Twisted (27 page)

Instead of answering her question, he looked at the clock on the nightstand. “I need to call in.”

She laughed. “It’s five-fifty.”

“Six-fifty in Virginia.”

Her brow furrowed. “People actually work at—”

“Yes.”

He gently eased her leg off him and got up. He hazarded a glance in her direction as he zipped his pants.

Her eyes were cool, assessing, and she looked tough enough to handle what he had to say.

“How’s the shoulder?”

She watched him warily. “Fine.”

He didn’t believe her, but she was obviously waiting for him to talk about last night. He sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Allison.” He picked up her hand. “This can’t happen again.”

Her eyebrows arched and she pulled her hand away. “Are you seeing someone?”

He hesitated. It would have been a good excuse, but he hadn’t laid any groundwork and she’d see right through it.

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem? And if you say our age difference again, I may have to slap you.”

“I live in another state, for one thing.”

“And?”

“And you deserve more than just—” He searched for the right word. Came up empty.

“A cheap one-night stand?” She kicked the covers off and threw her legs over the opposite side of the bed. She reached over to her nightstand and snatched up the black lace panties that had mesmerized him last night. He watched her step into them and plunk a hand on her hip defiantly, and he was mesmerized all over again.

“You deserve someone who can be here for you,” he said.
Someone who won’t screw up your life.

She laughed dryly. “What I deserve is someone who’s man enough to be honest.” She jerked a drawer open and grabbed a bra. It was black lace, too, and she wrestled it on. “This isn’t about me and what I deserve. It’s about you.”

He stood up, annoyed with himself for letting this get messy when he should have simply left last night.

Actually, what he should have done was never come over here in the first place.

She advanced on him now, eyes flashing, all skin and lace and temper. And he knew exactly why he’d come, and he also knew that given the chance to do it over again, he’d be just as incapable of staying away.

“You know the really sad thing, Wolfe?”

He had no idea, but he knew better than to guess.

“The sad thing is, you underestimate me. And I thought you were smarter than that.” She grabbed a T-shirt off the floor and headed for the bathroom. She stopped in the doorway and turned to look at him.

“Sex isn’t the only thing you need, Wolfe. I’ve never met anyone in such dire need of a friend.”

Kelsey took her usual morning dose of caffeine down to her office, and was surprised to see Ben Lawson slouched beside the door. She plastered a smile on her face and braced herself for a conversation she didn’t really want to have.

“What brings you down here, Ben? Thought you hated our little bone basement.”

“Just thought I’d drop by.”

Kelsey let herself into her office, but bypassed her desk and went straight into the lab, where there weren’t any chairs to encourage lingering. Ben followed.

“You’re in early,” he said as she traded her jacket and scarf for a white lab coat. “Again.”

She glanced at him, noting the emphasis he’d placed on the last word.

“I’ve got a lot to do today. I’m running a training session Saturday that I haven’t had time to plan yet.” She took a swig of her latte, hoping it would somehow manage to wake her up. Meanwhile, Ben glanced around. His gaze paused on the shelves of animal skeletons, and she waited for him to get to the point.

“You doing all right?” He leaned back against the counter and watched her closely. He was in his typical jeans and microbrew T-shirt, but his look at the moment was very parental.

“Fine.”

“Because you’ve seemed kind of . . . distracted. Since you got back from vacation.”

Unbelievable. Kelsey’s friends hadn’t even noticed, and here was Ben Lawson giving her the third degree.

“Well, you know, we’ve been swamped,” she said. “Training workshops. Couple of cold cases. I’ve hardly had time to sleep.”

“Guess that’s why you look tired, huh?”

“Is there something you needed?” she asked tersely. “Because I really have a lot to do.”

“The Stephanie Snow case,” he said. “I hear you’re working on it.”

Kelsey pursed her lips. He must have heard about Mark and Allison’s visit.

“I’m giving them a hand with a cold case that might be connected,” she said.

“Rachel Pascal.”

“How’d you know?”

“They brought me in on it, too. They’re trying to trace the killer through his Web activity.”

