Bear Claw Lawman

He cleared his throat and turned to face her, so those killer eyes were looking down at her, guarded and, yes, guilty as he said, “Listen, Jenn…we need to talk.”

And all she could think was, Oh, hell.

* * *

W E NEED TO TALK . For years now Nick had thought those were the worst words a man could hear, not because of what they meant, but because of what they symbolized—problems, issues, changes… .

This was the first time, though, that he realized as much as it had sucked him to hear the words, it ripped him up even worse to say them to someone else. Especially someone like Jenn.

She’d come into the room ready to celebrate, but now the light dimmed in her chocolate-brown eyes and the color drained from her face, making the sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks and nose stand out. “You didn’t ask your bosses to let you stay longer, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. The DEA wants the Investor in custody before he hits any other cities with the Death Stare.”

“What about you?” she asked. “What do you want?” And damned if her voice didn’t crack a little on the last word.

“I…” He trailed off, guilt stinging at the sudden sign of vulnerability.

She wasn’t supposed to be vulnerable, darn it. She was supposed to be gritty, tough and self-reliant—

he wouldn’t have gone after her in the first place if she hadn’t been. More, she had been totally on board with the no-strings short-term fling that was all he ever offered. Heck, she was the one who’d brought up the ground rules in the first place.

They’d wound up getting in way deeper than that, though, and from the look in her eyes, the lines had started to blur for her, far more than he’d suspected.

Nick cursed himself inwardly. He should’ve stuck to his no-overnights policy, should’ve put the brakes on when things first started to slide. He didn’t like that he’d let things go as far as they had, didn’t like how his normal control had slipped. And he hated doing this to her now…but there was no way he could let things keep going the way they had been, or worse, let them go further.

“I want…” Damn, this was harder than he’d thought it would be, and he’d known it would be hard—that was why he’d kept putting it off, not telling her there was a chance he’d be staying until it was an absolute done deal. He was paying for that now, though. “Tucker found me a two-room apartment around the corner that I can rent by the week. I’m moving in there today.”

“You’re breaking up with me.” Her voice was a monotone, her face a pale mask.

When he’d gone over it a hundred times in his head, he’d planned on saying something about how they’d agreed it was just for a couple of weeks, reminding her that they had promised when it was over, that they would walk away with no hard feelings. But they had already gone too far beyond where that would’ve made sense, so he just nodded. “I’m sorry, Jenn. I wish—”

“Don’t.” She held up a hand, snapping that hard-eyed, determined mask of a poker face back in place. “Just don’t, okay? It’s… It’s like we said—a couple of weeks of fun. It’s been a couple of weeks, and tomorrow would’ve been goodbye, right?”

He nodded, though he wasn’t sure it had really been a question. “Right.”

“Then there’s nothing more to say.” She turned away to snag her stuff off the table, then stood there for a moment, shoulders stiff. He couldn’t see her face, didn’t know if she was fighting tears or anger, or both. Her voice was steady, though, when she said, “Don’t worry about any rumors, or seeing me around the station. I can handle it.”

He winced, but couldn’t think of anything he could say that would make things better, and figured he shouldn’t try. The situation was the situation, and they were both going to have to get through it as best they could until the sting wore off or he went home, whichever came first. “I’ll come by after work and get my things.”

She nodded, still with her back to him. “Okay. I’ll see you later, then.” She hesitated, but when he didn’t say anything else, she headed for the door without another word.

He told himself to stay put. Instead, he caught the door on its backswing and stood at the threshold of the interrogation room, watching her walk away.

Her strides were loose and limber and her shoulders were square beneath her butter-soft leather jacket, and she walked—as she always did—like she was ready to take on the world. That was one of the things he’d first noticed about her, the way she was always up for any challenge, any experience. He’d liked that about her. Hell, he’d liked damn near everything about her.

“You did it, huh?” Tucker said from farther down the hall.

Nick exhaled as Jenn took the stairs heading down to the basement, where the crime lab was located, and disappeared from view. Then he glanced over at the big, rangy detective. “Yeah. I did it.”

He hadn’t meant to bring Tucker into things, but they had been friends a long time. Tucker had been the one who’d recruited him into the case, and he’d been the one who dropped the “congrats, you’re staying in Bear Claw until we catch the Investor” bombshell the other day…so he was the one who’d gotten the whole story—or most of it, anyway.

