Cat wondered how much she should wade into the morass in her mind right now. She didn’t want her feelings to ratchet his up. On the other hand...
“Duke? What you said about the crime scenes being clean. I’ve been thinking about that, too. It bothers me. I mean...”
“Yes?”
Cat looked toward her kitchen windows over the sink. Dark outside now, she could see the reflection of the kitchen in them. Time to close the curtains, but she didn’t move.
“What bothers you?” he asked.
She sighed. “Since I read the reports, I’ve been telling myself that people have learned a lot from TV and movies about evidence at crime scenes. Sometimes that doesn’t mean a whole lot, but sometimes it could. If you start by wearing gloves and a hat over all your hair, then there’s a whole lot less to worry about. Most people probably get that much. But what else is common knowledge? And if the knowledge isn’t common, then you have to wonder who knows it.”
“You’re right. Eat, Cat. You didn’t finish your burger earlier. So where is this leading you?”
“I wish I knew. But it certainly mitigates against teens, don’t you think? Even knowing this stuff, they might not think of it in the rush of the moment. I’d actually expect them to be disorganized.”
“I hear you.”
Loud and clear, she thought. His tension had increased slightly since she brought it up. “I have some good news, though. The Hodgeses will see us tomorrow evening. I hope you can wait that long.”
“I’ll have to, won’t I?”
“Uh, yeah. Anyway, I don’t know what you expect to find that the techs didn’t come across.”
“I don’t know. I want details, of course. I want to look around. I want their impressions, not a list of missing items.”
“Okay. We’ll see if it helps any.”
She resumed eating her chicken and potato salad, deciding she should let him lead the conversation. At this point she was willing to look in any direction for a useful tidbit.
“Were you born here?”
The question surprised her, seeming to come out of left field. “No. My mom moved here to take a teaching job at the college. I visited a few times before I moved here to take care of her.”
“She was sick?”
“Terminal cancer. At least I could help.”
“That’s a tall task. I hear it wears people out emotionally.”
“I don’t know. She was the only thing on my mind. I didn’t have anything else to worry about. Anyway, I stayed on after her death because Gage offered me a job.”
He nodded, then pushed his plate to one side. “You were in law enforcement before, right?”
“Yes. Which is why I’m hating this whole situation right now. I know from experience how frustrating cases like this can be, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”
Duke surprised her by reaching across the table to gently grip her forearm. It was a brief touch, but it sent her mind careening in a different direction. Right then, she’d have been happy to forget the case and focus instead on the warm honey he’d sent running through her veins. On the even more pleasant tingle she felt between her thighs.
God, bad timing. She wrestled herself back into line. “I understand that a lot of this job is sedentary. Paper trails, reading about evidence, making phone calls. Hoping that someone will spill the beans to someone else. Looking for bad relationships. An investigator needs to depend on a lot of other people, too. But no matter how many times I experience it, I will never like it when a trail goes cold.”
“I can imagine.”
She believed he did. Being stalled was never pleasant in any part of life. He was a person of action by trade. She was beginning to believe she was one, too.
“I’m impressed,” he said, “that you dropped everything to come here and take care of your mother.”
A diversion. Maybe she needed it. “It’s what you do for someone you love.”
A simple answer, straight to the point. It had never occurred to her to do anything else.
When they finished eating, she put the leftovers in her refrigerator while he put the dishes in her dishwasher. “There should be enough chicken and potato salad for lunch tomorrow.”
“That was the plan.”
Then they returned to her office and their reading. Sitting there, scanning articles without apparent end, didn’t satisfy her. But no piece of evidence, no clue, was too small to consider. The downside of the job.
It was nearly midnight when they headed to their separate beds. For the very first time it occurred to her that she might prefer Duke beside her.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, Cat. Straighten up and fly right.
DUKE STOOD AT the window in Cat’s office. He’d opened the curtains to let the night in, having turned off all the lights.
He liked the night. While threats often worsened in the dark, he knew darkness also offered him protection. An opportunity to move surreptitiously. A way to conceal himself from the enemy or prying eyes.
Stealth was part of his job at times, and he knew its importance. He thought about the two crime scenes, about why no one had heard a break-in. Stealth. That was leading him down a path he didn’t want to follow.
The three soldiers mentioned in Larry’s extensive article had been charged. But someone must have paid them for those killings. Hired them. He’d assumed it might have been one of the warlords in Afghanistan, since no other charges had emerged.
Even if it had been a warlord, that could have caused ripples up the chain of command. It wouldn’t be the first time commanding officers had gotten into trouble just for not being aware of what their soldiers were up to. For failing to control their men. For failing in their duty, which Duke sometimes thought required psychic talents or prescience.
But usually it didn’t. Usually there was a whisper in the wind to alert officers that something below them was
