HIS ONLY JOB WAS TO PROTECT HER—NOT GET HER INTO BED

When his coinvestigator was attacked just moments after Detective Nick Fensom left the scene, he swore he’d never let her get hurt again. Thanks to their tense relationship, criminologist Annie Hermann wasn’t happy to have Nick as her newly appointed protector. And although Nick couldn’t blame her, being together 24/7 caused him to see Annie in a whole new light. Before long, he couldn’t stop picturing the beautiful brunette wrapped up in his arms—and in his sheets. But allowing unfamiliar feelings to get in the way of the job was completely unprofessional…especially once Annie discovered the evidence that could cost her her life.

“Twelve hours ago, a man nearly killed you. He knows where you live. Are you going to trust that he has no reason to come back to finish what he started?”

“If you stay here, we can’t… You have to promise—”

“You’ll know when I make a promise to you, Annie.”

Before she could guess his intent, his hand snaked out to cup the back of her neck. He stroked his thumb against the thumping beat of her pulse.

“I am keeping you safe whether you like it or not. You’re right. We are on this task force job together—so you do your brainy thing and I’ll do what I do so that you can get us whatever clues you can. I’m tired of this Rose Red bastard and his sick fan club having the upper hand on us. You will not be hurt again. Not while there’s breath in my body. Understood?”

Tactical Advantage

USA TODAY Bestselling Author

Julie Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those books she read growing up. When shyness and asthma kept her from becoming the action-adventure heroine she longed to be, Julie created stories in her head to keep herself entertained. Encouragement from her family to write down the feelings and ideas she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where this teacher serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Julie believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

Born and raised in Missouri, this award-winning author now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and an assortment of spoiled pets. To contact Julie or to learn more about her books, write to P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162 or check out her website and monthly newsletter at www.juliemiller.org.

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Nick Fensom—A KCPD detective with a protective streak that fills every inch of his broad shoulders. He’s as baffled by the eccentricities of the brainy Annie Hermann as he is by his attraction to her soulful eyes and curly hair. But what’s a man to do when a killer targets the woman he has to work with? He becomes her round-the-clock protector—whether she likes it or not.

Annie Hermann—The quirky criminologist understands science and lab samples better than she understands most people, and has grown used to a lonely existence. When she’s attacked while processing the Rose Red Rapist’s latest crime scene, it’s Nick Fensom who charges to her rescue. But with the two of them sharing a history of getting along like oil and water, can she trust her life—or her heart—to Nick?

Roy Carvello—Annie’s neighbor takes his job very seriously.

George Madigan—Nick’s uncle is the deputy commissioner of KCPD.

Nell Fensom—Nick’s youngest sister.

Jordan Garza—Nell’s bad-news boyfriend.

Adam Matuszak—Annie’s ex-fiancé didn’t think she’d fit in with the life he wanted.

Gobel and Ramirez—What happened to the two cops on duty that night?

Raj Kapoor—A fellow criminologist from the crime lab.

The Rose Red Rapist—His attacks on the women of Kansas City are growing more frequent—and more violent.

The Cleaner—The Rose Red Rapist’s accomplice. Psycho fan? Or key to breaking the task force’s investigation wide-open?

With thanks to my editor, Allison Lyons.

Some books are harder to write than others.

Your patience, insight and support make a difference.

And the Italian food was yummy!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Extract

Prologue

The screech of brakes clawing at the frosty pavement set the driver’s teeth on edge as the van up ahead careened around the corner and jerked to a stop near the alleyway by the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop. “Of all the stupid...”

Rolling to a quieter, gentler stop half a block away, the curious driver following the van turned off the headlights and shifted the car into Park. Hugging long arms around the steering wheel, the driver leaned forward to watch the van’s door open and see the reckless daredevil climb out. Ethereal snowflakes drifted from the low-hanging sky, turning the illumination from the streetlamps translucent, and making it difficult to pinpoint an exact height for the man, or even determine the color of clothing he wore beyond something dark. But one could make out broad shoulders as he hunched them against the wintry air and looked up and down the street.

The one who watched sank back into the shadows of the car as the man’s gaze swept past. His face was obscured by a stocking mask and the puffy clouds of his warm breath in the cold night air. Apparently satisfied that the snow, the holiday and the late hour had chased most of Kansas City’s residents inside for the night, he moved to the back of the van and pulled open the double doors.

A rush of adrenaline quickened the hidden watcher’s pulse as the mystery man reached inside to pull out a long, cigar-shaped package draped in a blanket or tarp. Catching a breath and holding it, the one who watched without making a peep could see he was clearly up to no good.

He dragged the bulky cargo out of the van and bent his knees to toss it over his shoulder like a duffel bag. After another visual sweep along the sidewalk and street, he carried the rolled-up delivery into the alleyway where he dumped it into a pile of trash bags.

The watcher leaned forward again when he pulled away the covering with all the finesse of a magician revealing his latest illusion. Something tumbled out of the cover and rolled behind the bags, out of sight. Was that...a body?

The watcher gasped.

The pulse was racing now, thundering inside the watcher’s ears. Gloved fingers clenched again and again, tighter and tighter, around the steering wheel.

The man wadded up the cover in his arms before unzipping the front of his coat. The spare light from the street barely reached into the alley, so one couldn’t be quite sure of the subtle movements, but it seemed he was pulling something out of his coat.

Whatever it might be was small and slender, scarcely discernible in the dim light. He placed the object behind the trash bags, on top of the body. Then he straightened, pulling another object from his coat. He bent forward, backing out of the alley. He held a small windshield brush in his hand and was dusting off the sidewalk, wiping away his footprints and any sign that he had been there at all.

He cleaned up after himself, retreating until he reached the van. The watcher waited for the man to toss the brush and the cover into the back, then quietly shut the doors before hurrying around to climb in behind the wheel and drive away.

A few numbers off the van’s license plate were visible through the falling snow. But there was scarcely enough time to write anything down as it turned at the stoplight on the next corner and sped away into the night.

Once the street was quiet again, once the watcher was certain it was safe to move, a cell phone appeared, in case someone needed help. It was clutched tightly in hand as the watcher slowly opened the door. This might not be the smartest thing the watcher had done, but it was by far the bravest.

The winter wind was damp and bitter, biting through wool caps and exposed skin. Big, fluffy flakes of snow clung to the watcher’s eyelashes and had to be blinked away. The watcher looked up and down the street, just as the man had done. This particular block was deserted tonight. The interior of every storefront, café and coffee shop was dark. Although, with a tilt of the head, one could see the lights in apartment windows high above, where several end-of-the-year parties or lonely vigils must be happening.

A keening moan rose from the alleyway, snapping the watcher’s attention back to the mysterious disposal of trash the curious driver had just witnessed. It was a body. Steeling both shoulders and resolve, the watcher hurried across the street.

“Hello?”

A woman staggered out of the alley, clinging to the brick wall for support. Her mouth was bruised and swollen, her lips scrubbed pink. Her hair was a snarled mess, her eyes were glazed. She clasped something sticklike in her fist. “Help me. Please help.”

Her words slurred together as if she was high on some drug. When she reached out, the injured woman tripped over her spiky heels and began to fall. But the person who’d followed the van snapped out of shocked immobility and hurried forward to catch her.

“Easy there. Are you all right?” The woman stumbled, knocking the watcher back a step, as well. Hugging arms around the woman to steady her, the would-be rescuer turned her toward the light from the closest streetlamp. There was another cut in the woman’s scalp and a puffy red mark beneath one eye. She’d clearly put up a struggle with someone. “I saw that van speeding away. What happened?”

The woman’s coat had been buttoned crookedly over her dress. A party dress. Had she been hurt on her way to one of those parties in one of the newly remodeled loft apartments upstairs?

“I’ve been raped. That man...” Now she could see the slender object clutched in the woman’s hand. It was the stem of a blood-red rose. “Oh, my God.”

She tossed the flower into the snow and turned away to throw up into the bags of trash from which she’d just crawled.

“Was it the Rose Red Rapist?” the driver from the car asked.

