Читать книгу: «Sundays Are for Murder»

“THERE’S BEEN ANOTHER ONE.”

Charley froze. All the warmth within the room seemed to evaporate in an instant. She didn’t have to ask what “another one” meant.

And it sent a chill through her heart.

The voice on the other end of the receiver belonged to assistant director George Kelly’s secretary. The woman was calling on his behalf to inform the special agents assigned to the serial killer task force that another victim had been claimed by the monster who was laying siege to the southland.

Charley pushed back her hair from her forehead. Damn it, anyway. “When?”

“They found the body this morning. It’s believed she was killed sometime yesterday. Kelly wants to hold a meeting as soon as possible.”

Yesterday. Sunday. The same day her sister had been killed. The same day all the victims had been killed. She was beginning to hate Sundays.

Sundays are for Murder
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

You know how you sometimes get a song, or more often, a lyric, stuck in your head and it follows you around for hours, sometimes days, teasing you, haunting you, giving you no peace? Well, that’s how it was with Sundays Are for Murder. It began as a kernel of an idea, just a hint, and it refused to leave me alone. It begged for development and when I had no time to devote to it, it would just sit back, popping up to haunt me whenever I had a couple of moments to rub together. Unlike bits and pieces of an idea that usually fade when I try to remember them, this story wouldn’t go away. It was there every December, my usual “downtime” when I try to catch up on the rest of my life, decorate a ten-foot tree and search for new recipes to try out on my unsuspecting family for Christmas. It became the white elephant in the room, except that no one could see it but me (in that respect, I suppose it was more like Harvey, the six-foot rabbit only James Stewart could see in the movie of the same name). Yes, I’ve been carrying the story around that long. So, finally, through the grace of Patience Smith, my beloved editor, Marsha Zinberg, executive editor in charge of miracles, and the powers that be, here’s the story that wouldn’t go away. I hope you find it entertaining (at least there’ll be one less place at the table for Christmas this year).

I wish you love,

To Patience Smith & Patricia Smith (no relation except for wonderfulness), for always believing in this, and to Marsha Zinberg, who let me do it.

You all have my greatest affection.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

BONUS FEATURES INSIDE

THE SPY WHO LOVED HER

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

HUSBANDS AND OTHER STRANGERS

CHAPTER ONE

PROLOGUE

IT WAS TIME.

He could feel it in the air, taste it on his tongue. Every fiber of his body told him that it was time, that it was Sunday. He knew without looking at the calendar, without hearing the thud of the Sunday paper as it landed on his rickety doorstep.

Because only on Sundays did the feeling come.

And it made his palms sweat, his fingers tingle, his loins tighten in anticipation. The need was getting too large to manage.

It was time again.

Sunday was his time to kill. Because only with death did salvation come.

It had to be quick. Before it was too late.

Each Sunday, the feeling grew until close to exploding within his veins. He was just the instrument.

He looked at his reflection and smiled. No one would ever suspect. No one would ever keep him from his work. He looked so kind, so harmless. There was a time when he had been all that. Oh, he hadn’t looked like the reflection in the mirror—that had taken time and talent and patience to achieve. But he’d been kind, harmless. Eager even. Eager to do the right thing, to be loved.

But all that was before.

Before the betrayal.

Before the need to purge and purify had begun. Before the deaths.

Before he had discovered that he liked it, the feeling of dispensing everlasting redemption. Because it was up to him to make it right. His father had seen to that. It was because of his father that the calling had come to him. The calling to set troubled souls free.

The calling came now.

He took a deep breath and began the ritual.

Because Sundays were for murder. And redemption.

CHAPTER ONE

STACY PEMBROKE WAS angry. Very angry at being shoved into second place.

Second place meant runner-up. Nobody ever remembered who came in second in anything. Second place was an insult. And lately, it was a position she was becoming all too familiar with. A position she had been forced to occupy much too often in the last few weeks. Maybe even the last few months if she was being honest with herself.

It was time for Robert to make up his damn mind.

“I don’t need this kind of grief,” she shouted into the telephone receiver, which she held in a death grip. She was squeezing so hard, if the receiver had had a pulse, it would have been erased by now. “Just who the hell do you think you are, canceling on me at the last minute this way? You think I have nothing better to do than sit around, waiting for you to show up on my door?”

The fact that she didn’t have anything better to do didn’t change her indignation. It was the principle of the whole thing. Robert was taking her for granted, something she had sworn would never happen to her. And if by some chance it did happen to her, she’d promised herself to take drastic measures. Like castrating the bastard who was guilty of the crime.

“I’ll make it up to you, baby, honest I will.”

Stacy fumed. He was whispering. Keeping his voice low so that she wouldn’t hear him. That harpy of a wife he supposedly hated. If she listened very closely, Stacy could almost hear Robert sweating. He had to be fidgeting, the way he did when he was caught in a lie.

Good. She hoped his damn blood pressure went through the roof, killing him. He deserved it. Nobody treated her like day-old trash and got away with it. For two cents, she’d pay a call to his precious Emily, tell her what her husband had been up to all those nights he’d told her he was working to provide a better future for them.

As she toyed with the thought, her full, freshly made-up lips peeled back into a smile. It would serve him right if she did just that.

