Silent Scream (5 page)

“Don’t know yet. I’ll get Sugar to check out their system and let you know.” Sugar was Micki’s electronics guru.

“Detectives? You wanted to talk to the firefighter who pulled the girl out?”

Micah Barlow was rounding the building, a firefighter at his side, and any hope she’d held when she’d seen fire truck L21
fizzled away. Her heart squeezed so hard that she sucked in a sharp, involuntary breath. Few men walked like he did. No man
looked like that as he did so. No man had the right to look like that.

He was big, the firefighter—at least three inches taller than Barlow who was at least six feet tall himself. The bright CSU
spotlights shone on a face grimy and streaked with sweat, but no amount of dirt could change the fact that he was the most
beautiful man she’d ever seen. Or could ever hope to see again.
Goddamn him for that alone
.

Of course he’d been on duty tonight. Of course he’d
been the firefighter to find the victim, to try to save her, to be smart enough to keep key evidence intact.

Of course he was the one man she hadn’t wanted to see, tonight or any other night. Because he’d gone to great lengths to keep
from seeing her.
Seven months
. He’d moved to Minneapolis seven months ago, but there hadn’t been a single phone call or e-mail. For months she’d wondered
why he’d come here. Now she didn’t care.

She steeled her spine. Summoning a tone she hoped to hell sounded casually friendly, she stepped forward. “David Hunter. Long
time, no see. How are you?”

For a moment, David’s smooth gait seemed to hitch, but when he spoke he sounded only mildly surprised. “Olivia. Good to see
you.”

Barlow’s brows lifted and Olivia didn’t even need to look at Kane to know his had done the same. “You know each other?” Barlow
asked.

“We have mutual friends,” Olivia said with a calmness that was a complete facade. Her heart was pounding so hard it was all
she could hear, just as it had every other time she’d seen him. None of which had obviously meant anything to him. None of
which mattered right now. “Kane, you remember Mr. Hunter? He’s Eve’s friend.”

And Eve was Olivia’s friend. It was Eve who’d told her that David had decided to move to the Twin Cities. Eve who’d told her
David got a job with the fire department. And Eve who had ceased giving updates because it was obvious Olivia no longer cared.

“Of course I remember,” Kane said, cautiously, Olivia thought. “How’s the arm?”

The arm that had fractured seven months before when Pit-Guy forced David off the road, thinking it was Eve driving the car.
He’d been in the hospital, one of the last
times Olivia had seen him. David raised his arm, rotating it a few times. “Good as new. Thanks.”

Enough of this
. “Sergeant Barlow said you found the girl,” she said, more curtly than she’d intended.

David flinched, his throat working as he swallowed hard. “We were too late. She was already dead.”

And that hurt him, it was easy to see. Against her better judgment, Olivia met his gray eyes and saw the raw misery there,
and her pounding heart hurt for him. She saw death every day. Luckily, he did not. “There wasn’t anything you could do, David,”
she murmured. “She wasn’t supposed to be in there. Nobody was, right?”

For just a moment, there was a connection.
The
connection. The same one she’d felt that one night he’d made her forget… nearly everything. For a moment he wasn’t David
Hunter, tall, dark, Greek god who made women everywhere melt into puddles of goo. He was the man who’d had a truly beautiful
soul and who, for a few short hours,
showed it to me
. But as she watched, his eyes shuttered, pushing her away once again.

“That’s right,” he said quietly. “But she was in there, for whatever reason. I looked for an ID, a purse, a backpack, but
didn’t see anything. It’s pretty dark, though. You might find something on one of the other floors come daybreak.”

Barlow was looking back and forth between the two of them avidly and to her consternation, Olivia realized she’d been staring
up into David’s face like a love-struck teenager. But then, every woman stared at David Hunter’s face like a love-struck teenager,
so nobody would think her any different.
Because I wasn’t.

“When can we go up to check the scene?” she asked, a chill in her voice.

“You can’t tonight,” Barlow said. “Part of the fourth floor collapsed. It’s not safe. You’ll need to wait until the structure
can be reinforced before going up to where they found her. But they did bring something out you’ll want to see. David?”

“It was on the floor next to where I found her.” He held out his gloved right hand. On it rested a glass ball, about the size
of Olivia’s clenched fist. It was covered in something shiny and gelatinous.

