Free The Cold Room by J.T. Ellison

She was avoiding the answer. Page crossed her arms, preparing herself as if she already knew what Taylor was about to say.
    â€œYes,” Taylor answered.
    Page’s chestnut curls bounced as she leaned against Taylor’s desk. She was a small woman—leaning, she was eye level with Taylor sitting. She always made Taylor feel huge.
    â€œSeriously?”
    â€œSeriously. I’m going to run a ViCAP search here after the post, see if we can’t find something similar out there. This was pretty sophisticated. Either he’s trying to get media attention or he wants us to see how brilliant he is. But the Conductor. Where did they get the name from?”
    Page gestured over her shoulder at Elm’s office. “The new guy told them there was a CD playing classical music.”
    Taylor shook her head, pinched her fingers across the bridge of her nose. Damn it. She wanted that detail kept quiet. “You have to be kidding,” she mumbled.
    â€œNope.” She leaned a little closer to Taylor. “Are you doing okay? I know this is hard.”
    Taylor sat back in the chair and sighed deeply. “You’re sweet to ask. I’m fine. This is just a hiccup. Besides, I like getting my hands dirty. I spent a long time on this side of the desk, it’s a bit like coming home. I always did love the investigative side of the job, it was the administrative crap that was no fun. So this is the best of all possible worlds right now—I get to follow leads, do the legwork, and hopefully solve this case quickly. It’s why I became a cop in the first place, you know? Right the wrongs, and all that.”
    Page stared at her for a moment, then patted Taylor’s shoulder. “You’re a gracious woman, Taylor. I’ll see you later, I’ve got to get to court.”
    â€œPut away the bad guys, Julia. We’re all counting on you.”
    â€œBah,” Page said, but grinned.
    As she left, Taylor glanced at her watch—it was 9:30 a.m. Perfect timing. It would take her fifteen minutes to get to Forensic Medical. She closed the notebook, stuck it in her back pocket, and started from the room. She wasn’t lying to Page; she did have a sense of nostalgia and adventure about all this. Even when she was the lieutenant, she liked to be in the trenches with her team, guiding and directing from the field, instead of from her office.
    And truth be told, she’d been a stellar detective, which was a bane and a curse. Do the job too well and you get promoted, with all the attendant headaches. She couldn’t deny that she missed having command of the murder squad, but she’d live. She was still a cop, with a job to do.
    She negotiated the rabbit warren to the door, saw the new sign-out whiteboard nailed to the wall to the left of the door frame. She balked for a moment, then moved her magnet to “Out of Office,” wrote “Forensic Medical” in the column next to her neatly printed name and walked out the door. She’d learned one thing during her thirteen years on the force. Sometimes, you pick your battles.

Seven
    G avin had a new voice mail when he returned to his studio this beautiful sunny morning. He listened to it before he shed the messenger bag slung around his shoulders. It was from the primary on his latest job. Her name was Wilhelmina, and she paid well for his services.
    â€œGavin, the new photos are in. Would you look at them and see what fits the Frist exhibit catalog requirements? The deadline is Tuesday, and we certainly don’t want to be late. Oh, and thank you.”
    The thank-you was an afterthought. Wasn’t that always the way?
    He set his breakfast—a whole-grain bagel with organic peanut butter and a ripe banana—on his desk and started his computer. The messenger bag went on the chair next to his desk, the one covered in industrial orange-and-brown tweed. All he could afford at the time he bought it, he was pleasantly