“I am through rearranging my life for you, Robert.” And she meant it. She was through serving up her heart only to have it carved into small, bite-size pieces. “Now you’re obviously not going to leave that frozen Popsicle of a wife—”

On the other end of the line, Robert Pullman drew in a shallow breath. She could hear it. God, but he was a mouse. “I told you, the kids—”

“The kids. The kids. The kids!” Stacy shouted into the receiver, her face turning red, a stark contrast to her ash-blond hair and her all but alabaster skin. It was an effort for her to keep her temper from really breaking free. Her nerves were frayed and strained. These days, she reached the boiling point at lightning speed. But if she finally let go, she knew that she ran the imminent danger of falling completely apart.

If that was going to happen, it would be because of someone who was a hell of a better catch than Robert Pullman.

But her dwindling opinion of him didn’t stop her from verbally assaulting her lover for his transgression. “Don’t you think that I want kids of my own?”

Frustration throbbed in his voice. “Stacy, I know. Look, I don’t have much time to talk. Emily thinks I’m in the garage, working on a project.”

Emily. She’d have thought by now that Emily Pullman, along with her bratty kids, would have been a thing of the past. Hadn’t Robert promised her as much? When he couldn’t make Christmas last year because he had to take his family on a trip to Lake Tahoe, he’d promised her that this year, they would be ringing in the New Year together. Well, it didn’t look as if he was capable of ringing in a Sunday night, much less the New Year.

And she was sick of it.

“I hope to hell that it’s a noose to hang yourself with!”

“Honey,” Robert pleaded as loudly as a whisper would allow. “I know you’re mad—”

“Mad?” Stacy scoffed. “Mad? I am way past mad, Robert. I rounded the corner at ‘furious’ a long time ago. But you know what? I just don’t care anymore.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“The hell I don’t. You’ve stood me up for the last time. I’m having a cleansing bonfire tonight. I’m going to burn all the things you gave me—and the clothes you left here,” she added as the idea took on breadth and form. She knew how particular Robert was about his clothing, how everything had to be hung up just so. Well, she was going to take extra pleasure in stomping on all of it before she sent the articles to their final resting place. “As far as I’m concerned, you are just an unfortunate chapter of my life and I’m closing that chapter, Robert—”

“Stacy, please,” he begged, “don’t you think I’d rather be there with you?”

“If you wanted to be here, you would be here,” she retorted flatly. “I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Robert, but even a dull knife can cut once in a while. This is my once in a while, Robert. This is my time to cut bait and run. So I’m cutting you off at the knees. Go back to your ice queen—”

“Stacy—” Robert began, only to stop as another voice echoed in the background, calling him. A female voice. “In a minute,” he responded irritably.

Stacy’s fingers tightened so hard around the receiver, it was in danger of snapping. She’d been such a jerk, such a hopeless, stupid, stupid jerk. But that was all going to be behind her very soon.

“Go, Robert. Your wife’s calling,” she ordered him coldly.

“No, Stacy, I want—”

She cut him off before he could get any further. “It’s not about what you want, Robert. It’s about what I want for a change.”

With that, Stacy slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

Her tears began immediately. Tears of anger, of remorse and, most plentifully, of regret. Barrels of regret. Not for coming in between a husband and his wife, or even a father and his children. Regret that she had spent the past three years of her life, three of the most youthful-looking years at her disposal, sneaking around with a married man. In the beginning, she had been incredibly naive. Thrilled at the fleeting moments of attention he could spare her. Thrilled to have caught his eye to begin with. And he had been generous. Incredibly generous. Before Robert, there had only been costume jewelry. Now there were diamond earrings and gold bracelets.

Diamonds and gold. How the hell could she have sold herself so short? What was wrong with her, anyway?

Stacy stopped to look at herself in the oval hall mirror. What she saw was a still-gorgeous blonde in a filmy negligee. But for how much longer? God, she deserved better than to stand there, waiting for crumbs while Robert’s wife got to eat at the banquet table, devouring whole portions.

“Okay,” she addressed the woman in the mirror. “Okay, so we start over. We stay strong and we start over.” She said it over and over again, until she felt as if she meant it.

What would help, she thought, would be getting rid of every single shred of evidence that Robert had ever been in her life. She took a deep breath. It would be like a caterpillar shedding its cocoon.

“There’s still a butterfly in there,” she promised herself. “A butterfly that’s going to do hell of a lot better than Robert Pullman when she’s through.” It amounted to a declaration of independence. She was through with that lying cheat. That she was the one who had made him such didn’t trouble her in the least.

Crossing back to the bedroom, she went straight to the closet and began to pull Robert’s garments off their hangers. Stacy made a point of stomping on each item she took out, grinding her heel into the fabric.

She’d just yanked off his sweater, the black one she loved so much on him, when she heard the doorbell ringing. Her revelry froze.

Robert.

He didn’t live that far away from here. Only a few blocks. But there was always traffic to reckon with. Still. He must have gone through all the red lights to get here this fast.

A smug expression slipped over her lips. She knew he couldn’t stay away. Knew he wanted her. But she wasn’t won over that easily. Stacy intended on making him crawl for his supper. Or for his pleasure.

Maybe she’d take him back, maybe she wouldn’t, but whatever way she was going to play this, she was determined that he was going to beg.

Confidence filled her veins. She checked herself over in the mirror, ran her fingers through her storm of ash-blond hair, then subtly adjusted the negligee she’d put on when she’d thought he was coming over. Left on her own, she slept in the T-shirt that her first lover had left behind when he walked out on her. She’d spent the past eight years hating him.

