Free Karma Patrol by Kate Miller Page A

Aaron lost the battle with laughter, collapsing onto the table in booming guffaws.
    “What did you think?” she added, putting as much wounded innocence into her voice and her expression as she could. “Did you really believe I was—what? In
league
with some crazy gunman? I’m a photographer, for God’s sake, not a murderer. If I did know about the shooting ahead of time, don’t you think I would have been as far away as possible, not traipsing through the intersection where the gunman was going to be shooting?” She shook her head at Luke. “You must think I’m the stupidest accomplice who ever lived.”
    “Yeah, well…” He had nothing and he knew it. He glanced over at Aaron, but his partner was too busy laughing at him to be of any use. “You’re free to go, but don’t leave town.”
    “How convenient for me that I both live and work here,” she pointed out, tossing the pink pouch back into her bag and getting to her feet.
    “Don’t forget your… stuff.” Luke gestured to the tampons still lying on the table, and she reached down to collect them as she raised her eyebrows at him.
    “You seemed pretty irritable earlier. Are you sure you don’t want me to leave you one just in case that PMS turns into something more?”
    Aaron choked again, and Luke went from crimson to purple. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, she scooped up the tampons and sailed out of the interrogation room before they could change their minds about letting her go.

    Luke collapsed into his desk chair, spearing his partner with a death glare before the other man could say anything.
    “You—”
    “Don’t. Just don’t.”
    Aaron snickered, clearly inches away from another outburst of hilarity. “Luke, I have to hand it to you. You were right.”
    He knew it was a trap, but he couldn’t resist. “Right about what?”
    “That woman is
never
going to have sex with you.”
    Luke rolled his eyes as his partner collapsed into paroxysms of laughter. “Oh, sure, it’s hilarious. Don’t tell me you actually bought her story.”
    “Story?” Aaron demanded, incredulous. “What’s the alternative, Luke? She’s in league with some crazy bastard who shot up a street corner, and her contribution to the crime was to narrowly escape getting shot and then vaguely incriminate herself?”
    Luke grimaced. His partner had a point, and there was no real evidence to support Jade’s involvement in the shootings, but he was also certain that Jade was involved somehow. He could feel it in his gut. He just couldn’t figure out how or why.
    The phone on his desk rang and he snatched the receiver off of the base, grateful for the interruption.
    “Jackson.”
    It was the ballistics lab, calling with the results of their analysis. Luke’s expression grew progressively grimmer as he listened, and when they hung up, he turned to his partner.
    “You look like someone died,” Aaron told him, and then considered what he’d just said. “You know. Another someone.”
    “That was Irina from Ballistics. She got a match on the bullets used in the shooting this afternoon.”
    “And?” Aaron prompted him.
    “And they were a match to the bullets used in the shooting on Forty-Eighth Street this morning.”
    “Son of a bitch,” Aaron murmured. “We’ve got a serial killer on our hands.”
    That was the piece that had been missing from the crime scene that morning, the source of the unpleasant feeling in his gut when they’d examined the area where the bodies had been found. It was also the worst-case scenario he and Kalindi had discussed, and he exhaled sharply when he realized what that meant.
    “You know the FBI is going to want in on this,” Aaron persisted, voicing the thought that had just crossed Luke’s mind, and he nodded.
    “They’ll call it domestic terrorism and snatch the case right out from under our noses. By tomorrow morning, we’ll be completely out of the loop. Grab Captain Hawkes, would you?” he