The terror the serial rapist had struck into the minds and spirits of women across the city was evident in the injured woman’s wild eyes as she wiped her lips on the sleeve of her coat. “I was on my way to a friend’s party...above the florist shop there. They must be so worried. He hit me from behind and...I thought I was being mugged. I’ve been to one of those women’s self-defense courses at KCPD and I...” Tears welled in her eyes, and she pushed her fingers into her hair to brush the scattered tendrils off her face. That’s when the driver from the car saw the scrapes on the victim’s knuckles from where she’d tried to fight off her attacker. But the wounds had been doctored. In fact, the woman’s hands and fingernails had been scrubbed clean. “What did he do to me?” The battered woman saw her sterilized hands and sobbed. “Will you help me?”

“Of course.” The driver who’d followed the van wound a supportive arm around the shaken victim to help her walk.

“Are you a cop?”

The watcher guided her back into the alley, farther in than the bags of trash. “Did you see his face?”

The woman’s blank eyes suddenly focused. “Yes. I grabbed his mask. That’s when he hit me again and I didn’t remember anything until I came back here.” She grabbed hold of her rescuer and begged. “I need to call 9-1-1. Or there’s a bar near here—The Shamrock—but you probably know that.”

“Yes. There’s a shortcut through here.”

“If we turn left...or is it right... Where’s my purse? My phone?” She rubbed at the pain that must be throbbing through her temple. The light from the street was fading. The falling snowflakes were barely visible now in the shadows. “It’s so hard to think... Wait.” She tried to stop and pull away. The watcher from the car let her. The watcher had found what was needed and stooped to pick it up. “What did you say? You’re not a cop?”

“I said I’m here to help.” The woman’s terrified gaze dropped to the brick in the watcher’s hand, understanding coming far too late. “Just not you.”

The watcher swung before the woman could scream, and kept swinging until she would never scream again.

Chapter One

“Happy New Year!”

The shouts and whistles and horn blasts from the apartment across the hall drowned out the television program KCPD criminologist Annie Hermann was watching.

As the party from her neighbor’s gathering cranked up several more decibels, she twirled her finger in a sarcastic whoop-dee-do and watched the lighted ball drop above Times Square. The music leading up to the countdown to the New Year had been entertaining enough, and the pomp and pageantry half a country away had always been a celebration she’d like to see in person one day. But not on her own. And right now, on her own seemed like the only option available.

Nothing said “Here’s to the promise of a new year” like a twenty-eight-year-old woman sitting at home by herself watching television with her cats while the rest of Kansas City—while the rest of the world—partied together.

She scratched behind the velvety ears of the Siamese cat nestled in her lap. Her gaze settled on the bare space on the third finger of her left hand. Had it already been two years since the New Year’s Eve when Adam had proposed to her? That had been a celebration for the ages. Then she’d spent last year’s holiday crying her eyes out because Adam had dumped her. He’d needed to move on, he said—to a new job in a private law firm instead of the public defender’s office, to a new life that was more practical and less idealistic than the one they’d envisioned together. He’d claimed he was doing her a favor by leaving her and not forcing her to change into some sort of party-planning, connection-making trophy wife who could be a helpmate for his new ambitions.

Some favor. So what if ending the engagement wasn’t her fault? Dumped was dumped.

Feverish tears burned in the corners of her eyes. But she suspected they were more about the sting on her ego than any lingering heartbreak at this point. Or, perhaps, she was indulging in a little pity party because she’d grown far too used to being alone on holidays like this one. And even being part of a mismatch like she and Adam had been was better than a solo celebration of these landmark events.

She stroked the Siamese’s warm, seal-brown ears again. At least cats stayed.

“Happy New Year, Reitzie.” Blinking away her tears, Annie tucked a curly tendril of chin-length hair that was equally dark behind her own ear and called out through her empty apartment. “Happy New Year to you, too, G.B.” But there was no answering meow or rustle of movement. She petted the cat in her lap again and let her gaze wander to all of G.B.’s usual hangouts—the snow boots by the front door, behind the drapes in the second-story bay window, on top of the armoire that housed the TV. “So where is your brother hiding this time?”

Her visual search stopped when her gaze reached the fireplace mantel. Annie smiled. She had no excuse for crying tonight. The framed photograph of a man, a woman and a dark-haired little girl from a Royals baseball game reminded her of happier celebrations from her childhood. Her parents’ image smiled back at her. Both of them were gone now, and their time together had been far too short. But it had been the grandest, most loving adventure to be Steve and Amaryllis Hermann’s child for eighteen years. “Happy New Year, Mom and Dad.”

So maybe she had no family, no fiancé, no date. She had two rescue pets and wonderful memories. She had friends from work and in the neighborhood. Heck, she’d had an invitation to Roy Carvello’s party across the hall if she’d really been interested. It wasn’t as though she was truly alone.

That was the lie she told herself every time this feeling of isolation from the rest of the world pricked at her spirit.

The rapid gunfire of illegal firecrackers exploding in the courtyard area below her window startled the cat sitting in her lap, spilling both the bowl of popcorn and the glass of wine she’d just poured before she could catch either one.

“Reitzie! Oh, man.”

A flurry of shouts and applause followed quickly after as Annie jumped to her feet to right the goblet and dash to the kitchen to grab a handful of paper towels. Like she had time to feel sorry for herself.

While the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” filtered up from the courtyard, a door thumped open across the hall. Annie dropped to her knees, mopping up the spilled drink from the hardwood floor and area rug to the sounds of laughter and mumbled words. The breathy smacks of sound could mean only that someone was out there kissing. Then there was a soft crash against her door that made the pictures on the mantel rattle before the giggling and laughter and smacking noises retreated.

Correction. Someone was out there making out.

“Party on, dude.” Annie lifted her glass in a wry toast and drank the last swallow of merlot before pushing to her feet and carrying the goblet and the wet paper towels to the kitchen sink.

Okay, so maybe she was absolutely and utterly alone on New Year’s Eve. But she took heart in knowing it was

better than being with the wrong person. She might still be with Adam, fighting to make something that wasn’t meant to be work. He’d still be trying to fix her and she’d still be coming up short if they’d gone ahead with their marriage plans. So what if she was a little eccentric, a little unsuitable for his well-connected family? Her summa cum laudes and her fellowships had gotten their attention, but ultimately, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough. Her lack of a pedigreed reputation and her desire to work for the crime lab instead of a revered research facility had trumped love. Adam Matuszak had left her.

Just like every other boyfriend of any duration had left her. Just as her parents had left. She was alone. She was really, truly, freaking, horribly—

The chirping ring of her telephone from the kitchen wall thankfully interrupted the negative spiral of her thoughts. Holidays were always the worst for her. Three-hundred-fifty-some-odd days of the year she coped just fine on her own. But on Independence Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s, she longed to be a part of something—a part of someone else’s life without feeling like a charity case or an imposition.

She tossed the wadded-up towels in the trash beneath the sink and picked up the portable phone from its wall-mounted cradle and answering machine.

Recognizing the number of the KCPD task force commander she worked for, Annie took a deep breath to clear her thoughts and tamp down on the nervous spark of anticipation that made her stand up as straight and tall as five feet two inches of height allowed. She inhaled a second time before pushing the talk button and answering. “Happy New Year, Detective Montgomery.”

“What? Oh, right. Happy New Year.” The veteran detective offered the greeting without altering his no-nonsense tone. “Am I catching you in the middle of a big party?”

The amorous couple bumped against her door again. A quick glance across her quiet apartment revealed one cat creeping out from his hiding place to sample the spilled popcorn, and the other staring daggers at her as though she’d been the one to light those firecrackers outside. Some party.

“No, sir. I’m...enjoying a quiet evening at home.” She shooed G.B. away from the free food and stooped down to toss the kernels back into the bowl. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, a favor.”

Annie checked the big-faced watch on her wrist. At 12:03 a.m. on New Year’s Day?

That spark of anticipation fired through her blood again with a sense of purpose this time, chasing away her nerves. Something bad had happened. Something that made her regret her little pity party. The only favors a senior detective would ask of her would involve her science and someone else’s tragedy.

Annie left the popcorn where it had fallen and hurried back to her messenger-style purse on the counter to retrieve her case notebook. She flipped open the pink paisley flap and dug through the catch-all of contents, seeking an elusive pen. “What is it, sir?”

“I know most of the crime lab has the holiday off, but I have a crime scene I need processed ASAP—before the weather gets any worse and destroys what little evidence we might find.”

Annie’s purse was upside down, the contents tumbling across the quartz countertop when the import of what he was asking registered. “There’s been another rape?”

