Frank’s voice darkened. “It’s all about Tina, isn’t it?”
Not all of it. But enough. “The FBI wanted me to move onto other cases six years ago, so I quit and took the university job. Might as well put the Ph.D. to work.”
“You think this is the same guy?” Frank looked troubled.
“The M.O. is the same. The victims are similar-young, pretty women.”
“What if you’re just seeing what you want to see?”
Daniel didn’t reply, no longer certain he knew the answer. If Frank, of all people, didn’t see it-
Frank closed the trunk. Without turning around, he asked, “How did you know to be here this morning?”
“Police scanner.”
“You were up at four in the morning listening to the police scanner?”
Daniel saw no reason not to tell Frank about Melissa’s call. He’d learn the truth once he checked the numbers on Melissa’s cell phone, anyway. “Melissa had a fight with her boyfriend, and she left a message on my cell phone to see if I could come pick her up and take her home. But when I went looking for her, I couldn’t find her.”
Frank half turned, cutting his eyes at Daniel. “Why you? Is there something I need to know about you and Melissa Bannerman?”
“I told you before, she and I have been discussing a book.”
Frank shook his head. “But why call you and not a friend? Or family?”
“She said she didn’t want to get into it with people she knew. I get the feeling it’s not the first trouble she’s had with the fiance.”
“We’ll be checking him out,” Frank assured him. “Where was she when she called?”
Daniel told Frank everything he knew, leaving out only Rose’s involvement. He was reluctant to put her on Frank’s “persons of interest” list, at least until he’d settled for himself exactly what her connection to the case really was.
“I’ll put out feelers with my captain about getting you involved,” Frank said grudgingly. “But it won’t be a paid position, and you can’t be going off on a wild hare and screwing up our case. Understand?”
“Of course,” Daniel said, not meaning it. He didn’t need the locals to tell him how to investigate a case.
“Get lost, will you?” Frank muttered as he headed back under the crime-scene tape.
Daniel took his advice, drifting back through the crowd and emerging on the other side. He walked slowly back down the street to his Jeep, squinting against the glare of the morning sun reflected in his front windshield.
He reached the driver’s side door and looked inside. Rose’s dark gaze met his through the glass, her expression a heady blend of relief and something that sent his pulse racing. She reached across and unlocked his door. “Any more news?”
Sliding behind the steering wheel, he told her about his conversation with Frank, leaving out the part about Tina. He never talked about Tina, hadn’t in ten years. No point in starting now; it would just further muddle the already complicated relationship between him and Rose.
“I think he’ll be able to get me officially in on the investigation,” he added, buckling his seat belt.
“Is that good?” she asked as he started the engine.
“I’ll have better access to the files on the past four victims.” Not that he expected to see anything in those files he hadn’t seen dozens of times before, but it was possible Orion had changed his tactics in a way that might reveal more about him than Daniel already knew.
At this point, he’d take any new information he could get.
“I should have warned her,” Rose murmured.
“I thought you did.”
“Not about the death veils. About Mark.”
He sat forward. “What about Mark?”
“I knew there was a good chance he was cheating on her again, but I never told her. Maybe if I had-”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t have any proof. All I had was a snippet of conversation I’d overheard.” She told him about hearing Mark Phagan set up an alibi with his friends at Alice’s funeral. “I told myself he might have been planning a surprise for her or something, that it wasn’t proof he was cheating. But I knew better.” Misery tinged her voice.
Ignoring all the warning bells in his head, he took her hand in his. “Don’t blame yourself about that. Might not have changed anything. Melissa said on the phone that she wouldn’t listen to her friends when they tried to warn her about Mark.”
“I know you think I’m crazy.” Her voice was soft and sleepy. “Sometimes I think I am, too.”
Which meant she wasn’t, he thought. The really crazy ones never realized it. So she wasn’t crazy. And she wasn’t a liar. Which left one unthinkable explanation.
She really did see death veils.
His head ached. He’d been awake for twenty-four hours, much of that time spent wound like a spring. The last thing he needed to do right now was to try to make sense of the senseless.
He parked behind Rose’s house. When they reached the house, he took the keys from her trembling hands and unlocked the door. “Get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day.”
She lifted shadowed eyes to his. “For you, too.”
“I have a few calls I need to make, but I’ll catch a quick nap on your sofa when I’m through, if that’s okay.”
As Rose headed upstairs, Daniel called his research assistant, Steve, whose groggy voice reminded Daniel that it was only 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. “Sorry to wake you, Steve, but I have a new murder to add to the running tally.”
That woke Steve up a bit. “Number four?”
Daniel outlined the facts in the Melissa Bannerman murder. “I’ve never been this close.”
“You’ve never made it to a place while Orion’s still active there,” Steve pointed out.
“He got sloppy this time, killing them all in one area.”
“Except the last one.”
There was that, Daniel had to admit. While the killer had dumped Melissa in the same general area as the others, he’d picked her up well across town. “We’ve figured all along that these weren’t murders of opportunity.”
“He stalks them,” Steve agreed.
Still, he had gone outside his comfort zone last night when he’d targeted Melissa. Maybe he’d made a mistake. All the more reason to join the investigation in an official capacity.
He rang off with Steve and dialed the number for the Birmingham Police Department Homicide Bureau. The captain was out of her office, no doubt still front and center at the crime scene, but he left her a voice mail to get the ball rolling.
Finished with his calls, Daniel headed upstairs to check on Rose. The next few days were going to be hell for her, dealing with the aftermath of Melissa’s murder, and he didn’t know how much time he could spend with her if he managed to convince the police to bring him into the investigation on a more official basis. He’d probably be putting in long hours studying the case files and catching himself up on all the details.
Rose’s bedroom door was open just enough for him to see her slim figure stretched out atop the covers of her bed. Through the window beyond, dawn painted the Birmingham skyline in shades of saffron and coral.
He’d kissed Rose in front of that window, he thought, the memory vivid enough to send his heart racing. He felt the pull of her, even now, a tidal pulse of need.
He crossed quietly to her bedside. She’d taken a shower and changed into a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. Her hair was damp, and the air around her smelled like a fresh sea breeze, tangy-sweet. He breathed deeply, memorizing the scent.
He eased a nearby armchair next to the bed and sat, studying her sleep-softened features. The morning light bathed her face with warmth, burnishing the smooth apples of her cheeks. His fingers ached to touch her, but he resisted, reminding himself that she was still a puzzle that needed solving, a key piece of the mystery he’d spent the last years of his life trying to unravel.
Letting her mean anything more to him than that was a mistake he couldn’t afford to make.
HE FOLDED THE NOTE carefully, the latex gloves a minor nuisance. Part of him longed to touch the paper, to
