Rolling her eyes, she clicked on the last email on the list. It was addressed to her, and though it was from an address she didn’t recognize, the subject line—COMING SOON—made her curious enough to check it out.
Skimming it, her mind still on the killer’s profile, Genevieve was halfway down the text before she realized what it was she was reading. Heart pounding, breath shallow, she went back to the top and started again. Read it through once, then again and again.
“Shawn!” she called, her voice low and urgent.
He glanced up immediately from the time line he was putting together. “What’s wrong?”
“I need you to come look at this.”
“Sure. Just let me—”
“Now!”
He was around the desk in a flash, his eyes intense. “What’s going on?”
“I think this is from him.” She pointed at the computer screen, then read along with him as he focused on the email.
Genevieve,
I apologize for my silence the last few days, but things have been quite busy around here. Leaving you hanging after my phone call was inexcusable, but I plead a very full plate, as you will find out soon enough.
I must admit I’m a little disappointed in the progress you’ve been making. I expected a more worthy adversary. Though you look like a wet dream, I know you are both extremely intelligent and extremely capable. High case-closure rate, strong witness for the defense—for a little while I feared I might have met my match.
But, forgive me for saying so, you seem stumped. No new leads, no evidence, nothing to lead you to my doorstep. Once again, I will confess to being disappointed. I’ve spent a lot of time imagining you here with me, your body mine to do with as I wish.
I would take my time with you, make it as good for you as it would be for me. After all, we’re quite well matched, aren’t we? You look like the type to not just tolerate pain well, but to enjoy it too. How fortunate, then, that I am enamored with causing it.
I know what you’re thinking. You’ve seen those poor creatures I’ve already been to work on. They were nothing, really, simply practice for my greatest work. Practice for you.
I left you clues with the girls, clues that—if you are smart enough—will lead you to me. Of course, you’re still missing one. Poor girl, she’s been out there, waiting, for nearly three days now. Wondering, I’m sure, how long it will take you to find her.
I hope you find her soon. I’m getting restless, this need I have to feel you under me growing with each hour that passes. And while I want to wait for you, to experience all that you have to offer me when I am at my most passionate, I fear that if you do not move quickly, I will be forced to secure another plaything.
She will, of course, be nothing compared to you, just a dalliance to keep me busy until we finally meet.
Work fast, Genevieve. My craving for you is growing.
“Son of a bitch!” Shawn’s fist hit the desk, and the eyes he turned on her blazed furiously. “How can you be so calm? That bastard just threatened you!”
“It seemed more like a promise than a threat,” she answered coolly, proud of how composed her voice sounded when she was shaking apart inside.
“I don’t give a shit what it was. He’s not getting his hands on you.”
“I certainly hope not.” She looked over the letter one more time and tried desperately to ignore the chill skating down her spine. “Shawn, you’re missing the most important part.”
“No, I’m not.” His mouth was grim as he looked at her. “There’s definitely another girl out there, one who hasn’t been discovered yet.”
“We need to find her.”
“I know that.” He picked up his phone, dialed a quick number.
“Who are you calling?”
“Roberto. He and Luc can get their asses back here and help us figure out what the hell is going on.”
Genevieve stood, strode over to the murder board, where she’d tacked a map of the French Quarter. The first three dump sites were clearly marked and, not for the first time, she studied them for some kind of pattern. There wasn’t one, at least not one that she could see.
She traced a finger from Jackson Square to Jean Lafitte’s bar to the senator’s house for what felt like the millionth time. “They’ve all been on the east side of the Quarter so far,” she mused. “So does that mean that this one will be too? Or will he have branched out?”
“There’s no guarantee the body’s even in the French Quarter, Genevieve.”
She glanced at her partner over her shoulder. “Sure there is. He wants me to find her, and I only get cases from the Quarter. Outside, it’s a different police station, different homicide squad.”
When the phone rang, they both jumped, and Genevieve stared at the receiver as if it was a snake. She knew she should pick it up, to find out if the bastard was calling to follow up on his note, but all she really wanted to do was run away.
But Shawn was having none of her cowardice as he gestured her over to the desk.
“Answer it,” he hissed. “And hit speaker so I can hear too.”
With a shudder, she followed his directions. “Delacroix.” Her voice was clipped, furious, but she couldn’t stop it any more than she could stop the fine tremor that shook her normally rock-steady hand.
“Genevieve?”
“Cole?”
“Yeah.” She slammed her finger down on the speaker button at the same time she picked up the receiver. Some things Shawn didn’t need to hear.
“I was just calling—I wanted to say …” He paused, and Genevieve felt a jolt of surprise. It was a shock to hear Cole sound so uncertain—hell, it was a shock to hear from him at all. It had been four days since they’d argued, and she’d decided he must have written her off. She’d started to call him numerous times to apologize, but had ended up putting the phone down every time, too embarrassed to face him—even over the phone.
