In USA TODAY bestselling author Marie Ferrarella’s sensational new Cavanaugh Justice novel, two detectives must track a lethal serial killer

Playboy detective Luke Cavanaugh O’Bannon isn’t excited to be paired with his polar opposite, introverted Francesca “Frankie” DeMarco, on a case. But when Frankie’s cousin is found dead of a suspicious drug overdose, she and Luke must work together to pursue a serial killer who’s struck again. And though they try to fight it, the two opposites attract...passionately!

After several false leads, their investigation points them to an online dating site where Frankie, despite Luke’s objections, offers herself up as virtual bait. Will the killer reply with dinner and a deadly proposition? Will Luke realize he’s met his match—offline?

“I want you, O’Bannon.”

“Words I’ve been waiting a lifetime to hear,” he quipped, smiling at the petite blue-eyed brunette standing before his desk. He had no idea who she was, but he certainly intended to find out. The fact that she had just said she wanted him sounded promising.

“Well, you can continue waiting,” she informed him coldly, “because I didn’t mean them that way.”

Luke leaned back in his chair. His eyes slowly passed over her, taking careful measure of every attractive inch. No doubt about it. She was the best looking woman he had seen in a long time. The annoyed expression on her face just made her that much more of a challenge as far as he was concerned.

“And just what way did you mean them?” he asked her. His smile only grew wider.

* * *

Be sure to check out the next books in this exciting miniseries: Cavanaugh Justice—Where Aurora’s finest are always in action

Cavanaugh Encounter

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

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To

The memory of

My Mother,

Who got me hooked on Agatha Christie,

And always said that there was nothing

She liked better

Than a good, clean murder.

This one’s for you, Mama.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here. I didn’t know who else to call.”

Twenty-five-year-old Amanda Culpepper was shaking as she threw open the front door of the apartment she shared with her roommate. The same roommate who was facedown and sprawled out on the living room floor. The young woman appeared to be unconscious and was totally unresponsive.

Detective Francesca DeMarco hardly spared the tall blonde by the door more than a quick glance. Her attention was entirely focused on Kristin Andrews, the young woman on the floor with the syringe in her arm.

Her cousin.

Years ago, she would have anticipated this call. But not now. Not when Kristin had been clean for so long. This didn’t make any sense to her.

“How long has she been like this?” Frankie asked her cousin’s roommate. Amanda was hovering nervously behind her.

“I don’t know,” Amanda cried breathlessly, wringing her hands. “I was away for three days with my boyfriend. I just walked in the door and found her like this.” Amanda was struggling not to break down in tears. “I tried to rouse her, but when Kris wouldn’t wake up, I called you immediately.” Amanda was shifting from foot to foot, as if unable to put any weight down. “Kris is going to be all right, right?” she asked, growing more and more distraught and agitated.

Frankie hardly heard the other woman. She was looking for Kris’s pulse. She pressed her fingers against the side of her cousin’s neck, then on her wrist. Unable to find a pulse, she put her head against Kristin’s chest, praying she would detect at least a faint heartbeat.

There was none.

Adrenaline surging through her body, Frankie began applying CPR. “Call 911,” she ordered Amanda.

Amanda looked confused. “But you are 911,” the young woman protested.

“But I can’t pull a damn ambulance out of my pocket,” Frankie snapped. She was silently counting off numbers in her head as she applied compressions to Kristin’s chest. Despite her efforts, her cousin still wasn’t coming around. “Call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance to this address!” she ordered. “Now!”

Snapping to attention, Amanda hurried to make the call.

“C’mon, Kris, open your eyes!” Frankie begged as she continued pushing against her cousin’s chest. “Do it for me. Please!”

All sorts of thoughts charged in and out of her head. The last words she and Kris had exchanged. The time she had bullied her cousin into rehab. Teaching her cousin how to ride a bike. All that and more whisked through her brain with the speed of a bullet, all while she worked over her cousin’s prone body.

She was still pushing down on Kristin’s chest when the high-pitched whining sound of an approaching siren registered.

The ambulance was here!

Frankie realized that there were tears in her eyes. Maybe the paramedic would be able to save Kris.

Would be able to bring her around.

Drained and wired at the same time, Frankie moved out of the way as the paramedics took over for her. The taller of the two attendants did compressions.

After several moments, he turned to look at her.

Frankie knew why he had stopped the compressions and why her cousin wasn’t being placed on the gurney in order to be taken to the ambulance.

Frankie could feel her heart constricting. There wasn’t going to be an ambulance ride to the hospital. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” Frankie asked in a low, hoarse voice.

“Yes.” The attendant was kind. “You’re going to need to get the coroner out here,” he told her. Taking out his cellphone, the attendant offered, “I can call him for you.”

Frankie put up her hand to stop the man from placing the call. “That’s all right. I’m a detective with the Aurora Police Department. I’ll call the coroner and tell him it’s a homicide,” she told him.

“Homicide?” the second attendant echoed. “This looks like a drug overdose to me,” the man said. He pointed over to the side. The syringe had come out and was lying near the body.

This just wasn’t right, Frankie thought. Yes, Kristin had had a drug problem, but that was years ago. She’d sustained an injury, dislocating her shoulder while playing soccer in high school. Prescription drugs had helped her put up with the shooting pain. Gradually that had led to her becoming dependent on other ways to numb the misery, but all that had been years ago. Kristin had dealt with her demons and finally vanquished them.

It hadn’t been easy for her, but she did it.

Frankie refused to believe that after fighting her way back to the point where she could finally enjoy a normal lifestyle, Kristin would have just thrown it all away for a weekend binge.

“No,” Frankie said fiercely, addressing the attendant. “This was not a drug overdose, accidental or otherwise. It was staged to look that way. This is a homicide,” she declared in no uncertain terms, her sweeping gaze taking in the attendants and her cousin’s sobbing roommate. The way the syringe was positioned would have indicated that Kristin had used her right hand. Kristin was left-handed. “And I intend to prove it.”

Even to her own ears, it sounded more like a vow than a statement.

And maybe it was, but she still intended to do it.

Chapter 1

“I want you, O’Bannon.”

Lukkas Cavanaugh O’Bannon looked up from the report on his desk. It was an autopsy, and it made for grim reading. It was the information on the latest victim who had been discovered only a day ago. A young kindergarten teacher was found dead by her mother in the house they shared.

The autopsy was one of six and only confirmed Luke’s suspicions. Someone was out there, preying on young, intelligent professional women, capitalizing on their apparent loneliness and cutting their lives short before they ever had a chance to really experience life to the fullest.

It was only ten o’clock in the morning, but Luke already felt as if he could use a break. He just hadn’t thought that his break would materialize in such a shapely form.

“Words I’ve been waiting a lifetime to hear,” he quipped, smiling at the petite blue-eyed brunette standing before his desk. He had no idea who she was, but he certainly intended to find out. The fact that she had just said she wanted him certainly sounded promising.

“Well, you can continue waiting,” she informed him coldly, “because I didn’t mean them that way.” She was going to have to learn to pick her words better, Frankie admonished herself. It was just that right now, she was extremely agitated and she felt as if she was walking across a tightrope.

One misstep on her part and she wasn’t going to be allowed to work this case.

O’Bannon was flashing a wide, brilliant grin aimed right at her, and she did her best to ignore it.

Detective Lukkas Cavanaugh O’Bannon had a reputation for being a ladies’ man. The reputation reached all corners of the police department, even Major Crimes, which was where she worked. The problem was that O’Bannon had the looks and the charm to back up his bravado.

But none of that mattered to her. What did matter was that O’Bannon was also a damn good detective. And, most important of all, he was lead detective on a case that involved homicides that were eerily similar to her cousin’s.

“And just what way did you mean them?” he asked her. His smile only grew wider.

Luke leaned back in his chair and his eyes slowly passed over her, taking careful measure of every attractive inch. No doubt about it. She was the best-looking woman he had seen in a long time. The annoyed expression on her face just made her that much more of a challenge as far as he was concerned.

“Word has it that you’re working on a case that might involve a serial killer killing young, dark-haired women.” Frankie kept her voice neutral, professional. She couldn’t afford to have O’Bannon suspect just how important this case was to her.

Luke shrugged. “You know how rumors fly around the precinct...”

Although his voice trailed off, his eyes never left her face. It wasn’t difficult to see that this case was important to her. Why? She didn’t remind him of a reporter, searching for an in. And she definitely wasn’t part of Sean Cavanaugh’s CSI unit. He knew every face in his uncle’s department, both the day and the night shift.

“Don’t toy with me, O’Bannon.”

The corners of his mouth curved deeper as he leaned slightly forward. “Is that a dare?”

This was getting her absolutely nowhere and it was just wasting time. Given the man’s reputation, she should have known better than to approach O’Bannon directly with anything.

“Maybe I’d be better off going to Lt. Handel with this,” Frankie said, already turning on her heel. Handel’s office was in the back.

“Wait,” Luke called after her.

Frankie spared the detective a cold glance over her shoulder. “Why?”

