It was ridiculous to be this upset, considering how long he’d spent thinking about doing this. How many times he’d asked himself if he could go through with it before deciding that indeed he could. How often he’d run his plan in his head, looking for any and all flaws.
There hadn’t been any.
Focus on the female homicide detective, not just because of her gender but because of her background in cold cases and her higher-than-normal case clearance rate. Get her interested in past cases through the documentary he was working on. Get her to decide to reopen Samantha’s case—and investigate it.
The subterfuge burned his ass, but since he’d been all but banned from the precinct, he had no other choice.
After his sister’s death—and in the intervening years—he’d gone a little crazy. Had hired private detectives—some of whom caused more harm than good—when he’d been dissatisfied with the police investigation. Had lost his temper and threatened officers when progress hadn’t been made.
He’d even gotten himself kicked out of the damn station three years ago, by that prick of a homicide lieutenant, Chastian. He’d told Cole in no uncertain terms that one more inquiry or public confrontation regarding Samantha would end with him burying the file so deep inside cold cases that it would never see the light of day again.
Cole hadn’t believed him, had pushed the a**hole anyway. And had found out that Chastian didn’t make idle threats; Samantha’s file had all but disappeared, after erroneously being declared closed. Chastian had even gone so far as to threaten the detectives involved in the case, until each of them had developed an overwhelming case of amnesia when it came to his sister.
Fucking damn corrupt cops. He hated them with a destructive passion that ate at him until he could barely think through the red haze that enveloped him. Hated them enough that he’d planned on using one without a drop of compunction, completely unconcerned that helping him could end her career.
But that was before he’d met Genevieve, before she had stripped everything from him but the primal desire to mate. He wanted her, needed her, in a way he didn’t understand and couldn’t afford.
She was a distraction, a complication that could keep him from seeing this thing through. Because every time he ran the scenario in his head, with Genevieve as his lover, something went terribly wrong.
How could he lie to her, use her, at the same time he was sleeping with her? He might be a bastard, but that was too far even for him. Besides, the feelings she’d evoked in him last night made it impossible to imagine just f**king her and moving on—he wanted to possess her, to do things to her body no one else ever had.
Leaning back in his chair, he slammed down one last shot, more than a little unsteady from the alcohol he’d consumed but still relishing the burn of the liquor down his throat. The heat that masked the coldness inside of him, even if it couldn’t chase it away completely.
So what to do? How to balance his insane attraction to Genevieve with the agenda he just couldn’t abandon? How could he have both?
He rolled the shot glass between his hands, watched as the light projected the colors onto the cherry desktop. Shifted his hand and sent the rainbow cascading over his arm instead. Twisted the glass slightly and thought of all the ways he’d failed his sister. Hadn’t controlled her wildness as a teenager, hadn’t tried to stop her ill-thought-out move to New Orleans, despite his mom and stepdad’s objections. Hadn’t rushed to her side when his mother had called him and told him she thought something was wrong with Samantha.
He hadn’t wanted to seem like he was trying to control her. He’d known how important independence was to Sam, how she’d fought to find a place of her own, separate from the overachieving family she’d always struggled to be good enough for.
As he thought of his sister—of everything he hadn’t done for her—he knew he had to tell Genevieve the truth. Had to wait for her to get off work then lay everything on the line—including his too strong attraction to her—and hope that she could see past the deception to help him anyway.
Because if she didn’t, he was totally f**ked.
Chapter Four
His name was Cole Adams. Genevieve shook her head in disbelief as she stared at the report in front of her. The Cole Adams—American documentary maker and Academy Award winner extraordinaire. How had she failed to recognize him?
Maybe because she rarely paid attention to that stuff—even on her good days. Not to mention that his reclusiveness was the stuff Hollywood legends were made of. Of course, the fact that he’d spent most of the night with his face buried between her legs might also have contributed to her lack of recognition.
Feeling her cheeks heat at the memory, Genevieve did her best to convince herself that Cole’s profession accounted for the file she’d found at his apartment that morning. Her gut had told her all along that he was innocent, but her brain still wasn’t ready to lay it to rest.
If it was something as easily explained as research for a new documentary, why was he hiding it in a bedroom drawer? And why hadn’t he said something to her about it right away?
Genevieve read the brief report one more time—seven years before, he’d been arrested for misdemeanor assault, but the charges had been dropped, as the other guy had instigated the fight. Other than that, his record was clean—nothing there to show any signs of sexual or homicidal deviance. With a sigh, she put it aside. She didn’t have any more time to waste on this, even though she didn’t believe for one moment that he’d sat beside her at that bar last night and not known who she was.
No, that was entirely too coincidental for a woman who didn’t believe in coincidence.
Going back to the file she’d started on her latest case, she reviewed everything she’d managed to accomplish that day.
Missing persons had popped on the victim’s identity that morning, so she’d started her day by breaking the news to the girl’s devastated parents. Her name was Jessica Robbins, and she’d been a freshman at Tulane. Her roommate had reported her missing three days before, when she hadn’t come back to the dorm after her evening jog through the Garden District.
Jessica’s parents had flown in as soon as she’d disappeared, had hired a private detective to look for her even as they staked out both the Tulane and the Uptown police stations in a desperate attempt to find out what had happened to their daughter.