Ready to knock him dead, Stacy made her way to the front door, the negligee she’d bought for Robert flapping in her wake as she moved.

“There’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind,” she announced, flipping the two locks the superintendent had recently placed on her door. “Because I—”

The second she yanked open the front door, she froze, stunned. Instead of the rugged physique of her lover, she was looking at a tall, thin, nervous-looking young man. He looked anywhere between his late twenties and early forties. He had the type of face that was impossible to place, although he did look vaguely familiar. But then, she waited on so many people during the course of the evening at Robert’s restaurant, it was hard to remember a select number, much less everyone.

“Oh.” Impatient, disappointed, Stacy gripped the doorknob. “Who are you?”

The man was dressed completely in brown. Brown shoes, brown slacks, brown pullover. He seemed to almost fade into the hallway. He cleared his throat before answering, as if he wasn’t accustomed to speaking to anyone but himself. One of those nerd types who invented things the world suddenly couldn’t do without, Stacy thought. She wondered if he’d done anything of importance and if he was worth a lot of money. Certainly he didn’t dress that way. But then, rich nerds never did.

“Jason, ma’am. Jason Parnell,” he added after a beat. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I live just down the hall.” Turning, he pointed vaguely toward the long hallway. “And my phone went out.” Brown eyes looked into hers, imploring. “I was wondering if I could use yours to call the phone company.”

She remained where she was, her hand still on the doorknob, ready to slam it shut. “It’s Sunday.”

He bobbed his head. “Yes, it is. But their customer service line is opened twenty-four/seven. You have to go through several menus, but you wind up with a live person eventually. I’ve been through this before,” he added sheepishly. “Um, I knocked on some of the other doors.” He turned again, nodding at the various apartment doors, behind which all sorts of lives were being led. “But you’re the only one who answered.”

“Look, I’m expecting someone—”

“I’ll be quick,” he promised. “My mother lives with me and she’s not well. That phone is her only lifeline when I’m at work. If I leave tomorrow morning and the phone’s down, she’ll be helpless.”

He looked pathetic, she thought. Exactly what she would have thought a man past the age of twenty and living with his mother would look like. She didn’t remember seeing him in the building before, but then, he was one of those people she wouldn’t have noticed unless he was lying on the pavement next to her feet.

She supposed there was something to be said about a man who cared that much about his mother. At least he was better than a dirty, rotten, cheating husband who used his wife as an alibi every time he didn’t want to bother coming over.

“Your mother, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am.” His head bobbed again, like a subservient creature. “She’s eighty-five and in a wheel-chair.”

“All right, all right, you’re breaking my heart.” With a sigh, Stacy opened the door and stepped back. “Come on in. But make it quick,” she added.

Turning away, she didn’t see the smile that curved her neighbor’s lips.

“As quick as I can. I promise.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE INSTANT the apartment door slammed shut behind her, Charlotte Dow tossed down the dog leash and began stripping off her dripping clothes.

Taking this as a signal that a new game was afoot, her sixty-seven-pound jogging companion stopped shaking herself off and watering everything in sight. Instead, the German shepherd leaped up in front of her to catch one of the flying garments. Only sharp reflexes on Charley’s part kept mistress and pet from tangling together and falling on the floor.

“Dakota, if you ever hope to see another table scrap, you’d better get your hairy little butt out of my way. Now. I’m running late,” Charley said.

Ears down, a mournful look aimed directly at Charley’s heart, the German shepherd retreated to her favorite sunken-in spot on the worn gray sofa, still dragging her leash with her.

Charley could all but hear the violins playing in the background. She frowned. Great, more guilt, just what she needed.

Hopping first on one foot, then the other, Charley yanked off her running shoes. She needed new ones, she noted. The heels were beginning to wear.

She heard Dakota sigh. “I know, I know, it’s my own fault. I should have remembered you don’t like running in the rain, not unless it’s after a cat.”

Which was exactly what had appeared on the greenbelt that ran just behind her apartment complex. A golden-colored ball of fur had materialized to taunt Dakota before turning tail and flying down off the path.

In her eagerness to give chase, Dakota had nearly sent Charley sprawling into the freshly formed mud created by an unexpected shower on the city. Who knew it was going to rain? Certainly not the weatherman.

Charley rotated her right shoulder. She had no doubts that her efforts to hang on to the dog had lengthened her right arm by an inch, possibly two. The dog was far from a puppy, so why did she still feel she could chase after cats and catch them?

For the same reason you’re always chasing after the bad guys, hell-bent to bring them all in, even with the odds against you.

Like dog, like master.

Charley tossed off the last of her wet clothes, grabbed the pile and hurried into the bathroom. Habit had her grabbing both her cell phone and the wireless phone that was perched on the table against the wall two steps shy of the entrance.

She was an FBI special agent attached to the Santa Ana field office. That meant on duty or off, she was on call twenty-four/seven. That meant everywhere, including the bathroom.

Charley closed the door behind her and set both phones on the window ledge in the shower stall before she slipped in. After angling the showerhead, she turned on the faucet. Warm water turned to hot almost immediately. Steam formed, embracing her, leaving its imprint in the form of tears along the light blue tiles.

It would have taken Charley no effort at all to remain there for the next hour, just letting the heat penetrate, melting the tension from her body. But there was no room for indulgence this morning. Her alarm clock had failed in its effort to rouse her. When she finally had woken up, thanks to Dakota’s cold nose pressed up against her spine, Charley had taken one glance at the clock and hit the ground running.