She heard him take a deep breath, let it out slowly. And then, before she could say anything, he blurted out, “I wanted to apologize.”
It was her turn to take a deep breath as her heart nearly beat out of her chest. There was nothing like going from anger to joy in ten seconds flat.“Genevieve, are you still there?”
“Yes. But I think I’m the one who owes you an apology.” She glanced at Shawn, saw him listening intently to her side of the conversation. Turning her back to him, she lowered her voice. “I made a mistake.”
His voice warmed considerably. “I think we both did.”
“No, it was mostly me.” Her sense of fair play wouldn’t let her do anything but take the blame. “I should have called.”
“Yes, you should have.” Genevieve could tell by his tone that Cole was teasing her, and she couldn’t hold back a small smile.
“Sorry, but I’ve been busy trying to find a killer.”
“How’s that going?” he asked with concern. “I’ve been watching the news, hoping to hear that you’d caught him.”
“No such luck. But maybe now that he’s fixated on me we’ll have a better shot.”
Cole didn’t answer, and the silence stretched between them so long that she wondered if his cell had cut out. “Cole?” she asked.
“What do you mean, he’s fixated on you?” There was no trace of warmth in his voice now, only a bone-deep fury that shook her to her core.
“Nothing.” She watched with relief as Shawn riffled through his desk for some change, then walked toward the vending machines in the hallway in an effort to give her some privacy. When he was out of earshot she muttered, “He’s contacted me, that’s all. Fixated’s too strong a word—”
“What has he done?” His voice cracked like a whip.
“A couple of phone calls. An email today. It’s no big deal.”
“It’s a very big deal, and you know it.” He paused, took another deep breath. “I don’t want you near this guy, Genevieve.”
“Excuse me?” She couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice.
“You heard me. He’s dangerous and—”
“It’s my job to go near this guy, Cole.”
“It’s not your job to put yourself on the line for every sick f**k with a dangerous obsession,” he argued.
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. If it gives me a better chance of catching him, I’d talk to Satan himself.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
Silence stretched between them as Genevieve tried to think of some way to make Cole understand. But she was so angry that he’d presume to tell her how to do her job that all she really wanted to tell him was to go to hell.
“Look, Genevieve, this guy can hurt you.”
“Really? ’Cuz I thought he wanted to take me to lunch.”
“You’re being irrational.”
“I’m being irrational? You’re the one telling me how to do my job.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that, and I really don’t have time for it right now.” Glancing behind her at Shawn, who had returned with two bottles of soda, Genevieve felt herself grow even angrier. “Good-bye, Cole.”
She slammed down the phone with a satisfying thud. How dare he tell her what was too dangerous for her? How dare he tell her anything at all? They’d only known each other a week, and had been angry as hell at one another for most of that time. And he thought he could just call her up and apologize and everything would be okay? Even as he humiliated her in front of her partner?
Over her dead body.
Shawn cleared his throat. “Everything okay?”
The look she shot him should have had him bursting into flames. “Everything’s great.”
He tapped his hand on the desk. “Sorry. I was—… just checking.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, don’t.”
“You know, the guy has a point—”
“Don’t you start too,” she growled. “If one more man tells me I might get hurt, I’m going to hurt him.”
“All right, then. I’ll just, um”—he held his hands up in a gesture of surrender—“come back in a little while.”
“Good idea.”
Genevieve fumed as she watched Shawn walk away. What was it about the men in her life that made them think she needed protection? She’d been a cop for more than a decade and had always managed to take care of herself. This was no different. He wasn’t the first as**ole to fixate on her and probably wouldn’t be the last. Sure, he might be a bit scarier than the average psychopath she ran into, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t handle him. Couldn’t handle herself.
She still didn’t believe Cole had done that. Who the hell did he think he was? He was the one who stormed out of her kitchen in a snit, and he was the one who hadn’t called her for four days. It took a hell of a lot of nerve for him to think that she would hide away like a good little girl just because he said so!
Frustrated, furious, Genevieve started pawing through the papers on her desk in an effort to get her mind off her anger. But as she straightened up the numerous files, her hand fell on the one that contained the results of Cole’s fingerprint run.
With rage coursing through her veins, she opened it and spent a long time studying the report of his arrest so many years before. The case had been dismissed, and she couldn’t help wondering why that was. Picking up the phone, she called a friend of hers on the LAPD. Maybe Tina could shed some light on the arrest—and subsequent dismissal. Fifteen minutes later, she was scanning the report Tina had emailed her, shocked at the amount of information that was attached to a simple misdemeanor assault charge. Skimming the report, she was about three-quarters of the way through the evidence that had led to his dismissal when she found it—a statement from Cole’s neighbor claiming that he had been under a lot of stress lately, due to the brutal murder of his sister. In New Orleans.