Anna J. - More Than A Lawman

“We’ve got in one of those fancy new digital scanners. We’ll see how well it works. In the meantime, I’ll pull the files of the previous victims and go through them again. Interesting. Given their injuries, any blood loss would have been attributed to those markings, but you’re suggesting the blood itself was what he was after? I’ll take another run at the photos, too, see if I can find any more wounds similar to these. So, is it him?”

“Going by the evidence in front of us?” Cole cast doubtful eyes to Jack, who shrugged. “I can’t say for certain. But my gut tells me it is. There’s a reason we didn’t get anything from him in almost two years. If he’s changed MOs, that could explain it. I’ll have Dr. Collins send you a sample of Eden’s blood to have something to compare.” For the first time, he felt a crack, however thin, appear in the case.

“Sounds good.” Mona returned to the freezer to supervise the removal of the rest of the victims.

“What game is he playing?” Cole couldn’t wrap his brain around the scene. “There’s so much that’s wrong. If I hadn’t gotten that call from him, I might not even believe it myself.” And hesitation, as Cole knew all too well, could be a cop’s worst enemy.

“Buck up, Delaney.” Jack shifted on his feet. Cole turned. “Boss is in the house.”

“And he’s brought a friend. Looks like I should have bet on a shorter time.” Even Cole wouldn’t have guessed the FBI would turn up within a half hour. “Lieutenant.” Cole nodded at Kevin Santos, a cop with twenty years’ experience, most of it in homicide, despite the fact that he looked like a computer geek. Three years behind the lieutenant’s desk hadn’t dulled his detective skills one bit. Nor had it affected his capacity to detect what Cole’s grandfather would have called nonsense.

“Detectives Delaney and McTavish,” Lieutenant Santos greeted them and approached them with a guarded look in his eyes. He gestured to the man behind him. “This is Agent Anthony Simmons, our new local FBI liaison. His office is suggesting we establish a task force on the Iceman investigation.”

“Shoot,” Jack muttered. “Missed it by two hours.”

Cole noted his lieutenant’s arched brow and wondered if his superior had entered the betting pool himself. “Sir, while we value the FBI’s willingness to help—”

“We do?” Jack choked on his coffee.

“Respectfully, Agent Simmons,” Cole said, as politely as possible, “nobody knows this case better than my team.”

“That may be true.” With dark, tired eyes, and a wariness that spoke of too many years on the job, Agent Simmons gave a slow nod. “But you have to admit, given this morning’s developments, one has to wonder if you and your team should have known he’d surface again.”

Whatever congeniality Cole might have been willing to extend to Agent Simmons evaporated. “I don’t have to admit anything.” Cole stretched his lips into a wide smile as his coffee churned in his stomach. “Someone did know, but that someone isn’t a cop.”

“Delaney.” Santos’s voice held that hint of warning that set cops’ hearts to thudding.

“That would be Eden St. Claire, the woman found alive in the freezer?” Agent Simmons asked. “I’d like to interview her as soon as possible.”

Cole’s eyes narrowed as he sipped again. “I’m sure you would.”

“I brought you here for introductions, Agent Simmons. Not to get into an argument with my detectives.” Lieutenant Santos put his hands deep into his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

Cole cast a sideways glance at his partner and tried not to smile. Their boss had a long fuse, but the “pocket rock” was a definite sign Agent Simmons had lit it in record time.

“Unless the FBI is officially taking over the case, Delaney will remain in charge. You’re welcome to stick around, sit in on the meetings and interviews, even work it with his team, but we make the calls. Understood?”

“A task force is just that. A force,” Agent Simmons replied with something akin to a growl in his voice. “I would like to be present when Ms. St. Claire is able to be questioned.”

Cole wasn’t letting this guy anywhere near Eden; at least not until he had the chance to talk to her himself. “She’s been sedated for at least the next twelve hours,” Cole lied. “They aren’t sure of the emotional trauma the attack might have had.” He ignored the surprise that flashed across his lieutenant’s face. Santos—along with the rest of the Sacramento PD—was well acquainted with Eden and her...proclivities. Emotional trauma tended to have the opposite effect on Eden. If anything, it made her more obstinate, more focused than normal.

Agent Simmons’s nod of sympathetic understanding only proved he hadn’t done his homework when it came to the Iceman’s most recent target, and the woman who’d spent the last year and a half tracking him.

“I’ll officially request to be notified when she’s conscious,” Agent Simmons said.

“You do that.” Cole smirked. Why did they always have to be so adversarial? “Sir, with your permission, I’d like to get back to Mona and see if she has any new information.”

“Certainly,” Santos said. “But first, a moment if you don’t mind, Agent?” Santos grabbed Cole’s arm and moved him out of Simmons’s earshot. “I don’t know what’s going on with this guy, but there’s something we aren’t being told. I’ll stall Simmons as long as I can, but he’s up to something.”

“The Iceman made a mistake taking Eden,” Cole said, not caring about anything else right now, including police politics.

“You mean because he’s angered her even more?” Santos’s thick eyebrow went up a good inch. “If he meant to deter her—”

“By taking Eden he confirmed what she’d been saying. Leaving her alive is probably his way of telling us he can get to her—to anyone—whenever he wants, which means her years of working on her own are over.”

“Glad we’re on the same page. Watch out. The both of you,” Santos told him and gestured to Jack. “At some point we’ll have to update the press, but the chief will take care of any official statements. I’d prefer to keep all of us, Eden included, away from the cameras. Do me a favor?” Santos’s mouth quirked into an amused smile. “Let me know when Agent Simmons plans to question Eden. That’s a conversation I do not want to miss.”

Chapter 4

Had Eden’s body not been throbbing, she might have woken with a smile on her face. The drug-induced haze that welcomed her to the conscious world was almost intoxicating. Any other time, she might have actually enjoyed the ride.

The second she moved her head, however, her entire body screamed and she realized where she was. Monitors beeped, cords and tubes were attached to her, and the bars on either side of her bed may as well have been made of barbed wire for all the peace they brought her. That the dull, beige-colored walls, the scribbled-on whiteboard and the dingy sea-foam-green curtain gave her none of the privacy promised bothered her enough to shove herself into a sitting position.

Out. Out. Out. She dug at the IV in her arm. Not in the hospital. Never in the hospital. The walls seemed to close in and the weight of the past descended on her...

“Eden?” Cole’s voice drifted to her from across the room. Blinking sleep from his eyes, he leaned forward in his chair, and the mere touch of his fingers against her arm stilled the terror inside her. “It’s okay. I’m here. Just like I promised. Lie back. Be calm.”

He squeezed his hand around her arm, didn’t push, didn’t press, but shifted closer so she could see he was there and that he understood.