Detective Spencer Montgomery led a group of investigators, public-safety specialists, criminal profilers and uniformed officers in a task force dedicated to solving a string of violent abductions and sexual assaults that had been terrorizing the professional women of Kansas City for several months now. Priority one for the team was to identify and apprehend the unknown subject, or unsub.

“Yes,” Spencer Montgomery answered. “Partygoers taking a shortcut through the alley over by the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop found her in the snow.” The wind created static over the connection, giving her a better picture of how the elements were deteriorating outside. But the detective’s grim pronouncement came through loud and clear. “It’s our man. The Rose Red Rapist has struck again.”

Annie was the CSI from the crime lab assigned to the elite task force. Although she still did work on other cases, the bulk of her time in the lab was now dedicated to this investigation. She grabbed her boots from beneath the coatrack beside the front door and pulled them on over her jeans.

With a renewed sense of urgency that drove away any lingering mope to her attitude, Annie snatched a pen from the pocket of her coat and jotted down the particulars with one hand while she zipped up her boots with the other. “What hospital did they take her to? I’ve got a spare kit in my car. I can leave right now and process her.”

The ominous crackle of wind stilled her frantic multitasking. “We’re taking her to the morgue, Annie.”

Her phone tumbled from between her jaw and shoulder. She caught it and set it firmly against her ear. “He’s a rapist, not a killer. We determined his last victim had been killed by a jealous boyfriend, not our unsub. Are you sure it’s the same guy?”

“The rose I’m looking at says yes.”

Annie scooted the cats aside and sank down into her chair. She wasn’t sure if she was feeling shock or sorrow or frustration that after three different attacks, they were no closer to being able to identify the rapist than they’d been eight months ago. They’d figured out what type of woman he preyed on. They knew the neighborhood where the Rose Red Rapist chose those women. They knew he abducted them from one location and assaulted them in another, and that he sterilized the victims afterward to remove any trace of DNA. But thus far, the man himself had proved untraceable. “It’s bad enough that he’s hurting those women, but now he’s killing them?”

“Looks that way.” She heard the slam of a car door and the windy static on the line suddenly cleared. She didn’t have to be a scientist to deduce that the detective had gotten inside his vehicle. “I’m calling all the task force members who are still in town for the holidays. Can you come?”

“Of course.” Annie was on her feet again, crossing to the kitchen and tossing everything back into her purse. Work was one place where the loneliness didn’t get to her—probably because her science demanded facts, not intuition. Plus, most of the cold, hard truths she dealt with required her to be able to turn off her emotions, whether they stemmed from her lack of a personal life or her empathy for the victims she processed. “I’ll be right there.”

“I’m leaving a couple of uniformed officers here with a tarp,” Detective Montgomery went on. “I’m going to follow the body to the morgue to see if I can get a preliminary report from the M.E.’s office.”

Annie hooked the flap of her bag shut and carried it to the coatrack beside her door. The giggles and smooches from the couple on the landing had faded to inconsequential white noise. Her focus now was solely on the task at hand. “Have the M.E. check for trace as soon as possible and send it upstairs to my office at the lab. The cold air should preserve anything that’s on the victim, but once she gets inside and the snow on her starts to melt, the water could wash away or compromise anything useful.”

“Will do. I’ll send Nick over to the crime scene with you until I can get back.”

“Nick?” The scarf she was wrapping around her neck suddenly strangled like a vise. She hoped her mental groan hadn’t been audible. “Nick Fensom?”

Detective Montgomery’s partner and fellow task force member, Nick Fensom, was the sour to Annie’s sweet, the oil to her water, the four-wheel-drive Jeep in her energy-efficient green car of a world. Nick Fensom got under her skin like no other man since Adam had—and not necessarily in a good way.

He thought he was funny. He teased, he taunted, he spoke his mind the way most people breathed air—without thinking. And even after working with him on the task force for several months now, Annie still had no clue how to tell when the man was being serious and when he was making a joke. Either way, for some reason, it usually felt like the laugh was on her.

She knew his dark brown hair, deep blue eyes and what was probably supposed to be streetwise charm captivated some women. But she didn’t see it. He was probably compensating for his relatively short height—maybe five-nine if he was lucky. Okay, so she had no room to fault him there; he still towered over her petite height.

But Annie felt no empathy. She clung to whatever predictability and balance she could hold on to in her life, or else she’d sink into those lost little funks like the one she’d been in at the stroke of midnight. She didn’t understand Nick Fensom. She had to be on guard against the chaos he brought to her world. And that made him more of a distraction than a teammate, even if they did both work for KCPD and the task force.

“Is there a problem, Annie?” Detective Montgomery reminded her that she’d been silent for too long.

“Um, no.” Not nearly as snappy a comeback as Nick Fensom would have come up with. She could do better. She would not let the man get to her, especially when he wasn’t even here. “I can manage the scene by myself, sir. You don’t need to bother anyone else from the task force. I’m sure Detective Fensom is out on a date tonight.”

“He won’t be,” her commander assured her, much to Annie’s chagrin. “Holidays mean family for Nick. Besides, I need as many good eyes here as possible. The snow is coming down harder, and my crime scene is disappearing as we speak.”

Fine. For the investigation, for Detective Montgomery and the sake of tonight’s unfortunate victim, she’d find a way to make spending time with the irritating, muscles-for-brains detective work.

Bracing herself for the battle of wits and wills where she never quite felt like she was winning, Annie plucked the royal blue stocking cap from her coat pocket and pulled it on over her head. “I’m on my way. I’ll meet Detective Fensom there.”

Annie had hung up the phone and bundled up in everything but her gloves when the couple in the hallway crashed against her door again. Clearly they were drunk and having a marvelous time getting intimately acquainted. But she had a crime scene to get to. She held her breath and turned the knob, praying she wouldn’t see anything too intimate.

As soon as she peeked out, music and conversation blasted her from the open apartment across the landing. Annie shook her head and stepped out, locking her door behind her. “What are you doing, Roy?”

Yes, there were some buttons undone, and the blonde woman’s long straight hair was definitely mussed. But her neighbor, Roy Carvello, and his girlfriend du jour had already imbibed too much alcohol to have much success with any personal fireworks tonight.

“Annie!” Roy draped one arm around the blonde and pushed himself upright against the wall with the other. “Happy New Year!”

He slurred the words and stumbled forward, bringing the tall blonde with him. Annie braced one foot behind her and caught him by the shoulders, pushing them both back against the wall. “Easy there, big guy. I don’t want either of you tumbling down the stairs.”

“You’re so nice.” Roy’s stale beer breath curled the hairs in Annie’s nose. He clamped a big hand around her arm and hugged the other woman closer. “S’isn’t she nice, Bets-shy?”

Extricating herself from the awkward embrace, Annie smiled up at the drunken couple. “I don’t want to see you behind the wheel of a car tonight, okay?” She included the taller blonde in the friendly warning. “You either, Betsy.”

“Un-uh,” the blonde promised, crossing her finger over the swell of a voluptuous breast.

“’Kay. Happy New Year.” Repeating himself, Roy leaned down and planted a stale kiss on Annie’s mouth.

Startled, Annie pushed him firmly away. “Oh, gee. You’ve still got some of those left to go around, hmm?”

“Hey,” Betsy protested. “I thought those lips were for me.”

“They are, baby.” When he turned to capture the other woman’s pouty mouth in a kiss, Annie used the directional momentum to guide them back across the landing. But her husky neighbor planted his feet in the open doorway, showing an unexpected bit of focus in his bleary eyes when he looked down at her. “Annie’s my friend. My good friend.” He flipped up the collar of her coat, tending to her as though he cared. “You headin’ out to a party? I wondered why you didn’t show up at mine.”

Possibly because drunk and loud weren’t her favorite things? Or maybe because the first Carvello party she’d gone to had ended up with Roy putting the same moves on her that he was putting on Blondie tonight? Only Annie had been too sober and not nearly as interested in exploring the possibilities as Betsy apparently was.

But he’d proven too nice a neighbor—when he wasn’t in party mode—for Annie to hurt his feelings. “Yeah, Roy. I’ve got someone waiting for me.” So maybe that someone was a detective she wasn’t really looking forward to seeing. But at least she wasn’t lying. “Be safe.” She nudged them both into Roy’s apartment. She even had a smile for Betsy. “You, too. Remember, no driving.”

“Not to worry,” Roy promised. “We’ll be spending the night right here. Together.”

