LITMIR.BIZ

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than the identity-theft unit he’d been working in. But it still pissed him off that the redhead would be assigned to the case, out of her jurisdiction, just because somebody knew someone who knew someone else in Senator Buttinksky’s office. The Bureau his father had grown up in had been that way, àla J. Edgar, but this one wasn’t supposed to be. Things were supposed to have changed. Like bureaucracy ever really changed….

      He had to hurry to keep up with her. Those long legs of hers covered a lot of real estate with each step. He couldn’t deny that she was one of the most strikingly beautiful women he had ever seen. She sure didn’t look like most G-men. Besides having a bombshell figure, she had that dark red hair that no way came out of a bottle. Her skin was pale, like many redheads, but so flawless it was like porcelain, with the tiniest sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her perfectly upturned nose. Her full lips seemed naturally red, but her eyes were what really drew him. They were the strangest color, pale blue with flecks of indigo. Eyes a man could lose himself in…if the woman wasn’t such a hard-ass, he reminded himself.

      Special Agent Kahill was everything Glen despised in a female FBI agent, in any woman trying too hard to do a job society still saw as a man’s. Glen didn’t have a problem with female FBI agents, or cops, or even Navy SEALS, for that matter. He knew women who were better shots on the firing range than he was. Women with sharper intellects. What he had a problem with was the chip on the shoulder they always seemed to come with. It wasn’t enough for a woman like Fia Kahill to just do her job. She wanted to do it better than he did it, and she wanted to throw it in every man’s face. She didn’t want to be one of the boys; she wanted to be better than them.

      He glanced at her, her face set with determination as she strode down the sidewalk. If they were stuck together on the case, he had to make the best of it.

      He slid his hands into his pockets. “When I arrived, the body was just being removed. Chief Kahill said you had a local morgue.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Said the autopsy would be done here rather than in the state medical examiner’s office in Wilmington?”

      “If that’s what Chief Kahill says.” She didn’t look at him.

      It didn’t matter. The minute they’d stepped into the bright August sunlight, she covered those amazing blue eyes of hers with a pair of dark wraparound sunglasses.

      “That just seems odd, doesn’t it? I would think an autopsy of this nature would go to the state medical examiner.”

      “I can assure you Dr. Caldwell is fully qualified and licensed to perform the autopsy, Special Agent Duncan.”

      She was using that curt tone with him again. It was really beginning to annoy him that she didn’t look at him when she spoke. “I’m not questioning the doctor’s credentials, Special Agent Kahill. I’m questioning procedure on a federal case.”

      They had turned off the main street in town and were now approaching the police station. There were only two cars pulled up in front, his unmarked, and the chief’s old cruiser. All the other officers were, no doubt, out combing the streets for a head and a pair of feet right now.

      She strode up the steps leading to the front door of the hometown police station that greeted “visitors” with a welcome sign. How many visitors did a police station get, he wondered.

      “So call the state medical examiner’s office and verify it.” She pulled open the heavy door as if it was weightless.

      Glen had to hold it as it swung back hard. All he could think about as he hurried to catch up with Fia Kahill was how thankful he would be to find this killer, and get the hell away from her and her weird little town.

      Chapter 3

      “Fia?”

      She sat in the worn, gray, government-issue office chair in the rear of the police station. Every police station in America had a bull pen just like this one—wanted posters, a Heimlich maneuver instruction chart, a photo of the officers at last year’s annual Punkin’ Chunkin’, grinning and only slightly drunk, hung crookedly on the wall. There were a couple of desks, some file cabinets, an old copier on a microwave cart, and a coatrack that had seen better days.

      She leaned forward, her chin resting on her closed hands, and stared at the eight-by-ten photographs, spread across the ancient gunmetal gray desk.

      Hours had passed since she arrived in Clare Point. It seemed like years. Police officers had come and gone in the station, reporting to Sean in subdued voices. Before the shift change, a couple of the men and the lone female patrolman had ventured over to say hello. Everyone had the same information to offer. There was no sign of a severed head or feet, or suspicious persons or activity in the town.

      Her gaze moved from one photo to the next. They were gruesome even to a seasoned agent, but she couldn’t stop studying them. She kept shifting her gaze, looking for something certain, something to help her, some sign. She told Duncan she was searching for clues. Told herself the same lie, but really, she was still staring at them out of disbelief.

      The heat of the fire had made Bobby’s tendons tighten, pulling his arms and legs up into his body. Twisted, on his side, the once big man appeared infantile. Helpless. She shuddered when she saw in her mind an innocent child sleeping, sleeping in flames.

      The Kahill sept had come to the New World in search of sanctuary, to escape from those who had committed these outrages against their people. No humans were aware of their presence in Clare Point. Everyone in the town knew that all of their lives depended on keeping the secret of their identity, and so it had been for centuries. No one knew but the family. But what if someone did?

      Fee…

      Sean’s voice inside her head startled her. She straightened up in the squeaky office chair, letting her arms fall to her sides. She glanced up. Both Sean and Duncan were standing in front of the desk, looking at her.

      “I’m sorry, I was concentrating. What did you say?”

      “I sent the midnight and day shifts home; no more overtime today. Most of ’em have been at it twelve hours or more, and the mid-watch has got to be back in four hours.”

      “Good call,” she responded. “Tired cop’s as bad as a drunk one. We don’t want anything missed.”

      From the rear of the bull pen came the crackle of the radio, and the evening dispatcher, in her small office, responded to a transmission. From behind the large glass window, neither the officer’s words nor the dispatcher’s could be heard. Just static and indistinct, disembodied voices.

      Sean wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “I told my boys to keep looking, fer sure, but every dumpster’s been picked through. Every alley walked. Mahon even drove out to the old feckin’ city dump. He said no one could have been there any time recently, he did. Weeds were too high.”

      “No sign of the head,” she said softly, her gaze falling on the photo directly in front of her again. From the side, where you couldn’t see his hands grotesquely bent back towards his forearms, Bobby looked as if he was praying. His legs were all wrong, chubby thighs narrowing down to the knees, then coming to a charred point at the ankles. What the hell was up with taking his feet?

      “No blood in the alley behind the building, I suppose?” she asked.

      “Nope. No blood anywhere. No tire tracks, neither.” He glanced at the other agent, who was just standing there. “We were thinking, Glen and I. It’s after eight. Maybe go grab a wee bite at the pub?”

      So Special Agent Duncan and Uncle Sean were buddies now, were they, on a first name basis? And his name was Glen. “What about fingerprints you collected so far in the post office?”

      “Didn’t get much. A lot of people go in and out of that post office, they do, Fee.”

      “But not in and out the back door.”

      Sean shook his head, folding up his handkerchief. “Couldn’t

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