go inside the trailer,” Lena suggested. “I’d like to see the security
footage from the weekend.”

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 3

REESE

R
eese Mitchell sat at the lonely reception desk at the entrance to the
Fox County Medical Examiner’s Office, taking a breath for the first
time all morning. She took a sip of her tea and grimaced. It’d gone
cold while she was catching up on the deluge of voicemails and emails that
always awaited her on a Monday morning.
The start of every week was chaotic at best, morbidly depressing at
worst, depending on the types of cases that were going on. One of Reese’s
duties was acting as the liaison between the ME’s Office and the media, and
that meant that on many a Monday, her phone rang off the hook with calls
from reporters hunting for some juicy tidbit or tantalizing soundbite about
the cases that had come in over the weekend.
While the rest of the office swarmed with investigators catching up on
their caseloads and scientists buried in lab work, Reese was busy telling
journalists the same thing over and over again. No, we’re not releasing any
more information than what you no doubt already heard on the media
hotline. Yes, I’m sure there’s no additional information. No, I don’t know
when the medical examiner will release her findings.
They were vultures eager to pick at literal bones, and after just a couple
years in this job, Reese was sure not a single one of them thought about any
of these cases as involving real human beings who had actual, full lives
before they died.
Not that she could fully blame them for that. It was a common coping
mechanism around here.
Her phone rang again. Reese set down her cold tea to answer. "Medical
Examiner's Office, this is Reese speaking. How can I help you?"
 "Hi, Reese. This is Kathy Whitcomb from Channel 5 News. I'm calling
about the body found in the park over the weekend. I heard it was yet
another opioid overdose, and a kid no less. Can you confirm the cause of
death?”
Reese parroted her normal line. “Dr. Trace hasn’t released her findings
yet, but you’ll be able to check them on the hotline when she does, Kathy.”
“What about the age of the victim?” the woman pressed, like she hadn’t
heard Reese’s response at all.
Are you deaf or do you just think I’m easy to manipulate? If Reese
could get away with it, she had about a million more honest replies she
would like to give these persistent reporters.
But she liked having a job. An apartment of her own.
And keeping those things meant playing the game.
“That information will all be on the hotline as soon as we can provide
it,” she said in her cheeriest tone. Even she surprised herself sometimes at
how genuine it sounded.
Kathy asked several more questions that Reese couldn’t answer and
when she finally got her off the phone, Reese saw the front door opening
out of the corner of her eye. Preparing for yet another person asking
questions she didn’t have the answer to, she smiled when she saw it was
just her boss, Amelia.
And she brought with her the tantalizing aroma of freshly fried donuts.
“Morning, Reese,” she said, pausing at the reception desk and flipping
open the box. “Simone and I had a meeting with the adoption agency this
morning, so I thought I’d stop for treats on the way in.”
“Thanks,” Reese said, licking her lips while she perused the donuts,
then selecting a lemon glazed. “How did it go?”
“It’s a tedious process but we’re getting there,” Amelia said. “How’s it
going here?”
“Oh, you know, Monday,” Reese said. “The reporters have to ask all the
dumb questions they spent the whole weekend holding in. ‘Was John Doe
already deceased before he was dismembered?’”
Amelia snorted.
“Can I leave these here with you?” she asked, gesturing to the donut
box. “And you can tell everybody to come get some?”
“I don’t know about that second part,” Reese said with a wink, and
watched Amelia disappear down the hall toward her office. She looked at
the pink pastry box for a moment, smiling to herself. Amelia always seemed
to know what people needed, and right now, Reese could use a little
company.
She swiveled to her computer and sent out an email to everyone on day
shift letting them know sweets had arrived, then picked up her phone and
dialed the morgue.
“Go for Barney,” came the quick reply and Reese knew she’d reached
who she was hoping for.
“Hey, Dr. Trace brought donuts,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t check
your email so here’s your warning to get up here and grab one before
they’re gone.”
“I’m not worried, you always save one for me,” Jordan answered.
She was Reese’s closest work friend, very often her partner in crime,
and she was right – Reese would totally hide a cream stick in her desk
drawer for her if they were running low.
A few minutes later, Reese was kicked back in her chair and Jordan was
sitting on the corner of her desk, both of them licking their fingers clean and
reluctant to get back to work. The rest of the day shift employees were
wandering over and grabbing donuts as they got the time, but Jordan always
made herself at home up here.
Reese thought it was because the morgue was a creepy, terrible place to
have to spend the workday, although Jordan didn’t seem to mind. She had
her own coping mechanisms for getting through this job.
"So, I've been thinking about my next prank,” she leaned in
conspiratorially to say the next time they were alone. “I’ve got my eye on
Dylan. We just have to make sure Elise doesn’t catch wind of it or she’ll
spoil the surprise. You in?"
Reese smirked. Left to her own devices, she wouldn’t be the prank-
playing type, but she never passed up an opportunity to go along with
whatever Jordan had cooking. “Absolutely. What are you thinking?"
Jordan's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Well, I was considering
swapping out some of her lab samples with weird stuff like ketchup for
blood or apple juice for urine. Imagine the look on her face when those
results come back.”
Reese laughed, but she shook her head. “Too far. You can’t mess with
her work.”
“I would keep the real samples in a safe place,” Jordan promised.
 Reese insisted, “Nothing that could interfere with a case.”
Jordan stuck her tongue out. “Party pooper.” She sighed. “You’re right,
though. Too far.”
She thought for a minute with a pout on her face, and Reese had an idea.
“I’ve got it.”
Jordan’s eyes flashed. “Tell me.”
“Dylan is so meticulous with her lab,” she said. “Everything in its place
and a place for everything. What if we get our hands on her label maker and
have a little fun?”
Jordan laughed. “It’s not a blood gas analyzer anymore, it’s Burt’s gas
analyzer. I love it.”
Reese pulled out a notepad and started jotting down ideas as they
brainstormed, until Amelia came from the direction of her office.
“Thought I’d find you here, Jordan. Ready for the first autopsy of the
day?”
“Always,” Jordan said, jumping off Reese’s desk and saluting the
doctor.
“Oh, Reese,” Amelia said, “A family is coming in about an hour to
hopefully make a positive ID on the John Doe from last week. Call me
when they get here?”
“Will do,” Reese promised, sighing as she tucked the notepad back into
her desk and returned to her work.

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 4

LENA

T
he day after the body was found on the construction site, the woman
was still unidentified. She didn’t match the description of any missing
persons in Fox County, she had no identifying marks like scars or
tattoos, and the state of decomposition she was in meant it hadn’t been easy
to get fingerprints.
Lena had gotten in touch with Gina Mackey, who’d forwarded her all
the security footage from the weekend prior to the discovery of the body,
and now she was headed over to the Medical Examiner's Office to observe
Jane Doe’s autopsy.
As she walked up the sidewalk to the ME’s Office, she hoped she’d get
something to go on here. Without a name, she had no leads to chase.
She stepped inside and was met by the fresh-faced, forever smiling
Reese. Her short hair hung messy around her face, and Lena smiled back as
an almost involuntary reflex.
“Morning, Detective Wolf,” Reese greeted her with big green eyes
locked on her own.
"Good morning, Reese,” she answered. “No need to be so formal,
though. Call me Lena.”
They’d met a handful of times at The Taphouse, but forces always
seemed to be conspiring to keep them from having a deep conversation.
Lena was coming while Reese was going or vice versa. Lena was at the
table while Reese played darts with Dylan. Reese was at the bar getting a
refill while Lena’s DD was pulling her out the door.
“What brings you to our fine establishment today, Lena?” Reese asked,
a little smile on her lips as she tasted Lena’s name on her tongue. Was that
flirtation? Lena filed it away for later – Reese was cute. Maybe a little
young and immature for Lena’s tastes, but very cute.
First, though, she had a job to do.
“I’m here for the autopsy of the Jane Doe from the construction site,”
she said.
“I don’t know how you do that job,” Reese shook her head.
“It’s tough some days, as I’m sure it is here too. But my job is putting
bad guys behind bars so they can’t continue victimizing people,” Lena said.
“Keeping that in mind helps.” Then she smiled at the chipper young girl.
“Although you always seem to look on the bright side.”
Reese gave her a megawatt grin that was definitely more than just
business. “I try. Should I let Amelia know you’re here?”
Lena nodded. “Maya too, if you don’t mind – she said she’d walk back
with me since I’ve only been here a couple times before.”
“It’s a straight shot down the hall, you won’t get lost,” Reese promised,
then reached for her desk phone to let the two of them know Lena had
arrived. When she was done, she gestured to a row of padded chairs on the
wall opposite her desk. “Want to have a seat till Maya gets here? Or you can
help yourself to my desk like Jordan does.”
Lena laughed. “Not sure I’m that brazen.” She was a little reluctant to
claim one of the padded chairs, though, so far away. “I’ll just stand. I spent
a lot of the day at my desk yesterday.”
“Make any big discoveries, detective?”
Lena shook her head. “Not really. Just a bunch of dead ends.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure out who she is and who did that to her.”
Lena looked into those sea-foam eyes again, studying Reese in a
moment of earnestness. “I wish I had your confidence. This is my first big
case.”
“I can see it written all over your face,” Reese told her, “you’re not
going to stop until you succeed.”
There were little flecks of gold in Reese’s irises, and a depth of emotion
that Lena was sure she took great pains to hide beneath that carefree facade.
She may not know Reese that well, but she could see that plain as day.
Reading people was her job and in spite of all her insecurities, she knew she
was good at that much.
"Lena?" Maya appeared, breaking the spell. “Amelia is ready for us in
the morgue."
 "Great," Lena replied, inwardly cursing herself for losing focus. She
couldn’t afford distractions when there was a murderer on the loose and she
was the only one available to hunt him down.
"Good luck with your investigation," Reese said. Then she stuck her
tongue out and added, “And good luck in the gore factory back there.”
“Ignore her,” Maya chuckled. “It’s not that bad.”
As she led Lena toward the keypad-locked door that separated the
offices from the labs and morgue, Lena spared a fleeting glance over her
shoulder.
Reese was looking right back at her.

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 5

LENA

T
he morgue was a bright, sterile space where the scent of cleaning
chemicals mixed with the unique odor of death.
When she and Maya stepped in, Lena saw that Jane Doe was laid
out on a stainless-steel autopsy table located inside the hermetically sealed
decomp room at one end of the morgue. Through the glass door, Lena could
see she was naked with her head up on a block and her body gently cleaned
of all the blood and construction dirt that had been on her at the dump site.
Dr. Amelia Trace was gowned up outside the decomp room and putting
on a fresh set of exam gloves, and the autopsy assistant, Jordan, was inside
laying out the tools she’d need.
“Good morning, ladies,” Amelia said when she spotted the new arrivals.
“Perfect timing, Jordan and I just finished taking X-rays. Get your gowns
on and I’ll begin the external exam.”
Maya pointed Lena to boxes of gloves and paper gowns on the wall and
they both quickly put them on.
While she waited, Amelia asked, “I trust you’ve seen an autopsy before,
detective?”
Lena nodded. “Once in the academy, and again in detective training.”
“Decomps can be a bit different,” Amelia warned. “Here.”
She handed Lena a jar of Vicks, which she dabbed beneath her nose.
The three of them went into the decomp room, the stench wafting out at
them when the door opened. It wasn’t quite as bad as it had been at the site.
There was air circulating into the room, being drawn up into a filter in the
ceiling, and the body had been stored in the walk-in overnight.
 Lena stepped up to the table, eyes sweeping over the body. Blood and
guts had never bothered her – she’d been the kind of kid who said, “Oh
nasty,” and leaned in for a closer look when somebody skinned their knees
on the playground. She could look at the most gruesome scenes without
nausea.
What bothered her, though…
“God, I don’t know how we’re going to make a positive ID,” she
grumbled. “She’s been mauled.”
“We did find one on the X-rays that could help in that department – an
old fracture of the right fibula,” Amelia said. “I’ll examine it closer once we
get inside, but it’s a couple years old at least. Surprisingly, the only
antemortem fracture she sustained was of the nose. Probably why she bled
so much.”
“The sheet she was wrapped in is drying now,” Maya informed Lena.
“We’ll send it for analysis in a day or two.”
“Dental work?” Lena asked. Sometimes if they had to, they could match
the location and type of fillings to patient records.
“Not so much as a cavity,” Amelia said. “And so far, I’m not seeing any
tattoos or other physical markings to help identify her.”
“Shit,” Lena grumbled.
“Ready?” Amelia asked Maya, who was poised with her tablet.
"Go ahead.”
She began her physical examination of the body, working meticulously
to identify injuries and look for clues about who her attacker was and how
she ultimately died.
“There are multiple contusions present on the neck and anterior torso
consistent with manual strangulation.” Her voice was steady and clinical as
she continued, gesturing to the darkened bruises that marred the woman’s
pale skin. “The face is severely battered, red and swollen, with multiple
small cuts over the eyebrow, on the cheeks and at the orbital bone. All of
these are consistent with blunt force trauma.”
As she spoke, Lena couldn't help imagining the scenario playing out in
her head, this woman being overpowered and assaulted by someone much
larger and stronger than her. That was the part that made her sick.
“Have you determined the time of death yet, doctor?” Lena asked,
mostly just to get herself to stop playing that awful movie in her head.
 “Not definitively,” Amelia said, “but based on lividity and rigor at the
time she arrived here, I’d say no more than eight hours before she was
dumped.”
“So that would put it about midnight on Friday?”
“Give or take a few hours,” Amelia confirmed. She pulled the woman’s
hair back from her neck and said, “Ah, we did spot these on the X-rays.
They look expensive.”
Lena leaned in to get a better look at the pair of large, multifaceted
earrings that still managed to glitter in the fluorescent light despite
everything their owner had been through.
“Do you think they’re real diamonds?” Jordan asked. “Gotta be what,
three or four carats if they are?”
“She was wrapped in a silk sheet when we found her,” Lena pointed out.
“I’ll have them examined but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re real.”
Amelia carefully removed the earrings and put them in an evidence bag,
then handed it over to Maya. "Make sure those get added to the evidence
log,” she instructed.
Lena clucked her tongue. The presence of such expensive jewelry on a
victim that’s otherwise been stripped of her clothing, her identity, her
dignity only deepened the mystery of just who Jane Doe was, and who
wanted to harm her. She certainly wasn’t assaulted for her valuables, in any
case.
Maya set the evidence bag aside, raising her tablet again to take notes
for the doctor, and she asked Lena, "Did you get a chance to look at the
security footage?"
“Yeah.” Lena frowned. “Only problem was the video had been erased
between two and two-thirty the night before Jane Doe’s body was
discovered.”
“Wow, so I guess we have the time of the dump down to a small
window,” Maya said. “Any idea who tampered with the video?”
Lena shook her head. “Still working on that. But it does tell me that the
construction site wasn’t chosen at random. Whoever dumped that body had
access to both the site and the security system.”
“An employee?” Maya wondered.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Lena said.
Amelia continued the exterior examination, making note of every one of
the many bite marks, abrasions and lacerations on the unknown woman’s
body. Lena wasn’t squeamish, but it was hard to look at her and think about
what her last moments must have been like.
“Blood under the fingernails,” she announced, holding her hand out.
Jordan passed her a swab to collect it. “This is good news.”
“You think it’s our perp’s blood?”
“Very likely,” Amelia said. “She’s got a lot of broken fingernails. I think
she got a few licks in.”
“This guy’s a fucking monster,” Lena gritted through her teeth. “The
construction site is the future location of a Sterling Hotel and Conference
Center, so I’m thinking I show up at Sterling headquarters and work my
way down from the top to the bottom of their employee hierarchy.
Whoever’s covered in defensive wounds is our guy.”
“You think it’s somebody at the top?” Maya asked.
“High enough up the ladder to have access to the security footage,”
Lena answered. “I’ve got an appointment at Sterling later today to get a list
of exactly who that would be.”
“I’m ready to begin the internal exam,” Amelia announced. “Scalpel
please, Jordan.”
The autopsy assistant handed her the blade, and Lena’s stomach did a
little roll as she watched the doctor add one more cut to the woman’s body.
At least this one would help them find out who did this to her so Lena could
make sure they never touched another woman.

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 6

REESE

T
he next day began like any other. Reese was at her desk with an extra-
large cup of coffee and a cheery smile on her face before the day shift
began to arrive, and she greeted each of them on their way through the
door.
"Morning, Maya! Get your pump on?” she asked when she saw the lead
investigator coming up from the basement gym.
“You know it,” Maya said, giving her a bicep flex and Reese laughed.
“Have a good one. Hey, Tyler,” she greeted one of the investigators.
“How’s the babe?”
“Slept through the night last night,” he said. “First time in ages.”
“I can tell, the bags under your eyes are less pronounced than usual,”
Reese teased.
“You’re too kind,” he said on his way past her desk.
“Hi, Dr. Trace,” she said to the next person through the door. “What, no
donuts today?”
“Sorry, I’ll try to do better tomorrow,” the doctor promised with a wink
as she headed toward her office.
The first fifteen minutes or so of every shift were a flurry of activity and
Reese had to use it to get the whole day’s socializing in at once. After
everyone was clocked in, Reese was alone at the reception desk until lunch.
She took a long sip of her coffee as she swiveled in her chair to face the
desk phone.
Her first official task every morning was to create a new hotline
recording from the details Amelia and the other pathologists provided her
with. It was whatever was ready to be released to the public on the various
cases the ME’s Office was currently working, meant to streamline the
process of getting information out to the reporters.
Did they bother with it?
Not the ones who dogged her with calls and voicemail messages every
morning demanding more information than she could give.
Reese had once asked Amelia if she absolutely had to talk to the pushy
ones, and Amelia had reminded her of all the reasons why it was important
for the office to maintain a cooperative relationship with the news media.
Transparency, public awareness, legal obligations, blah, blah, blah.
She cleared her voicemail after she finished the recording, jotting down
names and numbers of everyone who needed to be called back. Three of
them were about the construction site Jane Doe. Apparently she was the hot
news item right now, but the reporters would move on from her the moment
they got a juicier tidbit about someone else.
Reese was repeating the process with her email inbox when her phone
rang and she lifted the receiver again. “Reese Mitchell, Fox County Medical
Examiner’s Office. How can I help you?”
"Hey there, Reese. This is Mark Ellings from the Daily Fox. We've been
hearing a lot about a grisly murder at a construction site and that the
perpetrator may be targeting young women. Can you confirm the rumors?"
“No, Mark, I can’t release anything more than is available on the
hotline.”
“The public deserves to know what's going on,” he insisted. “It’s a
matter of public safety.”
His tone was accusatory, and even though Reese knew it was nothing
more than a tactic to make her give up information, it damn near worked.
She bit her tongue and took a breath, then said, “Thank you for your
concern. The Medical Examiner’s Office and the police department are
actively investigating this case and we always have public safety in mind.
We’ll release more information as soon as we have it.”
“Yeah, okay.” He hung up without a goodbye, and Reese smacked the
receiver down in its cradle.
“Dick,” she grumbled, and Maya startled as she passed the desk.
“You okay there?”
“Just a reporter,” Reese explained. “Mark Ellings.”
“Smellings,” Maya corrected with a roll of her eyes. He was notoriously
one of the underhanded ones.
 “Hey, are you busy?”
“I’ve got a few minutes,” Maya said, already heading toward Reese’s
chair. They’d all gotten used to taking quick shifts manning the reception
desk when Reese needed a bathroom or coffee break, and she could use one
now.
“Thanks, my tea’s so cold it’s basically iced tea now.”
“Take fifteen, I got this.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah."
“Take your time,” Maya told her, settling in her chair.
Instead of heading straight for the break room, Reese walked out the
front door, craving some fresh air. The sun warmed her shoulders and birds
were chirping in the little redbud trees neatly maintained by the city along
the road. Things were so different out here, so much more alive.
Reese had been the receptionist here for five years, and she did her best
to keep the grim details of the cases at a distance. Most of the time, she
could paste on a cheery face and focus on silly things like who was
crushing on who in the office.
Hell, she didn’t even have it as bad as some of her coworkers. All she
did was sit at a desk and manage the office. Meanwhile there were twenty-
year veterans in there who were going out to death scenes every single day
and seeing the absolute worst humanity was capable of. She was looking at
it all through a mirror and around a corner compared to them.
When she turned the corner toward the back of the building, she found
Jordan outside bouncing a hacky sack in the air with one foot.
“Are you hackin’ without me, Whitaker?”
Jordan made a big production of bumping the hacky sack up to her hand
and stuffing it into her back pocket, whistling innocently all the while. “I
would never. You on a break?”
“Just a quick one.”
“Time for a quick round, then,” she said, producing the hacky sack
again and kicking it over to Reese, who caught it deftly and served it back.
She couldn’t even remember anymore who had started this game, or
how long it had been going on. It was just something quick and physical
that didn’t involve a lot of props, and it helped them blow off steam when
they needed it. They were both awful when they first started playing. Reese
could barely keep the hacky sack off the concrete, and Jordan had a
tendency to send it flying into the nearby alleyway.
Now, though, they were old pros and they volleyed silently back and
forth a handful of times.
Then Jordan sent one wide – on purpose now that she was a master at
the game – and Reese didn’t miss a beat lunging to smack it back at her
with her elbow.
“Nice one!” Jordan whooped as she let it bounce off her chest then
resumed heeling it.
“What kinda trick shots you been working on?” Reese asked.
“Oh, you want tricks?” Jordan bumped it from her heel to her elbow,
then high in the air as she spun around before catching it. “You like that?”
“Not bad.” Reese was impressed, but she wasn’t gonna let her friend
know that. “What else you got?”
Jordan was grinning and slightly out of breath by the time she moved
through her complete repertoire of hacky sack trick shots, passing it back to
Reese with a “Your turn.”
“You could go pro,” Reese said as she lofted the hacky sack in an arc
over her head then caught it with her opposite heel, wagging her eyebrows
at Jordan.
“Nice move,” Jordan said with an appreciative nod. “You should spend
less time at your desk and more time out here – then maybe you’d be ready
to hit the majors with me.”
Reese tapped the hacky sack up into her waiting palm, then tossed it to
Jordan, signaling that the game was over. “I wish. Thanks for this.”
“Anytime.”
Jordan went into the building through the roll-top door that led to the
morgue, and Reese went through the building, stopping by the break room
on her way. By the time she got back to her desk, she felt a little lighter, her
smile a little more genuine.
“Better?” Maya asked when she saw Reese coming.
“Yeah, much,” she said, gesturing to her refilled, piping hot tea. “Any
calls?”
“Nope, all quiet,” Maya said as she got up from Reese’s chair.
Reese plopped down into it and swiveled toward her desk. Maya headed
into the cubicles where the investigators sat, and Reese was alone again. It
wasn’t so bad, though. For as morbid as her job could be, the people who
worked in this building with her really got it. They were like a family –
better than the one she had by blood by a long shot.
When the phone rang once again, Reese sat a little taller as she lifted the
receiver from its cradle. "Medical Examiner's Office, Reese speaking. How
may I help you?”
"Reese," a man on the line repeated her name. “That’s unusual.”
“I suppose… Can I help you?”
“Are you the person I should talk to about the woman that was found in
the construction site?”
Reese furrowed her brow. “Are you a reporter?”
There was just a hint of a hesitation before the man said, “Yes, I am.”
“Well, all the information that we have at this time is available on the
hotline–”
“I already listened to the hotline recording,” he said. “It didn’t say
anything about her identity.”
Reese pressed her lips together. He still hadn’t given his name and
affiliation, which was the first thing out of any reporter’s mouth provided
they weren’t a complete newbie, and the green ones didn’t tend to get
entrusted to serious stories involving violent homicide.
“She’s still Jane Doe,” Reese said. Even if he was just some guy with a
morbid curiosity, which was something she dealt with from time to time,
that detail wasn’t giving anything away.
“That’s awful.”
“The FCPD is working–”
“I hate thinking of her like that,” he interrupted again. “She doesn’t
deserve to be some anonymous thing.”
“Umm…”
What in the absolute fuck… That was all Reese could think, unsure how
to respond.
“I lied to you,” he said. “I’m not a reporter, and her name is Olivia
Sterling. She deserves that much, if nothing else.”
And then he hung up.
Reese just sat there slack-jawed, with the receiver dangling
precipitously between her cheek and her shoulder.
Who the hell was that?

OceanofPDF.com
 7

LENA

T
he office Lena sat in was expensively decorated to say the least. The
dark mahogany desk before her gleamed with a polished sheen, and
the ornate crystal chandelier overhead cast twinkling rays of sunlight
over velvet curtains and damask wallpaper. Every inch of the space
screamed wealth and power, not unlike the man who occupied it.
Desmond Green, Chief Information Officer for the Sterling Hotel
Group, reclined in his leather chair, fingers steepled just to complete the
stereotype.
Lena had been trying to speak with him for the past fifteen minutes, and
by now he was pushing her patience to its limits with his non-answers and
superior attitude.
“I’m sorry, Detective Wolf, but as I’ve already expressed, we won’t be
able to provide that information without a warrant,” he was saying like a
parrot whose only phrase involved the word warrant.
Nobody was this tight-lipped when she asked for the security footage
yesterday, although she hadn’t had to go through Desmond Green. And that
was before she discovered the footage had been doctored. Probably before
anyone at Sterling realized either, with the exception of whoever edited it.
"Mr. Green, I understand your concern,” Lena forced herself to remain
calm and amiable. “But as I've explained, there’s a woman who died a very
violent death on your company’s property and all I’m trying to do is catch
the man who did it.”
It was a small lie. The silk sheet, the lack of clothing, the absence of
blood spatter all indicated that Jane Doe died elsewhere and was transported
to the Sterling Hotel construction site. But the more dire Lena could make
the situation sound, the more likely she thought it would be that Green
would release the information she wanted.
“Please don’t make me go down to the courthouse and get a warrant,”
she added. “Because the judge will grant me one and I’ll be right back here
asking for a list of your employees who have access to the security logs.”
“And yet here you are without a warrant,” Green said, separating his
fingers in a cocky little shrug that made Lena want to smack the expression
off his face.
“I’m sure one of the names on that list would be yours, Mr. Green,” she
pointed out. “The harder you make this for me, the more I start to wonder if
there’s a personal reason for that. If maybe you’re the one who altered those
video files. Or you’re protecting whoever did?”
“I don’t appreciate you coming in here making baseless accusations,” he
said, staring hard back at her.
“Prove that they’re baseless, then,” she challenged.
She opened her mouth to press him further when her phone buzzed in
her pocket.
Frustrated at the absolute lack of progress she’d made with Green, she
turned her attention away from the man behind the ginormous desk and
checked her phone. She took a small amount of pleasure in knowing that
he’d hate being dismissed like that.
Fox County Medical Examiner’s Office, the caller ID said, and Lena
was a little ashamed at how relieved she was to see that. This was important
and it meant she could walk away from Desmond Green with purpose. A
more seasoned detective, one with more tricks up her sleeve, might have
gotten Green to help, but at least Lena wasn’t walking away in utter defeat.
“I have to take this,” she told him, standing and walking out of his
office. She didn’t miss the unmasked annoyance on his face as she left.
“Detective Wolf.”
“This is Amelia Trace,” the medical examiner identified herself. “Reese
just got a very concerning call regarding Jane Doe.”
Lena’s heart leaped into her throat as she wondered what ‘concerning
call’ meant. “Is she okay?”
Amelia paused for a moment, like she wasn’t expecting Lena to care.
“Yes, a little shaken up, though.”
“Tell me what happened.”
 Amelia gave her a run-down of the brief but chilling conversation, and
by the end of it, Lena had goosebumps.
“Are you sure he’s not just some nut job?”
“I confirmed it,” Amelia explained. “Olivia Sterling was in a car
accident two years ago and fractured her right fibula. I got her medical
records from the time and it’s an exact match to Jane Doe’s X-rays. It’s
her.”
Dread pooled in Lena’s stomach. “Sterling, that last name can’t be a
coincidence.”
“I asked Maya to do a quick search,” Amelia said. “It’s no coincidence.”
More information relayed, during which Lena tried to concentrate on
what the doctor was telling her even as her mind wandered to Reese,
wondering what it would have been like to get a call like that. All Lena
could think about was all the sick fucks who murdered people and then
couldn’t resist the urge to revisit the scene of the crime. Was this his version
of lingering just beyond the caution tape, calling the people who were
investigating the case to taunt them?
“I’ll need to get a statement from Reese herself, and I want to tap her
phone line in case the psycho calls back,” Lena said, mind racing a mile a
minute. “I’ll be there as soon as I can – I have to finish up here first.”
“Take your time, we’re seeing to Reese,” Amelia assured her.
They hung up, and Lena turned on her heel and burst back into
Desmond Green’s office.
“Hey,” he objected, phone suspended in his hand, mid-call.
Lena didn’t give him the chance to scold her for barging in on him,
though. She planted her feet, wide and commanding, as she said, “Our
victim has just been identified as Olivia Sterling, heir to the Sterling Hotel
empire and number two in line. Would you care to be more forthcoming
with your assistance now? Or would you rather take me to her father’s
office so he can get me the information I need?”
Green’s mouth worked, opening and closing like a fish out of water, and
Lena studied him closely. Unless he was a world-class actor, the victim’s
identity was as much a surprise to him as it had been to her. She could see
the gears turning in his head as he processed the information and tried to
figure out what the hell to do with it.
Who to notify, how to react.
 “All right,” he finally said, placing his palms on his desk. “What
information do you need from me?”
Relief washed over Lena, along with a buzz of energy at the possibility
of making some progress on this case.
“Let’s start with that list of names I asked for,” she said. “Anyone who
could have accessed the security footage and altered it.” She took a breath
and added, “And I need to notify her next of kin. Is her father here?”

