by Paula Graves
"I guess it does," he conceded, not certain he believed what he was saying but filled with a burning desire to make his serious little partner smile.
And smile she did, a quirk of her pink lips guaranteed to make his heart skip a beat, even when his mood was as black as a coal mine.
He wondered if she knew he found her deliciously sexy in her neat, understated way.
He wondered what she'd be like in bed.
He jerked the leash on his libido, briefly amused at how even a double murder and a crushing amount of guilt couldn't keep his male desires in check. But the amusement fled as he concentrated on the new set of facts that had thrown a kink into his developing profile of the Lovers' Lane killer.
"I thought Morehead was our suspect because he worked at the community college where our other victims went," he mused aloud. "He was a loner, according to the people who worked with him. Showed a creepy amount of interest in the pretty coeds wandering around the campus."
"It sounded reasonable," Hannigan conceded, her placid face showing no signs of deceit, even though he knew very well—because she'd spent quite a bit of time telling him so—that she'd thought his profile needed refinement before they hared off after a maintenance man who might just be your average shy guy who enjoyed looking at nubile young women.
"The question is, what did Morehead have in common with our other victims?"
"They were all connected to Weatherford Community College," she pointed out. "Morehead was only twenty-eight himself, and he didn't even look that old."
"What do we have on his female companion?"
"She didn't have any ID on her. Based on what she was wearing, she might have been a prostitute."
Which would fit the profile of the shy loner who worked around a bunch of young, tight-bodied women but didn't have an outlet for his natural inclinations. "Vice might know—"
"The two guys on night duty are out on a sting," Hannigan said. "I sent an email and copied the whole unit. Someone will get back to us."
"Prints?"
"The M.E. should have some for us soon. We'll run them through AFIS, see if she has a record."
Hannigan was, as always, the model of efficiency. Even now, after a late night and hours of dealing with new information to add to their investigation notes, she looked as neat and put-together as usual. Her chin-length dark hair was neatly brushed and shining, and the only sign that she'd been up for hours was the faintest hint of pale purple bruising the skin beneath her clear gray eyes.
He felt a tug in the center of his chest and dragged his gaze away before she caught him looking.
"Hmm," she said a few minutes later. He looked up and found her peering at the computer screen, her placid features flushed with interest.
"What is it?"
"Alvin Morehead didn't just work at the college." She met his gaze across the desk. "He was taking a night course."
"What topic?"
She checked the screen again, her brow lifting with interest. "Introduction to American Literature."
Brody checked his notes. "Alice Donnelly was an English major—she had that same evening course."
"But Sadie Linderman didn't."
"Her date did," Brody ran his finger over the notation. "David Shubert."
Hannigan's frown deepened. "But Hillary Gaines didn't have that class on her schedule. And her boyfriend didn't attend Weatherford Community College."
"But Hillary Gaines worked part time as an assistant to Dr. Sydney Flanders." Hannigan smiled. "Who teaches that American Lit night course."
Brody nodded, smiling back at her.
"We'll call the college Monday and see if Hillary ever assisted Dr. Flanders during his evening classes," Hannigan said, stifling a yawn.
"Why don't you go on home and get some sleep?" Brody suggested. "I'll finish up the paperwork."
She shook her head. "You know I prefer to do the paperwork. I'm better at it."
He couldn't argue with that. "I'm sorry."
She looked up, her expression puzzled. "For what?"
"For messing up a perfectly good Friday night for you. You could have gone out, had a little fun—"
The indulgent smile she flashed his way made his heart hurt a little. "I wouldn't have gone with you last night if I didn't want to be there."
He supposed that was true. He just didn't quite know why.
Why did a smart, ambitious woman like Stella Hannigan stick around mopping up after his messes? She could be abrupt and plainspoken, which might make her a bad partner for a cheerful guy like Walt Billings. And she was too quick-minded to put up with Don Perry's occasional thick-headedness. But the other guys on the detective's bureau seemed to tolerate her well enough.
