“Fuck.” He didn’t like Rochelle, but this wasn’t how he wanted to bring her down. Damn it, she should be in a cell, thinking about what she’d done. “We have to find him.”
“I’ll lock the scene down and set up some roadblocks. He won’t get far.”
He had his doubts.
CHAPTER 23
One month later…
“Milo!” Joy stood and then ran around her desk as he shut the door. “She said you were coming back, but that was ages ago. I thought she was lying to shut me up.”
He stiffened as Joy put her arms around him. He’d made progress since accompanying Oz and Buggy to a group at County hospital, but hugs would probably never be his forte. He patted her shoulder awkwardly. “I had to be cleared by IA. They wouldn’t do that without thirty days of counselling to make sure Rochelle and Eli didn’t mind-fuck me into a serial killer. Are we done with the touching yet?”
Joy finally stepped away. “Sorry. I’ve been so worried about you.”
He smiled. “I’m fine. Doctor says I’m as sane as I’ll ever be, but at least I’m fit for duty.”
“Good. I knew they’d bring you back. How’s the notebook thing coming?”
Milo shrugged. He wouldn’t tell her about the new bookcase he’d bought, or the seven hundred and twenty-six notebooks he’d rewritten and then stored on said bookcase. Some habits a man just couldn’t break. “I’m working on it.”
Joy sighed. “She’s waiting for you.”
“Wonderful.”
“Be nice.”
He winked and then walked to Cunt’s office. The door was open. He almost fell over as he walked inside. The entire room was… spotless. Filing cabinets had been installed along the far wall, and each one was actually closed and free of loose files. Behind Cunt’s desk was a proper shelving unit, and on it were books arranged in neat rows, although he noted there was no system to their arrangement. Just all willy-nilly. He sniffed.
Most shocking was Cunt herself. She sat behind a clean desk, which had only her coffee mug on it, and beneath the mug—he smiled—was a coaster. The Captain wore a proper suit, pressed and clean, and her hair was styled. The almost-ginger color bleached to a pleasant shade of blonde. She smiled at him from her chair.
“What the Christ happened in here?” He sat in the chair in front of the desk. The whole room smelled like cinnamon. He liked the smell of cinnamon.
She laughed. What a strange sound.
“Well after all the shit went down at your doctor’s house,” she said. “I realized how horribly I treated you and how I was completely blind to what you saw so clearly all along. I decided the least I could do was take a page out of your book.”
“Which book?” His throat burned.
“Not literally,” Cunt said. “I mean I thought you’re neat and tidy. You’re organized and you know where everything is. What if this is how you manage to solve every case, no matter how impossible that case is?”
“That’s exactly how I do it. Facts are important, but there are usually way too many, so you have to organize them until they make sense.”
“Well I’ll never be as good as you, but I found after I cleaned this mess up, I was better at my job. I felt better too. More calm… less cunty.” She winked.
He was uncomfortable. Very, very uncomfortable. Was that cleavage he saw at the top of her blouse? “Why am I here? IA said I could just go back to work.”
“You can.” She pushed his badge across the desk. “But I wanted to talk to you first. There’ve been some developments while you were in treatment.”
“Let’s never use that word again, okay?”
“Which one?”
“The T-word.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“What developments?”
She took a breath and then picked up the pen lying next to her keyboard. She clicked the top four times and then paused. He bit his lip. Cunt looked at him, clicked the top five more times and then smiled. “As you know, Nina took to this Eli character.”
“I tried to warn her.”
“I know. We never got a statement from her so we tried to get in touch. She seems to have vanished. So has Eli. We don’t have any evidence to charge him with Rochelle’s murder, but I wanted to keep an eye on him.”
So had Milo. He knew that Eli fled, but assumed Nina just did what Nina does and would turn up eventually. “You sure she’s with him?”
Cunt nodded. She clicked a few buttons on her keyboard, then turned the screen around. He saw a picture of Nina on a beach, wearing a white dress and flip flops. At the side of the screen, she’d written the caption “Paradise with my beloved, Eli.”
“This her Facebook account?”
“Yeah,” Cunt turned the screen around again. “That was posted ten days ago. Zero activity since.”
“Isn’t that pretty normal?”
“Nina used to post something every day. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
He couldn’t worry about Nina. She made her choices, and she’d have to suffer the consequences. “He’s got one foot in the grave. At least there’s that.”
“That man is a long way from dead,” she said. “Trust me.”
He caught the blush in her cheeks. “Did you…? No. Forget it. I don’t want to know.”