OceanofPDF.com
 8

REESE

I
t was past noon and Reese’s hand was still trembling slightly, no matter
what she did to stop it. Now she was just working on trying to conceal it,
holding it beneath her desk so no one would notice.
Amelia had literally run to her rescue when she heard about the call,
coming dashing out of the morgue still wearing her paper gown and gloves.
Thankfully she hadn’t actually started the autopsy that was on her schedule
for the morning and she wasn’t covered in gore when she got to Reese’s
desk – that would have made the whole situation an order of magnitude
worse.
She and Maya had stayed with Reese while they called Detective Wolf,
and Dylan came with a hot cup of tea as soon as she heard the news.
Jordan went out on their lunch break and got Reese a whole bouquet of
taquitos from the food truck down the street, but Reese had eaten one and
then her stomach went funny so she told Jordan she’d had a big breakfast.
He knew her name, and now he knows mine. That was the thought that
just kept cycling through her mind.
That, and the fact that last year, Clark Lansdon had waltzed right into
the ME’s Office with a dolly full of vending machine snacks, stuck Elise
with a needle and dragged her out a side door. All while Reese sat at her
desk a few yards away, oblivious.
She never stopped feeling guilty for that. Every time she saw Elise, she
wanted to apologize for not hearing something, not being there when she
needed her.
She didn’t say it, though, mostly just smiled and pretended it hadn’t
happened.
 Would Elise pay the favor back in turn if this new guy came for Reese?
“He won’t call back,” Amelia said.
“I know,” Reese answered, voice as casual as she could make it.
“He achieved what he wanted,” Amelia insisted. “He was upset no one
knew who she was yet, and now we do. If he calls back again, he’s risking
getting caught.”
So you do think it’s the killer, Reese thought, a chill running through her.
Everyone was doing their best to tell her it wasn’t, it was just some
weirdo, it was a fluke. But there was only one person with a motive to make
a call like that, one person who could identify the victim. And now Amelia
had admitted to knowing that too.
“Do you want to go home?” she asked Reese for probably the tenth time
since this morning. “You can.”
“I’m fine,” Reese insisted. “Really, you don’t have to fret over me like
this.” She looked at the clock – almost a quarter to one. “Anyway, Detective
Wolf is coming to take my statement, isn’t she?”
For some reason, that thought comforted her.
“She is. Any minute now, I’d guess.”
“I don’t want to miss her,” Reese said. “And I have work to do.”
“All right, well, I guess I should go finish that autopsy,” Amelia said.
“You think you’ll be okay up here alone? Maya and the other investigators
are just around the corner.”
“Dr. Trace, I’m a big girl.” Reese gave her a scolding look, but really,
she was relieved when her boss turned and headed back to the morgue
because she could stop hiding the way her hand was shaking.
She hated people fussing over her like that. It always came with strings
and she never felt worthy of all the attention.
Alone again, she answered some emails, did a little data entry for one of
the other pathologists who liked to delegate his work, and set up the office
meeting schedule for the week. Her phone thankfully didn’t ring as often in
the afternoon as it did in the mornings, and it didn’t ring again after Amelia
left her.
The next time something diverted Reese’s attention away from her
computer, it was Detective Wolf stepping through the entrance doors. Her
hair was pulled back in that tight, high ponytail she favored, and she wore a
pair of T-shades that Reese got the distinct pleasure of watching her
dramatically remove as she stepped into the fluorescents.
 Their eyes met, and a little smile curved Reese’s mouth. Lena Wolf was
gorgeous, and Reese didn’t mind seeing her as often as she had lately –
even if it did have to be under these circumstances.
“Reese, are you okay?”
Her heart fluttered. It sounded like Lena actually cared.
“A bit flustered,” she admitted. “I’ll get over it.”
“I’m sorry you got put in that position in the first place,” Lena said,
coming over to the side of her desk rather than letting the bulk of it stand
between them. “I bet that wasn’t what you signed up for when you took this
job.”
Reese smiled. “Not at all. But I’ve been here five years and that was my
first… would you call it an obscene phone call? Not quite. Threatening?”
“Did it feel threatening?” Lena asked.
Reese thought back to it, a squirmy uncomfortable feeling growing in
her chest as she relived it. “Not threatening exactly… definitely not
friendly, though.”
“Sinister,” Lena suggested.
“Yes,” Reese agreed.
"Reese, I need to formally interview you," Lena said, her tone switching
to something more professional and focused. “Is that okay?”
"Of course. Whatever you need.”
“We could do it right here at the desk if you need to stay here,” Lena
said. “Or we could use the conference room?”
“I think Maya will watch my desk for me again,” Reese said. “Let me
get her.”
She stood, sliding past Lena and meeting her gaze as she did so. Her
eyes were like brown agate, lighter in the center with a darker ring
encircling the irises, and Reese had to resist the urge to lick her lips at the
sight of them so close-up.
She found Maya deep in conversation with one of the other
investigators at her desk, so Reese went and found Tyler instead.
“You busy?”
“Just typing up a case report,” he said. “What’s up?”
Reese explained that Lena was here to interview her about the creepy
call, and Tyler agreed to watch the desk while they talked. They came back
out to the reception area and Tyler sat down while Reese waved Lena over.
 “I think somebody just put on a fresh pot of coffee,” she said as they
walked. “I can smell it. Want a cup?”
“Always,” Lena said.
The conference room doubled as the investigators’ break room, with a
kitchenette in one corner, and there was indeed a freshly brewed pot of
coffee waiting for them there. No pink box of donuts today, but you
couldn’t have it all.
“How do you take it?” Reese asked, taking her favorite mug with the
little ceramic Loch Ness monster swimming in the bottom down from the
cabinet, and reaching for a disposable to-go cup for Lena.
“Cream, no sugar,” she said. “Thank you.”
Reese joined her at the conference-slash-lunch table a moment later,
setting the to-go cup down in front of her. Lena was sitting on one corner
and she pointed Reese to the seat beside her at the head of the table. They
sat catty-corner from each other and Lena took a long, slow swig, then said.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Lena took out her phone and opened a voice memos app, starting a new
recording by announcing the date and time and the reason for the interview.
Then she instructed Reese, “Take your time, okay? Try to remember
everything you can about the call. Let’s start at the beginning – what did he
say when you answered the phone?”
Reese gave her a transcript of the call, as nearly as she could remember
it, then immediately launched into an apology. “I say the same things so
many times a day, they all start to bleed together. You’d think I would
remember exactly what was said on a call that weird.”
“I understand,” Lena reassured her. “And I think you’re doing great.”
She reached across the table, resting her hand on top of Reese’s for a
moment and giving it a comforting squeeze.
“Can you tell me about his voice?” she asked next. “Was it high, low?
Loud, soft? Clear or gravelly?”
Reese frowned, thinking, and the frustration mounted. “It was just…
average. He could have been anyone. I can’t even tell you for absolute sure
that it was a man – only that I assumed it was.”
“So the voice was lower, or deeper,” Lena prompted.
“Yes.”
“Did you pick up on an accent? Or any slang he used?”
 Reese played the whole conversation back through her head, as best as
she could. “No. He didn’t use slang, he pronounced all his words pretty
clearly and fully.”
“Educated, maybe,” Lena said. “Or a professional. Usually the higher
up the ladder you go, the less likely you are to speak casually.”
“Maybe.”
Lena asked about half a dozen more questions – about background
noises, of which there were none, and any emotions Reese could pick up in
his voice. By the time she reached for her phone to stop the recording,
Reese was starting to feel better. Like there was someone who genuinely
cared about this and was going to take care of it.
Even if Lena’s interest lay more with Jane Doe – or Olivia Sterling –
than with Reese, at least she was looking for the guy.
“So you think it was him?” she asked once they were off the record.
“The killer?”
Lena pursed her lips in thought. “I can’t say for sure, but it’s a lead I’m
going to take very seriously.”
“I wish I could have told you more.”
“Me too, but it’d be too much to ask for him to start the call with ‘My
name is Joe Blow, I killed Olivia Sterling and you can find me at the
following address.’ I couldn’t justify my paycheck if all the criminals did
that.”
Reese laughed, and Lena stood up, taking her coffee with her. “Thanks
for this.”
“You want a refill?” Reese suddenly hated the idea of letting the
detective out of her sight. Was it just a security thing, or was there more to
it?
“If I won’t be hogging too much of the pot.”
“I’ll make more,” Reese promised. Lena followed her to the kitchenette
and Reese topped off her to-go cup, then they both stood there with their
hips leaning against the countertop, looking at each other and trying to find
a reason to prolong the moment.
“I ordered a wiretap on your desk phone,” Lena said. “That way if he
calls again–”
Reese’s eyes went wide. “You think he’ll call back?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Lena said. So much for Amelia’s assurances that
she’d heard the last of him. “A call like that isn’t typical behavior. It’s either
someone on the outside seeking attention, or it’s the killer trying to control
the narrative. The fact that he called the Medical Examiner’s Office and not
the police tells me he’s not confident – he’s not willing to talk to someone
who’s been trained to play Spot the Bullshit.”
Reese snorted. “Oh, I’ve got lots of Spot the Bullshit experience.”
Lena flashed her a genuine smile. “But he doesn’t know that. He thinks
he can manipulate you easier than he could a detective.”
“So…” she hesitated. “Should I let him try?”
“You should only do what you’re comfortable with,” Lena said. “If you
don’t want to talk to him again, we can get someone from FCPD to screen
calls here until we get this guy behind bars. I won’t hesitate to do that for
you.”
Reese’s heart fluttered. For her? Because Lena cared about her, because
she wanted to protect her?
Or because she would do it for anyone? Because it was her job?
“He knows my voice,” Reese pointed out. “He made a big deal of my
name. He might get suspicious and hang up if he calls back and realizes the
receptionist is someone different.” She thought about it for a second, then
steeled herself and asked, “What should I do if he calls back?”
“You’re sure you want to help?”
“Yes. This job is hard enough most days. I’m not going to let some
woman-battering asshole scare me off of doing my work.”
Lena put her hand on Reese’s upper arm, giving it a quick squeeze.
“That’s really brave of you, and I appreciate it. Olivia Sterling would, too.”
She told Reese that if the man called back, she should humor him,
letting him talk as much as he wanted and providing information he asked
for – only the stuff that was released to the public, of course, but try to
make him think he was getting insider info.
“Keep him talking as long as you can,” Lena said. “The more you can
get him to say, the greater chance we’ll have something to work with when
it comes to identifying this guy.”
"Okay," she said. "I'll do my best."
Lena locked eyes with her, hand still resting on Reese’s biceps. “And
remember that you’re not alone in this, and you’re safe, okay?”
Reese nodded, and Lena didn’t look convinced by whatever she saw in
Reese’s eyes.
She repeated, “I will keep you safe, Reese.”
 She swallowed around something thick in her throat. “Thank you. I trust
you.”
Why, when she’d only exchanged a handful of words with Lena since
she became a homicide detective? Reese had no idea, but looking into those
brown agate eyes, she was certain that this woman would lay down her life
for her.
Reese topped off her own coffee cup before they left the kitchenette,
and Lena walked her back up to her desk.
“Nothing to report,” Tyler told her. “You okay?”
Reese nodded. “Thanks, Ty.”
The investigator headed back to his own desk, and Reese sank
somewhat reluctantly into her chair.
“You have a supportive group around you here,” Lena commented.
“And the full force of the homicide department behind you, too.”
Reese nodded, still just a little shakier than she’d like to be.
“Is that yours?”
“Hmm?”
Lena pointed at a cellphone face-down on Reese’s desk. For a moment,
she thought Lena was about to scold her for having her phone out at work.
“Yeah.”
“Unlock it for me,” Lena said, holding her hand out. “I want to give you
my personal cell so you can reach me anytime you need to.”
Reese lifted the phone to scan her face, then pulled up a blank text
message and passed the phone to Lena. She watched her tap a quick
message, then a chime sounded in Lena’s pocket as she sent the text to
herself. Then she passed the phone back to Reese.
“There.”
Reese looked at the text and laughed. “You sent yourself a peanut
emoji?”
“So I remember this number belongs to Reese,” she explained. Then she
pulled out her own phone and sent a message back. When it popped up on
Reese’s screen, it was a wolf emoji.
“A bit on the nose, don’t you think?”
Lena grinned. “I’ll leave it up to you to think of more clever emoji
nicknames for us. You going to be okay for now?”
She actually was feeling a lot better, but she still hated the idea of Lena
leaving. She could hardly say that out loud, though, so she just said, “Yes,
thank you.”
Lena took a few steps toward the door and looked back, as if she was
reluctant to leave too. “Remember, if he calls again, try to get him talking.”
She pointed at the phone in Reese’s hand. “And don’t hesitate to reach out
if you need me – day or night.”
Well, if that wasn’t an attractive offer, Reese didn’t think she’d ever
heard one before. She watched Lena leave and the door close behind her,
then looked down at the emojis on her phone and smirked. She was already
brainstorming things to send back to her, and whether Lena meant it to or
not, it worked like a charm in distracting her.

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 9

LENA

I
t was gearing up to be a long night.
Lena arrived back at the FCPD homicide department around three
o’clock, grateful for the two cups of coffee Reese had given her and
knowing that she had a mountain of work before her. Police work wasn’t a
nine-to-five gig and she didn’t mind pulling some overtime if it meant
catching a scumbag before he could hurt another woman. But that didn’t
mean her stomach stopped grumbling or her butt didn’t ache for a comfy
couch to crash on.
Thankfully, the bullpen wasn’t empty. Tate and Ariel were both at their
desks when Lena came in.
“What’s up?” Tate greeted.
“Just got back from the ME’s Office,” Lena said, filling them in on the
creepy call Reese got, and how fortunate it was that Amelia had been able
to rapidly identify Olivia Sterling while Lena was at Sterling HQ. “It does
mean I have about a mile of paperwork waiting for me in my email,
though.”
“We can help,” Ariel volunteered. She gestured between the two of
them. “Since I’m the low woman on the totem pole and Tate’s still working
with the prosecutor on her Briar Ridge case, we got tapped to hold down the
fort. It’s been quiet here.”
“How are things going over at the search site?” Lena asked.
She looked around the bullpen, full of empty desks and vacant chairs. It
was the same in several other departments in the precinct, an all-hands-on-
deck situation out in the woods.
 “No new developments,” Tate said. “Dr. Trace and the forensic
anthropologist have autopsied on body number two and didn’t find much.
It’s gonna be a while on any lab work they request.”
“Well, if you’re not busy with other things, I’d love a hand with this
case,” Lena said. “Now that we have an identity for our victim, the work is
piling up fast.”
“Gimme,” Ariel said, her eagerness to get her hands dirty so evident
Lena couldn’t help laughing.
“Don’t sound too excited until you hear what I’ve got for you.”
“More security footage?” Ariel asked, doing an admirable job of
disguising her emotions. Since they’d been promoted to homicide, the two
of them had done more desk duty than anything, and Ariel had probably
logged more hours of security footage searching than anyone in the
department.
“Not video this time, I already checked that,” Lena said. She sat down
at her computer and fired up her computer. “I’m going to send you the data
Sterling’s CIO emailed me. I need you to comb through the badge swipes
and look for anyone who accessed either the construction site on the night
Olivia’s body was dumped, and any security or IT departments for the rest
of the weekend.”
“You got it,” Ariel said with a salute. “Hey, I’m basically an expert in
data analysis at this point. Should I call it my specialty, make it sound
fancier?”
“Only if you want to be the go-to detective every time somebody has
data to sift through,” Tate said. “What do you need me to do, Lena?”
“Can you run a background check on Olivia Sterling?”
Tate’s brows rose. “The victim?”
“Yeah,” Lena nodded. “Dr. Trace gave me a quick and dirty overview of
who she is. Thirties, rich, beautiful, right hand to her father who owns the
company. But what I really need to know is who would have a motive to do
this to her. Who has she pissed off? Who was she close to?”
She shook her head.
“And why the hell did it take so long before somebody identified her?”
she added. “Somebody like Olivia Sterling, you expect them to have a lot of
friends, or at least a lot of people who want to be perceived as friends. But
no one was concerned when she went missing for the whole weekend.”
“Not even her dad?”
 “I called over to missing persons on my way here,” she said. “Adults
have to be missing for seventy-two hours before an official report is filed,
but a lot of people at least contact the police before then. A high-profile
woman like Olivia? I think we would have heard if people were worried
that she was MIA.”
“I’ll check her socials while I’m running the background,” Tate said,
“see if people were reaching out.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate you both – this is a big help.”
“What are you going to be working on?” Ariel asked.
“Our mystery caller,” she said. “I hope I can figure out who the hell he
is before he has a chance to call Reese again.”
She swiveled toward her desk, pulling her chair in close so she could
concentrate. Behind her back, she totally missed the knowing look that
Ariel shot Tate at the mention of the cute ME’s receptionist.

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 10

LENA

A
riel letting out a huge yawn then reaching over to click on her desk
lamp was Lena’s first clue that the sun had set and they were far past
the standard quitting time.
She blinked a couple times to clear the dryness from her eyes, then
checked the time on her computer screen. “Oh damn, it’s past six. You two
could have told me.”
“And leave before the job is done? Never,” Ariel said. “I’m about three-
quarters of the way through this list of badge swipes.”
“Anything noteworthy?”
“Not yet.”
“How about you, Tate?” Lena asked.
Tate rotated in her chair, using the back as leverage for a spinal twist,
then doing the other side. “I’ve checked all our records and Olivia Sterling
is coming up clean. Can’t say as much for the company itself, but I imagine
that’s not her fault if she’s number two.”
“She was,” Lena corrected.
“I found a police report for that car accident Amelia mentioned. Single-
car, cited as a failure to control the vehicle. She wrapped her Mercedes
around a telephone pole.”
“Drinking?” It was always the first suspect.
“Nobody gave her a Breathalyzer,” Tate said.
Lena grunted. The work of Olivia’s father, trying to keep the bad press
away from his family name? “What else?”
“I’m waiting to hear back on her credit report, and I’m almost done
going through her socials,” Tate went on. “No one asking after her the last
few days, at least not publicly. But she didn’t appear to be too active online.
Only posts on her page were other people tagging her at hotel industry
events.”
“When was the last one?” Lena asked.
Tate looked back at her computer. “Two weeks ago. A hospitality
conference in NYC.”
“Good work. Both of you,” Lena said. “You should call it a night.”
Tate nodded. “Callie’s making moussaka and if she goes to all the
trouble and I’m not there to eat it, I’m gonna be sleeping on the couch.”
Lena laughed. “Sounds delicious, so there’s another reason not to miss.”
“What about you?” Ariel asked, getting up and switching off her lamp.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Lena said. She was always preaching to her more
workaholic-inclined coworkers the importance of work-life balance, and
she couldn’t very well become a hypocrite on her very first case.
She turned off her computer and grabbed her jacket. The three of them
headed for the stairs and Lena had her foot on the first one when her cell
started ringing at the same time that Ariel’s desk phone trilled in the empty
bullpen. They all exchanged a look – there was no way that was a
coincidence.
Lena answered hers first. “Detective Wolf.”
“Hey, it’s Arlen. You with Sterner and Macawi?”
“Yeah, they’re right here.”
Ariel’s phone stopped ringing and in Lena’s ear, Arlen said, “We got
another one.”
Lena’s stomach dropped. She put the phone on speaker. “Another
body?”
"Jesus," Ariel cursed. “Three?”
“Yeah, and I need all of you here ASAP," Arlen continued. “Most of the
volunteers have gone home for the day but the press is circling us like
vultures. This is an all hands on deck situation.”
"Understood," Lena replied. "We'll be there in fifteen.”
Arlen hung up, and Lena stared at her phone for a moment, processing.
“This is turning into one hell of a case,” Tate said.
She took the words right out of Lena’s mouth. She was thinking that,
and also that nobody in homicide was going to get much sleep tonight.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll drive.”
“You sure?” Ariel asked. “I’m still pretty fresh. I could drive.”
 “You saying I got bags under my eyes or something?” Lena asked with
mock-offense.
Ariel smiled at her and gave the slightest shrug of her shoulder. Lena
smacked her on it and Ariel added, “All I’m saying is I’ve been at a desk all
day while you’ve been running all over town. So let me drive.”
“Somebody drive,” Tate said. “Arlen sounded a little freaked out.”
That wasn’t like her, and it was unsettling. The three of them took the
stairs at a clip then hopped into Ariel’s unmarked in the police parking
deck. Tate still managed to call shotgun in spite of the rush, so Lena slid
into the back seat.
It was dark by the time they got on the road, and from her vantage point
she couldn’t hear clearly whatever Ariel and Tate were talking about up
front.
This was exactly why she wanted to drive. It’d keep her occupied, keep
her mind busy.
Because if she wasn’t distracted, she was going to think about the man
who killed Olivia Sterling in a horrifically violent attack, then dumped her
body like so much garbage.
The man who now had a direct line to Reese, and apparently thought
nothing of dumping whatever horrible things were running through his head
into her lap.
And she didn’t like that thought one bit.

A rlen wasn ’ t exaggerating about the vultures.

Even though it was full dark by the time Ariel parked at the trailhead,
there were half a dozen news vans in the lot and a couple reporters crowded
the car as soon as they spotted the county license plates.
“What’s going on?” one of the reporters asked, shoving a microphone in
Lena’s face the moment she opened her door.
“Is it true there’s another body?” another asked.
“Do we have another serial killer?” a third demanded. “The public has a
right to know!”
“No comment,” the three of them all parroted as they got out of the car.
 “We just got here,” Tate pointed out. “We don’t know any more than
you do.”
They pushed as politely but firmly as possible through the reporters and
their camera crews and headed for the trailhead, which was roped off with
police tape and guarded by a patrol officer who turned out to be Mel Pine,
who came to The Taphouse most Friday nights.
“Hey, how you holding up?” Lena greeted her.
Mel let out a loud breath. “This is probably the hardest assignment I’ve
had since Zara made detective, and it’s just trying to keep those guys out of
the crime scene.” She gestured toward the reporters, who were
unapologetically listening in.
She took down all three of their names before they crossed the police
line, and told them there were a few battery-powered lanterns lighting the
trail but not nearly enough to see by.
“We were not prepared to work into the night,” she said. “You got
flashlights?”
“Of course,” Tate said, ever the Scout. She pulled a penlight out of her
pocket and Lena had one too.
Ariel grumbled. “I think mine’s in my trunk…”
“Here comes the ME,” Mel pointed out. The three of them turned to see
the Medical Examiner’s plain white van pulling into the lot.
“We’ll wait for whoever they sent and walk up together,” Lena said.
“Go grab your flashlight, Sterner.”
Ariel jogged back to her car and the others watched the reporters repeat
their bombardment routine with the ME’s van. Kelsey Granger pushed past
them, using her large investigator’s kit to hold them back.
“What the heck is going on here?” she asked when she reached the
caution tape.
“It’s a circus,” Mel said. “Has been the whole time, but now it’s cranked
up to eleven.”
“Well, I’m glad you all are here,” Kelsey said. “I wouldn’t have wanted
to deal with all that alone.” She hooked a thumb in the direction of the
reporters, who were crowding as close as they could without getting yelled
at by Mel.
Ariel rejoined them with her trusty Maglite and Lena asked Mel, “You
going to be okay by yourself out here?”
 “Oh yeah, I may look small but I can hold my own against a bunch of
reporters.”
The four of them all clicked on their flashlights and headed up the trail.
Once they got into the trees, it was eerily quiet compared to the parking lot.
Someone had hung a camping lantern from a tree limb about halfway to the
search area, but other than that, it was pitch-black but for their flashlight
beams.
"Any idea what we're walking into?" Kelsey asked. “All I got told was
there was another body found.”
“That’s all we know too,” Lena replied. “How many more do you think
could be out here?”
“God, I hope there are no more,” Tate grimaced. “This is awful.”
When they arrived at the scene, they found Arlen waiting on the
perimeter.
“Got one more, adult, skeletal like the first but that’s all we know so
far,” she said, walking them toward where the body was found. “We were
waiting for you, Kelsey.”
“I’m ready to get to work,” she assured Arlen.
“Where do you need us?” Lena asked.
“The media’s been getting bolder,” Arlen said. “Mel’s doing her best to
contain them, but this isn’t exactly a closed scene. Tom went to get a tent
we can set up around the body for privacy. I’m gonna need you to help him
set it up when he gets back.”
“And us?” Ariel asked.
“Perimeter security,” Arlen said. “The last thing we need is a nosy
reporter getting past the police tape only to contaminate the scene on top of
taking photos. Go find Renee, she’ll tell you where she needs you.”
They wandered off together, and Tom arrived right on their tails, team-
carrying a large black canvas bag with the help of a patrol officer. They set
it down not far from where Kelsey was laying out her kit, and Lena spotted
a white sheet draped over what she assumed would be the remains. They
were in an open spot, and glancing around it didn’t appear it had been
chosen for any reason in particular.
Just a good spot for digging in the forest, without a lot of roots and far
from prying eyes.
Whoever was dumping bodies here probably thought they were
invincible, and they had been for many years. Well, that ended now.
 Lena helped Tom and Kelsey get the tent up, carefully placing it around
the body, and they attached the canvas on three sides with tie-downs and
velcro.
"Alright," Kelsey said with a clap of her hands. "Let's get to work."
“You’re gonna need a lantern,” Tom pointed out. “I’ll track one down
for you.”
He went off in search of light, and Lena stood guard at the tent’s
entrance. Not that she could see any reporters who got the idea of creeping
around in the bushes – she’d only know they were there if their camera
flash went off. Kelsey stood nearby putting on latex gloves and protective
booties to avoid cross-contamination.
“Did you see Reese before she went home?” Lena couldn’t help asking.
“No, I heard all about what happened though,” Kelsey said. “Crazy.”
“Yeah, I feel awful.”
In the low light, Lena saw Kelsey furrow her brow. “Why? You’re not
the one who made a threatening phone call to her.”
“No, but it’s my case. I feel responsible.”
“You shouldn’t. And Reese is stronger than she looks,” Kelsey said.
“She’ll be fine.”
Tom came back holding a camping lantern aloft, proclaiming, “Let there
be light!”
Arlen, standing not far away on perimeter duty, heard him and snorted,
“He thinks he’s God now. Great.”
Tom ignored that jab and ducked inside the tent with Kelsey. He hooked
the lantern up high on the metal frame and bathed the tent in a warm and
cozy glow not at all in keeping with the surroundings. Lena watched as
Kelsey took a couple initial photographs, then carefully lifted the sheet.
“I’ll take that,” Tom said, and she passed it to him. Tom carefully
lowered it into one of the large evidence bags Kelsey had brought into the
tent – brown paper like a grocery bag. It’d need to be examined later in the
lab for any trace evidence it may have picked up.
As soon as the sheet was tucked away, Lena could see the remains.
She was meant to be looking outward, keeping an eye out for any
intrepid reporters trying to get a peek, but she couldn’t keep her own
curiosity in check.
The grave appeared shallow – only a few inches below the surface at
one end, and perhaps eroded further with time and weather. Despite the
hasty burial, the body appeared to have been laid out with care. It was in the
traditional posture, arms folded across the chest, scraps of clothing still
clinging to the bones.
“Seems a lot more deliberate than the tree skeleton,” Tom confirmed
what Lena was thinking while Kelsey snapped away with her camera,
documenting the scene.
“Do you think this victim was better respected by the killer?” Lena
wondered. “Maybe the first kill.”
“Could be,” Tom grunted. He was deep in concentration, trying not to
get in Kelsey’s way as he conducted his own visual inspection.
The work proceeded slowly. Renee came by and hinted that she wanted
to be inside the tent since the tree skeleton was her case in the first place.
Tom didn’t take the hint though – Lena was pretty sure it wasn’t him being
dense, the guy was a great judge of character. Probably more like a concern
for limiting access to the crime scene, plus this case had grown far beyond
Renee’s limited experience.
It may have started as her case, but the lead detectives were on it now.
Lena stopped watching what was going on inside the tent after
approximately photo three hundred, and resigned herself to the guard duty
she was originally supposed to be doing. Except it was just as dark as ever,
the moon barely breaching the tree canopy.
The other homicide detectives milled around on perimeter duty and
theorized that the next step would be to get ground-penetrating radar out
here to search the whole area again. And despite her best efforts, Lena
released a yawn.
“We boring you, Wolf?” Renee asked.
“Not in the slightest,” Lena lied. “Just wouldn’t mind a strong cup of
coffee is all.”
“Sorry, all we have out here is bottled water,” Renee said. “We tried
coffee in carafes last week, but it got cold and bitter real quick.”
Lena gave her head a good shake to clear the cobwebs and stood a little
taller. Yeah, she was tired, but there was work to be done and coworkers
who were counting on her.
And then the universe delivered a little jolt to keep her alert.
“I’m seeing blunt force trauma here,” Kelsey said from inside the tent.
Lena whipped around, interested all over again. Kelsey and Tom had
carefully excavated most of the skeleton by now, and the scraps of clothing
still clinging to it. Kelsey had the skull in her gloved hands, and she turned
it for Tom to see. Lena got a glimpse too, and she was no pathologist but
even from ten feet away she could see the fracture at the crown of the head.
“We may have just found the cause of death,” Tom said.
And then a bright light flashed against the walls of the tent. For a split
second, Lena thought it was lightning, and then she heard Tate shouting
outside.
“Get back! You can’t be here.”
Oh shit.
Lena turned around just in time for a second camera flash to go off,
temporarily blinding her as she looked directly at it. Fuzzily, beyond the
halo obscuring her vision, she could see black pants and hiking boots, and a
man holding up a camera with a pretty serious lens attached to it.
“Get him out of here,” Tom barked, coming out of the tent. “You better
delete those photos unless you want to be charged with trespassing, buddy.”
“I have every right to be on this public trail,” the reporter argued as Tom
took him by the arm.
“Not past the police line, you don’t,” he said, escorting the man back to
the parking lot by force.
“Great,” Renee said, coming to stand next to Lena at the tent. “How are
we supposed to maintain the integrity of this investigation when we’ve got
reporters literally coming out of the bushes at us?”

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 11

REESE

S
everal days passed and Reese got a little jumpy every time her desk
phone rang, but that man never called back.
She also hadn’t heard from Lena since she came by to take her
statement, and Reese spent an embarrassing amount of her downtime
brainstorming different reasons to use the cell number Lena had given her.
Checking up on the case.
Inquiring after the wiretap Lena had mentioned.
Asking her out for drinks.
What? No. They were coworkers who barely knew each other, and Lena
was at least ten years older than Reese. There was no way she’d be
interested, even if her eyes did sparkle in a very bewitching way every time
she looked in Reese’s direction.
For all she knew, Lena looked at everyone that way.
"Reese?" Amelia snapped her out of her train of thought. She was
standing in the doorway, looking like this was not the first time she’d said
Reese’s name.
"Sorry," she said, perking up. “What can I do for you, Amelia?”
"Could you send me the investigator’s report for the Smith case when
you have a chance?"
"Sure thing, right away.”
Amelia narrowed her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
Amelia didn’t return to her office. Instead, she leaned her shoulder on
the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. “You know this isn’t going to
turn out like Elise, right?”
 “Yes, of course.”
Elise had been abducted out of the break room by a stalker who’d
engineered the situation so that he’d have a legitimate reason to be in an
employees-only area. Reese sat right next to the front door, which anyone in
the world could waltz in and out of. How much easier would it be to take
her?
“He’s not going to come after you,” Amelia insisted. “He’s an asshole,
and maybe a murderer, but whatever his purpose was in calling here, it’s
done.”
Not what Lena thinks.
Reese nodded along and Amelia continued. “It wasn’t about you. You
just happened to be the person who answered the phone. And everyone in
this office would fight like hell to protect you if something did happen.
Okay? You hear me?”
“Yes.” She shrugged. “I’m fine, Amelia, seriously.”
Her boss gave Reese a pat on the shoulder that burned with the shame
of having given off the vibe that she needed it. Then she went back to her
office.
Reese was only alone for a moment before the door to the labs popped
open and Jordan came out saying, “Hey, work wife.”
Reese held up her hand. “I don’t see a ring on this finger.”
Jordan came over and sat down on her desk, plucking a paperclip out of
the organizer on the corner. She made quick work of bending it into a circle,
then presented it to Reese. “There. Since you’re my work wife, it should be
a work ring, right?”
Reese put it on her finger and held it out, fawning over it. “All our work
friends are going to be so work jealous!”
“If you don’t appreciate me, I want a work divorce.”
Reese cracked up, then sat back in her chair. “What’s up? Is it hacky
sack time?”
“Nah, I’m wearing my new sneakers today, don’t want to scuff them
up,” Jordan said.
Reese leaned around the desk to look. Sure enough, Jordan’s white
sneakers were spotless and bright enough to be blinding. Not the kind of
shoes you’d typically want to wear while wading through blood and organs,
or whatever it was they did back in the morgue.
 This could mean only one thing, and thankfully it was just the thing to
get Reese’s mind off her creepy caller.
“Is Lane coming today?”
“Huh? How should I know?”
Reese grinned huge. “You do know because you always know. And if
you’re going to flirt with that funeral director right in front of me then I’m
the one who wants a work divorce!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jordan tried to play it cool.
“Can’t a girl treat herself to new sneakers once in a while without calling in
the Spanish Inquisition?”
“No,” Reese said, deadpan.
Pretty much everyone around the office had noticed Jordan’s crush on
Lane Morton, owner of one of the more popular funeral homes in Fox
County. Whenever she came to pick up a body, Jordan made a point of
being there to make the hand-off, and yet she could barely ever bring
herself to make eye contact with Lane and she started tripping over her
tongue in ways she never did with other people.
It was cute, and a source of deep embarrassment for Jordan, so naturally
Reese took the opportunity to tease her about it as often as she could.
“What time’s she coming?”
“Who?”
“Well, now you’re just being difficult,” Reese said, poking Jordan’s
thigh with the tip of her pen.
“Hey!” She brushed at the spot, acting worried about ink transfer even
though the pen had been capped.
“Just ask her out, would you?” Reese begged. “It’s been years. You’re
gonna miss your opportunity.”
Jordan grabbed a rubber band to play with next, then said, “Hey, the
reason I came up here was to get rolling on that prank idea. You wanna?”
Reese just shook her head. Changing the subject, okay. If that was how
she wanted to play it, fine. But Reese didn’t want to hear it if Lane came in
one day and was no longer interested in playing the painfully shy flirting
game with Jordan because she’d found someone else.
“I don’t know if I have the time for pranks right now,” she said. “I have
about a hundred emails in my inbox.”
It was the truth, but Jordan saw right through the brave front she was
trying to put up. “Hey, I know you’re not feeling like yourself,” she said.
“That’s why–”
The phone rang, saving Reese from committing to the shenanigans
Jordan had cooked up. “Off my desk, I have work to do.”
“Fine,” Jordan grumbled. “But we’re talking about this at lunch.”
“Medical Examiner’s Office, this is Reese,” she said into the phone, and
Jordan disappeared through the door to the back. It was an FCPD officer
calling to see if the toxicology report was completed for the body found in
the park, and Reese happily checked for him.
If that man had done one thing for her, it was make her appreciate the
utter mundanity of a normal phone call.

