LITMIR.BIZ

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you show me some ID?” He eyed Detective Brody. “You’re not the only careful ones around here. We have to look up the title to the house and verify the owner.”

      Elise twisted her fingers. “I’m not the owner. The owner lives upstairs and he’s not home.”

      The locksmith squinted at a piece of paper in his hands. “Who’s the owner?”

      “Oscar Chu.”

      “Yep. That’s what I have here.”

      “I can give you his cell. He’ll vouch for me.”

      Detective Brody stepped between her and the locksmith, whipping out his badge. “I’ll vouch for her. I’m Detective Sean Brody, and Ms. Duran needs her locks changed for security reasons.”

      The locksmith scratched his jaw as he eyed the badge. “If you say so.”

      Elise pressed her lips together as she led the locksmith to the door leading to the garage. While she felt grateful that Detective Brody had intervened and smoothed the way for her to get her locks changed, his take-charge attitude on her behalf left a sour taste in her mouth. She’d had her fill of it from her father and brothers.

      Shaking her head, she rolled back her shoulders. This situation bore little resemblance to the way the male members of her family had tried to control her life. This was a matter of life and death, not marriage and betrayal.

      And here she thought she’d gotten over the “all men are scum” stage.

      She tapped the garage door. “Just match the dead bolts and door handle locks for the garage and the front door, and give me two keys—three. I’d better give one to Oscar.”

      “You got it.” The locksmith dropped to his knees, his toolbox clinking and clanking as he set it on the floor next to him.

      Elise wandered back to the bathroom, where Detective Brody was parked against the door jamb. “Anything interesting?”

      Jacoby looked up, running a hand over his shaved head. “Nope. Looks like one set of prints, and I’m assuming they’re yours. Do you live alone?”

      “Yes.” And that was all she had to say on the subject. She slid a glance at Brody, who was intently watching the tech’s work. She hadn’t brought a date back to her house since moving to San Francisco.

      She didn’t trust these smooth-talking city boys much. If she couldn’t read a boy she’d known all her life back home in Montana, what chance did she have figuring out some metrosexual urban dweller?

      Since Brody seemed consumed with interest in what Jacoby was doing, Elise took the opportunity to assess the detective—not the metrosexual type at all, although he had the clothes. After a year of hanging out with Courtney, she’d learned to recognize an expensive suit when she saw one. The drape of Brody’s suit screamed custom-tailored, but the fine material and precise cut couldn’t mask the naked power of the man.

      He practically hummed with purpose and strength—a man’s man her brothers would call him. If her brothers approved of him, that might be reason enough to steer clear, but Brody didn’t possess any of the cockiness and good old boyness that characterized her brothers and Ty.

      Steer clear? She’d let her imagination get way ahead of her. She didn’t have to steer clear of or move in on Detective Brody. He was a cop investigating a crime—a crime aimed at her. Heck, he could be married for all she knew. A surreptitious inventory of his left hand suggested otherwise.

      Jacoby tossed the last of his implements in his bag, and Elise jumped.

      Detective Brody made a half turn and cupped her elbow. “Still nervous? Even when the locksmith changes the locks, you don’t have to stay here. You don’t have anything to prove—to me.”

      Elise swallowed. Had she been so transparent? “Is the SFPD going to foot the bill for my room at the Fairmont?”

      “Uh, no.”

      “Then it looks like I’m digging in here.”

      “Before I take a look at the doors and windows, press your index finger on the pad and then roll it onto this card.” Jacoby held out a small white ink pad cupped in his palm and a card pinched between the fingers of his other hand. “Just want to have your fingerprints on file to compare with these.”

      She plucked the pad from his hand and pressed her finger against the smooth ink. “I’m a teacher. My fingerprints are already on file.”

      “That helps. And teachers are the best. My mom was a teacher.” Smiling, he put the card on the vanity, and she rolled her finger from right to left.

      Jacoby tucked the pad and card in a side pocket of his bag and then patted it. “All set. I’m just going to take a quick look at the front door.”

      They watched his work for several more minutes and then Detective Brody hovered over the locksmith, asking a million questions.

      Elise smirked. The guy probably couldn’t wait to finish up this job.

      Jacoby came in from the patio and hoisted his bag over his broad shoulder. “Nothing much of anything.”

      “Thanks, Dan. Send me your findings, and I’ll include them in my report.”

      When he reached the door, Jacoby turned. “I’m glad you’re okay. This could be the work of a serial killer. Your attack could be linked to that woman’s body we found dumped near the Presidio.”

      Elise whipped her head around toward Detective Brody. “I thought you said there’d been nothing matching this M.O.?”

      He shot a dark look at Jacoby, who shrugged. “We know very little about that murder. It could be related to the transient killings.”

      “That woman had a bump on the back of her head, too. He could’ve hit her and stuffed her in a trunk before he did...other things.”

      A frisson of fear tickled her spine, but Elise preferred to concentrate on the anger boiling her blood. “It sure sounds like it could be related. Why is the SFPD hiding these murders? Women have a right to know if they’re being hunted down in the streets.”

      “Stop.” Detective Brody crossed his two index fingers, one over the other. “You’ve both made a lot of leaps here. We’re not hiding anything. That murder had a couple of columns in the paper. Maybe you skipped the front page that day.”

      Elise sucked in her bottom lip. She didn’t even get the newspaper. She got most of her news from the internet, and she had to admit she didn’t search for murder stories.

      “Miss?” The locksmith poked his head around the corner of the hallway. “The garage door’s done. I’m going to start on the front door.”

      “Perfect.” Elise opened the door for Jacoby. “I suppose you’re not going to find anything from the evidence you collected. He wouldn’t go to all the trouble of letting himself into my house to scrawl messages and then leave a nice set of his fingerprints.”

      “You’re probably right, but I’ll let Sean here know if I find anything out of the ordinary. He’s the man.”

      He swung his bag from one shoulder to the other and saluted as he walked to the sidewalk.

      Elise stepped away from the door, leaving it open for the locksmith. “What now?”

      “I’ll wait for him to finish with your locks, and then I have to go back to the station to write up my report.”

      “Do you want to tell me about that other woman? The one dumped by the Presidio?”

      “Not really. You don’t want to hear the gory details.”

      “How do you know?” Tugging at the hem of her dress, she sat on the arm of the couch. “I’m tougher than I look, you know.”

      “I have no doubt about that.

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