Intimate Danger (Empire Blue) (19 page)

“I can process a scene, Agent Rossi.”

“I didn’t mean it like—” She cut him off with a hand in the air, palm facing him, and glanced around. He watched her, fascinated with how her mind worked. When she gave her attention to something, she gave it all. His stomach flipped as thoughts bombarded with how she would be in bed.

“
There’s blood. The body.” She frowned and spun in a circle. “Where’s the murder weapon?”

Trent
looked at the coroner. “Cause of death?”

The gr
ay-haired man gave a grim look, thinned his lips. “Knife wound to the heart.”

“How many times was she stabbed?”

“Eighteen.”

A low whistle brought Trent’s attention to Dwayne. “That’s a lot of rage.
Seems rather personal, don’t you think?”

Trent
nodded. “Yeah, it does. Therefore, we have to assume our victim knew the suspect. Any signs of forced entry?”

Dwayne shook his head. “No.”

He turned back to the coroner. “Any signs of semen? Sexual assault?”

The man crossed his arms and leveled a stare. “
Sexual assault, yes. Although I won’t have details until a full exam is completed. But from what I have seen, it looks as though she has some tearing on her anal passage and postmortem bruises have formed on her hips and breasts indicating a crushing grip, or being held down.”

“So, the victim knows the suspect, and now it’s turned personal through the means of attack
, and the delivery of the murder. With Julia being the local barista, that leaves any number of suspects, but it also provides us with plenty of witnesses. The lack of disturbance to anything else, and the missing weapon shows us again that our guy is organized. He’s highly intelligent, sexually competent, excels in discipline, which leads us to a military or law enforcement training of some kind.”

“Great,” the
chief barked. “Just what I need, some psychopath on the loose that’s had his fair share of tactical training.”

Trent
turned toward Woolsey. “He’ll be charming, will follow the media, and is extremely successful in his job. We may find that he will return to crime scenes, possibly even be a groupie of some sort to law enforcement, trying to offer information in an attempt to be helpful. I think in this case, he was either interrupted or ran out of time, which is the only reason the body is still here.”

Charlie sighed,
confusing him. She stared out the window again and turned to him with a grim expression. He kept her gaze, and a frown pulled down his brows, but he continued speaking.

He didn’t realize he crossed the room until he found himself standing at Charlie’s side.

Emotion swirled in her hazel gaze. “I think I may have been able to catch our guy last night.”

A series of shouts rang out in the room. “What are you talking about?”

She looked out the window. “Last night on my way home, I drove by this house and noticed an abandoned vehicle sitting in that field.”

His gut clenched, rolled, but he did
n’t move, didn’t say anything. He had a feeling he already knew, though.
So fucking close…

“I pulled into the drive, checked on the house, walked around, but all the lights were off
, and the doors were locked. I felt uneasy but figured I was too tired.”

“Did you check out the vehicle, Charlie?” The
chief’s strained voice rumbled across the room.

She shook her head
and her sigh was filled with so much self-loathing Trent almost reached out to her. “No. I didn’t.” She turned her eyes to Trent, and he sucked in a sharp breath at the heavy anguish. “I didn’t even get the fucking plate number.”

Chapter Fourteen

Three days later, a
t the Nyack Village National Night Out Festival, he leaned against the store’s front brick wall, scarcely noticing the crowds passing. Instead, his attention remained riveted on the local female detective who recently became a threat to his hobby. She was standing next to the Chief of Police, who was sitting inside of a makeshift jail cell in the center of town. The two laughed as local teenagers exchanged cash with a young, plump female in exchange for Woolsey’s freedom.

Make believe as it were, his skin itched with apprehension at the thought of being
put behind bars, even fake ones. Detective Lopez’s sultry chuckle floated through the air and rubbed along his skin as if it were velvet. A tease, a craving, a challenge.

Another town member walked up and passed some cash off to another officer.
Charlie continued to laugh, and shook her head. She pulled the chief’s hands behind his back, took out her handcuffs, and snapped them over his wrists with a bit of zest. The older man turned to look at her over his shoulder, said something with a raised brow, and caused her to laugh harder. She grabbed the chain between the cuffs and urged him forward until he stepped into the makeshift jailhouse.

She shut the door, her smile bright as the day, and waved at the
chief through the bars. The old man’s gaze softened. He had seen that look of Woolsey’s face a time or two before and wondered about the history. Maybe he needed to find out what it was about.

He pushed off
the wall and walked by Starbucks, unable to resist peeking inside. The corners of his mouth tugged up when he didn’t see the town’s barista standing behind the counter. She’d proven to be fun, a temptation he couldn’t resist. She had teased and flirted her way into his attentions. It was one he knew she regretted…seeing as she was dead.