J ordan changed into her usual beat-up sneakers at lunch insisted on a

post-meal game of hacky sack, and Reese was sure that meant Lane had
already come and gone and Jordan had no one to impress with her footwear
this afternoon.
She wouldn’t talk about it, though. She only wanted to play the game
and strategize the big prank she was cooking up for Dylan – which sounded
like it had become a bit too complicated and like she was trying extra hard
to distract Reese from her worries.
Sweet, but disruptive.
Reese got out of there without committing to anything, topped off her
coffee for the afternoon, then sat back down at her desk.
When there weren’t reporters calling or sending emails, there was filing
to do – both electronic and for the office’s printed records. Meeting minutes
to transcribe. Supplies to order. Appointments to be made with police,
families, and funeral homes.
She was actually toying with the idea of calling Lane Morton up and
telling her flat-out that Jordan had a crush on her. Reese had her number,
had spoken to her many times, and she was about ninety percent sure Lane
felt the same way.
But would Jordan ever forgive her, even if Lane asked her out?
Could she convince her it was one of her beloved pranks?
Reese was having fun pondering all that when her phone rang and she
answered it without a thought, introducing herself as usual.
 And then a sharp, searing shock ran down her spine when she heard his
voice. “Hello again, Reese.”
Reese's blood ran cold and her mind raced. She had to use her left hand
to block her right from slamming the receiver down on instinct. Keep him
talking. That was what Lena wanted her to do if he called back.
So they could track him.
And catch him.
"Who is this?" she asked, her voice a lot steadier than she would have
expected.
He chuckled. The ugliest laugh Reese had ever heard. “You know I
can’t tell you that.”
“Why are you calling me?” she demanded, anger rising in her belly now
alongside the fear.
“I’m just trying to help you out, darling–”
“Go to hell!”
Slam.
That fucking did it, the pet name coming out of that sick fuck’s mouth.
It turned her stomach and she couldn’t listen to a millisecond more of him.
“What’s going on?” Maya came out of the break room holding a mug of
coffee. “Reese, are you crying?”
“Who yelled?” Amelia asked, coming around the corner.
Reese pointed at the phone, momentarily lost for words. She pulled
herself together enough to explain, “He called again.”
“Oh, hell no,” Maya grunted.
“What did he say?” Amelia demanded. “Did he threaten you?”
”I– No,” she said, her whole body wound tight. “Not with his words.
But he’s just so…”
She shivered, another sick chill running through her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for,” Amelia said. “Maya, call Lena.”
Maya nodded and pulled out her cell.
“I tried to keep him talking,” Reese said. “I hope it was enough.”

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 12

REESE

ena says she’s on her way,” Maya said as she hung up her cell. A
“L ripple of relief started to build in Reese’s chest. Lena was coming. It
would be okay.
More people were gathering around her desk, drawn by the chatter and
nervous energy. Tyler came from the investigators’ cubicles, and Dylan and
Elise wandered in from the labs. As new people came, the ones who were
already here filled them in.
It was different from when the reporters called demanding juicy details,
though. When Reese looked around her desk, she saw concerned looks on
the faces of people who really cared about her. People who had become her
family.
For as long as you’re useful to them, a sharp little voice in the back of
her head hissed.
“What did he say this time?” Amelia asked.
“Not much. He said he wanted to help me,” she said, queasy just
thinking back on the call. She didn’t want his voice in her ears, even in
memory. She sat up a little taller in her chair and forced the sound of his
voice out of her head.
“Why’s he calling the ME’s Office?” Tyler wondered. “We don’t even
do motive. That’s Lena’s job.”
“Maybe he thinks he can get away with it here,” Elise suggested.
“Terrorize some receptionist who doesn’t pose a real threat to his
anonymity, get a little information along the way.”
“How long do you think I’d have to have him on the phone to trace
him?” Reese wondered. “I didn’t make it very long.”
 “It might be enough,” Maya said, although it wasn’t very reassuring.
“Lena will know.”
Yes, Lena.
Lena was the answer.
Lena would stop this bastard, put him behind bars and make him pay for
what he did to Olivia Sterling, make it so he never called here again.
Make Reese’s job tolerable again.
Her phone rang.
Every single person in the room jumped, and dread pooled in Reese’s
stomach. She shrugged, though. “It’s not him. My phone rings all day
long.” Before she had a chance to overthink it, she picked it up. “Medical
Ex–”
“Don’t hang up on me, Reese.”
She yelped, then Amelia snatched the phone out of her hand. "Who is
this?" she barked. "You're nothing but a coward hiding behind an
anonymous phone call. Identify yourself!"
Reese didn’t breathe. She wasn’t even sure her heart was beating as she
waited for the response. Then Amelia put the phone in its cradle.
“He hung up on me.”
“Scaredy little bastard,” Maya grimaced.
Reese glanced around at her coworkers, their expressions mirroring her
own unease. Even Amelia, who always maintained a strict composure even
in the middle of a tornado, seemed shaken.
“Do you think he’ll call b–”
Reese didn’t even get the words out before the phone rang again.
“Fucking hell,” Tyler said. “Don’t answer it.”
“Can we just unplug the line for now?” Reese asked. She was done
being brave and there was no way she was going to lift that receiver right
now, no matter who was on the other end of the line.
“Wait,” Dylan spoke up. “Lena’s on her way. If we can keep him on the
line long enough, maybe she’ll know what to say to him.”
She put one finger to her lips to call for silence, then pressed the
speakerphone button, silencing the phone mid-ring. She didn’t say anything,
and neither did anyone else for a long moment.
"Hello?" the man said.
No one spoke.
 Reese held her breath, the room so still she could hear the faint buzz of
the overhead fluorescents.
“I thought you were better than this,” the man said. “Reese, are you
there?”
She tightened her hands on her armrests. Elise stepped up beside her
and put a hand on her shoulder. Was this how it felt when the Rideshare
Creep appeared out of the shadows to steal her away?
No, that had to have been way worse.
And this was no fun at all.
“Talk to me!” He was irate now, zero to pissed the fuck off in the space
of about thirty seconds of dead air. Not someone Reese ever wanted to
come face to face with. She forced herself to draw a deep breath.
“I don’t want to play games with you, Reese,” he said. “I’m done with
games. Don’t hang up on me again or I’ll come over there and teach you
how to be polite.”
“No the fuck you won’t,” Maya snapped, breaking the silence on their
end. “Is that what happened to Olivia Sterling? She tried to play games with
you so you murdered her?”
Car tires screeched in the parking lot and Reese leaned forward over her
desk to look outside. A shiny black sedan was parked right in front of the
door, and a moment later, Lena was bursting in.
Just in time to hear a click and the line going dead.

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 13

LENA

F
ive people were crowded around the reception desk when Lena ran in,
and Reese’s eyes were as big as saucers.
“What happened?” she demanded.
Reese pointed at the phone. “That was him. He keeps calling.”
“He threatened to come down here,” Elise said. “Lena, you gotta protect
Reese.”
“Damn right I will,” Lena said, coming around to Reese’s side of the
desk and taking her hand. It was more casual than she’d normally get with
someone involved in an investigation, but this was Reese. It just felt right.
“I promise nothing is going to happen to you, okay?”
Reese nodded, head bobbing nervously, and Lena couldn’t tell from the
look in her eyes whether she actually believed her.
“You want to take a break?” Lena suggested. “Go get a cup of
something warm and comforting – decaffeinated would probably be best.”
She added that last with a half-smile, noting the way Reese’s hand shook in
her own.
“Don’t you need my statement?”
“Yes, but not until you’re ready,” Lena said. “It’ll wait ten minutes for
you to catch your breath.”
“Come on, I’ll make you a cup of tea,” Elise offered at Reese’s other
side. “I’ve got a box of chamomile tucked into my desk drawer.”
Reese turned to Lena. “Are you coming, detective?”
Lena’s heart melted a little bit. It felt nice to be somebody’s security
blanket and she wanted nothing more than to go get some tea with Reese.
Unfortunately, she had an ulterior motive for suggesting it. Reese really did
look like she could use a breather, but Lena wanted her away from the desk
for the next thing she was planning to do.
“I was actually going to try to star-sixty-nine this bastard,” she
explained. “I thought it would be better if you didn’t have to hear it in case I
actually get through.”
Reese pursed her lips, the brief look of relief gone from her eyes. “He
won’t talk to anyone but me.”
“He hung up on Amelia and me,” Dylan added.
Lena let out a huff. “Reese, I don’t want you listening to whatever this
asshole has to say.”
“Trust me, I don’t want to hear it either,” she said, coming back and
sitting down in her chair. “But he’s not going to stop calling if we don’t
catch him. Let me help.”
Pride swelled in Lena’s chest. That was exactly what she would have
done in this situation, but she was a trained homicide detective and this was
something Reese certainly didn’t sign up for when she took this job.
“You don’t have to stay for the whole thing,” she said. “You can leave
as soon as you get him talking.”
Reese nodded, and everyone crowded a little tighter around the desk,
their collective breath held.
“Call might not even go through, if he’s smart enough to block his
number,” Lena reminded them. Then she dialed the phone on speaker.
It rang.
And rang.
They all started looking around at each other, ready to be disappointed,
when there was a beep and the call connected.
There was silence on the line for a moment. The display on the phone
read ‘private number’ – Lena figured it would, but it was worth the shot.
Just wait, she mouthed to everyone.
And then the voice – the one that had been haunting and terrorizing
Reese for days. It was gravelly and sharp all at once, saying, “Well, isn’t
this an honor. I sure hope I’m speaking to Reese or I’m going to be pret-ty
ticked off.”
Reese stiffened beside Lena, and she took her hand again, squeezing
tight. She nodded. Go ahead.
“This is Reese,” she squeaked.
 “Good,” he said. “Then I won’t have to come over there and teach you
manners after all. You are looking pretty today in that nice blue shirt,
though. I sure would like to see you up close.”
Reese’s fingernails dug into Lena’s hand as everyone else’s attention
snapped to Reese’s clothes, and Lena’s eyes went to the glass front door.
The line went dead.
“Oh my god,” she cried, “does that mean he’s looking at me right now?”
“We’re definitely not taking any chances,” Lena said. “Amelia, lock the
front door – the ME’s Office is closed to visitors. Everybody away from the
windows.”
She had no reason to believe that this man was the sniper type. Perps
like him didn’t change their MOs that drastically, and it was clear from
what he did to Olivia Sterling that he liked to get up close and personal with
his victims.
But she wasn’t about to risk it.
Reese was shaking all over and Lena had to wrap her arms around her
and lift her out of the chair. Reese immediately leaned into her, and Lena
wrapped an arm protectively around her shoulder.
“Let’s go to the conference room,” Maya suggested. “We can pull the
shades in there, and sit away from the windows.”
Amelia took a hex key out of Reese’s desk and popped the security bar
on the front door, then they all went down the hall. Lena set Reese in the
chair furthest from the window, but when she tried to step away, Reese
clung to her hand so she sat down in the seat next to hers, pulled in close.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” she promised, then looked up,
surveying the concerned faces all around her. There were even more now,
other investigators and pathologists trickling in as they got wind that
something was wrong. “None of you. Your safety is my top priority and
we’re not going to have a repeat of the Rideshare Creep.”
“I know Jiu Jitsu now,” Elise said. “If he shows up here, I’ll make him
wear himself as a hat.”
“Well, we’re not going to risk it,” Lena said. “I was already planning to
suggest that Reese take some time off work. But now that he’s making
personal threats, I’m going to have to insist on it, and I want to assign a
security detail too. I’m sure the county can arrange for it to be paid leave so
you don’t have to use your sick time.”
 Elise went back to the labs to get her chamomile tea, and Dylan started
the coffee pot brewing for everyone whose nerves weren’t too shot for
caffeine.
“Can you live without me?” Reese asked Amelia.
“Honey, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but yes, we don’t need
you here as much as we need you safe,” Amelia said. Then she turned to
Lena. “What about the wiretap? Will you be able to get anything off today’s
calls?”
“I sure hope so. That last call was pretty brief. Were any of the others
longer?”
“A little,” Reese frowned.
“Over a minute?”
She looked around, and the others looked uncertain. So that was
probably a no.
“I’ll do my best,” Lena promised. “In any case, you’re done talking to
that asshole.”
“I hope so.”
“You are,” Lena gritted her teeth.
It had been awful, and she’d only been there for a single call. Reese had
spent the last week living in fear of that man appearing on the other end of
the phone line.
“Work wife, what the hell?” Jordan demanded as she burst into the
room, tossing a box of chamomile to Dylan. “Elise just told me what
happened.”
“It’s okay,” Reese said as Jordan threw her arms around her neck. A
little incongruous jolt of possessiveness ran through Lena watching the
display, and the nickname didn’t escape her either.
“I can’t believe that guy,” Jordan said when she let Reese go.
“Lena’s keeping me safe,” Reese said, and Lena stood a little taller.
Damn right, she was. “I’m afraid we’re headed for a trial separation,
though. She wants me to stay home until she finds him.”
“No lunchtime hacky sack?” Jordan looked to Lena. “You better work
fast.”
“Trust me, I’m planning to.” She was also working hard to figure out
their dynamic. She knew Reese from The Taphouse, but Jordan had never
been there so the only time Lena ever interacted with her was in small
snippets in the morgue. She looked too young to drink, so that was probably
why, but what was with all this flirting?
Did they like each other?
Was she just imagining the chemistry when Reese looked into Lena’s
own eyes, when she leaned on her and let Lena support her on the way to
the break room, when she squeezed her hand and refused to let go?
Shit.
“I give you permission to see other people while I’m gone,” Reese said
next, which Jordan took in stride.
Okay, so maybe just joking?
Lena shouldn’t even be worrying about this right now. She had a killer
to catch. Dylan set a cup of tea in front of Reese, and Lena redirected her
attention to the task at hand.
“Do you feel ready to give your statement? Or do you want to relax a
little more first, drink your tea?”
Reese smiled, not quite the same way she smiled at her coworkers. “I
can do both.”
Lena asked the six people who’d been present during the phone calls to
sit down at the conference table. The ones who weren’t involved trickled
out, seeming reluctant to leave the action. Dylan brought Lena a cup of
coffee when it was finished brewing, and they gave a group accounting of
what happened and what the man said.
When they were done, Lena told them all to stay vigilant. “Report
anything suspicious to me, no matter how insignificant it seems. And keep
that front door locked for now – you can let people in on an as-needed
basis.”
“Should we answer the phone?” Amelia asked.
“Let it go to voicemail for now,” Lena said. “Doesn’t seem like this guy
is interested in talking to anyone but Reese, and he probably wouldn’t stay
on the line long enough to trace him anyway.”
Jordan popped her head back in the doorway. “Detective Wolf, I
checked Olivia Sterling’s personal effects. They’re dry and ready to go over
to the precinct for processing.”
Her personal effects… two expensive earrings and a bloody hotel sheet.
What a grim legacy.
“Thanks, Jordan. We’re stretched pretty thin so I was actually planning
to take the first security shift with Reese myself. I’m not going back to the
precinct.”
She shot Reese a glance, curious how she was taking that news, and she
thought she detected the barest smile.
“I’ll send someone over to retrieve them,” she promised. “Reese, are
you ready to go home? I’d like to drive you and send someone later for your
car.”
“Are you really going to guard me?” Reese asked.
“Of course, I want to keep you safe.” Lena added, “Although I have a
killer to catch so someone will take over for me in the morning.”
Reese shook her head as she stood. “I just don’t feel that important.”
“You are,” Lena told her, voice firm. “You deserve to feel safe, and to
be safe.”

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 14

REESE

still feel silly needing an armed guard,” Reese said as they stepped
“I into the parking lot, glancing at the holstered gun at Lena’s side.
Even as she said it, though, she was sticking close to Lena’s side,
grateful for the fact that Lena’s car was parked right outside the door and
her windows were heavily tinted.
The bastard knew what color shirt she was wearing!
And he could still be out here.
“It’s not silly,” Lena said. “And even if you think it is, I’m insisting on
it so there’s nothing you can do.”
Her car chirped as she unlocked it, then opened the passenger door for
Reese. She sat down, then watched as Lena walked around the front of the
car to the driver’s side, her eyes sweeping the parking lot, the street, the
small cluster of trees on an undeveloped lot down the street.
“You think he’s watching?” Reese asked when Lena got in beside her.
“I don’t know,” Lena answered. It was ambiguous and should have been
disquieting, but she’d told the truth rather than making up a lie just to make
Reese feel better. And oddly, it did have a calming effect.
Lena made a U-turn in the lot and Reese gave her directions to her
apartment, about fifteen minutes away. Then she asked, “So, what, you’re
just going to sit outside of my apartment building all night like you’re on a
stakeout?”
“Pretty much,” Lena said. “What are we working with, multiple stories,
several units on each floor?”
“Yeah, but it’s not huge. I think there are twelve in the whole building.
I’m on the second floor.”
 “How many entrances and exits?”
“Do you really think he’s going to come after me?” Reese was going to
get zero sleep tonight.
“I wish I could give you a better answer, but we just don’t know enough
about the guy yet to say.” Lena looked at Reese, then back at the road.
“He’s connected with Sterling Hotels, either in security or IT or somewhere
high on the corporate ladder with broad access. I’ve got Tate and Ariel
looking through badge swipes and trying to figure out who had a motive to
hurt Olivia Sterling, but…”
She trailed off and Reese nibbled her lip. “But?”
“The phone calls he’s making to you don’t make sense,” she said. “I
can’t figure out what his motive would be for those. Serial killers, yeah,
they poke their noses into police investigations and they get off on toying
with us. But serial killers are usually a lot more methodical than this guy.
They don’t dump their victims where they’ll be quickly discovered. And
Olivia’s death… that wasn’t methodical, either. It seemed personal,
emotional.”
“So he’s an enigma,” Reese said. “Great.”
“We’re going to get him,” Lena promised. “The net is closing in. He
can’t hide from me much longer.”
Lena pulled up in front of Reese’s building a few minutes later. There
was a lot around back where Reese had an assigned parking spot, and she
offered it to Lena since her car was still at the ME’s Office.
“I need to be able to see your apartment. Can I do that from the lot?”
Lena asked.
Reese shook her head. “I have a street view.”
Lena looked around at the handful of street parking spots that were
open. “I guess I’m parking out here, then. It’s not ideal because I’ll only
have eyes on one entrance, but at least I’ll be able to monitor your
windows.”
A little thrill went through Reese at the idea of Lena sitting out here,
looking up at her. The apartment came with mini blinds on all the windows,
but what if she left them open?
“You could come upstairs,” she blurted.
Lena hesitated. “I don’t have to. I wouldn’t want to invade your space.”
"Actually," Reese said, "I'd feel a lot safer if you were there."
 Lena's eyes softened, and she nodded. “In that case, I’d be happy to.
Feel free to kick me to the curb, quite literally, any time, though.”
“Like when my girlfriend comes over,” Reese said. She couldn’t help
herself – she’d sensed a little jealousy earlier when Jordan was fussing over
her, and she wanted to test that theory.
It worked. Envy flashed in Lena’s eyes, unmistakable if brief. She did a
good job of pushing it down and adopting a professional tone when she
said, “Of course.”
Reese laughed. “I don’t have a girlfriend. Come on – park in my spot
and I’ll cook you dinner.”
Lena pulled the car around back, and as they went up to Reese’s
apartment, she asked, “Nothing between you and Jordan?”
Reese laughed, taken aback. “God, no.”
Lena arched a brow. “Really? Cuz at the office, it seemed like you
two… It seemed like there was chemistry there.”
Reese shook her head as adamantly as she could. “Not at all. Don’t get
me wrong, she’s my best work friend – probably my best friend in general,
now that I think about it. But I’m pretty sure we’re both too masc for each
other.” She let her eyes linger on Lena for a moment, then added, “Plus she
can be pretty immature.”
Lena smirked. “I hear you have a taste for the office gossip yourself.”
“Guilty,” Reese admitted. “It helps pass the time. And it’s a good
dynamic for a work bestie relationship, but in a real relationship? I think
balance works better.”
Now Lena was grinning outright. “You saying you need a mature older
woman to keep you in line?”
Reese’s eyes sizzled into hers. “I guess I wouldn’t object if one came
along and offered.”
And then they were at Reese’s door, and her attention turned to
retrieving her keys. The apartment was small and modest, most of Reese’s
things having been sourced from thrift stores when she first moved out on
her own, but she’d done her best to make the place cozy. Throw blankets
and pillows in lots of soft colors, vanilla diffusers making the whole
apartment smell like a freshly baked cookie, plus a fully stocked pantry.
She stood just inside the doorway for a minute, watching Lena walk
around and take it all in.
 It took her an embarrassingly long time to realize it was Detective Wolf
assessing the apartment for vulnerabilities and not friend Lena judging
Reese’s decorating sense. It was the second window sash Lena tugged on
that made it occur to her.
“Is the perimeter secure?” she teased when Lena returned from
checking down the small hallway to the bathroom and bedroom.
“I’m going to close the blinds in the living room,” Lena said, “just to be
on the safe side.”
“No argument there.” Reese was thinking of the man describing her
clothes. A quick wave of revulsion worked its way through her. “I’m going
to change clothes.”
She didn’t want to be in this blue button-up a second longer – maybe
ever again.
She went into her bedroom and selected a Kate Bush T-shirt that had
also come from the thrift store, but had gone from vintage semi-obscurity to
relevant again recently. She paired it with some comfy leggings and a
flannel shirt, then came back out to the living room. It was darker now with
the blinds shut, but Lena had turned on Reese’s table lamps and the room
was warm and comfy-looking.
Or maybe that was just because Lena was standing in it.
Reese fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, suddenly hyper aware of the
fact that it was just the two of them… for hours, maybe even all night long,
until some other cop showed up to relieve Lena.
She moved toward the kitchen, intent on keeping her promise of dinner.
It was still early, way earlier than she normally got off work, which meant
she had time to make something elaborate and special.
“Thanks for coming up,” she said while she looked through her fridge to
decide what that special dish might be. “I really wasn’t looking forward to
being all alone in here, waiting for a murderer to come attack me.”
“He won’t get anywhere near you,” Lena assured her. “I’m on the case,
and I’ve got Tate and Ariel working it too.” She frowned. “Well, when they
aren’t out at the search site in the woods.”
“How’s it going out there?”
“Arlen is working on getting ground-penetrating radar out there,” Lena
told her. “Otherwise who knows how many bodies we could miss.”
“You really think it’s like, what, a mass grave?”
 “Best-case scenario is that it’s an unmarked cemetery. But there’s been
blunt-force trauma on at least two of the skeletons we found so far.”
Reese shook her head. “I should have gone to dental hygiene school like
my mom wanted me to.”
“How did you get in at the ME’s Office?” Lena asked, coming into the
kitchen area to join her. “No offense, but you don’t seem like you’re
particularly interested in the work, even when you don’t have psychos
calling you.”
“Dr. Trace poached me,” Reese said with a grin. “I was working the
returns desk at Target and she was in line behind this woman who was just
going off on me, absolutely losing her shit over the fact that I couldn’t
accept a toaster she’d bought that had about a year’s worth of crumbs in it.”
“People are ridiculous,” Lena huffed.
“It was like a twenty-dollar toaster, too,” Reese laughed. “Anyway,
when that lady finally took a hike and Amelia stepped up to the counter, she
said she was impressed with how I handled her. Then she said she was
looking for a receptionist and I might have to deal with upset people
sometimes but not over such trivial things, and she’d pay better. Plus,
county retirement benefits. Didn’t take much convincing.”
“Well, I’m glad you took the job,” Lena said, then winked. “I’ve never
had the willpower to return something to Target so we may not have met if
you were still there.”
Warmth swelled in Reese’s chest, then she said, “Risotto.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out what to make for dinner,” she explained.
“Since we have a few hours, I figured I’d make something I don’t normally
have the time for.”
“Risotto. I’ve never actually had it.”
Reese opened her eyes wide, teasingly. “Seriously? Girl, I’m about to
rock your world.”
Lena grinned. “I hope you do.”
She was looking hard into Reese’s eyes, looking into her. Reese
wondered if she could hear her heart beating.
And she wondered what it would be like to kiss Lena.
Those soft, balm-slicked lips. Her stony eyes melting as she leaned in
and they fluttered closed. Her toned arms wrapping around her.
 Stop, she told herself. You are not going to make out with your
bodyguard. That’s all this is.
And yet as she reached for her deepest saucepan, she couldn’t stop
wishing it was more.

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 15

LENA

T
he barest hint of daylight penetrated the closed blinds when Lena
stirred awake.
She blinked, disoriented for a moment, before remembering she
was on Reese's couch, that they’d made risotto together and it had been the
best thing she’d ever eaten. Reese had told her it was just a rice dish, but it
was so buttery and creamy, with parmesan and mushrooms and white wine
all coming together in the richest, tastiest thing Lena could imagine.
“How did you get to be such a good cook?” she’d asked.
And Reese told her that she did a lot of the cooking when she was
growing up. Her mom always said she could find a way to burn water, and
her dad would rather pay for take-out every single night than set foot in the
kitchen.
“If I wanted something that didn’t come from a drive-through window, I
had to make it myself,” she’d explained.
They ate and talked, and Lena surprised herself by telling Reese about
her own family. The fact that both of her parents had struggled with
addiction, and Lena had gotten removed from the home and sent to foster
care on more than one occasion. Not something she volunteered often, in
fact something she preferred to keep hidden deep, even from herself.
But Reese had just nodded along and made her believe that she
sympathized, if not understood.
After dinner, Reese polished off the wine while Lena contented herself
with iced tea. She was still on duty after all, even if this was starting to feel
more like a girls’ night. Reese had put on Portrait of a Lady on Fire and by
the time Marianne arrived on the island, Reese had rested her head on
Lena’s shoulder.
Lena remembered thinking it wasn’t right, getting comfy like that.
Mixing the feelings she was developing for Reese with her duty to protect
her. Letting her guard down when she should be keeping an eye on the
street, or trying to get some work done on her phone even.
She was just so comfortable there, though.
Watching Adele Haenel and Noemie Merlant fall in love on screen.
Watching Reese’s eyelids grow heavier and heavier as she curled in
against her.
Right where Lena wanted her to be.
She must have fallen asleep too at some point, and slept the whole night
through. Now it was morning, they were both scrunched down on the
couch, Lena’s arm wrapped around Reese’s shoulder and Reese tucked into
her side. And what finally woke her was the vibration of her phone against
her hip.
She startled as she came fully awake and realized what it was at last.
Reese’s eyes fluttered open and Lena said, “Sorry.”
She extracted her arm from beneath Reese’s head and stood up to
answer the phone, muscles protesting from the awkward position she’d
slept in. “Detective Wolf.”
Reese sat up, watching her and throwing her arms wide to stretch.
"Hi, Detective. This is Officer Morgan." The female voice on the other
end was brisk, professional. "I'm at the apartment, ready to take over for
you."
"Alright, I'll be down in a minute," Lena replied, then immediately
wanted to bite back the words.
Down. Well, that left no doubt about exactly where she’d spent the
night, and even though Reese was the one who’d invited her up here, it was
highly unusual for a police officer assigned to a protection detail to actually
stay in the apartment with the subject.
Hell, Lena would be green with envy if she found out Officer Morgan
spent the whole day in here and not outside in her patrol car.
It was too late now. The cat was out of the bag and Morgan would make
of it what she wanted.
Lena hung up, then looked at Reese. “How did you sleep?”
 “Like someone who just realized she needs a better couch,” she said.
“Thanks for staying with me. I know you’re busy.”
“You’re my top priority,” Lena told her. “I’ll check in with you later,
okay?”
Reese nodded, though her expression remained somber. One of the
things they’d talked about over dinner was the fact that Reese was not a fan
of being alone, and she wasn’t particularly looking forward to the forced
vacation she was taking until Lena caught this guy. Lena had promised to
work fast.
“Do you want Officer Morgan to come up here?” she asked, even
though she hated the idea. “She’s nice, I knew her when I was on patrol.”
Please say no, Lena thought, then hated her own selfishness.
“Will I still be safe if she’s parked outside?” Reese asked.
“Absolutely.”
One of the things Lena had accomplished before she and Reese conked
out watching the movie was to call Reese’s landlord and get it okayed with
him to add temporary security cameras on the front and back of the
building. Morgan would be installing those before she began her shift this
morning, and monitoring them from her car.
“I’m probably okay alone up here, then,” Reese said. She shrugged. “I
might make her some cookies or something, just to have something to do
with myself.
“Save me some?”
“Of course. You’re my knight in shining armor – you get all the cookies
you want.”
Lena left Reese’s apartment with a broad grin on her face. She checked
in with Officer Morgan and made sure the cameras were functioning, then
went home for a quick shower and a change of clothes before she headed
into the precinct.
She was across the street picking up a round of coffees for anybody who
might be in the bullpen when her phone rang a second time.
She was only two away from the front of the line, but when she checked
the caller ID and saw Ariel’s extension, she knew the odds of getting her
coffee had just shrunk considerably.
"Hey, Ariel, what's up?" she answered.
"Got some news for you," Ariel said. “I finished looking at the badge
swipes this morning and it was Olivia Sterling's ID that was used to gain
access to the dump site and erase the security footage.”
“Shit.”
“It hasn't been used since then,” Ariel added.
“But we didn’t find it with the body either,” Lena frowned. “The killer
may still have it. I’ll have to call Sterling’s IT department and see if the
badge is still active.”
“You thinking he may try to use it again?”
“If he needs to continue covering his tracks,” Lena said. She couldn’t
think of a reason for him to do that, but maybe she could engineer one.
“Thanks, Ariel.”
“It’s kind of a dead end, but you’re welcome,” she said.
She was about to hang up when Lena asked, “Is Tate there?”
“Yeah.”
“Ask her to email me a list of any friends, family, and coworkers of
Olivia Sterling that she’s found,” she said. “I don’t see much point in
coming into the office right now when I could be pounding the pavement,
looking for leads.”
"Will do," Ariel replied. “And let me know if you need a sidekick.
While we’re waiting on the ground-penetrating radar, I don’t think Arlen
and Renee will need us at the search site.”
They hung up and Lena found that she was next at the counter, and the
cashier was looking a little testily at her for holding up the line. She had to
be used to it by now, though – this was the place to go if you worked for
FCPD and wanted a decent cup of coffee, and cops were nothing if not
busy.
She stepped up to the counter and paid for the biggest size they had. It
was going to be a long day.

