Free Every Move She Makes by Robin Burcell Page B

intently for my response. At the moment, I didn't feel "It was anyone's business that. IA was camped out in my apartment, and I certainly didn't owe my ex-husband any explanation.
    "Hey, Gillespie," came a sarcastic male voice. "You called?" I slid my chair back to see a red-faced Zimmerman leering at me from the secretary's office. He wasn't wearing a jacket, and his shoulder holster neatly framed the sweat stains beneath his armpits. He approached, his hand resting on the knife case on his belt. "Heard we're gonna be partners." I chose to ignore him. Reid gave me that I-told-you-you-shouldn't-be-in-law-enforcement look, then started to say something more about the paper. I dropped it in the trash, thereby ending that conversation. Reid looked ready to protest, apparently thought better of it, and left without a word.
     
    Zim immediately filled the space Reid vacated.
     
    "Heard you were a regular block of ice out there. Didn't even faze you to find your partner's wife dead." "Better watch yourself, Zim,"
    Markowsld quipped from his desk. "She touches you, you won't even need a freezer like that guy she found in the warehouse." I opened my briefcase, shoved all the drug ODS and the Soma Slasher files into it.
    Abruptly the laughter stopped. I looked up, expecting the lieutenant had walked in, putting an end to their fun. Instead I saw Torrance at the doorway, his expression unreadable. "Mind if I see you a minute, Gillespie?" I followed him from the office, only to hear Zimmerman say, "There goes the perfect couple. The ice queen and the polar prince."
     
    "Slither back down to your basement," I said over my shoulder.
     
    When I first transferred to Homicide a year ago, the guys waited to see me fall apart at the sight of my first floater. It was the rite of passage for every new inspector, but because I was a woman, it seemed my trial went on forever. I'd become expert at hiding my feelings, just as they'd all had to do. The male double standard. On them, it was masculine. Me, I was considered cold, unfeeling. I silently fumed as I accompanied Torrance to his office on the next floor. He held the door open, I stepped in. "Doesn't anything get to you?" I asked after he shut the door and took a seat on the edge of his desk. I remained standing.
     
    "Zimmerman gets off on knowing he can make you angry.,,
    I was mad that I'd let Zim upset me. "What do guys like you get off on?"
     
    "Pantyhose," he said without missing a beat.
     
    I shouldn't have asked such a question. More important, I couldn't believe he'd answered. The shock I felt must have registered on my face.
    "Sorry," he said. "I couldn't resist." That dark gaze of his, usually so intense, reflected a sparkle of amusement, and I found myself smiling in return. "Is there something you wanted?" The hesitation that followed was palpable, the look in his eye unmistakable. Finally, "I wanted to go over the details of Scolari's call one more time. If you don't mind." He indicated the laptop on his desk, moving aside to let me read the screen. All amusement faded from his expression. He had it pretty much verbatim, and so I gave him my okay, for whatever it was worth. "You didn't happen to read the paper this morning, did you?" I asked. "Not to mention seeing you on the morning news." His face remained as impassive as his computer screen. I was beginning to wonder if he had Vulcan blood running through his veins.
     
    "It doesn't look good," he said.
     
    "That Scolari's considered a suspect?" "That the MO's the same." I watched the cursor on his screen blink on and off. "Hardly the same," I heard myself say. "Patricia Meadscolari was sitting in a luxury car blocks away from the Soma area." "You might want to read Dr.
    Mead-Scolari's autopsy report." His words shocked me, and I met his gaze, but couldn't tell what, if anything, he was after. Was he telling me for my benefit? Scolari's? Or was he fishing to see what I knew? He handed me a manila envelope. "Figured I'd