She was forty-five minutes behind schedule.

Another person would have foregone the four-mile jog that began each morning. But Charley was all about dedication and routine. Come six o’clock, she was out there, pounding along the thin ribbon of asphalt that threaded its way from one end of the greenbelt to the other. Rain or shine. Only the call of duty arriving in the middle of the night interfered with her schedule.

Charley shampooed her long blond hair while humming the chorus from the Rodgers and Hammer-stein song, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.” There was no man to wash out, not from her hair or her life, but she liked the song. She’d always taken comfort in the familiar.

Not like her twin sister. Cristine had always been the risk-taker, the one who was willing to rush off into the unknown. The one who hadn’t needed the familiar or the comforting. Charley had been the one who took things slow and easy.

And she’d been the one who’d survived.

Not now.

Charley shook thoughts of her sister away. Had to be the dank weather penetrating her soul. She liked the sunshine better.

She’d just started to work the lather out of her hair when the phone rang. The chimes identified it to be her cell, not the landline. The sound worked its way through the running water, through her humming.

Never a dull moment.

With a sigh, Charley wiped her eyes with her fingertips, shut the water and brought the cell phone down to her ear.

“Dow.”

“There’s been another one.”

Charley froze. All the warmth within the stall seemed to instantly evaporate. She didn’t have to ask another one what, she knew.

And it sent a chill through her heart.

The voice on the other end of the receiver belonged to Assistant Director George Kelly’s secretary, Alice Sullivan. The woman was calling on his behalf to inform the special agents assigned to the serial-killer task force that another victim had been claimed by the monster who was laying siege to the Southland.

Charley pushed back her wet hair from her forehead. Damn it, anyway. “When?”

“A.D. Kelly said they found the body this morning. He believes she was killed sometime yesterday. He wants to hold a meeting as soon as possible.”

Yesterday. Sunday. The same day her sister had been killed. The same day all the victims had been killed. She was beginning to hate Sundays.

But maybe this time there’d be something they could work with, something that would help them finally catch this bastard.

“Tell him I’m on my way.” Charley looked at her free hand. There were traces of foam on it. “Just got to get the soap out of my hair.”

“You’re in the shower?”

Charley could hear the apology hovering in Alice’s throat, ready to leap out. She’d never met anyone so ready to apologize for absolutely everything. Given half a chance, Alice would have apologized that February only had twenty-eight days instead of thirty.

She cut the other woman off quickly. “We’ve all got to be somewhere, Alice. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Traffic allowing, Charley added silently as she pressed the off button.

With the speed of someone accustomed to living her life on the run, Charley rinsed the stiffening shampoo from her hair and toweled herself dry, all within two minutes of ending her conversation with Alice.

Wrapped in the damp towel, she opened the bathroom door and promptly tripped over Dakota, who had stretched herself before the threshold like a living, furry obstacle course. Charley braced herself against the doorjamb at the last moment.

“Dog, this is not the morning to test me. We’ll play when I get home, okay?”

As if giving her tentative approval to the bargain, Dakota trotted after Charley as she dashed into her small, untidy bedroom. Her next mission was to find something suitable to wear that wasn’t badly in need of a visit to the laundry room. Not the easiest of missions.

Charley settled on a dark blue skirt and light blue pullover, both of which she yanked over her body. She grabbed her gray jacket, slipped on a pair of high heels, then went for the hardware.

First, the weapon she wore tucked into the back of her waistband, then the small one that this morning was strapped to her thigh rather than her ankle. No matter how much of a hurry Charley was in, this part of her ritual was precise, methodical. Slow. The fate of Dakota’s next meal depended on it. If she was careless, if she hurried, there might be no one to give the dog her evening meal. And Dakota had been through enough in her lifetime. She had been Cris’s dog first and the transition, after her sister’s murder, had been a difficult one for both her and the animal.

Dakota followed her to the door, emitting a mournful noise that sounded very much like a whistling wind.

“Don’t start,” Charley warned.

She glanced toward the dog’s water and food bowls. Both were full. The teenager she paid to walk Dakota in the afternoon would be by at two o’clock. The dog was taken care of.

Time was short. Charley knew she should already be in her car. Still, she paused for half a second to squat down beside the German shepherd and give the animal a hug. She loved the contrary beast. They had something in common. They both missed Cris.

“I’ll be back,” she promised. “And then we’ll laugh, we’ll cry, and one of us will get a big treat.”

Squaring her shoulders, Charley rose. It was time to leave the shelter of her small apartment and take down the bad guys.

The realization that they might very well be waiting to take her down never escaped her.

TRAFFIC WAS UNUSUALLY sluggish this morning, doubling the fifteen-minute trip from her apartment to the Federal Building where the Bureau field office was housed. The annoying deejays on the radio did nothing to lessen the tension that rode along with her in her four-year-old Honda. She kept switching back and forth between three stations with no luck. None played a song she liked.

Would they catch him this time?

Would the bastard who had cut short the lives of eleven unsuspecting women finally trip up and leave a clue behind so that they could put him out of everyone else’s misery?

She wished she could believe that he would, but her customary optimism was in short supply this morning. Maybe it was the rain that was responsible for her less-than-cheery outlook. It had been raining the night she had come back from the part-time job she’d taken only to find her sister dead in the off-campus apartment they shared. Cris, it turned out later, had been the Sunday Killer’s first victim.

