they’d been a couple, some nights he’d call her as late as two in the morning. Just awake and bored. Although he’d said it was simply because he’d missed her voice, even if they’d been apart for less than three hours, and it had melted her every single time.
Enough trailing down a path of wilted and dried-up rose-petal memories. Back to the case at hand. Bryn sipped her lukewarm coffee and checked her watch—almost 8:00 a.m. In the past five months, four women had been drowned and left in a public park. Bryn had connected the same few dots Eric had. While the women shared similar features, such as thin noses and lips, blond hair and blue eyes, they didn’t fit age-wise. The youngest victim was midthirties while the oldest and most recent victim—Bridgette Danforth—had been forty-six. Two were married. Two were divorced. The divorced women had no children. The married women did.
Last night’s victim had left her car in the parking lot at the station after the morning taping. Like the other victims, she had seemed to walk away with the killer without a single person noticing. Vanished. Question was, did they know their killer or was he simply a charming man and able to catch his prey off guard, using something to draw their compassion, all the while luring each one into a trap?
The guy who had attacked her held zero charm.
Bryn tapped her pen on the desk and stared at the victim photos she’d tacked to the board. She’d drawn a line to the connections they had, but not a single line joined all four women. What had Eric missed? What was she missing?
“I come bearing coffee.” Eric swung into the case room with two cups in hand. So much better than the burned brew she’d been slurping from the bureau pot. He sat it on the conference table near her, his scent revealing a fresh shower and a man who knew how to wear cologne—the expensive kind. But then he had money. A lot of it. Trust-fund cop. Her pulse betrayed her and rode off at a steady gallop. She refused to admire his full lips—extremely kissable lips, surrounded by scruff that concealed two deep-set dimples.
“Thanks.” She worked to appear professional, to mask the way his presence did a number on her stomach. Last night, when he’d brushed her cheek and showed concern, it had brought up so many things about him she once loved, including their shared faith. Now hers was shaky at best. Had Eric lost his after what happened to his sister? She wouldn’t fault him for it.
This morning, she had to shove the emotions that surfaced back down where they belonged. She didn’t have the heart to get rid of them entirely.
He surveyed the room. “You’ve been busy.”
She sipped the fresh coffee, set it aside and eyed him. “You, too. After tailing me home and sitting outside for an hour, you must have been up half the night sending the files over. But you’ve showered, so I thank you.” She mimicked his raised eyebrows. She’d had half a mind to march out there and blow a gasket on him, but civility won out and a tiny sliver of her had been grateful. “I’m not a damsel in distress.”
“Technically...” He cocked his head and grinned.
Bryn held back an eye roll and opened Bridgette Danforth’s case file. “We’re missing a connection between the victims. I want to go back over the investigation with a fine-tooth comb. Talk to friends and family.”
Eric opened his mouth, no doubt to erupt in protest, but Bryn held her hand up. “I trust your work. But I need to step into their lives. I need them to put me in his head. This is how I do my job.” Not her favorite part—stepping into a killer’s mind—but necessary.
His protest petered out, and his eyes softened. He had the best eyes with long, thick lashes. “I heard through the grapevine you’ve been very successful. And for being so young.”
Young. Old. It was about determination and perseverance. Passion and motivation. She wanted justice for these victims. For all the victims she championed. She’d always been intrigued by Eric’s job as a police officer and Holt’s DEA work. But death and evil hadn’t been real for her. It was something that happened to other people. Until it raised its ugly head in her own home. She’d been almost twenty-one.
“Just so you know, I’ve heard good things about you and your work. Me being here isn’t about you not being capable.”
His eyebrows flashed upward. No, to him it probably felt like a punch to the groin.
“I didn’t ask to take over. Okay?”
If Abby hadn’t died, they’d likely be married. But then she may not have followed the career path she was on now, and she was supposed to be burying old emotions.
“Okay.” Eric cleared his throat. “You really like this job, don’t you?”
“I like putting a dent in evil’s fender.” She rubbed her clammy hands on her pants. “I... I had to do something. I couldn’t just hop in a pool and pretend if I kept swimming laps what happened to your family, to mine, wouldn’t exist.”
“So you moved to Ohio with your parents?”
“After Rand’s trial. Yes. We all needed...new.” And yet she was back. For another fresh start.
Eric popped the lid off his coffee cup and sipped. “Why did you come back to Memphis?”
She hadn’t answered him last night. Wasn’t sure she had the answer. And him asking had hurt. Was he sorry she’d come back? How could a place with so many horrifying memories also provide her with some comfort? Familiarity? Or because her best memories—many of them involving Eric—were in Memphis? “Point is I’m here. And we have a job to do. Can we try to set aside the pain and our past? At least to get through this case?” She’d crumble if she didn’t build a wall.
Eric’s nostrils flared, and he flexed his right hand—a hand that used to stroke her cheek often or meld with her own, fingers laced together. “Compartmentalize. I’m good at that.”
Didn’t she know it, and he generally used humor to do it. “Okay, I can read the files all day long, but I want to hear about the investigation from you. By the way—” she stole another sip of her brew “—your handwriting is atrocious.”
Eric walked to the board. “We got a call on our first victim on a Friday morning back in the beginning of May. Female in a park in Collierville. Thirty-eight. Hair and clothing damp. Turned out to be a professor at Rhodes. Cat Weaver. Married. Daughter in high school.”
“Taught sociology.”
Eric nodded. “No assault. Just drowning. No drugs in her system, but then we didn’t know of anything specific to check. Stomach contents showed it was regular ol’ city water she drowned in. Same with the other two and I’ll guess same with our newest victim, Bridgette Danforth.”
Bryn flipped through reports. “Victim two was found in early July. Victim three in early September, but he broke pattern by striking again now in October instead of next month.” Something must have triggered the escalation, giving Towerman and the mayor reason to pull her in so quickly.
The killer’s pattern had changed now, making him unpredictable.
“Wish we knew why. There’s nothing to indicate they’d been bound. Just walked off willingly with this guy. All cars abandoned, like Bridgette’s. We snooped on the husbands and the exes. Didn’t find anything. Alibis checked out.”
Would any of them have gone willingly with the