OceanofPDF.com
 16

LENA

L
ena’s first stop was back at Sterling HQ.
She hadn’t gotten to speak to Olivia’s father last time, even after
the discovery that Olivia was her Jane Doe. She’d certainly tried –
asking to be taken to his office and being told he was off-site for a meeting,
then getting the run-around when she attempted to find out when he’d be
back.
All she’d managed was a phone number, and not even his – she’d gotten
through to his secretary, who’d assured Lena that Mr. Sterling would call
her back at his earliest convenience.
Does Mr. Sterling know or care that his daughter is dead? That question
had been on the tip of Lena’s tongue, more than exasperated by then. She’d
managed to keep it in, just barely.
She found out from Maya that he did contact the ME’s Office after Lena
spoke with his secretary, and that he was making arrangements for Olivia’s
funeral. But he took his sweet time getting back to Lena.
At last, she had an appointment with the elusive CEO, and she couldn’t
wait to find out what kind of man put such a low priority on the death of his
only daughter.
She was practically frothing with indignation by the time the elevator
deposited her on the top floor of the building. The doors opened on an
opulent marble hallway with a row of ornate wood doors. One of them led
to Desmond Green’s office. The one Lena was aiming for didn’t actually
have a door, just an archway leading into a smaller but no less ostentatious
anteroom.
 A middle-aged woman sat at a desk just in front of an inner door, no
doubt the one to Mr. Sterling’s office. She looked up attentively the minute
Lena crossed the threshold.
“Detective Wolf?”
Lena nodded.
“We’ve been expecting you,” she said, standing and holding out her
hand. “I’m Judy.” Her eyes were glossy and she added, “We’re just so
shocked about poor Olivia. Do you know what happened yet?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out today.”
Judy sat back down and used her phone to let her boss know Lena was
there.
“Send her in,” came the blunt reply.
Judy got up to open the door for Lena, but Lena waved her off. “I got it,
thanks.”
Inside, the office was spacious and grand, with dark wood furniture and
built-in bookshelves on two walls. There was a great view of the city behind
a massive desk that took up most of a third wall, and sitting stoically in the
center of it was the man himself.
Xavier Sterling.
He gestured to a leather chair across from him. “Sit, detective.”
It was a command more than an invitation, like he couldn’t turn off the
strategic part of his mind long enough to have an earnest conversation about
his daughter. Lena couldn’t think of a reason not to sit, though, so she did,
and said, “Mr. Sterling, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Mmm.” He nodded. “Thank you, detective. No parent should have to
bury their child.”
The words were right, but utterly devoid of emotion. Was that how he
was coping, by shutting down?
“I know you’ve got a lot on your plate so I’ll keep this brief, but I’d like
to ask you a few questions.”
“I assumed as much.”
He was looking at her hard, eyes narrow and cold. It was unsettling, and
Lena had to work to remember to be delicate with her questions. This man
just lost a loved one, and yet he was acting like she was an inconvenience to
him.
“I’m wondering why you didn’t report Olivia missing, Mr. Sterling.”
“Don’t you have to wait seventy-two hours to report an adult missing?”
 “Well, yes, but oftentimes family or friends will call the police before
the three-day mark because they’re concerned.” Lena winced internally at
the implication – that Xavier Sterling didn’t care where his daughter was.
She needn’t have worried. He replied brusquely, completely unbothered
by her opinion of him. “My daughter often traveled for work, and
sometimes on short notice. As both a grown woman and the vice president
of the company, I didn’t feel the need to keep tabs on her at all times.”
“Are you saying you didn’t notice that she’d gone missing?”
“A few emails went unanswered,” he said flippantly, “but Olivia was
very dedicated to her work. I never suspected her of shirking her duties,
rather simply assumed she had more important things to attend to.”
“How would you characterize your relationship with Olivia?” she asked
next.
“Good,” he said. “We worked closely together, she knew what was
expected of her and she delivered consistently.”
It was like a performance review. He was talking about her like an
employee, not a daughter. Lena had to work to hide the sadness that welled
up in her at that.
"Did Olivia ever mention any concerns or fears to you? Anything she
might have mentioned leading up to her disappearance?" Lena probed
further.
“She was focused on her work," he said. "If she had any concerns, she
would have addressed them professionally and efficiently."
"Mr. Sterling, I'm not asking about her work," Lena answered, her
frustration mounting. "I'm asking about anything personal, anything that
could help us understand why she was attacked.”
"Detective," Sterling replied, his tone unyielding, "I've told you all I
know. Olivia was a private person, and she kept her personal life separate
from her professional one."
Lena took a breath. She couldn’t take much more of this. “Do you know
of anyone who would have wanted to harm Olivia?”
“No,” he said, a bit too quickly. “She was very diplomatic. Even among
business rivals, she was always cordial.”
“And who would those rivals be?”
“Regent, Elysian, Howell, all the big luxury hotel chains,” he said. “But
Olivia had a way of bending them to her will without their even knowing. It
was one of her greatest strengths as a businesswoman.”
 “Do you think it’s possible one of them found out about her… bending
them to her will?” Lena asked. “Got mad about it?”
Sterling chuckled. “You’re talking about a bunch of white-haired old
men. The worst they would do is spread rumors to the press if they were
mad.”
“And what kind of rumors would they spread about Olivia?”
This took a moment longer to consider. Then he said, “Nothing with any
merit, I imagine. She was too busy with work to get involved in any kind of
scandal.”
“Can you tell me about her car accident?” Lena asked. “The one from
two years ago?”
“Unfortunate freak accident,” he said without missing a beat. “The
roads were icy and those rear-wheel drive cars can be tricky in those
conditions. I always told her she should have a driver.”
“Would she have been drinking?” Lena asked. “At a business lunch,
maybe?”
“Not enough to impair her,” he insisted. “Sterlings hold their liquor.”
Lena wanted to know if Sterlings also paid off police to keep those
types of details out of their reports, but she wasn’t going to get a straight
answer to that.
“She never missed a beat, though,” he added, the first thing he’d
volunteered in the entire interview. “Got her cast on and was back at work
the next day. Never complained, never made excuses for herself.”
“A worthy heir to your empire?”
Sterling pressed his lips together. “I suppose we’ll never know now.”
Lena asked a few more questions, but she couldn’t take much more of a
man who couldn’t even give his daughter the credit she obviously deserved,
even after her death. Was he mourning her at all? Or just strategizing how to
fill the hole she’d left in the company?
She stood and held out her business card. “Thank you for your time, Mr.
Sterling. If there’s anything at all that you think of that may help us find out
what happened to Olivia, please call me.”
“Give it to my assistant,” he said.
Lena’s jaw clenched, but she tried not to let it show. “Sure.”
She let herself out of the office and handed the card to Judy. How she
could stand working for a man like that, Lena would never know.
Especially being a seemingly normal person herself, with manners and
emotions.
“Thanks so much for coming in,” Judy said as she tucked the business
card carefully into her Rolodex. “Was it helpful?”
“Not as much as I hoped,” Lena admitted. “Is he… always like that?”
“Like what?”
“Emotionless. Maybe he’s just in shock?”
Judy gave Lena a sardonic look. “Nope, that’s just Xavier. I know he
misses Olivia – in his own way. But he’s not a demonstrative man.”
“What about you? Were you close with her?”
“I’ve been Mr. Sterling’s assistant for twenty years,” Judy said. “I
practically watched her grow up in this office, when she wasn’t with the au
pair.”
“Where’s her mother?”
“Dead, childbirth,” Judy shook her head. “It’s not supposed to happen
like that anymore, but they just got unlucky.” She lowered her voice. “If
you want my opinion, Xavier never got over it, and he didn’t know what to
do with an infant so he just hired the job out and moved on. There’s no
problem that money can’t solve for the Sterlings.”
“Okay… one more thing before I go. Can I see Olivia’s office?”
“Sure, it’s just down the hall.”
Judy buzzed Mr. Sterling to let him know she was stepping away from
her desk, then walked Lena back out to the marble hallway. Their footsteps
echoed but they didn’t have far to go – the next door down had a silver
nameplate on it, engraved with Olivia Sterling, Vice President.
Judy pulled a master key from her pocket and unlocked the door,
pushing it open. The room was smaller than Xavier Sterling’s, with no
anteroom. It was spare and well-organized, with the same expensive-
looking wood furniture and built-in shelves.
“Take your time,” Judy said. “I’ll wait here.”
She stood in the doorway while Lena ventured into the room.
Everything was tidy, without a single personal effect to make the space
Olivia’s. She noticed that there were two desks – a large one in front of
windows just like Xavier Sterling’s, and a smaller one off to the side.
“Who sits there?”
“That was her personal assistant’s desk,” Judy said. “Her name is Katy
Moore.”
 “I’m going to need her contact information, and a copy of Olivia’s
calendar.”
Lena tried a couple of drawers in Olivia’s desk, but they were all either
locked or full of nothing more than ordinary office supplies.
She didn’t know what to think when Sterling told her that Olivia was all
work and no play, but from the looks of her office, he may have been right.
“I can take care of the calendar right now,” Judy said, going over to the
phone on Olivia’s desk. She punched a button and a dial tone sounded, then
she tapped in an extension.
It rang for a moment, then someone answered, “Olivia?”
Judy cringed. “No, it’s Judy Adams. Are you able to access Olivia’s
calendar?”
“Yes…”
Lena watched, wondering what kind of can of worms she’d just made
Judy open. She’d only just informed the next of kin, and ten minutes after
this call ended, Olivia’s death would be spreading through Sterling Hotels
headquarters like wildfire.
“Please be discreet about this, Gary. I need you to email a copy of the
calendar to…” Judy looked up and Lena supplied her email address.
“Is Olivia in trouble?” he asked.
“I’ll explain more when I can,” Judy answered, then ended the call. She
looked at Lena. “I’m sure Xavier is in his office planning how to release the
information as we speak. Now, the second thing you needed…”
“Katy Moore’s contact information.”
“Right, that’s in my Rolodex.” She headed out of the office and Lena
trailed after her. “I’m kept so busy, if I don’t do something as soon as I
think of it, it gets forgotten entirely.”

O ne hour later , Lena stood on the sidewalk outside of Katy Moore’s

house.
It was a modest split-level in a neighborhood with more of the same,
suburban and quiet at this time of day. A car sat in the driveway, which was
lucky because Judy had provided Katy’s address so Lena hadn’t bothered
calling ahead. As she walked past it, Lena noted that it was newer, well-
kept, and the house looked to be well-maintained as well.
So even if neither Sterling could be bothered to take an interest in other
people, it appeared that Olivia at least paid her assistant well.
She knocked, and about a minute later the door opened, revealing a
young woman with red hair tied in a messy bun, still in pajamas, eyes
rimmed with dark circles.
“Yes?”
“I’m Detective Lena Wolf with the Fox County Police Department,”
Lena introduced herself, flashing her badge. “Katy Moore?”
“Yeah.” She stepped aside and swept her arm in a come in gesture. “I’ve
been waiting for you to show up.”
Lena’s brow furrowed. “Did Judy call to let you know I was coming?”
“No, just kinda figured after I heard Olivia was dead it was only a
matter of time before the cops wanted to talk to the person who was closest
to her.” She pointed at a dining table not far from the entryway. “Have a
seat. Coffee?”
“I’m good, thank you.”
Lena took the offered seat, looking around the house as she did. The
inside was a little shabbier than the outside, with worn furniture and deeply
trodden carpet, but it was all neat and clean. Olivia Sterling probably
wouldn’t have accepted an assistant who was any other way.
The dining table, however, had several paper boxes stacked on it,
shoving placemats haphazardly out of the way as they’d been put down.
“Your items from Sterling?”
“Yeah, I haven’t gotten around to unboxing them yet,” Katy said, the
bitterness evident in her tone. Belatedly, she added, “Sorry about the mess.”
“Please, it’s fine. It must have been quite the shock, finding out your
boss had died and losing your job all in the same week.”
Katy snorted. “Try all in the same hour. Xavier Sterling is nothing if not
efficient.”
She hissed the last word.
“No love lost there, huh?” Lena asked.
“I worked for Olivia, not Xavier,” Katy said. “I wouldn’t have stayed
even if he asked me to.”
“Was it unusual that Olivia didn’t contact you over the weekend?”
 Katy shrugged. “Working for her was never the same thing twice. She
was always working on something for the hotels, and I do mean always.
She didn’t keep normal business hours, but she did her best to keep me at
forty hours a week. My mom’s in a skilled care facility – she has
Alzheimer’s – and I try to visit her a few times a week. Olivia always
worked with me on that.”
Ah, so at least one of the Sterlings had a heart, after all, even if she
didn’t like to show it off.
“Sometimes she’d leave me alone for a couple of days at a stretch, other
times I’d be on the clock for twenty-four hours straight pushing for some
project,” Katy went on. “If she didn’t need me, she didn’t call.”
“Were you close with her?”
“Hah!”
Lena startled. She wasn’t sure what reaction she’d been waiting for, but
a derisive laugh was not it. She regained her composure and waited for
Katy to elaborate.
“Olivia wasn’t ‘close with’ anyone. Least of all the help. My job was to
manage her time and run her errands, and I did that well so she kept me
around. But I can count on one hand the number of times we had even the
briefest personal conversation.”
“Was she difficult to work for?”
“Demanding,” Katy said. “Strict. But not unfair. Certainly kinder than
her old man. She gave me two paid weeks off when my mom first got
diagnosed, even though I didn’t have the vacation saved up back then. It
was a couple months after I started working for her.”
“How long did you work for her?”
“Two years.”
“Did you start before or after her accident?”
“Right after,” Katy said. “Her leg was in a cast for the first six weeks I
worked for her. She needed more help than she wanted to admit, so she
found me.”
“You said she wasn’t close to anyone,” Lena circled back. “No friends,
romantic partners, in the whole two years you managed her schedule?”
Katy shook her head. “She went to social events pretty regularly, but
they were all in service to Sterling Hotels. Business lunches, strategic
alliances with people who were useful to her. That’s all.”
 “What about after hours?” Lena pressed. “Things that wouldn’t be on
her calendar.”
Katy chuckled. “Olivia was scheduled to within an inch of her life and
she liked it that way. There’s no such thing as an event that wasn’t on her
calendar.”
“Do you think she was running from something?” Lena asked.
“Keeping herself busy for a reason?”
“The only reason was Xavier Sterling. Olivia never would have
admitted it, but I could tell how important her father’s acceptance was,”
Katy said. “She was doing it all to make him proud, and the bastard never
acknowledged her.”
“She was next in line to run the company,” Lena pointed out.
“By default,” Katy said. “She knew he didn’t think she’d earned it yet,
and he wasn’t going to retire until she did.” She let out a short, sharp cackle.
“Now I guess the bastard’s going to work until he drops dead at his desk.
Probably how he prefers it anyway.”
She was very bitter, and it was hard to tell if it was simply because
she’d lost her job and was grieving a woman she claimed not to be close to
but spent the last two years working with… or if there was more to it.
“Who would have had a motive to kill Olivia?” Lena asked, deciding to
get straight to the point.
“Oh boy…” Katy huffed out a breath. “Well, she was pretty ruthless and
single-minded about her work. She didn’t care who she had to step on to get
what she was after – took after her dad in that department. But everybody in
that world… they’re all cutthroat like that, but I don’t think any of them
would literally be cutthroat. It’s just hotels.”
“Can you give me the names of some of these people?” Lena asked.
“Any recent deals that Olivia may have made enemies over?”
Katy rattled off a few, then reiterated that she didn’t think any of them
would go so far as to hurt Olivia anywhere other than the wallet. She
laughed again. “I mean, she was sleeping with some of them. That was her
one indulgence – a one-night stand here and there to blow off steam, usually
with a business contact because who the hell else did she even talk to?”
“And she told you about these?”
“No way,” Katy said. “But you don’t manage every aspect of a person’s
life for two years without noticing these things.”
“Anyone in particular?”
 Katy shook her head. “I wasn’t privy to that much detail. I just noticed a
little pep in her step the next day, condom wrappers in the trash on rare
occasion, stuff like that.”
“What about within Sterling Hotels? Was there anybody she didn’t get
along with?”
Katy gave a sigh. “She was bossy and demanding to pretty much
everyone, so I could certainly see her rubbing someone the wrong way. But
if that was a motive to kill, I can guarantee Xavier Sterling would have been
their first target. He’s a thousand times worse than Olivia.”
“What about Desmond Green, the CIO?”
Katy thought, then shook her head. “I never saw anything
unprofessional between them. He’s very focused on his work too – it’s how
he climbed so high on the Sterling ladder.”
“She ever sleep with him?”
Katy didn’t hesitate this time. “No, as far as I know, she only ever had
flings with people outside the company. She liked to make them do double
duty, blowing off steam at the same time as she got something she wanted
for Sterling. There wouldn’t have been any benefit in it to sleep with
somebody who already worked for her.”
“Well, Katy, you’ve given me a lot to consider and I appreciate it,” Lena
said, standing to go. “What will you do for work now?”
“Gee, I suppose I can’t sit around waiting for a letter of
recommendation,” Katy said. “I don’t know, I guess I better polish up my
resume, although I’m not sure I have it in me to work for someone like that
again. And once you get high enough up the ladder, they all are.” She
walked Lena to the door, and at the threshold she said, “I really hope you
catch whoever did that to Olivia. She was stubborn and single-minded and
standoffish, but she deserved a hell of a lot better than what she got.”
“I won’t stop till I find him,” Lena promised. She didn’t mention the
fact that it wasn’t only Olivia who was depending on it.
She went back to her car, parked on the curb, and before she pulled
away, she dialed the precinct.
“Detective Macawi,” Tate answered her desk phone.
“Hey, it’s Lena. Got a minute?”
“For you? I’ve got two.”
Lena smirked, grateful that her own coworkers were a hell of a lot better
than the Sterlings. She caught Tate up on everything she’d discovered this
morning, and asked if there were any other names Tate hadn’t sent yet.
“No, there really wasn’t much,” Tate explained. “I combed through her
social media and her phone records and that’s all the evidence I found of
personal relationships. The woman seemed singularly driven by her career.”
Lena frowned. If Olivia had no one close to her, who would want her
dead? There had to be someone they were missing.
She put the phone on speaker so she could check her email and found
that Gary had followed through on her request for Olivia’s calendar. It was
sitting in her inbox, but she couldn’t open it from her phone. “Tate, I’m
going to forward you Olivia’s calendar. Can you tell me what she was up to
the night she died?”
“Hang on…” Tate trailed off and Lena listened to the distant sounds of
the bullpen for a minute or two. “Here we go… on the night she was
murdered, Olivia attended a black-tie event at the downtown Elysium
Hotel.”
“That’s a direct competitor,” Lena said, remembering the name on
Xavier Sterling’s lips. "Can you call around, get me a guest list for that
event?”
“Right away,” Tate said.
“Thanks, I’m on my way in.”
Lena hung up, energized by the first real lead she’d had in this whole
damn case. If Olivia was among the enemy on the night she died, maybe
her killer would be on that guest list.
He had to be. For Reese’s sake.

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 17

REESE

T
he mixture of fear and boredom warring inside Reese’s brain was like
nothing she’d ever experienced before.
On the one hand, she couldn’t get that psycho’s voice out of her
head and she was afraid to do so much as glance out the window for fear of
seeing him standing on the sidewalk, looking up at her.
On the other, god damn her apartment was dull.
She’d only been home one day, and already she was painfully aware of
how beige and small and uninteresting it was. She couldn’t even go work
out or do laundry on-site because she’d gotten the cheapest apartment she
could find. No amenities.
Everybody else in the building was like her, young professionals with
nine-to-five jobs, so there was no one to talk to. Reese had invited Officer
Morgan up for a sandwich at lunchtime, but had been rebuffed.
“I need to keep an eye on the security cams,” she’d explained.
“You could keep an eye directly on me,” Reese pointed out.
“I’d rather watch the footage,” Officer Morgan had answered. Ouch.
She added, “In case our guy comes prowling. Best chance to nab him is if I
catch it as it’s happening.”
Well, that was an unsettling thought, and did nothing to solve either of
Reese’s uncomfortable emotional problems.
She spent the day watching nearly a full season of Yellowjackets, and
when she couldn’t sit on the couch a second longer, she turned off the TV
and started to pace. She grabbed her phone and queued up the theme song
for the show, dancing it out just to burn off some energy.
Then flopped back down on the couch.
 A whole minute and forty-three seconds gone. Only an indeterminate
number more left to go before Lena or Officer Morgan took that bastard
down and Reese could return to her life.
Ugh.
She lifted her phone again, scrolling through her contacts.
Jordan, working.
Kelsey, working.
Amelia, not someone she’d call socially and also, working.
Mom, not if she was the only contact in Reese’s phone.
She could just imagine how that conversation would go. Mom, I’m on
paid leave right now because a murderer has decided to stalk me.
And then instead of being worried about her, demanding to come right
over with board games and her favorite comfort food, her mom would make
it all about her.
Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I’m not going to be able to
sleep tonight. I told you that job would be trouble, but you had to take it
anyway.
Yeah, to get away from you, Reese thought, and continued scrolling.
Lena Wolf. Well, she did say Reese could contact her whenever she
wanted…
No, whenever she needed to, that was what she said. Bugging her now
and keeping her from her work was only going to prolong this ordeal.
Reese switched over to her internet browser and typed in Olivia
Sterling. What she was looking for, she wasn’t quite sure. Something that
made her like this woman and explained why Olivia’s killer now had his
sights set on her?
Or maybe just something to tell Lena, an excuse to reach out.
Hell, if Lena hadn’t already done a simple Google search, Reese was
screwed.
She was a good detective, if a bit green in the experience department.
She was on top of this. That was what Reese reassured herself as she
scrolled.
There were articles on websites with names like eHotelier and Hotel
Speak. Press releases and news articles both local and national. Photos of
Olivia at industry events in crisp, expensive-looking pant suits and elegant
evening wear. Surrounded by a revolving cast of peers, never appearing to
actually be with anyone.
 Reese ended up doom-scrolling Olivia’s Facebook feed for almost an
hour. Hardly any of the posts were actually made by Olivia, but she got
tagged at an awful lot of events.
She looked lonely, in spite of the confident way she held herself and the
aura of power around her. Something in the eyes gave it away.
Ah, shit. Reese tossed the phone aside when she realized she was
looking in a mirror.
Friendly on the outside, thick walls keeping people from getting too
close to the real her? Check.
Lots of people around her but no close friends? Well, she was sitting
alone in her apartment with not a single person she could reach out to.
That couldn’t be the reason the killer had attached himself to her
though, could it? How could he know that about her?
The idea of being that visible to a monster was deeply unsettling.
She found Lena’s message in her phone and thought, Fuck it, before
tapping out the briefest of messages. She didn’t want to be that lonely
person who had no one to talk to, who went missing for two days without
even her closest family member realizing something was wrong.
She wanted to need someone, and be needed.
Maybe that was Lena, maybe not. But she couldn’t just sit here
anymore.
She got off the couch, thinking maybe she’d make herself a snack even
though she wasn’t hungry. She made it halfway to the kitchen when her
phone buzzed. Lena had gotten back to her fast!
Reese looked at the message and laughed.
Is that a mousetrap emoji? Lena had asked.
Yeah, did you know there was one? The emoji Reese had sent was a
cardboard box with a stick propping it up, and a chunk of cheese under it.
Nope, but I’d eat your cheese anytime.
Reese’s eyes went wide, trying to decide if that was intended to be as
flirtatious as she thought it was. They had woken up in each other’s arms
this morning, and Reese now knew just how soft and comfy it was to have
her face pressed up against Lena’s breast as she slept.
Still drooling over that risotto, Lena added, and then, Is that my new
emoji nickname?
No, if anything, I think it should be mine since I lured you with cheese.
 She was standing in the middle of her living area, the snack she was
going for completely forgotten as she waited for Lena’s next text.
Fair enough. Then I guess mine should be…
Reese watched the three dots dance across her screen, fully expecting to
see a mouse pop up next. Instead, Lena sent a gust of wind emoji and Reese
let out a confused chuckle.
Fart?
Yeah, maybe I should have told you I’m lactose intolerant, but that
risotto was so good I just soldiered through it and took a Lactaid when you
were busy cueing up the movie.
Now Reese was bursting with laughter. Seriously? I could have made
something else!
But you were so excited about it, and it was damn good. Worth it.
Well, now you have to come over for dinner again so I can make you
something delicious AND not gas-inducing.
Aww shucks, you’re just saying that because you don’t want me
befouling your apartment.
Reese snorted. I really didn’t notice a thing last night so the Lactaid
must have done its job.
All right, can we please stop talking about my flatulence? Lena
responded. This is not how I normally like to talk to cute girls.
Reese was grinning ear to ear as she pointed out, You brought it up.
The phone started ringing and Lena’s name was on the screen. Reese
answered and Lena said, “It’s easier to talk this way. You doing okay?”
Reese told her that Officer Morgan wasn’t nearly as into fraternizing,
and that she’d seen five episodes of Yellowjackets already today. She
stopped herself from complaining about her boredom because how
ungrateful would that be, when Lena got her a whole security detail just to
keep her safe while she tracked this guy down?
Lena told Reese about the interviews she’d conducted, and that she was
on her way back to the precinct now to start running down the list of
attendees from the last event Olivia went to before she was killed. “I really
hope this will be the information we need to identify this guy.”
“Could this end today?”
“I’ll do my best,” Lena promised. “You finding ways to distract yourself
from the cabin fever?”
“You can tell that over the phone, huh?”
 “Actually, I asked Officer Morgan to keep me updated,” Lena said. “She
mentioned you practically begged her to have a sandwich, which I have to
admit, made me feel a little less special.”
“Hey, I made you a dish that requires constant stirring for half an hour,”
Reese pointed out. “I just wanted to put some lunchmeat on bread for
Officer Morgan.”
“That does make me feel better,” Lena said. “I’m going to take the
overnight shift again as long as you’re cool with it.”
“Do you ever stop working?”
“We’re still pretty severely understaffed thanks to the tree skeleton case.
So what’s for dinner tonight?”
The way she asked, not making a big deal of it, just comfortably sliding
into Reese’s life, made her feel warm and fuzzy and not so alone in the
apartment. “I’m not quite sure yet – you threw me a curveball with the
lactose intolerance. Something good, though.”
“I can always pick up takeout if you don’t want to cook,” Lena said.
“I’m no chef but I’m well-practiced with the GrubHub app.”
“No, I’ll cook,” Reese said. It’d give her something to do. “Thanks for
this conversation… I really was spiraling a bit.”
“Do you feel better now?”
“Yes, I really do.”
The difference between this conversation and what it would have been
like if Reese had reached out to her mom instead… they weren’t even in the
same universe.
“I just pulled into the precinct,” Lena said. “Text me if there are any
ingredients you want me to pick up. If I’m not going to be done at work in
time to take over for Officer Morgan, I’ll let you know and assign someone
else until I can get there.”
“Thank you. Be safe out there.”
“You too… see you soon, Reese.”
Her name sounded sweet in Lena’s warm voice and she hung up the
phone smiling, not feeling lonely or isolated at all anymore.
Maybe there was hope for her yet.

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 18

LENA

T
he moment Lena stepped through the precinct's glass doors, she was
greeted by a cacophony of voices. Reporters swarmed the lobby like
vultures, their microphones and cameras wielded like weapons as they
hunted for information from anyone who could give it.
And the moment they spotted her, in her black slacks and white button-
up, her badge clipped conspicuously on her waistband, they started
salivating for the fresh detective meat.
It was practically a stampede as they all rushed over from the desk
officer they’d been pestering and circled around her. At least half a dozen
microphones were shoved in front of her mouth.
"Detective, can you comment on the bodies found in the woods?” one
of them asked.
“What’s the count up to now?” another demanded.
“How many of the victims have been identified?” a third asked.
“Please,” Lena said, putting her hands up to push the microphones out
of her personal space. “I’m not working that case and I can’t comment, I’m
sorry.”
She tried to swim through the crowd when another reporter asked, “Do
you have any leads in the Olivia Sterling case?”
A quick jolt of fear shot through her as the first thing that came to mind
was that the killer had redirected his attention to her, gotten bolder and
showed up in person.
But no, she recognized the man who’d asked – Andy Rogers, well-
known local reporter with a voice closer to the high end of the register. Not
the man she was looking for, but it was still jarring that he’d asked about
Olivia.
Sterling must have made an announcement, and the news no doubt
spread from there. Lena made a mental note to do a quick internet search
when she had a moment and find out what he said.
“We’re actively pursuing leads,” Lena said. “I can’t say more at this
time.”
“Are you the lead investigator on that case?”
Only investigator, Lena thought, considering everyone else was up to
their elbows at the search site. “Yes.”
“And your full name?”
“Detective Lena Wolf,” she answered, then pushed through to the
staircase. If there wasn’t already pressure on her to solve this case, for both
Olivia and Reese’s sakes, she now had media scrutiny to contend with.
Upstairs, the bullpen was utterly empty – a rare sight.
“Tate?” Lena called. She’d just spoken to her less than an hour ago,
where could she have gotten off to? Lena pictured Tate getting swept out of
the lobby by the frenzied reporters, like having your feet swept out from
under you in a flash flood.
She went to her desk and got to work. First order of business, check on
the tap she’d put on Reese’s desk phone. The calls he’d placed yesterday
weren’t long enough to trace, and Amelia had volunteered to answer the
phone now that Reese was out of the office, but it didn’t seem that the killer
had placed any more calls there.
“Probably using a burner phone anyway,” Lena grumbled.
"Nothing yet?"
Lena jumped at the voice over her shoulder, then turned to see Tate with
a fresh cup of coffee from the little place across the street.
“Sorry,” she chuckled. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“This place is dead,” Lena pointed out all the empty desks.
“Yeah, and downstairs is a madhouse,” Tate agreed. “Renee called
earlier, said there are even more reporters sneaking around the woods,
trying to get footage. They’ve completely stopped obeying poor Mel in the
parking lot.”
“When’s the radar getting there?” Lena asked. “If they can just finish
the search, it won’t be such a cluster.”
 “Soon,” Tate said, then went to her own desk and brought a piece of
paper over. “In other news, I got you that list of attendees for the Elysium
event. It was a private reception for the opening of their latest luxury hotel.”
“This is prime real estate,” Lena said when she noted the location of the
hotel. “Right on the waterfront.”
“And get this,” Tate said. “Olivia Sterling was not on the guest list.”
"Interesting," Lena murmured.
Why would Olivia attend an event held by her company’s rival when
she hadn’t been invited? What did she hope to gain?
“Any chance she was somebody’s plus-one?” Tate asked.
“From what her father and her PA both said, it’s doubtful,” Lena said.
“She was a lone wolf type, no social life to speak of unless it benefitted her
career.”
“So she had to be there on duty for Sterling,” Tate said.
“Reconnaissance, checking out the latest competition?”
“Maybe.” Lena scanned through the list Tate had put together but didn’t
see any other names she recognized. “Do you know who the event
coordinator was? I’m going to need to talk to someone at Elysian, see what
they know about Olivia’s appearance there.”
“No, sorry,” Tate said. “But I can tell you the Elysian brand is the new
kid on the block, hotel-wise. They got funded with venture capital money
about ten years ago and have been popping up new hotels all over the state
like it’s a race.”
“Competition for Sterling, then. You want to come with?”
“Love to, but Tom wants me here manning the department in case
anything new breaks.”
“Good luck with all that downstairs,” Lena said.
“Good luck with Elysian.”