“Have you found anything?”

“Not a lot,” he said. “I’m running down some Web IDs at the moment, but ran into some walls.”

“Never known that to stop you before.”

“Yeah, well, that’s true. Usually when I run into an obstacle, I just hack on through.” He smiled. “Kind of like your boyfriend, only using computer code instead of C-4.” His smile faded. “Unfortunately, looks like this case is a little more complicated.”

Kelsey ignored the mention of Gage, an obvious fishing expedition. Ben and Gage weren’t friends—they’d never even met. Kelsey’s boyfriend was a Navy SEAL who had been out of the country fighting terrorists for the better part of their relationship.

“And what exactly is it you need?” She glanced at the clock, hoping he’d get the hint.

“GPS coordinates from Rachel Pascal’s recovery site.”

She watched him, trying to figure what on earth he might do with that information. Who could guess? What Ben lacked in tact he made up for in raw intelligence. The man was rumored to be a genius—possibly the smartest person working at the Delphi Center, which was brimming with brainiacs.

“I figured you’d have them,” Ben said, clearly taking
her silence for reluctance. “You use a Garmin every time you do a recovery, right?”

“I’ve got them.” She crossed the lab to the laptop computer she’d left sitting on the counter yesterday. She booted it up and located the file. She hadn’t even had a chance to update it yet with the woman’s identity. But the date and location of the recovery were listed clearly at the top of her report.

“What do you need with these?” She glanced over her shoulder at Ben, who was fiddling with the midsize mammal bones displayed on one of her shelves.

“Oh, you know. Tossing some ideas around.”

“Well, I’ve got two locations—a cranium and a femur. Both recovered along the Blanco River in northern Evans County. I’ll give you the coordinates, but you’re going to have to do better than ‘tossing some ideas around.’ What exactly are you up to?”

He put the skull down and leaned a palm against the counter. “I’ve been working on this software program. It’s called Mind Sweep.”

“Catchy name. What does it do?”

He hesitated, and she could tell he was the one uncomfortable in the conversation now.

“You ever heard of geographic profiling?”

“Hmm . . . Don’t think so. What is it, like catching criminals based on their victims’ locations?”

“That’s it in a nutshell. Think of it as one of those old-fashioned wall maps with the stick pins, only it’s all computerized. Investigators enter geographic data about connected crimes into a software program. The goal is to find an offender’s base of operations—which usually means his home, his workplace, maybe his girlfriend’s house.”

“They’ve got software that does this?”

“Depends who you ask.” He shrugged. “Basically, what’s out there now is complete crap. I’ve been working on something better. Still getting the kinks out. Haven’t got a patent yet or anything.”

“I had no idea we had anything like that in development here.”

“Most people don’t. But this project’s been going on for years. It’s a natural offshoot of what we do here at the lab.”

“How’s that?” she asked, and he got that look on his face. Ben became impatient having to explain things to the mere mortals around him.

“Well, the mathematics behind it is complicated. The software is based on various algorithms. The first computer programs were used to prioritize tips and suspects, run address-based searches of criminal records, do neighborhood canvasses—that kind of thing. But the programs had some major faults, including not being based on enough data to link crimes together in a reliable way. The Delphi Center’s changing all that. With all the work we’re doing here to build out the national DNA database, we’re adding thousands and thousands of data points into the system in the form of genetic profiles. You follow?”

Kelsey nodded.

“For example, used to be some detectives in a city might get together and say, ‘We think we have a serial rapist operating on the east side of town. We think he’s raped five women, and we’re guessing he lives or works in the area.’ That’s so basic, it’s essentially common sense. Now with DNA, we can definitively link that same
offender to a whole host of crime scenes across different jurisdictions.”

“Sounds impressive.”

Now he almost looked bashful. “Yeah. I mean,
I
think so, anyway.” He glanced up at her. “It’s kind of under wraps till the patent comes through. I know I can trust you not to talk about it.”

