Neck & Neck (42 page)

Dixon. That backstabbing SOB. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” Ryne delivered the understatement in a steady tone. “What our task force needs, what I requested from Commander Dixon, is another investigator. Preferably two. What we definitely do not need is a shrink.”

There was a flicker in those calm gray eyes that might have been temper. “I have a doctorate in forensic psychology—”

“We need a
doctor
even less.”

She ignored his interruption. “And since joining Raiker Forensics, I’ve been involved in nearly three dozen high-profile cases.”

“Shit.” He was capable of more finesse, but at the moment diplomacy eluded him. “Do you realize what kind of case we’re working here? I’ve got a serial rapist on the loose, and with this latest victim, the media is going to be crawling up my ass. I need another experienced investigator, not someone who’ll shrink the skell’s mind once we get him.”

She never flinched. “You’ll have to catch him first, won’t you? And I can help with that. I consulted on the Romeo rapist case last year in Houston. The perp is currently doing a twenty-five-year stretch at Allred. Of the cases I’ve worked, well over half involved serial rapists. I’m exactly what you need on this case, Detective Robel. You just don’t realize it yet.”

The mention of the Houston case rang a bell, but he didn’t bother to pursue the memory. “If we have need of a psych consult, we can always get one from a department psychologist.”

“And how many of them—how many of your department’s
investigators
—have been trained by Adam Raiker?”

Ryne paused, studying her through narrowed eyes. He had no trouble recalling that name; few in law enforcement circles would. The former FBI profiler had achieved near legendary status until he’d disappeared from the radar several years earlier. “Raiker? I thought he was—”

“Dead?”

Maybe. “Retired.”

Her smile was enigmatic. “He’d object to either term.”

He was wasting his time. The one he needed to be level ing these objections against was upstairs, where the administrative offices were housed, playing political handball. His chair scraped the floor as he rose. “Wait here.” He left the room and strode through the squad room. But halfway up the stairs leading to the administrative offices, he met the man he was seeking, followed by his usual entourage.

Ryne shouldered his way through the throng surrounding Dixon. Raising his voice over the din, he said, “Commander, could I have a word with you?”

Dixon held up a hand that could have meant anything. In this case, it apparently meant to wait until he’d finished the joke he was telling to a couple suits who seemed engrossed in his every word.

Derek Dixon had barely changed in the nearly dozen years since Ryne had first met him. The observation wasn’t a compliment. He had pretty boy blond looks and the manner of a chameleon. Jovial and charming one moment. Sober and businesslike the next. He was the ultimate public relations tool, because he was damn good at being all things to all people. Ryne happened to know that his habit of trying to be
one
thing to all women had nearly destroyed his marriage.

But being a womanizing, narcissistic prick hadn’t slowed the rise of his career. In Boston he’d been the department’s special attaché to the mayor. He’d come to Savannah three years ago as commander of the Investigative Division. The fact that his wife was the chief’s niece might have had something to do with his procuring the job, but Ryne was hardly in a position to judge. When he’d accepted Dixon’s surprising offer of a job here a year ago, he’d hitched his career to the other man’s.

It was a troubling memory, but not the one that kept him awake nights.

There was a loud burst of laughter as the suits expressed their appreciation of Dixon’s humor, which, Ryne had reason to know, could be politically incorrect and crudely clever.

“Excuse me for a moment.” Dixon clapped the two closest men on the shoulders. “I need to speak to one of my detectives.” The crowd on the stairwell parted for him like a sea before a prophet.

“Detective Robel.” He flashed his pearly caps. “Here to thank me?”

“I appreciate the extra person assigned to the task force.” Whatever their past, whatever had gone between them, Ryne always maintained a scrupulously professional relationship with the man in public. “But I’m not sure bringing in an outsider is going to be as much use to us as another department investigator would be.”

Annoyance flickered in the man’s eyes. “Didn’t you read her qualifications? Phillips has a background unmatched by anyone on the force. You’ve heard of Raiker Forensics, haven’t you? They’re better known as The Mindhunters, because of Adam Raiker’s years in the fed’s behavioral science unit. The training in his agency is top-notch. With the addition of Phillips, we’re getting a profiler and an investigator, for the price of one.”