Hell, she was sharp enough to be lieutenant by now herself, when Crane inevitably made captain in a year or two.
Would she leave him then?
"What are the odds that all eight of our victim pairs would share a college course?" Hannigan asked, her gray eyes suddenly bright with inspiration.
"Not good," he admitted.
Her lips curved in one of those heart-stopping smiles she graced him with now and then. "You must be rubbing off on me, Brody, because I think I've just had a brilliant idea."
She was smiling so broadly now the sight was damned near blinding. His heart stuttered again, and he felt his tight rein on his self-control slip a little. "What's that?"
She laughed as she said the words. "Brody, you and I are going back to college."
"Weatherford Community College was once a hospital." Dr. Raymond Silor, Dean of Students, met with Hannigan and Brody on Monday morning in his large, neat office on the second floor. "This very room was once the morgue," he added with a hint of relish.
Next to Hannigan, Brody grimaced. He was mildly superstitious, and she could tell he was already eager to leave the dean's office.
Before she could cut the dean short, he continued with the history lecture, explaining how the one-time tuberculosis sanatorium had been converted in the 1950s, first to a hotel, then an apartment building, and finally reimagined in the mid-1970s as Weatherford Community College.
"The students believe we have ghosts," Dr. Silor intoned with a laugh. "I believe the students have wild imaginations to go along with their wild libidos."
"Is that a particular problem?" Brody asked. "Wild libidos, I mean."
"Students seem to believe the time they should spend matriculating is better spent fornicating." Dr. Silor smiled bleakly. "Educational opportunities are so often wasted on the young."
Hannigan steered the conversation back to the immediate issue. "It's important that no one else knows who we are or why we're here, Dr. Silor."
His smile faded. "Do you believe there is a predator loose on this campus, Detective?"
"That's what we're here to find out," Brody said, impressing Hannigan with his unexpected show of prudence. She knew he was convinced the Lover's Lane killer was connected to this campus, eagerly taking her up on her suggestion that they should go undercover as students in Dr. Flanders' evening literature course.
She was beginning to doubt her moment of inspiration, however. She and Brody were both in their early thirties, though she'd been told she could pass for twenty-five. Wouldn't the sudden arrival of two new adult students to the class at the same time look suspicious?
Dr. Silor seemed to share her doubts. "We don't have that many adults taking entry level courses to begin with. I'm not sure you can avoid scrutiny if two adults join the class on the same evening."
"Even if we join the class as a pair?" Brody asked.
Hannigan shot him a questioning look, but he just smiled placidly.
Dr. Silor's brow furrowed. "You mean, as a couple?"
Hannigan's heart skipped a beat.
"Yes," Brody agreed. "That's what I mean."
Hannigan smiled at Dr. Silor. "Excuse us a moment." She caught Brody's arm and tugged him with her to the corner of the dean's office. Lowering her voice, she w
hispered, "We didn't discuss this."
"Sometimes I just get flashes of inspiration, Hannigan. You know that."
She got the feeling this particular idea wasn't something he'd pulled out of thin air. There was too much laughter in his dark eyes for her comfort.
"What are you up to?" she asked, wishing she didn't so desperately want his answer to involve getting horizontal with her at the earliest possible moment.
"We're not after someone who targets students. We're after someone who targets lovers," he said quietly, his expression turning serious.
"And you want him to go after us."
He nodded. "I guess I should have asked if you wanted to be a target before I suggested it to the dean, though."
"Yes. You should have."
"You want out?"
"I didn't say that." She sighed, caught in a chaotic stream of conflicting thoughts and emotions. She wasn't a natural martyr, so the idea of becoming bait to a brutal murderer wasn't high on her lists of ways to spend her off-duty hours. The Lovers' Lane killer wasn't exactly a slow build sort of homicidal maniac. He'd killed eight people in the last month and a half. He could strike again within the week, for all they knew.