Tucker glanced back in the direction Jenn had gone. “You want me to give Alyssa the heads-up, ask her to make sure she’s okay?”

Nick told himself to leave it alone. Instead, he nodded. “Yeah. But don’t tell her why I did it.”

Tucker sent him a sidelong look. “You sure?”

“Leave it alone.” Nick inhaled, trying to fill the empty spaces. “She’s better off without me.”

“What about you? Are you going to be better off?”

“That’s not a priority. I’m just here to help close the case.”

Tucker didn’t look convinced, but he shrugged and held out a sticky note. “Then you’re going to want this.”

Nick took the paper and skimmed the address written on it. “What’s the deal?”

“That’s what I need you to figure out. Looks like we found one of the lieutenants…or what’s left of him.”

Chapter Two

One month later…

“This one looks even worse than the first two,” Jenn commented from the doorway, breathing through her mouth and doing her best to see the scene in terms of the evidence it might provide, rather than what it said about the victim’s last hours of life.

The ME’s office had collected Chuckie Dennison’s corpse, but what was left behind was plenty gruesome in its own right. Everything from the dining room chair—which had ropes sagging off it and a series of fingernail scrapes where the victim had struggled to free himself—to the array of kitchen utensils and small hand tools meticulously spread out on the stained burgundy tablecloth, said that the victim had been brutally tortured.

Gigi, who had gotten there first and started methodically photographing the scene, let the camera hang at her side as she took a look around and grimaced. “We’ll need the autopsy to be sure. But, yeah, it’s bad. And, yeah, I think you’re right that it fits the pattern. Odds are that it’s the Investor again.”

That was the word on the street, anyway. The rumors said it was the mastermind himself who had hunted down two—now three—of his former lieutenants in the Ghost Militia. The men had been found tortured to death, with the scenes showing every sign of an ordered, organized and ruthlessly self-controlled killer. Nobody knew whether the Investor was disposing of potential witnesses, getting revenge, or what… . Or if they knew, they weren’t telling.

Which meant that the task force was dealing with three bodies, three crime scenes and lots of evidence, but they still didn’t have a name or description of the Investor, and no idea when or where he would strike next. The former members of the Ghost Militia weren’t the type to ask for police protection; in fact, the last few remaining higher-ups had gone even deeper underground after the killings started.

“You don’t think it’s a vigilante?” Jenn asked as she set down her field kit, gloved up and got to work on the chair, which Gigi had already photographed.

That was the other theory the cops were working on, that it wasn’t the Investor at all, but instead, a local who was hunting and killing the remaining members of the Ghost Militia. Unfortunately, the list of people with possible motives was all too long—eighty-three people had died from Death Stare overdoses, and another dozen innocent bystanders had been killed during the Militia’s last desperate struggle to escape from the crackdown. Although many of the dead drug users had been among the city’s homeless, meaning that some had been tagged with just a first name, or sometimes not even that much, others had been ID’d. Which meant there were hundreds of bereaved family members out there, even more grieving friends…some of whom might be inclined to take matters into their own hands.

But Gigi shook her head. “It’s a plausible theory, sure, but I’m going with the word on the street. Nick…um, the task force’s connections have a pretty good track record so far.”

Jenn’s cheeks heated, but she made herself concentrate on the ropes that had been used to bind the victim, photographing them from even more angles before cutting them free and bagging them. After a moment, she said, “You can say his name, you know. It’s not like I don’t see him around.”

The dubious look Gigi shot her spoke volumes about just how bad Jenn had been at camouflaging her disbelief and unhappiness for those first couple of weeks after Nick dumped her. Or, at least, how bad she’d been at hiding it from Gigi and her other friends down in the crime lab. As far as anyone else knew—she hoped—it hadn’t been at all obvious that she had been hurting.

She was damn good at making it look as if everything was okay, after all. And in the fine tradition of “fake it until you make it,” eventually the sting really had worn off.

“I’m fine, really. I’m over it.” Jenn sealed a bag and signed her name on the first line of the label, starting the evidence chain. “It wasn’t even about him, really…it was everything.” She filed the bag in her kit, then rocked back on her bootie-covered heels to look over at her friend.

She hadn’t really talked about the breakup, even with Gigi, partly because she’d needed to work it out for herself, and partly because she’d hoped it would quickly become old news.