Blood of Eden (10 page)

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Authors: Tami Dane

BOOK: Blood of Eden
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“You tell me, can you?” he answered.
The doctor gently pried his hand away. “Can you sit up, so I can take a look?”
“Yeah.” He slumped forward.
She gently palpated his scalp, stopping when JT let out a yelp. “You have quite a lump there. Do you remember how you got it?”
“ No.”
She looked at me.
“I found him in a garbage Dumpster, behind an Einstein Brothers Bagels shop. He said somebody clocked him.”
She gathered up some supplies—gauze and alcohol to clean the wound. “Was he knocked unconscious?”
JT ouched as she dabbed his scalp with a soaked gauze wad.
I answered, “I can't say for sure, because he was awake when I found him. But it's possible. Or, I worry he might have been drugged. We're working a case. Can't say more. Either way, I don't know what happened. I was inside, getting a sandwich. It took a few minutes.”
“Okay.” She dropped the bloodstained gauze in his pink pan and took a step back. “He's probably okay, but I'd like to get a CAT scan, just to make sure. And he should probably have a tetanus shot too.”
I nodded my agreement. “Better to be safe than sorry.” As soon as the doctor headed out, I went back to reading.
JT went back to sleeping.
“Sloan Skye?” he slurred.
“Yeah, JT?” I scooted my chair closer to his bed so he could see me.
“I like your name.”
“Thanks. I like it too.” Trying not to chuckle—at the moment, it was kind of like talking to a younger JT—I clicked the button on my phone, turning the page in my e-book. So far, I was sort of liking
The Viking King and the Maiden.
The vocabulary posed no challenges. The sentence structure was simple, like second-grade simple. It was super easy to comprehend. I hadn't read a book that easy since kindergarten. But the images the words painted were making me a little warm—in a good way. I had never imagined I'd get into a man with big muscles, small clothes, and a big ... sword, but there it was.
“Skye makes me think of angels,” JT said.
“That's nice, JT. Angels are good things to think about when you're in a hospital.”
“You're an angel, Sloan.”
Urk. Awkward.
My heart did a little pittery-pattery thing in my chest. Maybe it wasn't such a good thing that I'd been sitting here reading a love story. I clicked the button, closing the file.”Um, thanks, JT.”
“No, really. I think you're beautiful.”
Now, that wasn't awkward. It was funny. Me? Beautiful? No way. Evidently, after the mean phase, JT turned extremely affectionate after a hard knock on the head. This side was definitely more charming. But also more dangerous. “JT, as much as I appreciate the compliment, I think your head must be hurt worse than we both thought. You're seeing things.”
“No, I'm not. I thought you were gorgeous, and sexy, and fucking hot, since the first day we met. I just didn't know how to tell you, until now.”
I was speechless.
If JT wasn't an FBI agent, and if he wasn't suffering from what I was beginning to suspect was a life-threatening concussion, I might've pursued this. “Gorgeous” was much more applicable to JT than me. And “sexy.” And “hot.” And it sucked that I didn't know if he genuinely meant what he was saying or not. And it sucked even more that it didn't matter, because I couldn't do anything about it, no matter how much I wanted to.
And, boy, did I want to.
“Skye?”
“What, JT?” I braced myself for another compliment.
“I'm going to hurl.”
Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.
—R. I. Fitzhenry
8
Six hours later, I walked a groggy-headed JT out to the car. The diagnosis: a concussion. No surprise there. The treatment: rest, and someone waking him up periodically to make sure he was okay. Again, not a big surprise. As we strolled to the car, JT informed me he lived alone. He didn't have any family close by. Nor did he have any friends.
In other words, he didn't have anyone to handle wake-up duty.
I decided I could volunteer for the job, but only if we stayed somewhere safe. Somewhere public.
Once we were snug and belted in, he dug a hunting knife out of his glove compartment. Before I could stop him, he cut the plastic hospital bracelet off. I thanked “The Big Guy Upstairs” JT's hand didn't slip, and I contemplated where to take him. The FBI Academy was probably my best bet. I could try to get some work done while he slept, and I wouldn't be alone with him for any length of time. It wasn't that I didn't trust him. He'd made it clear, after his heartfelt confession, and after throwing up, that he'd never do anything to compromise our jobs.
The problem: I was not 100 percent sure I could trust myself.
This was new for me. I'd never been attracted to someone I shouldn't be. Not this attracted. And not when so much was at stake. I liked JT. A lot. When our eyes met, little sparks of electricity sizzled through my body. I haven't felt that way about a guy in ages.
Not since Gabe.
When the car jerked and sputtered out of the parking lot, aimed for the freeway, JT said, “Easy on the clutch. Where are we headed?”