Or, at least, his first known victim, she amended. Who knew if there had been others? Just like who knew why it had been Cris and not she who had been the victim.

Maybe the killer had made a mistake. Maybe Cris was supposed to live and she was the one who was supposed to have died.

Don’t go there, Charley. It’s not going to help.

She could feel her nerves jangling, beginning to fray. If she let them unravel, she wouldn’t be of use to anyone, not her sister, not to the latest victim. Not even to herself. Unraveling was selfish and indulgent, and she didn’t have time for that. Solving this case was all that mattered. She owed it to Cris.

Charley’s hands tightened on the wheel.

THE ROAD OPENED UP just as she took a turn for the cluster of modern buildings that made up the Civic Center in the heart of Santa Ana. In the middle, standing slightly taller than the rest, was the Federal Building.

Turning on her blinker, she merged to the right.

A car sped by her, cutting her off, splashing water all over her windshield and hopelessly obscuring her view for the length of a very long heartbeat.

“Bastard,” she muttered. The second her wipers cleared the windshield for her, she saw the offending vehicle’s D.C. plates. A tourist. It figured. Obviously the man behind the wheel had no idea how to handle slick roads out here.

She laughed shortly to herself. Californians barely remembered how to do it themselves from one rainy season to another.

As she drove into the bowels of the underground parking structure, she had a feeling it was going to be a very long day.

Dakota was not going to be happy with her when she finally got home.

CHAPTER THREE

AS A KID, Nickolas Brannigan never much cared for Mondays.

Mondays always meant regimentation. They meant getting back to the real world, whatever that might be. And First Mondays were the worst. They meant being thrown headlong into yet another new situation. Finding himself in yet another new location, with new names to remember, new faces to commit to memory.

And once there, those names remembered, those faces committed, they were immediately scheduled for future erasure, because as soon as his father’s new orders came through, he and his family packed up, headed for another army camp, another part of the country or the world. With more faces, more names waiting for him.

One would have thought that with eighteen years of this under his belt, he could get through another First Monday with his eyes closed.

Maybe if his eyes were closed, it would be better.

But his eyes were wide-open, taking in every new thing. His need to observe and evaluate always made him feel like a duck in the desert, searching for an oasis. Or at least a decent puddle.

Not that anyone ever noticed he felt this way. He wouldn’t let them notice. Nick prided himself on his ability to hide his true feelings. People called him outgoing, even charming, without ever getting to know the real Nick Brannigan at all. They got to know the outer facade, the man he had to be.

So here he was, facing yet another First Monday. This time he was doing it three thousand miles away from the dot on the map that he had come to call home. Washington, D.C., where most of his family had settled down.

Even his wanderlust father. Retired Army Colonel Harlan Brannigan had decided to face the sunset of his life—though he never referred to it as that—as a teacher of all things. Much to his mother’s relief, the family had finally come together to set down roots.

Until the Bureau had seen fit to transfer him to the other side of the country. A spot had suddenly opened up in the California Santa Ana field office and they needed an experienced man to fill it. He could have refused the assignment but you couldn’t say no to the Bureau and expect to advance in the ranks. And he wanted to go far.

Now if he could only bring himself to unpack his things. He’d been living with moving-van boxes for companions these past few days. The boxes had arrived at his Bureau-chosen apartment at roughly the same time he had. Even his father would have approved of the Bureau’s efficiency.

For this First Monday, Nick was set to report in at nine-thirty. A phone call from someone identifying herself as Alice Sullivan from A.D. Kelly’s office had changed that. Because he was a transfer, he needed to check in and get official clearance before he saw his new boss. Fun and games were to begin an hour and a half earlier than expected. Eight o’clock in the morning was not his favorite time.

Negotiating the unfamiliar streets in the rain only intensified the feeling of dread he couldn’t quite hide from himself, even if he did manage to keep it from the public at large. But then, if he hadn’t managed to get his persona in place at twenty-nine, he might as well have handed in all the marbles and gone home.

A horn blared behind him and he realized that he’d inadvertently cut someone off as he made his turn into the Civic Center.

He’d been told that no one used their horns out here in Orange County. That kind of quick-to-flare temper was something reserved for drivers in metropolitan areas, most notoriously in New York City. Although he had to admit that drivers in the Washington, D.C., area were by no means slouches in that department.

He glanced in his rearview mirror, but couldn’t make out who had been at the wheel of the car now behind him. Hopefully some forgiving soul. He’d heard it was the season for road rage out here in normally sunny California.

Searching for a parking structure, Nick admitted that he missed Washington. More than that, he missed his family, his mother, his brother, his sister and her brood. Hell, he even missed his old man.

Nick smiled to himself. Never thought he’d own up to that.

But he and his father were finally making some headway, finally seeing each other as people. It had been a long time in coming. Harlan Brannigan didn’t know how to relate to children. God knows the man was hardly around long enough to get the hang of it. But now that he and Jeff and Ashley were all grown, things were different.

Nick blew out a breath as he traveled into the underground parking structure. And now it was going to have to be different without him. At least for a while.

Spoils of war.

The ironic phrase had his mouth curving ever so slightly as he found a parking space and got out of his car. The clichéd phrase would have made his father proud.

PROCESSING WENT a great deal faster than Nick had anticipated. Within the hour he found himself on the seventh floor, standing before the A.D.’s office, looking at a woman who gave every appearance of having been lifted out of some 1940s farce and mercilessly transplanted into the twenty-first century.

