LITMIR.BIZ

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more than one lawn gnome is considered a major crime spree. It’s a very peaceful place,” she concluded.

      Frank’s eyes narrowed. He’d been laboring under a basic misunderstanding. “Then you’re not a homicide detective?”

      “I’m an all-around detective,” she answered succinctly. Then, in case he had his doubts and was already labeling her a hick on top of what he probably perceived as her other shortcomings, she was quick to assure him, “Don’t worry, I won’t get in your way.”

      It didn’t make any sense. Why would they send over someone with no experience? And why had Brian agreed to this? “If you don’t mind my asking, why were you sent here?”

      That, at least, was an easy enough question to answer. “Because Captain Randolph isn’t the kind of man who sweeps things under the rug, or just lets other people do his work for him. This is kind of personal.”

      Riley walked by just then and without breaking her stride, or saying a word to her brother, dropped off one of the two cans of soda she’d just gotten from the vending machine, placing it on Julianne’s desk. Julianne smiled her thanks as she continued.

      “Millie Klein was the granddaughter of a friend of his, and he wants justice for his friend. That means seeing her killer pay for her murder. You have the superior department,” she informed him without any fanfare. “It just made sense for him to send the case file over here as well as someone with it.”

      Okay, he’d buy that. But he had another question. “Why you?” She’d just admitted to not having experience and from the looks of her, she couldn’t have been a detective that long. They had to have someone over at Mission Ridge with more seniority than this lagoon-blue-eyed woman.

      Julianne studied him for a long moment before she said anything. “Is your problem with me personal or professional?”

      “I don’t know you personally.”

      And he knew better than to think that just because the woman was beautiful she’d gotten ahead on her looks. If he would have so much as hinted at something like that, his sisters—along with all the female members of the Cavanaugh family—would have vivisected him.

      So he was saying that his beef with her was professional? She took just as much offense at that as she would have had he said it was personal.

      “Professionally, I worked my tail off to get to where I am.” Her eyes darkened, turning almost a cobalt blue. “And you don’t need to know me personally not to like me ‘personally.’” She set her jaw hard. “I’ve run into that all my life.”

      Prejudice was something he’d been raised to fight against and despise. “Because you’re Native American,” he assumed.

      “You don’t have to be politically correct,” she told him. “Indian will do fine.” The term had never bothered her, or any of the other people she’d grown up with. She didn’t see it as an insult. “Or Navajo if you want to be more specific.”

      “Navajo,” Frank repeated with a nod. He’d bet his badge that there was more than just Navajo to her. Those blue eyes of hers didn’t just come by special delivery. “And you won’t find that here,” he informed her.

      “Other Navajos?”

      “No, prejudice because you happen to be something someone else isn’t. I don’t care if you’re a Native American—”

      “Indian,” she corrected.

      “Indian,” he repeated. “What I don’t like is not having a say in who works for me.” But even that could be remedied. “But you prove to me that you can pull your weight, and we’ll get along fine.”

      That sounded fair enough. “Consider it pulled,” Julianne told him.

      With that out of the way, he nodded at her desk. “I’ll look at that folder you brought now.”

      Julianne held the folder out to him. It was thin compared to the ones that Riley had given her. There was a folder complied with random notes and information on each victim posted on the board.

      “You know, all that information was input on the computer,” he told her. He indicated the small notebook computer Riley had managed to mysteriously produce for the new detective. It had to have come from one of the other squad rooms, but he wasn’t about to ask which one. This was a case where “Don’t ask, don’t tell” applied particularly nicely. “You can access it easily enough.”

      Rather than draw the notebook to her, she moved the folders closer. “I like the feel of paper,” Julianne told him. “If the electricity goes down, the paper is still here.”

      Frank laughed shortly. He didn’t hear that very often, and never from anyone under thirty. “Old-fashioned?” he guessed.

      She’d never thought of herself in those terms, going out of her way not to have anything to do with the old ways to which grandmother had clung.

      “I prefer to say that I like the tried and true.” With that, she lowered her eyes and got back to her reading.

      Frank knew when to leave well enough alone.

      Julianne was still going through the files and rereading pertinent parts at the end of the day, making notes to herself as she went along.

      She did her best to remain divorced from the victims, from feeling anything as she reviewed descriptions of the crime scenes. She deliberately glossed over the photographs included in each file.

      The photographs posted on the board showed off each victim at what could be described as her best, before the world—or the killer—had gotten to her. The photographs in the files were postmortem shots of the women. Julianne made a point of flipping the photographs over rather than attempting to study them.

      “Pretty gruesome, aren’t they?” Riley commented.

      Julianne looked up, surprised to find Riley standing in front of her desk. She’d gotten absorbed in the last folder, Polly Barker, a single mother who made ends meet by turning tricks. Her three-year-old daughter, Donna, had been taken by social services the day after the woman’s body was discovered. Despite her best efforts, Julianne’s heart ached, not for the mother, but for the child the woman had left behind.

      She closed the folder now. “Yes.”

      “I don’t blame you for not wanting to look at them, but I really think you should.”

      Julianne glanced at Riley, somewhat surprised though she made sure not to show it. She’d sensed that the other woman was watching her, but more out curiosity than a of desire to assess the way she worked.

      “Why? I’ve got all the details right there in the files.” She nodded at the stack.

      “You’re supposed to be the fresh pair of eyes,” Riley reminded her. “Maybe you’ll see something we didn’t.”

      Taking a deep breath, Julianne flipped over the set of photographs she’d just set aside. It wasn’t that she was squeamish, just that there was something so hopeless about the dead women’s faces. She’d fought against hopeless-ness all of her life and if given the choice, she would have rather avoided the photographs taken at the crime scene.

      But Riley was right. She was supposed to be the fresh set of eyes and although she doubted she would see something the others had missed, stranger things had happened.

      The first thing she saw was a tiny cross carved into the victim’s shoulder.

       Just as there had been on Millie’s.

      In his own twisted mind, was the killer sending his victims off to their maker marked for redemption? Was he some kind of religious zealot, or just messing with the collective mind of the people trying to capture him?

      After a beat, she raised her eyes to Riley’s. “How long?”

      Riley

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