T he first thing Lena noticed as she stepped into the opulent atrium of the
Elysian Suites was the scent—the fragrance of fresh roses and jasmine,
intermingling with the delicate aroma of bergamot tea.
Everything about the hotel, from its Michelin-starred lobby restaurant to
the crystal chandeliers hanging everywhere, screamed expensive. And not
in the subtle ‘old money’ way that Sterling did. No, this was a place for
people who wanted to be pampered and flaunt it.
Lena approached an intricately carved reception desk with, oh lord,
were those real ivory inlays?
A concierge in a tailored suit greeted her. “Good afternoon, madam. Are
you checking in?”
“No, I’m hoping to speak with your event coordinator,” she said, then
showed her badge. “Detective Lena Wolf.”
His eyes went wide. “I hope she hasn’t done anything wrong?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I just have a few questions.”
He nodded, waving someone over to take his place at the desk before
coming around to escort Lena. “Her office is on the second floor with the
rest of our administrative staff. Her name is Victoria.”
"Thank you,” she said as he pressed a button to call the elevator. “Does
the owner have an office on the second floor as well?”
“He works out of Philadelphia,” the concierge said. “He’s very busy
with all of our properties and only occasionally comes to visit.”
“Who runs this place, then?”
“That would be our general manager, Damien King.”
“I’ll need to speak with him too while I’m here.”
They walked down a hallway with yet more chandeliers, these ones ever
so slightly less ostentatious. These were the staff’s quarters, after all.
“Here we are,” the concierge said when they arrived at a door marked
Event Coordinator.
He knocked and a female voice answered, “Come in.”
The concierge made the introductions, and looked like he badly would
have liked to stick around and figure out what the drama was. But he
excused himself and Lena shut the door behind her.
“What’s this about, detective?” Victoria asked, gesturing for Lena to
take a seat.
“Olivia Sterling.”
“Oh.”
“So you know her.”
“Well, not personally. She died last week, didn’t she?”
“She was murdered.” Lena was pulling no punches because she could
tell Victoria had information – it was just a matter of extracting it. “As far
as I can tell, this hotel’s opening reception was the last place she was seen
alive.”
“Oh my god.” Victoria covered her mouth. Then she shook her head.
“She wasn’t killed here, she couldn’t have been.”
“Why not?”
“Because she was only here for a few minutes,” Victoria said. “She
came uninvited and the minute Mr. King saw her, he ordered her escorted
out.”
“He was angry?”
“About our closest competitor sneaking into a private event? Yes, I
would say understandably so.”
“What did he think she was after?”
Victoria shook her head. “I’m an event coordinator, not a business
strategist, and like I said, she was only there for about ten minutes before
she got caught. But there were a lot of investors at the reception. Maybe she
was trying to poach them.”
“Is Mr. King in the building today?” Lena asked. “I’d like to speak with
him.”
Victoria consulted her computer for a minute, then nodded her head.
“He should be available, he just got out of a meeting.”
Victoria didn’t bother to escort Lena like the concierge had, and that
was just as well. She took her time going back downstairs to where the
GM’s office was situated behind the reception desk, observing as she went.
What she primarily noticed were the discreetly placed security cameras.
There were a lot of them, and they probably had a pretty good record of
exactly how Olivia’s appearance had gone at the reception that night.
Lena found the general manager's office behind a less ornate but still
impressively carved desk marked Guest Services. His door was ajar, and
Lena could hear the murmur of a phone conversation as she approached.
She rapped lightly on the frame and pushed it open. A forty-something
man with reddish brown hair sat perched on the edge of his desk, like he
was too busy to even sit down to make a call. He was wearing a suit with
subtle pinstriping, and when he looked up at Lena and saw the badge holder
hanging from her waist, he gave her a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Excuse me, Arnold, I'll have to call you back," he said, hanging up the
phone without ever breaking eye contact with Lena. "And you are?"
 "Detective Lena Wolf," she said. "I'm investigating the murder of Olivia
Sterling."
The man's smile faltered for a moment. "Yes, I heard about that. Very
tragic."
"I'm looking for Damien King, the general manager," she said. "That
you?"
Damien nodded, crossing his arms. "That's correct."
"And you were at the reception that Ms. Sterling crashed three days
ago?"
"Yes, I was the host," King said.
"Your event coordinator told me Olivia was escorted out shortly after
arriving."
"Yes, I had her put in a cab the moment her presence was detected."
"Why was it so important she be immediately escorted out?"
"She wasn't on the guest list," King said. "She had no business here."
"Was she trying to steal Elysium company secrets? Lure away
investors?"
King laughed. "As if her little mom-and-pop hotel chain could compete
with us. No, she simply wasn't welcome."
Lena studied him carefully. His posture, while attempting to convey
ease, betrayed a rigidity that spoke volumes. She tried to think back on the
voice she’d heard on Reese’s phone. Was it his?
It was possible, but that voice hadn’t had any particularly striking
features.
She had to get him to talk more.
"Did you know Olivia Sterling personally?" she asked.
"No," he replied a little too quickly. The guy was nervous, and not a
great liar.
"Did you ever sleep with her?"
King stood abruptly. "I don't have to answer this kind of intrusive
questioning. I think it's time you leave, detective."
Lena held her ground, her gaze unwavering. "Mr. King, if you did sleep
with Olivia, I'll find out."
A bluff, but he didn't need to know that. The question had clearly gotten
under his skin, so she could guess at the answer.
"I've given you all the information I can," he said. "I'm sorry Ms.
Sterling came to such a horrible end, but I don't know anything about that."
 Lena narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you sorry?"
"We’re done here," he said, his gaze fixed and his pupils tiny little
pinpoints.
As much as Lena wanted to continue poking at him, she sensed he'd
reached the end of his usefulness for now. Push much harder and he'd
lawyer up. She took a step toward the door. "One more thing before I go. I'd
like a copy of the hotel's security footage from the night of the reception."
"And I'd like to see a warrant." He crossed his arms over his broad
chest.
"That can be arranged," Lena said.

OceanofPDF.com
 19

LENA

tay where you are,” Lena said.

“S She stepped into the hall, but made sure King didn’t close his
office door. He’d gotten defensive awful fast, and there were a lot of
things about his story that weren’t adding up. She wasn’t going to give him
a chance to destroy evidence while she stood around waiting for a warrant.
She pulled out her phone and started drafting a warrant request right
there in the hallway. She had to see what was on Elysium’s security footage,
and she couldn’t let King out of her sight until she had.
When the document was ready, she emailed it to Judge Miranda Harper,
who she knew was always glued to her phone and had a reputation for
responding swiftly. Then she dialed the judge’s number, just to be sure.
"Judge Harper," the woman identified herself as she answered the
phone.
"Hi, this is Detective Wolf with the homic–"
"I know who you are, and I just got the notification about your warrant
request."
Damn, this woman was on top of things.
"I'm hoping to work fast, as there's a timeliness element at play," she
said.
"I'm reading it now…"
The judge trailed off and Lena stood as patiently as she could. Harper
asked a few questions about why Lena needed the footage, and her probable
cause for suspecting it held valuable information about Olivia's death.
Finally, satisfied with Lena's answers, she said, "I'm approving the
warrant. Look for notification in a couple of minutes."
 "Thank you, judge," Lena exhaled. Before she had a chance to say
more, Harper clicked off.
Lena checked her email, but nothing had come through just yet. She
frowned. It was getting late, and Reese was waiting for her.
She had a minute or two to spare, so she dialed her number.
"Hey, are you on your way?" Reese answered.
"I wish I was," Lena said. "I really hate to break our plans, but I have to
serve a warrant. It could be a while."
"You think you figured out who killed Olivia?"
"Maybe, but I am sure I know where she was right before she was
attacked," Lena said. She couldn’t explain too much with King right there
in earshot, but she promised to fill Reese in the next time they met.
"Don't worry about dinner – your job comes first,” Reese said.
I don't want it to, Lena thought. Not when it comes to you.
"I'll keep you posted," she promised. "I still want whatever you're
making, if you don't mind me being late."
"I don't mind, and neither does this chicken curry simmering on the
stovetop," she said. "Dairy-free."
"Ugh, that sounds amazing," Lena drooled. "I can't miss that."
"I'm looking forward to seeing you," Reese admitted. "I hope it doesn't
take you long to issue that warrant."
The real time-suck would be going through the footage, but there was
no need to dwell on that now. Lena pulled her phone away from her ear to
check her email. Nothing yet. "How did the rest of your day go?" she asked.
"Any better?"
"A bit, actually," Reese said. "Got my mind off things by diving into this
dish."
"I'm officially salivating," Lena chuckled. "And starving. I'll call you as
soon as I'm able to leave work."
Reese's soft laugh tickled her ear. "Can't wait."
The warrant came through a moment after she hung up with Reese, and
Lena was back in King’s office in a flash, holding up her phone. “Modern
technology, it’s a wonder. Now let’s see that security footage.”
King sighed dramatically, swiveling toward his computer. "Fine. But I
assure you, you're wasting your time. Olivia Sterling was escorted from the
premises and that's the last anyone at Elysium knows of her whereabouts."
 He started typing and clicking, and Lena rounded his desk to keep an
eye on his screen. He made a show of clicking through various camera
feeds, displaying mundane images of empty hallways and sparsely
populated lobbies. She crossed her arms, her patience fraying.
"I'm not here for a tour of your surveillance system," Lena cut in
sharply. "Show me the ballroom door starting at seven p.m. on the night of
the reception. Now."
"Please," he corrected, a smug look on his face.
It would be a cold day in hell before Lena said please to this asshole.
She just stood there and waited.
King relented, and with a few more clicks, the grand doors to the
ballroom stood open on the screen. The shot was from the perspective of the
hallway, outside looking in. There were probably four dozen people milling
around inside, wearing evening attire and holding cocktails.
Lena squinted, trying to spot Olivia, but she wasn't up to the task. The
image of that poor woman naked and beaten had been forever burned into
her mind, but she couldn't pick clothed, every day, normal Olivia out of a
crowd with nearly as much accuracy.
"There," she said at last, after about ten minutes of scrutiny. "Pause it."
Damien tapped a key and the screen froze at 7:13 p.m., Olivia Sterling
emerging from the ballroom in a sparkling silver cocktail dress, her arm
squeezed roughly in the hand of none other than one Damien King.
"Mind explaining that?" Lena asked.
King shrugged nonchalantly, but sweat glistened on his brow. "I told
you she was escorted out."
"No, you told me you had her escorted out," Lena corrected. "Unless
you got one hell of a promotion from security to general manager after the
reception, I think you were trying to hide this from me. Why?"
He looked exasperated. "For exactly this reason! How does it look? Bad
for me, but all I did was give her the boot."
"We'll see about that."
Lena pointed forcefully, and when King didn't vacate his chair fast
enough, she leaned over him to take control of the keyboard and mouse.
She wanted to see every second between Olivia Sterling leaving that
ballroom and crossing the threshold of the premises.
King got the message and got out of her way, and Lena sat down. She
scrolled through a few more videos of empty hallways, and then she found
Damien and Olivia standing in front of a bank of elevators. His grip on her
arm was much loosened, and the timestamp was 7:14.
Lena shot King a look. He was sweaty and looked like he might
swallow his own tongue at any second. That or make a run for it, but in
those slippery-soled alligator shoes, she was confident she could overtake
him.
She looked back to the computer. The two of them had what looked like
an argument, arms gesturing and bodies leaning in toward each other,
mouths moving rapidly in a silent conversation. King grabbed Olivia’s arm
again and Lena tensed, and then he drew Olivia into his body, enveloping
her. Kissing her.
Lena waited for Olivia to shove him away. Slap him, maybe.
Instead, the elevator door opened and Olivia got in with him.
“Tell me what floor you got off on,” Lena demanded. When King just
stared at her with a petulant child’s look in his eye, she rolled her eyes. “I’m
gonna figure it out one way or another. Save us both some time and just tell
me.”
“Third,” he gritted out.
He switched the camera view to the third floor and Lena tracked the two
of them getting out of the elevator and entering the last guest room before
the hall turned a corner. And then the feed went still and Lena scrolled
ahead, waiting.
It was 10:39 p.m. when the door finally opened again, and Damien King
stepped out alone.
"Didn't sleep with her, huh?" Lena challenged.
"Fine, I lied. She's my competitor, I couldn't let that get out."
"It's out now." Lena watched the screen, scrolling forward an hour, then
two, then three. but there was no Olivia. "Where is she?"
"Maybe she stayed the night," he said. "I don't know. I left and went
about my business."
"She was dumped, dead, at two a.m.," Lena said. "Which makes you the
last person to see her alive. Damien King, turn around and put your hands
behind your back. You're under arrest."
"What? No! She'll come out, just keep watching."
"We'll sort that out down at the precinct," Lena promised as she pulled
her handcuffs from her belt. Her mind was racing – she wondered was this
the voice of the man who'd been terrorizing Reese? And she'd have to call
Tom or Arlen, whoever was free to assist with an interrogation.
And, oh no.
Chicken curry and hopefully falling asleep with Reese curled up against
her.
That would have to wait for another night now too.
At least she could tell Reese she was really close to nabbing this guy.

OceanofPDF.com
 20

LENA

T
he fluorescent lights of the interrogation room buzzed overhead, a
monotone that emphasized just how tired Lena's eyes were, how
desperately she wished she was at Reese's apartment eating curry right
now.
Not sitting across a steel table from Damien King, who was giving her
the coldest of stares and saying nothing.
Lena had called Tom in on her way back to the precinct. She was so
damn close to catching Olivia’s killer, and she couldn’t bear to let this
slippery bastard slide out of her fingers. She needed reinforcement.
The two of them had been working on King for at least an hour, and all
he was giving up was the easy stuff. What is your role at Elysium Suites?
How long have you worked for the company? What did you do before that?
Nothing about Olivia.
Nothing about the night of the reception.
So far, Lena had been doing most of the talking, King sitting back in his
chair with his arms folded, a calm, tight smirk pressed to his lips. She
looked to Tom, wondering when he would step in, but he gave her the
subtlest of head shakes. Keep going.
Great.
That was all she'd wanted since she took the detective exam, but now
the pressure was on. She couldn’t screw it up.
For Olivia, and for Reese.
Both of them were depending on her.
"Let's not waste any more of each other's time, Mr. King," Lena said.
"There's nothing you can tell us that we don't already know, except for why.
Why did you kill Olivia Sterling?"
King flinched. "I did no such thing."
"Well, let's see." Lena counted off on her fingers. "You lied about
knowing Olivia. You lied about who escorted her out of the reception. You
lied about her being escorted out. The two of you were caught on camera
entering a guest room, and several hours later you came out, but Olivia
never did. Did I get any of that wrong, Mr. King?"
He pressed his lips together in a thin, tight line. Silent and statue-still.
Lena kept going. "We don't know how you got Olivia's body out of that
hotel room, but rest assured, we'll figure it out. The next thing we do know
is that her own badge was used to gain access to a Sterling Hotel
construction site, where her body was dumped just hours after you were
seen entering that hotel room with her."
He just stared at her, eyes beady and dark, his pupils blown wide.
"And?"
Lena rolled her eyes. "Can we please skip the part where you pretend
you've done nothing wrong? I'm getting tired of it."
"I have done nothing wrong," King retorted. "I slept with her in that
hotel room, fine, you got me on that. She was an attractive woman and we
were pissed at each other over her being at that reception. A hate fuck isn't
illegal last I checked."
"Nope, not in the slightest," Lena allowed. "What happened afterward,
though… Olivia's body was wrapped in a silk sheet, the same brand Elysian
uses. I guess you're going to tell me that's a coincidence?"
King looked at her like she'd just invented a new level of stupidity. "Do
you know how many hotels use Mulberry Park sheets? Hell, Sterling uses
them.”
“And how do you know that?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I do my job well, and maybe you should
do yours better. Someone else must have entered the room after I left and
they killed her. I'm not the only one with a disdain for Olivia Sterling's
business tactics."
"And who might that be?" Lena asked. "You got theories, I'd love to
hear them."
"I don't know," he hissed, annoyed. "That's your job. The woman's got
enemies, though."
 "Like Elysian Suites?" she supplied. "Like you? Would you mind
rolling up your sleeves for me, Mr. King?”
He wrinkled his brows. “Why?”
“Olivia had some pretty terrible injuries, but there was also evidence on
her body that she fought back,” Lena explained. “Whoever killed her is
bound to have cuts, scrapes, scratches on their body. Probably on their
forearms from where she clawed at them while they were choking the life
out of her.”
He grimaced. “That’s awful.”
But then his hand went to his shirtsleeve, methodically removing the
cufflink and setting it on the cold steel table. Then the other one. He
unbuttoned his cuffs and pulled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, turning
them over several times.
Immaculate.
“There. Am I free to go?”
Lena shot a glance at Tom, who finally stepped in.
“Nah, not quite yet,” he said casually, sliding a folder across the table
that he’d been conspicuously tapping on from time to time. “Let’s look at
some pictures, Damien.”
He opened the folder and took the first one out, one of the crime scene
photos that Maya took. In it, Olivia was still shrouded in the silk sheet, the
blood pooling around her face a vivid red. Tom set it in front of King, who
looked away.
“The state she was found in… nothing short of barbaric,” Tom said.
"Strangled. Beaten,” Lena recounted. “Bite marks on her breasts like
she'd been attacked by an animal. A monster."
King's fingers twitched away as Tom sent a couple more photos sliding
his way across the slick surface of the table. These ones did not provide the
mercy of the sheet, the extent of Olivia's injuries in full view.
"The kind of man who would do something like this is seething with
rage, hatred for women and this woman in particular," Tom said, adding a
few close-ups to the pile. "And he doesn't just snap and do something like
this out of the blue. We're running a background check on you as we speak,
Mr. King. Are we going to find a history of violence against women?"
His face reddened and his jaw clenched. "Fuck you. I've had enough of
these baseless accusations."
 Tom had struck a nerve and they were getting close to unraveling him.
His careful facade was ready to crumble and beneath it lay a man capable of
inhuman savagery. She was sure of it.
"Was that night the first time you slept with her?" Lena asked.
King's eyes flashed away from hers for a moment, then returned. "No.
We moved in the same circles, saw each other at industry events. Alcohol
was involved at times, and we both had a need to blow off steam."
"But her idea of blowing off steam was a lot different from yours," Lena
surmised. "Her idea probably didn't end with her wrapped up in a sheet and
dumped like so much garbage."
"I didn't kill her," King said through clenched teeth. "It was just a
normal hook-up."
Tom leaned in, getting into King’s personal space even from across the
table. He narrowed his eyes and said, "You know what we didn't find at
autopsy? Seminal fluid."
"Okay?" King demanded.
"What kind of hook-up is that?" Tom asked.
King rolled his eyes. "Ever hear of a condom?"
Tom shook his head. "No spermicide, no lubricant, no condom or
wrapper… you know what I think? I think you couldn't get it up."
King's face contorted with a river of anger and humiliation flowing just
below the surface, barely kept in check.
Tom kept going. "Did she laugh at you, Damien? Did she make you feel
like a little man with a dick that doesn't work? Your rival, who's better than
you in every other way too–"
King stood and slammed his fists onto the table. "I don't have problems
with my dick!"
Lena had to look away to hide a smirk. His outburst confirmed what she
had suspected—Damien King was not only capable of violence but also
driven by an insatiable need for control and dominance. It was all there in
his reaction—anger, shame, desperation.
"Sit down, Mr. King," Lena commanded quietly but firmly.
"No. Fuck you people," he seethed. "Olivia Sterling was a conniving
bitch. She was always trying to one-up us, to make Elysian look second-rate
compared to Sterling. She couldn't stand that we were pulling ahead, so she
started sneaking around, trying to undermine us. Yes, I fucked her. Yes, I
hated her. But I didn't kill her and I want my fucking lawyer."
 He finally sank back down into his seat, still fuming but now somewhat
deflated.
"Fine," Lena said. "We'll need to collect a DNA sample, and then you'll
be free to consult with your attorney."
She and Tom both stepped out of the room then, and as soon as the door
clicked shut behind her, Lena let out a huge sigh, all the stress of the past
few hours escaping her body in one exhale.
"You did good in there," Tom said. "Great, in fact."
She breathed deep again. "Thank you. I'm shocked it took him that long
to lawyer up."
"Stress has a way of making common sense go right out the window,"
Tom pointed out. "Not that I'm complaining in this case."
They walked together to retrieve the DNA kit, making no special effort
to hurry. Let the bastard stew in there a little longer.
"We've got him, right?" she asked when she had the kit in her hand.
"This is going to match up to what Amelia found under Olivia’s fingernails
and we're putting that sonofabitch away."
Far away from Reese, she thought.
"I think so," Tom agreed. Never one to count his chickens.
There would be hurdles ahead—with a guy as connected as Damien
King, with an employer who had a vested interest in making this case go
away, there would be lawyers and legal loopholes left and right. But they
had a suspect. He was a damn good one. And they were one significant step
closer to solving Olivia Sterling's murder.
And putting Reese's life back to rights as well.
Even more than justice for Olivia, Lena wanted to keep Reese safe.
She'd protect her with her life if she had to.

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 21

REESE

R
eese lay sprawled across her bed, her blanket kicked down around her
feet.
She'd been tossing and turning for at least an hour, trying to
convince her body to sleep. She wasn't tired, having spent the whole day
doing next to nothing, and she was restless after the promise of seeing Lena
was ripped out from under her.
Lena was doing important work. Work that would personally benefit
Reese. So she couldn't exactly hold it against her.
Still, it would have been really good to see her.
Anyone, really, after the dull day she'd had, but especially Lena.
She'd spent several hours building the flavor of that curry and she was
sure it was the best she'd ever made. She'd mostly lost her appetite after
Lena cancelled, and had a small helping out of a sense of obligation before
putting the rest in the fridge.
And then she’d resorted to calling her mother to keep herself occupied
when Lena should have been there.
That had been a mistake.
They’d spent the whole hour talking about how the fan blades in her
mom’s house were getting embarrassingly dusty because Reese was the
only one brave enough to get up on the step ladder to clean them. And how
she hadn’t visited in over a month. And how she was only across town so
there was really no excuse.
Her mom hadn’t even asked why not when Reese said she couldn’t
come clean the fan blades tonight.
 “Bored enough to call her mother, too busy to actually lift a finger,” was
all she’d said, and then started telling Reese about the new Zumba class
she’d joined and all the great moves she was learning.
Now, she was lying in bed, wincing at the brightness of her phone
screen in the dark. When her eyes adjusted, she started scrolling through
food blogs, wondering what else she could cook for Lena. She held the
phone over her head until her arm started to ache, bookmarking a couple of
recipes and hoping the eye strain would make her tired.
Her fingers itched to open her message thread with Lena. Check in on
her.
She was in the middle of a high-profile murder investigation – two if
you counted what was going on in the woods. Reese knew better than to
expect Lena's attention at a time like this.
Quinoa stir-fry. Pasta primavera with homemade garlic bread. Build-
your-own taco bar.
Reese was making a mental grocery list when her phone buzzed in her
hand. Lena's name popped up and her heart soared. She opened the
message.
We've got someone in custody, pretty sure it's him.
Relief and gratitude and joy washed over Reese all in a tidal wave and
she sat up. That's amazing. You're amazing. And I bet you're totally wiped
out.
While Reese sat around all day trying not to lose her marbles, Lena had
been running from dawn to dusk.
I've still got a little bit of gas left in the tank – at least enough to get
some food in me. I'm so sorry I missed your curry.
It's not too late, Reese typed back. In fact, curry only gets better with
age.
Reese held her breath as she sent the message, half expecting Lena to
decline out of politeness or duty. But the reply came swiftly, a simple
acknowledgment that cut through any pretense of formality: Starving. Be
there in 20.
A smile crept across Reese's lips. She hadn't needed to convince Lena.
Maybe she was simply too tired for pretext – either way, she was hungry for
dinner and Reese was hungry to see Lena again, and she was coming right
now.
 She jumped out of bed, going to the kitchen to move the curry from the
refrigerator to the oven to reheat. There was something inherently intimate
about sharing a meal — especially something homemade that was cooked
with love. Reese couldn't wait for Lena to arrive. She had just enough time
to change out of her oversized sleep shirt and duck into the bathroom and
make sure she looked presentable.
The knock on her door came sooner than expected. Reese's pulse
quickened as she crossed the apartment, the curry scent began to fill the air,
aromatic spices mingling with a hint of cloves from rice she'd prepared
alongside it. She opened her door to find Lena standing there — less like a
guardian tonight and more like someone seeking refuge.
"Hi," Reese greeted her.
"Hi," Lena said. She looked undeniably tired, but the moment her eyes
met Reese's, they softened and lightened.
"Curry's almost reheated," Reese said, stepping aside to let Lena in.
Instead of going toward the dining table, Lena closed the distance
between them. Her hands found Reese's face, cupping her cheeks and
pulling her into a kiss that stole Reese's breath away.
Time slowed as Reese melted into the embrace, her heart pounding
against her ribcage. Lena's lips were soft yet insistent, and the world
narrowed down to the warmth of her touch and the sweet urgency of their
connection. When they finally parted, Reese's mind raced to catch up with
the rapid beat of her heart.
"I've been wanting to do that for a while now," Lena admitted, her voice
a low murmur that sent shivers down Reese's spine.
Reese's gaze locked with Lena's, searching for any hint of hesitation,
but found none. "Really?" she managed to say, her voice barely above a
whisper.
Lena nodded, then her mouth curved into a smile. "You had to know
that, right?"
"I suspected… hoped."
They kissed again, and then Lena said, "I have good news. We're
waiting on DNA, couldn't get a confession, but Tom and I are about ninety
percent sure we've got Olivia's killer. Your stalker. He's in custody and
you're safe now. You'll be able to go back to work soon."
Reese couldn't help cracking a teasing smile. "Aww, but I really enjoy it
when you play bodyguard. You’re so much more fun than my daytime
security detail."
"We can keep playing that," Lena promised, her voice going sultry and
seductive.
The brush of her lips against Reese's sparked a wildfire that raged
through her veins. Now, as the kiss deepened, Reese felt a magnetic pull,
guiding them away from the doorway and toward the couch. Their footsteps
were slow, as if they both recognized the gravity of the moment, the
importance of savoring it.
Lena's hands traced the contours of Reese's back, mapping an invisible
path that left a trail of heat in its wake. Reese's fingers tangled in Lena's
ponytail, the strands silken between her fingers, playfully pulling Lena
closer with it.
They tumbled onto the couch, bodies pressed together in urgency.
Somehow Lena ended up on top, trailing kisses from Reese’s lips down her
jawline to her neck, eliciting soft gasps that filled the room. Reese arched
into Lena’s touch, her skin tingling with each new exploration. She could
feel Lena’s heart racing just as wildly as her own — two frantic rhythms
syncing in the throes of passion.
The scent of curry that had filled the room seemed to fade into obscurity
as Reese focused on the woman above her. Lena’s breath was warm against
her skin, sending shivers down her spine and pooling warmth in her belly.
Reese reveled in every sensation: the softness of Lena’s lips, the gentle
yet determined grip of her hands, the weight of her body pressing down in
all the right places. There was something intoxicating about Lena’s
proximity — a heady mix of strength and vulnerability that drew Reese in
like a moth to flame.
Their kisses grew more fervent, their movements more fluid. They were
on the brink, teetering on the edge between restraint and abandon.
And then a rumble rose up between them, so loud it cut their kiss off
abruptly and Reese burst into laughter. "Is that your stomach growling?"
"I'm sorry."
"You said you were starving," she said, pushing Lena playfully away
from her. "I'm feeding you now, and don't try to argue."
"Yes, ma'am."
Reese got up and Lena tried to follow her, but Reese pushed her back
down on the couch. "Wait here."
 She went into the kitchen and pulled out the curry and rice. She grabbed
a couple plates and forks from the cabinet, as well as a large serving spoon,
and balanced all of it carefully on her way back to the couch. The dining
table suddenly felt far too formal, and she'd much rather eat with her legs all
tangled up in Lena's.
She laid everything out on the coffee table, then handed Lena the spoon.
"Help yourself."
Lena peeled back the aluminum foil covering the dish and the rich
aroma wafted out along with a tendril of steam. "Wow, it smells so good. I
could eat the whole thing."
"I would take it as the highest compliment," Reese grinned. "I've been
excited for you to try this."
She watched Lena dish up her plate, then load Reese's plate too. They
settled side by side on the couch, and Reese watched Lena take her first
bite. It was met with an approving groan that made Reese light up.
"This is incredible," Lena said, her eyes wide. "Even better than the
risotto. You made this for me?"
"Yep," Reese replied, pride swelling in her chest. "I enjoy cooking when
I have the time. And I had nothing but time today."
Lena's gaze lingered on Reese's face for a moment before returning to
her plate. "You're full of surprises," she said softly, reaching for another
forkful of curry. “Why don’t you do this for a living?”
“Cook?”
“Yeah, you’re great at it.”
“You’ve eaten two meals with me,” Reese pointed out.
“Sure, but they were both the best thing I’ve ever had.”
Reese felt her cheeks warming. “I never really had the means to get a
degree. I went from high school to retail to the ME’s Office, and I’m lucky
to have the pay and the benefits I have now. Otherwise I’d still be living
with my mom.”
She gave a shudder that was secretly less sarcastic than she made it
seem. Lena laughed, then said, “So, what, you made your choice and you’re
never allowed to aspire to more?”
“Maybe someday,” Reese said. “But I wouldn’t go to culinary school.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to turn what I love into what I do for
money.” She took a moment to drink Lena in and added, “I’d rather just
cook for you.”
The intimacy of their midnight dinner on the couch felt right —
comfortable and warm — and it filled Reese with contentment to share this
simple pleasure with Lena. Between bites, they talked about everything and
nothing: the recipes Reese' wanted to try next, Lena's favorite comfort
foods, anecdotes from work that were funny rather than grim.
As they ate, Reese found herself watching Lena — not just because she
was pleased by Lena's enjoyment of her cooking but also because there was
something deeply fulfilling about providing sustenance to someone who'd
had such a long day.
Lena had been out there fighting monsters so that Reese could sleep at
night without fear. It seemed only fair that in return, Reese could offer her a
meal made with care and shared in a place where she could let down her
guard and just be.
When their plates were empty and sitting in a stack on the coffee table,
Lena sat back on the couch and opened her arms, inviting Reese to her. She
curled herself up against Lena, just like the first night they spent together.
Better this time, though, because it wasn't laced with uncertainty, fear
that some killer was out there waiting for her, and a dread that Lena didn't
feel the same way about her.
Now, though, Reese knew she did.
She felt Lena's cheek come down to rest on the top of her head, cozy
and sheltering. Peaceful. And just a moment later, she heard Lena's breaths
evening out into the deep, steady rhythm of sleep.
The sounds of the city at night filtered through the windows — distant
car horns, the faint murmur of people living their lives. But inside Reese's
apartment, there was only this: two women on a couch, a safe harbor amidst
the chaos.

OceanofPDF.com
 22

LENA

M
orning light spilled through the curtains when Lena's phone buzzed
and woke her.
She and Reese had nodded off in each other's arms again, and
woken up long enough at some point in the night to move drowsily down
the hall to Reese's bed. They’d fallen into it in each other’s arms, their lips
locked and their tongues exploring each other. But the draw of soft pillows
and comfy sheets was too great and they’d fallen asleep again before
anything could happen.
A damn shame, but Lena was hopeful there’d be more opportunities in
the future with this girl who was turning out to be nothing like who she
thought she was.
Reese's eyes fluttered open now and she rolled away from Lena to
throw her arms wide in a stretch. "Is it morning?"
"Sorry, my phone went off."
"Work?"
"Probably." She pulled her phone off the bedside table where she'd
tossed it last night. First she checked the time. Six-thirty. Then she checked
her notifications. "Nothing about King yet, but the lab techs haven't even
begun their shifts for the day. Apparently there's some new development in
the tree skeleton case."
"Not another body, I hope."
"Arlen didn't say," Lena answered. "I should get down there."
Reese threw her arms around Lena's waist. "It feels like you just got
here."
 "I know." Lena rested her head on top of Reese's, inhaling the peachy
scent of her hair. "I wish I could stay all day."
Reese tilted her head up and met Lena's mouth. Her body all warm and
soft and pressed up against her made it even harder to think about work, or
ever leaving this bed.
But then Reese broke the kiss and announced, "I'm going back to work
today. I'll make us coffee."
She hopped out of bed and Lena frowned. "Are you sure? You know we
haven't indicted King yet."
"But you're sure he's your guy."
"Not a hundred percent," Lena admitted. "I'd really feel better if I knew
you were here where we can ensure your safety."
Reese leaned over the bed and kissed Lena a second time, then said,
"You can't guarantee I'll be safe anywhere."
Lena frowned again. "I guess that's true."
"I'm going to lose my mind if I spend another day sitting here in this
little box of despair," Reese announced, then smacked Lena playfully on the
leg. "Come on, I'll let you borrow my favorite travel mug."
She left the bedroom and Lena chased after her. In the kitchen, Reese
was already pulling a bag of coffee beans out of a cupboard, along with a
grinder.
Lena came up behind her, wrapping Reese in her arms and enjoying
how quickly they'd gotten comfortable with each other. "Promise me you'll
be careful. Stay alert."
"I will."
"And I'm keeping the security detail on you until we get the DNA
results back."
Reese spun in her arms to face her. "That actually makes me feel better.
Thank you."
"Of course. Now, let's see which one of these mugs is Reese's
favorite…" She started perusing the open cupboard. There were at least two
dozen ceramic mugs in there, but only a handful of travel mugs so that
narrowed things down a bit. Lena picked up a navy Yeti tumbler. "This
one?"
"Nah. Got that in last year's Secret Santa," Reese explained. "It's nice,
but not my fave."
 "Hmm… this one?" Now Lena was holding a ceramic mug with a
silicone lid that said I <3 My Mom.
"Moving gift from my mom when I got this place," Reese said with a
roll of her eyes. "She didn’t want me to forget her."
Lena laughed and picked up the final travel mug in the cupboard. "This
is your favorite mug?"
"Yep."
Lena studied Reese, trying to see if she was joking. She sure was good
at keeping a straight face if she was. "It looks like it's from the nineties,"
she pointed out.
"I think it is."
Lena turned it around. "And it says #1 Boss."
"I am so boss," Reese pointed out.
Lena laughed and Reese took the mug out of her hand. "Seriously, just
wait until it's three p.m. and you still have hot coffee. Then you'll get it."
"You are so delightfully weird," Lena told her, stealing another kiss.
"Who is the #1 Boss, anyway?"
Reese just shrugged. "No clue. I rescued that out of the lost-and-found
at my last job, and none of my managers would have qualified, that’s for
damn sure. But nobody came for it and I was desperate for a cup of joe, so
now it’s me."
Lena wrinkled her nose. "I hope you washed it thoroughly."
"Nah, coffee is hot, that'll kill any germs." Thankfully, this time Lena
didn't have to scrutinize Reese for long before she cracked up and smacked
Lena's arm. "Relax. I'm joking."

