She yanked the lobby door and almost pulled her arm out of its socket when the damn thing didn’t budge.
“Sorry.” The cop radioed and another officer opened the locked door from inside.
“Are the crime techs here?” Emerson asked.
“Not yet,” replied the senior officer.
She eyed the rookie. “Can you wait here to let them in?”
“No problem,” he replied.
She offered a tight smile before hurrying inside with the second officer. Rather than take the waiting elevator, they climbed the three flights. The late-night activity had concerned neighbors lining the hallway or peering out their front doors. She acknowledged them with a nod. The officer stopped outside a closed door.
“Please keep the neighbors out,” she said.
“I was going to start questioning them.”
Her phone binged with a text. After reading it, she said, “The tech team is five minutes out. I don’t want any evidence compromised by curious neighbors.”
He nodded. “Sure thing.”
“What is the vic’s name?”
“April Peters. She hadn’t shown up for work and her boss came looking for her. He’s waiting in the living room.”
Emerson pulled on shoe coverings and disposable gloves before entering the apartment. Her stomach churned. The stench of death always did that to her. On her short list of hates, death topped them all. And she hated that, for some, it came way too soon.
When the lone man in the living room turned, the intensity in his wicked eyes stilled her breath.Oh, no. Not him.It had been a year and a half since she’d last seen him. His dark brown hair had grown past his shoulders, his scruffy beard and moustache drawing her back to those turbulent, ocean-blue eyes. That towering body of hard-muscled steel stood well over six feet tall, and her brain stuttered as she soaked in that surly Adonis of a man.
“Here to arrest me, again, Easton?” Stryker shoved his phone in his pocket.
Death might top her list, but the stormy sea of a man glaring down at her was a close second. The only thing that topped her dislike of him, was his total hatred of her.
She glared at him. “If the evidence points in your direction, I will.”
“You don’t use evidence,” he bit out. “You go on a hunch. Is that keen gut of yours already hard at work jumping toinaccurateconclusions?”
You’re a total tool.Rather than continue flinging mud, she shifted her gaze past him. “I understand you found the victim.”
He nodded once. This time, she caught a flash of pain in his eyes. Nowadays, she was better at reading people. If she’d had that skill when she’d first met him, she might not have been so quick to arrest him.
“Stay here.” She brushed past him.
When she entered the bedroom, the horrifying sight was a déjà vu of a crime scene from the previous month. Female, Caucasian, early thirties. Like the first victim, she was brunette, five six to five nine and wearing a full-length wedding gown. She was leaning against propped pillows with her hands crossed over her chest. Possible cause of death: strangulation. The victim’s dead-eyed stare sent chills through her.So tragic.
Then, the sorrow vanished, replaced with determination and a sense of loyalty toward the deceased. She would do everything possible to find the monster who did this. For the sake of the victims, and to prevent anyone else from losing their life in this monstrous way.
The crime techs arrived. After speaking briefly with one of them, she left to find Stryker, but he was waiting inside the bedroom doorway. His hard-muscled body dwarfed the space, but it was the empathy pouring from his eyes that caught her attention.
“Thanks for sticking around,” she said.
He arched a thick, black eyebrow. “Like I had a choice.”
“Can you ID the victim for me?”
“April Peters.”
“Is this how you found her?”