“To the office. You're on desk duty. You heard the doctor. You need rest.”
“I'm fine. I haven't thrown up in at least a couple of hours.”
That was true. He was also looking a lot less shaky. His eyes weren't rolling around in their sockets anymore. His CAT scan had come back clear. He had no bleeding in his brain. Or bruising. But I didn't care. I wasn't going to take any chances. If he was clunked in the head again, he could suffer long-term, irreparable brain damage. Brain damage was nothing to scoff at.
“You're going back to the office, and that's final.” It was a little after rush hour, and the traffic on the freeway had eased up. I navigated his car into a spot between a bus and a beer truck. My knuckles turned white.
“Are you nervous, Skye?”
“No, I'm fine,” I lied. Truth was, I hated driving this car, on the freeway, especially with trucks. And even more, with trucks going eighty miles per hour. “How about we work on our case while I drive? Organized or disorganized killer?”
“Organized. Definitely,” he said.
An organized killer was, basically, a psychopathic killer. Organized killers avoided capture. They planned their kills. They killed strangers. They hid evidence, controlled the crime scene, controlled the victim, and usually followed the media reports of their crimes. They were intelligent, had lovers, friends, spouses, and sometimes children. They were the Ted Bundys and John Wayne Gacys of the world.
I had to agree. So far, what little evidence we had pointed to an organized killer. “If that's the case, then we'll find no personal connection between the unsub and his victims. It's also highly unlikely he lives near them. But I think the Columbia area is his trolling grounds. Maybe he uses a ruse, like Bundy?”
“Maybe.”
“Male or female?” I asked next. JT had been referring to the unsub as a male all along, but my gut told me he was a
she.
“Male,” JT stated, sounding very sure of himself.
“Why do you say that? There seems to be no sexual motive to the crimes. No mutilation or torture. Poisoning is used more often by women. I'd consider injections of a lethal infectious agent to be a poisoning.”
“Sure, but what about the saliva?” he countered. “The biting and licking could be related to a sexual fetish. And he's killing strangers. Women kill patients in hospitals, people they know, rarely strangers.”
He argued his case well, but I wasn't swayed. “Okay, so we've settled upon an organized killer, male—though I'm not convinced you're right there. That leaves motive. Is our killer a visionary, mission-oriented, or hedonistic killer?”
“Hedonistic. Most definitely.”
I didn't disagree with that. There was no sign the killer was trying to rid the world of dangerous thirty-year-old brunette women, or was suffering from a psychotic break. “Thrill killer, you think?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I had my doubts there too. “Okay, but here's the thing. Thrill killers feed off the victim's fear. If he's using an amnesic to make his victims forget about the attack, what's he getting out of it? The victims are walking time bombs, but they don't know it. What need does that satisfy in the unsub?”
The pieces weren't exactly snapping into place for me. Some of them fit okay. Others, not quite. I decided I'd go on the Internet when we got back to the office and read up on criminal profiling. It had been a while. My memory wasn't hazy, but I wondered if I might have missed something.
While I kept us alive for the rest of the drive—no small feat, considering what I was driving—JT called Chief Peyton to talk about our profile ... which, I couldn't help noticing, did not include any species but Homo sapiens. This kind of surprised me. That first day, they'd been so quick to jump to conclusions about the nature of our unsub. Specifically deciding he or she was some kind of vampiric creature. What had made them completely dismiss the idea of a nonhuman unsub now?
After a quick trip through a drive-through, we rolled into the FBI Academy's parking lot a little after six. I parked the car and dropped JT's keys into my purse. I didn't want JT to get any stupid ideas about trying to drive tonight. He didn't seem to notice.
He was quiet as we rode the elevator up to our floor. And he didn't say anything as we each headed to our respective cubicles. The unit was dark. Silent. Our footsteps echoed on the gleaming tile floor.
Tap, tap, tap.
For some reason, the hollow sound gave me a case of the shivers. The paper bag in my hand—dinner—crinkled. The cola in the paper cup—caffeine—sloshed. My laptop bag smacked against my hip, the material giving off a soft sloughing sound with every step. While I carted my bagged meal to my desk, JT flipped on the lights. I blinked as my eyes adjusted. They focused on the folded piece of paper sitting on my desk as I sank into my seat.
That handwriting looked familiar.
I unfolded the paper and looked at the last line. No wonder it had looked familiar.
Gabe.
I felt my teeth clench.
 