“Well, for one thing, you’ll wind up talking to yourself,” he pointed out. “The lieutenant’s not in his office.”

Was he playing her? She was tempted to look in the general direction of the lieutenant’s glass-paneled office, but she refrained. For now, she gave O’Bannon the benefit of the doubt. She actually did need the man on her side, which meant that she had to build up some sort of rapport.

“Where is he?” she asked him, trying to control her impatience.

“At a meeting with the new chief of police,” Luke replied, referring to his cousin, Shaw Cavanaugh, who had recently assumed the position after the previous chief had suffered a heart attack in his sleep and died. “No telling when he’ll be back.” He watched the woman when she reluctantly turned around again to face him. “So you might as well finish filling me in on why you’re asking questions about my case.”

“Because I think I might have...stumbled across another victim,” Frankie said.

She could see that she had gotten O’Bannon’s attention. His whole countenance grew more alert.

“And by ‘stumbled across,’ you mean...?” He waited for her to fill in the blank.

Frankie knew she needed to keep this as close to the truth as possible. It was a trick she had learned a long time ago. The closer to the truth something was, the easier it was to keep track of the things she said about it.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have felt the need to play games like this. However, if it became known that she was Kristin’s cousin, then it went without saying that she wouldn’t be allowed to work on the case.

And she intended to work the case, no matter what. Even if it wound up costing her her job. With luck, it wouldn’t come to that.

Frankie framed her answer carefully. O’Bannon’s reputation as a ladies’ man wasn’t the only reputation he had. The man was sharp. “The victim’s roommate called me when she found the body.”

“And why would she do that?” he asked, his voice low, probing.

Frankie took a small, unobtrusive breath. “Because I was the first one she thought of when she came home to find the victim on the floor, unresponsive. I met her in an adult education course,” she threw in, hoping that would answer any stray questions O’Bannon might have about her association with the roommate.

It didn’t.

“What kind of a course?” he asked, appearing to be mildly interested.

“A boring one,” Frankie answered crisply. “Can we please get on with this?” she pressed.

“All right,” he obliged. “What makes you think this dead woman you ‘stumbled across,’” he said, using her own words, “is one of my serial killer’s victims? Was she stabbed? Or shot at close range?” Luke fired the questions at her in staccato fashion.

Frankie’s eyes narrowed. “Your serial killer’s victims are all women in their twenties, not men. And your serial killer doesn’t stab or shoot his victims,” she concluded.

Luke leaned back in his chair, never taking his eyes off her. “I’m impressed. You’ve done your homework on me.”

“Correction,” she retorted. “I’ve done my homework on your case. And since I think the woman I found is another one of your killer’s victims, I thought we could work together to find this piece of filth before he kills anyone else.”

“So you are with the police department.” Until this moment, he hadn’t been sure about that.

“Major Crimes,” she informed him.

“And why would Major Crimes be interested in having one of their own work with me on this case?” he asked.

“Turns out that Debra Evans, one of the victims, is the niece of one of the state’s senators,” she replied.

“You really have done your homework on this case,” he said, duly impressed. “Well, I have no objections to you throwing your lot in with mine, but just to play by the rules, we’re going to have to clear it with Lt. Handel when he gets back.”

From what she’d learned, O’Bannon wasn’t one who really cared about playing by the rules unless it suited him. But she wasn’t about to say that and risk getting on the man’s bad side. She really needed to work this case. She owed it to Kristin.

“I assumed as much,” Frankie replied.

He flashed another broad grin at her. “That’s what I like. Someone who’s on their toes. I take it that you have the victim’s name.”

“Kristin Andrews,” she replied. “She is—was—” Frankie corrected herself, doing her best not to let O’Bannon see that having to refer to her cousin in the past tense really bothered her “—twenty-five and she was a nurse working at Aurora General.”

“You are thorough,” Luke said. He was beginning to see past her good looks and was taking stock of her as a detective. “Any theory about her cause of death?” he asked, curious to see if there were similarities to his killer’s victims and the one that this knockout on two shapely legs was bringing him.

“There was a syringe in her arm,” Frankie replied, every word burning on her tongue.

“So you think it was a drug overdose,” Luke concluded.

“No, I think it was made to look like a drug overdose,” Frankie replied tersely, correcting him.

“And you know this how?” he asked.

He was leaning back in his chair again, studying the brunette with the piled-up, impossibly sexy hair that seemed to be falling every which way and yet somehow remained in place. Whenever possible, Luke was always open to accommodating pretty women, but not at the expense of his job. That always came first, as did the victims he had sworn an oath to do right by.

“Her roommate told me that Kristin, the victim, had had a painkiller problem dating years back to a knee injury she’d sustained in high school, playing soccer.” Frankie answered him slowly, careful not to allow her emotions to get the better of her. She needed to lay this out for him carefully so that she didn’t trip herself up and allow her actual involvement in the case to slip out. “Her roommate also assured me that Kristin had kicked that habit years ago and hadn’t taken any drugs since then. Kris had been clean for years,” Frankie emphasized.

The detective she was talking to nodded slowly and appeared to be listening. Frankie couldn’t escape the feeling that he was examining every single word that was coming out of her mouth—as well as studying her as if she were a slide mounted under a microscope.

“When did all this happen?” he finally asked, after a prolonged pause that admittedly made her uneasy.

He didn’t believe her, Frankie thought. Determined, she pushed on. “The roommate came back from a three-day weekend and found the victim, unresponsive, on the living room floor this morning. After trying to revive her for several minutes, the roommate began to panic, at which time she called me.”

Frankie noted the skeptical expression on O’Bannon’s face. “If you’re friends with this woman,” he asked, “why do you keep calling her the roommate?”

Frankie never missed a beat. “I’m just trying to keep the details simple for you. And, for the record, we’re not friends.” She corrected the detective. “We’re acquaintances. I already told you that.”

Luke pretended to glance down at his notes. “So you did.” He raised his eyes to meet her magnetic blue ones. “Where’s the body now?”

The body.

It was hard for her to think of Kristin that way. She had always been so full of life, so ready to always laugh. Kris had a very infectious laugh that left no one untouched.

“Detective?” Luke prodded when he thought the woman had drifted off.

Frankie roused herself and flushed for the momentary lapse on her part. “Sorry. I called the ME. He told me he’d be doing her autopsy right away, which, with any luck, means today.”

“You know the ME?” Luke asked her, curious.

“Some of them,” she answered, wondering if he was trying to trip her up. The department had three medical examiners, one of whom they tended to share with several of the other, smaller cities in the county.

“Well, you’ve covered all the bases,” Luke told her. “Tell you what, pending the lieutenant’s approval of all this, we’ll call your find victim number seven.”

Frankie frowned. “She has a name,” she told O’Bannon stiffly.

“They all have names,” he replied mildly. “What they no longer have are lives. Those were stolen from them and it’s up to us to make that up to them by catching the bastard who’s responsible for cutting those lives short.”

She couldn’t make up her mind whether he was being a crusader or a wiseguy. Either way, she nodded and quietly told him, “Sounds good to me.”

“Oh, there’s just one more thing,” Luke said as she began to walk out of the squad room. She had yet to clear this temporary move with her own lieutenant, wanting to make sure that she could convince O’Bannon to take on this case first.

Frankie braced herself and slowly turned back to face him. Deep in her soul, she felt she was going to regret coming to this man. She knew all about him. Lukkas Cavanaugh O’Bannon was oil and she was water and there was no way that they were ever going to find a way to mix.

But for Kristin’s sake, she would do her damnedest to try to work with this man until such time as the scum who was robbing all these young women of their lives could be found and put down.

Taking a deep breath, Frankie kept her expression unreadable as she said, “Yes?”

Luke’s lethal smile unfurled slowly. He knew the kind of effect it had on women. This one, though, seemed to be immune to it. She would definitely be a challenge, he thought. The idea spurred him on. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

Ignoring the smile that had been the undoing of more than a score of women—or so the legend went—Frankie kept her eyes on his. “I thought you knew everything,” she said crisply.

“Close,” Luke agreed, not rising to the bait she’d cast. “But in this case, close isn’t good enough. So, what is it?” he asked. “Your name,” Luke prodded when the brunette with the attitude didn’t volunteer the information immediately. “Unless you want me to refer to you as ‘Hey You’ while we’re working together,” he said, giving her a less than desirable option.

If she had her way, Frankie wouldn’t have wanted O’Bannon to refer to her as anything at all, but that wasn’t being reasonable. The man was smug and annoying from the get-go, but at bottom, she knew that her prickly attitude was because she was still devastated over her cousin’s death. Not only had she been close to Kristin, but Kristin was also the last family that she had. With her cousin murdered, she had no one left. Both her parents were gone, as were Kristin’s.

She was alone.

Stop it, damn it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That isn’t going to bring Kris back and it sure as hell isn’t going to help you solve her murder. Get a grip.

She saw that O’Bannon was still waiting for an answer. If they were going to work together, she had to attempt to be civil to the detective—no matter how annoying she found him.