She chuckled. “No I didn’t. I just know these things.”
“Sure.”
“I have a confession to make, Milo.”
“Is this going to get awkward?”
“No.” she leaned against the back of her chair. “I think it’s time you know how I set you up.”
“With who?”
“Not that kind of set up,” she said. “I mean I knew about the doctor. When you first raised a flag about the… what did you call them?”
“Nutters.”
“Right. When you raised the flag about the nutter murders, I did some digging. In one of your reports, you scribbled the word “doctor” in the margin. I assumed you mean to investigate who was treating the victims, believing it might be the same person. So I looked, and that sent me to a few different places, but in the end, all roads led to Rochelle’s group. I had nothing on her, though, because she was clever.”
“You did this all when exactly?”
“Before I forced you into treat—into the group.”
“You could’ve said something. Why let me think I was shoveling shit?”
“Because, I needed a guy on the inside. You were my obvious choice, because if we’re being honest, you’re at least borderline OCD.”
“Nice.” He could kill her. He’d go to jail. Probably get the death penalty. Whatever. It’d be worth it.
“She was a doctor. We needed someone who could be convincing. Doctors know when you’re making stuff up, so I thought, Milo is my best detective, and he’s got some issues to work through. My boss was also breathing down my neck because you attacked Jones and Smith, so it got you out of harm’s way for a while. It was perfect.”
“I hate you.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Oh, I’m like that. Do you realize she could’ve killed me?”
“You’re a lot of things, Milo, but a victim is never going to be one of them. I knew you could handle her.”
“This would’ve been helpful information a few dead bodies ago.”
“I know, and I’m sorry we couldn’t save all of them, but another doctor warned me she might be using hypnosis. If you knew that I believed you were on the right track, it would’ve left you vulnerable if you were hypnotized. So I left you in the dark. That way, you couldn’t tell her anything except what she already knew.”
“Which was that I got suspended and my boss thought I was batshit.” He still hated her, but a tiny grain of respect found its way into his heart. The plan was pretty damn clever. “So this you’re crazy and a risk to your fellow officers bullshit was a put-on? You made me feel like an outsider so I’d do your dirty work?”
“I knew you’d be mad,” s
he said. “And for the record, you are crazy and a risk to your fellow officers.”
“Doctor says I’m eccentric.”
“Look Milo, I’ve always liked you. I know I come off as bitchy and cold, but I have to be careful. I’m in a position of authority. If anyone suspected my fondness for you, it’d be—”
“Stop right there, before you say something else I’ll regret.”
“What? I’m just trying to tell you—”
“Just don’t.” He stood. “Can I go to work?”
“You can.”
“Good. Thanks. Um… take care.”
He turned to leave.
“Milo?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll have to come see me after work for the next few days. IA still has you on probation.”
Fucksakes.
“Fine.”
“You can come when everyone’s gone. That way they don’t have to know you’re still on thin ice.”
Wonderful. “Sure.”
“And we can have the privacy we need.”
“Regretting that idea already.”
“Have a great day.”
Milo ran from her office. Joy said something as he passed, but he didn’t hear her. All he needed was a case. One juicy, nasty murder to wash the ick of Captain Cunt’s weird flirtation off his brain. With any luck, it’d fix the erection as well.
THE END
OTHER BOOKS BY
RENÉE MILLER
In the Bones
The Legend of Jackson Murphy
Dirty Truths
Sweet Revenge
Bayou Baby
FANGS AND FUR SERIES
Sex, Peanuts, Fangs, and Fur: A Practical Guide for Invading Canada
Sex, Transvestites, Angels and Assholes
FOR THE LOVE OF GODS SERIES
Lucky
Lascivious
Nefarious
Muse
SHORT FICTION
Sweet Revenge
Terrible Cherubs
Flesh and Blood
Stop Crying
Hunger
AND COMING SOON...
Fangs and Fur book three
Dragons, Dicks, Sinners and Scribes
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Renee Miller lives in Tweed, Ontario. Sometimes she’s cool, but not often. Someone called her a powerhouse once, but quietly, and with a bit of a whimper. If only Kevin Spacey would notice…
She also has poor self-control (obviously), an addiction to cake and potato chips, and inappropriate fantasies about Kevin Spacey. She’s published novels in the crime/suspense, romantic suspense, paranormal romance, fantasy/horror/comedy, and erotic horror genres.
www.authorreneemiller.com
[email protected]
www.deviantdolls.org
Twitter:@ReneeMJ
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