Julie Miller - Tactical Advantage

Nick swore. “Nellie Fensom!”

But she waltzed away into the house—beyond his words, beyond his reach, beyond his understanding. Nick’s heavy breath clouded the cold air around him. When it cleared, he exchanged a look with his father. He hated leaving with his sister mad at him and his father looking as helpless as he felt about keeping the headstrong teenager safe. Nick wanted to restore the harmony of the evening they’d all shared earlier.

But he had to leave. Spencer was counting on him to be his eyes and ears at the scene of another rape and murder. He wasn’t about to let his partner down. He wasn’t about to let the victim’s loved ones go without answers.

But he wasn’t used to leaving his family when they needed him, either.

Nick pulled on his jacket and zipped it against the cold as he headed for his Jeep. “One problem at a time,” he silently promised everyone who needed him tonight. “One problem at a time.”

Chapter Two

“What’s your problem, Hermann?” Nick Fensom’s deep-pitched voice teased her from above. “I’ve already canvassed apartments on both sides of the street, and you’re still in the same spot where I left you.”

Annie glanced up from the alley where she was working and glared at the stocky, dark-haired detective casting a shadow over her open evidence kit and work space. The tarp tenting over their heads from one wall of the alley to the other snapped with the wind and strained against the ropes she’d tied off like full sails on a seagoing schooner. She was knee-deep in trash bags, blood spatter and blowing snow—her cold fingers shaking as she struggled to open a paper evidence bag so she could drop the beaded evening purse she’d found beneath the nearby Dumpster inside. She pulled the flashlight she held between her teeth out of her mouth to answer.

“Well, let’s see, Detective Smart Mouth. It’s cold. It’s windy. It’s snowing. Can you piece together the clues and figure out why this is taking so long?” She could do sarcasm, too. “You got the easy gig, spending a couple of hours inside where it’s warm and dry.”

“And crashing parties or waking up surly, annoyed building supers and frightened tenants.”

Annie scoffed at his trials and tribulations. “It’s not my fault if you showing up ruins a party and scares little old ladies.”

He deflected the zinger with a smug grin. “Actually, I was invited to join a couple of New Year’s celebrations. I was also asked to arrest the noisy neighbors on the floor above one apartment. And there was a nice Mrs. O’Halloran who invited me in for champagne and cookies if I was interested. I had to tell her I was still on the clock and, regrettably, turned her down.”

Point to Fensom. Annie bristled. Her only invitation tonight had come from the lecherous drunk neighbor across the hall. “No one’s stopping you from leaving. I bet Mrs. O’Halloran’s cookies are still toasty warm if you want to go sample them.”

“She was older than my grandmother, Hermann. You know, anybody overhearing our conversation might think you don’t like me.”

“There’s no one listening in, so I don’t have to pretend to make nice.”

Point to Hermann. The teasing grin vanished, and for a split second, Annie was tempted to apologize. But a man with that much self-confidence couldn’t really be offended by the quips they routinely traded each time they were forced to work together, could he? Rather than explore the possibility that there might be a sensitive human being beneath that cocky charm, Annie opted to change the topic.

The idea that she and Nick Fensom truly were alone in the middle of this wintry night in a place where a dead body had lain only hours earlier sent a little shiver of unease down her spine. It merged with the chill that vibrated her grip, and she swung her light toward the yellow crime scene tape at the end of the alley. “Where did the two uniformed guys go?”

“Relax, Hermann, I’ve got your back for a few minutes.” He tilted his head toward the cross street at the end of the block. “The Shamrock Bar is just around the corner. They started serving free coffee and snacks after 1:00 a.m. in case anyone’s been partying too hard tonight. I sent the officers to get four coffees and give them some time out of the cold.”

She’d like to dive into a bath-sized pot of hot coffee right about now. Including her in the drink run was an unexpected consideration that took the edge off the defensive hackles Nick’s presence inevitably raised in her. “I suppose they’ve been out here longer than either one of us. They’ve earned the break.”

Still, sterile plastic gloves were no match for hours of working in the wintry night, photographing potential evidence, digging through bags of garbage and cataloguing everything she’d found thus far. The bag she’d been fighting with refused to open for her stiff fingers. The knees of her jeans where she kneeled had soaked through to the skin, and the tendrils of hair sticking out from beneath her stocking cap had kinked around her face and stuck to her cheeks with the precipitation in the air.

Meanwhile, other than the puffs of warm breath that clouded the air around his head, Detective Fensom looked solid and warm and vexingly unaffected by the dropping temperature.

As if reading her condemning thoughts, Nick turned the banter back to the job. The beam of his flashlight joined hers to better illuminate her work. “What do you have there?”

“I found the victim’s purse.” Giving up on the paper sack for now, Annie lifted the camera hanging from her neck and snapped a picture of the beaded evening bag wedged between the rear wheel of the Dumpster and the alley’s brick wall. Then she picked up the bag and opened it. “Clearly, this wasn’t a robbery.” She pulled out three neatly folded twenties and a credit card. A driver’s license, five business cards, a comb and lipstick rounded out the contents. Annie read the name on the license and business cards. “Rachel Dunbar. Twenty-seven years old. She was an investment analyst.”

“A successful professional woman. That fits the victim profile of the women the Rose Red Rapist targets.”

Annie returned the contents to the purse and picked up the evidence bag again. Juggling the purse, the bag and her flashlight with her frozen hands proved to be a challenge, but it didn’t stop her mind from speculating. “Why is there no phone here? I wonder if she had a cell phone in her coat or if the killer took it from her. I can’t imagine a woman going out at night on her own without a cell.”

“When I check in with Spencer, I can ask if the phone was on the body. I’m guessing her attacker took it from her, though,” Nick speculated. “It keeps her helpless, at his mercy. Our unsub is all about control and dominance over the women he assaults. He obviously can’t have her calling 9-1-1.”

Frowning, Annie nodded toward the bag already tucked into her evidence kit. “So he takes the phone, but leaves the brick he killed her with? I always thought our guy was smarter than that. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Let’s gather the evidence first and analyze it later.” Nick knelt beside her, the bulk of his shoulders and chest blocking the wind as he plucked the sack from her fingers and opened it for her. Annie’s fingers were still shaking as she jotted down the time and date and signed the sealed bag. He dropped the sack inside her kit and reached for her hands. “I need to get you out of the cold, too. How much more do you have to do?”

Annie’s mouth opened in surprise as he tucked her flashlight into the CSI vest she wore over her coat, and pulled off his leather gloves to capture her fingers between his palms. “What are you doing?”

He peeled off her latex gloves next. “What does it look like?”