Shadow of Perception (7 page)

Rifle ready, he counted as he walked, shifting his gaze from the ground to the overgrown brush. Although they didn’t come out much during the day, the coyotes were in a bad way at this time of year. Starving, desperate. And he’d given them Thanksgiving dinner, with extra plump breasts.
 

Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—

He stopped. Raised his rifle and looked around the area. A squirrel skittered up a tree and he continued moving.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty—

Michael turned and retched. The acid from his stomach, mixed with the booze, burned his throat as he vomited on the ground. Drawing in deep, steadying breaths, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Once the dizziness passed, and his stomach no longer protested, he looked over his shoulder.
 

He wouldn’t have to walk the full seventy-five steps. The coyotes had dragged Elliot’s body—or what was left of it—and saved him the trip. He should have expected as much. The coyotes had been feasting for two days. Tearing off bits and pieces of the doctor and scattering the bones. By this time tomorrow, other than the head and maybe a few scraps—inedible for even a starving coyote—he doubted he’d find any other traces of Elliot.

The coyotes wouldn’t have to worry, though. By this time tomorrow he planned to have their next meal prepared.

Then the feeding frenzy would begin again.
 

Chapter 4

Before Hudson parked the car, Eden had her seatbelt undone and her hand on the door handle. She needed space. She needed a moment alone. Being near Hudson brought back too many memories, and she’d realized she wasn’t as immune to him as she’d hoped.
 

“You planning on waiting until I stop or are you gonna do some sort of tuck and roll onto the concrete?” he asked as he veered the Trans Am into a parking space.

“It’s already close to ten, and I need to make it into the station before noon.”
And being near you is driving me crazy.

“I told you—”

“Yeah, yeah.” She sighed. “Your rules. No workout, no work, no anything else.”

He parked the car, then turned off the ignition. “I didn’t mean that you couldn’t work or anything else. I just...this case is priority.”
 

Of course.
 

The sarcastic barb sat at the tip of her tongue.
 

Hudson’s job, his cases, had
always
been top priority. Not her, and she’d do well to remember that, even if a small part of her—the part that still held a little something for this ruggedly handsome and somewhat broken warrior—wished otherwise. Men like Hudson would never change, and she wouldn’t expect him to. Her career gave her identity, and she suspected it was the same for him.
 

Rather than give him the reply she’d wanted and start an argument, she climbed out of the car. Besides, if she said anything, it might come across bitter. Always perceptive when it came to people, Hudson might misconstrue and think she still harbored feelings for him. And while she did—on a very small level—she figured those feelings bent more toward lust than anything else.
 

Lust she could handle. The anything else? She pulled her purse strap over her shoulder and crossed her arms. She’d do her damnedest to keep reminding herself he’d broken her heart once and avoid
anything else
that might make her look like a fool a second time around.

When he rounded the car, though, desire pulled deep in her belly. Although she wasn’t a fan of his shaggy hair, the man still did a number on her hormones. His walk alone conjured images of his powerful body above hers. Hovering between her spread thighs. His lips a hair’s breadth from hers.
 

She cleared her throat and her mind, then looked to his Trans Am. Black, with the classic gold firebird painted on the hood, the car could have been used as a double in the movie
Smokey and the Bandit
. “What happened to the El Camino you used to drive?” she asked to divert her thoughts from him, his body, his rough calloused hands and all the things she knew he could do with them.

He pointed to the corner of the parking garage. “She’s right over there. I sold her to Rachel, the woman we’re meeting, about six months ago.”

She’d remembered how much he’d loved that car. One warm spring night after they’d made love—sex, they’d had sex—he’d told her that after he’d left the CIA and joined CORE, he’d begun refurbishing the El Camino. Therapy, he’d said, a way to help stop the nightmares.

She hadn’t pried or asked what those nightmares entailed. Based on the scars that had marred his body, she’d figured the emotional and mental scars were probably much worse. Instead of going into reporter mode and drilling him, she’d run her fingers through the soft hair lining his chest and had rested her head on his shoulder. And listened. To how he’d overcome the nightmares, then later, to his breathing as he’d drifted off to sleep.
 

That night, his trust had opened up a part of her she’d been too afraid to tap, and she’d realized she was half in love with Hudson. Or maybe all the way. But he’d destroyed those feelings along with any fairy tale thoughts of love five days later.

And she hadn’t been in love since. Because of her job, there’d been no time for romance. Occasional, bland sex to scratch the itch, yes. But love? She’d learned her lesson. Once bitten, twice shy.

Still, Hudson had loved that El Camino. Although only a car, it had represented his triumph over emotional pain and had helped him heal.
 

“How could you sell the car?” she asked, unable to hide the accusation and bitterness from her voice. It bugged the hell out of her that he’d tossed the car aside just as easily as he’d tossed away their relationship.

He shrugged and ran a finger along the Trans Am’s back fender, then turned toward the elevators. “The Camino’s in good hands now. Besides, I get to see her or drive her when I want. Rachel’s good like that.”

A stab of ridiculous jealousy pierced and pricked. They’d been apart for over two years. Almost two and a half, really. She’d been with other men. Okay, two. Of course Hudson would see other women. Still. “Is she now?”

“Jealous?”

Yes, damn it
. “Hardly.”

“Well, just in case you are, Rachel’s a good kid and friend. Nothing more.”

She quickened her pace toward the parking garage elevators with sick satisfaction tingling her fingers and toes. “I’ll sleep so much better tonight.”

He half-laughed and pressed the button for the elevator. “I just bet.”

