street to find a bed. If they had, maybe Anna would still be alive. But while they screwed, poor little Anna Louisa Clark died.”

It was after midnight when Will came home. He couldn’t sleep, so he lifted weights in the second bedroom, his iPod loud enough to drown out both thoughts and memories. An hour later, sore and drenched in sweat, he showered, then fell onto his bed wearing only boxers, the cold February night breeze coming in through his open windows. The last time he saw the digital clock it mockingly glowed red: 2:01.

Then he dreamed. Remembered.

Will watched Robin from the shadows. She picked up her glass-a martini, straight up-and sipped. The stress of the investigation was getting to her. Three of her friends had died and he knew who the killer was, had interrogated him twice, but that wily bastard gave nothing up. Even three days in prison hadn’t fazed Theodore Glenn.

Will didn’t know what was going on with him. He didn’t mess with victims. He didn’t get personally involved with witnesses. But Robin McKenna was no ordinary woman. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Every morning he woke with her in his thoughts, every night he wasn’t with her he was lonely, empty, incomplete.

Six weeks ago they’d acted on a mutual attraction that began when he first interviewed her after Bethany Coleman’s murder. He’d have forced her to stay in his bed to keep her safe, but Robin wasn’t a woman to run. She faced the fear. But he’d been watching her. Worried. They’d argued the night before. “Quit,” he’d said, knowing he had no right. It wasn’t that she was a stripper, it was that being a stripper put her on the killer’s hit list.

Though he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that her job bothered him on more than one level. Because he felt more for her than he could say out loud.

She’d shaken her head. “Someone else will die. You have to find him, Will. Stop him. Only then will I-we-be safe.”

Now watching her, he saw her fear and her beauty, her vulnerability and her strength. He walked over to her. “Robin, honey, what’s wrong?”

His hand rested on her shoulder. She was crying without sound, her body tense and shaking, tears rolling down her pale cheeks.

“I’m scared, Will.”

“Come home with me.”

“I can’t. I’m not going to be chased away from my home.”

“Please-Anna did the sensible thing and went to visit her mom. I can’t stand the thought of you being here alone. Vulnerable.”

He kissed her. She was water to a dying man, all the woman he ever could want, ever need. He drank her greedily, his tongue searching for hers, finding it, pulling it in, taking everything he could.

In the back of his mind, he knew this would not last, yet he desperately prayed it would.

“Robin,” he murmured against her mouth, her arms wrapped around his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist. He kissed her mouth, her throat, his tongue moving down to her breasts, easily found through the loose-fitting blouse she wore. He tasted her tears on her skin.

Her tears ate at him. He stepped back. “Please don’t cry. I can’t stand it.” He wiped them off with his palms, trying to take away her anguish and hold it inside him.

“Hold me, Will. Hold me.”

“Always.”

“Nothing is forever.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Make love to me.”

She reached down and unbuttoned his fly. He was hard. He always was when in her arms. He didn’t want it like this, in the bar, but he couldn’t let her go. He needed her, and she showed a rare vulnerability and need for him. He had to prove to her that he was real, that he loved her. Wanted her fully, not just like this.

But like this was heaven.

Entering Robin was like coming home, better each time. As they greedily took each other, he realized he didn’t want to live without her. Ever.

Will jolted awake as his cell phone rang. His cock was hard and he was on the verge of a wet dream. With Robin.

This was so screwed.

He glanced at the clock as he answered his phone. 4:14 a.m.

“Hooper.”

“Sergeant Fields here. That reporter, Trinity Lange, just called. Theodore Glenn paid her a visit tonight.”

TEN

Carina beat Will to Trinity Lange’s town house. She met him at the front door and, without preamble, said, “No sexual assault. He tied her to her bed and from what she told responding officers let her interview him. She specifically asked to talk to you, and they told her you had already been called.”

Carina’s tone was cool, still ticked off over their argument the night before, but ever the professional. Will didn’t know how to make it right with his partner. His strength was his people skills, yet right now he felt like he had none as far as Carina was concerned. She wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d spilled his guts, and he wasn’t ready to do that.

“How’s she holding up?” Will asked as they walked through the foyer. Trinity was smart and sassy, with the kind of self-possession that attracted Will to a woman.

Carina rolled her eyes. “Better than I would be after being in a room with a killer who likes to carve pictures on his victims with an X-ACTO knife.”

“Has the lab been called?”

“They’re on their way over.”

“Gage?”

“Probably, considering how high-profile this case is.” Since both Chief Causey and the current District Attorney Andrew Stanton had prioritized anything to do with Theodore Glenn, the crime lab would expedite the processing of evidence. If only they’d been able to prioritize Bethany Coleman’s murder seven years ago, maybe she’d have been the only one to die at the hands of Theodore Glenn. Maybe if they hadn’t been overworked and understaffed there’d have been no contamination of the DNA evidence in the first place.

Trinity sat at her kitchen table, a coffee mug at her side, writing frantically in a notepad. An officer stood behind her, trying to see what she was writing, but she shielded the page. She glanced over her shoulder to give the cop a dirty look, then spotted Will and Carina. Her eyes glowed. “Detectives. Coffee?”

She flipped the notepad over and stood, walking over to the steaming carafe on the counter.

Formal. Professional. She had indeed pulled herself together quickly.

“Thanks.” Carina sat down at the table. Will saw her staring at the notepad. He, too, was curious as to what Trinity was writing. More flies with honey, he thought, giving Trinity a friendly smile.

“That would be great, Trinity.” He watched her. She’d dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. Trinity was a hair over five foot three, and with her blonde hair loose she looked much younger than Will remembered her to be: thirty-two. But her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and he could practically see the gears in her head working.

“Cream? Sugar?” she asked.

“Black,” Carina said.

“Cream,” Will said, though he knew he didn’t have to. Trinity would have remembered.

She made one too many furtive glances at the cop standing sentry in the kitchen. Will turned to him. “Officer,

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