It was hard to pin an age to Alice Sullivan, but she looked young. Possibly under thirty, although he couldn’t be sure. Definitely not in her forties, even though she dressed like a schoolmarm. She wore wire-rimmed glasses perched on her sharp nose. She was thin, with light blond hair pulled back from her face into a tight knot at the nape of her neck. Her conservative clothes seemed designed to hide her. She definitely had body-image issues, Nick mused. With a shy smile, she stood up to bring him into the A.D.’s office. Nick found himself feeling sorry for her. Despite her position, she made him think of a lost waif.

“He’s looking forward to meeting you, Special Agent Brannigan.” Her voice, high-pitched and reedy, was only a little higher than it had been over the telephone this morning.

She managed to knock on the A.D.’s door while standing behind him. When a deep voice from within ordered, “Come in,” Alice turned the doorknob, then stepped back in order to allow Nick access to the inner office. She gave the impression of fading into the background.

In contrast to his secretary, Assistant Director George Kelly was larger than life. His face was florid and when he rose from behind his desk, he was on eye level with Nick’s six-foot-three-inch frame. But while Nick was athletic, Kelly’s days in that department were long over. Broad shouldered and heavyset, Kelly carried his mass strictly thanks to his wife’s extraordinary cooking.

The man’s handshake was firm, hardy. He looked at Nick from head to foot, his eyes passing over him evenly like a giant scanner.

“Get yourself squared away downstairs, Special Agent Brannigan?” were his first words of greeting.

“Just finished.”

The nod of approval was short, as if the assistant director were stifling a sneeze that hadn’t dared to come out. “Good. Then we can get right to it.”

Nick hadn’t been briefed by anyone from his old office as to the reason for his transfer other than someone had taken early retirement in the field office.

“‘It,’ sir?”

“You’re part of the task force,” Kelly announced without preamble, then realized that he’d gotten ahead of himself. “You’ve probably heard that we have ourselves a serial killer on the loose.”

Nick inclined his head. He thought of the newspaper he’d read on the flight over. The story had been buried on page twenty-three of the first section, but it had caught his attention.

“I heard something about it,” he said vaguely. Seven years with the Bureau had taught him never to give away anything unless pinned down and asked.

Kelly merely nodded his head. His thinning red hair was fading, evolving into the color of unripened strawberries. The florescent lighting managed to find all the sparser areas and reflect off them. Nick tried not to notice and kept his eyes on the A.D.’s flushed round face.

His new superior made no effort at more of an explanation. Instead, he rounded his desk and headed for the door.

“Come with me. You need to meet the others.”

BILL CHAN WIPED AWAY traces of the raspberry jelly that had oozed out of his doughnut. His latest conquest worked at a bakery three blocks away from the building and he made a point of stopping there each morning for a double sugar hit. Abby’s lips were almost as sweet as the jelly was. He tossed the napkin into his basket just as Charley hurried in.

Turning, he gave her an appreciative look. Her navy skirt hugged curves he was the first to appreciate. “Hey Charley, you got legs this morning.”

Charley dropped her purse into her bottom desk drawer, then shoved it closed with her foot. “I’ve got legs every morning.”

Bill leaned back in his chair, deliberately eyeing her. “Yeah, but they’re not usually out in plain view.”

Not to be left out, Sam Daniels, Bill’s partner and the other man in the room, added his two cents. “And a very nice view it is, too.”

The relationship Charley had with the two partners was one deeply rooted in friendship and mutual respect. Which was why the hazing was generally good-natured, and at times relentless.

She grinned, leaning her face in close to the older man’s. “Behave. Especially you, Daniels, or I’ll call your wife and tell her you’re trying to kick up your heels where you shouldn’t.”

In reply, Sam drained the last of his coffee and set down his less-than-sanitary mug.

“Seriously Charley, how come you’ve never gotten married, or at least heavily involved?” Sam asked.

She shrugged, deadpanning. “Just lucky, I guess.”

Placing himself in her path as she went to get her own mug of coffee, Bill raised and lowered his dark eyebrows. “I’m just the man you’ve been waiting for.”

She laughed shortly, moving around him. “In your dreams, Billy-boy.”

Bill sighed, covering his heart.

Charley poured inky-black coffee into a mug whose interior was only slightly lighter. “Anyone got any details yet?”

Sam shook his head. “We’re all sitting tight, waiting on the A.D.”

She sighed. The nature of the game. Hurry up and wait. “Might as well get some paperwork done,” she murmured half to herself.

At the coffeemaker for her second hit of caffeine in less than ten minutes, Charley felt her attention divert to the noise in the doorway. She turned around as the A.D. entered with someone she didn’t recognize. A very tall, good-looking someone.

A witness, she wondered hopefully.

THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR brought Nick into a room that was not much larger than Kelly’s had been. The main difference was that four desks had been crammed into the room. Lining the walls were bulletin boards perched above aging file cabinets. Photographs of the Sunday Killer’s victims ran across the boards. Each bright, young face had a column of facts directly beneath it.

Nick felt the energy in the room mingled with a sense of futility.

There were three people in front of him, two men and a woman. One less than the number of desks. Nick wondered who the fourth desk belonged to.

And had a feeling he knew.

“That’s Special Agent Bill Chan,” Kelly said as he nodded toward the young Asian in a designer suit. In response, Bill smiled broadly at him. Not standing on ceremony, he crossed the room and extended his hand in welcome.