“Mmmm.” She slid her gaze to his strong profile and realized he still hadn’t answered her question. And she wanted an answer. The night he’d told her the story about the El Camino had been one of her favorite memories of them. She’d felt close to him then, and sure that they had something good going. “So why did you sell the car?”

Keeping his gaze on the elevator, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Enquiring minds want to know?”
 

“Something like that.”

“You sure?”

He made the sale of the car sound like a dirty, dark secret, which of course made her even more curious. “I wouldn’t have asked.”
 

“It was time for a new project.”
 

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “The Trans Am?” she asked as she stepped inside. “You remodeled that car, too? When?”

Regret, guilt, and need darkened his eyes as he moved into the elevator. “The day after you left me.”

*

“Wow. Look at me hobnobbing with a celebrity,” Rachel Davis said as she pumped Eden’s hand and flashed a big smile. “So refreshing after having to deal with Neanderthals like this guy day in and day out.”

“Ugh,” Hudson grunted, then pretended to take offense. “Someone steal your secret stash of Special K this morning?”

“I couldn’t eat a bowl if you tried to force feed me,” Rachel replied as she led them into CORE’s evidence and evaluation room. State of the art, large TV screens lined one wall, several computers sat stationed in the opposite corner, and an enormous metal table filled the middle of the room. A white erase board took up the other wall and he noticed Rachel’s bubbly scribble, written in black marker, already filled one side of the board.
 

Thankfully, Eden kept her gaze on everything but him, just as she had during the elevator ride to the fourteenth floor, one of the two floors CORE leased at the Becker Building. Why he’d sabotaged himself and opened his big mouth about the Trans Am he didn’t know. From the moment he’d realized he’d be forced to work with her, he’d told himself he wouldn’t allow old feelings to interfere with the case. Less than twelve hours later, they had anyway. Because they hadn’t disappeared?

He shoved a hand through his hair and focused on Rachel. Terrible with emotions and relationships, he’d rather put his mind to use on what he was good at. Hunting.

“Stuff’s gross anyway,” he said to Rachel. “Oatmeal’s what you need. It’ll put hair on your chest.”

Rachel walked to one of the computers, then hit a key. A TV screen jerked to life showing the victim from the DVD lying on the operating table. “Hair’s not what I need. And if your theory on oatmeal is true, this guy must have eaten it by the barrel.”
 

She hit a few more keys and the other TVs, one by one, came to life, each with a different still shot. “Okay, show time,” she said, then began punching more buttons. “Watch screen number one.”

He moved closer to the screen and tried to ignore Eden’s coaxing scent as she stood next to him. “What am I looking at besides a foot?”

The keyboard tapped behind him, then the screen enlarged. “See anything interesting?” Rachel asked.

He shook his head and started to say no. Then he saw it. A tattoo, buried beneath thick black hair and just above the victim’s ankle. “Wait. Got it.”

Eden pointed to the markings on the screen. “I see it, too. Letters?”
   

“Greek actually,” Rachel clarified. “Sigma Alpha Mu.”

“Do you think he was a Sammy?” Eden asked Rachel.

“Makes sense to me.”

 
“Hold up. A whatty?” They might as well have been speaking Greek at the moment. Hudson had no idea what the hell they were talking about.
 

Rachel hit a few more keys and the screen changed to a website. “The Sammys, or Sigma Alpha Mus, are a fraternity.”

“Jewish,” Eden added.

“Yes. And according to their main website, currently fifty-four chapters are recognized in universities across the country.”

“Currently,” he echoed. “This guy’s gotta be somewhere in his mid to late forties.”

Rachel switched from the website’s home page to its alumni page. “That’s my guess. So figure this guy was in college twenty plus years ago.”

Eden leaned against the metal table. “Not to sound negative, but without a name or a...body, this isn’t going to help us right now.”

“True. But it’s given us a few leads. The vic is Jewish and had at one time belonged to a fraternity.”

Hudson nodded to the Sammy alumni page on the TV screen. “I’d be interested to know how many alumni in the vic’s age group ended up as plastic surgeons.”

“Plastic surgeons?” Eden repeated.

“Think about it.” He pointed to one of the still shots on the other TV screens. “The guy doing the slicing wasn’t torturing our vic to gain information, but to send a message. He gave him breast implants, then went on about how we’re all being poisoned by airbrushed images.”
 

“There’s no such thing as perfect, only perception,” Eden quoted the doctor.
 

“Right.” He moved a finger over the screen. “Look at the operating room. This guy did some serious planning. I doubt our vic will be the last, even if you were to somehow air this DVD or found a way to let him know you’d received it and
can’t
air it.”

Her knuckles grew white as she grabbed the metal table. “I worried about the same thing, especially when he made the comment about my beauty pageant series.” She looked at him, her green eyes forlorn, distressed. “This is personal, isn’t?”

“It’s revenge.”
 

“Dun, dun, dun,” Rachel mumbled, and pulled a pencil from behind her ear. “Are we done with the melodramatics? Because I have something else I want to show you.”

“I’m not being melodramatic,” he countered. “I’m being realistic. This
is
a plain old case of revenge.”

“Just a cut above the rest?” Rachel tapped the pencil eraser against her chin and pursed her lips.

“Smart ass. Do you think you could somehow, preferably legally—”

“Search the Sammy data base for any males who would have graduated twenty to twenty-five years ago with a degree in medicine.”

The corner of Eden’s mouth tilted and the anxiety in her eyes momentarily disappeared. “I think Rachel pretty much has it covered.”

Puffing his cheeks, he looked away.

“He hates when I finish his sentences for him,” Rachel said as she moved back to the computer. “They all do. Which is why I do it. Okay, keep your eyes on screen two.”