Olivia frowned. “You disturbed the scene?” she asked sharply.

“Hunter was on the floor when it collapsed,” Barlow said quietly and her eyes involuntarily flickered up to David’s in alarm.
“That you have this evidence at all is due to his quick thinking.”

“We were fine,” David said. “The ball was about to slide into the hole in the floor. My adrenaline was pumping and I grabbed
it by reflex but then couldn’t put it back where I found it. The area doesn’t exist anymore.”

She forced her muscles to relax. The thought of him crashing through a fourth-story floor had her own adrenaline pumping.
“Is this the gel we found on the girl’s hands?”

“Likely,” Barlow said. “The lab will confirm it.”

Kane leaned over her shoulder to study the glass globe. “Why the gel?”

“I guess that’s for you to find out,” David said.

Olivia turned to find Micki, startled when she found the CSU leader standing inches behind her. “Can you bag it, Mick?”

Micki’s gaze shifted from the globe to Olivia’s face knowingly. “Absolutely.”

“Take his glove, too, just in case we need to check for
residue. Do you have another glove?” she asked David, this time schooling her glance to remain impersonal.

“I’ve got extras on the truck. If you’re done with me, I’ve still got work to do.”

If you’re done with me…
No, she didn’t think she ever would have been. Not that it mattered one iota. He’d been done with her after one night.
What an idiot I was
.

Olivia made herself look at him, made her smile as impersonal as her glance had been. “Thank you. We’ll be in touch if we
have more questions. Kane, we need to inform Mr. Weems’s widow before she sees it on the news. Anything else we need here?”

Kane shook his head. “Not until we can get inside. You have our cells, Barlow?”

Barlow nodded. “I do. I’ll call you as soon as it’s safe.”

Micki bagged the glass globe and now tugged at the glove on David’s hand. “I’ll get this back to you as soon as I can,” she
said, dropping the glove in a paper sack.

“Not a problem,” David said and without another word, turned and was around the building and gone from sight when Olivia realized
she’d been holding her breath.

Hell
. “Micki, can you run the dead girl’s prints? Watch for anything that pops from Florida. She’s got Gator nail art. Call us
when you get a match on the gel. Thanks.”

“As the man said, not a problem,” Micki responded evenly, but Olivia knew that look in her friend’s eyes. She’d expect an
explanation.

As if I have one
. “Abbott’s going to want us in his office at oh-eight in the morning,” Olivia said, changing the subject. Her captain was
big on meetings starting at oh-eight.

“Looking forward to it,” was all Micki said. “I’ll try to
run the girl’s prints before then. Afterward, we can grab a coffee. Catch up.”

“You bet,” Olivia said flatly, then turned to Micah Barlow who was watching her too closely and she felt a flare of temper.
That she’d even considered David Hunter for a nanosecond was partially Barlow’s fault, goddamn meddling bastard. “He’ll want
you there, too,” she said coolly. “You know where to find Abbott’s office?”

“I’ve worked with your captain before,” Barlow said. “I’ll be there.”

She jerked a nod, then headed to her car, Kane at her side. He didn’t say a word until she’d unlocked her car door.

Leaning against her hood, he folded his arms across his chest. “And that was…?”

She jerked open her door. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Kane pushed her door closed with the palm of his hand. “Olivia.”

She sighed. “One mammoth mistake, okay? One I don’t care to repeat or discuss.”

He looked disappointed. Kane did like his gossip. “Oh, all right,” he grumbled. “Here’s Weems’s home address. You want me
to lead?”

“No, you did it last time. It’s my turn to break the news.” Unlike other detective teams, they never flipped a coin. They
split the nasty duties fifty-fifty. It had always been that way, even when she was totally green and he was her mentor. “I’ll
meet you there.”

She opened her door when Kane walked away, then stopped, suddenly uneasy. Looking over her shoulder, she saw David standing
next to his truck, watching her, and a shudder rippled across her skin. For a moment their
eyes locked, then his chin tilted as if issuing a challenge. He pulled a new glove on his hand, then turned back to his work.

Trembling, Olivia got in her car.
I don’t need this. Not now.

