Dead Don't Lie

Kessler cleared his throat and, without blinking, answered. “It appears to be a family annihilator case. But something is off....”

She froze as the term family annihilator tumbled from Kessler’s lips. A low whistle came from Ryan as he rubbed his hand over the black scruff on his jaw.

She balanced on the edge of an emotional cliff, and she knew it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryan take a step toward her. She gave a tight shake of her head. He stopped, lifted a brow.

Evelyn straightened. She’d opened up to Ryan years ago, after an interrogation that had shaken both of them. She trusted him, and he’d sworn to always keep an eye out for her—no matter how independent and strong she thought she was.

But she didn’t need Ryan, or anyone for that matter, to keep her from tumbling over the cliff’s edge. She could manage it herself, for crying out loud. She reined in the suffocating emotions. She was seasoned at corralling her galloping heart—she’d spent years perfecting the task.

With the help of her therapist, she recognized that emotions didn’t make her weak, but strong. She wasn’t a statistic, but a survivor. Everything she’d walked through made her the woman—and most importantly, the detective—she was.

Kessler picked up a thin case file off his desk and leaned toward her.

Swallowing hard, Evelyn took it from him. She knew her partner had noticed her brief hesitation and seen the emotions dance behind her eyes. To most people, she was unreadable. But Ryan wasn’t most people. He read her like an open book. He’d noticed. If Kessler did, he didn’t say anything. Her lips tightened into a hard line as she flipped the file open.

“Appears?” she said to no one in particular as she studied the photos.

“Yes. It’s the second such case in the past two weeks—in the same precinct, with similar family units. Those photos—” Kessler motioned to the brightly colored crime scene images “—are from the first.”

She flipped through the photos. The wife’s body lay at the feet of what appeared to be her husband. The back of his head was missing. Evelyn swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. With each sweep of her eyes she cataloged the grisly images of the husband and wife. She continued skimming through the photos, then stopped. A young child lay on her back, a deep, crimson gash across her throat. Evelyn’s hand trembled. Her throat tightened, rage and grief warring within her.

“Have either of the husbands recently lost their jobs?”

“No. They’re both successful in their respective industries,” the captain replied.

Evelyn tapped the photos on the table.

Something wasn’t right.

Men who took their family’s lives fell into one of two categories: angry at their partners and seeking revenge, or hopeless and despondent and believing their family was better off dead. It was usually a reaction to a loss of some kind—a job, a wife. They were typically mid-thirties to middle-age, socially isolated and had been depressed or frustrated for a long time. For many family annihilators, the act of murder was a way to reestablish control.

At first glance, neither of these men fit that profile.

So what triggered this violence?

“Family annihilator cases are extremely rare, especially with family units like this,” she said without looking up.

“I agree.”

“Do we have any leads?” Ryan sat next to Evelyn, peering over her shoulder at the photos.

“Why bring us on now? Why not with the first case?” Evelyn passed the glossy five-by-sevens to Ryan and glanced over at him uneasily. She hadn’t wanted to hand the photos over, concerned about how they might affect him. They made the perfect pair: he was lighthearted, she was serious; he played by the book, she pushed the boundaries. While she held people—and the emotions they garnered—at a distance, Ryan was all in. Had always been all in. It was one of the many qualities that she loved in her partner; he felt deeper than any man she’d ever met. And she couldn’t even imagine what those pictures would do to him if they’d hit her so hard.

Ryan began to flip through the photos, then stopped. He looked up, his face hard. “Tell me this isn’t happening. Tell me this isn’t fucking happening. Here. On our stomping ground.”

He held the same photo of the young child with her throat slit that she’d stopped at. The child looked to be about Ava’s age. His hand shook. A muscle in his jaw jumped. They’d seen some twisted things while working homicide. The seasoned—burned-out was more like it—detectives told them it’d get easier. That seeing the capacity of the sickos out there was par for the course. They encouraged both her and Ryan to disengage. Total bullshit. So yeah, she could only imagine that the photo made him see red.

“The Langdon case was a priority,” Kessler said. “We needed your full efforts to close that one down. At the time, we thought it was a one-off. But with this fresh crime scene...”

Evelyn’s mind scrambled to categorize the information they’d been given. Her gaze swept to the captain. She did a double take. The corners of his mouth were turned down in a tight grimace as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

Evelyn leaned forward and gripped the armrest. “Does the chief think serial?”

Ryan’s head snapped up.

