Fully Committed

Corpus Christi PD had wanted to handle the situation themselves. But once the story made national news, that option was no longer available.

Omega had been called in and Jon, highly experienced with situations where multiple skills would be necessary—profiling, crime and linkage analysis, investigative suggestions, multiagency coordination—had been sent.

Jon was good at seeing the overall big picture, at catching details other people sometimes missed. At taking all the individual pieces involved in a case of this magnitude and putting them together so that the whole was more than the sum of the parts.

He was also a pilot, an excellent sharpshooter and could kill a man a dozen different ways with his bare hands. But that probably wasn’t in his official dossier.

No matter what list of credentials Omega had provided for Jon’s arrival to help with this case, it hadn’t made any difference with the locals. Every piece of information was only reluctantly shared. Jon was the last person notified for any possible lead.

But call him Rhett Butler because, frankly, Jon didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t in Corpus Christi to sit around holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” He was here to stop a predator from victimizing more women.

A particularly smart predator who was too clever to leave behind any evidence so far.

So it wasn’t as if the Christi locals could be accused of not doing their jobs properly. Jon hadn’t been able to make as much as a single crack in the case himself, despite the time he’d spent in his week here interviewing victims and studying patterns.

It was a frustrating feeling when all he could do was wait for the bad guy to strike again and hope for a mistake. Not a feeling Jon was used to or that sat well with him.

This was the first victim that had been reported since Jon had arrived in town. He planned to make sure there wasn’t a next, regardless of how cooperative the Corpus Christi PD was. Or wasn’t.

The text notifying him of the victim hadn’t come from a member of the police department. Oh, Jon had no doubt they would eventually get around to notifying him of the victim’s existence. After all, none of them wanted to be accused of deliberately keeping info from him. But God only knew when that would actually be.

The text had come from Caroline Gill, a paramedic. Jon had met and befriended her and her partner, Michael Dutton, earlier in the week when he’d interviewed them about victim number two, whom they’d also transported a few weeks ago.

Dutton and Gill weren’t threatened by Jon’s presence here. They had talked openly with him about what they knew, what they’d heard. Jon had even asked them their theories about the case, since they had been the first people on one of the crime scenes.

Perhaps the paramedics’ opinions wouldn’t amount to anything useful whatsoever. But Jon had been doing this job for Omega Sector long enough to know that a break in a case could often come from unusual sources.

At the very least, his willingness to listen to them had gotten him the text that had him now driving through the city as fast as he safely could.

Jon parked at the closest nonemergency spot he could find at Memorial and jogged to the sliding glass of the emergency entrance door, ignoring the muggy heat that was so unlike the weather in his home state of Colorado. He pulled out his credentials to show the nurse at the front desk, explaining who he was here to see. He was glad when he saw Sara Beth Carreker, the head nurse who had worked in Emergency for years, walk up. Jon had talked to her a few days ago, also, since all the victims had been brought to Memorial’s Emergency Trauma Center.

Nurse Carreker’s nod was brisk. “I’ll show you back there myself. The patient has been moved into one of the private trauma care rooms.” Her lips pinched together.

“I take it that’s a bad sign?”

The nurse glanced at him as they walked down the hall. “Medically, it’s pretty neutral. Just my opinion, of course. You’ll have to ask the doctor for a professional statement.” The older woman’s eyes argued that she had seen more and probably knew more than a lot of the young doctors around here.

“So, physically she’ll recover. That’s not why she’s in the room.” Jon’s words weren’t questions.

“Yes.” Nurse Carreker nodded as they turned a corner. “Emotionally that woman needs as much privacy as she can get.”

“Anything you can tell me about her?”

“Young. A local. African-American this time, so that’s a little different. But the same type of bruising and craniofacial trauma.”

A black female. Jon’s jaw clenched. The demographic pattern of the women who had been attacked was widely varied, almost unheard of in a serial rapist. It was one of the reasons Corpus Christi PD had resisted asking for any federal help. Since serial rapists usually had a set type of woman they attacked, the department hadn’t thought the perpetrator was just one person.