T hey left the apartment together , Lena with the #1 Boss mug and
Reese holding the runner up, the Yeti. Reese realized in the parking lot that
her car was still at the office, so Lena gave her a ride.
When she pulled up in front of the ME’s Office to drop her off, Reese
hesitated before she got out of the car.
“Go on a real date with me,” she said. “You know, one beyond the
confines of my apartment.”
Her eyes sparkled in the early morning sunshine.
 “What do you have in mind?”
“Dinner and a movie, someplace nice,” Reese said. “The first day
you’re rested enough to stay awake to enjoy it.”
Lena smacked her arm for teasing her, but said she was looking forward
to it. And then she squeezed her hand. “Be careful today.”
"I will," Reese promised.
Lena brushed a stray tendril of hair from Reese's forehead and kissed
her, wishing the moment didn't have to end.
But it did, they both had work to do, and Lena was eager to get to the
precinct so she could hover over the lab techs until King's DNA tests were
done. They were going to love that.
As soon as she arrived, she could see it was a repeat of the day the latest
body was found in the woods. There were reporters everywhere in the lobby
again, and Lena pushed her way through them relentlessly this time. She
had no clue what was going on and no time for statements.
Upstairs, most of the homicide detectives were gathered in the bullpen.
It'd been a while since the last time Lena saw all her coworkers in one place
– this was either great news or terrible.
"Have you heard?" Tate asked before Lena even got to her desk.
Lena shook her head, setting down the mug. "I heard there was a
development. What is it?"
"They got an ID on body number two," Tate said, gesturing toward
Renee's desk where she and Arlen were hunched over her computer screen.
"How?" Lena asked. She went over to Renee's desk, looking over her
shoulder.
"A family member identified his shirt from one of the news segments,"
Renee explained. "His name's Richard Thornton and apparently he never
went anywhere without it so I guess we got lucky."
"Score one for the reporters," Lena said. "What are you googling?"
"Thornton's brother told us he went missing about five years ago," Arlen
explained. "Said before that, he'd started going down all these conspiracy
theory rabbit holes, thinking the world was ending."
"We're trying to track down any communities he might have been
involved in online," Renee added. "Especially anything local, preppers and
stuff like that. Anybody who might be able to tell us what happened to him
in the years between when he went missing and when he died."
 Arlen's fingers danced across the keyboard, a deep trench of
concentration between her brows. Renee looked like she hadn't remembered
to blink more than a couple times in the last hour.
“So I guess the first guy’s wife is no longer a suspect?” Lena asked.
“She’s not free and clear, but we’re shifting her to the bottom of the
priority list for now,” Arlen said, hardly looking away from her screen to
answer.
"All right, well if you need any help you know where I am," Lena
chuckled. "I'm going to check on my DNA test."
"Don't bug them too much," Tom advised from his desk nearby. "They'll
deprioritize you out of spite."
"Even your own boyfriend?" Lena asked.
"Topher does digital forensics, not DNA testing," Tom pointed out. "But
yeah, he probably would."
Tate snorted and suggested, "Maybe a bribe is in order."
"I'll keep that in mind," Lena said, sitting down at her desk. She took a
sip of coffee – still perfectly hot as promised, and also absolutely delicious.
She'd been surprised when Reese started grinding her own beans, but
apparently it was worth the effort. Then she picked up her desk phone and
dialed the lab.
"Forensics," came the distracted reply.
"This is Detective Wolf checking on the DNA results for Damien King."
There was a pause and Lena could hear the clacking of a mechanical
keyboard. Then the tech snorted. "We just got the sample last night. At
midnight? And it is now seven-thirty."
"It's urgent," Lena explained.
"So are the dozens of other samples on our work list."
Oof. Lena was not making a friend here. "Is there anything I can do to
help you get to King's test sooner? He'll be an active threat if he's allowed
to go free while we wait for results and I can't let that happen."
"Are you trying to bribe me?"
Lena paused. Then decided to go for broke. "Would it work?"
The tech let out a heavy sigh. "No. Look, this is the first time I've heard
your name, which means you don't make a habit of hounding us for results.
I'll make King a priority, but no promises if something more pressing comes
in in the meantime."
"Oh my god, thank–"
 "And this is a one-time offer," the tech said. "Make this a regular thing
and all your lab tests are going straight to the bottom of the pile, okay?"
"Yes, I mean, I won't. Thank you."
She hung up and saw Tate looking at her, barely holding back a laugh.
"You actually tried to bribe them, didn't you?"
"Shut up," Lena said, then broke into a smirk of her own. "It kinda
worked."

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 23

REESE

E
veryone was shocked to find Reese back at her desk that morning, and
then they all tried painfully hard to act casual about checking up on
her.
Exactly why she’d needed to come back right away. She couldn’t let all
these people dote on her. She was already knocking a tiny hole in her walls
to let Lena in. She couldn’t stand it if anyone else bulled their way through.
So she acted normal – or even cheerier and sillier, if possible. She did
all her duties and asked after all the juicy gossip and answered the phones
like she’d never heard that creep King’s voice in her life.
The fact that he was behind bars helped a lot on that front, and it also
reassured everyone that they could stop fussing over her.
By the afternoon, things were pretty much back to normal. And when
Lena texted to say there was nothing she could do until the DNA results
came in so she was expecting an early night, Reese jumped on the
opportunity.
Does that mean it’s date night?
I would love nothing more, came Lena’s reply. Reese had saved her in
her phone with the gust of wind emoji, and it made her smile every time it
came up on her screen.
Text me your address and I’ll pick you up at six, Reese offered. It was
earlier than she’d usually set for a date, but she wanted every second she
could get with Lena – especially now that she was free to enjoy their time
without looking over her shoulder.
Can’t wait, little mouse. That’s your new nickname because there are far
too many negative connotations with the ‘trap’ part of the emoji you picked.
 Reese laughed out loud. Oh, but you’re totally cool with being a fart?
Eh, I’ve been called worse.
Reese set down the phone with a big grin on her face. Anybody else in
the world calling her ‘little mouse,’ it might have rankled. From Lena,
though? It was charming as hell.
And a woman secure enough to allow a cute girl to call her by the fart
emoji? That was saying something.
“What are you smiling about?”
Jordan came up to the desk and Reese shoved her phone into her desk.
“Nothing. Sup?”
“Think fast.”
A hacky sack came flying at her face and Reese bumped it back with
her elbow. “Break time?”
“Yeah. I need the fresh air – got another decomp back there, it’s gnarly.”
“Lemme just find someone to watch the desk.”

T hat evening , Reese drove back to her apartment vaguely aware of the
police officer tailing her, the ongoing security that Lena had insisted on.
She went inside and took a quick shower, then changed into a crisp white
button-down, a closely tailored vest and a pair of neat charcoal slacks,
similar to her work wardrobe but nicer than anything she'd wear to the ME's
Office.
Despite the cop parked outside her building, she couldn't feel more
different than she had at the beginning of the week.
Damien King was behind bars, still awaiting his DNA test results but
Lena was sure it was him. His background check had come back with a
frightening number of domestic violence complaints. Every single one of
them had been dropped, maybe because he paid them off, or just threatened
those women into silence?
Poor Olivia had been silenced in the worst way, and that monster had
set his sights on Reese next.
But Lena had caught him. Plus all was right at work, and now they had
each other. Reese had a woman who had dropped everything on multiple
occasions to go to her, to protect her.
 A woman who had a way of making everything all right, no matter how
scared Reese was.
A woman who saw the real Reese, no matter how many walls she put
up.
Who knew you could fall so hard so fast?
Reese tucked in her shirt and straightened her collar. She wasn't
normally one to make a fuss over her appearance, or invite people out on
dates, for that matter. She'd always been independent, self-sufficient. She
never thought of herself as someone who leaned on other people, but she
could see herself doing that with Lena.
Trusting her. Needing her.
Loving her.
She stepped into her shoes and gave herself one last once-over then
headed back downtown to the address Lena had given her. It was not far
from the precinct, where a lot of the cops tended to rent. Reese’s heartbeat
picked up speed as she climbed the steps to Lena’s apartment, telling herself
not to take the stairs two at a time.
Be calm. Be cool.
She knocked on the door and Lena answered it with an easy smile.
“Hi,” Reese beamed, then her eyes swept up and down Lena’s body.
“Holy shit.”
Lena laughed. She was wearing a black cotton dress with bright flowers
embroidered all up and down it. There were cutouts over her ribs and the
dress clung to every curve, and her dark, wavy hair hung down instead of
straight back in its customary ponytail.
“You like it?”
“You look hot as hell,” Reese said. “I don’t know if I wanna go
anywhere after all tonight.”
Lena laughed, then tugged on the peak at the bottom of Reese’s vest. “I
feel the same, but do we have reservations?”
Reese rolled her eyes dramatically. “Yes, I guess we should go.”
She held out her arm and Lena linked up with her. “Seriously, this
dress? Never wear it for anyone but me.”
Lena was grinning, the apples of her cheeks rosy. “I’ve never worn it
before tonight. Play your cards right and I’ll make that promise.”
They walked down to Reese’s car and she held the door for Lena to get
in. When she joined her behind the wheel, Lena asked, “Notice anything?”
 Reese squinted, looking her over again, and Lena laughed.
“Not about me.” She nodded at the street. “I called off your security
detail right before you got here.”
Reese brightened. “Does that mean you got him?”
Lena’s smile grew even broader. “Dead to rights. His DNA was under
Olivia Sterling’s fingernails. I don’t know how he killed her without letting
her scratch his arms at all, but when we booked him, we found dozens of
angry red scratches all over his torso. She gave him hell on the way out.”
“Good, I hope they get infected.” Reese started the car and Lena filled
her in while she drove.
“Here’s the best part,” she said. “As soon as we had the DNA match, we
interrogated King a second time. Took most of the afternoon but we finally
got it out of him – the reason he lost his shit and killed Olivia Sterling? Tom
hit the nail on the head. He couldn’t get hard and she laughed at him, so he
lost it.”
Reese just shook her head. “What a tiny little piece of shit. Did you
figure out how he got her out of that hotel room without it being on the
security tapes? Did he doctor those too?”
Lena shook her head. “Christopher scrutinized those files and they were
unedited. But it occurred to me that the room King and Olivia went to was
on a corner. I called the hotel and asked for a floor plan, and it turns out that
room adjoined the one behind it on the other side of the corner. I got the
security footage for the second hallway and sure enough, here comes King
at one a.m., pushing a room service cart into the adjoining room and
coming out fifteen minutes later.”
“You’re a genius,” Reese said.
“I should have caught it the first time,” Lena shook her head. “It was
sloppy of me to miss it.”
“But you figured it out,” Reese insisted.
“Anyway, the rest was easy. She had her Sterling ID badge on her, never
went anywhere without it, so he thought it’d be a clever idea to use it to
dispose of her body at a Sterling construction site,” Lena said. “He must
have broken into the foreperson’s trailer to erase the footage while he was
there, though he clammed up right after I laid out my evidence and refused
to talk without his lawyer.”
“But you figured that sick little slimeball out. And you charged him?”
 Lena nodded. “He’s back in his holding cell awaiting indictment.
There’s no way he’ll be given bail with a crime that violent.”
“What about the phone calls?” Reese asked. “Did he say why he did
that?”
Her muscles got stiff and shivery just thinking about it and she had to
imagine that scumbag behind bars to calm herself down.
Lena shook her head. “Wouldn’t say peep except ‘I want my lawyer.’”
She reached across the car and put her hand on Reese’s thigh. “Don’t worry,
though. We’re going to get a full confession out of him, and if we can’t,
then we’ll find his burner phone, or a charge on his credit card from when
he bought it – the guy isn’t good at covering his tracks.”
“I don’t really care about him getting charged for it as much as knowing
he’s never gonna call me again,” Reese said, taking her hand. “And you
made that happen. Thank you.”
“I’ll always keep you safe.” She smirked. “It’s my job, but I would be
lying if I said there weren’t perks.”
Then she leaned over and kissed Reese’s temple.
“You’re gonna make me crash,” Reese complained, a big grin on her
face.

T he restaurant R eese selected was the opposite of the Medical

Examiner’s Office in every conceivable way. The lighting was dim and
moody, not a single fluorescent to be found. There were tea lights flickering
on all the tables, and the booths were deep and private, and upholstered in
soft, lush fabric.
The food was excellent. They shared a bottle of full-bodied red wine.
Reese ordered a steak that melted in her mouth, and the way Lena ate her
cracked pepper fettuccini was enchanting, her tongue darting over her lip
every time a little bit of sauce got left behind.
Mostly, though, it felt amazing to be sitting next to a woman Reese had
been admiring from a distance for weeks, their toes touching beneath the
table even though the booth was more than deep enough to give them space.
Talking about something – anything – other than death and murder and
mayhem.
 And to be out in public without a uniformed police officer watching her
from not far away – the luxury!
Even Lena noticed how completely blissful Reese felt. “Enjoying the
ability to leave your apartment, huh?”
“I know it was only one full day,” Reese said, “but that place felt like a
prison cell real quick.”
“I understand.”
Reese arched an eyebrow. “Have you been in prison?”
Lena laughed. “No.” She took a fortifying sip of wine, then said, “But I
imagine foster care is a similar experience, at least the types of homes I
went to.”
“Can you tell me more about it?” Reese swallowed quickly. “I mean, if
that’s not rude to ask.”
Lena shook her head. “I brought it up, it’s fine. I already told you my
parents were addicts – heroin if they could get it, but anything would do. I
don’t know how they managed to keep me alive all the way up to school
age while feeding their addictions, but around the time I started
kindergarten, shit really hit the fan.”
“I’m so sorry,” Reese said, reaching across the table to take her hand.
“My teacher noticed I wasn’t the cleanest kid in the class, and that my
lunches varied widely from neatly made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
to partially drank cartons of milk, depending on how well my parents were
keeping it together back home,” she went on. “After about half a year, she
got concerned enough to call CPS, and they took one look at my parents
and put me in a foster home for the first time.”
“You must have been so scared.”
“It wasn’t fun,” Lena agreed. “I just got ripped out of my house and
plopped down in this other one, which was full of foster kids I didn’t know
and adults who didn’t seem to care that much that I had no clue what was
happening to me. They knew the drill, and a lot of the other kids were pretty
jaded by that point too, but I was utterly lost.”
Reese squeezed Lena’s hand. “I wish I could have been there for you.”
Lena smiled. “Would you even have been born then?”
Reese smacked her hand. “I’m not that much younger than you! Am I?”
“I’m twenty-five,” Lena said.
“There, I would have been five, I could have comforted you,” Reese
said. “Or like, made you watch The Wizards of Waverly Place with me or
something.”
Lena chuckled. “Sold. Selena Gomez is cute at any age.”
“So, what happened?” Reese asked.
“My parents cleaned up, at least enough to get me back,” Lena said. “I
went home, things went back to normal. I thought I could somehow keep
them clean by sheer force of will. I’m sure it will not surprise you to learn
that was not true. The cycle repeated a few more times until eventually I
went to live with my aunt, my mom’s sister. She lived on the other side of
town so I still got to see my parents when they were together enough for it,
but my aunt provided some much-needed stability and things got better
after that.”
“I’m sorry. Addiction sucks.”
“It does.”
She nudged Lena’s foot under the table. “But you don’t.”
Lena laughed. “Thanks. You don’t suck, either.”
“Sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

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 24

LENA

T
he two of them burst through Reese’s apartment like the rest of the
world was on fire and it was the only safe place.
Reese pulled Lena by the lapels of her shirt through the living
room, bumping into the hallway wall as they went. Lena’s body crashed
into hers, their mouths coming together hungrily. She could still taste the
rich red wine on Reese’s lips, but right now, she was thirsty for something
else entirely.
Something she’d been trying to convince herself she didn’t want ever
since this case began.
Something she could no longer deny.
She tugged clumsily at Reese’s buttons, popping her shirt open and
rolling it down her shoulders. Her fingers grazed over Reese’s bare skin
along the way, savoring the softness, the warmth, the firm, lithe muscles
beneath the surface.
“You drive me crazy, you know that?” she growled against Reese’s jaw
as she kissed her way down to her collarbone.
“Do I?” Reese’s hand slid down Lena’s hip and then teasingly over the
front of her thigh.
Lena pressed herself harder against her. “Every time I went to The
Taphouse and you were there, those big brown eyes sizzling when you
looked at me… and whenever I’d go to the ME’s Office and you’d be
waiting at your desk… completely out of reach…”
“But not anymore.”
“Not anymore,” Lena agreed, both hands coming up to cup Reese’s
breasts through the thin fabric of her undershirt. She wore a thin bralette
under that, her nipples poking against the fabric temptingly.
“Come on.”
Reese pushed off the wall, shoving Lena away from her in the process.
She gave her a smoldering look, enough to light Lena on fire right there in
the hallway, then turned and walked briskly away. Lena chased after her
eagerly, watching as Reese let her button-down fall to the ground as she
walked.
Then she pulled the undershirt over her head, baring her smooth, tan
back.
And finally, she stripped away the bralette, letting its slim straps dangle
from one finger before dropping it to the floor as well.
At the threshold to her room, she turned, hands on her hips, a coy smile
on her lips. “Is this what you’ve been dreaming of?”
“Holy fuck, yes,” Lena growled as she stepped into the room and kicked
the door shut behind her.
She grabbed Reese’s hips, squeezing hungrily, and backed her toward a
cozy little wingback chair she spotted in the corner. There were books
stacked on an end table beside it, but reading was the last thing on her mind.
“Sit,” she commanded as she nudged Reese down by the shoulders.
She obeyed, and Lena knelt before her, parting Reese’s knees and
settling in between them.
First, she bent forward and continued the path she’d started in the
hallway, kissing from Reese’s collarbone down over her breastbone, and
then working her way over to the extra-soft skin of her breast. Rolling her
tongue over her hardened nipple. Enjoying the feel of Reese’s body pressed
against her own as she arched her back.
“I want your body on mine,” she said, pulling away so she could strip
off her own shirt and bra.
Reese sat up and helped her, hands gliding up her belly and beneath the
wire of her bra. Lena shivered when she popped the clasp of it on her back
and Reese’s palms cupped both breasts.
She finished undressing, throwing her shirt over her shoulder, and
wrapped her arms around Reese, pulling her close. Their lips locked again,
tongues dancing over each other, and Reese leaned back in the small chair,
bringing Lena with her. Her hips undulated against Lena’s lower belly and
her body was so warm and inviting. It wasn’t long before Lena was working
one arm free, then sliding it down between them, under the waistband of
Reese’s slacks.
“Mmm…” Reese moaned right in Lena’s ear, sending a thrill through
her. She canted her hips against Lena’s touch, helping her find the right spot
in the tight space between them. “That’s it.”
“Right here?” Lena teased against Reese’s lips. She pressed the pad of
her finger firmer against the little bud between Reese’s legs, already hot and
slick with want.
“Yessss,” Reese gasped as Lena rubbed it in tight little circles. “Fuck.”
“Want me to?” Lena asked, reaching lower and poking her fingers
teasingly against Reese’s entrance.
“Hell yes.”
“Then we have to get you out of these pants.”
She withdrew her hand and worked feverishly at the clasp and zipper,
making quick work of them. Then she backed up and pulled Reese’s pants
off by the cuffs. Reese let out a giggle as Lena damn near pulled her off the
chair, then squirmed out of her panties as well.
She sat there with her legs spread wide, her pussy glistening and
swollen with need, and Lena bit her own lip admiring her.
“Did I make you all wet like that?” she asked, inching closer again on
her knees.
“You’ve been making me wet for so long,” Reese said, reaching down
and playing her own fingers over her folds, circling her clit, inviting Lena
in. “My very own bodyguard… I can’t tell you how hard it’s been not to
climb on top of you and fuck you, those nights you spent in my apartment,
on my couch… in my bed.”
“I wanted to so bad,” Lena admitted. “Fuck, if I wasn’t worried about
endangering your safety while I had my pants around my ankles…”
“But I’m safe now,” Reese pointed out.
“And you’re all mine.”
Reese grinned. “So get those pants down, ma’am.”
“Yeah, you want to see me?” Lena stood, playfully unbuttoning her
pants, inching them down.
“So bad,” Reese said. “Right now. All of you.”
She was still playing with her clit, her hips moving with each stroke,
and it was almost too much of a distraction. Lena’s body thrummed with
heat and she wanted nothing more than to kneel before her and taste the
dripping juices that were just for her.
But she knew how to obey a command. She peeled off her pants,
stepping out of them and her socks in one motion. Then she slid down her
panties too, eyes darting back and forth between the hungry look in Reese’s
eyes and the rhythmic motion of her hand that was building in urgency.
“Don’t have all that fun without me,” she said, then grabbed Reese by
the wrist that was settled between her legs, pulling her out of the chair. She
spun her around and tossed her on the bed, then climbed on top of her.
“Not exactly how I imagined it, but I like this,” Reese grinned, hands
roaming all over Lena’s body.
They scooted further up the bed together, then Lena got what she’d been
wanting since the moment they locked the apartment door behind them. She
crawled back down to the foot of the bed and spread Reese’s legs wide,
hooking them over her shoulders as she lay down on her belly.
Reese sucked in a sharp, anticipatory breath before Lena even touched
her. And then she brought her mouth down, closing it around the little bud
that Reese had teased into a highly aroused state. She twitched beneath
Lena’s touch, and Lena was about to raise her head, ask if it was too much,
when Reese threaded her fingers through Lena’s hair and pressed her mouth
against her.
“More,” she groaned.
Lena was only too happy to oblige. She firmed her tongue, circling
Reese’s clit tightly while she grasped her thighs, fingers digging into her
flesh. Reese bucked her hips, coming up to meet Lena’s mouth, making
pleased little moans and groans with every stroke.
Lena ran her tongue up and down over her slit, her head going swimmy
with her scent, her taste, the way her thighs kept trying to clamp against the
sides of Lena’s head, if not for her hands holding them open. Her own core
pulsed with need and she rocked her hips back and forth subconsciously
against the bedspread while her tongue probed Reese’s folds.
“Fuck,” she groaned, her fists tightening against Lena’s scalp and
sending the most delicious jolt of pain mixed with pleasure through her.
“I’m gonna come.”
Lena released Reese’s thighs, letting her squeeze her head as tight as she
wanted as she brought her tongue back up to her clit to lavish attention on
it. Reese used her hands in her hair to direct Lena’s mouth where she
wanted it, grinding against her and making Lena delirious with need. Her
short nails bit into the flesh of Reese’s hips and she lost herself to
everything but the feeling of her pussy against her mouth, the sweet, musky
scent of her arousal, the wetness dripping down her chin.
And then Reese’s whole body tensed, curling up around Lena for a
brief, tense moment before pleasure exploded through her. Her thighs shook
and her pussy spasmed against Lena’s tongue so hard she couldn’t stay in
place.
Reese went limp, laughing and drawing Lena up the bed to lie beside
her. “Oh my god, that was incredible.”
Lena couldn’t keep the proud grin off her face. “Good, huh?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever come that hard before.” She propped herself up
on one elbow. “Never spent this much time sleeping beside a woman I
desperately wanted to fuck before it actually happened, either.”
“Me neither,” Lena admitted.
“And I still haven’t gotten exactly what I’ve been dreaming of,” Reese
added.
“What’s that?”
Reese licked her lips. “You sitting on my face, gripping the headboard
and making it slam against the wall as I fuck you so hard you lose all
control.”
Lena’s heart skipped a beat, and her core tightened. “I can’t say I hate
that idea.”
Reese grabbed her by the hips, hauling her up over her head. Lena
framed Reese’s face with her knees, then slowly slid down as Reese tugged
on her hips to position her. The moment she was within reach, Reese craned
her neck up and met her with a long, slow, delicious lick all the way up
through her folds and over her clit.
“Fuck, I’m close already.”
“Then we’ll just have to have a round two,” Reese said. “Because I
want to savor this.”
And then she tugged Lena down firmly against her mouth.

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 25

REESE

T
wo days after their first date, Reese still hadn’t stopped smiling.
She was sitting at her desk at the ME’s Office where, for all intents
and purposes, things had gone back to normal. She no longer had a
police escort everywhere she went. She had plans to see Lena again in the
evening and attempt to make dinner, although her own plans ran more
toward the bedroom. And Damien King was due to be indicted later that
day.
The only thing that wasn’t quite the status quo was the number of
people lingering around her desk.
Normally Reese was the one pumping all her coworkers for interesting
gossip on their way in and out of the building. She caught them in little
snippets here and there, moments of respite in between the isolation of
working alone at the reception desk. Today, Jordan and Elise were hovering.
They’d been in the lobby for the last ten minutes, Jordan perched on the
edge of Reese’s desk like she had no plans of going anywhere any time
soon. Elise sat in a chair along the wall in the little space that served as the
office’s waiting room, cradling a cup of tea. They’d been saying hi to
people as they came in to start their shifts, and chatting with Reese about
nothing in particular in the interim.
Finally, she had to ask, “Did Amelia ask you to babysit me?”
Jordan’s brow furrowed. “Why would she?”
“Because of Damien King. Because I… kinda had a meltdown when he
was calling me.”
“Rightfully so, that was creepy as hell,” Elise said. “I probably would
have been hiding under my desk.”
 “But he’s behind bars now,” Jordan pointed out. “And Amelia did not
ask us to babysit you.”
“So you’re just here because my desk is the hot new hang-out spot.”
“It is conveniently located near the bathroom and the break room,”
Jordan teased.
Elise rolled her eyes and leaned forward. “I mean, now that you
mention it, though… we did have a question for you.”
Reese smirked. Thought so. “Yes?”
Elise shot a conspiring look at Jordan. “Some of us around the office
couldn’t help noticing that you’ve gotten sort of… close… with Detective
Wolf lately.”
“Close?” Reese wasn’t going to just hand this to her – she knew the
value of good gossip – but she was having a hell of a time suppressing the
grin teasing at her lips.
“Especially the last couple of days,” Elise said. “We were wondering if,
maybe…”
“You got some,” Jordan completed for her.
Elise rolled her eyes, and Reese laughed.
“Is that really work-appropriate conversation?” she asked, shaking her
head disapprovingly.
“It’s for sure the business of your work wife,” Elise pointed out.
“Ex-work wife,” Jordan smirked.
Reese laughed. “That’s right, she told me she wouldn’t wait for me. She
divorced me.”
“They were on a break!” Dylan wailed in a pretty good Ross Geller
imitation as she came out of the break room and joined them, handing Elise
her customary mid-morning candy bar. “What are you talking about?”
“Whether Reese and Lena are shacking up,” Jordan said.
“Definitely,” Dylan decided. “Elise and I have a sense for these things
and we felt it the very first time Lena came here.”
They all turned to Reese, three sets of eyes burning into her. Her cheeks
flushed as she said, “Okay, yes. But we’re not ‘shacking up.’ We’re…
dating.”
“Aww, that is so sweet!” Jordan’s words were dripping with over-the-
top cheese, but Reese could tell that under her tough exterior, she really
meant it.
“It is,” Elise agreed. “We’ve been rooting for you.”
 Reese laughed. “I didn’t know I had a fan club.”
Dylan nudged her wife’s shoulder. “Come on, hon, let’s get back to the
lab. I wanted to run my findings on the drunk driver case past you, see if
yours match.”
The two of them, having gotten their fill of gossip, headed through the
keypad-locked door to the back of the building. Jordan lingered just a little
longer, getting off Reese’s desk at last and punching her shoulder.
“Way to go, girl. Someday, it’ll be my turn.”
“Not if you keep going mute every time Lane comes by,” Reese
answered, rubbing her arm.
“How the hell do you know what I do around Lane? She comes directly
to the morgue.”
Reese just shrugged. “Word gets around.”
“Well, now that Dylan’s gone,” Jordan deftly switched the subject, “we
never got to prank her. We doing this or what?”
Reese smiled. It was good to be back to normal, back in her element and
no longer dreading every moment of her day. The work was morbid and the
pranks were childish, but she couldn’t ask for a better set of coworkers.
“Yeah, just tell me what my part is,” she said.
Jordan leaned in. “Okay, so she’s going to court this afternoon, which
will give us plenty of time to get into her lab…”

I t was early afternoon and Reese was feeling the post-carbohydrate slump
from the sandwich she had at lunch. There wasn’t much going on in the
office that concerned her – the phones were quiet and so was her email – so
she was just trying to stay alert while she waited for Jordan to finish
whatever she was doing in the morgue and come get her.
Dylan had left for the courthouse right after lunch, and Reese had
printed off a bunch of fake labels at Jordan’s direction. Things like Liquid
Courage and Nectar of the Gods and Unicorn Tears. They were going to
tape them to Dylan’s solutions and see how long it took for her to notice –
she had that lab organized to a T, so she might not even need to read the
labels anymore.
 Reese grabbed her scissors and started cutting them out, hoping Elise
wouldn’t come by and figure out what she was up to. Spouses – there was
no keeping secrets from them.
Her phone rang after a minute and she reached over, tucking it against
her shoulder as she continued cutting. “Medical Examiner’s Office, Reese
speaking. How can I help you?”
“Did you miss me, Reese?”
A chill shot down her spine and she let the receiver drop with a loud
crack against her desktop. Him.
His voice slithering into her ear again.
How was it possible?

