Free Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent by Kylie Brant Page A

corridors past a blur of darkened rooms. Macy observed her surroundings closely as she followed, making a mental note of her location. Right turn by the Grecian urn that looked to be a couple thousand years old. A hundred yards past what was likely an authentic pencil sketch by Picasso. To the left and another dozen feet to the lighted glassed-in collection of Fabergé eggs. Up a set of three steps to a wider hallway, this one decorated in designer hand-painted wallpaper. The dark-suited duo standing outside a door ahead pinpointed the location of Ellie Mulder’s room.
    Travis halted. “There’s the scene up ahead. Down that left hall”—he jerked a thumb to indicate—“will be her parents’ suite. Our rooms are this way.” He turned around and lost no time heading down the steps and around a corner.
    “Paying attention?” murmured Burke as she hurried to keep up with the agent’s long strides. He strolled behind her, seeming to have no such problem.
    “I can find my way back,” she answered shortly. He was much too close behind her, his shoulder occasionally bumping hers. She could have told him she’d made her way around places as grand as this one from the time she could walk but knew instinctively that would be a bad idea. The last thing Burke needed was more ammunition to use for the incessant wisecracks he threw her way.
    “You should take precautions, just in case. You probably don’t have any bread crumbs on you, but you could always leave a trail of clothing behind, marking the trail.” As if on cue, heat flooded her cheeks at the suggestion, and she hurried her steps even more. But she couldn’t outpace the rest of his remarks. “Drop a glove here. Another glove there. Get rid of that god-awful hat at the corner ahead.”
    Momentarily distracted, she asked, “What’s wrong with my hat?”
    “Did you steal it from a ten-year-old boy?”
    Her earlier embarrassment was elbowed aside by annoyance. An all too common occurrence around him. “Hard to take advice seriously from someone whose idea of high fashion is a new pair of jeans.”
    “Just making an observation.” They were rounding the corner he’d pointed out earlier. “Ahead you could leave the coat. Maybe the boots after that. And then things should get a bit more interesting before we get to our rooms. Sort of a Hansel and Gretel-type striptease.”
    “You have a one-track mind.” Which made it even more incomprehensible that she’d spent one very vivid night wrapped around him. A memory that had proven much harder to extricate than she’d like.
    “Not at all.” His voice dropped even lower. She avoided, barely, sending a look at him over her shoulder. “I’m perfectly capable of thinking of you stripping—perfect place to leave your sweater here,” he inserted, without missing a beat as they passed a dizzying number of closed doors, “while also wondering if the agents left on point at the girl’s room were for our benefit or the family’s.”
    She wished she didn’t know what he was getting at. But it would be a precautionary measure to post guards outside a crime scene. Especially with parents still in the home who couldn’t yet be cleared as suspects in the case.
    It was just as likely the agents were there to be sure they didn’t tamper with the scene themselves, and the knowledge burned. Regardless of Whitman’s talk about teamwork, it was clear that he didn’t trust Raiker or his operatives at this point. Travis’s assignment with them tomorrow was probably as much a reflection of that distrust as anything.
    “Things will change once they clear the parents,” she said, her voice as low as his. Travis had disappeared around another turn.
    “You’re assuming they will clear the parents. Good place to leave your pants—and an excellent choice they were—at this corner,” he added in a non sequiter.
    She did look at him then and found his face as close as she’d feared. “Stop crowding me.” The elbow