Free Killer Among Us by Adriana Hunter, Carmen Cross

“Austerlitz, the town
where Edna St. Vincent Millay lived?’
    “ That’s the one. Are you a
fan?”
    “ I walked by Bedford
Street,” her face held a sheepish expression. “I always wanted to
see Steepletop though. Is it true all of her things are still
there, like the house is waiting for her to come back?”
    “ Yes, it’s true. We could
drive up sometime, I couldn’t say we will go tomorrow because
tomorrow, well today now, the Feds are coming in to help with the
case and I’m not sure when my next day off will be.”
    “ We could take my car,” she
offered.
    Kane looked at her glowing eyes and realized
that he wanted to kiss her long and slow. His eyes shifted to the
clock over the counter and he groaned inwardly, time had gotten
away from him. “That’s a deal. In the meantime let’s get you
home.”
    He walked her to her door and when she asked
how he would get home he shrugged and said he would cab it. He was
not at all tired, the adrenaline rush he had gotten from the scene
they had shared had jazzed him up and he knew he would not sleep
even if he did lie down. She waited, hoping he would kiss her but
all he said was, “Get inside and sleep well,” before stepping back
from her.
    She closed the door, locked it and put her
back against it. Her mind was whirling with the night’s events and
when Sassy, woken up and grumpy, staggered out of the bedroom
dragging her owner’s robe with her she took that as a divine hint
to go to bed.
    She was asleep before her head even hit the
pillow.
     
    ***
    Kane sat at his desk, staring at the report
he had taken the night he had met Sophie, and he swore softly. She
had given him a false name and he had never thought to check her
ID. She had used the name Nancy Boyd, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s
pseudonym, and given an address he knew was not hers. He wondered
why.
    He picked up his cell phone and called the
club, knowing that the man who owned it and who sat at the desk
would still be awake. After a long and very roundabout and discreet
conversation he got her real name and other information.
    He sat there staring at the computer with
angry eyes after he ran a check on that name. Susan, the woman
whose name she had mentioned and whose ID she had used at the club,
was dead. She had committed suicide.
    He stared at her mugshots, in some she was
blonde, in others she wore heavy black wigs or red ones. She looked
fresh faced, if angry and lost, in the first few, after that she
wore the same resigned and broken expression he had seen on dozens
of desperate addicts over the years.
    Who was Sophie? That question nagged at him,
who was she and why did she feel the need to lie about who she was?
What was she hiding?
    A small newspaper article on Susan caught
his eye, it mentioned a girl who had been in foster with her, a
young woman named Sophie but before he could research that further
Forrester strolled in.
    The fact that the man was actually in the
office at eight in the morning was shocking; that he had shaved and
ironed his clothes was equally unusual. Kane felt the contempt that
always marked his feelings toward the other officer creeping in as
Forrester tossed himself into his chair and asked, “What’re you
working on, you got a lead?”
    “ No, different case. I
thought I would try to back off and get some fresh perspective on
the Creeper that way.” Kane lied easily.
    “ Huh,” Forrester said and
got up, wandering off to get some of the vile coffee that was
always scorching the bottom of the Silex pot.
    “ I hate that guy,” another
officer said, “I heard he was good cop until his wife ran off but I
never knew him then.”
    “ Forrester had a wife?”
Kane asked.
    “ Yeah, she was a beauty
too, from what I hear. I guess she got tired of being a cop’s wife
or something.”
    “ Most women get tired of
being a cop’s wife,” Kane said in a neutral voice.
    There was a stir at the door and he looked
up. A woman with blonde hair pulled back into a