Once she had a name, Genevieve had called the Tulane Police Department and gotten the parents’ information. She’d called them in, told them as gently as possible that their only child was dead.
Not that there was a gentle way to deliver that kind of news—it was the part of her job she hated the most. And the part that haunted her when she lay in bed at night, the lights off and the city finally silent around her. How the people left behind looked when she shattered their world.
In an effort to spare them, she hadn’t told Jessica’s parents everything she’d discovered. She hadn’t told them how the bastard had kept her around for a while. How he had toyed with Jessica almost endlessly in an effort to maximize the pain.
Still, they hadn’t taken the news of their daughter’s rape and murder stoically. The mother wept uncontrollably while the father simply stared blankly ahead, as if the facts were just too much for him to comprehend. He’d been the one to identify his daughter’s body, and he’d been the one to escort his wife from the station when her sobs had died down to occasional whimpers.
And he was the one who had looked straight at Genevieve and demanded to know who had killed his child. She had told him the truth—that she didn’t know, but that she would find out.
And she would.
She had promised them justice and she would deliver. Jessica Robbins would be avenged. Her parents’ anger and grief would find a focus. Genevieve would make damn sure of it.
But she’d interviewed all the students at the dorm who claimed to know Jessica and none of them had said anything about an irate boyfriend, a stalker, or even a guy who’d paid her any extra interest at all.
She’d also spoken with Jessica’s professors, classmates, off-campus friends—anyone who could give her a clue into Jessica’s daily routine and any problems she might be having.
The picture that was emerging was of a young girl enjoying the freedom that going away to college had given her. She was an above-average student who worked hard but who took time out to have a good time. Well-liked but not insanely popular, pleasant, intelligent—Jessica had been a girl with a bright present and a brighter future. To see it cut so brutally short grated severely; that she had no suspect made it even worse.
That she was convinced Jessica was the latest victim of a serial killer—one Genevieve hadn’t been able to catch, though she’d been working on it for months—made it almost unbearable.
Engrossed in her thoughts, Genevieve nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone at her elbow rang. Heart pounding—even as she shook her head at her own skittishness—-she reached for the phone with a hand that was not quite steady and answered with a clipped “Delacroix.”
There was no answer, only the sound of strangled breathing on the other side of the line.
“Hello?”
More breathing.
“Look, pal, are you kidding me? Do you have any idea who you’re calling? This is a police station, for God’s sake, and I—”
“I know who I’m calling, Genevieve.”
The voice was low, hoarse. Strangely familiar, but somehow muted. “Who is this?” she demanded.
There was a long pause. “There’s another one.”
“Another what?”
“I think you know. Think of me when you find it.”
“Find wha—”
The phone went dead in her hand, leaving Genevieve staring at it much as she would a snake. A chill crept down her spine as she placed the receiver back down. Who was calling her, and what, exactly, was she supposed to find?
Glancing down, she caught sight of the homicide photos she’d added to the folder only an hour before, and the chill became a full-out freeze. Was there another body out there, waiting to be found, or was she overreacting? Sighing, she rubbed her tired eyes. She’d been working too hard for too long—her mind no longer felt clear.
Was it just another bored kid crank calling, or had it been the killer, calling her to taunt her with his latest success?
The mere thought made her ill. She tried to shrug it off, to put the call down to some idiot just wanting to rattle her chain. But she couldn’t shake the idea that it was more than that. That it had been him on the phone.
I know who I’m calling, Genevieve. The words played back in her head as she racked her brain, tried to figure out where she’d heard the voice before. But the answer she was looking for was hovering just out of reach, impossible to retrieve.
Finally, unable to solve the puzzle but unwilling to let it go, she dashed off an email to a friend in the electronic crime division, asking Jose to unofficially look into the call’s origin.
If it was nothing—just someone yanking her chain—she didn’t want to make a big deal of it. But her instincts were shouting that it was something more, something big, and she couldn’t afford to overlook it. Not when her leads were zero and her evidence less.
“Genevieve, you got a minute?”
Looking up from the notes she was making—trying to ignore the nervousness still coursing through her from the call—Genevieve started to snap, then paused as she saw her boss standing at his door. Gritting her teeth, knowing she didn’t have a choice, she picked up the file she’d been compiling on Jessica and headed for her lieutenant’s office.
“So, where are we with the dead Tulane student?” Chastian asked as soon as the door closed behind her.
Genevieve had worked with Lieutenant Rob Chastian long enough that she didn’t even wince at the brusqueness of his tone. He was a big man—though not quite as big as Cole—and good-looking in a Ken doll kind of way. He also had a personality like a Weed wacker. Which was actually fine with her—better that than the jokes that weren’t really jokes that so many of the other squad members leveled at her on a regular basis. With the lieutenant she always knew where she stood—exactly nowhere.
“Not very far.” His brows lowered and she held up a hand to forestall the anticipated explosion. “I’ve interviewed friends, potential witnesses, teachers, strangers and gotten nothing. Jefferson’s working on the body as we speak—he promised to have the preliminary report to me by tomorrow at the latest.”
“Are you telling me that no one knows anything?” Chastian demanded. “I’ve got the press crawling up my ass, the commander demanding that something be done, and my homicide detective has nothing. That’s just fabulous. At least Shawn is back in a few days.”
“It’s not that simple.”