Killing Fear

person who would have made a real difference in my life. The one person who gave me more life, more joy, than anyone else. You’re the first and only woman I’m willing to give up everything for. My job. My friends. My life. I’ll go anywhere to be with you, I’ll do anything to convince you that I want to live my life with you in my bed, at my side, in my heart.

“Seeing you again after seven years of drought-it brought everything into perspective. Being a cop means nothing to me without you.

“So I ask you, Robin. Do you love me? Do you love me like I love you?”

Robin couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. The pain and fear and anguish washed down her cheeks and she wrapped her arms around Will. “I’ve always loved you, Will. From that first night, I’ve loved you.”

She showered him with kisses. “No more apologies,” she whispered in his ear. “No more what-ifs. I’m not going to run anymore.”

They were naked in minutes, taking and giving everything they had, joining in the exquisite moment where you know for certain that the person you love loves you the same way.

After, Will watched Robin sleep. The peace on her face was the same as in his heart. For now, for these quiet hours before dawn, they could forget everything except each other.

But reality intruded much sooner than Will expected.

THIRTY-TWO

Carina was already at the crime scene when Will arrived. She wasn’t handling Jim’s murder well, and Will didn’t blame her. She and Jim had been romantically involved years ago, and they’d remained good friends.

Nick Thomas, Carina’s fiance, had driven her to Jim’s house after she got the call. He stood on the periphery, giving Carina space, but knowing just as Will did that she wouldn’t be able to work the case. She was too close to the victim, too emotional. Even the responding officers saw that and kept Carina from walking into the house.

Will sat in his car several minutes, his head on the steering wheel. What had they done wrong? Had their news conference backfired? Or had Theodore Glenn come out of hiding?

Nick approached his car and Will got out. “How’s Carina?”

Nick shook his head. “I didn’t want her to come, but-”

“She had to see for herself.”

“Help me take her home.”

Carina was pacing on the front lawn of Jim’s house. “Finally,” she snapped when she saw Will. “What were you doing? Fucking Robin while Jim was shot to death?”

“I’m going to forget you said that,” Will said through clenched teeth. “Go home, Carina.”

“No. I’m working this case. Jim was my friend. I thought he was yours, too.”

“He is.” Was. “Please, Carina. You’re not going to be any help in this state.”

“What state is that? That I care? That I want justice? If I see Theodore Glenn I’ll shoot first. That bastard. That bastard!” Tears of rage and anguish coated her eyes. “He killed him in cold blood. For no reason other than the fact that Jim was doing his job!”

Will put his hands on her shoulders, felt the tension ripple under her skin. “See, Carina? You’ve already gotten it wrong because you’re too close to this case.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“Theodore Glenn didn’t kill Jim. Jim opened the door to his killer. Jim knew the person who shot him.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the crime lab van pull up. “Carina, trust me on this one. Let Nick take you home. I’ll call you and tell you everything.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.” Will nodded at Nick to grab Carina.

“Let’s go home, Cara.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, letting Nick escort her to their car.

Will strode over to where Stuart Hansen and Bonnie Jamison were pulling equipment out of the van. “What happened?” Both looked stricken.

“I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to leave. The sheriff is on the way.”

“The sheriff? Why?”

“You know the victim.”

“Is this because of that report on the news? Did Jim know something?”

“You know protocol. I’m sharing jurisdiction with the Sheriff’s Department. You need to leave.”

Stu looked like he wanted to argue, but he quickly packed up and he and the junior tech drove away.

Will took a deep breath before walking up to the front door where two uniformed cops guarded the house. The door was open, Jim’s body on the floor, three bullet holes in his chest. The responding officers had checked for vitals, but Will himself also checked. He couldn’t believe Jim Gage was dead. They’d worked so many cases together. They hadn’t always been friends, but Will had complete respect for the scientist. No one was better at the job than Jim Gage.

Gloves on, Will walked the crime scene. Jim’s desk had a half-eaten bowl of soup and near-empty beer bottle on it. The workspace was clear. Would Jim have sat down at his desk to eat dinner? Will doubted it, unless he’d been working on something. Something related to this case.

Something that a killer didn’t want anyone else to see. Something, maybe, that Jim had called him about earlier.

I wanted to bounce a couple ideas off you. No rush, call me in the morning.

Why hadn’t Will called him back? Or stopped by his house? Jim wasn’t even supposed to be working the Anna Clark case. They’d agreed to bury it until Glenn was caught. It was supposed to be business as usual so as not to tip-off Anna’s killer.

Agent Hans Vigo entered the room. “I’m sorry,” he said. The man looked much older than his fortysome years, weary and gray. “I didn’t think Anna’s killer would come after Jim.”

“It wasn’t Glenn.” Will stated the obvious.

Vigo shook his head. “Jim wouldn’t have opened the door to him. I had a message from Jim thirty minutes before he was killed. He had a theory he wanted to run by me.”

“Same here,” Will said. “He said he’d talk to me in the morning.”

“His theory died with him.” Vigo looked at the bare desk, frowning.

“How could this happen? No one-except for Chief Causey, Trinity, and Carina-knew we’d concluded Glenn hadn’t killed Anna. I watched the tape of Trinity’s broadcast several times and she emphatically stated that the case was closed. We didn’t put anything in writing.”

“We don’t know what Jim may have said or done,” Hans reminded him. “He’d obviously been working on it, since he wanted to talk to both of us. Perhaps he called the wrong person. We need his phone records ASAP: from home, his cell phone, and his desk at the lab.”

“Jim is responsible. He wouldn’t have let anything leak.”

“You don’t have to defend him,” Hans said. “I’m not accusing him of anything. Maybe he didn’t say or do anything, it could have been something he didn’t say or do that made our killer suspect something was wrong. We don’t know.”

“If Jim had an answer, he wouldn’t have left a message. He would have hunted one of us down,” Will said, trying to alleviate the pang of guilt over Jim’s murder. “We need to backtrack, find out exactly what Jim was doing, what he was working on, who he spoke with yesterday, phone records, everything.”

“Are you going to be okay on this?” Hans asked. “He was a friend.”

“I’m okay.” Okay to work the case, but he’d never get the picture of Jim’s dead body out of his mind. “The Sheriff’s Department is going to handle the evidence. I told our criminalists it was protocol, though we rarely use it.”

“In light of what we’ve been working on, that’s wise. And I can have my people put a rush on the phone records. We should have something in a few hours.”

“But first things first,” Will said. “Maybe the killer made a mistake. He didn’t have a lot of time to clear out