“My name is Detective Francesca DeMarco,” Frankie informed him. “And, as I told you, I’m from Major Crimes.”

The major crime here, Luke thought, was that he had never noticed her before. The building wasn’t that big. He made up his mind to make up for lost time when the opportunity arose.

“The detective part was a given,” he acknowledged. “Francesca, huh?” Luke rolled the name over on his tongue as if he was tasting the first slice of a rich, homemade chocolate cream pie—his favorite. “Pretty,” he commented, and she couldn’t tell if he was referring to her name—or, given his reputation, to her. “You don’t seem like a Francesca.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“Just an observation,” he responded mildly. “Francesca belongs to a lady in some ivory tower. You look more like you’re a go-getter. A Frannie or a Fran or—”

She winced at both names, names she’d been taunted with as a child.

“Frankie,” she told him, unwilling to listen to a further litany of possible nicknames he could come up with carving up her formal name. “People call me Frankie.”

The moment she said it, bells went off in his head. He’d heard some of the detectives referring to a Frankie—except that he’d thought the name belonged to one of the guys. This, he thought, regarding her again, was not one of the guys.

“That wouldn’t have been my third guess,” Luke admitted glibly, and then he shrugged, “But if you like that name—”

“I like it better than Fran or Frannie,” she informed him coolly.

Luke nodded. The first rule of working with another detective, as far as he was concerned, was getting along with them, and if that meant calling an out-and-out knockout by the unlikely name of Frankie, then so be it. He wasn’t about to argue the point and create tension. It wasn’t worth it.

“You’re right. You don’t look like a Frannie. Okay, Frankie it is,” he told her agreeably, with a smile that definitely lit up his entire chiseled face.

Looking at him, Frankie experienced a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t help thinking that by asking to work on this case with O’Bannon, she had just voluntarily sold her soul to the devil.

Chapter 2

“Looks like you get to talk to the head guy himself after all,” Luke said to her the next moment.

Frankie looked at him, confused and not sure where he was going with this. “I thought you were the head guy.”

A tall, imposing man with straight blue-black hair gave the chair he was sitting in a swift push with his boot, sending it closer to Luke’s desk. Rick White Hawk, Luke’s partner, had been listening to the exchange in silence for several minutes now.

“Don’t flatter him. His head’s already too big to fit into the elevator car when it’s crowded,” he told the detective from the Major Crimes division.

Luke ignored his partner’s crack. “I was just telling Major Crimes here that the lieutenant walked in through the door,” he pointed out.

Frankie turned to see the man O’Bannon was referring to. Lt. Mike Handel, a tall, gaunt-looking man with a perpetual two days’ growth of beard was just entering the squad room. Because Frankie was five-one, everyone had a tendency to look tall to her.

Handel, a twenty-one-year veteran of the Aurora Police Department, looked neither to the left nor to the right as he crossed the room. He appeared focused on reaching his office, preferably without being engaged in conversation.

His scowl was meant to put people off and to guarantee swift passage across the room. To a great extent, it worked. But his ploy failed as O’Bannon rose to his feet.

“Lieutenant,” O’Bannon called out. “You got a minute?”

“No,” Handel answered curtly as he continued crossing to his office.

Not one to be brushed off, Luke told him, “You might want to hear this.”

Handel’s scowl looked as if it went clear down to the bone. He stopped, retraced the last five steps and glared at Luke as he retorted, “Fine,” then barked, “What?”

Luke gestured toward the rather petite detective who had approached him about another victim. “This is Detective DeMarco from Major Crimes,” he told his lieutenant by way of an introduction.

Handel bobbed his head in quick, dismissive acknowledgement. The scowl never lifted. “And?” he asked impatiently.

O’Bannon played out the line. “And she’s brought us something.”

Handel still seemed annoyed at being delayed. He glanced impatiently toward his office. “Like what?” he demanded. “Homemade cookies she baked?” Then, sparing the young woman under discussion a quick, appraising glance, he told her, “No offense meant.”

Frankie highly doubted that, but she needed to be part of this investigation, so, against her will she replied, “None taken. And I’m not bringing cookies, I’m bringing you another homicide.”

If possible, Handel’s scowl deepened, all but etched into his bones. “Just what I needed.” He glared at the woman. “Why is Major Crimes bringing me another homicide?”

“They’re not,” Frankie corrected. “I am. I believe that this victim was murdered by your serial killer.”

Handel looked at O’Bannon, seeking a contradiction. “Is this true?”

“I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet,” Luke answered, “but on the surface, it sounds like it might be one of his.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Handel asked. “Go! Check it out. And then get back to me.”

“You got it,” Luke said. He pulled his jacket off the back of his chair and shrugged into it. “White Hawk, you’re with me,” he said to the imposing man he’d been partnered with for the last three years.

Frankie blinked. It felt as if everything was suddenly whirling around her and she was being left behind. That wasn’t why she had come to them with the case, and if O’Bannon and his superior thought that, then they were sadly mistaken. She had no intention of being left behind.

“Lieutenant,” she called out to the man’s back as he was walking away. “There’s one more thing.”

Exasperation etched lines into Handel’s sallow complexion as he turned to her. “What?” He all but bit off the question.

“I come with the case,” she informed him in a no-nonsense voice.

It was obvious by the look on Handel’s face that this was not something he had expected to hear. He wasn’t accustomed to being given conditions. “How’s that, again?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that O’Bannon and his partner had stopped moving and were listening, as well. And they appeared to be amused.

They were probably curious to see if Handel was going to have her for lunch was her guess.

Not likely.

“Major Crimes wants me to follow through on this. I was the first responder on the scene,” she told the scowling lieutenant.

Frankie braced herself for an argument and she was ready to hold her own if it came to that. Instead, Handel waved her on her way.

“Sure, fine. The more the merrier. Knock yourself out,” he told the woman invading his squad room. “Whatever gets this case off my plate.”

Moving again and picking up his pace, Handel hurried across the now-short distance to his office. He quickly closed the door before anyone else had a chance to further annoy him.

“Nicely done,” Luke commented as he walked over to her side. “You do realize that we have to take you with us because you’re the one who knows where the body was found, right?” he asked her, clearly amused.

They were walking now. Frankie hurried to keep up as they entered the hallway. She had gotten so caught up in trying to convince the lieutenant to allow her to take part in the case, she’d forgotten about that small, practical matter.

“I know that,” she lied, her mind working fast. “But I thought Handel would appreciate being asked for permission.”

A glimmer of appreciation entered Luke’s green eyes. “So I take it that you’re not a newbie,” he said with an approving nod.

“No, I’m not.” Frankie answered him in no uncertain terms, insulted by the mere suggestion that she could be seen as a novice.

The elevator arrived and all three of them got in. They had the car to themselves. White Hawk took the opportunity to lean forward and whisper to her, “Don’t mind O’Bannon. He likes getting under people’s skin, but he’s not nearly as bad as he pretends to come off.” Extending his hand to her, he went on to introduce himself. “Rick White Hawk.”

“Nice to meet you, Detective White Hawk.” She shook his hand. “I’m—”

“Frankie DeMarco, yes, I heard,” White Hawk said, smiling at her.

“Okay, now that we’re all acquainted, let’s get back to the business at hand—checking out the crime scene and catching a serial killer—unless anyone has some objections,” Luke prodded just as they reached the ground floor.

“You’re the lead detective,” White Hawk told him agreeably.

Frankie suppressed the sigh that seemed to automatically rise to her lips. For the most part, she worked cases in Major Crimes on her own.

“What he said,” she murmured as agreeably as she could.

When they walked out of the rear of the building and headed for the parking lot, Frankie began to go in a different direction than the other two detectives.

Looking over his shoulder, Luke called to her, “Hey, DeMarco, where are you going?”

She assumed that the answer to that was self-explanatory. “To get my car.”

“Since we’re all going to the same place, why don’t we all go there in one car?” O’Bannon suggested.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was speaking to her as if he was addressing a child. Doing her best not to lose her temper, she said, “Okay, we’ll use my car since I’m the one who knows where we’re going.”

Luke gave this temporary addition to his team a tolerant look. “I’m assuming this isn’t some secret location where we’ll have to be blindfolded before we can go there.”

“Of course not.”

“Good,” Luke declared. “Then we’ll go in my car and you can give me directions,” he told her. “You do know how to give directions, right, DeMarco?”

Frankie gave the man a withering look. She might have to mind her Ps and Qs while talking to him, but he had no control over the thoughts going through her head.

“Yes. I’m giving you some right now,” she told O’Bannon.

White Hawk nearly choked, trying not to laugh out loud.

“Good thing I’m not a mind reader,” he responded. Hitting a button that opened all four of the car doors, he said, “Okay, let’s go.”

Frankie got in on the passenger side. “The crime scene investigators have already been there,” she told him.

Luke opened the driver’s side door and got in. “I kind of figured that out when you said that your victim was in autopsy,” he told her. “But I like looking around the crime scene for myself. Humor me,” he added.

