Pulling into the parking lot of the lab, he shut the engine down and unbuckled his seatbelt but made no movement to get out. His body was strung tight as fear threatened to choke him. Fear of what could have happened if Tara had been discovered. The silence in the cab of his SUV was thick with emotion. “She was strangled.”
He felt Tara’s gaze boring into the side of his head, but he kept staring straight ahead, afraid that if he looked at her, he would never be able to get the words out. “Still in her nursing scrubs. Halfway through dinner. In her apartment, in a place she felt safe. And she opened the door to someone who walked into her safe place, put their hands to her neck, and choked the life out of her.”
Tara’s hand flew to her mouth and the sound of the sudden intake of her breath resounded. “Oh, my God.”
“I know you want to help. I know you’re involved. But you’ve got to stop and back away. No one,” he said, now turning to stare at her, “no one can know what you’ve done.”
Her head jerked, nodding up and down, her fingers still pressed against her lips.
“If that happened to you… If anything happened to you…” He swallowed deeply, his chest depressed as he sighed heavily. “Now that I’ve found you, I can’t lose you.” He knew he was going for the jugular when he added, “Colleen can’t lose you.”
Tears began sliding over Tara’s cheeks as she sucked in her lips and just nodded. Moving swiftly, he jerked her closer to him, kissing away her tears before taking her mouth. The kiss was hot and wild and yet achingly desperate. They clutched each other’s faces as they drank each other in. Giving and taking, reminding them both of the preciousness of life. Her tears, now on his face, finally had him pull back.
She held his gaze, then rasped, “I’m sorry. I never wanted to put myself in danger. I wanted to help, but I know it wasn’t the right thing to do. I’m sorry. Please, don’t be mad at me.”
His fingers slid to the sides of her head, smoothing the tresses away from her face. “I’m over being mad, babe. Still scared. I want to keep you safe, but you’re going to have to help me do that.”
She nodded her acquiescence, and he kissed her lightly again.
“I’m going to take the pills you gave me and get them inside to the lab. You stay here and I’ll be back as soon as I can. It may take a little while unless they can get to me right away.”
“I’ll be here, I promise.”
With a final kiss, he headed into the lab, the tissue with the pills tucked inside an evidence bag. Once inside, he headed straight to the lab set up for drug testing. Seeing a familiar tech, he stalked over to her station.
“Hey, what have you got for me?”
“I need testing on these pills. I need to know what they are. They were found in a bottle labeled antibiotics, so I need to—”
“I can tell you right now those aren’t antibiotics.” She took the clear plastic evidence bag from him, holding it up to the light.
“Right, I figured as much. How long will it take you to let me know what they are?”
“I should be able to let you know by the end of today. I’m not terribly backed up and can go ahead and do the presumptive tests on them. The easiest thing I could do is a color test. That’ll let me know what type of substance they are, but not identify the exact drug. It might be tomorrow morning before I can do a gas chromatography mass spectrometry on them. That will let me know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“Rosemary, you’re the best. Get the results to me as soon as you can.”
She smiled and nodded, then tilted her head to the side. “Rumor has it that you’re dating Sean McBride’s sister.”
Standing with his hands on his hips, he dropped his chin and stared at his boots for a moment. “Please tell me this isn’t high school.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Nah. Just jerking your chain.” As he lifted his head and looked at her obviously-pleased expression, she continued, “I’m real glad for you, Carter.”
Chuckling, he started to walk away, calling over his shoulder, “Thanks. Me too.”
31
“I know you’re pissed as fuck, man, but Tara may have just moved this case forward in ways that we could not.”
Carter sat at his desk after dropping Tara back at the shelter. He shot a glare toward Evan. “Seriously? Somehow thinking about my girlfriend putting herself in danger because we, the professionals, can’t nail down where these drugs are coming from does not make me happy.”
“I didn’t say it was going to make you happy. I just stated a fact.”
“Yeah, I hear you.” His phone rang and he snatched it up. “Fiske. I’m gonna put you on speaker, Rosemary. You’ve got me and Evan.”
“Okay, boys. I did a Marquis Color Test, indicating two of the pills are possibly some kind of opium-based drug. I was almost certain the third one was synthetic. But you guys are absolutely in luck. I moved up in the queue of the GCMS so I’ve got a definitive, and you sure as heck aren’t looking at an antibiotic.”
The air rushed from his lungs as another break in the case hit him. “Hit us with that, Rosemary.”
“I ran all three through the chromatograph and spectrometer. The first two were oxycodone. The last one was synthetic fentanyl.”
“Fuckin’ bingo,” Evan breathed.
Carter interrupted, “Can you tell the maker of the oxycodone?”
“Kilton Pharmaceutical.”
Carter smiled, sharing a look with Evan. “Thanks, Rosemary. You just won free drinks at the Celtic Cock from us for a month.”
She barked out a laugh. “I’ll hold you to that. I’ll fax a report over to you as soon as
