jabbed his thumb toward the ranch house where the murder had occurred and a neighbor had called to report screaming. “That in there is just a body. You don’t have to feel sorry for it. Feel sorry for the life that left it. And get motivated to avenge her.”
Jocelyn nodded a few stiff, short times. “I know. I know all of that. It’s just...”
“Hard, yeah. It is. Just stay focused on your job.”
With a strange look at him, she nodded slower, closing her eyes and letting out a final, deep breath.
Why had she looked at him like that? She looked at him that way every time he made references to work. Things they had to get done. Deadlines. Facts of a case. Did he use the phrase too much? Stay focused.
“Staying focused keeps it from getting too personal,” he said.
As she recovered from her nausea, Jocelyn’s eyes took on a familiar, teasing glint. “And we all know you don’t get personal.”
What did she mean by that? She turned this onto him. “Not when I’m working.”
“We aren’t working all the time. We do have personal conversations, you know. Like right now, for example.”
“You think this is personal? You just said I don’t get personal.”
“You shared advice with me that isn’t related to the job.” She pointed to the house. “To that.”
“It’s advice that will help you be a good agent.”
Her brow lifted. “By shutting everything and everyone out?”
“Distractions won’t catch killers.”
“And you’re the best at controlling distractions?”
Her teasing had taken on a sarcastic note. “I didn’t say that.”
With an exaggerated sigh, she started walking toward his SUV. “Don’t be getting any ideas that you’re better at this than me just because I got sick to my stomach in there.”
First she accused him of not getting personal and now she thought he outdid her. Why? Because he stayed professional? “You’re a rookie.”
“Best rookie you’ll ever have.” She smiled over at him.
Damn if she didn’t have a way of turning on the charm. “I can see you’ve recovered. You’re back to your cheery self.”
“You should try it sometime.” She slid him a playful glance as she came to a stop at the sidewalk.
He grunted, used to her teasing, which at times could be crass. “You’re saying I’m a downer?”
“You’re serious.”
Dead people had a tendency to take humor out of the day. He took in her slender form, curving in the right places in dark jeans and an FBI jacket over her white T-shirt. Maybe her femininity did distract him. But she reported to him. He morally disagreed with intimate relationships with his employees.
“You own a cat,” he said.
She laughed, breathy evidence that she enjoyed the way they poked at each other. Trevor had trouble deciphering whether she meant everything she said. Did she really think he was serious? Too serious? He wasn’t all the time...was he?
“Having a cat doesn’t make me serious. You’re a guy. Guys don’t like cats.”
“Only guys who have dogs.”
She laughed outright at that.
She had a great laugh, one of many things he’d begun to like about her.
Big smile still sparkling all over her face, she tapped him with her finger. “The Alphabet Killer might be trying to throw us off. Remember, she’s copying Matthew Colton’s methods. Don’t discount her as a suspect in this murder. Wait for the DNA testing.”
She may have a point. The evidence told the truth. But he’d investigated a lot more crimes than she had.
He didn’t comment. Any other detective, he’d have argued, but not with her. He encouraged her to offer theories. She learned when wrong and he preferred she figured that out on her own.
“My two o’clock,” she said. “We have company.”
He covertly turned and spotted a car parked on the side of the road. Illuminated by dash lights, a man sat inside, watching. The car still ran.
“Did our subject come back to see the fuss his handiwork caused?” Jocelyn asked.
Killers sometimes did return to the crime scene. Parking down the street displayed boldness. Or in this case, maybe guilt.
“I thought you were convinced this was the Alphabet Killer.”
“Not convinced, just open to possibilities—including this killer being who you suspect.”
Trevor covertly looked over at the car. “Could be someone who’s just curious.”
Reaching his black Yukon, he started to open her door for her.
She swatted his hand away. “Stop doing that.”
Ever since they’d first met, he felt compelled to treat her like a lady. Sometimes she talked like a man and kept him at a distance like a man. Except when she teased him. Then he wasn’t sure if she flirted with him. But she had a certain femininity about her, a sexy heat that burned just below the surface. Like now, denying him while her eyes and the way she moved said something different.
He walked around to the other side as she got in, seeing the way she watched him while checking on the person in the other car.
Maybe she felt the same as him, attracted but uncomfortable with that. She might complain about his professionalism, but she had the same standards.
Starting the engine, he checked the rearview mirror and saw the car hadn’t moved.
“Buckle up.”
“Stop doing that,” she said again.
“Doing what?” How did asking her to buckle up resemble treating her like a lady?
“Being so...attentive.”
Or...attentive. He’d go with that. “I’m being attentive by making sure you wear a seat belt. Okay. Would you rather I let you go through the windshield if we wreck?” He drove into a U-turn and approached the other car.
“I was going to put my seat belt on, just not in your time frame.” She connected the belt with a firm snap.
“You get grouchy when you’re tired and hungry, you know that?”
“So do you. I’m not grouchy. Are we fighting? It started out okay, but it seems like it graduated into a fight.” Her face crimped into a befuddled frown.
“I get grouchy?” Trevor realized he was hungry as he stopped beside the parked car and Jocelyn rolled her window down, gesturing with her other hand for the man to do the same.
The stranger gaped at them, a deer-in-headlights stare, and then jerked into action. He yanked the gear into drive and tires squealed as he sped off.
“Not a curious onlooker.” Jocelyn closed her window as Trevor whipped the SUV into another U-turn.
The big engine easily caught up to the car, a green Prius. He flipped on the flashing lights along the top of the windshield.
The Prius turned right. Trevor followed, turning on the siren. The Prius didn’t stop. Instead, the driver drove toward Main Street. Late at night, traffic didn’t concern Trevor much, but his luck ran against him when a moving truck pulled out from a side street. The Prius dodged the front end and Trevor veered to miss the rear.
The Prius crashed into the front of a liquor store, shattering glass and tearing down the front wall. Screeching to a