But perhaps even more daunting than the idea of being in a killer's crosshairs was the thought of pretending to be Lee Brody's significant other. Playacting was all well and good—she'd done her share of it during her early days, trying to prove her worth in the thankless hell pit of the Vice squad.
But pretending to be Brody's lover?
Dangerous to ponder when there was a part of her that damned near gloried at the idea.
"I can get someone else," he suggested. "Maybe Danbury from Vice—"
"No," she said, unable to stop herself. "I'll do it."
The satisfaction gleaming in his dark gaze made her stomach hurt. He'd known she'd insist on playing Juliet to his Romeo. Tossing in Jill Danbury as incentive had been a cynical ploy, since he knew how little she cared for the leggy blonde who'd spent six months as Brody's on-again, off-again girlfriend about a year ago.
Of course, he believed her animosity was borne of partnerly protectiveness, since Danbury lived to play mind games with the men she dated, and Brody, despite his intelligence and sophistication, had been no exception.
He had no idea how much sheer envy had to do with Hannigan's dislike of his old girlfriend.
They walked back to Dr. Silor's desk, where the dean sat patiently, waiting for them to sort out their decision. "Am I to let Dr. Flanders know to expect two late registrations for the seven o'clock class this evening?"
Brody gave Hannigan a long, considering look, his eyes bright with anticipation. He turned to the dean. "Yes, sir, I believe you are."
It had been nearly a decade since Brody had been a college student of any sort, but he'd spent six years, from the ages of seventeen to twenty-three, at two of the South's best schools; undergrad at Duke and law school at Virginia.
His father, Leland Stafford Brody, Jr., had followed his own father into partnership at Stafford, Brody and Brody, one of the state's oldest and most prestigious firms. He'd clearly expected Brody to follow suit. But somewhere in the middle of his final year of law school in Virginia, a trip to the FBI Academy at Quantico had infected Brody with a desire to practice law enforcement instead. He'd gone as far as applying to the FBI when his mother had nearly died in a car accident. Though he'd moved back home to be near her during her long recuperation and rehabilitation, he'd resisted his father's pressure to join the law firm, applying to the Weatherford Police Academy instead.
It had been nearly four years after that before he'd gotten his first look at Estella Hannigan's small, trim figure and lethal glare.
"Do you remember the first time we met?" he asked her over the phone as he stepped into a clean pair of jeans and zipped the fly.
"I think you spilled coffee on me," she answered in her flat drawl. "Something annoying like that."
"You were dressed like a runaway or something—hair frizzed up and the waistband of your jeans down to your ass crack—"
"Flattering."
He grinned at the memory. "You had that temporary tramp stamp on your back, remember? The one with the dragon—"
"And I'm not going to get a permanent one, so stop begging."
An image rose to his mind—his mouth pressed against pale green ink etched into the velvety flesh at the small of her back. "It was sexy," he growled, and realized at her sudden silence that he hadn't managed to infuse the admission with the necessary humor. He laughed weakly. "At least, until it started peeling off."
She joined his laughter, and he thought he heard a hint of relief in her tone. "You about ready?"
"Yes." He shoved his wallet into his pocket and grabbed his keys. "You?"
"Sitting by the door, waiting."
He pictured her there, knees together, feet flat on the floor, her hands folded patiently, seated on the straight-backed chair in the foyer. She'd be dressed in some neat college-appropriate suit—maybe a skirt, he imagined, and felt a tug low in his belly as he pictured her slim, toned legs and small feet tucked into a pair of stiletto heels—
No. He drew his mind back sharply. Stiletto heels weren't college-appropriate. Or chasing-the-perp-appropriate, either.
He sighed.
Hannigan lived in a Craftsman bungalow on Rosedale Drive. She was as proud of that little house as she was of anything she owned, though it was old, modest and in dire need of a little extra TLC that Hannigan rarely had time to give it.
