head to catch the various expressions of emotion defining her features, ranging from pleasure, awe, and wonder.
She looked at him through glazed eyes, as if she knew he was about to push her over the edge. When she whispered the words, “I love you,” he was the one to tumble over first.
He would never tire of her saying those words. They did something to him, making his heart catch whenever he heard them. His body exploded, and through clenched teeth, he said, “I love you, too, baby.” Throwing his head back, he sucked in a deep breath, pulling in her scent and pushing his shaft deeper inside her. This was heaven on earth.
“Drew!”
“Oh, baby,” he said, coming again, right along with her. He gathered her close, overcome with this orgasm that was even more powerful than the last. This much sexual fulfillment should be illegal. He felt weak, but held on to what strength he had so that he could hold her when she slumped against him, resting her face in his chest.
Gripping her hips when she tightened her legs around his waist, he finally moved toward the bedroom.
WHEN DREW AND TONI arrived for work the next morning, they were told that Valerie wanted to meet with them immediately. When they walked into the technology center and saw her huge smile, it was obvious that she had exciting news to share with them.
“What do you have for us?” Drew asked, looking at the screens Valerie had running. She offered them coffee and donuts before starting. “I checked out several traffic cameras to see if we had footage of the same car going through any of the intersections within a three-mile radius of both the Tindal and Nettles’s crime scenes. That proved negative, so I decided to use another search indicator.”
“Which was?” Toni asked.
“Rental vehicles. I then checked out all the rental vehicles that passed through any of those same intersections. There were several. I then dug even further and discovered on two different occasions that rental vehicles leased by the same person were in the area around the time of both Maria Tindal and Byron Nettles’s deaths.”
“That’s interesting,” Drew said.
“I thought you would think so.” She stood. “Let me show you what I have,” she said, going to one of the screens.
“A current year Chevrolet Malibu went through the intersection of Market and Pearl at nine twenty-three, the same night Maria Tindal was killed, and didn’t come back through that same intersection until five minutes after eleven. That is less than two hours.”
Andrew and Toni looked at the screen, seeing the car in question drive through both times. “Then on the day Byron Nettles was killed, look what we have here,” Valerie said, using the remote to switch the video to show a split screen.
“At eleven-fourteen a.m., a car identified as belonging to Byron Nettles passed through these two intersections. They are three miles apart. Look closely and tell me what you see.”
“A car is tailing him,” Toni said, not taking her eyes off the screen. “The same car is behind him, keeping a safe distance and cruising through both intersections.”
“Yes,” Valerie agreed. “And this particular intersection here is two minutes before the turn to where Byron Nettles’s fatal accident took place. Unfortunately, there aren’t any more cameras from here. But look at this,” she said, switching to a third screen. “Less than thirty minutes later, that brown rental car is passing back through the intersection. See anything different about the vehicle?”
“It’s damaged,” Toni said, when Valerie did a close-up of the vehicle’s left side. “The front fender is bent pretty badly, as if it has been in an accident.”
“Exactly,” Valerie said.
“What’s the name of the person who leased both vehicles?” Drew asked.
“Ervin Headley. He is twenty-eight years old, with no prior arrests or convictions.”
“What does he do now?” Toni asked, still studying the screen. A photograph of Headley came up, taken from his Facebook page. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, although the tattoo of a rooster on his arm diminished him, somehow. She could see a tiger or a snake or something. But a rooster?
“Up until six months ago, he worked as a loan officer at a bank. He was fired when he went off on one of the bank’s most valuable customers. I guess you can say he had a bad day. Since then, he’s been freelancing from home as a loan officer for one of those online loan outfits.”