LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Father, daughter dinner, huh?” Reed grinned.

      “Yeah. He insisted, and he’s been a little weird lately.”

      Reed turned his head to make momentary eye contact. “You don’t think he’s sick?”

      “I hope not.” Marina considered the thought and dismissed it. Her father was a big baby. If he were sick, she’d know it because for most of her twenty-eight years she’d been his number-one choice for unofficial nurse. “Nah, he seems to be having some sort of midlife crisis.”

      “Again?”

      Something in Reed’s tone made her want to defend her father. He could be very dramatic and quite emotional, but she never doubted his love or that he had her best interests at heart. “Okay, Reed. Cut him some slack. He hit his fiftieth birthday in January and has been trying to fight getting older every step of the way.”

      Reed simply laughed, a warm, rumbling sound that made her smile in return.

      “All right, now, you’ll get there someday yourself,” she warned.

      “Lord, I hope so.” Reed maneuvered the car around a corner. “I plan to have it all by then.”

      “And what does having it all mean for you these days?” she asked, venturing deeper into the personal without thinking.

      “Smart, hot-looking, sex freak of a wife who’s crazy about me, a couple of kids, big house in the burbs, a job as captain, and a Jag.”

      “You don’t ask for much, do you?” she quipped.

      “Hey, I’m working on it. What about you?”

      Marina clasped her hands behind her head. “Tall, good-looking hunk of a husband who treats me like a queen and knows how to admit when he’s wrong, a couple of kids, a house that we love, a challenging job, the latest Mustang…”

      They were at the red light near the station. Reed turned to face her. She sensed seriousness beneath his light tone. “You’ve got the sports car and the job. How are you coming on the rest?”

      Marina forced a smile. “Now I’ve got to find the man, then work on the house and kids.”

      They flashed their badges as he drove through the gate into the station lot. He spoke in an even tone. “What happened to Emilio?”

      She fought an unreasonable wave of guilt. She’d really made a mess of ending things with Reed by letting things simmer between them too long. Ending the romance between them had been difficult. All was fair in love and war, wasn’t it? She answered him in a casual tone. “Emilio was a nice guy, but it didn’t work out.”

      Reed parked the car. He took the key out of the ignition and faced her. Most of the warmth had faded from his expression. “That’s too bad.”

      “Yes, it is,” she replied, pushing back with her tone. The sudden distance between them made Marina feel as if she’d been slapped. There’d been an unsaid criticism in his expression and his voice. There’d been a hint of “you made your bed now lie in it” in his tone, too. That made her mad. Reed had no right to judge her or her actions. If his shorts were still twisted over what had happened in the past, it was too damned bad.

      Snapping her mouth shut, she got out of the car. “See you tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder. He replied, but she really didn’t hear it because she was too busy walking to her car and fuming.

      Driving home she reflected on her first day on the assignment and hoped that past history wasn’t going to make Reed a pain in the ass to work with. Finding the serial killer would be difficult enough.

      She thought about poor Jade and then the unlucky Elliot Washington. He’d obviously chosen the wrong woman to cheat with. Had Elliot’s ex, Lissa, been that woman? Marina was looking forward to their talk with Lissa Rawlins.

      Chapter 3

      Marina Santos always managed to push Reed’s buttons whether she wanted to or not. Wound up from his first day on the task force, and more than a little out of sorts from seeing Marina and trying to adjust to working with her, Reed grabbed a quick hot dog on a bun covered with chili gravy and onions at his favorite Coney Island restaurant. He drove around the city until he reached one of his favorite spots, the Xsport Fitness Gym. He worked out and pumped iron until most of the restless feeling disappeared.

      Instead of heading home this time, Reed turned his truck onto his mother’s street. It wasn’t his evening to take care of her, but he was close enough to stop and check on her. Her blood sugar levels had been fluctuating, her blood pressure was high, and she’d seemed overtired the last couple of days. The area’s streetlights were out again. Porch lights shone like an oasis on several neighborhood homes, but they did little to dispel the gathering darkness. The small one-and two-story brick structures were old and worn.

      Most of the older inhabitants had already given up the warm evening air for the relative safety and security found inside their homes. Like his mother, Trudy, they were clinging to the homes they loved come hell or high water.

      Here and there, youths sat on porches or stood in groups talking. The old neighborhood was rundown and becoming dangerous for those unable to hold their own against the local toughs and predators looking for victims.

      Reed parked the truck in front of his mother’s house. The porch light was off but a warm glow around the edges of the blinds indicated that his mother was still up and about.

      Peering around the quiet block, he got out of the truck. A warm evening breeze enveloped him. Something moved in the dark. Reed froze. His hand moved close to the Glock pistol he wore strapped at his waist. Innate caution and the desire not to hurt anyone unless it became absolutely necessary kept him from drawing the pistol.

      Reed stood listening to the darkness. Nothing but the wind. He studied the surrounding trees and bushes, looking for movement. Nothing. Still his instincts told him that someone was hiding in the darkness, watching him. Instinct had saved his life more times than he cared to remember.

      Fleetingly, he thought about being stalked. He wasn’t the kind of man who saw menace everywhere. In the truck earlier, he’d dismissed Marina’s suggestion that he could be in danger from the serial killer because the profile was still too general, but the possibility remained. He thought of Elliot Washington and Colton Edwards. Maybe someone had stalked and watched them in the dark before moving in close to viciously attack them.

      Dismissing the thought, Reed stepped around the side of the truck. It was more likely that a druggie or neighborhood tough was lurking in the bushes, hoping to mug him. “Police officer. Who’s there?” he called into the dark.

      Footsteps echoed on the sidewalk and changed to the muffled sound of someone running across the grass. The sound of breaking glass fractured the relative silence. His pulse raced. Reed drew the high-powered flashlight from his pocket and switched it on. Illuminating the trees, bushes and sidewalk, he satisfied himself that no one hid nearby. Walking up the driveway, he headed for the back of the house to check for broken glass.

      Easing between his mother’s house and the one next door, he was glad for the absence of trees and bushes to hide an attacker. Behind the house, broken bottle glass littered the area near the trash. He guessed that someone had thrown the bottle to attract his attention.

      Shining his light over the small garage and the few trees in his mother’s yard and the yards on either side of her, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. “Damn fool kids,” he muttered under his breath as he returned to the front. He would sweep up the glass tomorrow when it was daylight.

      Warm light and cooler air hit him in the face as he used his keys to open the security door and enter the house. Inside, Trudy Crawford sat at her desktop computer under a floodlight in a corner of her living room.

      Golden-brown eyes mirrored his. Seeing him, her mouth broke into a smile. “Hey, Be-be,” she said pleasantly as she pulled the reading glasses off her nose and laid

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