“Sure, no problem. Here are two new ‘data points’ for your collection.” Kelsey took a sticky note and started copying the GPS coordinates as the phone rang at her desk. “I need to get that.” She handed him the paper. “Jot those down. And I can send you the full report if you want.”

She rushed into the other room and snatched up the phone.

“Osteology.”

“I’m calling for Dr. Quinn.”

“Speaking.”

Silence on the other end. Some people didn’t expect a woman, and Kelsey had learned not to let it bother her.

“This is Sheriff Chuck Denton in Wayne County.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got some deer hunters out here, just stumbled across a bone you need to come see. You’re the expert, but looks to me like we got ourselves a leg.”

“Actually, what I’ll need you to do, Sheriff, is take a photograph of it so I can rule out a nonhuman bone, such as a deer or a cow. Be sure to use a ruler for scale. Or if you don’t have one handy, just put a dollar bill in the picture. E-mail me the photo at—”

“Ma’am? Think we can rule out animals in this case.”

“You’d be surprised, Sheriff. Oftentimes—”

“All due respect, ma’am, I’ve dressed my share of deer over the years, and that’s not what I’m looking at.”

The certainty in his voice filled Kelsey with dread. Wayne County was adjacent to Evans County, where Rachel Pascal had been found.

“Now, I can send the picture if you want,” he said, “but I’m telling you right now—this bone I’m looking at is from a person.”

A sharp rap at the door startled Allison and made her drop the photo in her hand. She got up to answer the knock, blaming half a pot of coffee and a set of grisly Polaroids for her jumpiness this morning.

She peered through the peephole, hoping to see Mark standing there looking needy and apologetic. But of course, that wasn’t what she saw.

She opened the door. “Hi.”

Mia stared at her for a moment before stepping inside.

“Come on in,” Allison said crossly.

“Why aren’t you at work?”

She laughed. “What are you, my truant officer?”

“Ric said you missed the task force meeting.”

Allison went into the kitchen.

“Coffee?”

“No,” Mia said. She stood at the bar now, about a foot away from the square of counter space Allison had occupied just last night.

Allison topped off her mug of coffee and took it into the living room, where she wouldn’t be distracted by memories or crime-scene photos.

“I’m working from home this morning,” she said, sinking into a chair.

Mia perched on the sofa arm. She was in her typical cold-weather work attire of a cable-knit sweater and jeans, minus the lab coat.

“Ric’s worried about you. He said you were all wired at the station house last night.”

Allison put down her mug. “Did you come here from the lab just to check in on me?”

“He also mentioned you had a bruise on your neck that you didn’t want to talk about.”

Allison sighed.

Mia walked over and stood in front of her. Grudgingly, Allison lifted her chin. Even with a lot of concealer, it was still visible.

“Allison! What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Did Mark Wolfe have something to do with that?”

“God, no.” Allison frowned. “Why would you say that?”

“How am I supposed to know what to say?” Mia sank into the nearest chair. “Ever since he came into your life, you’ve been acting strange. And now you’re not at work during a murder case? I’ve never even known you to take a sick day.”

“I’m not sick. I’m just working from home. I’m not getting along with my lieutenant now, and it’s easier to avoid him.” Or rather, avoid a conversation about her prison interview until she figured out exactly what Mark and the warden had told him. She was pretty sure she knew what the warden would say—nothing. He didn’t want the bad publicity any more than she did. But Mark was a wild card. He’d been very upset last night.

Among other things.

“Well?” Mia was still looking at her expectantly.

“Well, what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“I had a little scuffle.”

“With David Moss,” Mia stated.

Allison didn’t respond.

“The convicted
rapist
and
murderer.
”

“I’d really appreciate it if you’d drop it, Mia. I don’t need any more crap from the guys at work.”

Mia looked down and folded her hands in her lap. She knew how it was working in a male-dominated field. But she was also a concerned friend, and Allison didn’t need her running to her fiancé and feeding him stories that would reinforce anyone’s ideas about Allison being incompetent. It was bad enough Mark probably thought less of her after everything that had happened.

“Look, Allison.” Mia met her gaze. “I really don’t want to meddle in your life—”