“You’re the lead,” she replied tersely, just before giving him the address where her cousin’s body had been found.

Luke heard the less-than-happy note in her voice and assumed it referred to the fact that he had taken over the case.

“Any time you want to jump off the merry-go-round, go right ahead. You’re more than welcome to do so,” he told her. He glanced in his rearview mirror to see if White Hawk had gotten in and buckled up yet.

“Understood,” she told O’Bannon in the same tone of voice.

Having secured his seatbelt, White Hawk took a moment to lean forward in his seat. “Don’t worry. He’ll grow on you,” he promised the sexy detective.

“Maybe that’s why I’m worried,” she responded, then explained, “so does fungus.”

“Luckily, they’ve got medications for that,” O’Bannon told her as he adjusted his side mirrors before putting his key in the ignition.

Shifting ever so slightly in her seat, Frankie looked at the lead detective pointedly and said, “I sincerely hope so.”

White Hawk sighed quietly. It was obvious that he felt called upon to act as a referee in this verbal sparring match. He spoke up, trying to distract the new member of the team by asking her a simple question.

“How did you happen to catch this case? I missed that part.”

Frankie knew the other detective was just asking her that in order to try to keep the peace. But she found him rather easygoing and likeable, so she answered his question.

“I know the woman who was the victim’s roommate, Amanda Culpepper.” She recited the story that she had memorized for O’Bannon’s benefit—and in order to be allowed to work this case. “When Amanda found Kristin unconscious on the floor and couldn’t revive her, she panicked and called me.”

“Found her how?” White Hawk asked. “Did she wake up in the morning and walk in to find the victim just lying there like that?”

“No, Amanda had gone away for the weekend. She told me that she had gone to Las Vegas with her boyfriend and spent three full days there.”

As Frankie recited the details for what felt like the umpteenth time, she could literally feel O’Bannon listening to her every word despite the fact that she had already told him all of this. She had a feeling that the lead detective was paying such close attention to what she was saying because he expected her to trip herself up and confuse the details.

Frankie couldn’t help wondering if she had suddenly become a suspect by bringing her cousin’s murder to the department’s fair-haired boy. She found herself wishing that the detective in the backseat was the lead on this multiple murder case instead of O’Bannon.

White Hawk didn’t make her feel uneasy. O’Bannon did. She felt as if, despite his laidback manner, O’Bannon was scrutinizing every word out of her mouth and comparing them to every other word she’d already said.

“When did this happen?” White Hawk asked.

“I got the call early this morning.”

“So the crime scene’s not that fresh,” O’Bannon said, whether for her benefit or for his partner’s, she wasn’t sure. In either case, she did her best to take the remark in stride and not view it as a criticism that she’d been remiss in not bringing the matter to Homicide’s attention immediately.

It left her wondering if O’Bannon actually wanted the case and had just been yanking her chain earlier about her reasons for bringing the case to him.

“It was fresh when the CSI Unit arrived to go over it a couple of hours ago,” she replied coldly.

“We’ll talk to them after we have a look around,” O’Bannon said, and it was clear to Frankie that he was addressing his partner and not her.

Even so, she was determined to work with this man. It was the only way she would find Kristin’s killer.

Frankie nodded in response to what he had just said and murmured, “Fine.”

“Glad we have your permission,” Luke replied.

“Turn right at the corner,” she directed coldly.

He spared her a glance before doing as she had prompted. Luke was deliberately trying to rattle her, to get her to squirm and lose her cool. It was his way of seeing just what she was made of and who he was actually dealing with.

Had Francesca DeMarco been just another beautiful woman who crossed his path, his approach to her would have been entirely different. But he wasn’t trying to date her—that was on the back burner for now—he was attempting to find out just what sort of a person was trying to be part of his team, no matter how temporarily.

The team was only as good as its weakest link, and he needed to evaluate just what kind of detective DeMarco was.

He was fairly sure he could ascertain this from her record on the force. There were reports on file that could be accessed, if not by him, then by his cousin, Valri, who worked in the police department’s computer lab.

A tour of social media would get him additional personal information.

He doubted if DeMarco would believe him if he told her, but he was actually rooting for her.

Still, he had to be sure before he let her sign on for this. If she messed up the investigation for whatever reason, that would be on him, and his lieutenant would be the first one to say it, despite Handel’s blasé attitude about DeMarco’s joining the investigation.

“Where’s this roommate staying?” Luke asked out of the blue.

She knew why he was asking. Amanda couldn’t stay in her apartment until the yellow tape went down. “She’s crashing on a friend’s couch until the crime scene’s been cleared.”

“Yours?” Luke asked bluntly.

“Someone else’s,” she answered, bracing herself for a barrage of questions as to why she wasn’t taking in the victim’s roommate. She decided to jump ahead of him and answer the main question before it was asked. “Wouldn’t seem right if I had her staying at my place while I’m investigating her roommate’s murder. That would look like a conflict of interest.”

Silently he congratulated her for being one step ahead of this pantomime even as he asked, “Do you always play by the rules?”

Her eyes met his as she quietly told him, “That’s all we’ve got, are the rules.”

A hint of a smile curved his lips. “Huh. You didn’t answer my question, DeMarco.”

“Why are you badgering her, O’Bannon?” White Hawk asked his partner. “She’s on our team, remember?” he pointed out.

Rick White Hawk smiled his support at the petite brunette when she turned around in her seat to look at him.

Frankie returned his smile.

“Yeah, so she is,” was all Luke said in response to his partner’s observation.

He didn’t trust her, Frankie thought, looking at O’Bannon.

Well, she didn’t need O’Bannon to trust her. She just needed him to work with her and help her find her cousin’s killer. After that, they never had to see each other again.

As a matter of fact, she preferred it that way.

Chapter 3

The yellow crime tape was still fastened across the door of the apartment where Kristin’s body had been found. Frankie silently drew in a breath as she watched O’Bannon pull aside the tape that announced to the world at large that a crime had taken place here and that no headway had been made because the investigation was obviously still ongoing.

O’Bannon unlocked the door and pushed it open, then entered the apartment. White Hawk was right behind him, but to Frankie’s surprise, the tall detective stepped back and instead waved her in ahead of him.

“Ladies first,” White Hawk said.

A small hint of a smile fleetingly graced her lips as Frankie murmured, “Thank you,” just before walking into the apartment.

It felt as if she was moving in slow motion along the bottom of a lake filled with Jell-O. She’d been to her share of homicides when she’d worked as a detective in Los Angeles before transferring to Aurora, but everything seemed eerie and unreal to her within the apartment.

Doing her best to appear unaffected, Frankie slanted a glance toward the living room floor where she’d last seen her cousin lying facedown right in front of the entrance at the rear of the apartment.

Damn it, snap out of it and get a grip on yourself. You’re a detective working a case, not a cousin mourning the loss of the last of her family.

“Something wrong?” Luke asked her, his deep voice disrupting her thoughts.

Rousing herself, she shook off her mood and made eye contact with O’Bannon. She would have to watch herself around him.

“No, just reviewing the crime scene, that’s all,” she answered.

He’d been watching her face since they had walked in. Something was off, Luke thought. “Something look out of place to you?” Luke questioned.

Yes. Kris shouldn’t have been killed, here or anywhere else.

“No,” Frankie said out loud. “Everything is just the way I saw it when the EMTs arrived to try to revive Kristin.”

An alert look came into his eyes. “You said she was dead.”

“She was, but Amanda called 911 and requested an ambulance before I was sure that Kristin was already dead,” she told him. Why was he trying to trip her up? “The ME was called in right after that.”

“And who called for the CSI unit?” Luke asked.

Frankie couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being grilled, but she knew it was important to keep her cool, answering his questions. There was nothing to be gained by losing her temper and telling O’Bannon to back off. “I did,” she told him.

“And you remained here while they canvassed the apartment.” It was more of a statement on his part than a question.

“Yes.”

Luke nodded his head. All the while his eyes swept over the immediate area. “Very thorough of you.”

Despite everything, Frankie could feel her temper flaring. She struggled to keep it in check.

“It’s not my first rodeo, O’Bannon. You needn’t patronize me,” she told him.

“Sorry,” he told her, raising his hands. “I wasn’t aware that I was doing that.”

“Yes, you were.” Her eyes met his. If she was going to be tossed out, she might as well speak her mind and be dismissed for a reason. “I work in Major Crimes, not the neighborhood sandbox,” she told him. “I don’t deserve to be talked down to like some kind of wet-behind-the ears novice.”

She heard White Hawk laugh, something she assumed would further anger O’Bannon.

“She’s got a point, O’Bannon,” he told his partner when Luke shot him a reproving glance for laughing at the woman’s retort.

Rather than contest the words, or give them both a piece of his mind the way that Frankie expected, O’Bannon merely shrugged.

“Sorry,” he said to her. “I didn’t mean to insult you. Just trying to be thorough on my end.” He paused for a moment, then asked her, “Do you know which is the victim’s room?”

“The second one right off the bathroom. Your uncle’s unit has already gone over the entire apartment,” she pointed out again. Not to mention that she had, as well. Exactly what did he hope to find?

