that Cass had arrived. Finally. Tamping down an accompanying flare of frustration, he said, “Maybe he outsmarted himself this time.”
The slight smile on her face had him blinking. It transformed her features, replacing the carefully blank expression with a vibrancy that was punch-in-the-gut sexy. The observation was as out of character as it was alarming.
“You won’t find any trace of him on that tape. Or his prints on the camera.”
It was annoying how closely she’d read his thoughts. He just hoped she hadn’t keyed in to all of them. “Could be you’re giving him too much credit.”
The smile was gone now. And it was a bit of a relief to be faced with her impassive mask again. “After three deaths targeting cops, maybe you need to start giving him more credit.”
“This vic was connected to the other two, then?” Cass pulled to a stop beside them. He took a quick visual inventory. The bruise she’d sported around one eye for the last week had been carefully disguised with makeup. Since it was harder to see today, he assumed it was fading. And there were no new ones, at least not where they showed.
“I’ll fill you in,” he said as evenly as he could manage. “We were just walking the grid.” He waited until they were out of earshot of anyone else before he demanded, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Don’t start with me,” she muttered. Her gaze, like his, was carefully trained on the ground, searching for trace evidence. “Donny showed up as I was on my way out the door. It took a while to get rid of him.”
“Jesus.” The word was released on an explosion of breath. “You could have gotten rid of him by calling for a unit. You took out a restraining order last week, right?” Her silence had his instincts rising. “Right?”
“I didn’t see the need. I can handle him.”
Anything he could have said to refute that—and there was plenty—was put aside for now. It wasn’t the place or the time. And pointing out the obvious, that Cass was a bum magnet who replayed the same mistakes in her personal life over and over like a movie reel on permanent rewind, would fall on deaf ears. It always had.
“The job’s looking at you.” He kept his expression carefully impersonal. From a distance everyone would believe he was catching his partner up on the case. “My guy in Internal Affairs tipped me off. Your relationship with Donald Larson means you’re colluding with a known felon. An ex-con. And it’s putting your shield in jeopardy. So if you don’t give a damn about what he does to you personally, maybe you’ll care what he’s doing to you professionally.” A quick look at her face showed she’d paled beneath the makeup. And her eyes were worried. “Lose that guy, fast, or you may not remain on this investigation with me. You may not be on the force at all.”
Risa wished she could shut off the adrenaline humming inside her as easily as the CSU tech had flipped the switch on the camera she’d found. She didn’t want this. She didn’t welcome a return of instincts, long dormant, that were now alert and quivering. Was panicked by the curiosity revving to life.
And she especially didn’t want to admit that Raiker might be right. That she couldn’t walk away from this work. The thought brought simultaneous stabs of exhilaration and panic. She’d once thought she was destined for this sort of career. It gave her dreams meaning and made them something more than a curse.
But recent events had taught her she could no longer trust the dreams that had guided her instincts in her cases. And where did that leave her, other than just as confused as she’d been for the last four months?
“If you’re not busy, you can hold the ladder while I inspect the rafters.”
Brandau’s voice jolted her from her thoughts. And she wasn’t unhappy at the diversion. She followed him over to the cement pad and watched dubiously as he rested the portable ladder against a scorched wooden beam. “You may get up there and discover there’s more damage to that beam than it looks like down here.”
Jett shot her a smile, the charm in which was wasted on her. “In that case I’ll expect you to catch me in your arms. Or at least to break my fall.” Carefully maneuvering the VTA machine, he headed up the ladder.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she muttered. But she