Angus frowned. “There’s nothing up with us.” Except a lot of sexual tension and one great night of sex.
“Oh, please. Don’t make me try the head-through-the-tree thing.” Wolfe lumbered to his feet and held down a hand. “Half of your panic here is the idea that Lassiter or Copycat will go after Nari just because you’ve been close to her. That might make you avoid your feelings, or it might make you amplify ones you mightnothave. Just figure it out before somebody gets hurt.”
Angus accepted the hand and stood eye to eye with the soldier. “I’m not sure I like your philosophical side.”
“Dude. I am so done with talking for the week. This was a lot.” Wolfe clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get some work done.”
Fat raindrops from tree branches plopped on Angus’s head until he exited the forest, where Malcolm was waiting for them. Angus paused, his body chilling at the look on Mal’s face. “What’s happened?” he asked.
Mal’s eyes burned. “We had the news on TV. Apparently joggers beneath Trunky Bridge found a body. Blond female with bright pink streaks in her hair.”
Chapter Seventeen
The dead woman could not be Millie. It just couldn’t be. Nari scrambled to use every contact she had at HDD to find out more details on the deceased woman, while most of the team did the same. The news report had been brief, and other than the description of streaked blond hair, the joggers hadn’t provided any details to the reporter at the scene.
Angus paced outside on the front porch, his phone at his ear.
She thanked her friend and disconnected the call. “The HDD hasn’t been called in, so my sources don’t know anything.”
“I’m waiting for Raider to see if the DHS has anything,” Dana said, her phone to her ear. “I’m on hold.”
Pippa set down her phone. “Brigid is on it with HDD and her computer, but she thinks Metro caught the case, and they’re not sharing. She’s trying to track Millie via her phone and GPS and will get right back to us. It’s not Millie. It can’t be. She took the streaks out of her hair, remember?” She took a deep breath. “Is anybody hungry?”
Nobody answered. Millie easily could’ve put more streaks in her hair. Jethro pounded away on his laptop, while Wolfe yelled at somebody in a lab somewhere. He hung up and threw the phone toward the sofa.
“No luck?” Dana murmured.
“No.” Wolfe ran a rough hand through his hair. “Anybody? Do we know anything?”
Angus stomped inside, rain dotting his T-shirt. “Tate’s not answering his phone, but I got a contact in Metro to affirm that he caught the case. That’s all I know. Has Brigid been able to track Millie?”
“Not yet,” Malcolm said, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “I’ve reached out to my contacts at Metro and the case is fresh. They’re even trying to keep from sharing with the DHS. Nobody knows anything yet.”
The cinnamon roll in Nari’s stomach turned to rock. She pressed a hand to her diaphragm. “A lot of women have pink streaks in their hair. We don’t even know if this woman is the victim of a homicide.” Yet she felt like throwing up anyway.
Angus’s phone buzzed and he pressed a button. “Force.” He stiffened, his shoulders going back. “Tate. Yeah?” He listened for several moments, not moving. “Affirmative. Thanks.” His face lost all expression. “Metro has a female victim with a missing heart who is blond and about five feet tall. They’re searching for a note right now.”
“Is it Millie?” Nari whispered, her heart aching. She had to figure out how to help everyone in the room. She couldn’t fall apart.
Angus shook his head. “They haven’t identified her yet. The victim was thrown from the bridge and landed on her face.”
“I have Raider and Brigid on speakerphone.” Malcolm straightened, setting his phone on the counter. “Millie is former HDD, so they’d have her prints on file. It should take seconds to determine.”
Angus slipped his phone into his pocket. “There is no determination.”
Nari frowned. “Why not? What aren’t you saying?”
Jethro looked up from his computer. “Why can’t they identify her?”
Angus exhaled, looking pissed all of a sudden. “The victim’s hands are missing.”
Nari gagged and quickly covered the action with a cough. The woman’s hands and heart were taken, and she’d been thrown face-first from a bridge. “Either this guy is getting angrier or he wants us to worry while she’s identified. If so, then it probably isn’t Millie. Right?”
Angus lowered his chin. “Maybe. If it is Millie, he might want to draw out the moment.” That fast, Angus was back to being the profiler and not the pissed-off friend. His eyes went cold and flat. He looked at Jethro. “Anything on the last note?”
“Yes.” Jethro closed his laptop. “Good thing I brought my own hot spot. The passage is from a seventeenth-century poem by a man named Giuseppe Legonito. He lost his family in a fire and slowly descended into madness. The poem is calledThe Fate of the Damned.”
Wolfe grimaced. “That’s profound. What was the passage again?”