“I know,” Luke replied. “But it never hurts to have another set of eyes going over the apartment—or, in this case, a fourth set,” he said, recalling that his uncle usually took at least two other members of the unit with him to go over any crime scene he was investigating. Luke turned his attention toward his partner. “Why don’t you look around and see if you notice anything out of place. Anything that might help us with the case,” he emphasized.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked O’Bannon when he didn’t give her any instructions.

“The same,” he answered. “Unless you’d rather sit in the car,” he added. Seeing the insulted look Frankie shot him, he dug into his pocket and took out a set of rubber gloves. He held them out to her. “Here.”

“I have my own, thanks,” she replied, taking a set of clear plastic gloves from the inside pocket of her jacket.

Luke smiled. “Brownie points for the new kid on the block,” he said with approval. “Okay, get busy, people. We’ve still got another crime scene waiting for us after we deal with this one.”

“Another crime scene?” Frankie questioned.

“When you came in this morning, we’d just caught another murder. Body’s with the medical examiner,” he said matter-of-factly. “Your victim’s apartment was on our way so I decided to stop here first.”

This was staggering. “How many victims did you say that this guy has killed?” she asked.

“Seven,” Luke answered. “And you’re jumping to conclusions that the killer is a man.”

She looked at O’Bannon, puzzled. “Then the serial killer’s not a man?”

“Most likely it is. But what I’m saying is that, in this modern age, nothing’s a given anymore,” Luke informed her. “There was a time when no one believed that a woman could be capable of doing something so heinous as killing one person, much less enough people to qualify being regarded as a serial killer.

“But the times, they are a-changing and there have been a number of documented female serial killers. It doesn’t happen very often—but it does happen. So, bottom line, rule out no one because of their gender,” he advised. “Keep an open mind at all times.”

“Sorry, just a figure of speech,” Frankie told the lead detective.

Luke nodded, accepting her explanation. “I’ll consider this as part of your learning curve,” he replied. He began to head toward the victim’s bedroom only to realize that Frankie was going in the same direction. “Why don’t you take a look around your friend’s bedroom? Sorry,” he caught himself before she could correct him. “I mean your acquaintance’s bedroom. I got the victim’s bedroom,” he said pointedly. Turning to the other member of the team, he said, “White Hawk, you’ve got everything else.”

White Hawk sighed. “I figured as much,” the tall detective acknowledged.

“Then let’s get to it,” Luke instructed, walking into the victim’s bedroom.

It was small, compact and orderly. The victim had been a great deal neater than he was, Luke noted, thinking of his own living quarters.

He reviewed everything methodically. If Kristin Andrews had done any entertaining in this bedroom the night she was killed, there didn’t seem to be any evidence of that fact at first glance.

But if she had been murdered by the serial killer he was currently hunting down, Luke had already learned that the man was methodical, not sloppy.

If it was a man, he added silently with a slight ironic smile.

En route here, Luke had had his uncle send him a list of things that the CSI unit had taken from the apartment to examine for possible clues as to why Kristen been chosen by the killer. Scrolling through that list now on his smartphone, he found no indication that a cell phone or a computer of any sort—laptop or tower—had been found on the premises and taken to the lab.

Luke stared at the list and frowned. That didn’t seem right. In this day and age, everyone had electronic gadgets. They were all but hermetically sealed to them. Why weren’t there any in Kristin’s room?

His first guess was that this meant whoever had killed Kristin had made off with her cell phone and whatever laptop, tablet or other electronic device she used to surf the net and entrust with her personal data.

Still, he went through her closet and her bureau drawers, just in case he was wrong. After all, the killer got his kicks terminating the lives of young women, not making off with their electronic gadgets.

The killer also didn’t sexually attack his victims, which only added to the mystery. Just why were these women killed?

Coming up empty in his search, Luke decided to check one last place—under the victim’s mattress. Lifting it as far up as he could, he reached in and felt around along the entire perimeter of the box spring.

The tips of his fingers came in contact with something hard and smooth.

“Eureka,” he declared a little louder than he had intended.

The next moment, White Hawk peered into the bedroom. “What’s up? Did you just discover buoyancy?”

After putting down the mattress, he pulled out what he had found. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know, that Greek guy, Archimedes,” White Hawk said. “He yelled ‘Eureka’ when he realized that water caused his legs to be buoyant.”

Luke snorted. “You are one strange guy.”

“No,” White Hawk corrected, coming farther into the bedroom. “Unlike you, I read.”

Luke regarded the laptop he had uncovered. “If you ask me, White Hawk, you need to get out more. You definitely need a life.”

“I’ll tell Linda you said so,” White Hawk said, referring to his wife.

Drawn by the commotion, Frankie walked into her cousin’s bedroom, joining the other two detectives. A shiver went down her back. She did her best not to show it.

“Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?” she asked sarcastically. And then she saw the laptop O’Bannon was holding. Her heart froze for a moment. “You found something.”

Luke laughed dryly as he turned toward White Hawk. “Nothing gets past her.”

Could that possibly contain the identity of the person who had killed Kris? How had she missed that? She’d been in this room, looking for a clue. But, she recalled, Sean Cavanaugh had been with her, working the scene at the time.

“What is that?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“On second thought, maybe some things do get past her,” Luke couldn’t resist commenting.

Annoyed, Frankie asked, “Is that the victim’s laptop?”

Luke had noticed that she paled slightly when she first looked at the computer. What was up with that? Was this woman somehow involved in this latest homicide? He found that hard to believe, but there was no denying that her complexion resembled the hue of a melted marshmallow.

“I haven’t gotten on it yet, but considering where I found it, I’d say that’s a pretty good guess.” Luke turned his piercing green eyes to meet hers. “Is that a problem?”

She was careful not to blow out a breath or appear to be anything but blasé. “No, no problem,” Frankie lied. “Why should there be?”

To the best of her knowledge, Kris didn’t have any photographs of the two of them on her laptop. If her cousin did, then she’d find a way to explain it away, Frankie told herself.

Luke continued eying her. “I don’t know,” he answered. “You tell me. You’re the one who looks pale enough to have seven little men following you wherever you go.”

Frankie stared at him, confused.

“O’Bannon’s talking about Snow White,” the other detective explained. “That’s his clever way of telling you that you look ghostly pale.”

Her eyes momentarily shifted toward O’Bannon, then back to White Hawk. “Not all that good at communicating, is he?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I got my point across, didn’t I?” Luke asked cavalierly. And then the smile on his lips disappeared. “Seriously, is there anything on here you don’t want me to see?”

She lifted her shoulders and let them drop in an exaggerated shrug of indifference.

“I haven’t got the faintest idea what she might have had on her laptop,” Frankie told him, “so off the top of my head, I’d have to say that the answer to your question is no.”

“Good,” Luke pronounced—not that anything she could have said would have stopped him from putting the laptop into evidence. “Then I’ll hand this over to Valri and have her take a look at it after we get back from the second crime scene.”

The second crime scene. She’d forgotten about that. “You want me to come along to that?” Frankie asked as they walked out of the apartment.

Luke paused as he locked up the apartment again, then proceeded to replace the yellow crime scene tape across the door.

“Well, unless you want to walk back to the station on your own, yes, you’re invited to come along,” he told her as they walked back to his vehicle. He’d left it parked at the curb. “Why wouldn’t we want you to come with us?” he asked, curious to hear what her answer would be.

She had no solid answer for that. She’d assumed that he had brought her along only to work Kris’s crime scene, not anyone else’s.

“I thought you just took me along because I brought the crime to your attention,” she told him.

“I’ve decided to keep you on because of your keen insight,” Luke told her as he hit the key fob to open the car’s locks.

Frankie didn’t trust herself to answer the comment civilly. Instead, she looked at White Hawk. “Do you want to ride shotgun this time?”

The other detective laughed.

“You’ll find that O’Bannon is an acquired taste.”

She tried to find a graceful way out of the situation. “No, it’s just that I figured that I needed to ride up front before because I was giving O’Bannon directions. But now that he knows where he’s going, I thought maybe you’d want to trade seats.”

“That’s okay,” White Hawk demurred, opening the rear door and climbing into the backseat. “I’ve ridden shotgun with this guy for three years. You can keep him for today.”

“Shotgun for three years?” Frankie repeated, opening the passenger door and getting into the passenger seat. “Doesn’t he let you drive?”

White Hawk thought for a moment. “The one time he was wounded, he did. Although, as I recall, I had to bully him into that. He can be a real ornery son of a gun when he wants to be.”

Key in the ignition, Luke cleared his throat. “In case it escaped both of your keen detectives’ eyes, I’m right here,” he pointed out.

“I bet his disposition gets even worse when he’s been shot,” Frankie guessed, turning in her seat to look at White Hawk.

The other detective rolled his dark eyes. “You have no idea.”

“Still here,” Luke reminded them tersely. He started up the engine. “And if both of you don’t plan on walking to the next crime scene, I’d suggest tabling this little discussion right now.”

