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.
“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,”
