Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(5)
Of course, Shauna had seen it. The sex had been incredible. They burned hot and fast and hard. But when she scratched the surface and realized there wasn’t anything underneath the physical, she’d walked. Her words when she left him echoed in his mind. “Just because you make sure a woman always comes, doesn’t mean you aren’t using her.” He winced at the memory.
The truth was, he’d been thinking about her lately. It wasn’t only the drive out to her stomping grounds that had her red curls and full lips bouncing around his head.
“Still can’t fucking believe this.” Ronan pulled the car into the lot at the Rocky Hill facility. “You think they’ll take the lead?”
“They might.” Zach didn’t much care if the state cold case division took over the lead on the case. He opened his door and got out, finding Ronan leaning on the car, staring at him like he’d lost his mind.
“Fuck that,” Ronan bit out.
Zach shrugged. “No biggie. Let them take it. We’ll work the local leads and use their resources. Their lab has a lot of shit we don’t.” Zach liked the glory of getting to claim you solved a case as much as the next guy, but with a case like this, he wanted to stop this killer and bring Carrie home safely a lot more than he wanted bragging rights.
Ronan muttered about the state taking credit as they walked to the door. Zach got it. They’d taken hit after hit in the press a couple of months back when they’d had a vigilante sniper and several unsolved cases plaguing the city. They were all feeling a little on edge since then.
In the end, they’d caught the sniper and solved the other crimes and gotten the press off their backs. Until now. He’d seen that asshole journalist Ray Lansing at the scene and outside the station that morning. Lansing had gone from writing for a pissant online blog to writing for one of the city’s biggest papers, and most of the department felt it had been at their expense.
Of course, he was also dating Cal Rylan’s sister now, so he thought he had an in with all of them.
So, yeah, Zach understood where Ronan was coming from. He just didn’t feel threatened by working with the state cold case investigators. Of course, the fact Zach was hoping he might run into Shauna might explain the difference in their attitudes.
They were greeted by an older woman who identified herself as Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney, Vivian Cullis, head of the state’s Cold Case Unit. She led them into a large bullpen area and jumped right into getting them up to speed.
“This is our main bullpen where our investigators sit. Every investigator is up-to-speed on every cold case we handle, but I do have a liaison appointed to work directly with you. We’ll have our team here doing leg work and tracking down anything you guys can send our way on the case. If there are any witnesses or people tied to the old cases still around, we’re going to get with them and redo each and every interview, no matter how many times we’ve interviewed them in the past.”
She continued, ignoring the group of detectives standing around one desk in the far corner of the room. It didn’t take any effort for Zach to see Shauna wasn’t among them. He’d have spotted her right away if she was. It had always been that way with her.
When he walked into a bar six years back, intent on getting drunk, he’d found her instead. She was sexy as sin and tough enough to take him on. She hadn’t backed down one bit when he walked her way and stepped a little too close to her with a smile that said exactly what he’d wanted to do to her. Looking back, he couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t shut him down right away. Shauna didn’t take that kind of shit from anyone. Whatever her reasons had been, he was glad she hadn’t.
Cullis waved a hand. “There’s a third room for interrogations, and our prosecutors are all down the hall. I’ll introduce you to John Grigsby. He’s the prosecutor that will handle the case when we close it.”
Zach caught Ronan’s look, but ignored his partner. Cullis turned to the detectives and walked that way. “Detectives Reynolds and Cafferty, meet the team.”
Zach didn’t catch any of the names she scrolled through. He shook hands blindly and knew he’d have to learn the names later. His eyes were on Shauna O’Rourke as she entered the room and came toward the group, lean hips rolling with the kind of confidence only a woman who looked like her could possess. Strawberry blonde hair that could turn fiery in the right light and blue eyes that blazed equally strong, especially when she was angry.
She didn’t spare him a glance.
“Detectives,” Cullis said, with a nod to Shauna. “This is Detective Shauna O’Rourke. She’ll be your main point of contact.”
Jackpot. So, the thought was more appropriate for a teenager than a seasoned detective, but whatever. He was embracing the pig in him for a little while today.
Shauna’s handshake with each of them was perfunctory as Ronan introduced himself. Zach couldn’t help it. He opened with, “Good to see you again, Detective.”
She ignored his comment and he ignored the raised brow from Ronan. His partner didn’t know his history with Shauna, but he hadn’t been about to pretend he didn’t know her.
She was apparently fine with doing just that. “Is your medical examiner absolutely positive it’s the same lipstick and rope?”
He was reminded of the passion she had for her cases, for justice. He was also reminded he wasn’t the asshole he used to be. Time to shut down the meathead side of him and get back to work on the case. They had a teenaged girl to bring home.