Free Task Force Bride by Julie Miller Page A

around indicated that the Rose Red Rapist’s level of violence had escalated, and that his habitual routine was growing more erratic. It was disturbing enough that LaDonna Chambers had been abducted and sexually assaulted. But there’d barely been any defensive marks on her. Had the initial blow to the head when she’d been blitz attacked and kidnapped rendered her unconscious through the whole ordeal? If so, then why kill her?
    Had something upset the rapist’s routine and he’d fired the kill shot out of rage? Had the Cleaner, a female accomplice who destroyed evidence of his crimes, upped her game to the extent that she now intended to murder every victim? Was the assault no longer enough violence to sate these perverts’ sick needs?
    And then there was the guilt Pike had to deal with. CSI Hermann’s timeline indicated that Ms. Chambers’s abduction had happened during his patrol shift with Hans, just a block away from his location at the time. She’d been taken from his territory. On his watch. She’d been a woman working in the neighborhood he’d sworn to protect. A law student, LaDonna had been taken from the parking lot outside the firm where she’d been doing her internship.
    Adam Matuszak’s law firm.
    First impressions of the arrogant blond attorney lingered in the mix of Pike’s thoughts, too.
    Pike reached down to where Hans dozed on the floor beside his chair and stroked the dog’s warm flank, automatically seeking that grounding, don’t-stress-unless-you-have-to feeling that working with the clever German shepherd gave him. But that first encounter with Matuszak and Brian Elliott still irritated him. Both men had shut down Hope’s efforts to speak for herself. And while that might have been a legal thing to protect her from volunteering to say or do anything that might be upsetting or unnecessary or even potentially incriminating, it stuck in Pike’s craw to think that she’d tried to make herself heard and no one was listening.
    And what would he have done if Hope’s high-society buddies hadn’t been there to greet her when the elevator doors opened? Tunneled his fingers deeper into that glorious hair? Eliminated the distance between them? Kissed her?
    Maybe his instinctive dislike for Adam Matuszak had a more personal, less noble foundation. Maybe what galled Pike was that he’d made a concerted effort these past few months to earn Hope’s trust and become a friend, and—with or without Hans at his side—she’d repeatedly blown him off. Meanwhile, she aligned herself with those two suit-and-tie movers and shakers of Kansas City society who’d answered her call in the middle of the night.
    Sounded a little like wounded male pride.
    That was an unsettling thought, too.
    “Either he’s getting sloppy or she’s learning to enjoy the game, too.” Spencer Montgomery’s stern voice dragged Pike’s attention back to the opposite end of the table where the senior detective ran the task force meeting.
    Spencer’s partner, Nick Fensom, sat immediately to his left. He tossed the pen he’d been rolling between his fingers onto the table and leaned back in his chair. “So they get more violent and we get no closer to solving this damn case.”
    “That’s not entirely true, Nick.” Dr. Kate Kilpatrick, the police psychologist and profiling expert who was a member of the team, was ever the voice of cool, calm reason. She patted the thick case folder sitting in front of her. “We’re building an extremely strong case against our unsub, with a variety of evidentiary support. We have his DNA and a surviving witness who can identify him by voice and scent, as well as describe the site where the rapes occur—a building undergoing renovations or construction.”
    “Doesn’t do us any good if we can’t catch the perp and put him on trial,” Nick argued.
    Annie Hermann curled one leg beneath her and sat, trying to calm the fiancé she sat across from. “We know exactly the kind of man