She'd done something new to it over the weekend, he realized as he pulled up to the curb in front. He considered the facade as he headed up the flagstone walkway and realized, finally, that she'd painted the shutters that flanked the four-paned windows on the front of the house.
"You've painted the shutters—" he began when the door opened after his first knock. But the rest of his thought vanished as his eyes settled on Hannigan's navel.
He swallowed his surprise. "That's new."
She followed his gaze down to the sliver of skin visible between her jeans and her T-shirt, where a tiny gold hoop threaded through the skin of her navel. "Oh. Yeah. Something I did a few years ago, when I was feeling kind of boring. It hurt, so I quickly regretted it."
"But it didn't close up?"
She shrugged. "I used navel rings sometimes in Vice. Thought it might make me look younger and edgier."
It made her look sexy as hell.
"Does it still hurt?" he asked to distract himself.
"Sometimes," she admitted.
"Maybe you could get your granny to brew up some witch hazel from that bush out back. Isn't that supposed to be good for stuff like that?"
She rolled her eyes. "Stuff like navel ring irritation?"
She had to say navel ring again, didn't she?
"This is an earring, actually," she added, giving the ring a little flick that made Brody's nether region snap to attention again.
He looked away, studying the newly-painted shutters. She'd chosen a dusky blue color that reminded him of the color her eyes turned when she wore a navy suit. Frosty on the outside, blazing sapphire on the inside.
"You look nice," she said in a tone that sounded more polite than sincere. It might have been deflating to some men, that tone, but he'd long ago realized that for Hannigan, any compliment at all was sincere, regardless of her offhand tone. She wasn't a woman who indulged in small talk or polite inanities. What she said was what she meant.
He made himself look back at her and registered, for the first time, that she was wearing something besides the thin gold navel ring. Her top was a short, tight-fitting T-shirt, in a charcoal gray that darkened her eyes to smoke. Her jeans were low cut, baring her flat belly and the curve of her hip bones. For a small woman, she had generous hips, shapely enough to make a man's mind wander to thoughts of anchoring himself between her well-toned thighs and never leaving again.
"Let's go—don't want to be late to class," he m
urmured, dropping his gaze to her feet. No stilettos—he'd been right about that, at least. But the peek-a-boo thong sandals and the bright green polish on her small toenails were sexy as hell.
He opened the car door for her, the show of chivalry earning a quirk of her dark eyebrow. He shrugged and closed the door behind her, taking a few deep breaths to ward off a full-blown case of lust.
He eased behind the steering wheel. "I know we're supposed to be bait. But aren't you overdoing it a bit?"
"I'm wearing a bra," she answered defensively.
Thank God for that, he thought.
"But not panties. I couldn't find any that didn't show a panty line."
He jerked the gear shift too far and the car lurched forward instead of backwards. He put on the brakes, took another deep breath and managed to get the car in reverse.
He hoped they'd make it to the college in one piece.
Chapter Three
There were twenty-five students in Dr. Sydney Flanders' Introduction to American Literature class, not counting the ones who had already become victims of the Lovers' Lane killer. The majority, Hannigan was surprised to discover, were males. College had been a while ago, but she hadn't remembered a surplus of male students in her lit classes.
But then, none of her classes had been taught by anyone who looked like Sydney Flanders.
The name had faked her off. Sydney Flanders wasn't the tweed-suited, gray haired English professor smelling of old books and pipe smoke she'd expected to totter into the class and start teaching the virtues and vices of James Fennimore Cooper. Instead, Dr. Sydney Flanders floated in on a delicate cloud of White Linen, dressed in a pale pink sundress that showed off her golden tan and long, shapely legs.
In the chair beside Hannigan, Brody sat up a little straighter. She stifled the urge to elbow him in the ribs.
"Lovely to see two new students with us this evening," Dr. Flanders smiled toward both of them. Her periwinkle blue eyes settled rather warmly on Brody's perfect, perfect face. Hannigan felt her temper start to simmer and fought to turn down the heat before she did something stupid.