“Price.” They descended the stairs in tandem. “Resources are limited, the last interdepartment memo said. Seems odd to spend them on an outside ‘consultant’ when we have cops already on the payroll who could do the same work at no additional cost.”

Although he’d tried to maintain a neutral tone, Dixon’s expression warned him that he hadn’t been entirely successful. The man glanced around as if to see who was within hearing distance and lowered his voice, all the while keeping a genial smile pasted on his face. “You don’t have to worry about the finances of this department, Detective. That’s my job. Yours is to track down and nail this scumbag raping women in our city. If you’d accomplished that by now, I wouldn’t have had to bring someone else in, would I?”

The barb found its mark. “We’ve made steady progress . . .”

“Don’t forget that my ass in on the line right along with yours. Mayor Richards has had me on speed dial since the second rape.”

Already knowing it was futile, Ryne said, “Okay, how about adding another person to the task force in addition to Phillips? Marlowe out of the fourth precinct would be a good man, and he’s got fifteen years’ experience.”

They came to the base of the steps and stopped. The suits were standing a little ways off and, judging by the looks they kept throwing them, were growing impatient.

Dixon’s words reflected the same emotion. “You wanted another person assigned; you got her. Work with the task force you’ve got, Detective. I need results to report to the chief. Get me something to take to him.” His gaze moved to the men waiting for him. “Have you verified the connection between this latest assault and the others?” Ryne had updated Dixon and Captain Brown before the briefing this morning.

“I’ve got CSU at the scene. My men are on their way over.”

“Good.” It was clear he’d lost Dixon’s attention. “Let me know when you get something solid.”

Ryne made sure none of the anger churning in his gut showed on his face as the commander walked away. Keeping the mayor happy would have been the driving motivation behind Dixon’s hiring an outside consultant. The second victim had been the mayor’s granddaughter, a college student snatched on her way to work and driven to her grandparents’ beach home, where the attack had taken place. The man had an understandable thirst for results, and Dixon’s hiring of Phillips was only the latest offering. Assigning another department investigator to the case wasn’t as dazzling as putting a profiler to work on it, especially one affiliated with Adam Raiker, a man practically martyred for the Bureau some years back.

At least he hoped he’d read Dixon’s intentions correctly. Ryne turned and headed back to the conference room. He sincerely hoped the man was just playing his usual style of suck-up politics and not engaged in a cover-your-ass strategy designed to leave his image untarnished if this case went bad.

Because if that was the situation, Ryne knew exactly who’d be left twisting in the wind.

 

 

WHEN DETECTIVE ROBEL REENTERED THE ROOM, Abbie could tell that his mood had taken a turn for the worse. It wasn’t evident from his expression. But temper had his spine straight, his movements taut with tension. “Let’s go,” he said abruptly.

Without a word, she got up and followed him out the door. He made no effort to check the length of his strides. She almost had to run to keep up with him, a fact that didn’t endear him to her. He stopped at one cubicle and dropped the folder containing her personnel information on the desk, then picked up a fat accordion file sitting on its corner.

“Here.” He shoved it at Abbie. “You can catch up on the case on the way.”

On the way where? To the scene? To the victim? She decided she wasn’t going to ask. His disposition had gone from guardedly polite to truculent, and it didn’t take much perception to recognize that she was the cause for the change. His attitude wasn’t totally unprecedented. He wouldn’t be the first detective to resent her presence on his team, at least initially. In her experience, cops were notoriously territorial.

Rather than trotting at his heels like a well-trained dog, Abbie kept the detective in sight as she followed him out of the building and down the wide stone steps. Almost immediately, her temples dampened. Though barely noon and partly overcast, the humidity index had to be hovering close to ninety percent, making her question how the majority of her assignments just happened to be located in walking saunas like Savannah. Houston. Miami.

