So this is what they mean by sexual tension, she thought. I like this. „How do you do that?“ she asked, her voice rough and husky.
His brows lifted. „Did you like it?“
She felt her cheeks heat and knew she’d bypassed peony pink and gone straight to ruby red. And by the look in his eyes, he didn’t care that her face clashed with her hair. „Yes.“
„Good,“ he said with such satisfaction that she had to smile.
She closed her eyes and screwed up her courage. „You make me want more.“
A full beat passed. Then another. „Good,“ he finally said and this time it was his voice that was rough and husky. His fingertips skimmed her lips. The mattress shifted as he stood up. She opened her eyes and her mouth went dry at the sight of his body in profile. His chest isn’t the only thing that’s hard, she thought. And the thought didn’t make her cringe. A mixture of pride and relief rushed through her as he chuckled wryly.
„Thank you,“ he said and she wished she could hide under the bed.
„I said that out loud?“ she asked.
„Afraid so.“ He aimed an amused smile in her direction. „You have to get up now. I have to go by my apartment and change clothes, shower and shave before I take you to work.“
She opened her mouth to say she could drive herself, then glanced at the window. There was pride and there was stupidity and Kristen was not a stupid woman. „Okay.“
Monday, February 23,
8:00 AM.
Spinnelli looked worried. He had a right to be, Abe thought. They didn’t have shit.
Spinnelli leaned one hip against the conference room table, his bushy mustache bent in a painful frown. „So if I might summarize…“ He lifted his hand and started counting with his fingers. „One, we have two more bodies. Two, one of the lead prosecutors in the city has been attacked twice, once in her own home. Three, it’s open season on defense attorneys.“
„That’s not such a bad thing,“ Mia muttered and Spinnelli cut her off with a glare.
„Four, the captain’s taken calls from Jacob Conti every other hour all weekend because the ME’s office is, in Conti’s words, carving up his son a second time, and five“ – he held all five fingers extended – „we don’t have a single goddamn suspect.“
Mia shifted uneasily in her chair. „That’s about the size of it.“
„Kristen scratched her attacker last night,“ Abe said. „What about the scrapings from under her nails?“
From his seat beside Mia, Jack shrugged. „I can get DNA for you, but until you have a suspect, I don’t have anything to compare it to.“
Spinnelli stared at the whiteboard in frustration. „Julia found nothing on Skinner’s body? No hairs, no fibers, no nothing?“
Jack shook his head. „Nothing. I did find some debris ground into Skinner’s clothes, mud and some chemical residue from the factory in the dirt. I matched it to the site where we found the bullet, so we can confirm Skinner was there. The vise he used to keep Skinner’s head immobilized was so tight it left an imprint of the model number. Julia was able to stain the skin so I could get a good photograph. It was a Craftsman.“
„Solid as Sears,“ Mia muttered. „On every daddy’s Christmas wish list.“
„I have one,“ Spinnelli grumbled. „Wife gave it to me for my workshop three years ago.“
„I bet half the workshops in Chicago have one,“ Jack said.
„What about the bullet?“ Spinnelli asked.
„We’ve shown it to all the major gun stores in town,“ Mia said. „Nobody recognizes that maker’s mark. It’s too damaged. They also said nobody’s been practicing at their range with homemade bullets. But I was thinking – “
„No,“ Spinnelli drawled and Mia shot him a look that was half annoyed and half hurt.
„Yes. I do that occasionally, Marc,“ she said quietly.
Spinnelli sighed. „I’m sorry, Mia. I know you guys worked most of the weekend on this one. I got a call from the captain’s office this morning. He’d just hung up with the mayor, who’d been getting around the clock calls from Conti demanding we put more men on this case. The mayor wasn’t pleased, so the captain wasn’t pleased. Plus it seems like every defense attorney in town’s called to complain. They say we’d put more cops on the case if the prosecutors were targets.“ Spinnelli clenched his jaw. „That’s just bullshit“
„So you’re in a shitty mood,“ Mia said. „Fine, just don’t take it out on me.“
„Fine.“ Spinnelli raised both brows. „So what were you thinking, Mia?“
Mia didn’t look placated. „Just that if the guy has gone to all the trouble to make his own bullets, and he’s a sharpshooter who’s not practicing at a public range, he’s probably rigged his own target range. He’d need some land to do that so that no neighbors would see him and call the cops. Ever since 9/11, people have been a little skittish about their next-door neighbors playing Rambo.“
„That’s good, Mia,“ Abe said. „If he does own land, his name will appear in deed records. We can cross-reference the list you got from the sandblasting company.“
„But not the florist companies,“ Jack said.
„I’m still mad about that,“ Mia complained. „I looked at florists for hours. All wasted.“
„Are we sure about that?“ Spinnelli pressed. „We’ve got testimony from two kids saying they saw different signs on a white van. Are we sure they’re telling the truth?“
„Mclntyre saw it, too,“ Abe said and Spinnelli shrugged with regretful acceptance.
„And anyway, why would those kids lie?“ Jack asked. „What’s in it for them?“
„Especially since one of them walked right by a police cruiser to deliver the Conti package,“ Mia added. „Mclntyre was sitting right outside Kristen’s house when Tyrone Yates dropped off his box. If they were in cahoots with our guy, they wouldn’t be so bold.“
Abe had a sudden, terrible thought. „They might not be so bold. He might.“
Mia turned around to look at him, her brows furrowed. „What?“
Abe sat down at the computer and brought up the department’s criminal database. „How did our killer pick those two kids? They came from different neighborhoods, different schools. Did he pick them at random? By chance?“
Spinnelli’s expression was grim. „He doesn’t do anything by chance. He’s too organized. Everything’s connected, every loop closed. Abe, tell me those two boys were God-fearing angels that never gave the law a day’s trouble. Please.“
Abe typed in Tyrone Yates’s name and waited for the computer to respond. And when it did, he sighed. „This boy’s got a yellow sheet as long as my arm. Assault, plead down. Possession, plead down. Et cetera, et cetera.“
Mia went very still. „And what about Aaron Jenkins?“
The only sound in the room was the clacking of the keyboard. „Same. Throw in a few misdemeanor petty thefts.“ He scrolled down. „He turned eighteen four months ago. He’s got a sealed juvie record.“ Abe looked up, saw every eye looking at him. „He set these kids up.“
Jack frowned. „I’m not following you.“
Abe leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. „He didn’t just choose these kids at random. I’m sure of it. What if he has some personal beef with these kids? Maybe they did something to him, or to someone else who he wants to avenge. If he hires them, pays them, people will assume they know who he is. They’re bad kids, they have reputations in the neighborhood. Word gets out, and suddenly they are the link to the killer. If somebody wants the killer, they go through the kids.“
Jack shook his head. „But that doesn’t make sense, Abe. Not only do you have one hell of a lot of ‘ifs,’ but if he has a beef with these kids, why not kill them himself?“