“Michigan. After Mom died. I felt threatened.”
“You were followed, attacked, and then someone trashed your home. You didn’t justfeelthreatened. And you have a face. Did you show this to the police?”
“No. I didn’t see the face of the guy who threatened me. If I could have seen his face, he’d be arrested, charged, and hopefully incarcerated. I can’t know if my stalker-attacker was responsible for Mom’s death, but it would fit that context. Butthisface, I don’t know if it’s that guy or not. He could be a stranger I saw on the street, so I’m not sure. Some faces interest me, and so to keep up my skills, to practice, I draw them, sometimes even from memory. I expect victims to remember, so I try to remember too.”
“Then why did you say the drawing had to do with feeling threatened?”
“It was during that time that I drew the face. I can’t tie it to anything.”
Interesting how her mind worked. “That’s impressive, really.” He let the image drop. “And just so you know, Jo, yes you told me about what happened, but I already knew much of it.”
She looked at him long and hard. “So you really have read the reports on not just Mom’s case butmyreports on someone stalking me?”
He might have memorized every word. He was that determined to save Jo from the danger that stalked her. “So why didn’t you show this to the police anyway? The face could be related.”
“Well, for one, I hadn’t completed the drawing. I onlyrecently finished it. It’s just something that has been coming to me piece by piece. I have to draw faces and images to get them out of my mind. I plan to show the face to the detective tomorrow. See if he recognizes him. He could put it in the computer software too, but to be recognized, the person has to be in the system somewhere, on social media maybe. It’s not a perfect system.”
“I could let Allison work on it.”
“Allison? That’s your tech and intelligence assistant?”
“Yes.”
Jo angled her face and studied him. “You’ve known her a long time?”
He’d met Allison in the Army, and she’d been a lifeline. “She had my back last year.”
Jo pursed her lips.
“It’s not like that,” he said. “I don’t ever see her. We work together. She has a boyfriend.”
Jo scrunched her face. “It’s not any of my business, really.”
But she’d asked. Cole had seen the spark of jealousy, and he wanted to dispel that. Didn’t he? That she was jealous told him she might still be into him. She’d been giving mixed signals, pushing him away, and tonight she was a little bit flirty.
She snatched up the image of the man again. “Go ahead and take a picture so you can send it to Allison. Maybe she can figure out who this is. Probably nobody since they supposedly have found their suspected killer.”
He quickly took a picture of the sketch and forwarded it on to Allison.
“They have only identified a possible suspect based on a tip. They haven’t located him yet.” He took her hand and turned her to face him. “I wish I could tell you that you’re safe now.”
She didn’t resist and stared up at him. He brushed thehair off her shoulder, loving the feel of the soft tendrils. That was a mistake.
With a sharp intake of breath, she stepped back. Her gaze flicked from him to the next picture on her desk.
“Thanks, Cole. For everything. Really.”
She’d already thanked him. No need to keep doing that. He was just glad he’d been there.
And he was glad she was trying to put his focus back on the pictures. He shuffled the images to look again at the eyes behind the hood on the ferry killer.
“Any chance you can create the rest?” In the short time he’d known her, he’d easily seen her extraordinary talent. Detective Wilson had mentioned she’d been like her mother in her gift—it was like a gift from God, he’d said. Not every artist could do what Mira had done, and Jo was equally as gifted. The department had been sorry to lose two forensic artists in a few short weeks. Artists who had helped them solve crimes.
“I’m not sure.”
“If given the chance, Jo, would you go back to work as a forensic artist?” he asked.
“Maybe.” She was the one to study the next sketch.