“Oooh, Roy,” the woman cooed, sliding her fingers into Roy’s dusty-brown hair and pulling him into his apartment.

Feeling grossly uncomfortable, unwelcome and unnecessary as the giggles and kissing resumed, Annie shut the door and hurried down the stairs. After looping the pink strap of her bag over her neck and shoulder, she pushed open the outside door and the shock of the wintry night air nearly stole the breath from her lungs. She pulled on her gloves and waved to the neighbors who were now writing their names in the air with sparklers.

Hunching her shoulders against the bracing wind, she set out across the snow-dusted courtyard toward the fenced-in lot across the street where her car was parked.

She was alone and dateless on yet another holiday, babysitting the grown man next door. Now she could look forward to spending the next few hours with her nemesis, Nick Fensom, and a crime scene where a woman had been brutalized and killed, all while freezing her fingers and toes.

Happy New Year, indeed.

* * *

“HEY, GUYS—KEEP IT DOWN, okay?” Nick Fensom apologized for the loud piano music and fourth verse of “Auld Lang Syne” coming from the living room where his family was toasting the New Year with sparkling grape juice and prosecco. He moved down the hallway, farther away from the three generations of Fensoms and extended family who had gathered at his parents’ home to celebrate. “Yeah, Spencer, I know the address. Hell of a way for that woman’s family to ring in the new year.”

“Which is exactly why I’m not letting time or the weather get in the way of finding answers. I’m tired of that bastard staying one step ahead of us.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Spence.” The piano music stopped and the boisterous conversation among his father’s parents, his mom and dad, his mother’s younger brother and his own five younger brothers and sisters faded into the dining room and kitchen. Nick opened the coat closet off the foyer and pulled down the metal box where he stored his badge and sidearm whenever he visited the house where he’d grown up. “Let me say some goodbyes here and explain the situation, and I’ll be there in twenty, thirty minutes, tops.”

“Sorry to tear you away.” Although their looks and personalities were as different as night and day, Nick and his partner for three years, Spencer Montgomery, had grown as close as Nick was to either of his brothers. “Did your grandmother make her tiramisu cake?”

Nick chuckled at the rare wistful softening in Spencer’s voice. “Stop by the house later today and I’ll make sure Grandma saves you a piece.”

“I’ll do that.” Just like that, the glimpse of the human being beneath his partner’s buttoned-up exterior vanished. “I’ll be at the morgue if you find anything useful. In the meantime, I want you and Annie to go over that alley with a fine-tooth comb. If there’s anything—or anyone—close by that makes you suspicious, check it out. And call me.”

“Does Pee Wee know I’m coming?”

“It’s CSI Hermann. Or Annie.” Spencer chided Nick’s inclination to tease the petite coworker with the wildly curly dark hair and apparent immunity to his charms. “And yes, she knows. So be on your best behavior. I need her to focus all those smarts on the crime scene—not on trading quips with you.”

“I’ll mind my manners if she does,” Nick promised. “I’m on my way.”

He snapped his phone shut and unhooked his belt to fasten on his holster and detective’s badge. Then he grabbed his insulated black leather jacket and gloves and headed toward the noise from the heart of the house.

Nick paused for a moment in the kitchen archway to watch his mother, grandmother and oldest sister, Natalie, cleaning up second and third helpings of meatballs and soup and homemade bread. His middle sister, Nadine, was dancing in front of the microwave to whatever tune was playing in her earbuds while she waited for a bag of popcorn to pop. His father got a playful smack on the knuckles and a shooing from the room when he sneaked a molasses cookie from the desserts still on the table. His two brothers, Noah and Nate, and Nell, the baby of the Fensom family, were probably back in the dining room, dealing out another hand of penny-ante poker with their grandfather and Uncle George.

Nick’s chest expanded in a sigh that revealed a mix of happiness and regret. His hand drifted down to the gun belted at his waist. He hated to leave the bustle and conversation, the good food and fun. But this was why he answered calls like Spencer’s in the middle of the night—to protect his city and the people he loved. The sooner he and the task force could put away the Rose Red Rapist, the sooner he’d stop worrying—a little less, at any rate—about his mother and grandmother and sisters being safe on Kansas City’s streets.

But his mother, Trudy Fensom, was equally worried about him once he explained Spencer’s phone call and the need to get some eyes on the crime scene ASAP. “That poor woman. But...tonight? It’s New Year’s.”

“Mom, I gotta go. The bad guys don’t celebrate the holidays the same way we do.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back for breakfast.”

“Be careful, Nicky,” his grandmother, Connie, warned.

She got a kiss, too. “Always am.”

His dad, Clay, wrapped a sheltering arm around both women and hurried the goodbyes along so Nick could get going. “Keep an eye on the roads, son. Temps are dropping and with this snow there could be patches of black ice.”

“I’ll watch ’em.” Nick crossed into the dining room and gently squeezed his hands over the shoulders of the silver-haired grandfather whose name he shared. “I’ll be back for a rematch with you, card shark.”

“Everything okay?” George Madigan, a cop like Nick, who’d been on the force long enough to recently be promoted to deputy commissioner, pushed back his chair. Even though his uncle had been pushing papers at KCPD headquarters the past few years, the detective instincts were still there. “The department’s short-staffed tonight. You need backup?”

Nick urged his uncle back to his seat. “Just some task force business to take care of,” he answered, keeping the details vague for his younger siblings while dropping enough of a hint to let George know what he was up to. “I’ve got it covered.”

George’s steely gray eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir. Besides, somebody’s gotta keep an eye on this one.” He patted his grandfather’s shoulder and pointed a warning finger to his brothers and sisters sitting around the table. “You all keep him honest. He’s dealing off the bottom of the deck.”

Nicolas Fensom snorted at his grandson’s ribbing. “I am not. Fifty years of playing poker just makes me good.”

And then Nick realized the numbers around the table really didn’t add up. “Where’s Nell?”

“She got a text from—”

“Damn it, she’s seeing that boy—”

“What boy?”

“She’s in love, Grandpa.”

“She’s seventeen.”

“If she snuck out again—”

“Easy, Dad.” Nick held up his hands to stop his father from charging through the house, and cool the collective concern in the dining room. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“She’s missed curfew more than once because of him. Taking calls at all hours—sending my texting bill through the roof. I don’t like him.”

The same sense of alarm had already energized Nick. For one night, for family night, she couldn’t give that rebellious streak of hers a rest?

Nadine jogged back down from a quick run upstairs. “She’s not in her bedroom. But her coat’s still here.”

Nick nodded to George to keep his brother-in-law in check and sprinted toward the front door. “I’ll find her.”

The blast of cold air was just what Nick needed when he stepped out onto the big wraparound porch and saw his baby sister leaning up against the fender of a souped-up Chevy Impala parked in front of the house. A young Latino man with his cap on sideways was leaning up against her with their lips locked together.

Ah, hell. Was that a number 7 inked into the back of his neck? He’d worked gangs before being partnered with Spencer and joining the task force. But he didn’t need that kind of training to recognize the signs of trouble for his youngest sister.

“Nell?” he shouted, taking the steps two at a time down to the front walk. His sharp voice, his bold stride or maybe the brass badge peeking out from the open front of his jacket, were motivation enough for the young Don Juan to take a step back from his sister.

“Oh, great,” she moaned, tucking her long brown hair behind her ears. “The cops are here. Did Dad call 9-1-1?”

“Where’s your coat?” Nick asked, ignoring the attitude. He glanced at the fluffy white flakes settling onto Nell’s blue sweater, and wished he had enough cause to do a pat-down on the black parka and baggy jeans on Romeo here. He glanced from Nell’s petulant blue eyes up to Romeo’s dark brown ones. The younger man might top him in height by a good six inches, but the parka and jeans were hanging on a wiry thin frame and Nick knew he could out-muscle the kid if he had to. “Are you going to introduce us, sis?”

“Nicky, we didn’t do anything wrong.” Her shoulders huffed in protest when she realized he wasn’t budging. She pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her fingertips and hugged them beneath her arms to keep them warm. “This is my oldest brother, Nick.”

“I’m Jordan Garza, Officer.” Good. So Romeo had seen the badge. Instead of shaking hands with Nick, though, he plunged his into the pockets of his coat and grinned. “Every girl deserves a kiss on New Year’s Eve. Especially my girl.”

He winked at Nell. She pursed her lips and blew him an air kiss.