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 26

LENA

L
ena’s fists clenched and she pounded the floor with every step as if she
meant to turn it to dust. She’d practically run all the way from her
desk down to the holding cells, and the way she was feeling right now,
she wouldn’t trust herself in a room with Damien King if there weren’t bars
between them.
She stormed into the jail and pushed right past the sergeant at his desk
just inside the door.
“Can I help–”
She kept going down the short hallway with a dozen small cells on
either side of it. There may have been other prisoners in them – odds were
good there were. But Lena was blinded to all of them, her vision narrowed
to a pinprick with King at the center.
The bastard had crossed a line. Threatening Reese before for his own
sick motivations was bad enough. But now, while he was in custody? He
was just playing games with her and Lena wouldn’t have it.
“Damien!” she snarled when she came to a halt in front of his cell.
His head snapped up, real fear in his eyes before he noticed it was just
Lena and he relaxed against the wall cot he was sitting on. Oh, so he wasn’t
threatened by her? He’d learn soon enough who he was dealing with.
“Open the cell,” Lena called to the desk sergeant.
He stood but gave her a tentative look. “What’s going on, detective?”
“He’s making threats,” Lena explained. “Using his phone privileges to
harass an innocent woman he’s got his sights on.” She turned on King. “You
think you’re untouchable just because you have money and connections?
Well, that tailored suit’s looking pretty limp and pathetic behind bars.”
 King rose from his cot, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets as he
strolled toward her. He did look small in there, in the low lighting with the
grimy walls all around him. But she hadn’t quite succeeded in wiping that
self-satisfied smirk off his face.
She’d do it if it was the last thing she–
“I’ve made exactly one call since I’ve been here, and that was to my
lawyer,” King said. “Check the records.”
“Oh, you can count on it,” Lena promised, her tone ice-cold.
“I don’t even know who the hell you’re talking about,” King went on.
“You’re losing it, detective.”
“Shut the fuck up and sit down,” Lena demanded, then turned to the
sergeant. “Can you access his call recordings?”
“Yes, but if he said anything threatening, it would have been flagged
immediately,” he explained.
“Then he has a cell phone,” Lena said. “Search him.”
The sergeant looked uncomfortable. “I’d have to call my commanding
officer for backup. It’s a safety protocol.”
“I’m here, I’ll protect you,” Lena said, letting the sarcasm drip audibly
into her voice. They were wasting time and this piece of shit wasn’t
supposed to be able to hurt Reese anymore.
“He was already searched once,” the sergeant pointed out. “When he
first arrived, his cell was confiscated.”
“He could have another,” Lena countered.
King was standing close to the bars now, more amused by her
frustration than anything. “Do you think I had the time to shove a cell
phone up my ass before you showed up at my office and dragged me down
here?”
She gave him a simpering smile. “I guess we’re going to find out.”
She got what she wanted – eventually. The desk sergeant brought in his
CO and all three of them together did a full strip-search of Damien King,
waving a metal-detecting wand over his orifices and then asking him to
perform the bend-and-cough maneuver. Aside from being disgusted by the
number of defensive claw marks all over his upper body… and secretly
satisfied at his discomfort… Lena found nothing.
Damien King didn’t have a cell phone, and he hadn’t used the jailhouse
phone since his first night.
He wasn’t the one who called Reese.
 “Happy now, detective?” King asked when the search was done. He
stood naked in his cell, hands on his hips and doing his best to pretend he
wasn’t humiliated by the process.
Lena just stared hard at him. Maybe this asshole wasn’t the same one
who was stalking Reese, but he did murder Olivia Sterling and nobody
deserved to die the way she did. Nobody deserved for the last thing they
ever saw to be this psycho.
Her upper lip curled as she said, “Better get dressed – you look cold.”
Then she left, ignoring the annoyed looks of the sergeant and his CO
and any wisecracks Damien King might have tried to get off.
She got in the elevator, intending to head straight for the ME’s Office
because she wasn’t going to get rid of the ache in her gut until she had
Reese in front of her, safe. She was so absorbed in her own thoughts, she
barely noticed when somebody called, “Hold it!”
Making no move to stop the doors from closing, Lena was in her own
world when Ariel shoved her hand in front of the sensor then stepped in.
“Thanks,” she said sarcastically.
“Sorry.”
The doors slid shut and Ariel waved her hands in front of Lena’s face.
“Are you in there?”
“Huh?”
“You’re on another planet. Are you okay?”
“Sorry,” Lena snapped out of it. “My case just imploded.”
“King’s not guilty?”
“No, he is,” she said. “But the calls Reese kept getting? They weren’t
from him because she just got another one. I don’t get it.”
She never should have assumed they were from him. It was reckless,
and now Reese could be in danger.
“Accomplice?” Ariel wondered.
“Maybe. He knew where the body was.” She started thinking out loud.
“But King’s taking the fall, so if this guy has any part in it, he should be
deep underground by now, not letting us know he’s still out there.”
Why did she jump so quickly to it being King? Lazy policework. She
kicked herself again and again in her head.
“Maybe he can’t help himself,” Ariel said. “Maybe it’s a compulsion.”
Lena nodded. “That’s why I’m headed over there right now. I’m not
letting her out of my sight until I find him.”
 She wasn’t going to fuck up again.
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open on the garage level. Arlen
was rushing toward them and when she saw them stepping out, relief eased
her brow. “Good, you’re here – we just got a lead on a prepper militia group
that Richard Thornton had ties to. We need all hands on deck to go check it
out.”
Ariel was back in the elevator before Arlen had a chance to finish her
sentence, eager for some action. But Lena’s expression twisted with
conflict. This was her boss giving her a direct order, not something she’d
ever taken lightly, and if Arlen said it was important, it was.
But…
“Wolf? You coming?” Arlen prompted.
Lena took a deep breath, then shook her head. “Reese needs me.”
And she didn’t have time to explain. She didn’t even wait to see how
much trouble she was in for running away from her boss. She just took off
at a sprint for her car.

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 27

REESE

L
ena burst through the break room door and pulled Reese straight into
her arms.
If there was anyone at the ME’s Office who hadn’t seen Reese’s
softer side yet, they were getting an eyeful now, but Reese didn’t care. She
squeezed Lena back, taking comfort in the strong, lean muscles of her body
and her familiar scent.
“Are you okay?” Lena asked when she pulled back to look at her.
“Yes. But I fucking hate this.”
“I do too,” Lena said. “Sit down.”
She guided Reese back to her chair, then seemed to notice for the first
time that half the office was gathered there too. She’d called ahead to tell
Reese to get away from the windows (already done) and that she’d be there
soon (a soothing promise), but she hadn’t told her anything about what
she’d found out.
Now, concern was etched across her forehead and Reese didn’t like the
look of it.
“What is it?” she demanded. “How did King make that call?”
Lena sank into the seat next to her, taking Reese’s hands. “He didn’t.”
Amelia gasped behind them. “Then who did?”
“That’s what I’m going to figure out,” Lena said. “I think we must have
a stalker type on our hands.”
“And he’s turned his attention to me?” Reese asked, dread pooling in
her belly.
Lena nodded grimly. “I think his previous obsession is gone and he
must have seen her die, or seen her be disposed of. Maybe he was watching
her at the time. And he needed someone new to latch onto. The good news
is his connection with you is still fresh – not nearly as deep in his mind as
what he had with Olivia, if he was stalking her for any length of time.”
“So you think he’ll forget about me quicker?”
“I hope so. But no matter what, Reese, I’m not going to stop until I
know you’re safe, and I’m also not letting you out of my sight until then.
Okay?”
“Please don’t,” Reese said, her voice small and scared again. She hated
that almost more than those phone calls.
“The first thing I want to do is bring you with me back to the precinct,”
Lena explained. “Dr. Hartley agreed to make time for us in her schedule.
Maybe you can talk to her and we can come up with a profile for this guy.”
Reese nodded and stood. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Amelia stepped forward, putting a hand on Reese’s shoulder. “Are you
sure you’re going to be okay?”
Reese looked at Lena. They’d only known each other a few months,
only went on one date. And yet she knew with absolute certainty whenever
she looked into Lena’s warm brown eyes that she would be safe with her.
That Lena would lay down her life for her, or anyone else who needed
her to.
“Yes. I’ll be fine.”
“Keep us posted,” Amelia told Lena. “I’ll be worried sick until I know
everyone’s safe.”
Lena nodded agreement. “You may want to go back to locking the doors
here. Just until we find this guy.”
Reese let Lena lead her by the hand. They went down the hall and Lena
tucked Reese close to her body when they got to the front door. “Do you
think he’s going to shoot me or something?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Better safe than sorry.”
It should have scared the absolute hell out of her, that I don’t know. The
man who’d been calling, saying creepy things and making sure she knew he
was watching her, wasn’t at all who they thought he was. He could be
virtually anyone, with an unknown motive and unknown limits.
Maybe he had none.
But with Lena holding her tight against her body, Reese was comforted.
Scared out of her skull, yes. But oddly reassured too.
 That didn’t stop her eyes from darting around when they got outside,
trying to spot him. Anyone who was lurking, who looked out of place, who
gave off a sinister vibe…
But there was no one. It was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday
and this part of downtown, right in front of the morgue, just wasn’t that
popular.
Lena caught Reese looking around.
“He probably took off when he saw me pull up,” she pointed out. “But
we’ll find him, wherever he is. He can’t hide from me.” She sat Reese down
in the passenger seat and closed the door, then jogged around to the driver’s
side. As she buckled her seatbelt, she shot a coy look at Reese and added,
“You should know I disobeyed a direct order from my boss to rush over
here.”
Reese frowned. “They don’t want you looking for this guy?”
“No, it’s not that.” Lena explained, “There was a break in the tree
skeleton case. They might have figured out what prepper group the second
victim was a part of. Arlen wanted me on that with the rest of the team.”
“But you came to my rescue instead,” Reese said.
“There wasn’t even a question,” Lena said, taking her hand. “You need
me most right now.”
“My hero. Are you gonna get in trouble?”
Lena shrugged. “Nah. I think Arlen was a little irked that I ran off
without explaining, but she knows this case, and she wouldn’t want to put
anyone in danger.”
“Especially not another ME employee,” Reese pointed out. “We’re
gonna have to get an armed guard before long.”
“Or I’ll just have to put this asshole behind bars,” Lena suggested. “He
can share a cell with King.”
“Any idea how they’re connected?” Reese asked.
Lena shook her head. “Don’t know yet. That’s what I’m hoping Dr.
Hartley will be able to tell us.”

R eese was immeasurably relieved to find that Dr. Hartley was waiting
for them in the homicide department’s conference room. Initially, she’d
been envisioning the interview taking place in one of the interrogation
rooms with their stainless-steel tables and one-way viewing windows, but
Lena assured her those were strictly for the criminals.
The conference room was a lot like the one that doubled as the ME’s
Office break room, with a long oak table down the center and about a dozen
comfy swivel chairs around it. There were windows along one wall that
looked out on the bullpen, and a big whiteboard that stretched most of the
length of the opposite wall.
Dr. Hartley was busying herself with a pot of coffee in one corner of the
room when Reese and Lena arrived. She wore the same business casual
uniform that most of the detectives did, a pair of dark slacks and a blazer,
but when she turned, Reese saw she had on a ruffly floral blouse that was
more decorative than most of the detectives wore. She had on a pair of
gold-framed round glasses, and she gave them both a friendly smile.
“Hi, Lena. And this must be Reese.” She rounded the table and held out
her hand. “I’m Mina Hartley.”
“Thanks for making time to meet with us,” Lena said while Reese shook
Dr. Hartley’s hand.
“Of course, this is important. Coffee? I made enough for the whole
floor, I think.”
“There won’t be anyone here but us for a while,” Lena said. “Everybody
else is out chasing a lead Arlen got.”
“Well, then, I’ll pour you both a big cup.”
The three of them got settled around one end of the long conference
table, and Reese cupped her hands around her mug even though it wasn’t
cold out. The warmth was comforting, and it gave her fingers something to
fidget with even if more caffeine was the last thing in the world she needed.
“Are you ready, Reese?” Dr. Hartley asked softly.
She glanced to Lena, then nodded.
“Let’s start with what he said during the calls,” the psychologist
prompted. “As closely as you can remember it.”
They spent the next half hour rehashing the series of calls Reese had
gotten. She had no trouble remembering every single, chilling word the man
said to her, and she did her best to describe the characteristics of his voice
to her too. No words could ever adequately describe the way his voice in
her ear revolted her, though, like an insect crawling inside and setting up its
horrible little nest in there.
 Lena reached across the table and put her hand on top of Reese’s,
seeming to sense her discomfort. “Let’s take a break for minute.”
“No, I want to get this over with,” Reese insisted.
“That’s all the questions I had,” Dr. Hartley said. “Is there anything else
you want to add, Reese?”
She thought for a moment. “He seemed emotional. Especially when he
first started calling, when he was asking about Olivia Sterling.”
“Emotional how?”
“Upset, agitated? I’m not sure, sorry.”
Dr. Hartley shook her head. “It’s okay. But he’s been less emotional
more recently?”
Reese frowned. That wasn’t quite right. “Maybe not less, but different.
More focused on me. And…”
“Yes?” Dr. Hartley prompted.
Reese thought about the googling she’d done that first day when she
was holed up in her apartment with nothing better to think about than the
danger she was in. “I think I might know why Olivia Sterling and I are
similar in his head.”
Both Dr. Hartley and Lena leaned in. “Oh?”
“We’re both…” God, this was hard to say out loud, especially with Lena
in the room. “Fiercely independent,” she settled on. “I looked her up online
and she never had anyone close to her in pictures. She was always with
different groups of people. She kept everyone at arm’s length.”
“And you feel you do the same?” Dr. Hartley asked.
Reese cut a quick glance to Lena. “With most people, yes.”
“That could give him the opportunity to get closer to his victim,” Dr.
Hartley agreed. She had a notepad in front of her and she’d been scribbling
notes all over it while they talked. She added looks for socially isolated
women to it, then set her pen down. “That’s a very good insight.”
Reese felt her neck heating and she shrugged. “Just something that
occurred to me when I had too much time to think. Do you like your work,
doctor?”
“I love it,” she answered. “I get to solve puzzles and help catch
criminals every day while I learn more about the human psyche.”
“Mmm,” Reese hummed, considering that.
“You could do it too, if that’s why you’re asking,” Dr. Hartley said. “I
got my PhD, but you can start working with a bachelor’s.”
 Reese shifted in her seat, not sure she was ready to go down that road.
Lena seemed to sense it and she asked, “Well, Mina, does this give you any
ideas about what kind of man we’re looking for?”
The psychologist nodded. “An obsessive one, clearly. He seems to form
attachments quickly, and I imagine he’s a bit of a fantastical thinker. From
what Reese said of their brief interactions, he didn’t seem to have any clue
why calling her and letting her know he’d been watching her would be
discomforting. I bet he already has a narrative in his head about their
relationship, and I’m sure he had one about Olivia too. Lena, you didn’t
find any evidence that Olivia was dealing with a stalker before her death?”
“No, but everyone I spoke to about her was very tight-lipped,” Lena
said. “And so was Olivia herself, from the sounds of it.”
“Could she have been hiding it?” Dr. Hartley pondered.
“Why would she hide that?” Reese asked.
“I don’t know, but her personal assistant might,” Lena said. She was
staring into her coffee, an intense expression on her face.
Reese tapped her hand. “What are you thinking?”
Lena nibbled her lip. “I need to reinterview the PA and I also want to
look through the security footage from the construction site again, widen
the search parameters to see if anyone who could be our stalker makes an
appearance. The reception at the Elysium, too. Damn, that’s going to be a
lot of footage.”
“It’s a good idea, though,” Dr. Hartley said. “If he was obsessed with
Olivia, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his distance.”
Reese shivered, and Lena put a hand on her shoulder.
“You’re coming with me,” she said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight
until this is over.”
“I’ll pull records for everyone with stalking charges over the past ten
years in the area,” Dr. Hartley said. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and recognize
a name.”
“Thanks,” Lena said. “I appreciate it.”
“Me too,” Reese added, standing. “So, now we go talk to the PA?”
“Yes,” Lena agreed. “Here’s hoping she remembers some clingy creep
in Olivia’s past.”

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 28

LENA

K
aty herself looked even more worn down when she answered Lena’s
knock on her door for the second time.
“Has there been a development in Olivia’s case?” she asked,
confusion written on her face. “I thought I heard you arrested someone.”
“We did,” Lena confirmed. “But there’s been a development and it
seems our job isn’t quite done yet. Do you have a minute?”
She wasn’t really asking for permission, and Katy seemed to know that.
She waved the two of them into the house, pointing them to the couch
where Lena sat the first time.
“New partner?” she asked as Reese walked in.
“This is Reese Mitchell,” Lena said. “She’s… doing a ride along.”
On a high-profile homicide case? the logical part of her own brain
questioned. Not likely, but Lena hadn’t thought to come up with a better
excuse. Take Your Girlfriend to Work Day probably wouldn’t fly, nor would
the truth – that she was terrified to let Reese out of her sight with some
maniac out there lurking in the shadows, just waiting for an opportunity to
strike.
Luckily, Katy didn’t protest. She just plopped down in a threadbare
loveseat and asked, “Can we make this quick? My rent is due soon and you
have no idea how time-consuming job applications are these days.”
“I would think any number of people would be excited to hire Olivia
Sterling’s personal assistant,” Lena said. “It’s obvious she wasn’t an easy
woman to work for.”
“Yeah, well, a letter of recommendation would have gone a long way,
but… ya know, she’s dead.”
 Lena saw Reese’s jaw drop open and then she closed it again. Lena
herself was less shocked at the flippant reaction to death – she’d seen it
many times in the line of duty.
“Could you ask Mr. Sterling?” she suggested.
Katy snorted. “Mr. Sterling doesn’t know I exist, and now that I’m a
former employee, I’m sure he’d tell me to take a hike if I asked. I’m already
barred from applying for anything in the hotel industry for the next five
years because I signed a noncompete when I started with Olivia. Plus, he’s
got more important things to do than write recommendations for people he
doesn’t know.”
“The funeral,” Reese murmured.
“His own assistant is handling that, I’m sure,” Katy said. “I meant his
work. Being a cold-hearted workaholic was an inherited trait in the Sterling
family. It’s fine, I’m putting it behind me. Anyway, I’m not sure I have it in
me to work for another high-maintenance executive. If I have to work at the
Weenie Hut to pay my rent, it might actually be a nice change of pace. So,
questions?”
“Yes, I’ll make this quick,” Lena promised. Not necessarily for Katy’s
sake, but because she suddenly had more leads to chase down than she
could handle alone. “Did Olivia ever mention anything about having a
stalker?”
“She never told me anything personal,” Katy said. “I told you that the
first time.”
Lena nodded. “I remember. And she never mentioned any problem
clients, clingy friends? People you should look out for while you were
managing her schedule?”
“What friends?” Katy asked. “No, the only things she ever put on her
calendar were work-related, and as far as I could tell, there was nothing she
didn’t put on her calendar.”
“Was there anyone who got special treatment?” Lena asked. “Anyone
she spent extra time with, talked to more casually?”
She was thinking at least Olivia’s father, Xavier Sterling, would be
mentioned, but Katy shook her head. “Everybody from her doorman to her
dad got held at arm’s length.”
“Okay. One more thing before we go,” Lena said, and Katy looked
relieved at the possibility that this would end soon.
 “You worked closely with Olivia, even if she was a private person,”
Lena said. “Do you have any idea why Olivia would choose not to go to the
police if she did have a stalker?”
“That’s an easy one,” Katy said. “Olivia was obsessed with her image.
She wanted to be taken seriously as a businessperson and an industry leader.
A lot of the time, she felt she was held back by her gender, that earning
respect and credibility would have been easier if she’d been a man. Being
seen as a damsel in distress would have been career suicide in her eyes, and
I think she would've done anything to avoid that label."
“She thought being stalked was a sign of weakness?” Reese asked, then
cut her eyes over to Lena and added, “Sorry.”
“No, that’s basically it,” Katy said. “She never wanted anything to
distract from her image as a powerful hotelier. It’s why she didn’t bother
with friends or romantic interests, or even small talk with her PA who spent
forty hours a week with her. If she was being stalked, I could see her trying
to take it into her own hands to keep it quiet.”
"Thank you, Katy," Lena said, standing. “This has been very helpful,
and we appreciate your time.”
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Katy said, showing them to
the door.
“And I hope you have better luck with the job hunt,” Reese said. On the
way to the car, she linked her arm in Lena’s and said, “I wish we could help
her.”

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 29

REESE

R
eese was still thinking about the interview with Katy as they drove
back to the precinct. Why should she be out of a job just because her
boss died? Didn’t Sterling Hotels have some sort of obligation to her?
“What’s this Xavier Sterling guy like?” she asked Lena. “Is he as much
of a prick as it seems like?”
Lena nodded. “I only spoke to him once, but he didn’t show nearly as
much concern for his daughter as I would have expected from a grieving
father. That was one weird, dysfunctional family.”
“No wonder she didn’t bother trying to tell anyone she had a stalker,”
Reese said. Her own family wasn’t the picture of normalcy and she could
relate to having a transactional relationship with one’s parent… but the
Sterlings took it to a new level. “How could you think of your daughter as
your employee and nothing more?”
Lena just shook her head. “Olivia never had a chance at a normal
relationship with that kind of role model. I’m going to call Sterling when
we get back to the precinct and see if he has any ideas about people who got
a little too close to Olivia around the time the Prospect Street hotel was
opening, but I’m not going to hold my breath he has answers.”
“If her own dad wasn’t paying attention, how are we ever going to find
this guy?”
“I may be a new detective, but I’ve got a lot of tricks up my sleeve,”
Lena said.
And she was right. For the rest of the afternoon, they had the bullpen
pretty much to themselves and Reese watched in awe as Lena chased down
leads, meticulously combing through security footage and various guest
lists, all while barely stopping to blink. Reese tried to help by pulling the
names of everyone who commented on the Sterling Hotels social media
posts where Olivia was mentioned, but she felt like a snail compared to how
efficiently Lena worked.
Xavier Sterling was no help, as predicted. Lena called right when she
got back to her desk and didn’t make it further than his administrative
assistant. She put the phone on speaker for Reese’s benefit and Judy told
Lena that he was traveling for a hospitality conference and would touch
down in Lucerne around ten p.m.
“I’ll be sure to let him know you’d like to speak with him then,” she
added.
“I’d rather call him directly,” Lena answered. “What’s the number
where I can reach him?”
She jotted it down as Judy rattled it off – somewhat reluctantly, Reese
thought.
“I’d also like for you to forward me his travel bookings,” Lena added.
“How long ago was the trip scheduled?”
“Almost a year ago,” Judy told her, and Lena visibly relaxed in her seat.
“One more question. Did you ever hear anything about Olivia having a
stalker, a problem employee, maybe?”
“No, not that I recall,” Judy said. “Our paths didn’t intersect much
outside the conference room, though.”
“Any changes to her demeanor or her work schedule in the last couple
of years?” Lena paused, then added, “Maybe about two years ago?”
“No, that would have been around the time of her accident,” Judy said
immediately. “She was very strict about maintaining her schedule and not
allowing her injury to derail her at all.”
Lena pursed her lips as she ended the call, then turned to Reese. “God, I
hope Xavier’s not running.”
“You think he has a reason to?”
Lena shook her head. “He’s a ruthless businessman but he doesn’t strike
me as the type to get his hands dirty – at least not his own hands. His
assistant better be telling the truth, though. If I find out that trip was booked
recently, we’re in trouble.”
It took Judy close to an hour to forward the emails, at which point Lena
finally let out a long breath and told Reese that everything checked out.
That just left miles and miles of security footage, guest lists, and social
media comments to sort through.
They worked diligently side by side until the light disappeared from the
sky beyond the precinct windows and Lena’s stomach started growling
audibly. Reese leaned back in her seat, putting her arms overhead for a
stretch, and said, “I don’t know if we’re going to be able to finish this
tonight.”
“I can,” Lena assured her. “I just need to refill my coffee cup.”
Reese grinned. She still had the #1 Boss travel mug on the corner of her
desk. In all the chaos, she’d forgotten she even loaned it to Lena, but she
liked the idea of her keeping it.
Right now, though, they both needed food far more than caffeine.
“I think you should put a pin in this and come home with me,” she said,
standing and holding out her hand.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, and let me make you something good for dinner.”
Lena smiled, but shook her head. “The longer I take to get through this
data, the longer this psycho is out there doing god knows what.”
The idea did put a damper on Reese’s appetite, but running themselves
ragged wasn’t going to do anyone good. She reached down and took Lena’s
hand. “Let me take care of you for once.”
She pulled her to her feet.
Lena smiled. “For once? You’ve been feeding me since this case
began.”
“And you’ve been keeping me safe,” Reese pointed out. “It’s the least I
could do. Come on. Bring your work with you if you have to but I’m
making spaghetti Bolognese.”
“That does sound good.”
“It’s incredible,” Reese said.
She started tugging Lena toward the staircase, but Lena planted her feet
at her desk just long enough to grab her laptop and the notepad she’d been
scribbling on. “Okay, now we can go.”
L ena drove , and Reese filled the short trip with a detailed description of
her spagbol recipe. She was having fun making Lena moan with
anticipation and wipe fake drool from the corners of her lips – so much that
for the moment, she forgot a deranged stalker was following her.
They were just two women in a car, flirting over the idea of a good
meal, fantasizing about what might come after.
“And my homemade garlic bread,” she added. “You’ll never be able to
eat the frozen kind again.”
“Don’t ruin Texas Toast for me,” Lena warned, “I practically lived on
that stuff in college.”
“Garbage compared to mine,” Reese teased. “Just you wait.”
Lena took Reese’s parking space behind the building since Reese’s car
was still at the ME’s Office. They held hands on the way up the stairwell
until Reese had to start digging in her purse for her keys. She had her head
down when Lena’s arm went across her chest and she pushed Reese
backward against the wall.
“Calm down, honey, we’re not even ins–”
“Shh!”
Reese snapped her head up, heart instantly racing as she noticed what
Lena had. Her apartment door was standing wide open.
“What the hell?”
It felt like all the air had been forcibly pressed out of her lungs.
“Stay behind me,” Lena ordered, hand reaching for her gun.
“Is he in there?” Reese squeaked.
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
Reese’s pulse was throbbing in her ears and her mind was screaming,
You hope so?! She clung to Lena so hard she didn’t realize her fingers were
aching until Lena gently pried them open.
“Fuck, and we already removed the security cameras,” Lena hissed. She
pointed back down the stairwell. “Go back out to the car.”
“Don’t go in there,” Reese pleaded.
“I have to,” Lena said. “This could be our only shot.”
“Then I’m coming with you.” Lena stared her down, but Reese stared
right back. “What if you get shot or something?”
“Then you’ll call 911.”
“I won’t know anything from out here in the hallway,” she argued.
“The car,” Lena corrected. “I’m gonna call it in.”
 “Okay.”
Lena gave her a warning look, then pulled out her phone. She spoke
softly. “Dispatch, this is Detective Wolf requesting backup. There’s been a
break-in at 1742 Gilchrist Avenue, Apartment 2. Suspect may still be on the
premises.” There was a pause as she listened to the response, then said,
“Roger that.” She hung up and locked eyes with Reese again. “Seriously, I
don’t know what’s going to be waiting for me in there. I can’t protect you
and take him down at the same time. Please, Reese.”
Everything in her was telling her to be stubborn, to not leave Lena’s
side. But she stepped back and relief washed over Lena’s face.
“Thank you.”
“I’m not going to the car,” she said. “I have to be able to hear you.”
“Stay in the stairwell,” Lena compromised.
“Okay. Be careful.”
Lena started to take a step away, but Reese grabbed her by the collar
and kissed her hard. And then she let her go. She went around the corner
and waited on the top step of the stairs, her ears straining to hear what was
going on.
There was the familiar creaking of floorboards near her apartment door.
Then Lena called, “Fox County Police, come out of the apartment with your
hands up!”
Reese’s heart skipped a beat.
There was nothing from inside the apartment, so Lena called, “We’re
entering now. Put your weapon down and your hands up!”
Reese waited, counting the seconds, trying to hear something, anything.
One, two, three, four… She peeked around the corner but the hallway was
empty, the inside of her apartment dark.
Five, six, seven…
“Lena,” she whispered, barely audible.
What the hell was going on in there? Where was she? Where was he?
All she could imagine was some leering monster hiding in the shadows in
there, waiting to pounce on Lena.
“Fuck this,” she muttered and darted down the hall and into the
apartment. Her eyes went wide as she struggled to adjust to the dark and she
looked for any sign of movement.
Nothing, the living room and kitchen were empty.
 She was just heading for the knife block to arm herself when she heard
something break in her bedroom and she went running. “Lena!”
When she got there, Lena was halfway out the window, the glass broken
out of the frame and big, sharp shards still sticking out in all directions. For
half a second, Reese saw her girlfriend impaled on the glass, bleeding out.
But then Lena pulled her head back in and Reese realized she wasn’t
cut. Thank god.
“He jumped,” she said. “Call 911, I’m going after him.”
“Lena–”
There wasn’t time for more than that one word. In one swift motion,
Lena holstered her gun and threw open the window sash, sending more
shards of glass flying all over the room. Then she was out the window.
Reese ran to it and watched her land on the awning above the apartment
building’s front door, then jump again down to the grass. More glass was
glittering on the ground out there, and Lena didn’t hesitate to take off
running up the street.
In the distance, Reese could just make out a darkly clothed figure when
he passed beneath a streetlamp.
“Freeze, police!” Lena bellowed at him. She pumped her fists as she ran
as hard as she could, and Reese leaned out the window to watch, an odd
mixture of terror and pride swelling inside her.

