up on those guys that popped on the search yesterday.”
“I did a little more digging on that last night.”
But she was focused on his early words. It took effort to keep her voice mild. “Last night?”
“Yeah, I came back to work around seven thirty.” Seeing her expression, he raised a hand placatingly. “I know I said I’d call you, but you neglected to leave your cell number with me.”
And he’d neglected to ask for it, she thought wryly. Her bad. If she wanted to be kept in the loop on this investigation, she was clearly going to have to make all the overtures. She put her palm out.
He looked at it. Then at her. “You decided you wanted gum after all?”
“Give me your cell phone. I’ll log in the number.”
They’d come to his office. Without waiting for him, she opened the door and walked inside.
“I’ll do it. What is it?” He took the cell from his pocket. She took it from his hand.
“Don’t want to take the chance of you punching it in wrong,” she said blandly.
“I didn’t deliberately exclude you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She dropped in a chair and quickly added her number to his contacts. Then she took out her phone and did the same for his number. Handing his back to him, she said, “There. Now there won’t be any excuse next time.”
His eyes gleamed. “I keep late hours but I don’t expect you to live the case. You’ll have to let me know when you’ve had enough. Given your unofficial capacity and all.”
She cocked a brow at the arrogance in the words. She had a feeling they were the first truly unguarded ones he’d spoken to her. “My capacity on this case won’t be an issue.” At least not for him. The issues it was causing her, while she slept, would continue whether she was key to the investigation or not. Experience had taught her that.
But her involvement would make them increase in frequency. In intensity. The acknowledgment had her throat drying. The only thing that had ever made the dreams worthwhile was using them to bring about justice. For years she’d taken solace from that.
She just wasn’t certain that was true any longer.
Risa shifted her knees out of the way so he could pass en route to his desk. “So catch me up. What’d you accomplish last night? Did you hear anything from the arresting officers regarding ID on the Juicy trio?”
He cracked a smile at that. She stared, surprised. It softened his features and made him more approachable. And devastatingly attractive. Who would have guessed that Nate McGuire harbored a lone masculine dimple? Or that it could provoke such a maddeningly female response in her?
“Catchy. Sounds like a musical group.” He sat down and rifled through a stack of papers on his desk until he found the three depicting the hits he’d found yesterday. “Nothing from any of the arresting officers yet. But I took these pics by Crowley’s address last night. You can imagine his enthusiasm when he saw me again.” His expression said the man’s lack of welcome bothered him not at all. “He ID’d this guy as the one he scored the weed from, Dwayne Jersey.” He turned around the photo in question so she could see it. “And the way he was talking, I got the impression he knows him a whole lot better than he let on to us yesterday. I also found out that one of the three, Fox, is a guest of the state and will be for another six years.”
Her expression must not have looked pacified, because his eyes gleamed. “Then I combed through the ViCAP files I got back until my eyes bled. Still wishing you’d spent the night here?”
She ignored the question. “Once we make a swing by the morgue, maybe we’ll have enough to resubmit a request to ViCAP.”
“I need something that will narrow down the search.” He thumped his index finger against the thick file folder on his desk. “You can take a look at these if you want. A pair of fresh eyes can’t hurt. I only got a couple dozen hits the first time I submitted a request, so when I resubmitted I cast a wider net.”
Risa nodded. In the interest of thoroughness, she always made the first ViCAP request fairly broad. In the beginning of a serial case, one never knew which details of the crimes would change. Which ones were part of the offender’s signature and which were merely enacted