When had Nick’s high-school-aged sister become such a flirt?

Opting to slide his gloves onto his chilling fingers instead of hauling her bodily back inside, Nick tamped down on a protective surge of temper. If this had been a routine stop of strangers in the street, he’d be thinking about their safety before his own irritation with the situation. “Get in the house before you freeze, Nell. Everybody’s waiting for you.”

“I’ve had enough party games and talking about the old days,” she protested, her words stuttering as she began to shiver. “I want to say good-night to Jordan.”

Nick waited for the alleged boyfriend to notice the pale cast to Nell’s cheeks and the way her jaw trembled with the cold. Chivalry was dead in the ’hood, apparently. Nick shrugged out of his own jacket and draped it around Nell’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you just invite him to the party instead of sneaking out?”

She shrugged off Nick’s coat and linked her arm through Jordan’s to snuggle up to him. She rolled her eyes up to the stern father and curious family members silhouetted at the front windows. “Like he’d be welcome here?”

“Have Mom and Dad even met him?” The bite of winter wind pierced the double layers of sweater and long-sleeved tee Nick wore, but he kept his jacket in his hand to warm up his sister the moment she’d let him. If she came to her senses anytime soon. “So, what? You were going to take off with this guy after midnight and go to his place?”

“There aren’t so many rules at my pad,” Garza bragged.

“Are there any parents? Any guardian in charge?”

“I’m the man of the house.” Jordan thumped his chest and unzipped his coat. Recognizing the movements that could signal a call for backup from other gang members, Nick dropped his jacket to rest his hand on his Glock and visually sweep the street for any signs of movement. “Easy, Officer.” Jordan’s hands were heading for the deep pockets of his jeans now. “I ain’t got no big brother buttin’ into my business.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them, Garza.” Nick altered his stance to face the potential threat head-on. He wrapped his fingers around Nell’s arm and pulled her away from the gangbanger. “I think you’d be smart to go home now.”

“Nicky—” She tugged against his grip.

“You threatening me, brother?”

“Hands, Garza.” Nick tightened his grip on his sister and pulled her behind him. “Get in your car and drive away.”

Jordan pulled his hands from his pockets and held them up in surrender despite his defiant tone. “I’ll see her at school.”

“Yeah, well, you won’t see her here. Not tonight. It’s too late for her to be out. Besides, this is family time.”

“You’re leaving,” Nell argued.

“I’m working,” Nick clarified.

Her shoulder sagged with a dramatic sigh. “This is so embarrassing.”

“It’s cool, babe. Relax. They ain’t comin’ between us.” Jordan reached out and Nick jerked Nell beyond his reach.

“Nicky, please.”

Relenting for one moment at the soft-voiced plea, Nick let her step forward. His eyes followed every movement as the younger man stroked a finger across Nell’s cheek.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Jordan promised.

But Nick drew the line at letting his baby sister run into her boyfriend’s arms. “Good night, Garza.”

“Later, brother.”

Nick pulled his sister back from the curb as Jordan climbed in behind the wheel and revved the engine loud enough to wake any neighbors who might have turned in early. Only when the Impala was a block away and he was sure there were no other allies in cars watching after Garza or the house did Nick release his sister.

Nell wheeled around to face him, shivering with a mix of cold and anger. “That was rude.”

“You’re talking about him, right?”

“Are you done humiliating me now?”

“The kid’s got gang tats, Nell.” He scooped up his jacket off the ground and brushed away the clinging snow. This time she did let him drape it around her shoulders. “And you’re dating him?”

“Jordan’s gang life was years ago, when he was in middle school. He’s not like that anymore.”

“He’s still dressing and driving the part.” He rubbed his hands up and down the sleeves of his sweater, needing to find some warmth for himself.

“You know, you don’t live here anymore.” The blue eyes that matched his own tilted up with a soft expression that had always wrapped him around her little finger. Her voice softened, too. “You don’t even know Jordan.”

“And why is that?” He pulled the jacket collar together at her neck and switched the massaging warmth to her shoulders. “I can’t give him a chance if you don’t bring him around. Is there some reason you don’t want him to meet me?”

“Daddy’s already freaking out about him. I don’t need you breathing down my neck, too.” Her crooked smile reminded him of when she’d been a little girl and big brother could do no wrong. “I’m seventeen now. I don’t need every moment of my life chaperoned anymore.”

“How old is Jordan?”

She let go with a noisy sigh. “Why should I answer? You’re just gonna go look him up on your crime-fighting computer when you get to work. That isn’t fair.”

“Is he eighteen? If he’s of age and you two are...” Oh, man, he couldn’t think of his baby sister being with a guy yet. “If you two are serious, then he could be in some legal trouble.”

“I never asked his age.”

“Please tell me he at least goes to your school and doesn’t just show up afterward to pick you up.”

The attitude was returning. “He’s a senior.”

“Look, I don’t mean to be hard-nosed about this, but he’s not making a good first impression.”

“How could he? You practically pulled your gun on him.”

“He looked like he might have been armed.” Nick stepped closer. He could do the attitude thing, too. “In my job, you don’t get second chances if you let the bad guy get the drop on you. If he’s still tied to a gang, Mom and Dad are right to be concerned about this guy becoming a part of your life. I’m trying to protect you.”

She groaned on three different pitches before swinging off his jacket and shoving it into his chest. “I don’t know if it’s worse for you to be a cop or my big brother.” Nell stormed up the stairs onto the porch. “Jordan’s a good guy. I love him. But don’t worry, I’m not sleeping with him.” Thank God for small favors. “Yet.”

Nick swore. “Nellie Fensom!”

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

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

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

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

Chapter Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gasping at his firm, yet light, touch, Annie was stunned into silence. Nick Fensom had never touched her before, other than an accidental brush of contact as they passed each other in a crowded room or handed off a file folder at a meeting. And now he was holding her hands and instilling warmth as if he had some proprietary claim to do so.

The gentle massage of Nick’s bigger fingers over hers was almost painful as the blood began to warm her heat-deprived extremities. A little hiss of pain brought his gaze up to hers. “Easy, slugger. You’re okay.”

“Slugger?” A baseball reference?

He glanced up at the blue-and-white KC on the cuff of her stocking cap. “Looks like you’re a Royals fan.”

“I am.”

“Me, too. Who’d have thought you and I had something in common?”

“Yeah.” Witty comeback. But her thoughts were shifting from shock into the critical observations that usually filled her mind.

Sensation returned to her hands and Annie began to feel every supple movement of his fingertips, every callus that marked his broad palm. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, from his skin into hers.

Nick Fensom was being nice? On purpose? Where were the wisecracks that forced her to stay on her mental toes? The annoying arguments that threatened to undermine her investigative expertise? The heat he rubbed into her once-numb hands was blossoming elsewhere inside her, too. Her cheeks began to thaw with the traitorous flush of her physical response.

Up close like this, Annie noticed just how blue Nick’s eyes were. Their dark cobalt color was emphasized by the shadows between them, yet there was a sparkle of energy there, a light that gave them a sharp contrast to the coffee-brown darkness of his hair. And maybe it was just the close proximity she wasn’t accustomed to—or the thickness of his insulated leather jacket—that distorted the dimensions of his body. She knew he hadn’t grown any taller, and yet his shoulders and chest were broader than she remembered. They were wide enough to block the worst of the wind and snow and allow the air between them to warm and fill with the scents of the sterile solutions she used, along with the leather and faint garlicky deliciousness emanating from him.

“You’re like a furnace,” she noted, drawing her focus back to the reviving heat of his fingers around hers. Was he feeling this unexpected jolt of awareness, too? “Why are you doing this?”

“Speeding the process so I can get out of here before dawn. Your hands are like ice.”

“Oh.” So she’d been analyzing the color of his eyes and wondering if the dark stubble dusting the angles of his face would be sandpapery or soft to the touch while he’d simply wanted to get out of here sooner. Awkward. He probably had a hot date he’d left in a snug apartment somewhere, and Annie’s poky thoroughness was keeping him from getting back to her. With plenty of embarrassment to infuse her blood and keep her warm now, Annie jerked her hands from his and grabbed a fresh pair of gloves from her kit. “I’m fine. You can stop.”