“Over there’s Special Agent Sam Daniels,” Kelly continued.

Prematurely middle-aged, Sam looked as comfortable as Bill was dapper. His clothes gave the appearance of being chosen for ease rather than for style. They might have even been slept in.

The man nodded in his direction, choosing to look him over from a distance. Sam’s body language was deceptively lax. Nick had a feeling that was how the man operated and that not much got by the older veteran. Sam’s thick mustache effectively covered his lips, hiding his expression.

Nick moved over toward him and shook his hand.

“And this,” Kelly said, nodding at the remaining person in the room, “is Special Agent Charlotte Dow.”

The woman moved toward him like fog encroaching the moors, telegraphing an inherent sexuality with every step. Her eyes washed over him. Nick felt something stir in his gut. He would have had to be dead not to have felt it.

“I’d say it was nice to meet you,” she said in a voice that made him think of whiskey being poured into a glass, neat, “but the assistant director hasn’t given us your name yet.”

Her eyes were an intense Florida ocean blue. “I can give my own name,” he said.

She cocked her head. “And that is?”

“Nick Brannigan.”

Kelly stepped into the arena. “Your new partner, Charley.”

It took everything Charley had not to let her mouth drop open.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE NEXT MOMENT, Charley regained the use of her brain. “New partner?” she echoed, staring at the assistant director. “What do you mean, new partner?”

A.D. Kelly kept a tolerant expression on his face. “Temple’s gone, Dow,” he reminded her evenly. “He’s not coming back. Get used to it. Only I don’t have to be partnered with anyone. You do. Brannigan’s your new partner. Get used to that, too.”

That settled, Kelly turned to the four main people who headed up the task force formed expressly to apprehend the Sunday Killer. The nickname had come about in-house, because the killer seemed only to strike on the seventh day of the week.

“Our boy’s newest victim was Stacy Pembroke. Like the others, she’s young, single. This one was a food server at La Boheme.”

“That new trendy place on the Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach?” Bill asked. “Dinner for two over there’s at least a hundred dollars, without drinks.”

“Out of my league,” Sam commented.

“One and the same,” Kelly confirmed. “Her boss found the body after she didn’t come in to work last night.”

Charley was still chewing on the bombshell that Kelly had thrown her. She’d been secretly nurturing the hope that Ben Temple would change his mind and return to work, despite what he’d told her. To know that he wasn’t going to be part of her everyday life was going to take some getting used to.

But her current state of unrest didn’t prevent her from listening to what the assistant director had to say.

She raised her hand now, stopping him before he continued. “Wait a minute, the owner of the restaurant came to her place when she didn’t show up for work?”

“That’s what the report said,” Kelly confirmed.

Charley shook her head. “That doesn’t sound very kosher to me.” She looked at Kelly, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “You wouldn’t come looking for one of us if we didn’t show up.”

“Not unless Pembroke and her boss had some kind of personal relationship going,” Nick interjected.

Standing beside Charley, Bill leaned toward her and whispered, “And the new guy scores a point.”

Not with me, Charley thought. It would take more than a no-brainer guess before she gave the new man any points.

“That’s what the detectives on the scene thought,” Kelly told them.

“Detectives?” Charley echoed. “What have they got to do with it?”

“The latest victim lived in Tustin. The police who were called in thought it was just another homicide. One of the detectives noticed that the M.O. was the same as the other serial cases we’ve been working on so he called us. The investigation didn’t go any further. Nobody questioned the owner.”

“What’s the owner’s name?” Charley asked.

Kelly checked the report he’d been handed. “Robert Pullman.”

Charley made a notation in her worn notepad, taking care not to rip off the tattered cover. “Is the crime scene still intact?”

Kelly shrugged his wide shoulders in suppressed frustration. “It’s been walked over by the patrolmen who responded to the call and then the detectives they called in. I’m told that Pullman lost it when he saw the body. He threw up.”

“Terrific. Hope they didn’t preserve that,” Sam muttered.

“The body’s in the morgue,” Kelly volunteered. “Here’s the address to the apartment.” He handed it to Charley.

Charley glanced at the location. Tustin was a nice little city. Murders weren’t par for the course. I hope you slipped up, you bastard. I hope, this one time, you slipped up.

Ignoring the man that Kelly had brought in to be her new partner, Charley turned toward Sam and Bill. She held out the report that Kelly had given her. “You guys want to take the body or the crime scene?”

Except for Nick, everyone in the room knew how Charley felt about viewing dead bodies. Given a choice, she would just as soon work the case without seeing the victim. It wasn’t that she had a queasy stomach, but viewing the Sunday Killer’s victims vividly reminded her of the moment she’d walked into the apartment to find her sister lying on the sofa. Strangled.

But despite the fact that she had managed to get herself placed in charge of the task force before the details of her sister’s murder caused the case to be connected to the Sunday Killer, Charley went the extra mile when it came to fair. She didn’t believe in playing favorites, even if that “favorite” was her.

Especially if it was her.

Sam held up his hand. “We’ll take the body, Charley,” he said, speaking for himself and Bill. “You can deal with whatever the boys in blue stomped over.” And then he stopped abruptly, an uneasy expression descending over his craggy face as his glance shifted to the newest member of their team. Some people were touchy about family and he’d just been less than tactful. “Your old man didn’t walk the beat, did he?”

