Karen Rose: Silent Scream

She steeled her spine. Summoning a tone she hoped to hell sounded casually friendly, she stepped forward. “David Hunter. Long time, no see. How are you?”

For a moment, David’s smooth gait seemed to hitch, but when he spoke he sounded only mildly surprised. “Olivia. Good to see you.”

Barlow’s brows lifted and Olivia didn’t even need to look at Kane to know his had done the same. “You know each other?” Barlow asked.

“We have mutual friends,” Olivia said with a calmness that was a complete facade. Her heart was pounding so hard it was all she could hear, just as it had every other time she’d seen him. None of which had obviously meant anything to him. None of which mattered right now. “Kane, you remember Mr. Hunter? He’s Eve’s friend.”

And Eve was Olivia’s friend. It was Eve who’d told her that David had decided to move to the Twin Cities. Eve who’d told her David got a job with the fire department. And Eve who had ceased giving updates because it was obvious Olivia no longer cared.

“Of course I remember,” Kane said, cautiously, Olivia thought. “How’s the arm?”

The arm that had fractured seven months before when Pit-Guy forced David off the road, thinking it was Eve driving the car. He’d been in the hospital, one of the last times Olivia had seen him. David raised his arm, rotating it a few times. “Good as new. Thanks.”

Enough of this. “Sergeant Barlow said you found the girl,” she said, more curtly than she’d intended.

David flinched, his throat working as he swallowed hard. “We were too late. She was already dead.”

And that hurt him, it was easy to see. Against her better judgment, Olivia met his gray eyes and saw the raw misery there, and her pounding heart hurt for him. She saw death every day. Luckily, he did not. “There wasn’t anything you could do, David,” she murmured. “She wasn’t supposed to be in there. Nobody was, right?”

For just a moment, there was a connection. The connection. The same one she’d felt that one night he’d made her forget… nearly everything. For a moment he wasn’t David Hunter, tall, dark, Greek god who made women everywhere melt into puddles of goo. He was the man who’d had a truly beautiful soul and who, for a few short hours, showed it to me. But as she watched, his eyes shuttered, pushing her away once again.

“That’s right,” he said quietly. “But she was in there, for whatever reason. I looked for an ID, a purse, a backpack, but didn’t see anything. It’s pretty dark, though. You might find something on one of the other floors come daybreak.”

Barlow was looking back and forth between the two of them avidly and to her consternation, Olivia realized she’d been staring up into David’s face like a love-struck teenager. But then, every woman stared at David Hunter’s face like a love-struck teenager, so nobody would think her any different. Because I wasn’t.

“When can we go up to check the scene?” she asked, a chill in her voice.

“You can’t tonight,” Barlow said. “Part of the fourth floor collapsed. It’s not safe. You’ll need to wait until the structure can be reinforced before going up to where they found her. But they did bring something out you’ll want to see. David?”

“It was on the floor next to where I found her.” He held out his gloved right hand. On it rested a glass ball, about the size of Olivia’s clenched fist. It was covered in something shiny and gelatinous.

Olivia frowned. “You disturbed the scene?” she asked sharply.

“Hunter was on the floor when it collapsed,” Barlow said quietly and her eyes involuntarily flickered up to David’s in alarm. “That you have this evidence at all is due to his quick thinking.”

“We were fine,” David said. “The ball was about to slide into the hole in the floor. My adrenaline was pumping and I grabbed it by reflex but then couldn’t put it back where I found it. The area doesn’t exist anymore.”

She forced her muscles to relax. The thought of him crashing through a fourth-story floor had her own adrenaline pumping. “Is this the gel we found on the girl’s hands?”

“Likely,” Barlow said. “The lab will confirm it.”

Kane leaned over her shoulder to study the glass globe. “Why the gel?”

“I guess that’s for you to find out,” David said.

Olivia turned to find Micki, startled when she found the CSU leader standing inches behind her. “Can you bag it, Mick?”

Micki’s gaze shifted from the globe to Olivia’s face knowingly. “Absolutely.”

“Take his glove, too, just in case we need to check for residue. Do you have another glove?” she asked David, this time schooling her glance to remain impersonal.

“I’ve got extras on the truck. If you’re done with me, I’ve still got work to do.”

If you’re done with me… No, she didn’t think she ever would have been. Not that it mattered one iota. He’d been done with her after one night. What an idiot I was.

Olivia made herself look at him, made her smile as impersonal as her glance had been. “Thank you. We’ll be in touch if we have more questions. Kane, we need to inform Mr. Weems’s widow before she sees it on the news. Anything else we need here?”

Kane shook his head. “Not until we can get inside. You have our cells, Barlow?”

Barlow nodded. “I do. I’ll call you as soon as it’s safe.”

Micki bagged the glass globe and now tugged at the glove on David’s hand. “I’ll get this back to you as soon as I can,” she said, dropping the glove in a paper sack.

“Not a problem,” David said and without another word, turned and was around the building and gone from sight when Olivia realized she’d been holding her breath.

Hell. “Micki, can you run the dead girl’s prints? Watch for anything that pops from Florida. She’s got Gator nail art. Call us when you get a match on the gel. Thanks.”

“As the man said, not a problem,” Micki responded evenly, but Olivia knew that look in her friend’s eyes. She’d expect an explanation.

As if I have one. “Abbott’s going to want us in his office at oh-eight in the morning,” Olivia said, changing the subject. Her captain was big on meetings starting at oh-eight.

“Looking forward to it,” was all Micki said. “I’ll try to run the girl’s prints before then. Afterward, we can grab a coffee. Catch up.”

“You bet,” Olivia said flatly, then turned to Micah Barlow who was watching her too closely and she felt a flare of temper. That she’d even considered David Hunter for a nanosecond was partially Barlow’s fault, goddamn meddling bastard. “He’ll want you there, too,” she said coolly. “You know where to find Abbott’s office?”

“I’ve worked with your captain before,” Barlow said. “I’ll be there.”

She jerked a nod, then headed to her car, Kane at her side. He didn’t say a word until she’d unlocked her car door.

Leaning against her hood, he folded his arms across his chest. “And that was…?”

She jerked open her door. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Kane pushed her door closed with the palm of his hand. “Olivia.”

She sighed. “One mammoth mistake, okay? One I don’t care to repeat or discuss.”

He looked disappointed. Kane did like his gossip. “Oh, all right,” he grumbled. “Here’s Weems’s home address. You want me to lead?”

“No, you did it last time. It’s my turn to break the news.” Unlike other detective teams, they never flipped a coin. They split the nasty duties fifty-fifty. It had always been that way, even when she was totally green and he was her mentor. “I’ll meet you there.”

She opened her door when Kane walked away, then stopped, suddenly uneasy. Looking over her shoulder, she saw David standing next to his truck, watching her, and a shudder rippled across her skin. For a moment their eyes locked, then his chin tilted as if issuing a challenge. He pulled a new glove on his hand, then turned back to his work.