“I don’t mind.” She flexed her fingers and reached up to extricate her flashlight from the net pocket in her CSI vest where Nick had stuck it. But her hands were chilling again and he’d jammed it in there good and why the heck couldn’t she manage her own equipment? Nick plucked the flashlight from her vest and pressed it into her palm. “Here. We’re part of a team, right? We have to help each other out.”

“Right.” Go ahead and be practical and coordinated and temptingly warm, she accused him silently, pushing to her feet and feeling about as graceful and misguided as a teenage girl who’d just had a run-in with her high school crush. She must be suffering from hypothermia to have hallucinated any sort of fascination with Nick Fensom. “I’m almost done. The path of blood droplets I was following has tapered off considerably.”

“O...kay.” He drawled out the word, clearly questioning her abrupt retreat. Nick pulled on his black leather gloves and straightened beside her. “By the way, you’re welcome.”

Annie lifted her gaze from the void of snow on the bricks behind the Dumpster. “Sorry.” Rubbing her hands truly had been a nice gesture, which was certainly more observant of her discomfort and more considerate than she’d given the burly detective credit for being. “You didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it. I’ll do my best to get done before daylight, so we can both get someplace warm.”

And so she could find some time to herself to remember that Nick was just a cop she worked with, a streetwise pain in the posterior she frequently butted heads with—not the man who had suddenly blipped onto her sexual-awareness radar with his big shoulders and blue eyes and surprising consideration.

“Sounds like a temporary truce to me.”

Annie nodded her agreement, savoring the cold slap of wind on her face that brought her thoughts back into focus. She bent closer to the bricks as the bare spot took shape. It was a handprint, dotted with a few weeping trickles of blood. There was another handprint, another smear of red, climbing up the wall to where the falling snow clung to the bricks above the Dumpster and covered up the rest of the pattern. “This has been moved. Our vic got to her feet and pulled herself up along the wall here. And...something else.”

Nick waited for Annie’s nod before putting his shoulder to the Dumpster and shoving it aside a couple of feet. Then the beam from his flashlight joined hers. “That second handprint’s bigger. Looks like a scuffle to me. Two people fell against the wall—caught themselves. But this can’t be where she was killed. There isn’t enough blood.”

“That blood pool is farther back in the alley. She had her head bashed in back by where the alleys cross, beyond any line of sight from the street—with the brick I bagged up in my kit, I’m guessing. These are something different.” With her sterile gloves still in place, she tested one crimson spot with her fingertip. “The drops here aren’t as tacky. They’ve been here longer. This may be the initial attack site.”

“Where he first abducted her and hauled her away to a secondary location to rape her.” Nick’s shoulder nudged hers as he came in for a closer look. “Maybe this one got a look at her attacker, and they struggled. Could that be our perp’s handprint?”

Nudging him back out of her way, Annie focused the camera hanging around her neck and snapped a photograph. “I doubt we’ll get any fingerprints from our unsub—the lines are blurred enough that I’m sure both were wearing gloves. Wait a minute.”

“Did you see something?”

Before Nick could finish his question, Annie grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand in front of the prints on the wall. “Hold that right there.”

Before he could voice another question, she’d snapped another picture.

“Now take your glove off and hold it up there.”

She didn’t miss the dubious arching of his brow, but Nick did as she asked. “And my hand is photogenic because?”

“It’s a comparison shot.” Next, she photographed her own hand in front of the bloody prints on the wall before stooping down to pull a tape measure from her kit. “The smaller prints are about the size of my hand, so I’m guessing they belong to the victim. We can verify that once I talk with the medical examiner. But the other print is considerably larger.”

“Man-size hands.” Nick regloved and stepped to the side, clearing out of her work space. “The rapist’s?”

“Possibly.” She recorded the exact measurements in her notebook and stuffed it back into her coat pocket. “It’s something we can compare if we find handprints at other locations, or we bring a suspect into custody.”

“That’s not much.”

Annie refused to be so pessimistic. “It’s more than we had a few minutes ago.”

“So why bring Rachel Dunbar back here to kill her? He could have done it in the privacy of whatever hellhole he takes his victims to.” The beam of Nick’s flashlight followed her as Annie pulled a swab and Luminol from her kit to verify that the spatter and smears on the wall were blood. “Leaving the body here feels like he’s showing off what he can do. Rubbing it in our faces that KCPD hasn’t been able to break the case yet.”

Shuddering at the disturbingly blunt commentary, Annie suggested an explanation of her own. “From the account of Bailey Austin, the first victim the task force worked with, she was raped at a building that was either being built or remodeled—where there were signs of construction. She remembered a clear plastic drop cloth that covered everything. He’s keeping that location clean—traceless.”

So why be less cautious about the evidence here?

“If it’s a construction zone, he’d have work crews coming and going who might find the body—or at least recognize that something violent happened there.” Nick snapped his nimble fingers as an idea hit him. “Plus, the walls and layout could be changing daily. My dad’s a contractor. I’ve seen empty lots become complete houses in a week. It’d be damn near impossible for a witness to give an accurate description—the whole layout might change before we could follow up on it.”

“It has to be someplace that’s familiar to him. Or maybe the location is someplace he created specifically for these assaults.” Two drops of Luminol turned the cotton swab a telltale purple. Definitely blood.

“You think the rape is part of some kind of ritual?” Nick’s gaze narrowed. “That there’s a special significance to where the Rose Red Rapist takes his victims?” He turned the beam of light into the depths of the alley, swinging the flashlight from one strip of yellow crime scene tape to the strip blocking the front sidewalk. “So what’s all this then, Sherlock? A bloody coincidence? Our guy hasn’t made mistakes or left this much evidence behind before.”

Sherlock? Annie glanced up. Nick’s dark hair and the charcoal-gray heather scarf he wore were getting dusted with the snow coming in at the edge of the tarp. She prided herself on noticing the details of her surroundings, but those keen senses were supposed to be focusing on a murder scene, not the detective demanding answers from her. The frigid temps must really be addling her brain. She forced herself to look away and point out the bags labeled and stowed in her kit. “I don’t know. This is different from the other crimes scenes I’ve investigated. I’ve never had this much trace before. It’s almost as if...”

“As if what?”

Annie shook her head. “I don’t like to speculate.”

“Humor me.”

“It’s as if we’ve got two crime scenes in one location. The abduction, which could account for the handprints on the wall here, and the murder...” She turned her own light toward the darkness at the back of the alley, where a second tarp did what it could to protect the evidence there. “Which happened back there.”

“And all the blood is the vic’s?”

“I don’t know yet. There’s an awful lot. I’d have to—”

“—analyze it.” Nick muttered the end of the sentence as though he was impatient to move on to a new topic. He brushed the snowflakes off the top of his hair, leaving shiny dark spikes in their wake. To her surprise, he seemed to give her idea some merit. “Dr. Kilpatrick believes there’s more than one unsub we should be looking for.”

Annie recalled the conclusion reached by the forensic psychologist assigned to the task force when she’d been investigating the Rose Red Rapist’s last attack before tonight’s grim events. “She thinks there are two different profiles to these attacks, indicating more than one man is involved in the crimes—the rapist and someone who cleans up after him. This could be trace from the initial abduction. And if Rachel Dunbar struggled—meaning he didn’t knock her out with one blow the way he usually subdues his victims—then it could have been a messy confrontation, giving the cleaner more impetus to silence the one woman who could possibly identify the rapist.”

“The Cleaner?” Nick’s blue eyes glowed with something that looked like derision. “You’ve given our accomplice a nickname? Better not let the press get wind of that.” He thumbed over his shoulder toward the dark storefront across the street. “They’ve already given our perp a cutesy name because the first rape happened outside the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop.”

Annie pulled up to every centimeter of her five feet two inches of height. She hadn’t been trying to glorify the perp’s cleverness or give the press any more fodder for sensational headlines. She had simply been stating facts. “Like I said. It’s just speculation. I’m trying to figure out what the evidence says.”

“And it’s telling you we have two crime scenes at one location.” Maybe that skeptical gleam was Nick’s deep-thought expression because it sounded like he was actually agreeing with her theory. “One from the Rose Red Rapist and one from an accomplice in some freaky sort of tag team. Could be a crazy fan who wants a taste of that violence, too.”

Annie stooped down to replace the Luminol bottle in her kit and take out unopened swabs in sterile cases to obtain fresh samples of the blood smears for typing and DNA analysis. “It sounds kind of sick, but it looks to me like we’ve got a rape addict and some sort of enabler.”