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 30

LENA

S
he was operating on pure adrenaline.
She’d chased down a suspect or two in her time on patrol, but
never out the window of her girlfriend’s apartment, and never through
a two-story window. He’d jumped straight down into the grass and it was a
wonder he hadn’t broken both ankles. She was lucky Reese came in and
gave her half a second to collect her thoughts or else she probably would
have taken the same way down.
He had at least half a block’s head start on her, but this motherfucker
wasn’t going to get away.
It would end tonight.
Now.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” she yelled. A total bluff because she was using
every ounce of her energy to run. She’d lose too much ground if she paused
to draw her weapon again.
Besides, as much trouble as this asshole had been, she couldn’t shoot
him in the back.
“Fuck,” she grunted, then summoned up her reserves to run just a little
bit faster.
His hat flew off as he ran and when he reached the end of the street, he
slowed down to take the turn. It was just enough to let Lena close the space
between them. She barreled full force into him, throwing her arms around
his torso and taking him down hard. His head thudded against the pavement
and her hands stung as they grated against the asphalt, but she had no time
to think of the pain now.
 She got to her knees, one of them firmly pressed into the man’s lower
back, and reached for her handcuffs.
“You’re under arrest for breaking and entering and resisting arrest,” she
said, trying not to sound winded as she clicked the cuffs around his wrists.
“You have the right to remain silent…”
She mirandized the man at the same time as she flipped him onto his
back. He had on a dark hoodie zipped all the way up to his chin and a dark
pair of jeans. He looked to be in his forties, with stringy brown hair and
dark circles under his eyes.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer. If he was smart, he’d
keep his mouth shut, as was his right.
But a man who’d stick his neck out by repeatedly calling the ME’s
Office, by announcing his involvement in a murder case, wasn’t the type to
remain silent, and the ask paid off.
“Gary Newell,” he said, chin up like he was pleased with himself even
pinned down on the pavement.
Lena narrowed her eyes. Gary Newell… The name clicked into place as
she recalled getting a copy of Olivia’s schedule sent to her email. “Sterling
IT,” she said.
He nodded.
She’d heard his voice over speakerphone when Judy called him. He’d
been surprised to see Olivia’s name pop up on his caller ID – of course, he
already knew she was dead by that point, while everyone else was still
catching up.
Damn it, why couldn’t she have recognized his voice then and there?
“It wasn’t King after all,” she muttered.
He’d clammed up when she started asking about the security footage at
the Sterling construction site, and she simply assumed he hadn’t wanted to
dig himself deeper into trouble. But it wasn’t him. It was Gary. He’d been
the one to erase the evidence.
It all clicked into place. Everything except… why?
“You were watching Olivia that night, weren’t you?” Lena asked.
He pressed his lips together and she worried he was clamming up
already. They were still on the street, but her body cam was on and this
might be her best chance at capturing the truth, when his lips were loosened
with adrenaline.
 “What were you doing in Reese’s apartment tonight?”
“I wanted to give her a gift,” he said, “something feminine because I
noticed she doesn’t have much girly stuff.”
Lena resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and Gary gestured to the pocket
of his hoodie. She reached in and pulled out a small jewelry box. Her first
thought was engagement ring, but when she opened it, she found a pair of
diamond earrings.
Tiny, but their facets glimmered in the streetlight.
“We found similar earrings on Olivia,” Lena said. “Did you give them
to her?”
Gary shook his head. “She never wanted to keep anything I gave her.
We had to keep our relationship a secret and she knew that. But those
earrings always made her look so classically beautiful. I thought Reese
would look lovely in them, but these were all I could afford.”
Lena shivered and tucked the earrings into her jacket pocket. She was
never going to look at diamonds the same way again.
She looked up, taking in her surroundings. She had to keep him talking,
at least until backup arrived, but they couldn’t do it in the street like this.
“Can you stand?”
He nodded, so she grabbed him by the shoulders of his hoodie and
helped him to his feet. He was a small man, shorter than Lena which would
make him under five-six, and she could see a circle of thinning hair at the
crown of his head.
“Stand over there.” She pointed to the sidewalk a couple steps away. It
was killing her to be nice to this asshole, this man who had threatened
Reese, who had violated her privacy. But it wouldn’t do to make him go
silent.
She stepped up onto the curb and watched Gary closely while she pulled
out her phone and dialed Reese.
“Are you okay?” came the panicked reply.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Lena reassured. “I got him.”
“Yeah,” Reese said. “Are you sure it’s him?”
Lena could feel the ‘gift’ in her pocket and didn’t want to taint
diamonds for Reese too so she left that detail out. “I’d like you to listen to
his voice to confirm he’s the one who was calling you, but we’ll wait till
he’s booked before we do that.”
“I’m putting more locks on my door,” Reese said, disgust in her voice.
 “I’ll help you,” Lena offered. “But first we have to close this case. Can
you wait out front of the apartment building and send the responding
officers down to the end of the street when they get here?”
“Yes. Do you need an EMT?”
Lena glanced at Gary, who’d limped over to the grass. The dark hoodie
made it impossible to tell if he’d cut himself on the window glass on the
way out.
“You bleeding?” she asked.
He looked down at his torso, and gestured with his arms still cuffed
behind his back. “I can’t check.”
Lena went over to him, yanking the zipper down with one hand. He was
wearing a Sterling Hotels Softball Team tee underneath, and it was a light
enough gray that she could see a few dots of blood here and there but
nothing life-threatening.
“Sit down,” she said, pointing to the grass. Then into the phone, she
said, “He’ll live.”
“I meant you,” Reese answered.
“Me?”
“Lena, you jumped out of a second-story window. You tackled a guy for
me.”
She looked down at her palm for the first time since she made the arrest.
Seeing the angry red friction burns and the little bits of gravel stuck to her
skin made the pain come back, but it was dulled by the adrenaline still
coursing through her.
“I’ll live too,” she reassured Reese. “Nothing a little antiseptic won’t
fix.”
She hung up and slid the phone back in her pocket, then looked at Gary.
He was sitting cross-legged on the grass now, head hung low in defeat. He
looked so small, so pathetic… did he feel that way too?
“Your secret relationship with Olivia, how did that start?”
He smiled like his mind had gone to an entirely different, happier place.
“She crashed her car in front of my house.”
“And that makes you happy?”
“Not the accident, what came of it,” Gary said. “I went out to help her.
She was so sweet, and kind, and we hit it off right away. I made her coffee
while she waited for a tow truck.”
 Sweet, kind Olivia Sterling? Nothing Lena had learned about her up to
this point would have led her to choose those adjectives. Was the guy
entirely delusional?
“Was this before or after you started working in Sterling IT?”
“I got that job because of her,” Gary said. “She wanted to keep me
close.”
“She hired you?”
“No, she couldn’t talk to me directly like that, she was far too
important,” he explained. “But she wanted me to keep in touch. She left her
license plate behind, so I looked her up after she left. I found out where she
worked and that there were openings in IT, and I’m sure she subtly worked
her magic to make sure I got the job.”
Lena had to bite her tongue to keep from asking whether it was possible
Olivia had lost her license plate by accident when she wrapped her damn
car around a telephone pole. For that matter, what had Gary done, bribed a
cop to look up her info?
Then again, an enterprising stalker could get anything on the internet
these days.
“I’m not making this up, you can check it,” Gary protested, maybe
reading the incredulity on Lena’s face. “As soon as I started work, she
started sending me messages. Love notes.”
“Emails?”
“No, coded things. She had to protect her reputation, and I understood
how important her ability to network in the industry was,” he said. “But she
would always let me know she was thinking of me, even though I was on
nights and she was working days. She’d work late, or come by the IT
department even when I wasn’t working just to be close.”
“Is it possible she was just doing her job, Gary?”
“I thought so too at first, believe me! But she also started wearing this
pretty pink blouse just because she knew I liked it, and she always put every
event in her calendar, especially the ones at night so that I could track her
on the security cameras. It was as close as we could get to actually being
together. Well, at least until she took over the company and didn’t have to
worry so much about her reputation.”
“But then you moved right on to Reese after she died,” Lena pointed
out. “Why, you didn’t care about Olivia as much as she cared about you?”
 “The opposite!” he hissed so fiercely Lena jumped. “I loved her with
everything I had and it wasn’t enough for her. I wasn’t enough for her. I
don’t know what more I could have given, what I could have done to stop
her from cheating on me. Hell, I even would have allowed it if that was
what she really wanted – a woman has needs and I understand that. But I
couldn’t bear her being with him.”
“Him who?” Lena pressed.
“You know exactly who, he’s behind bars now, and I made sure you put
him there,” Gary said. “Damien King. He’s a violent, toxic asshole, and I
tried to warn her away from him but she didn’t listen. She started acting like
I was the bad guy, and now she’s dead.”
“You knew he was going to kill her?”
“I knew he was dangerous,” Gary said, genuine sorrow coating his
words. “If I’d known everything he was capable of, I never would have let
her be in the same room with him. I would have thrown myself in front of
her car to keep her from going to that reception.”
“The one for the Elysium opening? Were you there?”
Gary shook his head. “I saw it on her calendar and I knew he would be
there. I knew she’d seen him before, and I always checked up on the men
she was with, so I already knew he was bad news.”
“How did you find the footage at the Sterling construction site?” Lena
asked, stunned she was getting so much out of him. Once he’d started
talking, it seemed he’d decided to unburden himself.
“I set up a program to record Olivia’s badge swipes,” he said. “I just
wanted to know where she was. It was comforting to me. I saw her swipe in
at the construction site and I knew she had no reason to be there – not at
that hour. So I switched on the camera.”
“And you saw King disposing of her body.”
He nodded. “Bastard. I don’t care what she did to me, she didn’t deserve
that.”
“Why erase the footage?” Lena asked. “Why not let us find it and nail
him to the wall with it?”
Gary became rigid, his features set with anger. “I wanted to, believe me.
There was nothing I wanted more than for that monster to pay for what he
did to my Olivia. But if that video existed…” He hung his head, and when
he raised it again, she saw he was crying. “She wouldn’t have wanted to be
remembered like that, naked and bloody. And I knew it would get out.
Those images would be plastered all over the media and everything she’d
worked so hard for, the reputation she’d sacrificed even our relationship for,
would have been ruined. I had to delete it.”
Lena almost felt bad for the guy. He was clearly in real emotional pain.
But at the same time, she couldn’t forget what he’d done to Reese – what
he’d surely done to Olivia before her.
She heard sirens in the distance, and the red and blue flashing lights of a
patrol car coming up the street. She had time for one more question before
they arrived.
“Why Reese?”
Gary smiled sadly. “You tell me, detective. I see a lot from where I sit,
and I can see you’re in love with her too.”

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 31

REESE

A
s soon as Lena’s backup arrived, Reese ran down the street to join
her. It was all she could do to obey Lena’s orders to stay put, knowing
it was important to direct the police where they needed to be.
Reese crashed into her just as one of the patrol officers was stuffing the
stalker into the back of the squad car.
“I was so worried about you,” she said. “And I brought a first aid kit.”
Lena wrapped Reese up in her arms, and turned so her body was
between Reese and the cruiser. She was blocking Reese’s view of the man
who’d spent the last few weeks terrorizing her.
“Don’t look.”
“I’m going to have to eventually, right?” Reese asked. “In court?”
“Maybe,” Lena agreed. “But he doesn’t get to see you right now. Come
on.”
She guided Reese away from the car. They went over to the front stoop
of the apartment building, watching from a distance as the officers arrested
the man and investigated the scene. Reese pulled Lena’s hands into her lap
and gently brushed the gravel from her palms, then sprayed them with
antiseptic.
Lena winced.
“Sorry,” Reese said, bowing and placing a tender kiss on Lena’s wrist,
where there were no scrapes. She applied a couple of big bandages from the
first aid kit. They weren’t ideal for the job, but they’d work for now. “So,
why did he do it?”
Lena shook her head. “He’s out of his mind. He thought he was in some
secret relationship with Olivia Sterling, and when she slept with King, he
convinced himself she was cheating on him. After she died, he transferred
his obsession to you.”
“But why me?”
Lena looked into Reese’s eyes, then brought her bandaged hand up to
skim her fingertips down Reese’s jawline. “It wasn’t anything you did
wrong, or anything you could have prevented. It was just bad luck, being in
the wrong place at the wrong time. But he’s never going to bother you
again. I promise you that, okay?”
Reese nodded. “Somehow, I always believe you, no matter what you’re
telling me.”
Lena smiled. “Believe me when I say that it’s over, then. And that…
that I love you. And I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”
“You love me?” Reese studied Lena’s eyes, but she saw nothing there
that told her not to believe it.
“Is that too much?” Lena asked. “Should I not have said so?”
Reese shook her head. “It’s fast as hell, but I think I loved you from the
very first time you showed up at The Taphouse, stealing glances at me over
the rim of your beer.”
Lena laughed. “You noticed that?”
“I’ve always noticed you.”
Lena stood.
“Where are you going?”
She held out her hand. “Come on. Let’s see if they’ll let you go into the
apartment to pack a bag. You’re not staying here tonight.”
Reese laughed. “Hell no, I’m not. I don’t think I can ever feel safe in
there again, knowing how easy it is to kick down the door.”
“I’m going to have a word with your landlord about that,” Lena said.
“All the tenants should get deadbolts and chain locks. But you’re staying
with me – tonight and for however long you’d like.”
That idea would have made Reese’s heart climb right up into her throat
a week ago. She would have insisted on getting a hotel room, staying by
herself, proving to herself that she was strong and independent and didn’t
need to rely on anyone.
Now, though?
She wanted to rely on Lena.
“Oh yeah?” Reese cocked her head to the side. “I was a little
preoccupied last time I was at your place. What kinda amenities you got?
In-ground pool? Chef’s kitchen? Jacuzzi?”
“No, but I do have a bathtub,” Lena said, then threw her a wink. “Get in
with me and I’ll blow all the bubbles you want.”
Reese was allowed to go into the apartment and pack a bag. She
grabbed a pair of pajamas and a change of clothes for the morning, then
went into the bathroom to get her contact case and solution, and paused at
her toothbrush hanging from its holder on the wall.
How long had that man been in here? What had he been doing?
Too risky, she decided, and grabbed a new toothbrush still in its
packaging from the medicine cabinet.
When she stepped back into the hallway, Lena arched a brow. “That’s
all you need?”
“I mean, I’m not moving in, right?” Reese gave a chuckle and Lena
laughed too, but her belly did a little flutter.
She’d never gone this far with a woman, especially not this fast. Saying
I love you, bringing her toothbrush over to Lena’s place – even if it was out
of sheer necessity, it was a big step.
“We’ll come back for more later if we need to,” Lena said, linking her
arm in Reese’s. “Whenever you feel up for it.”
“Right at this exact moment, all I want to feel up is you.”
“That a fact?”
She nodded. “I’m not sure you appreciate how fucking hot you are
when you’re jumping out of windows and tackling bad guys for me.”

B y the time they arrived at Lena’s apartment, the adrenaline had fully
drained from Reese’s system and she had just one thing on her mind.
“Where’s your bedroom?”
Lena’s eyes went hooded and the desire in them told Reese they were on
the same page. “Through there.”
Reese reached down and lifted Lena’s bandaged hands, palms up. “How
are these feeling?”
“Good enough for what we have in mind.”
Reese softly kissed Lena’s fingertips. “Oh, I’m not planning on you
doing any work at all with these. I want you to lie back and let me thank
you for everything you’ve done for me.”
Then she released Lena’s hands and turned on her heels, throwing a
look over her shoulder.
“Come on.”
She didn’t wait to see if Lena was following. She knew she would.
The hallway was a short one, with just a bathroom and a single bedroom
branching off of it. Reese sauntered into the bedroom, swaying her hips
with Lena in tow. She kicked off her shoes by the door, then turned around
again and walked backward toward the bed, enjoying the hungry look in her
guardian angel’s eyes.
Lena made a detour to her bedside table, where she opened a cabinet
door and then a small gun safe inside. She took off her shoulder holster and
tucked everything in carefully, locked the safe, and turned back to Reese.
“Lie down,” she ordered.
Lena gave her a challenging look, like she wanted to take charge, but
Reese just waited with her arms crossed until Lena crawled into the bed.
Then she stripped down to her bra and panties, slowly inching closer to the
bed as she did it.
“Come here,” Lena begged.
And Reese gave her what she wanted. She got up on the bed, straddling
Lena’s lap and laying her down, wrapping her body around her as they
kissed.
After a minute, Lena pressed up on her elbows, pushing Reese up to
sitting again. Reese gave her a teasing glare. “Who’s in charge here?”
Lena grabbed Reese’s breasts through her bra, firm and demanding. “I
am,” she growled.
Reese shook her head, a mischievous grin on her lips. “Not tonight, you
aren’t.”
She pulled Lena’s shirt up over her head, then stripped her of her cotton
undershirt and the bra beneath it as well. Still straddling her, Reese pinned
her with her hips and ran her hands all over her. She massaged every inch of
her bare breasts, the soft skin of her chest, the slope of her belly down to
her hips.
It raised goosebumps everywhere she touched her.
Lena wrapped one hand around the back of Reese’s neck, her grip
maybe a little lighter than it would be without the bandages, but her warm
fingertips against Reese’s spine thrilling nonetheless. And then she tangled
Reese’s hair in her grip, pressing their mouths tighter together as she
showed her how bad she wanted this.
Their tongues collided and Reese sucked in a breath, then rose to her
knees, pulling Lena with her. She snaked one hand down Lena’s belly and
into her pants. Her fingers found Lena wet and pulsing for her in the tight
space.
“More,” Lena groaned, fumbling with her zipper. As she shoved her
pants down her hips, Reese dropped down to take Lena’s bra off and then
immediately sucked one nipple into her mouth.
Lena let out a hungry moan and her legs gave out. She flopped on her
back on the bed and Reese pounced on her, delighted.
She kept touching and caressing and licking every bare inch of flesh,
making Lena squirm and squeal beneath her. She peeled her pants off, then
took her underwear and flung them across the room.
“Kiss me,” Lena begged, reaching for her.
Reese crawled back up the bed, pressing her hip firm against the crease
of Lena’s legs, making her cry out and capturing her mouth in the same
instant. She ran her tongue along Lena’s lower lip, gave it a little nibble,
and then crawled back down between her legs.
She made herself at home there, looping one of Lena’s thighs over her
arm and teasing her soaking pussy and tight little clit with her tongue. Not
too fast, not right away. She wanted to make this last.
Lena closed her thighs around Reese’s head and threw her hands over
her face.
Reese looked up with a grin. “Good?”
“Don’t stop.” She canted her hips up, trying to get closer to Reese’s
mouth. And Reese was only too happy to oblige. “Yes!” Lena gasped.
“Oh, fucking hell,” Reese groaned, her own body pulsing with need.
Lena’s taste, her scent, the heavenly sound of her moans filling the
bedroom, Reese couldn’t think of anything better.
She slipped one finger into Lena’s core, quickly followed by a second.
She was dripping wet and her muscles were already clenching and fluttering
against Reese’s fingers. She swirled her tongue over Lena’s clit as she
pulsed into her, matching the rhythm of Lena’s hips as they bucked against
her hand.
“Fuck me,” Lena started whining, “fuck me harder, Reese, fu–”
 She did. She suctioned her mouth around Lena’s clit and focused all her
energy on slapping her palm against her beautiful little pussy, thrusting into
her and pounding the orgasm out of her body if that was how she wanted it.
Her own heart rate jumped and she was barely even breathing. All she was
thinking about was how incredible it was going to feel to have Lena’s whole
body contract around her.
Lena closed her hands around Reese’s hair, injured palms be damned.
She squeezed so tight it made tears come to her eyes, but she didn’t care.
She hooked her fingers, rubbing Lena’s G-spot with every thrust, and a few
seconds later, Lena lost all control.
She bucked against her, pressing Reese’s head against her and doing her
damnedest to grind her clit against Reese’s tongue. Her thighs shook
uncontrollably and sticky sweetness flooded Reese’s palm.
And then she froze, hips elevated and feet arched, her body in
maximum tension as she squeezed every last drop of pleasure out of that
orgasm. Reese was afraid to move for fear of putting her over the edge in a
bad way, so she just stayed there like a statue, letting Lena take the reins.
At last, she collapsed to the bed with a great big sigh and then
disintegrated into a fit of laughter.
Reese took that as her cue it was safe to move again. She crawled to the
top of the bed and lay down beside her. “Well, did I do a good enough job
of thanking you? Or should I try again?”
Lena laughed again. “That was the best thank you I’ve ever gotten.”
Reese thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m still gonna
thank you again. I’ll give you a few minutes to recover first, though.”
They kept up like that all night long. Lena insisted on taking charge the
next time around and the ache between Reese’s thighs was so intense she
wasn’t about to say no. They’d fuck and then lie in each other’s arms and
then sleepily make love and then get invigorated and go at it hard again.
It was a celebration – that they’d survived Gary. That Lena had closed
her first case. And most importantly, that they’d found each other. Reese
had never stopped to picture herself falling in love. She couldn’t ever
imagine herself trusting anyone enough to let it happen. And then she found
Lena.
And now that she knew the feeling? Now that she knew how sweet it
was to lie in Lena’s arms, the scent of their sex permeating the room and
their bodies slick with sweat from their exertions? She never wanted the
moment to end.
Which was why she was so shocked when an alarm clock started going
off somewhere in the room.
“What time is it?” she wondered.
Lena stretched over the edge of the bed, hanging half in and half out as
she fished for her pants. Reese smacked her ass and Lena yelped. “Don’t
push me overboard!”
“Couldn’t help myself with a view like that.”
Lena heaved herself back up, phone in hand, and silenced the alarm.
“It’s six-thirty.”
Reese looked toward the window and noticed for the first time that it
was getting lighter. “I had no idea we stayed up all night.”
“We were in the zone,” Lena teased, squeezing Reese’s thigh.
“You’re not going to work, are you?”
“Gotta,” Lena said. “There’s Gary to deal with for one thing, and I need
to check in with the tree skeleton case. The work never ends in this city.”
She kissed the top of Reese’s head. “You can stay here as long as you like,
though. I’ll give you my key.”
Reese buried her head against Lena’s shoulder. She wasn’t feeling the
effect of staying up all night yet, but she knew it’d hit about twenty minutes
after she sat down at her desk.
She lifted her head. “No, the ME’s Office never sleeps either. And for
the first time in weeks, I actually want to get back in there. I had an idea
yesterday while I was following you all around town.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Can’t tell you yet. I don’t want to jinx it.”
“Tease.” Lena grinned, then raised an eyebrow. “Wanna shower together
before we go in?”
And like a shot, Reese was up and out of bed, chasing Lena across the
hall to the bathroom.

OceanofPDF.com
 EPILOGUE

REESE

R
eese could see her breath and she had her hands shoved deep into the
pockets of her jacket. It was the first really cold day of the fall and
here she was trudging up the sidewalk to The Taphouse instead of
driving like she usually did.
She was walking in a tight group of half a dozen ME’s Office
employees who were acting just as cold as she was. And leading the way –
practically skipping across the pavement – was Jordan with a great big
smile on her face and no regard for the weather.
“Come on, we’re burning daylight!”
“The bar doesn’t close until two a.m., we have plenty of time,” Dylan
pointed out, but it did nothing to dampen Jordan’s enthusiasm.
“It’s my first time, I don’t wanna spend the whole night just walking
there,” she complained, then circled back and looped her arm in Reese’s,
trying to pull her along faster. “Come on, your giiiirlfriend is waiting for
you there.”
Reese just laughed and looked back at the rest of the group. “Who’s
going to make sure she doesn’t drink herself into oblivion tonight?”
“It’s not my first time drinking, it’s just my first time being legal at The
Taphouse,” Jordan said.
“Don’t repeat that so all the cops in the bar don’t have to pretend they
didn’t hear it,” Kelsey said.
Jordan had been counting down the days till her twenty-first birthday,
convinced she was majorly missing out on prime coworker bonding time by
not being old enough to go to their Friday night hangouts. Her birthday was
earlier in the week and Amelia had gone all out with pizza and cake, and
Reese had teamed up with Dylan to pay Jordan back for the phony label
prank.
They’d borrowed a CPR mannequin from the precinct and put it in a
body bag, then added a couple small remote-control toys they could control
from Reese’s phone. She sent Dylan back to the morgue on false pretenses
so she could be the eyes of the operation, and triggered the robots to move
whenever Jordan got close to the gurney. She’d only pushed the button
twice before Jordan was running for the door, screaming about zombies,
and Dylan was practically on the floor with laughter.
Jordan said it was the best birthday gift she’d ever gotten.
And now the night had finally come. The youngest ME’s Office
employee was going to have a beer with the rest of them, and Reese had
one more surprise up her sleeve for her old work wife tonight.
The Taphouse was crowded as always when they went in. The FCPD
contingent had arrived first and Lena hopped down off her barstool to greet
Reese with a big hug and a kiss as passionate as they dared in front of their
coworkers.
“Ooo-ohh,” Jordan teased.
Not chaste enough, apparently.
“Let us mack on each other, it’s our three-month-iversary,” Lena said.
“Best three months of my life,” Reese added, kissing her again and
laying it on extra thick because why not? They’d already been clocked.
“Beer or wine?” Lena asked when they separated.
“Wine, need something to warm me up,” Reese answered. “But I’ll
come with you.”
She took drink orders for the rest of the table, then slipped her hand into
Lena’s and they made their way over to the bartender. While they waited for
their drinks, Lena pulled Reese up against her, slinging one arm around her
lower back.
“I missed you today.”
“I miss you every day.”
“Yeah? I wanted to ask you–”
“She’s here!” Reese had caught a glimpse of curly golden hair in the
crowd, and her heart rate jumped. She wanted to get back to the table before
her surprise got to Jordan. She looked back to Lena. “I’m sorry, it’s–”
Lena grinned. She knew the plan, and was totally on board with it. “It’s
fine, go. I’ll bring the drinks.”
 Reese pushed her way as politely as she could through the crowd and
met Lane before anyone at their table noticed her. She stood between them,
hoping nobody else noticed those trademark curls.
“Hey, I’m glad you could make it.”
“I do occasionally venture outside the mortuary,” Lane said, then hissed
at the disco ball above the dance floor. “Not usually in places with so many
mirrors, though.”
Reese laughed. “Oh, shut up – I’ve seen you out in the daylight a bunch
of times. I already know you’re not a vampire. I do have something to
confess myself, though. I didn’t tell anyone I invited you. I wanted it to be a
surprise.”
“Surprise away. Unless you have a giant cake you want me to burst out
of?”
Reese grinned. This was the longest conversation she’d ever had with
Lane – the receptionist didn’t have much reason to interact with the funeral
home directors – but she could tell already why Jordan liked her. She was a
snarky little spitfire, in spite of the turquoise necklace and the flower child
vibe she exuded.
“No cake, we’ll save that for another occasion,” Reese said, linking her
arm in Lane’s. She led her over to the table, where Lena was just arriving
with a big tray of drinks. They exchanged a conspiratorial glance and then
Reese said loudly, “Look who I found!”
“Hi, Lane, what are you doing here?” Kelsey asked.
“Just… dropped in,” Lane said.
Everybody said hi and Dylan made introductions for the FCPD crew
who hadn’t met her yet. And Reese watched with glee as Jordan’s
expression went rapidly from shock to enchantment and then to cool
detachment… or at least she was trying to play it cool.
“Oh, hey,” she said, leaning back against the wall. “What’s up?”
Reese stifled a giggle. “Here, Lane, you take this stool next to Jordan.
What do you want to drink?”
“I’ll get it,” Jordan offered, trying to jump off her own stool. Reese
pushed her back down.
“No, you stay. I’ll go.”
Off to the bar she headed again, reaching for Lena on her way. They
stole glances back at the table while they waited for Lane’s drink.
 “She’s so awkward,” Reese laughed, watching Jordan completely lose
her cool swagger once Lane was on the stool next to her, all of them
crammed so close around the bar table that Lane and Jordan’s arms were
touching.
“Do you think Lane likes her back?” Lena asked.
“God, I hope so. Jordan has it so bad for her.”
“Well, you know this group,” Lena said. “If there’s any spark at all
between them, we’ll make sure they get their chance.”
“Kombucha highball,” the bartender said, setting down Lane’s drink.
Reese picked it up, but didn’t turn to go back to the table just yet. “Oh
wait, you were going to ask me something.”
“Hmm?”
“Before Lane got here.”
Lena’s cheeks colored, which was both beautiful and intriguing. What
was that all about? “Yeah. We can talk about it later, though.”
Reese put the glass down. “Well, now I certainly don’t want to wait.
What is it?”
“It’s not a big deal…”
“But you’re turning redder than the wine waiting for me over there.”
Lena smiled. It warmed her whole face every time she did, and lit a fire
in Reese’s belly. She put her hands on Lena’s hips, wishing they were alone
right now.
“You are the sexiest woman alive, do you know that?”
“Okay, okay, enough flattery,” Lena laughed. She reached into her back
pocket and pulled out an envelope, folded in half. “So, I know the three-
month-iversary isn’t a traditional gift-giving event, but being with you has
been so amazing and I really wanted to mark this milestone. You already
have a key to my place, and I love you like crazy but I think it’s too soon to
pop the question…”
Reese’s heart skipped a beat. Did that mean Lena had thought about
popping the question already?
So had Reese… but she hadn’t wanted to admit it for fear of scaring
Lena off.
“Amelia told me she and Simone were doing this as their last romantic
getaway before they start the adoption process, and I thought it sounded like
something you’d like.” She handed the envelope to Reese, then quickly
added, “If you hate it, we don’t have to.”
 Reese tore into it, her mind racing to come up with something the two
of them had in common with Amelia and her partner, Simone. Amelia was
almost twice Reese’s age, they lived in a big old farmhouse, and they were
trying to get pregnant. Couple goals for sure… but not this decade.
She found two glossy tickets inside the envelope and frowned,
confused. “There’s a cruise ship on these.”
“It’s a sapphics-only cruise,” Lena explained. “They’re going to the
Galapagos this year and when Amelia told me about it, they had two spots
left. It felt like fate.”
Reese leaned against the bar, feeling overwhelmed. “This sounds
expensive. How much did you spend?”
“Why, do you think you’re not worth it?” Lena asked. “Or were you
planning to break up with me?”
Reese threw her arms around her. “Hell no, if you want out, you’re
gonna have to be the one doing the breaking. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then you don’t have to worry about how much I spent,” Lena said.
“I’ve been single a long time, and it’s been years since I took a vacation. I
had the money and I wanted to do something nice for you. Plus, the dates
line up perfectly with winter break. So… do you like it?”
Reese squeezed her harder. “I love it. Does this mean we’re going to see
giant tortoises?”
“Of course. And blue-footed boobies.”
“Not my favorite kind of boobie, but pretty neat nonetheless,” Reese
said, sneaking a quick caress of Lena’s chest. “Thank you, babe, I’m really
excited. And you better prepare for me to knock your absolute socks off at
our six-month-iversary in order to compete with this.”
Lena hooked her hand under Reese’s chin and drew their lips together.
“Don’t compete. Just be with me.”
“Anywhere you go,” Reese promised.
When they got back to the table at long last, Dylan and Elise were
talking about the latest renovations they were making to their house –
adding a fence to the back yard so Dylan could finally get the rescue dog
she’d been dreaming of.
Renee and Ariel were bickering over whether it was better to have far
too much on one’s plate (Renee had stumbled into a multiple homicide in
her very first case) or not enough (Ariel was still waiting for her first solo
investigation).
 And Jordan was actually stringing whole sentences together in a
conversation with Lane at the other end of the table. The two of them
oblivious to everyone around them and Lane barely even noticed when
Lena slid her drink in front of her.
“Hey, there you two are,” Dylan said as Reese sat down and Lena
perched on her lap for lack of an open stool. “How’s school going, Reese?”
“Good so far,” she said, “but the semester has only just started so I have
plenty of opportunity to flunk out.”
“You won’t,” Lena insisted. “You’re brilliant and you’re going to make
an amazing psychologist.”
She’d never known ‘what she wanted to be when she grew up’ so it had
seemed like a waste of time to go right after high school without a clear
major in mind. After everything she’d gone through with the Olivia Sterling
case, though, she came out of it with a newfound desire to understand and
unpack trauma – for people who’d gone through something like her, and for
people like Gary Newell too, who might not have turned into such a
nightmare if he’d gotten the proper intervention.
The final deciding factor that had made her apply for her bachelor’s
degree wasn’t that experience, or Lena’s enthusiastic encouragement, either.
It was a conversation she’d had with Katy Moore three months ago,
right after Olivia Sterling’s funeral. They were at the cemetery and Olivia’s
ornate, wildly expensive coffin was being lowered into the ground. Xavier
Sterling had finally broken down and was sobbing loudly through the
church service and was refusing to leave the grave site. The rest of the
mourners had wandered away to give him a moment, and that was how
Reese and Lena found themselves standing next to Katy.
“Thank you for working so hard to figure out what happened to Olivia,”
she said. “I can’t believe all that was going on and none of us had any clue.”
“She worked hard to keep it to herself,” Lena said.
“How are you doing?” Reese asked. “Working again?”
Katy rolled her eyes. “Yes, but my new boss is a nightmare – worse than
what Judy has to deal with. Beggars can’t be choosers, though.”
“Why don’t…” Reese paused, looking at Lena. There was an idea that
had been rattling around in the back of her brain for a few weeks, not fully
formed until that moment. She wasn’t sure she dared say it aloud.
“What?” Katy asked.
 Screw it… what was life without a few risks here and there? Reese
turned to Katy. “How do you feel about working around dead bodies?”
“Umm…”
“Yeah, I know that’s a weird question,” Reese went on. “I’ve been
thinking I might like to go back to school, but I’d feel awful leaving my
boss in the lurch. She counts on me for a lot more than just answering
phones, but if you can get past the whole death thing, she’s wonderful to
work for. Gotta be better than your current situation.”
“At the police station?” Katy asked.
“The Medical Examiner’s Office,” Reese corrected. “But up front, in the
office, not the morgue.”
“Are you sure, Reese?” Lena asked, a hand going to the small of her
back.
“It’s worth at least considering,” Reese said. “I think I wanna be a
psychologist. Maybe forensic like Dr. Hartley, or maybe a regular one. I
don’t know yet.”
Lena gathered Reese into the crook of her arm, squeezing her. “I think
you’d be great at any kind of psychology. That’s a wonderful idea.”
They left the cemetery that day with Katy promising to come by the
ME’s Office for a tour, and Reese went home and put in her application for
the fall semester at Foster University in town. She got in, Katy took the job
with the understanding that she’d stay with the nightmare boss just until
Reese’s first semester began, and then she’d take over at the ME’s Office.
Classes began Monday, so tonight was sort of a last hurrah as well as a
celebration of Jordan’s birthday.
Lena and Reese’s three-month-iversary.
The official close of the Olivia Sterling case, with both of her monsters
locked away.
And the beginning of a whole new adventure that Reese couldn’t wait to
embark on with her guardian angel at her side.

The End
ALSO BY CARA MALONE
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