Free The Profiler by Chris Taylor Page B

Frustration twisted his gut and the weight of responsibility was like a cement pylon across his shoulders. He’d been in Sydney an entire week and was no closer to discovering the identity of the killer than when he’d arrived. He believed they were looking for someone who appeared perfectly ordinary. Someone everyone saw, yet nobody noticed.
    Which left him with a million different possibilities.
    He’d spent the majority of the week interviewing friends of the missing girls, teachers, administration staff. Hell, he’d even interviewed the cleaners. And for all his efforts, he’d come up with nothing.
    He pressed his eyes shut with the heel of his hands and took a deep breath, trying to curb the irritation that knotted inside him. When he groaned and opened his eyes Ellie was looking at him, questions filling her curious green eyes. The same green eyes that had kept him sleepless since he’d arrived.
    He frowned. His attraction for her had blindsided him from their very first meeting. She didn’t even come up to his shoulder, but the fire in her eyes and her scintillating aura of defiance and determination had captivated his attention.
    She was obviously unhappy about his presence, but he’d expected that. He’d yet to walk into a squad room full of State police officers and be welcomed with open arms. They might be all batting for the same team, but most State officers thought less of the AFP—they were to be tolerated and only if absolutely necessary.
    It had a lot to do with the fact the AFP declared themselves an elite force, the crème de la crème of policing. He was the first to concede this notion engendered a fair amount of arrogance and conceit among some of its members and there were a number of federal officers who openly considered their State counterparts the poor relations.
    He’d never thought of them like that. It was the State police who did the grunt work—the real detective work, as far as he was concerned. The day-to-day grind of keeping the streets safe. Putting their bodies and lives on the line to make sure it was so. And thank God they did. He couldn’t imagine the chaos if the State lawmen decided to hang up their boots for a day or two.
    Clay’s gaze flicked back to Ellie. A few strands of her glossy, chestnut-colored hair had defied the short, straight bob and curled around her ear like a lover’s finger. Teasing, tempting, tantalizing. He itched to touch it. To touch her. Swearing under his breath, he turned back toward the window and gazed unseeingly at the passing traffic.
    “What’s the matter, Fed? You look like someone’s just stolen your last all-day sucker.”
    He choked. A kaleidoscope of images of Ellie with her mouth open, her tongue tasting, tumbled through his mind. He tried and failed to keep the heat from spreading to his face. The fabric of his suit pants grew tight and he squirmed. It was an immediate and entirely unwelcome response, and one he had absolutely no control over. He clung to visions of his wife Lisa, with her soft-brown eyes and silky blond hair, in an effort to dislodge the dangerously erotic thoughts that threatened his sanity. Guilt settled like concrete in the pit of his belly.
    For Christ’s sake, what the hell had come over him? Lisa had been gone for nearly three years and he’d barely had a passing thought about another woman. He sure as hell hadn’t wanted to sleep with any of them. Damned if he knew what it was about this pint-sized spitfire that suddenly had him responding in a way he thought had died along with his wife?
    How could he even be thinking about another woman? He’d promised himself to Lisa—his heart, his mind, his soul. Forever and ever. Amen.
    Somehow, that message was getting lost between his heart and his head—or more precisely, his groin, and he wasn’t happy about that. Worse still, he didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
    Despite his best intentions, Clayton’s gaze slid back toward her. Small hands and