“Now there’s a dysfunctional relationship.” Nick swore. “I liked it better when we were after just one nutcase.”

“It’s only a theory,” Annie hastened to clarify, dabbing at the bricks. “I can’t prove the identity of the second attacker or what his motives might be yet. I can’t even confirm that there was a second man in this alley tonight.”

“But your gut tells you Dr. Kilpatrick is right—that there are two attackers?”

Annie snapped the vials shut and pulled the marker from her pocket to label them. She slipped them all into her pocket, exhaling a sigh that clouded the air between them. “The evidence seems to indicate that.”

Nick nodded, apparently satisfied with her assessment of the crime scene. “Finish up here. I’m going to call Spencer and see if he convinced an M.E. to come in early and look at the body yet. I’ll ask for a quick measurement of the victim’s hand size so we can speed the identification of those prints.” He pulled his cell phone off his belt, giving her a glimpse of the weapon holstered beneath his jacket. “When the uniformed officers get back, I’ve got some more doors to knock on. Will you be okay if I leave you here for a few minutes to make a couple of calls?”

Being left to fend for herself felt all too familiar. She’d had a lot of practice over the years putting on an equally familiar brave smile. “I’m okay on my own.”

But he was already backing toward the sidewalk at the front end of the alley. “I won’t go too far. Holler if you need me.”

“Don’t scare anybody while you’re out there.” The teasing remark felt much more normal than the memory of friendly conversation and his warm touch still moving through her veins.

“Don’t freeze your nuggets.” He gave it right back with a wink and a grin, flipping open his cell phone as he disappeared around the corner. “Yo. Hey, can you connect me to...”

More certain of her actions as a criminologist than of her reactions to Detective Fensom, Annie stepped back to snap another picture of the blood spatter and snowy handprints on the brick wall.

The camera’s mechanical noises and the pop and snap of the blowing tarps covered the soft staccato of something shuffling around in the back of the alley where it bisected another throughway between buildings. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the T-shaped intersection, a lid got knocked off a trash can and hit the snow-packed pavement. Startled by the noise, her pulse picked up speed as the metal disk spun around and around until it stilled into silence. Only then did she release the breath she’d been holding.

“Wind must have caught it,” she hypothesized on a whisper.

Annie lowered her camera and peered into the black hole at the end of the alley. Several seconds of answering stillness tempered her initial alarm and she relaxed and returned to her work. Backing up, she adjusted her camera to take a wide shot of the handprints on the brick wall. A soft whirring sound brought the image into focus. A click snapped the picture.

Muffled footsteps, crunching over the snow, scurried across the back of the alley. Tensing at the new disturbance, Annie swung her gaze around into the darkness. “Hello?” She wracked her brain to come up with the names of the two officers she’d met earlier, blocking off the alley. “Officer Galbreath?” She couldn’t come up with the second name. “I hope you brought coffee.”

No answer.

No sound besides the wind and tarp, either. She should have been able to breathe easier. But that wary uneasiness wouldn’t leave her.

Because she’d had no luck spotting the unwanted company with her flashlight, Annie raised her camera and snapped a photograph. She glanced down at the small digital screen. Shadowy blobs darker than the middle of the picture lined either side of the alley. Trash cans and power poles most likely.

Probably nothing to worry about.

But there was something else, farther back, its shape distorted by the ruffling tarp, framed in the tee where the two alleys connected. The hair at her nape pricked to attention. She raised her gaze from the camera to the tunnel of shadows leading down to the dim light at the crossroads.

Someone was moving in the other alley.

“Officer Galbreath?” The second name popped into her head. “Foster?”

It made sense for the two officers to take a shortcut coming back from the Shamrock Bar, as cold as it was. No one else would cross the yellow crime scene tape blocking each end of the alley, would they?

No one she wanted to run into, at any rate.

Screw independence.

“Detective Fensom?” She retreated a step toward the sidewalk and called over her shoulder. She wondered if he was still on his phone to his partner. Had he been a rat and gotten inside his Jeep to warm up while he made the call? “Nick?”

Speaking of rats, maybe that’s all this was. Even though she didn’t particularly want to meet a swarm of those either, it would be a plausible explanation for the sounds—rats tunneling beneath trash bags, rifling through Dumpsters and knocking things over.

She almost hoped that she’d step on a rat or some other critter to prove to herself that any threat she felt was only in her imagination. But a rat would still be moving. And the only thing she was hearing now was her own pulse throbbing in her ears.

“Nick?” A shadow darted around the corner and rushed toward her. Way too big to be a rat. “Nick!”

Annie was in full retreat as the figure dressed in black charged. She raised her flashlight, the only weapon she had on hand as the black coat and dark eyes behind a stocking mask took shape. One arm swung her way, but she deflected it. Another arm knocked the flashlight from Annie’s cold fingers. She screamed.

Two big hands locked around her shoulders and threw her against the Dumpster. Ignoring the bruising pain, she shoved backward against her attacker, ramming her elbow into his gut. “Stop fighting,” he muttered on a voiceless rasp.

“Nick!” she screamed.

But the man, much larger, much stronger, palmed the back of her head and shoved her forward. Her forehead connected with immovable steel, splitting open skin, numbing the point of impact. Annie collapsed to her knees as the darkness swirled around her and the snow rushed up to meet her. More scuffling noises buzzed through her foggy senses. The corner of the tarp broke free of its mooring and whipped against her.

And then she was jerked upward by the camera strap looped around her neck.

“No!” The thick strap strangled her and she instinctively scratched at the choking vise. The strap loosened for an instant and she latched on tight, holding on as he yanked her to her feet, trying to pull the camera from her neck.

“You crazy—”

“Hey. Hey!” Another voice was shouting, a man’s voice. There was no mistaking the drum beat of running footsteps now. Or the deep shout of Nick Fensom’s voice. “KCPD!”

All at once, the tension left the camera strap and Annie tumbled backward. She rolled onto her hands and knees and pushed herself up, snatching the swinging camera against her stomach as the dark figure ran toward the back of the alley.

“Stop where you— Damn it, Annie, get down!”

By the time she focused in on Nick’s gun and realized she was in the line of fire, Nick had rushed past her. He charged through the alley like a linebacker chasing down the quarterback and disappeared around the corner into the darkness. Both the attacker and her savior were gone.

Clear thoughts were still trying to work their way into her jumbled brain as Annie untangled the plastic tarp from her legs and staggered to her feet. A man had been hiding in the shadows, waiting to attack. How long had he been watching to make sure she was alone? Who was he? Why her? She was going to have plenty of bruises on her body, along with a crazy headache. She hugged her camera tightly to her chest.

The squeal of car tires spinning to find traction and shouts in the distance diverted her thoughts to a different question. Had Nick Fensom really come to her rescue?

She was leaning against a brick wall, still puzzling out that last observation, when the detective in question came jogging back around the corner. The stocky shadow became a leather jacket and dark hair, blue eyes and stiff-lipped concern as he approached.

He tucked his gun into the back of his jeans as he spoke into the phone at his ear. “Track down those two cops and tell them to get their butts back here now. We’ve got a trespasser on the scene. Fensom out. Annie?” He stuffed the phone into his pocket and closed his hand around her arm. “CSI Hermann?”

“I’m okay.”

But when he pulled her away from the wall and turned her, Annie’s knees wobbled. Nick’s face swirled out of focus and suddenly her feet left the ground. “Easy, slugger. I’ve got you.”

She identified soft cold leather beneath her cheek before she realized that Nick had scooped her up in his arms and was carrying her out of the alley and along the sidewalk toward his silver Jeep. Annie’s focus bounced along with every step, making her dizzy, and she squeezed her eyes shut. But other nerve endings were working just fine. The solid chest didn’t move when she pushed against it. The muscular arms were locked firmly around her shoulders and knees.

“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?” What was happening to her? Nick Fensom couldn’t annoy the hell out of her and then haul her around without some kind of explanation. She slitted her eyes open when the movement stopped. “You know, you’ve never once touched me before tonight, and now this is the second time you’ve gotten personal without my permis—”

Her butt hit the passenger seat of his Jeep as he set her inside. He reached across her lap and pointed to the radio on his dashboard. “Call it in to Dispatch. Lock the doors.”

He hadn’t even acknowledged her protest. Instead, he was pulling his gun again, retreating.

Annie grabbed a fistful of his jacket. “You’re leaving me?”

