“Ev...” Ryan murmured in a soft warning.
She ignored him.
“Their names, Agent. You know, Cynthia Garland, age fourteen. Christina Garland, age twelve. Cynthia was caught up in the latest wave of team whoever.” Evelyn waved her hands in the air. “Christina loved all things Disney.”
She stared straight into Marcus’s face and locked eyes with him. Marcus knew she meant it as a challenge, but strangely, he didn’t feel it. He only felt drawn to her. His pulse quickened. Definitely not what he was expecting.
“Ashley Middleton, age six. Samantha Middleton, age four. Ashley loved horses and recently won her first blue ribbon at a show. Samantha wanted to be an astronaut and, according to the neighbors, liked to walk around with a flight helmet on.”
“Ev.” Ryan coughed into his fist.
She stopped short, blinked at Ryan, then glanced down, seeming flustered.
Marcus waited. Watched her closely to see how long it would take her to collect herself. She raised her head less than three seconds later. Impressive.
Marcus smiled, put down the file in his hand and calmly picked up where she’d left off. Maybe, just maybe, he’d found the last member of his special task-force team.
“Both husbands worked in high-profile jobs. Scott Garland was the lead engineer of Boeing, and James Middleton was the founding and managing partner of Middleton and Houghes, the largest law firm in Seattle. Neither were home a lot, but they weren’t absent fathers by any stretch of the imagination. Both Meagan Garland and Kimberley Middleton were your typical stay-at-home mothers, but also socially engaged and involved in multiple charitable organizations, as well as being active in their children’s lives.” He leaned back in his chair. “All these individuals are victims of brutal acts of violence. I’m also painfully aware, Detective Davis, that they’re all someone’s family members, that people loved them and are grieving their untimely and unjust deaths.”
He watched her face fall. What the hell? Quickly, he mentally skimmed the information he knew about her and remembered reading that she’d lost her family. Shit. He should’ve known this type of case would hit a tender spot. He’d have questioned her humanity if it didn’t.
“We aren’t heartless animals,” he said in a softer tone. “My deepest apologies if it came across that way.”
Ryan’s eyes widened and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The captain’s face remained unreadable as he glanced between his star detective and Marcus.
Her next move would determine everything, including whether or not he’d continue to evaluate her for his task-force team. He needed strong team members, individual thinkers willing to toe the line when needed, but confident enough in their own ability to step off that line if justice required it. It wasn’t easy, and only a very special person could handle both.
He hoped Evelyn was such a person.
Color kissed the top of her cheeks, making her look all that much more appealing. He’d never met someone like the woman sitting across from him. In the ten minutes that he’d known her, she’d questioned him, put him in his place, treated him as her—
He went rigid. He’d never met a woman who was his equal and acted like it. Sure, there had been plenty with the potential, but none that had stepped up to him like she had.
And he had to admit, he liked that.
Tilting her head slightly, she smiled at him. His stomach tightened again. Apparently oblivious to his inner battle between intellect and libido, she took a deep breath. “My apologies for assuming the worst. You’re right. The only animal is the one who is still on the loose.”
Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. Impressive. He’d definitely found his last team member—if she’d only say yes. He caught her eye, nodded, then looked down at the case file in his hands. “Right, then. Shall we nail this asshole?”
SHE’D BEEN RIGHT. After digging through the lives and histories—and more importantly, the autopsy reports—of both families and coming up empty, they now, without any doubt, had ruled out the family annihilator label, though it didn’t make this case any simpler. If anything, it made it harder.
The whirling of the ceiling fan stirred the warm, calm air in the bull pen. Evelyn sipped her Starbucks latte and reached for the coroner’s reports. Ryan cradled his phone between his ear and shoulder and scowled at something said on the other end. His pen tapped the edge of his desk in rhythmic bursts. Evelyn tuned out her partner and riffled through the reports again, determined to find something—anything—that would give them a break in these cases.
Their killer had taken his time with the Garland family. She shuddered. There were no defensive wounds on the father, because he couldn’t defend himself. He’d been injected with a paralyzing agent. Evelyn’s stomach clenched. Even if he’d wanted to fight to protect his family, he’d been powerless to do so. Unable to move, he’d watched as the madman slashed his youngest daughter’s throat, then shot his oldest. Aside from the horrific, psychological last moments as her sister bled out in her arms, the oldest had died a quick death. But what he’d done to the mother, she couldn’t go over that again. Not without her rebellious mind flashing on colored photos of her own mother. Evelyn shook her head to clear the vivid images, scanned through the statement again until she landed on the detailed report of the father. He’d been tortured in ways that would make even the toughest SEAL’s skin crawl before having the back of his head off blown off.
She put the report down and rolled her shoulders in small circles. The mayor was breathing down their necks for any forward movement, and despite the detailed and graphic autopsy report, they had nothing to offer.
She sighed and closed her eyes. It had been a long day of canvassing the neighborhoods, researching, looking for connections between the two families and interviewing the next of kin, which had been beyond brutal. If Evelyn had to console one more grieving family member without being able to assure them of anything, she might scream.
Her eyes burned, the hours of reading taking their toll. She and Ryan both needed a reprieve, just a brief one, to recharge and regroup. But they wouldn’t get it. Not with the predator still at large and nothing to show for their hours and hours of tedious, eye-crossing work. She rubbed her eyes, then reached for her lukewarm coffee and took a sip. Silently whining wasn’t going to fix anything.
Her mind drifted toward the handsome Fed. He’d been called away to a closed-door meeting with the mayor down at city hall. Which was fine with her. Evelyn didn’t want to have to rub shoulders with any politician right now, nor did she want to be within five feet of the Fed. His absence was a much-needed relief—every time she was near him, her skin tingled and her heart kicked into overdrive.
She set the mug down, glancing at the report and waiting for the black letters to refocus in front of her.
Ryan slammed down the phone. “This is total bullshit.”
Evelyn looked over at her partner. He ran his hand over his chin stubble and pawed through the papers on his desk.
“We’ve got nothing. No one heard anything. No one saw anything. We’ve got no fingerprints, no fibers. Nothing.” He picked up his cup and threw it across the room. It shattered into a hundred tiny pieces and dark liquid stained the floor where it pooled. “It’s like this guy’s a ghost.”
“He isn’t a ghost. We’ll get him.”
“Yeah? When? When he takes out another family?”
“Ry...” The words caught in her throat.