He’s had seven months. Seven fucking months to say something. Do something.
She’d waited, patiently at first. Then the hurt started to rise, higher, deeper with each passing day. Each passing week.
Until she’d given up.
I’ve given him enough time.
It had been two and a half years since the night they’d met at her sister’s wedding in Chicago. Since the night they’d…
Dammit
. Remembering wasn’t supposed to make her want it again. But it did. Which made her pathetic. He’s had two and a half years
to do something.

Maybe he’s waiting for you to make the first move.

And maybe you’re the biggest idiot on earth
. She knew for whom David waited.
And it sure as hell’s not me.
Cursing herself for even entertaining the notion someone like him could be waiting for her, she followed Kane, ignoring the
reporters’ questions. There would be a press conference soon enough. She was about to inform Mrs. Henry Weems that she’d become
a widow, that her life had been irrevocably changed.

As she drove, she rehearsed the words that four years in Homicide had not made any easier to say.

David could hear nothing over the low roar of the truck beside him as he pulled a pike pole from its compartment, but he knew
when her car pulled away. Turning, he watched her taillights disappear through the construction gate.

She’d been tired tonight. Worried.
And not happy to
see me
. Irritation had filled those round blue eyes of hers. But there had been more. Compassion, concern. And then shame. The shame
scraped at him as he knew he’d put it there.

But most of all, he’d seen the bone-weariness that weighed so heavily on her slender shoulders. He’d been watching her closely
enough over the last seven months to know it wasn’t getting any better. If anything, it was getting worse.

The call had pulled her from sleep. The mental picture was a distracting one. She’d forgone her usual neat French braid, instead
pulling her blond hair into a ponytail so severely tight that he’d gotten a headache just looking at it. When she wasn’t working,
she let her hair fall loosely around her shoulders and he had a vague recollection of how it felt between his fingers.

He swallowed hard. He had a vague recollection about a lot of things, none of which he had any business thinking about right
now.

How many times in the last seven months had he almost knocked on her door? Too many. He’d about given up waiting for her to
come to him. And then tonight, here she was. She’d felt it, whatever it was between them. He’d seen it in her eyes. So he’d
wait a little bit longer.

How much longer? How much longer before you either fish or cut bait?

“So?” said a voice behind him.

David whipped around and Micah Barlow jumped backward, his eyes focused on the pike pole David clutched in his hand. “Don’t
sneak up on me like that, Barlow,” he gritted between clenched teeth, then made himself relax. “What do you need?”

Micah’s gaze flicked from the pole to the gate
the uniformed guard had just pulled closed behind Olivia’s car, then back to his face. “She really doesn’t like you. Why?”

David felt his face heat. “That’s none of your business.”

Micah frowned. “Yeah, it kind of is. But we’ll deal with that later. For now, I want you to walk me through exactly what happened
tonight, from the minute you got here until the minute you walked out of the building with that damn jelly ball in your hand.”

Annoyance spurted and with it the desire to tell Micah to stay the hell away from Olivia Sutherland.
But it’s not my business either
. Not yet anyway. If he had his way, that would change, very soon. For now, he’d do his job.

“It wasn’t a jelly ball,” he said. “The ball was solid glass. It was just covered in gel.”

“That’s a start. So take me through it, step by step.”

Monday, September 20, 2:00 a.m.

He flipped on the tube and sat back in his easy chair, nursing the beer he allowed himself after snagging a new “client.”
Tonight he’d earned the whole six-pack, but he never allowed himself more than one. Drunk men made stupid mistakes. He should
know. The stupid mistakes of drunk men accounted for a good portion of his business.

Remote in hand, he viewed the DVD he’d burned, smiling as smoke filled the screen. Every word the quartet had spoken was discernible.
Some parts were louder than others, but the audio was crisp because his equipment was top-of-the-line. Skimping on equipment
was bad economy in the long run.

And I plan for the long run
. He looked around his small apartment. It was stark, utilitarian. But eventually his bank accounts would plump enough for
him to buy an island villa staffed with discreet servants. He already knew which villa he’d choose. It was currently owned
by a wealthy politician with a very nasty proclivity toward underage youths. The politician actually believed he’d be free
when he’d finished depositing his blackmail payments into an offshore account in small, monthly installments.