Primal Instinct

Vince nodded. “But that’s not what I asked you.”

Adrienne sighed. “No, that info isn’t new to me.”

“Did you know this before today?”

Adrienne turned and looked the older man in the eye. “No. Agents Perigo and Harrington told me.”

“And that’s how they’re getting you to come back, right? By using me?”

“Vince...” Adrienne reached toward him but he leaned back in his chair away from her.

“I won’t let you do it, you understand? I’m not going to let you be forced into something because of me!”

“Vince, it’s all right. I’m going to do this one thing for them, and that will be the end of it. And before I do, I’ll get their assurance that the warrant for you will be canceled or whatever. I promise. It’s not a big deal.”

“I still don’t like this,” Vince muttered.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to be fine. Maybe I’ll find that the FBI has become a little better at playing with others in the past ten years.”

Vince took a sip of his drink and sat back in the chair. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

Chapter Four

Hours later Conner lay sprawled in his bed looking up at the ceiling. After leaving Adrienne Jeffries’s house, he had been pretty much useless for the rest of the day. They had gone back to the office for a couple of hours, briefly reporting to Chief Kelly about their success with getting Adrienne’s agreement to help. Seth, well aware of Conner’s black mood, had talked Conner out of questioning the chief about Adrienne’s history with the FBI.

There were so many things about Adrienne Jeffries’s history that didn’t add up that Conner didn’t know where to even begin his questioning. Definitely better to leave his questions until he was in a better—or at least more respectful—frame of mind. Maybe he would just talk to her and leave the chief out of it altogether. Less chance of Conner getting fired that way.

Adrienne definitely had not been what he was expecting. For one, her age. Certainly not the middle-aged woman he had been anticipating. But that wasn’t even what caught him off guard so much. Conner ran his hands through his hair, staring up at the ceiling from his bed. He had never had such an instant reaction to a woman before. Adrienne Jeffries had affected him on every level.

She was five feet four of pure dynamite, it seemed. Conner normally preferred taller, more athletically built women—and with long blond hair. Adrienne Jeffries was slender, but short, and her hair definitely wasn’t long and blond. Rather pixie-short and brown, with little chunks of copper in it. But Conner found his fingers itching to run through it.

He knew his behavior earlier today had been unprofessional and may have seemed borderline psychotic to Adrienne. Harrington had let Conner have it more than once on their way back to San Francisco from Lodi. Conner knew, whatever he was feeling, he had to get it under control before he saw her again in just a few short hours.

No matter what confusion Conner may have over his attraction to Adrienne, he had no confusion over his feelings about her so-called “abilities.” Obviously years ago she had somehow convinced the Bureau she could track criminals like some supersleuth. Conner had no reason to believe she could do all that the FBI urban legends about her suggested she could do.

As far as he was concerned, she would come in, they would get all the insight from her that they could—if any—and then they would send her on her way. It shouldn’t take more than a day. His boss would be appeased, and he and Harrington could get on with real law enforcement work and catch Simon Says as soon as possible.

And maybe, after Simon Says was apprehended, Conner would head back out to a certain horse ranch in Lodi and see Adrienne Jeffries again under very different circumstances.

But until then, Adrienne—and her abilities—were just a distraction. Something to draw his focus away from what he knew needed to be done to catch the killer. Conner couldn’t allow that to happen. No matter how much he may want it to.

Conner decided to get up and get dressed since dawn was about to break anyway. He may as well go into the office and make an early start of what surely would be a long day. He wouldn’t be surprised if Seth was there early, also.

* * *

FORTIFIED WITH MULTIPLE cups of coffee, Adrienne drove herself into San Francisco the next day. She needed the coffee after being awake most of the night—first packing and preparing for the trip, and then worrying about the toll it would take on her. The drive was relatively uneventful, but she found herself getting more and more uptight as she got closer to the city. Already she missed her little ranch and the serenity it offered.

And she hadn’t even put herself in the clutches of the FBI yet.

She turned the radio up in her old Corolla as she crossed the Bay Bridge and entered the city. She forced herself to sing along to some familiar song by an ’80s hair band. Singing helped her not to think too much and to ignore any buzzing she might start to hear in her head. With a population of nearly a million, Adrienne knew there would be people around the San Francisco area with malicious thoughts. There was nothing Adrienne could do about them, so she knew it was better to try not to hear them at all.

Adrienne navigated the hills and multiple one-way streets San Fran was famous for and finally parked at the FBI field office’s parking garage. As she shut off her car, Adrienne braced herself to be bombarded by other people’s thoughts in her head or to at least hear a dull roar of competing voices. She was pleasantly surprised to find just the slightest buzz—almost nothing.

Adrienne smiled. Evidently everybody in San Francisco must be having a good day or something. She didn’t mind, less of a headache—literally—for her.

Upon entering the building, she was escorted up to the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program offices. She saw Conner Perigo as soon as she entered the main area. Dammit. The man looked just as good as he had yesterday. She had hoped she had imagined the thick black hair and gorgeous green eyes. But evidently not.

Those green eyes were fixed on her as Agent Perigo’s partner, Seth, came over to meet her in the doorway.

“Ms. Jeffries, we’re so glad you made it,” Seth said as he led her over to an interrogation room. The two agents sat in the pair of seats on one side of the table and motioned for her to sit in a chair across from them.

Teams had obviously been drawn, and she wasn’t on theirs.

“Not that I had much choice,” Adrienne muttered. “But it’s still okay to call me Adrienne.”

She could feel Conner Perigo’s eyes on her. Adrienne resisted the urge to fidget in her chair.

Agent Harrington smiled. “That’s good. Please, like I said yesterday, call me Seth.” He pointed at Agent Perigo. “And you can call him Conner. He promises to be on his best behavior today.”

Somehow Adrienne doubted it.

“Okay, Seth, Conner it is, then.” Adrienne decided she should try to make the best of the situation—not antagonize the agents, especially Conner. “But before we get started, I want your assurances that all charges or warrants or whatever against Rick Vincent will be dropped once I help you.”

Conner spoke to her for the first time. “That won’t be a problem, Adrienne. Neither of us were thrilled with how that went down.”

Adrienne looked at Conner, and he nodded. She believed him. Whoever’s idea it had been to use Vince as leverage, it definitely hadn’t been Conner’s. But that still didn’t mean he liked or trusted her.

“Okay, Adrienne,” Seth said. “We’d like to get started right away. But to be honest, we’re not exactly sure how to proceed. Maybe you can provide us a little insight.”

Adrienne took a deep breath. Might as well just get this over with. She had already made sure her purse contained a full bottle of ibuprofen. She would need most of it over the next few days.

“What can you tell me about the case?”

She watched as Conner and Seth—now in full FBI agent mode—looked at one another. Obviously until she proved herself and her abilities, they were loath to provide her with too much information.

“We have a serial killer on our hands. The victims are all women—five in the past ten months,” Conner told her.

Adrienne waited to see if there would be further information, but evidently that was all they felt comfortable sharing with her.

“Okay, well, do you have anything from the crime scenes? Particularly anything the killer may have touched.”

Seth responded this time. “There was no forensic evidence found at any of the scenes. Whoever the killer is, he’s very careful.”

No forensic evidence made it more difficult for Adrienne to get any sort of clear bearings about the killer, but not impossible.

“Do you have anything the killer might have touched, even with gloves on?”

Conner and Seth looked at each other once again. She saw Conner give a slight negative shake of his head.