Free Dangerous to Touch by Jill Sorenson Page A

scratches on her long, lovely legs, using concern as an excuse to keep his eyes on them.
    “Are you going to take care of them for me?” she teased.
    His gaze jerked to her face. Was she toying with him? Perhaps today’s display of bravery, and even last night’s…episode…had been calculated. It didn’t make sense, because she couldn’t have known about the surveillance, and nothing about her was overtly seductive. Her ragged cutoffs were short but baggy, her face was smudged with dirt and her brown T-shirt had a dorky gecko on the front.
    Then again, if she was trying to use her understated sexuality to manipulate him, it was working. “I’ll take care of anything you need me to,” he said in a low voice, just to see her reaction.
    “Don’t,” she said, her eyes flashing with hurt.
    “Don’t what?”
    “Come on to me as an investigative technique.”
    He’d unsettled her, and he liked that, so he smiled. “If not for this case, I’d come on to you for real.”
    She laughed without humor. “Please.”
    He longed to hear her say that in a more intimate context. “Whatever you wish to believe,” he said simply, because the conversation had gone way beyond inappropriate. What the hell was the matter with him? Not trusting himself to be alone with her another minute, he walked outside to wait for Detective Lacy, trying to refocus his energy on work.
    Stokes was going to rake him over the coals for involving a civilian in a dangerous foot pursuit. He could hear her now, reminding him of protocol, common sense and the inadvisability of taking down an assailant by force with no cuffs or backup. He had no self-control when it came to violence against women, and blah, blah, blah.
    Sighing, Marc climbed into Lacy’s Jeep, not looking forward to the remainder of the day.
    “Check it out,” she said, handing him a computer printout.
    It was an Internet archive from the
San Diego Explorer,
dated fifteen years in the past. “Local Girl Saves the Day,” the article read.
    “Sidney Anne Morrow, age twelve, daughter of Bonsall residents Aurelia and Frank Morrow, helped local police officers find a missing girl who’d fallen into a well. The girl, Lisa Jane Pettigrew, also twelve, disappeared several days ago and was feared dead. Miss Morrow approached two officers claiming she had a ‘hunch’ that the missing girl was in a long-forgotten well on the outskirts of a rural property.
    “She wasn’t able to lead rescuers to the exact location, so a public records survey from 1902 was consulted. Sure enough, Lisa Pettigrew was found at the bottom of the well, malnourished and dehydrated, but in fair condition.
    “Lisa’s parents offered a monetary reward to the Morrow family to show their heartfelt appreciation for the safe return of their only child…”
    “So what’s this supposed to prove?” he asked, unwilling to give up his initial position. He didn’t believe in supernatural nonsense and he was never going to. “That she’s been working people since puberty?”
    “I’m just keeping an open mind,” she said, implying he wasn’t.
    In curt response, he crumpled up the printout and tossed it into the back seat.
    On the way to the station, he muddled through the details of the case. Anika Groene and Candace Hegel had been slim, petite blondes, easy for a good-size man to overpower. Both had been taken in the morning. Both had been raped, beaten, tied up and tortured. Both had been dumped in water while still alive.
    And both had large, intimidating watchdogs.
    Marc felt as though this clue was key. The killer was targeting single women who walked their dogs in the early morning. Why not grab a woman alone, or one with a smaller, less dangerous dog? Either the assailant knew the women, and their dogs, or Marc was missing something important.
    Of course, there were ways to immobilize even the most vigilant canine companion.
    Sidney said Blue had been groggy when she found him. She’d been right about