White Hawk smiled. “Sorry, O’Bannon, I keep forgetting how touchy you can get before your fourteenth cup of coffee.”

“Don’t give away all my secrets,” he told his partner with a straight face.

“No chance of that happening,” White Hawk said cheerfully. “That would take me longer than either one of us have left on this earth.”

Leaning back in her seat, Frankie continued listening to the two men bantering and exchanging quips. Very slowly, she found herself beginning to relax just a little.

Chapter 4

It was immediately obvious that the distraught-looking older woman who answered the front door had been crying. Holding on to the door almost for support, she appeared to be struggling to keep from falling apart.

Standing on the other side of the threshold, Luke politely asked, “Mrs. O’Keefe?”

“Yes?” the woman responded hoarsely.

Luke held up his credentials for the woman’s benefit. “I’m Detective O’Bannon. This is Detective DeMarco.” He nodded toward the woman on his left. “And that’s Detective White Hawk.”

Both Frankie and the other detective quietly displayed their IDs as well as their shields.

Mrs. O’Keefe’s red-rimmed eyes barely turned in their direction.

She addressed her words to Luke. “If you’re here to tell me about Ellen, I already know,” she told him, her voice breaking at the end of her sentence.

Frankie’s heart ached. She felt for the woman. More than that, she could easily relate to what Mrs. O’Keefe was going through. Without thinking, she stepped forward and took the grieving woman’s hands in hers.

“We’re very sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Frankie told her with genuine feeling. “Detectives O’Bannon, White Hawk and I are here to ask you a few questions so that we can find whoever did this to your daughter and make him pay for it.”

Mrs. O’Keefe pressed her lips together to suppress the sob that rose to her lips and threatened to burst out. When she spoke, her voice was hardly above a whisper.

“Please come in.”

Turning, the woman, bent with grief, led the way into her small, two-bedroom house.

Deferring to the lead detective, Frankie waited for Luke to follow the woman, but he surprised her by waving her in first.

“Not bad,” he mouthed to her as she passed him.

Frankie assumed he was referring to the fact that she had managed to get a sliver of the woman’s trust.

Mrs. O’Keefe brought them into her living room. Despite the fact that it was a little past noon, the room was shrouded in darkness. The house’s orientation kept the sun from coming in.

The victim’s mother turned on a lamp as an afterthought.

“Please sit,” she said, gesturing toward the sofa. And then, as if suddenly remembering the rules of etiquette, she asked, “Can I get any of you anything?”

“No, we’re fine, ma’am,” Luke assured her. There was a kind expression on his face as he asked, “Can you tell us about your daughter?”

Clutching a worn handkerchief, Mrs. O’Keefe knotted her long, thin fingers together in her lap. “Ellen was a wonderful girl. She was smart, kind, thoughtful. She was a kindergarten teacher, you know,” she told them with pride. “The children all loved her. She just graduated from college last year.” A small sigh escaped her lips. “She’d had a setback a while ago, but my daughter had finally gotten her life on track.”

“What do you mean by a setback?” Luke asked the woman gently.

Mrs. O’Keefe’s shoulders stiffened, as if she was bracing herself for an ordeal. “Ellen had an addiction problem, but she conquered that. It was all behind her,” she told them with finality. “Everything was fine. Everything was fine,” she repeated, her voice coming very close to cracking again.

Luke noticed the way DeMarco looked up, alert, when Ellen O’Keefe’s mother mentioned that the victim had been an addict.

Pulling herself together, Mrs. O’Keefe told them, “She was even beginning to date again.”

“Was that unusual for her?” Luke asked.

Mrs. O’Keefe offered them a small smile. “Ellen was very shy. She always had been. Getting addicted to painkillers had only added to her sense of being worthless. It made her feel that she had nothing to bring to a relationship. But getting her teaching degree and working with all those children changed all that.” Mrs. O’Keefe’s eyes shone briefly. And then she clutched the handkerchief she was holding. “I was so hopeful...”

“Would you happen to know the name of the person your daughter was dating?” Luke asked. He knew that this was too much of a break to hope for, but he still had to ask.

Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “Ellen wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid that she’d wind up jinxing it if she said his name out loud.”

Luke tried another approach. “Did your daughter happen to say if she met this man at school? Was he another teacher?”

Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know. Wait,” she said suddenly, as a memory returned to her. “I think she met him on one of those online dating services.”

These days, there was no end to dating sites, Luke thought. He had a friend who was extolling the benefits of online sites for anonymity. Luke preferred finding his dates the old-fashioned way—face-to-face.

“Would you mind if we took a look at Ellen’s computer?” White Hawk asked the woman.

Mrs. O’Keefe nodded numbly. “She had a laptop. Do what you want with it. It’s in her room,” she told the detective. “Ellen moved back here after rehab. She said living at home would help her keep from relapsing—and she couldn’t afford to rent a place of her own because she needed the money to finish up and get her college degree. She dropped out when she was taking drugs.” Mrs. O’Keefe’s eyes filled with tears. “How could anyone do something so horrible to her?” she asked all three of the people in her house.

Frankie was the one to step forward again. “I’m afraid that there are terrible people in the world that do unspeakable things that we can’t begin to understand. Is there anyone who we can call to come stay with you?” she asked.

The older woman took a shaky breath. “My sister said she would be here as soon as she could.”

“Does she live around here?” Luke asked. “We could send someone to bring her.”

Mrs. O’Keefe shook her head. “No, my sister wouldn’t like that. She’s very independent, but thank you,” she said, doing her best to smile. She placed a hand on Frankie’s arm. “When I found my little girl lying on the floor, there was a syringe in her arm. I don’t care what it looked like, or what your fancy medical examiner says he found in Ellen’s—Ellen’s autopsy.” Mrs. O’Keefe nearly choked on the word. It took her a moment to pull herself together so that she could continue. “My Ellen was clean. She was very proud of that fact. Proud that she had managed to kick her drug addiction,” Mrs. O’Keefe told them with the fierceness of a mother lion protecting her cub. “And she had,” the woman insisted. “I would bet my life on that.” Again, her eyes filled with tears that spilled out onto her cheeks.

White Hawk was about to tell the woman that it wasn’t uncommon for an addict to relapse. Drugs were far more available these days than they used to be. There was no end to temptation for a former addict.

Frankie could see by the look in White Hawk’s eyes that he was about to say something and she shook her head, mouthing don’t.

Out loud, she managed to waylay him by asking, “Got a minute, Detective White Hawk?”

Puzzled, he said, “Sure,” and followed Frankie outside. “What’s up?” he asked.

“I know your heart’s in the right place, White Hawk,” she told him, starting out diplomatically. “But that woman inside the house doesn’t need another dose of harsh reality. She’s just had way too much of it. If she believes that her daughter was drug free, let her believe it.”

White Hawk studied her for a long moment, then asked, “What if it’s not true?”

“What if it is?” Frankie countered in the same tone of voice.

He inclined his head, going along with Frankie for the time being. “Why don’t we hold off on any speculation until we get the lab results back?” White Hawk suggested philosophically.

“And maybe even longer than that,” Frankie tactfully suggested.

“You do know that you’re a softie, Detective DeMarco, right?” White Hawk asked her with a wide smile.

“Not really,” Frankie denied. She preferred to think of herself as being tough as nails. But in this instance, she wanted to go easy on Mrs. O’Keefe. The woman had been through enough. “But I just don’t see the advantage of robbing a mother of her last illusion about her daughter. If Ellen’s relapse helps to crack the case, then we’ll push forward with it. But until then, there’s no harm in letting Mrs. O’Keefe remember her daughter the way she wants to.”

“White Hawk’s right,” Luke said, coming out to join them. He had a laptop tucked under his arm. The victim’s mother had handed it over to him in the young woman’s bedroom. “You are a softie.”

She didn’t mind White Hawk calling her that. But hearing the words coming out of O’Bannon’s mouth just put her back up.

Frowning, she pointed toward what he was carrying. “Is that Ellen’s laptop?”

“It is,” he confirmed. Looking down at it for a moment, he smiled. “My guess is that Valri’s going to be very busy for the next couple of days,” he commented.

He was talking about Kris’s laptop, Frankie thought. She was uneasy about anyone poking around her cousin’s computer until she got a look at it herself.

“I’m pretty good with computers,” she told Luke. “Why don’t I take a crack at Kristin’s and you can bring the one you’re holding to your cousin? That way, the work’ll get done twice as fast.”

Luke looked at her for a long moment. She felt as if he could literally see every thought in her head.

“Any particular reason you’re volunteering to take that one instead of this one right here?” he asked, holding up Ellen’s laptop.

Frankie spread her hands in exaggerated innocence. “None whatsoever. The other one was just the first one that came to mind since it was initially my crime scene.”

“Don’t worry,” Luke told her. “Valri likes a challenge. She can handle both of them. Besides—” he unlocked all four doors of his vehicle and then popped the trunk “—she likes having people owe her.” He placed the second laptop in the trunk of his car beside the first one. Since they were made by different manufacturers, there was no chance of getting them mixed up.

