LITMIR.BIZ

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he didn’t say we needed to be joined at the hip, did he?” She lifted her chin and ignored the fine buzz that ran across her skin at his nearness. “I’m going in alone. I’m betting she’ll be more relaxed with a woman than a man, and the more she relaxes, the more I’ll be able to get out of her.”

      Not waiting for him to argue, she opened the door, stepped through and shut it in his face. Then she breathed through her mouth in an exaggerated sigh of stress. Frustration.

      She wished she knew Chief Parry better, wished she knew whether it was safe to complain to him. Because there was no doubt in her mind that she and McDermott working together was a bad idea. They were just going to annoy each other.

      Distract each other.

      “You okay?”

      The question startled her, because it came in a very familiar voice. “Maya!”

      “Who else did you expect?” The dark-haired beauty unfolded herself from a chair beside the bed, which held the blond pixie that Alissa knew from her picture.

      Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Walsh, taken from the MovieMogul parking lot by a man in a light-colored van. And now, miraculously, home safe.

      Or so Alissa hoped.

      Almost afraid to ask, she glanced at Maya. “Is she…?”

      “She seems generally okay—bumps, bruises, exposure and hypothermia, but nothing else.” The BCCFD’s forensic psychologist—and counselor—touched the sleeping girl’s wrist. “She’s been in and out. Her parents and younger brother have been here for the past few hours. I just sent them off for a snack and a walk.”

      Maya’s long-lashed eyes were dark with sympathy. Alissa knew the family couldn’t be in better hands. Maya had a way with victims and suspects, just as Alissa had a way with scenes, and Cassie with evidence.

      The three made a strong unit, stronger even than the retired Fitz, who had left before they arrived, not bothering to help ease their transition onto the force. Alissa gritted her teeth. Well, to hell with him. To hell with men in general. She was here to do a job, not make new friends.

      “Can you intercept the parents?” she asked Maya. “I’d like some time alone with her.”

      “Sure. I’ll speak with them about easing her back into her normal life and dealing with the aftermath. They’ve asked about counseling, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to help her move on.” The warning in Maya’s eyes was velvet gentleness over a core of steel. Don’t mess up her head.

      But how could Alissa promise that? She needed the young woman—little more than a child, really, she was so small and fragile looking—to remember things she would probably rather forget. In the long run, it would help her…but the short run was going to hurt.

      “I’ll do my best,” Alissa answered, though they both knew it wasn’t really an answer at all.

      Maya, being Maya, smiled and touched her arm in passing. “I know you will, ’Lissa.” She turned back with her hand on the door. “You want me to send one of the boys to sit outside the door and make sure you have your privacy?”

      “Already taken care of,” Alissa said. “McDermott’s outside.” Then she held a finger to her lips and mouthed, and he’s probably listening.

      Lord knows she would be, under the same circumstances.

      Maya raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment beyond a cautious, “Okay. I’ll be back to check on you in twenty.”

      “Good enough.” Alissa watched as Maya pushed through the door. Sure enough, McDermott was right outside, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping.

      She glared and he flicked an unrepentant half-smile. Then the door swung shut between them, separating them some, but not enough. Irritated and faintly anxious, she forced her mind back on to the job. On to the girl, the victim who had seen the face of her kidnapper.

      Or so Alissa hoped.

      She pulled out her pad and turned back to the bed, intending to sit with Lizzie until she woke up. But the girl’s eyes were open and wary. “I already told them I don’t remember anything,” Lizzie said, voice faintly petulant, as though Alissa was interrupting her.

      “Okay.” Alissa sat and settled her sketch pad in her lap. When she lifted the hard charcoal pencil she used for initial blocking work, she saw the girl’s eyes follow. “We’ll just chat a little until your parents come back. No pressure.”

      Instead of tarting off or repeating her denial, Lizzie surprised Alissa.

      The girl began to cry.

      Huge tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over, and she rolled to her side and hugged her knees to her chest beneath the thin hospital blanket. “I th-thought he was going to kill me. He said he was going to, that I wouldn’t have any warning. That one night he’d just do it, maybe while I was sleeping.” She swallowed a racking sob. “I t-tried not to sleep much after that, but it was so cold. So dark. Once, I woke up and he was standing over me. He had a knife.” She burrowed her face into the pillow and howled, straining her body into the mattress as though she wished it would swallow her up. “Then he put me in that cave. He drugged me. I was out of it, but I knew what he’d done. I knew there was a bomb. I thought I was going to die when you came. I thought we were both dead.”

      Her thin frame shuddered with the force of her tears.

      Alissa’s throat closed, and she reached out to touch the girl’s scraped-raw ankle, the only part of Lizzie she could reach from her seat.

      God, she hated this. She wanted to gather the young woman in her arms and tell her not to think about it. Instead she forced her voice calm and asked about the place where Lizzie had been held. About the man, who’d always stayed in the shadows. About what he’d said, what he’d done. What he’d looked like.

      Lizzie cried as she talked. The words came pouring out of her as though she’d wanted to talk about it, needed to talk about it, even though she’d said she remembered nothing.

      But she remembered, all right. She remembered plenty, though maybe not enough. As she talked, Alissa sketched furiously, trusting her microcorder to catch all of the girl’s descriptions for later analysis. The images engraved themselves on her heart, wounding her with fear for the others, for herself.

      After ten minutes Lizzie’s words slowed. After fifteen, they stopped altogether and the girl slipped back to sleep, her body shutting down when her soul couldn’t handle any more.

      Instead of being frustrated, Alissa was grateful. She wasn’t sure she could have handled more, herself. So she sighed, swiped her sleeve across both cheeks where sympathetic tears had dried and pushed to her feet. The outer door moved slightly as she crossed the room, but by the time she opened it, McDermott was leaning against the far wall, looking like he’d been there all along.

      She jerked her head towards the exit. “Come on. Let’s talk to the task force.”

      Instead of moving right away, he stared at her, dark eyes intense, until she raised a hand to her cheek, expecting to find that she’d missed a tear. Then he uncoiled and crossed to her. He stopped a breath away, and the warmth of his body eased the tension inside her chest even as it tightened another, lower down.

      He started to say something and stopped. Started again and stopped. Then he blew out a breath and said simply, “If we’re going to be working together, I suppose you should call me Tucker.”

      Surprise rattled through the numbness left by her painful sketch session, and she nodded. “Thanks. I’m Alissa.”

      Sneaky pleasure warmed her. It wasn’t quite acceptance, wasn’t quite a pat on the back for how she’d handled Lizzie.

      But it was a start.

      STILL FEELING GUT PUNCHED by what he’d overheard of Alissa’s

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