LITMIR.BIZ

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The coffee table was a large square of wood that held a gorgeous floral arrangement. The room was beautiful, but obviously rarely used and not the center of the home.

      “Nothing looks like it’s been touched in here,” Alexander said as he moved into the next room, a large great room more casually decorated and obviously the space where Jackson spent much of his time.

      A huge flat-screen television hung over a stone fireplace and two leather recliners provided the perfect places to sit and watch a movie or dancing flames. Again, it appeared as if nothing untoward had occurred in this room. There was no sign of a struggle or anything amiss.

      Neither of them spoke as they entered the kitchen with its large table and variety of pots and pans hanging from a baker’s rack on the wall. Everything was neat and tidy and she watched as Alexander dragged a hand through his dark hair.

      “I guess the report we got that they were taken from their bed is true. Nothing seems to be out of place down here. We should head upstairs.”

      She nodded and once again found herself following him up the stairs that led to three bedrooms and two baths. The first two bedrooms and the hallway bathroom showed nothing untoward.

      She felt her entire body tense as they approached the master bedroom. She stepped into the room just behind her partner. The king-size bed was unmade. The sheets trailed off to the floor on the closest side of the bed to the door.

      “That bedding doesn’t look normal to me,” Alexander said as he stood still as a statue, his gaze lingering on the bed.

      “By the way the sheets are hanging off, it looks like somebody was dragged from the bed,” Georgina observed.

      “I agree.” The knot in his jaw throbbed as he pointed to the farthest nightstand. “But, how could anyone drag them out of bed when Jackson had his gun right next to him.”

      The gun was on the nightstand next to a silver-and-black lamp, an easy reach even in the darkness of night. “Maybe he drugged them? Drugged the food they ate before they came to bed? Slipped something in their drinks?” Her mind raced to make sense of the scene.

      “I’ll have the crime scene guys come back and check everything that’s in the refrigerator to see if they find anything tainted by drugs.”

      He remained standing at the foot of the bed, staring at the room as if in a trance. Georgina did nothing to break his focus. She knew this was part of his process, this concentration that he used in an effort to see the crime as it happened, to understand any clues that might have been left behind.

      She wondered if he still had nightmares. If somebody was seeing to it that he ate right. She’d heard no rumors that he was dating anyone, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. He’d had two years to move on, and two years was a long time for a man to be alone, especially a man as vital, as alive as Alexander.

      “Were the lights on or off?” He finally broke his trance and turned to look at her. “Do you remember from the report if the lights in here were off or on when the first agents arrived on scene?”

      She frowned thoughtfully, trying to picture the initial report. “Off,” she finally replied. “Jackson is a big man. If they were both somehow drugged, then how did our perp move their unconscious bodies from here to a waiting vehicle down the stairs and outside?”

      Alexander looked closely at the carpeting around the bed where the covers trailed to the floor and then stepped out of the room and stared down the long hallway toward the staircase.

      He turned back to Georgina, a deep frown cutting across his forehead. “I don’t know.”

      “Maybe they weren’t drugged at all,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe the perp just got the drop on them, appeared in the doorway with a gun pointed at Marjorie, making it impossible for Jackson to take a chance at grabbing his own gun.”

      “Maybe,” he replied absently. “Let me take a look in the master bath to see if there’s anything there and then let’s get out of here.”

      He disappeared into the bathroom and Georgina felt his pain, his worry for his friend resonating in her heart. He’d been given a huge job, made all the more important because his good friend was now one of the missing.

      The Gilmer case had given him nightmares and thrown him into a black hole that she feared he would never climb out of. If he was unsuccessful on this case, she feared it would completely and utterly destroy him.

      * * *

      “IT’S SIX-THIRTY, you want to stop by Nettie’s and grab something to eat and talk about all the things we don’t know about this case?” he asked Georgina when they were back in the car and headed away from Jackson’s place. “I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten anything today except a bagel early this morning.”

      She hesitated only a moment before replying. “Sure, Nettie’s sounds like a plan. Besides, if I say no, you probably won’t eat anything tonight.”

      He smiled tightly. “I always did hate to eat alone.”

      The restaurant was a favorite place for the FBI agents to grab meals as it was only a block away from the building where they all worked. The prices were reasonable, the portions generous and the food was delicious.

      He tried to fight against the discouragement that attempted to work its way into his psyche. He’d hoped to find something at Jackson’s place, but given the fact that the other two crime scenes had yielded nothing in the way of clues, he shouldn’t be surprised that nothing had been found there, either.

      Reminding himself that he’d had the case less than twenty-four hours, he wanted to eat and then take the files he had on the previous cases home to study them all again.

      Before they’d all left the office, he’d told the team to be in the war room at seven the next morning, even though it was Saturday. Weekends and holidays would have no meaning at all until this case was solved.

      The fact that nobody from the team had contacted him while he and Georgina had been gone meant none of them had anything to report. Hopefully by morning that would change.

      They remained silent on the rest of the drive to the restaurant. He knew it was probably a mistake partnering himself with Georgina, given their history. He also knew how bright, how dedicated she was to the job, and that because of her knowledge of him and his habits, she’d make the perfect partner.

      He pulled into the crowded parking lot. Nettie’s on a Friday night was busy, but he hoped that he and Georgina could grab a booth in the back where they could talk in relative privacy.

      Nettie’s had an identity issue. While the food was more along the lines of home cooking, the interior was dim, with candles lit at each table as if it was pretending to be a fine-dining place.

      Nettie greeted them at the door with a wide smile. “Two of my favorite agents,” she said. She was a testament to the good food she served. Short and wide with brassy red hair, it was rumored that she’d once scared away a young would-be thief by wielding a large wooden spoon and threatening to spank his ass clean off his body with it.

      As Alexander had hoped, she led them to a booth in the back of the restaurant where the noise of the other diners was less audible and he and Georgina would be able to talk without shouting.

      The moment they slid into the booth across from each other with the candlelight glowing on Georgina’s face, a sense of déjà vu struck him and brought with it a sense of loss he’d never quite recovered from.

      They’d eaten out often during the early days of their marriage in places where candlelight had bathed her beauty in a golden glow. At those times her eyes had glimmered with a love that had showered him with warmth.

      Now that glimmer was gone and in its place was the pleasant but focused gaze of professionalism. As it should be, he reminded himself.

      The waitress arrived with menus and to take drink orders. Georgina went with a Cobb salad while he ordered a steak

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