Heading home for a change of clothes. Be back in less than an hour.
Gabe
 
Ugh.
Why was he leaving me notes?
He hadn't left a time on the note, so I had no idea how long it had been. There was no sign of Fischer, Chief Peyton, or Brittany. I assumed Fischer and Peyton were working—they wouldn't call it a day with so little time left. Brittany, on the other hand, was a big question mark. It was a Friday night. She might not be back until Monday morning. At any rate, I was semirelieved we wouldn't be alone in the office for long.
“I'm going to wash up,” JT said, his voice echoing through the stillness, making me jerk. A fry that had been on its way to my mouth flung from my hand, smacking the frosted glass pane in my cubicle's wall. It rebounded and landed with a plop on the desktop. For some reason, it didn't look so edible after all that.
“Okay.” I dug into the paper container for a fresh one and shoved it into my mouth before I lost it too. Just as I was polishing off my dinner, JT returned from the bathroom, looking freshly showered, his hair damp, his go bag slung over his shoulder.
He dumped his bag on the floor in his cubicle. I heard it land with a dull thump. Then I heard the sound of dragging. I glanced over my shoulder. He was pulling a chair toward me. I scooted mine over when I realized what he was doing.
He went back to his desk, grabbed an armload of things, and returned to my cubicle, unloading them on my desk. Then he flopped into the chair, now in very close proximity to mine.
Nothing like taking over a girl's space.
“So ... what's all this?” I asked, motioning to JT's stuff, which was crowding out mine—much like his very sexy scent and very bulky male body was overwhelming me.
“I was sitting there at my desk, thinking two heads are better than one, especially when one isn't exactly functioning at prime operating condition. Rather than make you move to my space, I thought I'd come to yours.”
“How thoughtful.” I stuffed the wrapper for my sandwich and the little paper cup for my fries in the paper bag and dropped it in the trash can under my desk. That freed up about six square inches of space.
Have I mentioned how small our cubicles are? Or how big JT seems when we're crowded into a space the size of a broom closet?
He grabbed a folder, flipped it open. “Fischer left some things on my desk. He's chasing down a lead in Baltimore.”
“Great. What do you have?” I leaned toward him to get a look at the file. But instead of looking down, something made me look at his face. Our eyes met, and something unexpected happened. We had a little moment—you know, a guy/girl moment. An invisible current zapped between us, leaving me a little shivery, in a good way. Some girls might not see JT as the kind of guy that would turn heads if he walked through a crowded room. To me, he was mind-blowingly gorgeous. His hair was a little on the long side, but I liked it. The way his crisp white shirt fit over his thick shoulders and arms made me a little dizzy. And I liked his eyes and his mouth. His lips were a nice shape, indeed.
Were they coming closer to mine?
“Sloan,” he whispered.
Oh, my God, he's going to kiss me.
I was frozen. Couldn't move. Not an eyelid. Not a toe. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak.
We can't do this. Can't. Shouldn't. Oh, shit.
“Helloooo?” Gabe called from somewhere close by. Too close. Much too close.
I lurched backward.
JT jerked away.
A rush of heat gushed up my neck.
Had Gabe seen ... ? I looked at Gabe. He looked at me ... and smiled.
Shit!
“We were just looking over Fischer's notes.” I poked a finger at the folder, which should have been in JT's lap. It wasn't. It was on the floor. My finger was pointing at something else.
My cheeks flamed even hotter.
“Yeah, Fischer's notes.” Gabe's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
I curled my fingers into a fist; gritting my teeth, I tried to think of a comeback that wouldn't get me in deeper trouble. “The victim's best friend works at a pharmaceutical lab ...”
JT calmly scooped up the file, stood, and shoved it into Gabe's hands as he strolled past him. “She's telling the truth. I'm feeling like shit—damn concussion. I think I'd better lie down for a while. Skye, don't let me sleep for more than an hour.”
“Okay,” I said, my voice a little shaky.
Gabe glanced at the file in his hand, then at JT's retreating back.
I give him credit, he didn't say a word until after JT had closed himself in the conference room.
He began, “Sloan—”
“If you tell anyone about this, I will find a way to get back at you.”
“I'm not going to tell anyone.” He slumped into the chair JT had abandoned and handed the file back to me. “But I gotta say, I never thought you'd go for a guy like that.”
“Like what? Er, I'm not ‘going' for him, anyway. Nothing happened. Nothing is ever going to happen.” Trying to look busy so he'd drop the subject, I flipped through the papers in the file. “If you don't mind, I'd like to get back to work.”
“Sure, Sloan. If that's what you want.” After a beat, he sighed. “We've had this love-hate thing going on for years. It's been fun. But I think it's time we set our past problems aside and moved on. High school was a long time ago.”
If only he meant that.
I rolled my eyes. “Do you expect me to buy that line of baloney, after everything you did to me this week?”
“Did to you
this week
? What did I do?”
How could he have forgotten? I was beginning to wonder if Gabe had been knocked in the head too. “Where do I start?” I unfurled my right index finger. “You stole my job with the BAU, and then decided it wasn't good enough—”

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