He didn’t
regret it at all.

Walking away from the center of town,
a few residents tossed him curious stares while others who recognized him waved and smiled. He nodded and returned the gestures, all the while searching for his next present. Julia woke a beast inside, and now he craved more, wanted the thrill of the chase, the satisfaction of conquering someone. He turned and searched for Detective Lopez again. She glanced up at the same moment and smiled at him. He paused and turned to her.

He silently
urged her to come to him. To let him begin now, finish what he couldn’t the other night. She waved in his direction and he returned the gesture in response. She began to cross the street and wove her way through the crowd. His pulse hammered in his throat, the beat playing out an erotic rhythm in his ears.

“Charlie!”

He snapped his head toward the caller and scowled.

The dark-skinned detective
, Dwayne, flashed a smile and pushed through the crowd toward her.

Charlie broke off from her original path and moved toward the asshole who once again foiled his plans.
His anticipation plummeted.

Damn it!

She walked like a panther in heat. It drew him to her. So unlike the rest of his girls, she stood out. Her dark hair was a chocolate he wanted to sip, her scent one he could drink. He’d take this challenge and love every moment of it.

With one
last wave, she sent him a lingering smile and broke eye contact. He pivoted away, his vision now red, and kicked at a flyer on the ground. The pink paper flew into the air, and a gust of wind brushed by. He caught the lettering, advertisements of the night urging the community to fight back against crime, to join the police on the streets in an effort to build relationships.

Fight back
against crime?

He snort
ed, the sound like a deadly snarl. He rounded a street corner and turned on Main. The crowd and music faded behind him the farther he got from the center of town. He stepped up to his car, glanced down the street, and got inside. One could never, ever be too careful.

Soon,
soon
he would go to her and finish what he’d planned to do.

****

The next day, Charlie drummed her fingers on her wooden desk and read the forensics report for the seventh time. It gave her hardly anything new, repeating the same things from each of the prior crime reports. No identifiable fingerprints other than the victim, no semen, blood, or other liquids to identify her perpetrator. Trace evidence was nonexistent, and the only thing she had to go off of were the shoe impressions taken outside the house, identified as a pair of DeWalt steel-toed boots. The knife used had a smooth edge, sharp, and was not perforated. Only one thing stood out, the item drawing her attention like nothing else. The impressions from tracks left in the field.

The tires from the SUV were classified specific
to Range Rovers. Certain vehicles had those kinds of identifiers. Sort of like fingerprints for cars, fibers for rugs, or DNA in suspects. These specific tires caused hope to shine bright as a beacon. The forensics search showed the tracks only traced to late 1994 models of Range Rovers. The tires were rare and hard to come by in the United States. Even more important, the tread wasn’t worn.

A step in the right direction—for once—in this case.

She shut the manila file and sat back, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts. The closer they got to identifying the killer, the more her nerves frayed. It was only a matter of time until what she suspected came to light. Like a bomb ticking, as if the wick of a firecracker burned, her time to figure all this out was ending. Nothing new came out as a result of this latest crime, except for the question of her own ethics. Between wanting something so bad and needing something else so much more.

She wanted to get this guy off the streets, wanted the violence and panic to stop. Yet
she ached for a man she could never have. Not with the history of the cops in her life. And not with her uncertainty on who Trent was. There were too many questions she couldn’t answer alone, ones she needed to ask him. She had to be positive. Only then, could she be absolutely sure about what side of the law he was on, and what kind of man he was.

But going to him perhaps wasn’t the best idea. Especially not alone. For some reason she always seemed to lose all rational thought in his presence. Staying away might be the best thing, at least until she could make sure there were a few other people in the room.

Maybe that would keep her hands off him.

She thought about it. Or maybe not.

She pushed from the desk and rolled to her feet, her mind made up. She needed to follow through with this, more than anything, she just needed to know.

Fifteen minutes later, she stood outside Trent’s hotel room. Her palms
were slick with sweat and nerves, her stomach jumped and tumbled as if it were in a dryer machine. She knocked on the door. Cool air brushed the back of her neck and she closed her eyes, focused on the building anticipation. Everything fell away, the world disappearing until all she could picture was him. His dark, good looks were deadly and held an air of menace. His scent, all male, and an aphrodisiac to her. The sound of his voice, of his moans when he kissed her, had her thighs clenching together.

The door clicked,
and Trent filled her vision. Her heart pounded in her chest. He was the water to her ship. She could not operate without his touch. How had it come to this?

His eyes flared for a moment, the
icy gaze sending a shiver of awareness.

“
We need to talk, Trent.”

He didn’t respond, and instead held her stare.

Charlie sucked in a breath and her stomach coiled tighter. She couldn’t turn away now, was past the point of return. This night, this moment would change everything.