“I didn’t say that.” Kessler’s jaw twitched. No police officer in his right mind voluntarily labeled someone a serial killer until they had to. No one wanted that on their watch.

You didn’t have to. Evelyn dropped back into her chair. She’d been right. Again. Whatever they were about to step into would make the Langdon case appear like a walk in the park.

“We aren’t officially saying or thinking anything.” Kessler scrubbed his face, then glanced between the two detectives. “Two family annihilator cases in as many weeks is suspicious. Chief Diaz wants you and O’Neil to head up the investigation and report directly to Assistant Chief Pugel and himself.”

The captain’s secretary rapped on the door frame and stuck her head into the office. “Sorry for interrupting, sir, but he’s here.”

“Thanks. Tell him I’ll be with him shortly.”

Evelyn threw Ryan a guarded look. She’d never known Kessler’s assistant to interrupt him. Ever. So who the hell was important enough to do so now?

Captain Kessler stood. The detectives mimicked his movement. Evelyn glanced over her shoulder, following the captain’s gaze. A tall handsome stranger clad in a perfectly tailored black suit leaned against her desk, animatedly speaking into his cell. She couldn’t place him. But damn, he was beautiful. The stranger caught her staring, smiled and tipped his head in her direction. Evelyn’s heart jumped. What the hell? She swung her attention back to Kessler, momentarily uncomfortable with her reaction. Where did that come from?

“CSI is already on scene, but nothing was moved,” Kessler said. “Get over there, and get fresh eyes on it. Now.”

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_de817191-2e97-5d8b-8891-3cf25edd88db)

IT DIDN’T SURPRISE Ryan that they’d been put on this case. Some might question the decision, given his partner’s background—if they even knew, which most didn’t. But the chief made the right call. Evelyn’s instincts were primal. In one breath, she could transport herself into the mind of the predator, see what he saw and think how he thought. If a psychopathic serial killer had unleashed fear onto the streets of Seattle, there was no one better than Evelyn Davis to bring him down. Ryan floored the gas.

Watching Evelyn work had freaked Ryan out the first year of their partnership. Kate had chuckled at him when he’d mentioned it. She’d told him to chill out and bring his new partner by so she could meet her new friend.

One case under their belt together, and he was sold. How could he not be? She’d empathized with the grieving widow, whom the rest of the squad felt was a victim, all while asking the right questions to pull out the truth: that the woman had, in fact, murdered her husband.

He’d rolled with Evelyn’s instincts from that day forward, letting her take the lead. She still mesmerized him. She caught things before anyone else did, connected dots that had barely surfaced and her closing rate of 80 percent compared to the rest of SPD’s 50 percent continued to push her into the spotlight—which made her squirm, and him laugh. It was quite possibly the only tell that made her human, instead of a demigod.

So while he wasn’t surprised that Chief Diaz asked for them, he wondered what the hell his partner was thinking. How well had she compartmentalized the information they’d been briefed on?

Ryan knew what she’d kept guarded from everyone, what her background held. He’d made it a priority to get beneath her carefully constructed barriers when they became partners. He needed to know the woman who held his life in her hands. Fiercely private, she’d kept everyone at arm’s length. A year after she’d met Kate, and only when certain of her safety, she’d finally let her guard down. But only around him and Kate, and only so much.

After Ava was born, she’d let him and Kate in—truly in—and what Evelyn entrusted them with horrified them. She’d gone from partner to family that night.

A normal person would’ve become a statistic. But Evelyn wasn’t normal. Instead of losing herself to the grief, she focused on bringing justice to victims’ families. He’d once asked Evelyn why she’d become a cop. She’d quietly told him she wanted to give closure to families—the one thing she’d never gotten, and the one constant that drove everything she did.

He doubted she’d ever fully let them in, and that was okay. She had trusted him—trusted them—with her darkest moment. In turn, he trusted her with his life.

A question gnawed at him, despite his best attempt to eject it from his mind. He took a hard left, tires squealing. Would this case hit too close?

She’d shifted into herself as she absorbed the case file details. He’d seen it before. When she didn’t want to deal with some unseen emotion or issue, a hardness descended. Her sapphire-colored eyes darkened, her lips set into a firm line and her already impeccable posture straightened even more. Fascinating as it was to see someone change like that, he didn’t like it. He hated to see her prepare for some invisible battle, shielding herself from some unseen attack, leaving him—and anyone else, for that matter—helpless to defend her.

“You okay?” He glanced at her.

“You know I am.”