“HEY, PARTNER,”ISAID WHENAdrian answered his phone. “What are you doing right now?”
“I know what I want to be doing right now, and it sure as hell doesn’t involve talking to you. What’s up?”
“Maegan just realized how our guy got inside her house without forcing his way in. She had a spare key hidden beneath a flower pot on her front porch.” I tried to keep any trace of scorn from my voice, but her raised brow said that I had failed to do so. “On a whim, I decided to grab it just in case there was a usable print left behind.”
“Any luck?”
“Our killer left a note.” I recited the message to Adrian.
“We need to get out there,” my partner said. “I’d prefer to wait until daylight, but we can’t take that chance.”
“I agree,” I said. “I want to have someone stay with Maegan while we go check it out.”
“Bring her over here, Elijah. She can hang out with Sally Ann and the kids. Or, I bet Jones wouldn’t mind…”
“We’ll be over in a few minutes,” I snapped before I hung up.
“Where are we going?” Maegan asked slowly. “I gotta tell you, Big Guns, that I’m not crazy about you finding a babysitter for me.”
There was nothing infantile about Maegan or the feelings she stirred inside me. I didn’t want to go caveman on her, but I’d do it if it meant she stayed safe. I thought I would give reason and logic a shot first, but if that failed, I would throw her over my shoulder and carry her away to safety.
“I know that you don’t need a babysitter, Maegan. This isn’t about your capabilities; this is about his. This person is determined to involve you in this case. Why? I have no clue. You have no clue. Until we know, I’m not taking a chance with your safety. He could be luring me away so that he can get to you. I will not make it easy for him, Freckles. I want you safe, and frankly, I don’t care if you get pissed off about it. So, it’s either Officer Kasey comes back to spend time with you”—ain’t no fucking way Jones was coming into my home to flex his muscles and try to steal my girl—“or, you hang out with Sally Ann while Adrian and I investigate.”
“That’s not really much of a choice,” Maegan said. “I’ll take Sally Ann since Officer Jones isn’t an option.” Her wicked smile told me that she’d overheard Adrian’s dig, or maybe she knew Jones had a thing for her. Either way, she seemed to enjoy winding me up.
“You think you’re funny?” I asked, suddenly forgetting about everything but marking my territory like the animal I was. “You think I’d let Jones come in here and get close to you, Freckles. No. Fucking Way.”
“Are you going to piss on my leg? I’m not into that, Elijah.”
“I have better ways of marking you as mine, but it will have to wait until we get back. I have a potential crime scene to investigate.” Those last few words had the same effect as dumping a gallon of ice water on my head. My focus shifted away from thumping my chest to getting out to Willow-Jasper Road to see what our guy left behind.
“Can we stop by my house so I can change clothes?” She gestured to her body that was bare except for my T-shirt that she had borrowed. Her toned legs looked like they stretched for miles beneath the hem.
“Sure, but only if you promise to change back into that shirt when we get back ho… here.” I had almost screwed up and said home. There was no denying that I liked Maegan a lot, and I was pretty sure that the like could develop into something stronger and really special if I wasn’t so fucked up in the head. But I was a mess, and our relationship was nowhere near the moving-in-together phase.
Maegan smiled crookedly at my swift recovery. “You have yourself a deal.”
“Okay, team, we have no idea what’s inside that barn. It could be a piece of evidence for our case, or it could be a trap. I want every single one of us to return home to our families or significant others,” Captain Roman-Wyatt said firmly.
He had arrived on the scene at the same time as Adrian and me. A few squad cars from our department were already there prepared to secure the area, as were a few deputies from the Carter County Sheriff’s Department since this barn was in their jurisdiction. The captain held them off until the fire department showed up with equipment to make our jobs safer and easier.
“That’s right,” Lieutenant Dorchester from the CCSD said. “Be diligent, ladies and gentlemen.”
Adrian had told me briefly about John Dorchester’s time working with our department on special assignments when he arrived. Due to the seriousness of the situation, I wasn’t getting to see his jokester side, but I hoped to remedy that at some point.
The fire tanker that arrived on the scene was equipped with the portable lights they attached to the top of the fire truck to illuminate nighttime fires or emergency scenes. The poles rose several feet from the truck and looked like miniature stadium lights you saw at football fields and baseball diamonds.
“The township invested in LED bulbs too. No one look directly at the lights,” the fire chief said loudly. “Light ’em up, Dallas.”
The firefighter flipped a switched and flooded our scene with brilliant, blinding light. The fire chief hadn’t been joking when he said not to look directly at the bulbs. Jesus!
Both the captain and lieutenant were dressed in bulletproof vests and helmets like the rest of us. The captain had said to me once that he’d never ask his men or women to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. It was obvious the lieutenant felt the same way. We spread out in formation and creeped along the deeply pitted gravel driveway and grassy areas until we had the structure surrounded.
From the road, the barn looked like it was intact, but once you rounded the curve in the driveway, you saw that one side of the barn had rotted from disuse and abandonment.
“Fuck! I bet that’s Renzo’s car,” Adrian said beside me as we cautiously approached, keeping our guns aimed in front of us.
“What’s it doing out here? Who drove it? His killer?” I asked. “Then why tip us off about where he dumped the car? God knows how long it would’ve taken someone to see this car abandoned here.”