Finally, after several terse moments, he nodded and stepped back. A tiny step
, but it was all she needed. The breath she held rushed out in a tangled push, and she slid up to his body. When his hand landed on her hip, Trent nudged her to the side, not moving back but instead drawing her inside.

The door clicked shut next to her face
, and he pressed his body to hers, pushing her to the wall. So close his essence wrapped around her. His stare drilled into hers, and the click of the lock had her eyes fluttering closed as the final line washed away.

****

“Look at me, Charlie.”

Her eyes opened slowly, at first latch
ing on his chest. He burned where he touched her, an inferno inside raging that he had never felt before. He released her hip and skimmed up and over her small waist. His palm brushed over the swell of her breast, touching her like butterfly wings against skin.

Gently nudging her chin, he lifted her face to his and dropped closer. His mouth hovered over hers. The air she pushed out
was a hot and heady combination of mint and lust. Combined with her scent and the desire evident in her eyes, it was almost enough to break his self-control.

“You need to be sure, Charlie.”

She whimpered and bit her lip. The brush of her skin over his sent a rush of tingles shooting over sensitive nerves.

“I am.”

She humbled him. “I don’t know what I can give you right now. The future isn’t exactly clear to me, so you need to understand this is all I can offer you.”

She shifted, wiggled her hips against his.
Immense pleasure spread from his groin. Her arms wound around his neck, and she pressed up until her lips touched his. She slid closer, watching, showing she knew exactly what she was doing.

“Touch me.”

Two simple words, and yet they spoke so much. His self-constraint snapped, and he crushed his mouth down on hers. He wrapped his hand in her thick curls and plundered her lips. Charlie groaned, and he answered with a calling of his own.

She wrapped her arms tighter, her breast pressing into his chest, hard peaks stabbing through the thin
cloth.

He yearned to touch her skin, rub
against her like a cat in heat. It was a strong feeling, one he’d never felt before, but also one he didn’t want to examine too close.

She didn’t just allow him to kiss her
, she took from him as well, met him thrust for thrust, caressed and slid her slick tongue against his. Her hands roamed over his shoulders and grabbed at his blue t-shirt. She tasted sweet, of a sinful spice he was all too willing to take in.

He unwound from her and stepped back. She cried out a soft sound of protest,
her face scrunched as if in pain. The sound cut off and elation surged through him as he reached over his head and tugged his shirt off. Her gaze raked over his exposed torso and darkened, heavy-lidded eyes filled with lust, as if taking in the sight of him satisfied her hunger. Her reaction amped up his excitement and had his hands itching to rush this along.

She tugged on the front of her shirt. Snap buttons popped one by one with the rapid staccato of sounds compared to fireworks. The cloth gaped open and she let
it fall to the floor. White lace played peek-a-boo over her white camisole, the soft swell of her breasts heaving with each breath she took.

The gold badge on her hip and the black Glock on her side should have snapped him to his senses,
and caused him to stop this madness, but he was too caught up in his desire for her to quit now. They came together in a clash of lips and limbs. Her thin tank top went next, followed by his belt as she ripped it through his pant loops.

They
made their way to the couch in a frenzy of activity, not breaking contact, and yet he craved more. Each piece of skin he uncovered he touched, caressed, and tasted. Her fingers roamed, and fire licked over his skin until he thought he would burn up. He worked eagerly, stripping her badge off her belt, taking the Glock and dropping it to the table. He tugged on her jeans until they opened, and then he pushed the material, along with her panties, over her hips.

As they reached the couch, he dropped his head and nibbled at the pulse thudding against her
neck. It beat in a rapid succession, giving away her excitement. It was almost visible, and a complete turn on.

****

How could she have considered not coming back to him? The thought of it was so preposterous she had to muffle the laugh before it escaped. Trent paused and lifted his head to stare at her. His brows tugged together, and he searched her face as if he could see through her, knew her fears, and yet understood the need churning deep inside. He set gentle hands on her shoulders and nudged her to sit on the plush, wide couch.

Watching for his reaction, Charlie saw the muscles in his jaw mov
e as he clenched his teeth. His face wore such intensity, she thought he might have decided to stop. That thought was abandoned however, as he fell to his knees in front of her. She gasped and any earlier doubts floated away as he pushed her hands aside and looked up. Hunger filled his gaze, the blue almost invisible against the spreading black pupils.

No words were spoken, none were needed.

He prodded her thighs open. Shifting nearer to the couch, his eyes held hers as he wrapped his palms around the backs of her legs. Her breath caught when he gave a quick, hard yank and scooted her so her ass hung over the edge. His intent was clear, written for anyone to read. Time stopped completely and the air in her lungs rushed out as he dipped his head and kissed her in the most intimate way anyone could.