LITMIR.BIZ

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the mug that had once been white and start pouring. “You know, you really should wash that out once in a while. Bacteria breeds in cleaner places than that. Your mug must seem like Disneyland to them.”

      “Adds to the taste of the coffee,” he muttered. Warrick took his coffee without compromise: black and hot.

      She picked up her own half-empty coffee mug, now cooled to the point that it practically looked solid, and stared into it, thinking. The fluorescent lights overhead danced along the surface, adding to the trance.

      She blew out a long breath. They could skirt around this, pretend it wasn’t there and it would continue to gain depth and breadth, like some white elephant in the living room no one wanted to acknowledge. Or they could address this while it was still in its infancy, clear the air and move on.

      She’d always been one to grab the bull by the horns instead of leap over the fence, out of harm’s way.

      C.J. set her mug down with a small thud, catching his attention. “We’ve got to talk about it.”

      Warrick raised one eyebrow. “The case?” He broke off a piece of the doughnut and popped it into his mouth. A small shower of white powder rained down to the floor. “That’s why we’re here.”

      He was playing games. “You know what I mean. What happened last night.”

      Warrick looked at her pointedly. “Nothing happened last night. I was feeling a little protective, like a big brother I guess, and you turned your head at the wrong moment. We established that fact, remember?” He shrugged, washing the doughnut down with a sip of coffee. “If you’d turned it the other way, I would have gotten a mouthful of hair instead of a mouthful of lip.”

      She scowled. “If I turned it the ‘other’ way, it would have probably been part of an exorcism because that would have meant my head was turned at a 180-degree angle.”

      He knew better than that, she thought, exasperated. Why was he pretending that they hadn’t really kissed, not like partners, certainly not like a brother and sister, but like a man and a woman who wanted each other? They both knew they had.

      He gave a short laugh and put a little distance between them, just for good measure. “There you go again, being contradictory. Arguing.” His eyes held hers, his voice lowering, underscoring his words, his feelings. He wanted this buried. “Well, I don’t feel like arguing, okay? Let’s just do what we’re being paid to do.”

      Warrick gestured at the main bulletin board, the one that displayed photographs of the victims, both before death had found them and after. Below each young woman was a list of statistics: name, age, height, weight, what the victim did for a living and where the body was found. So far none of that or any of the other endless pages of data they’d collected was giving them any clues that went anywhere.

      The next moment, before she could answer him, they were no longer alone. Whatever was to have been said had to be set aside for now.

      Culpepper poked his head into the room. “Was that the sound of raised voices I heard?” He walked into the room. “Back one day and you two are at it already, C.J.?” And then he looked at the conference table. His eyes lit up. “Ah, doughnuts.”

      He reached for one, but C.J. pulled the box away from him. He looked at her accusingly.

      “Uh-uh, if you’re going to insult me, you can’t have any. I brought them.”

      Culpepper folded his hands together, palms touching and held them up before her. “A thousand pardons, oh wisest of the wise. That was just my sugar-deprived brain, running off with my mouth. If you were arguing, it was only because Warrick was provoking you.”

      C.J. laughed and pushed the box toward the heavyset man again. “Better.”

      “No one was doing anything to anyone,” Warrick told the other agent firmly. He slanted a look at C.J. to get his point across. “Now feed your habit, Culpepper, and let’s get to work on this.”

      C.J. tossed her hair over her shoulder, ready to do battle. “Fine with me. Let’s nail this son of a bitch once and for all before he finds another victim.”

      C.J. glanced at Warrick’s profile, then lowered her eyes to her keyboard as he turned in her direction. Her fingers flew over the keys, drawing up screens she had already looked at a hundred times if not more.

      She didn’t know which was driving her crazier: the fact that after a few days the murder investigation seemed to have ground to a halt again—this despite phone calls coming in all hours of the day and night from helpful and not-so-helpful citizens who gave information that only led to dead ends, if they led anywhere at all—or that there was this restless tension intermittently buzzing through her. A restless tension that seemed to rear its head every time she and Warrick were near one another.

      C.J. flipped to another screen, scrolling down. She knew this was stupid. Warrick was right, she argued with herself, absolutely right. Nothing had happened. After all, it wasn’t as if he had actually tried to kiss her. It was a brotherly peck gone awry, that’s all.

      She hit the keys harder. She saw Warrick giving her a curious look. Damn it all, no brother she knew had ever kissed his sister like that.

      Quietly C.J. took a deep breath. She had to get a grip on herself and let this die a natural death. After all, what was the big deal? Okay, so they had reacted to each other like a man and a woman. She hadn’t been kissed by a man in almost nine months and he reacted like—well, like a man. All men took advantage of a situation if given the opportunity, some just less than others.

      The kiss and her reaction had been an aberration, a freak of nature, like a thunderstorm in the wrong season, that’s all.

      Why was she letting it creep into each night and snare a toehold on each day?

      C.J. looked over to the main bulletin board. Her eyes swept over the faces of the women there, women whose likeness were imprinted on her heart. Rising, she crossed to it.

      She had no business even thinking about something so petty as a kiss at a time like this. Warrick was her partner, her backup, her friend, and she was his. That’s all.

      And that was enough.

      Warrick looked at her over his computer. Her hands were clasped behind her back and she was studying the board intently.

      “You’re being quiet again,” he observed. “It’s not like you. You make me nervous when you’re quiet.”

      “Why, because you’re afraid I’ll pounce?” Not waiting for an answer, she turned from the board. “Just trying to get into the killer’s head.”

      She looked over her shoulder, back at the board. Missing were the photographs of gruesome deaths, of savage beatings or stabbings. That wasn’t the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s style. Each victim was tenderly, perhaps even lovingly arranged. The latest victims even wore makeup that appeared to have been applied postmortem. They looked just like princesses waiting for their princes to come and wake them up. She chewed on her lips and looked at Warrick.

      “You think he’s a mousy man? You know, someone who yearns after the unattainable?”

      He had never been able to crawl into a murderer’s mind, maybe because he couldn’t begin to identify with the kind of person who would willingly, sometimes even joyously take another human being’s life. He marveled that C.J. could do it.

      “Profiling’s your department, not mine.” Warrick moved over to the bulletin board with the map of Orange County on it. Each small pin designated a site where the victim was found. He wondered if there were going to be more pins before they caught the killer. “I just think he’s one sick bastard.” He looked at the blown-up photograph of the latest victim’s nails. “Someone who obviously has a nail polish fetish.”

      Standing next to him, she studied the photograph herself. “Maybe not a fetish. Maybe he’s just trying to do something nice for them.”

      He caught

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