He shook his head. “I trained for it but in the end I chose police work.”
“The job gets in your blood, doesn’t it?” Her voice was still soft. “It starts as something you do and ends up being part of everything you are.”
Her observation said a great deal about her. Valerie was turning out to be an interestingly complex woman as well as beautiful.
“To catch a killer I need to put myself in his head—to see things as he does,” she continued. “I hope you can help me do that. I need to start thinking like a skinwalker.”
He touched the special medicine pouch he wore looped through his belt. “Don’t use that word so freely,” he said at last.
“Because I might call evil to us, like when I use the names of the victims?”
He nodded and said, “It’s even more so with the evil ones. The spoken word has a great deal of power.” He glanced down at the file. “I’m going to need a few more moments to study this file.”
“No problem. We’re still about ten minutes from the second site. It’s past the university, near Central Avenue.”
As silence stretched out between them in the car, she kept her eyes on traffic but her focus was on him. There was something magnetic about Luca Nakai—an intensity that wove its way around her and sparked her imagination. Police officer…medicine man…He was a man of many layers and something told her that beneath that imperturbable calm was a man worth getting to know much better.
Chapter Two
They were still underway and despite their silence, or maybe because of it, her attention had remained riveted on the man sitting next to her.
“You have questions about me,” Luca said, still looking down at the contents of the folder.
She almost choked. Maybe he should have added mind reader to his list of qualifications. Recovering quickly, she glanced at him casually.
“You have questions about me, too, I would imagine,” she said, turning it around on him. “You’re a guest of our department, so why don’t you take your shot first, then I’ll take mine.”
“You know why I’m on this case. Why were you chosen?” he asked without hesitation.
“Fair question,” she said with a nod. “I was chosen because I’ve been given special training to deal with violent crimes against women. I’ve only been working homicide for six months, but I’ve closed all the cases I’ve worked on so far.” Her car radio came on and she answered.
“Our ETA’s less than five minutes,” she responded to the caller, then, racking the microphone, glanced over at him and continued. “One big problem with this case is that we already have reporters breathing down our necks. Information about the killer’s unusual signature reached the media and that’s made this a hot story. The public’s pushing for quick answers.”
“Uncovering hidden truths often takes time. Accuracy and speed are enemies,” he said, expelling his breath in a soft hiss.
“These days stories unfold quickly,” Valerie answered with a shrug. “Internet and television are always in competition to see who breaks the story first.”
“That’s their problem. It shouldn’t become ours. Life isn’t a television quiz show.”
“Off the record?” She glanced at him, saw him nod, then continued. “The problem becomes ours when the sheriff is running for reelection.”
He nodded once. “I hear you. Any suspects yet?”
“No, not even a good lead. But I’ll find answers. Count on it.”
It was her tone that revealed more than her words. “You have something to prove on this case,” he observed.
Valerie swallowed back her annoyance. If it had been anyone else, she would have told him to stuff it. Yet there’d been no censure or disapproval in Luca’s tone. He’d simply stated his opinion. Knowing that he had to get to know her—after all, their lives might depend on each other—she decided to cut him some slack.
“I’ve had to work very hard to establish myself in my department,” she answered after a brief pause. “When I first signed up, the deputy at the desk tried to talk me out of it. I’m smaller and lighter than most of the other officers. From day one, all I kept hearing was that I’d be a liability, and that I’d cost another officer his or her life someday.”
He nodded but didn’t speak.
“During training, I was forced to fight twice as hard as any other recruit. Nobody thought I’d make it, even when my physical training scores were better than some,” she said. “Since those days, I’ve worked my way up the ranks to detective, but it hasn’t been easy. A lot of people back from my rookie days would still like to see me fail, just so I’d prove them right.”
“Why was becoming an officer so important to you?”
“Because I know I can make a difference in my job,” she said in a firm voice. “My methods may be different than some of the textbook procedures, but I can get results.”
“Different how?” he asked.
“Let me give you an example. Last week at the downtown office, a suspect slipped off his handcuffs at the booking desk and jumped the arresting deputy. He knocked the officer to the floor and grabbed his weapon. I was coming around the corner just then and, not seeing my weapon beneath my jacket, he motioned me over. I think he wanted a helpless woman hostage. I went over to him as meekly as possible. Then before he could see it coming, I grabbed the weapon and kneed him in the groin,” she said. “I used the fact that I’m not threatening—the very thing they said was my biggest liability—to do what had to be done.”
Luca gave her a huge, devastatingly masculine grin. “Way to go.”
As she looked into his eyes and saw the approval and admiration there, her heart began to hammer. Telling herself it was low blood sugar, Valerie focused. “In this game it’s all about winning, and you do that when you put the bad guys away.”
“Winning…I wouldn’t put it that way exactly. To me, it’s more about restoring harmony—for others and within yourself.”
“Inner peace? That sounds very ’60s,” she said with a hesitant smile, then added, “I’m not sure that kind of thing really applies to police work.”
“It does. Try keeping your sanity after years of busting bad guys without it.”
She kept her eyes on the road as she thought about what he’d said. Luca sure wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever met. There was a quiet dignity about him and a strength that didn’t rely on machismo to back it up.
“Okay, we’re here,” Valerie said at long last, driving down a shabby-looking neighborhood just south of Central Avenue. The street had been cordoned off at both ends of the block by APD police barriers. As Valerie held up her badge a city officer in his dark blue uniform motioned them through.
Valerie parked beside