“You said you were all right on your own.” She’d lied. Yes, she knew how to be self-sufficient. Didn’t mean she liked it. Especially when shadows came to life and attacked her. He laid his gloved hand over hers and gently pried it free. “Sit tight. I’ll be back. I’m going to find out what the hell just happened.”

“Nick—” But the door closed and he darted into the alley again. Falling snow and loneliness swallowed Annie up.

* * *

“WHERE DID GALBREATH AND Foster go?” Nick muttered out loud as he retraced the footprints he’d run past earlier before they disappeared beneath a fluffy layer of snow in the alley. Two sets besides his own went out, but only one came back into the alley. The perp who’d gone after Annie had waited there, by that trash can. Why hadn’t the two uniformed officers gotten back to the scene ASAP? Or called him if they’d been delayed?

Nick stood at the edge of the curb where the north/south alley came out onto the street and looked up and down the block. With his gun still drawn and hanging down at his side, he took note of the green neon shamrock hanging in the bar window across the street a little ways down the block.

His instincts were to go over there and see if the missing officers had decided to ignore his emergency call and have an extra cup of coffee. He didn’t know either man personally, but the only reasons a cop wouldn’t answer a call for backup was because he was a lazy dumbass, he’d been disabled or he was on the take—and Nick wasn’t comfortable with any of those options.

Nick’s breathing quieted, but his suspicions mounted with every passing second. Something about this picture was all wrong. The street was too quiet. The hour might be late, but New Year’s was a holiday that was about staying up all night and partying, especially in a trendy area like this downtown neighborhood. Yet there was not one person on the street besides him. No one waiting for a bus or cab or scraping off a windshield or darting through the shadows.

The man who’d attacked Annie was gone. And the two uniformed cops assigned to the crime scene weren’t coming back.

Nick didn’t like the answer he got from Dispatch when he called in to get the officers’ location. “Relieved of duty? What do you mean they were relieved? By whom?”

“Officer Galbreath said Officer Gobel met them at the Shamrock Bar. Gobel and an Officer Ramirez were taking over the crime scene detail.”

Nick swore. “Then put me through to Gobel and Ramirez.”

A couple of minutes passed before the Dispatch operator came back on the line. Her apology was a bad, bad sign. “I’m sorry, Detective. Apparently, Officer Gobel is out of town on vacation. I have three Ramirezes on the personnel list—do you have a first name for me to contact?”

“No, forget it.” If one cop was a fake, then he was guessing both men were impostors. He’d bet his next paycheck that one of them had come back to attack Annie while the other had waited close by to drive the getaway car. “Wait, do you have a twenty on Galbreath and Foster?”

“Yes, they’re back at Fourth Precinct HQ.”

“Good. Tell them to stay put until I call them.” He had a traumatized CSI waiting for him back in his Jeep. He’d made a promise to his partner that he’d keep an eye on Annie Hermann and the crime scene—that he’d protect the task force and the work they were doing. He’d better turn around and do just that. With one last glance at the empty street, Nick headed back into the alley. “Call in a sketch artist, too. I want them to give me a good description of what this fake Officer Gobel looked like.”

“I’ll let them know. Dispatch out.”

How had the two men gotten access to KCPD uniforms and IDs to look authentic enough to waltz into a cop bar and convince two legitimate officers to head back to HQ? How did they find out about the crime scene in the first place? Or were they after Annie? And why?

Nick wasn’t going to find his answers here. His best bet was to get a description from the real officers and then run a facial recognition check through criminal databases and hope to get a hit on some real names. All that would take time. But right now, he needed to get back to Annie.

Decision made, Nick traded his gun for a flashlight and headed south toward the east/west alley. Because his gut was telling him he wasn’t catching the perp in the black parka and ski mask tonight, he let his thoughts stray from the doorways and trash bins where he automatically checked for anyone hiding there. What was it about men in black parkas? First, Jordan Garza had put his paws all over his baby sister, and now one had assaulted Annie. Or maybe it was the New Year that had brought out all the creepies and tilted Nick’s world on its edge.

And what was the deal with Annie Hermann tonight anyway? Had he come to the crime scene with his concentration and emotions so out of whack over finding Nell making out with a gangbanger that he wasn’t thinking straight? His concerns for his family had distracted him from the role he needed to play here. KCPD detective. Task force member. Protector. Period.

The Annie he knew had always been big mouth and attitude, not shy glances and vulnerability. She was Ivy League education and absentminded professor to his working-class street smarts and willingness to take point on the front line of the action. He teased her the way he teased his sisters. He respected her skills, got frustrated with her stubbornness and argued her out-of-left-field ideas. So there was no call for noticing how perfectly her small, dexterous hands had fit between his, or how her plain brown eyes turned a deep, soulful amber when she tilted them up at him and questioned why he was so eager to touch her tonight.

Man, he should be asking himself that same question. He needed a stiff drink or a good lay or a smack on the back of the head to get this ill-timed and inappropriate awareness of the woman—of the fact Annie Hermann was a woman and not some girl playing with her chemistry set—out of his head.

Nick turned the corner and collided with the distraction herself.

“Did you find Galbreath and the other officer?” She was sharp elbows and flashing eyes and tripping over one of his feet.

“Damn it, Hermann, I told you to stay in the car.” He caught her by the arms to steady her and quickly release her, but she’d already latched on to the sleeve of his coat, denying him the clear-thinking distance he needed.

“It’s been ten minutes.”

“You’re timing me?”

“I didn’t know if something had happened to you.” Her other hand was clutching the front of his coat now. “I didn’t want to be alone. Even being with you is better than being alone right now.”

“What you don’t do for my ego.” Casting aside the humbling revelation, Nick freed the leather from her death grip to turn her back toward the Jeep. “Come on. I don’t think our perp’s coming back. Neither are Galbreath and Foster.”

He raised her fingers up to the illumination from his flashlight. She’d peeled off those sterile plastic gloves and replaced them with royal blue knit ones. But there was still blood on the fingers.

Her blood?

Nick swung the light up to her face, ignoring her squint as he brushed that wonderfully curly, dark brown hair off her forehead.

“What are you doing?” she protested, batting his hand away. “What happened to Galbreath and Foster? Are they okay?”

Nick pushed back the edge of her blue stocking cap and cursed at the weeping gash at her temple. Way to take care of people, Fensom. The thickness of the wool and Annie’s hair had probably saved her life. Answering the 9-1-1 pouring through his system, Nick mentally shifted gears. He hugged his arm around Annie’s shoulders and hurried her through the alley. “That needs stitches. I have to get you to the E.R.”

“But the officers—”

“Are gone. Some bogus cop calling himself Gobel met them at the Shamrock and sent them back to HQ.”

“Fake cops?”

Nick nodded. “I’m guessing one of them attacked you.”

“Why?”

“How the hell would I know? They didn’t wait around to chat.”

“And I never got a good look at him. All I saw were brown eyes. And he only spoke in a whisper. Nothing I could make out...” She kept pace with him for several yards. He gripped her arm tighter when they had to step over the flailing corner of a fallen tarp. When they reached the Dumpster where she’d found the victim’s purse, Annie stumbled. She swayed back a step. And then she stopped.

She’d lost too much blood. She was passing out.

Halting in his tracks, Nick quickly unzipped his coat and shucked out of it. He draped it around her slender shoulders to add some warmth and stave off shock. But like his sister earlier that night, she shrugged it off. “Of all the stubborn...”

He saw the focus of her eyes and understood it wasn’t stubbornness or bravado as much as something else had caught her attention. She lurched forward and Nick grabbed her arm to support her. She touched the pink, slushy smear on the brick wall where the blood had been. “He wiped away the handprints.” She brought her glove back to her nose and made a face. Even Nick could smell the bleach from where he stood. “He’s contaminated everything—cut the anchor ropes on the tarp. Snow’s getting into...” She pulled away and dived into the pile of trash. “Oh, no.” She tossed aside one bag, then two. “No, no, no, no.”

“Annie.” Nick slung his jacket around her again, looping his arm about her waist and lifting her away from the mess she was making. “We need to go. You’re not thinking straight. We need to get you to the hospital.”

“No.” She spun in his grasp, fisted her fingers in the front of his sweater. “My kit is gone. He took my spare kit.” She blinked away the snowflakes and blood from her upturned eyes. “Along with the evidence I’d gathered inside it.”

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