Nick smiled and shook his head. “Retired army colonel.”

Sam pretended to breathe a sigh of relief. “Okay then. Cops tend to tread with a heavy foot. Half the time, they don’t know what they’re dealing with.”

“Not like us,” Charley commented drily.

Nick glanced at her to see if she was being sarcastic, but her expression told him nothing. Except that she avoided looking his way. He wondered if he had a prima donna on his hands. He’d never worked with a woman before, but he knew a couple of agents who had. One was currently involved in divorce proceedings.

Charley turned her attention toward Kelly. “Is there anything else, A.D. Kelly?”

“Yeah.” Kelly paused for a beat. “Catch this son of a bitch for me, Dow,” he said with feeling. “I want him so bad I can taste it.”

Charley looked over at the posted photographs of the serial killer’s victims. Eleven women who had not been allowed to live up to the promise of their lives. Stacy Pembroke would be the twelfth victim.

“Get in line,” Charley replied solemnly. The next moment, she shook off her mood. Looking at Bill and Sam, she said, “We’ll meet back here.”

“You got it,” Sam agreed.

As she began to walk toward the door, she glanced over her shoulder at her new partner, trying to contain her resentment that he was now in the position that Ben had once held.

“I’ll drive.” It wasn’t an offer, it was a statement.

“Whatever rings your chimes, Special Agent Dow,” Nick answered.

Charley stopped. “Was that supposed to be amusing, Special Agent Brannigan?”

“That was supposed to be an answer, Special Agent Dow.”

This was turning out to be one of his more memorable First Mondays, Nick thought, not altogether certain he was happy about it. He figured there were two ways he could play this. He could either take offense or laugh it off. The latter seemed to be the better way to go.

His new partner said nothing as she led the way to the bank of elevator cars.

THEY RODE DOWN in the elevator and made their way through the basement of the parking structure without any further exchange of words. The silence accompanied them as they got into her vehicle. It continued as Charley started up her Honda.

Nick kept his peace until after she’d pulled out of the structure and was on the road. The rain was still coming down in a fine, annoying mist. It coated the windshield just enough to demand intermittent swipes from the windshield wipers.

“Want to fill me in?” he finally said.

She’d retreated into the same thoughts she always had when dealing with one of the Sunday Killer’s victims. Had the death been quick? Had the woman suffered? Had Cris suffered those last few moments of her life? What had gone on in her mind during that time? Had she known she was facing death, or was it just too improbable a situation to comprehend?

Charley realized the new man had asked her a question and waited for an answer. Belatedly, she replayed his words in her head.

“About?” she asked, taking a right turn.

Nick banked down a wave of impatience. Would it get any better or did he need to pass some magical test to prove himself to this woman?

“The serial killer,” he said evenly, then added with a smile, “although feel free to fill me in about anything else you might want to throw in.”

You’re not being fair to him.

It was Ben’s voice, not her own, that she heard in her head. Ben, her teacher, her mentor, her surrogate father. No, more than a father, she thought. Her own father had never treated her with the kindness and understanding that Ben Temple did. And she was going to miss Ben. Miss having him by her side, teaching her things even at this stage of her career. She knew it was better for Ben to finally take the retirement that the Bureau had been waving before him. As for her, she’d always hoped the day would never come.

She spared Nick a glance. Man has a profile like Mount Rushmore. “It’s going to take me some time to adjust.”

He looked at her. “To…?”

She could have easily made it through the yellow light, but for once she eased back on the gas pedal, slowing down enough so that the light slipped into red before she was at the crosswalk. She looked at the man beside her.

“You.”

Nick wasn’t sure if he was supposed to take offense at that or not. “Most people don’t find me that difficult to get along with.”

The man was young, good-looking and in excellent shape. His jacket hugged his muscles. Probably had to have his jackets altered to fit, she mused.

“I liked my old partner,” she informed him flatly.

He slipped in through the opening she’d offered. “What happened to him?”

The light turned green, and she pushed down on the accelerator.

“He took a bullet. One meant for me.” Her heart had stopped in that one minute. Curbing fury and fear, she’d fired at the gunman, mortally wounding him. The time between when she’d placed the call and the ambulance’s arrival seemed interminable. She’d stopped the flow of Ben’s blood with her shirt and her hands. Charley glanced at the new man’s face. It annoyed her that she couldn’t read his expression. “Don’t worry, that’s not part of the requirement. I don’t expect you to do the same.”

“Is your ex-partner—”

“Dead? No, thank God. But he took his retirement straight out of the hospital. Said he was too old to walk into dark rooms with his gun drawn.” Charley bit back a sigh. “Ben Temple was a great partner.”

“I’ll try to live up to that.”

“Don’t. You’ll fail.”

He was too much his father’s son not to rise to a challenge when one was issued.

“Don’t count on it, Special Agent Dow. Want to tell me what you know about this serial killer we’re after?”

All he knew was what he’d read in the paper. He’d done that with half an eye, never thinking he’d be assigned to this particular force. Now he wished he’d paid more attention, even though half of it was undoubtedly media hype.

“What I know about the serial killer,” she repeated. “I know that he’s a son of a bitch, no slur intended on female dogs everywhere. I know he rips families apart. That he probably watches his victims, getting their routines down pat before he strikes. I know I want to pin his hands and feet down and vivisect him.”

Something in her voice commanded his attention. “You sound like you really hate this guy.”

“I do. I should,” she added. “He killed my sister.”