His stomach was making rumbling noises in loud protest. A rueful smile curved his mouth. “Now, unless either one of you have any objections, I vote we stop for lunch before driving back to the station.” He looked at the other two for an answer.

“Hey, fine by me,” White Hawk said. “I’m always hungry.”

Both detectives turned to look at Frankie, waiting for her answer. She shrugged. “You’re the one with the car keys.”

“I guess then it’s settled,” Luke said. “Lunch it is.”

But as the other two detectives began opening their doors to get into the vehicle, Frankie held up her hand. “One minute, please,” she said, ignoring the impatient look on O’Bannon’s handsome face. “I just want to check on Mrs. O’Keefe one more time before we leave.”

“Why?” Luke asked, but she had already hurried back to the front door.

“She really does seem to be pretty compassionate,” White Hawk commented, watching the detective disappear into Mrs. O’Keefe’s house.

“Either that,” Luke replied thoughtfully, “or she relates to the woman’s grief.”

Curious, White Hawk asked his partner, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m not really sure yet,” Luke answered truthfully. “But you’ll be the first to know if something occurs to me.”

White Hawk snorted as he gave Luke a pointed look. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Inside the house, Frankie found Mrs. O’Keefe in the living room, exactly where they had left her. She handed the woman her card.

Accepting it, Mrs. O’Keefe gazed at her.

“It’s my card,” Frankie explained. Turning the card over for the woman, she pointed out, “That’s my cell phone number on the back. If you need anything—anything at all—give me a call. Any time,” Frankie emphasized. “Day or night.”

Holding the card in her hand, Mrs. O’Keefe made a dismissive motion. “Thank you, but I already told you, my sister’s coming to stay with me.”

“I know. But sometimes, you need someone to listen who isn’t family.” Frankie smiled sympathetically at the woman. “Who won’t bring up old flaws. And,” she added, “you can use that number in case you think of anything that might be useful to our investigation.”

Folding her hand over the card, Mrs. O’Keefe tucked it into her pocket.

Just as Frankie was about to say goodbye and leave, Mrs. O’Keefe took her hands in hers and held them fast. When Frankie looked at her quizzically, the woman said fiercely, “Promise me. Promise me you’ll catch the miserable bastard who did this to my little girl. I’m counting on you,” she said with feeling, then, looking into her eyes, the woman added with a knowing expression, “You understand.”

There was a bond between the two of them, she could feel it. Somehow, the woman knew. Frankie nodded her head.

“I promise, Mrs. O’Keefe,” she told her with sincerity.

Taking a breath, the woman released her hands. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The simple words continued to echo in her head as Frankie hurried back to the two men she’d left outside, standing by O’Bannon’s vehicle.

“Hey, everything okay?” Luke asked her when she rejoined them.

Frankie opened the rear passenger door and took the seat behind the front passenger one. “As okay as they can be for that poor woman,” she said evasively.

“No, I mean with you,” Luke said deliberately, getting in behind the car’s steering wheel. The fact that she had taken a seat in the back of the car wasn’t lost on him.

Was she afraid of being scrutinized? Or was there something more?

“Just dandy,” she told O’Bannon with a false cheerful note. The next second, she changed the subject. “You two decide where we’re going for lunch?”

Luke blew out a breath. For now, he let the other matter drop, even though he knew something was definitely bothering the newest member of the team. Instead, he went on to answer her question.

Sort of.

“Well, White Hawk here says he wants burgers. I like Thai food. We thought we’d leave it up to you,” Luke told her. “You can be the tiebreaker.”

“Well, I vote for pizza,” she told them.

“So much for a tiebreaker.” White Hawk laughed.

“Great, a stalemate,” Luke said with a huff. And then he shrugged, exhibiting what his uncle Andrew referred to as grace under fire.

“Okay, since you’re the newbie,” he told her, “we’ll let you pick the place. Pizza it is.”

He turned left at the next corner, heading toward a restaurant that, in his opinion, served the best pizza in the area.

“What did you have to say to Mrs. O’Keefe?” he asked casually.

“Nothing, really.” She met his eyes in the rearview mirror and knew that the man wasn’t about to let the matter go at that. “I just gave her my card and told her to call me in case she thought of anything she might have forgotten.” She debated adding the next part, then decided to do it in case O’Bannon thought she was holding something back. “And then she asked me to promise that we would catch the bastard responsible for her daughter’s murder.”

“And did you?” Luke asked.

She paused, anticipating a lecture. But she wasn’t about to lie, either. “Yes, I did. But I said that I promised. I didn’t include either one of you in the promise.”

“Want to hog all the glory yourself, is that it?” Luke deadpanned.

“No,” she protested. “I just didn’t think that you’d appreciate my making any promises in your name,” she told him.

“He’s just yanking your chain, DeMarco,” White Hawk told her. “And as for making promises, I’ve heard him say the same thing to the grieving relatives of other victims. It’s hard to walk away, indifferent, in the face of that kind of gut-wrenching grief. You did what you had to, newbie. It’s not just protect and serve,” he told her. “Sometimes that includes comfort, too. Consider it all part of the job description.”

“Is that what he believes?” she asked White Hawk, nodding at O’Bannon.

“Yeah,” the detective assured her. “Even if he doesn’t say it. Trust me,” he added.

“And me without my violin,” Luke murmured sarcastically.

Frankie merely shook her head. The sooner they found the killer, the sooner she’d be able to get back to her own department.

Chapter 5

“Hey,” Luke said suddenly, directing the question to the woman sitting directly behind him as a thought occurred to him. “You’re not one of those people who insist on having vegetables on their pizza instead of cheese, are you?”

The idea was abhorrent to her, but the tone of O’Bannon’s voice was challenging and she wasn’t one to just submissively allow a challenge to go unanswered. “And if I was?”

His answered surprised her. “Then we’d have to go someplace else, because the place I’m taking us to doesn’t serve that kind of pizza.”

Since he was being so nice about it, Frankie decided to let the matter drop rather than drag it out a little longer.

“Well, luckily for all of us,” she said, “I like my pizza the traditional way—lots of cheese, pepperoni and super-thin crust.”

“Wow,” Luke responded. “Finally something we can agree on.”

“Probably the only thing we can agree on,” she murmured under her breath. She didn’t think he heard her, but he did.

Luke stopped at the light and glanced over his shoulder at her for a moment. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find something else eventually.”

She had no idea why the way he looked at her—even though it was only for a split second—sent such a hot shiver zigzagging up her spin.

Almost in self defense, she told him, “I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”

She expected a sarcastic retort from O’Bannon. Instead, he made no response whatsoever—which wound up unsettling her even more.

The pizzeria he was taking them to was just around the corner on the next block. It was in the middle of what had once been a thriving strip mall but the stores on either side of Gino’s had changed hands several times and the stores on either side of those stores stood empty, with For Lease signs prominently displayed in their windows.

Frankie noticed that the sign in the window that they passed by first appeared dusty, a testimony that the property had been vacant for a while now. She wondered if people in the area were just losing interest in supporting their neighborhood stores, or if this was now an ongoing trend because people preferred doing their shopping online instead of in actual buildings of brick and mortar. She’d read that somewhere, and the thought of that happening made her sad. She could remember hanging out at the mall all day with Kristin.

Everything was changing, and not always in a good way.

It felt about ten degrees warmer inside Gino’s when they walked in. It was also dimmer. The sun was bright outside, but it seemed as if someone had flipped a switch the moment they came in and the front door closed behind them.

In contrast, the person behind the counter seemed to light up when he saw them. He also appeared to be standing just a little taller by the time O’Bannon approached him.

“Why don’t you two find a table?” Luke suggested to her and his partner.

Frankie scanned the small restaurant. Finding a table wasn’t going to be a problem. Every other table in the place appeared to be empty. Was it always like this or had they come in at a bad time?

“After you,” White Hawk told her.

“Is this place always this empty?” she asked White Hawk as she sat down at the closest table.

“You’ve never been here before?” Luke asked, joining them and taking a seat. “This place makes the best pizza in town. I thought since you liked pizza so much, you would have found this place yourself.”

Frankie noticed that he hadn’t answered her question, just asked one of his own, possibly to throw her off. She shrugged. “I live in the other direction,” she said simply. “There’re a couple of decent pizza parlors between the station and my place.”

“Pizza parlors,” Luke repeated, the corners of his mouth curving.

She had no idea why that would amuse him but she braced herself for some kind of a cutting comment. “That’s what I said,” she replied crisply.

His smile only seemed to widen. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

She wasn’t, but she wasn’t ready to admit anything until she knew why he was asking and what he would do with the information once he got it.

“And just what makes you say that?” she asked.

“They’re not called pizza parlors out here,” he told her. “That’s something people say back East. Are you from back East, DeMarco?” he asked, looking at her. “You don’t sound like you are.”

Frankie didn’t really feel like sharing any personal information with O’Bannon, no matter how harmless it was, but she knew that he wasn’t going to back off until she satisfied his curiosity.

