It wasn’t sexual with Diana. Never sexual. But it was intimate. Her unconditional acceptance of his authority, and her warm body got him through many nights of rebellion and insecure feelings about his place in the world.
The soft ping of the elevator roused him from his rumination. The door opened and he found himself looking down the hall of his floor in building seventeen. Small crowds gathered here and there outside open doorways.
He walked through the first gathering and into the apartment beyond.
“Can I crash here?” he asked Caroline when he found her cross-legged on the bed, watching TV with a group of others.
“Xander, you know you don’t have to ask,” she said, moving over and making room for him.
“I’m working tomorrow. I have to set the alarm,” he warned.
“No prob.”
He climbed in the bed, finding enough room among the large tangle of people to get comfortable and fall asleep.
* * * *
“You wanted to see me, Cap?” Xander stepped into his supervisor’s office.
“A fallow has been transported over from the Sapphire Designation Center. Jordan’s covering her right now,” Captain Rush said, without looking away from his compad. He touched his screen a couple more times then looked at Xander. “Looks like you’re on. We need to have a strategy session. I notified the rest of the task force team. Take an hour for dinner. We’ll meet at eight in the briefing room.”
Xander stepped through the side door of police headquarters and lifted his face toward the thunderclouds and sprinkling rain. He breathed deeply. Anticipation and contentment swirled in his chest. He was ready to get back to normal, having a female assigned to him, someone to care for again. The practice of single Amber males caring for their assigned female suited him, fulfilled an inexplicable need in his personality. It made him a better man.
An hour later, Xander, Rock and Brady, the electronics specialist, as well as Wes, the homicide detective from the last fallow cases, were all gathered around the large briefing room table in Amber Zone Police Headquarters. The atmosphere was relaxed. Everyone knew one another. The officers assigned to the Circle City area were like family to each other. All of them, except the captain, were single and lived in Circle City as well.
Captain Rush’s sharp eyes lasered in on the team members as he walked in the door. Rush reminded Xander of a predatory bird. His bald head and pointy beak nose added to the effect.
“Let me give you the overview of what we have so far,” he said, getting right down to business. “The last three fallows assigned to Circle City from other zones have wound up dead within weeks of their placement here. The first, Stacey Adams…” He tapped his stylus on his handheld to bring up a projection on the board. “Was originally taken at face value as, what we thought at the time, was an obvious suicide by some kind of poisoning.
“A month and a half later, another fallow came in from the Sapphire Zone, Tanisha Washington.” He projected another photo. “Three weeks after her placement in building nineteen, she was found dead in her apartment by her roommate. Her wrists were slashed. At first glance, this looked like a suicide as well. But after investigation, the evidence didn’t support suicide. It looked more like a murder set up to pass as a suicide.
“The last victim, also a fallow from Sapphire…” Another picture projected. “…August Zayzinski was found drowned in the Circle City public swimming pool. Again, questionable injuries not consistent with drowning.
“The deaths were reported on the news feeds as suicides, and accident in the last case. We don’t want this guy tipped off that we’re on to him. We know his MO, which leads us to his obvious next victim. The captain switched the picture on the whiteboard. “Jaci Harmon. We’ve been keeping the female spot in Xander’s apartment open waiting for the next fallow. She was transferred there this afternoon.”
Xander studied the picture of his new roommate. She was pretty. A small feeling of trepidation washed over him. God he hoped she wasn’t bratty like some of the other women transferred in from one of the more privileged zones.
“Jordan is covering the apartment now. As of her last check in, Miss Harmon hasn’t left the apartment or let anybody in. According to Jordan, she hasn’t so much as even turned on a light.
“Xander, along with Rock and Jordan will be responsible for surveillance. You guys have to put together a schedule. See that she’s always covered. Brady will monitor bugs of the apartment as well as incoming and outgoing com activity. I’ll contact the supervisor at her work assignment and place Jordan to work with her there.”
They all spent the next twelve hours breaking down the previous cases with Wes, hammering out surveillance schedules and setting up the monitoring system that would track the chip in Jaci’s com, giving her exact location as well as bugging her conversations and messages. It was late morning when the group finally left the station. Xander was exhausted by the time he headed out to meet up with Jordan, who’d been doing surveillance all night.
He sat with her, sweating his ass off, in the police cruiser parked outside of building seventeen. He just finished updating Jordan on the strategy meeting she’d missed and was delighted to be the one to tell her about her new job assignment as painter, when she pointed to the building.
“There she is. They’re delivering her back home.”
Xander watched Jaci as the sterilization transport staff pushed her wheelchair into the side entrance of the building. She sat unmoving, her arms wrapped around herself, and her gaze fixed down at her lap.
“Shit.” His heart broke while he watched her being wheeled inside. She looked spent, like she had nothing left. “I should have been there last night and this morning. She needed me.”
Jordan answered him with a sympathetic look and a pat on the shoulder.
A few minutes later, they watched the transport pull away. He sighed. “I’m beat. I’m going to get some sleep.”
“Me too. I still have to talk with Caroline and let her know that I want to volunteer for the Sit-In Team. They’ll probably show up within the next few hours.”
“Sounds good. Come on. I’ll walk you up to your new apartment. Oh, by the way, Brady’s your roommate, in case you haven’t figured that out already.” He chuckled as he got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. “He’s finishing up his surveillance setup.”
“What was the chuckle for?” Jordan shot him a glare.
“No chuckle.” He smiled down at her. “Brady’s been waiting his whole career to have a case like this. I’m wondering if he’ll even notice you’re there with all his electronics, slash stakeout, slash contingency supplies there.”
She smiled up at him. “Go ahead and yuck it up. You won’t be when he saves your ass.”
“Let’s hope that never happens. I’d never live it down.”
On the ninth floor, Xander checked in with Brady and picked up the bug he needed to plant in his own apartment, promising to plant it as soon as he walked in the door.
He was dead on his feet as he rode the musty-smelling elevator to the fourth floor.
It was silent when he walked into the apartment. He expected Jaci to be in bed, sleeping, and was surprised to find the bed empty. The window shade was pulled down, darkening the room. A slit of artificial light escaped from underneath the bathroom door. He planted the