The answer, of course, was the job. Everything she did was dictated by it. If there was room in her life for little else, that was a conscious choice. And one she’d yet to regret.

Robel paused at the bottom of the steps as if just remembering she was accompanying him, and threw an impatient look over his shoulder. Unhurriedly, she caught up, and they headed toward the police parking lot.

“Do you have any experience with victim interviews?” he asked tersely. “I want to talk to Billings before I stop by the scene.”

“Yes.”

“Follow my lead when we get there. We’ve developed a survey of questions I’ll lead her through. If you have anything to add afterwards, feel free.”

He led her to an unmarked navy Crown Vic, unlocked it. She slid in the passenger side while he continued around the vehicle to the other door. Before following her into the car, he shrugged out of his muted plaid suit coat, revealing a light blue short-sleeved shirt crisscrossed by a shoulder harness. He laid the suit jacket over the seat between them as he got in.

“I’m never going to get used to this weather.” He slid her a glance as he backed the car out of the slot. “How do you stand wearing long sleeves like that in the middle of summer?”

“Superior genes.” Ignoring his snort, she spilled the contents from the file he’d given her onto her lap. Flipping through the neatly arranged photos and reports, she noted they were sorted chronologically, beginning with the first incident reported three months earlier.

She looked at the detective. “So if this latest victim turns out to be related to the others, she’ll be the . . . what? Fourth?”

Robel pulled to a stop at a stoplight. “That’s right. And she’s almost certainly related. He’s injecting them with something prior to the attacks, and they all describe the same effects—initial tingling of the lips and extreme muscle weakness. It turns the victims’ memories to mush, which means they haven’t been able to give us squat when it comes to details about the attacker. From the descriptions they give, it also does something to intensify sensation.”

“Maybe to increase the pain from the torture,” she murmured, struck by a thought. If that were the actual intent, rather than just hazing the memory or incapacitating the victim, it would be in keeping with a sadistic rapist.

The hair on the nape of her neck suddenly prickled, and it wasn’t due to the tepid air blasting from the air-conditioning vents. The atmosphere in the vehicle had gone charged. She slanted a look at Robel, noted the muscle working in his jaw.

“What do you know about the torture?”

Feeling like she was stepping on quicksand, she said, “Commander Dixon told me a little about the cases when we discussed my joining the task force.”

“This morning?”

“On the phone yesterday afternoon.”

The smile that crossed his lips then was chilly and completely devoid of humor. He reached for a pair of sunglasses secured to the visor, flipped them open, and settled them on his nose.

Irritation coursed through her. “Something about that amuses you?”

“Yeah, it does. Considering the fact that the last time I asked Dixon for another
investigator
”—she didn’t miss the inflection he gave the last word—“was yesterday morning, I guess you could say it’s funny as hell.”

Abbie stifled the retort that rose to her lips. She was more familiar than she’d like with the ego massage necessary in these situations, though she’d never develop a fondness for the need. “Look, let’s cut through the un pleasantries. I have no intention of muscling in on your case. Since I was hired by Dixon, I have to provide him with whatever information he requests of me. But my role is first and foremost to assist you.”

His silence, she supposed, was a response of sorts. Just not the one she wanted. Her annoyance deepened. According to Commander Dixon, Robel was some sort of hotshot detective, some very big deal from—Philadelphia? New York? Some place north anyway. But as far as she could tell, he was just another macho jerk, of a type she was all too familiar with. Law enforcement was full of them. Departments could mandate so-called sensitivity training, but it didn’t necessarily change chauvinistic attitudes. It just drove them deeper below the surface.

Abbie studied his chiseled profile. No doubt she was supposed to crumple in the face of his displeasure. He’d be the sort of man to appeal to most women, she supposed, if they liked the lean, lethal, surly type. His short-cropped hair was brown, his eyes behind the glasses an Arctic shade of blue. His jaw was hard, as if braced for a punch. Given his personality, she’d be willing to bet he’d caught more than his share of them. He wasn’t particularly tall, maybe five foot ten, but he radiated authority. He was probably used to turning his commanding presence on women and melting them into subservience.