One glance at White Hawk told her that she was right on that score.

“I was four when my family moved out here. My mother loved pizza and she called them pizza parlors. I guess I picked that up from her.” She was not about to elaborate any further on either of her parents. And when she asked, “Any more questions?” it sounded almost defensively waspish to her own ear.

“I’ll let you know when I think of them,” Luke told her mildly.

Frankie had no doubts that he would do exactly that, no matter what those questions involved. And she was just as determined not to answer them. The next moment, she saw him standing up next to his chair.

“Here comes our pizza,” Luke said, waving at the teenager in the stained half apron who had emerged from behind the counter. He was carrying a large, banged-up silver-colored pizza tray in his hands and had a lost look on his tanned face.

“What do I owe you?” she asked O’Bannon when the teenager placed the extra-large pizza on the table before them. She reached into her pocket to extract her wallet, but it turned out not to be necessary.

“Your undivided attention when I need some work done,” Luke replied.

Her eyes narrowed. He was playing games with her. “I meant for the pizza.”

Luke’s smile was wide and innocent—and didn’t fool her for a moment. “So did I.”

“Look—” Frankie tried again, not willing to be in anyone’s debt, least of all O’Bannon’s. “I asked for a pizza, you got the pizza, now I want to pay my share of the pizza—”

“Just accept it, DeMarco,” White Hawk advised, helping himself to a slice. “Nobody’s ever won an argument with this guy. You might as well not let your pizza get cold,” he told her. “Or your blood pressure go up.”

She thought of O’Bannon’s response when she asked what she owed him. She didn’t like owing someone something that sounded so vague, but she supposed she had no choice—at least, for now.

“I’ll pick up the next one,” she told O’Bannon.

She expected the lead detective to offer an argument of some sort over that, too, but all O’Bannon said was, “Okay.”

Frankie picked up a slice and began eating, not trusting herself to say anything further to the man. Having her mouth full was a way to curtail that.

“You’re right,” she grudgingly admitted several moments later. Much as she hated to do it, she had to give the man his due. “This is good pizza.”

“I’m always right,” Luke replied. And then, because of the look that she had just shot him, he added, “At least, usually.”

* * *

Less than forty-five minutes later, all three of them were pulling into the rear parking lot of the police station.

Once back in his parking space, Luke popped open his trunk and carefully removed the two laptops he had placed there. Each was securely wrapped within a large plastic envelope to preserve possible prints, although the odds of getting a set of useful ones were small.

“Are you sure I can’t help out by taking one of the laptops to work on?” she asked, giving it one last try. “The search’ll go twice as fast if each of us takes one laptop.”

“Not that Valri wouldn’t appreciate you volunteering,” Luke told her, “but she has a certain way of doing things.” Ways he knew that she didn’t want interfered with, he thought. In her own unassuming way, Valri was a tyrant when it came to operating her area of the computer lab. “And as for the search going twice as fast, you’ve never seen Valri work. That woman’s fingers fly over those keys almost faster than the speed of light—or, at least, it seems that way,” he said, deep admiration resonating in his voice as all three of them walked to the back entrance of the building.

“She’d appreciate hearing you say that once in a while, you know,” White Hawk told him.

Luke looked at him as if his partner was talking nonsense. “Valri knows how good I think she is. How good everyone thinks she is.”

Frankie laughed shortly. She agreed with White Hawk. “Knowing is not the same thing as hearing,” she told him. She couldn’t help thinking that O’Bannon was just being thick.

“Speaking from personal experience?” Luke asked her, his expression unreadable.

“As a human being, yes,” Frankie retorted, opening the door to the stairwell. “But, hey, you do whatever you want to.”

He was about to press for the elevator, but stopped as he looked at her. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“Well, since you don’t want me working on one of those laptops,” she reminded him, “I’m going up to the squad room.”

He’d figured that was where she was going, until he saw her opening the stairwell door. “Why are you taking the stairs?” he asked.

She assumed that the answer was self-explanatory. “That was a filling lunch. I thought I’d walk off a little of the pizza.”

If she was looking to burn off the calories, she needed to do a lot more than that. “It’s only five flights up to the homicide squad room, not fifty.”

Frankie shrugged. “Gotta start somewhere,” she told him philosophically.

He didn’t want to take a chance that she was up to something. “White Hawk, you go with her,” he told his partner.

Instead, White Hawk pressed the Up button for the elevator.

“Why?” he asked. “She’s not a suspect. What do you expect she’s going to do?”

“I don’t know her well enough to know what she’s capable of doing,” Luke told him. He looked pointedly at the stairwell.

White Hawk blew out a breath. “If I keel over from a heart attack, it’s on you,” he told his partner, walking over to the stairwell.

“I’ll deal with it,” Luke said.

As far as he was concerned, the man was in a hell of a lot better shape than most of the men currently in the precinct. White Hawk just liked being melodramatic.

Waiting until his partner was inside the stairwell, Luke took the elevator down to the basement to take his cousin the two laptops. In addition to sealing them, he had also labeled them.

He sincerely hoped that at least one of the laptops would yield some sort of information that would finally lead them to a break in the case. They needed to find out just who was responsible for killing all these young women.

Walking out of the elevator, Luke made one quick stop at the breakroom, then turned right instead of left. Left led to where his uncle worked in the crime scene investigations lab. Turning right took him to the computer lab where the chief of detectives’ daughter-in-law, Brenda, and his cousin Valri, as well as several other gifted people, worked their magic uncovering secrets that were embedded within the hard drives of completely innocent-looking computers.

Stopping before the glass-enclosed office, Luke knocked lightly on the door frame. Since the door was already open, he peered in.

“How’s my favorite person?” Luke asked cheerfully.

“Not here,” the petite blue-eyed blonde replied, never looking up from her monitor.

“Yes, you are,” Luke said. “You know that I mean you, Val.”

Valri went on working. “What I know is that you mean trouble every time you turn up, Luke. You’re just like your brother Christian.”

After setting down the laptops he’d brought in, Luke dramatically placed his hand over his heart. He was holding a covered container in his free hand that he’d gotten from the breakroom’s vending machine.

“You wound me, Valri,” he told her. “Chris and I are nothing alike.”

This time she looked up, even though she didn’t stop typing. “You’re right. He doesn’t try to sugarcoat things the way that you do.”

“That’s just because he’s not as charming as I am,” Luke said, pretending to defend himself. “I brought you a big container of your favorite tea. Chai—with that creamer you really like.” He set it down to her right.

Still, she told him, “Bribery is not going to get you anywhere.”

“It’s not bribery, Val,” he protested, wounded. “It’s thoughtfulness. Take a sip,” he urged. “It’s still warm.”

She looked at the container and then back at him. “You got this from the vending machine,” she accused.

He didn’t bother denying it. Instead, he argued, “But it’s still warm.”

Valri sighed. “You are incorrigible.” After removing the lid, she took a deep sip. “This is very good.” Still, she teased, “I pity the woman who’s going to wind up with you.”

“Never going to happen,” Luke told her. “I would never be able to find a woman who could come anywhere close to measuring up to you, Valri—even though we are cousins.”

Valri shook her head. “You lay it on any thicker and I’ll have to get a shovel to make my way to the door.” She sighed, giving him her full attention. “All right, Lukkas, what kind of a puzzle did you bring me this time?” she asked.

“I come bearing laptops,” he told her, indicating the two sealed envelopes he’d placed on her desk. “They belonged to two women who were recently murdered. In each case, the murderer made it look like it was a drug overdose.”

“But you think it wasn’t?”

“Questioning one victim’s mother and going by information from someone who knew the other woman—” for now, he was deliberately keeping DeMarco’s name out of it, although he did mean to get back to that “—they swear that both women had conquered their drug problems and were leading normal, productive lives.”

She made the logical leap. “You think the two cases are connected?” Valri asked him.

“I’m pretty sure, but that’s what I’m hoping you and your magical ways are going to find out and prove for me. And, just for the record, there aren’t two cases, there are seven.”

Valri eyed him. “Seven?”

He nodded. “Seven. All were dark-haired young women in their twenties, all were found dead from a drug overdose with a syringe either in their arm or lying near them. The scenes were all staged,” he said, telling his cousin what his gut had led him to believe.

“It could all just be a terrible coincidence,” Valri commented.

He gave her a patient, if somewhat patronizing, look. “And what was it that we all learned when we were growing up?”

She glanced at the container of chai tea on her desk. “Beware of good-looking men bearing gifts?”

“No,” he corrected. “There are no such things as coincidences.” Luke paused as he played back her words in his head. “You think I’m good-looking?” he asked, amused.

“In a motley sort of way,” Valri told him. “Now go,” she ordered. “Leave me to my work before I find a way to bury these laptops under a pile of paperwork,” Valri warned.

Luke was already out the door. “You’ll call if you find something?”

“I’ll call if I find something,” she told him. It was a given. “Now go!”

She found herself talking to empty space. Luke had left.

“I should have said that in the first place,” she murmured under her breath as she got back to work.

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