He was an outsider; he always had been. Chances were he always would be.
“Not everyone is lucky enough to be born a Cavanaugh,” he said dismissively.
Brianna heard the sarcasm in his voice and she refused to allow it to put her off or to drive a wedge between them.
“All it takes is a positive state of mind and a willingness to join in,” she told him.
“Well, if I can get you two to leave the lab, I’m positive I can close up shop until tomorrow morning,” Valri said, powering down her computer. Looking at Brianna, she nodded at the stack of reports. “I trust those are enough to keep you busy for now.”
Brianna was on her feet, picking up the missing-persons reports they’d compiled. There were a great many from the last three years that apparently fit the general description of the dead women found within the hotel walls.
“Probably for the next few days,” she said, trying not to let the number overwhelm her. Brianna took a deep breath as if she was girding for the job that lay ahead. “All we need to do is find one,” she said, glancing at Jackson. “One missing woman we can link to someone in the Aurora family.”
“Sounds more like we’re going to be trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Jackson commented. He looked at the stack, then at Brianna, and did his best to sound at least somewhat upbeat and up to the task. “All we can do is try.”
Brianna tried not to think about how daunting that was going to be. Compiling the missing-persons reports had been the easy part. The hard part was very much still ahead.
She turned toward her cousin. “Thanks for all your help, Valri.”
Valri nodded, following Brianna and Jackson out the lab door. Falling back, she locked up. “I hope it turns out to be worth it.”
“It will,” Brianna said with a conviction she had to dig deep to bring to the surface. Under her breath, she added, “It has to be.”
* * *
She had every intention of getting into her own car and going home to read through the reports when Jackson pulled up to his apartment complex. But somehow, given one thing and then another, she never actually made it into her own vehicle. For one thing, Jackson invited her in to share the pizza he was ordering.
She was hungry, so she said yes. At least, that was what she’d told herself.
But by the time the pizza actually arrived, food was the last thing on either one of their minds. Jackson broke their steamy embrace just long enough to open his front door and pay the delivery boy.
The pizza was forgotten the moment he closed the door again.
They didn’t eat for a long, long time.
* * *
“I always liked cold pizza best, anyway,” Brianna told Jackson as they sat in his bed.
“Yeah, me too,” Jackson agreed, taking a large bite of his slice and savoring it. “Think we’re going to get the killer?” he asked after another couple of bites.
Brianna slanted a sidelong glance at him. “Honestly?”
“Yes.”
“We have to,” she told him flatly. “Given the forensics, whoever killed the first batch of women is probably dead. But this copycat killer or whatever he is, he’s still out there,” she said with passion, “and if we don’t find him and put him away, someone else will die. I feel it in my gut.”
“That would be the famous Cavanaugh gut?” Jackson asked drily.
“Yes.” Brianna didn’t bother to suppress a laugh. “That’s what it is.”
Finished with his second slice, Jackson moved the pizza box to the nightstand. “Mind if I examine it?” he asked, throwing off the covers. “Just for scientific reasons, of course.”
Brianna couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh. “I think you’ve examined everything that there is to examine,” she pointed out.
“Just to be sure,” he stressed, getting closer to her abdomen. “Strictly in the interest of science.”
Brianna lay back in his bed. “Well, as long as it’s for science,” she said, her voice trailing off.
Her voice vanished completely as he got down to the business at hand.
* * *
“These are the reports we managed to find on the missing women who fit the general description of the bodies you’ve autopsied,” Brianna told Kristin the following day.
Standing next to her, Jackson emptied several folders and placed their contents in a stack on the medical examiner’s desk.
“We eliminated as many possible candidates as we could,” Jackson added. “We thought that since you did the autopsies and had closer contact with the bodies of the most recent victims, you’d be in a better position to eliminate at least a few of the rest.”
Kristin looked at the reports and then picked up the ones on top to glance over. “Are these mine to go through?”
Brianna nodded. “You can hang on to them. We’ve made copies. Just tell me which ones make it to the semifinals and we’ll hunt down the women’s dental records if we can. Just so you know,” Brianna went on, “a few of the women in that stack have priors, so their DNA or prints might be in the system. A couple for shoplifting, another one was arrested at a protest rally. Two for solicitation,” she concluded. “But from all indications, the rest of these women have had no contact with law enforcement. No time in juvie, no priors or arrests.”
Kristin nodded. “Okay, we’ll work backward,” she said. “If any of the five bodies in the morgue resemble someone in this pile, I can have the lab try to track down medical records and see if we can come up with a match to one of our five victims.”
“What about social media?” Jackson asked her out of the blue when they left Kristin.
Her brow furrowed as she looked at Jackson. “What about it?”
“Well,” he said as they went down the corridor, “I’ve got no use for it myself, but apparently most