Nurse Carreker stopped halfway down the hall. “Agent Hatton, y’all try to remember that this isn’t a case to that woman. Her whole world has just been destroyed.”

Y’all? Just because Jon didn’t use the word didn’t mean he didn’t know what it meant. How many people were here besides him? “Okay, thank you.”

The nurse patted him on the arm and left. Jon turned back toward the victim’s room. At least half a dozen of Corpus Christi’s finest were standing around outside the victim’s door. They alternated between glaring at and completely ignoring him as he approached.

Damn, this was going to be a long afternoon.

Chapter Two (#ulink_d132125e-4bf1-5b14-8d0d-5cb91e6007f8)

Jon noticed that Zane Wales, the detective he’d been working most closely with—closely being a very relative term—was busy cross-referencing something on his smartphone with a file in his hands. The younger man made it a point not to make eye contact. Wales should’ve been the one who had called or texted Jon, not the paramedic.

Jon tamped down his frustration. This wasn’t the time or place to get into it with Wales again. Especially because he knew the captain at the local police department all but applauded Wales’s attitude. He encouraged any and all negative attitudes toward Jon.

“Hatton,” Wales said neutrally in greeting. The man actually wore a cowboy hat all the time. Since they were in Texas that shouldn’t surprise Jon, but it was still a little unsettling.

“Wales.” Jon raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything further.

“Doctor’s with the victim, so no one can go in yet.” Wales put himself between the door and Jon as if Jon were going to barge his way in. Jon barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes.

He looked over at the uniformed officers milling around, half a dozen of them, all male. They all wanted to be here, be somewhere nearby so they could help if needed. While Jon appreciated the gesture, they had to leave.

He turned back to Wales. “A little crowded out here, don’t you think, for a woman who’s just been brutally attacked?”

Wales looked a little surprised that Jon had said something reasonable. Probably had expected him to pick a fight about not being notified.

“Actually, I agree,” Wales said. “The last thing that woman is going to want or need is a bunch of people—men especially, probably—out here hanging around.”

The detective’s statement reassured Jon on multiple levels. First, he had already been aware of the problem before Jon even pointed it out and would’ve handled it himself soon, hopefully. Second, Wales might not like him or the fact that he had been assigned to the case, but at least he wasn’t going to do something potentially case-damaging such as keep a bunch of unnecessary people there just to spite Jon. The victim was Wales’s priority.

So cowboy hat notwithstanding—the jury was definitely still out on that—the young detective had just proved himself to be at least competent and focused.

Jon backed out of the way as Wales went to talk to the uniformed officers and dismiss them. He could hear him reassure the men that they personally would be the first ones called if anything could be done for the victim or if any further help was needed. He was glad to see Wales wasn’t a jerk in general.

Just with him, evidently.

After the uniforms left, Wales made his way over to Jon. Both knew it could be some time before they were able to talk to the victim, depending on the extent of the physical and emotional trauma. But sooner was definitely better, while everything was, unfortunately, still fresh in the victim’s mind.

They’d have to wait until the doctor came out to give them more information.

“Do we know anything about the victim?” Jon gave it about a fifty-fifty chance that the detective would be forthcoming with information.

Wales hesitated but then responded.

“Vic’s name is Jasmine Houze. She’s twenty-seven, not married, lives on Mustang Island, which is out near the beach. Works for Flint Hill Resources, an oil company.”

Corpus Christi, in Jon’s opinion, was a city with an identity crisis: part touristy beach town, part oil/shipping industry. Both businesses seemed to vie for what the city would be known for. There were lovely beaches, but if you wandered too far from them you were right in the middle of oil industry with their buildings and warehouses and machinery. So you had all types of people in the city’s makeup.

“Nurse said there was similar craniofacial trauma?” Jon asked.

“I haven’t seen her yet or any medical records to confirm,” Zane Wales responded. “But, yeah, I understand that’s the case.”