A Profiler's Case for Seduction(25)
Mark shook his head. “The flinches are perfectly timed just seconds before she gets hit. She doesn’t flinch any other time. I’m telling you, somehow this whole kidnapping was staged.”
“But why? Why would a woman like Melinda Grayson do such a crazy thing? She’s an esteemed professor, an icon of success around the campus. It doesn’t make sense that she would work with somebody to stage her own kidnapping, allow herself to be beaten and then miraculously be released. There’s no motive for her to have done that.”
“I know,” Mark replied, the excitement he’d felt at his discovery quickly ebbing away. “I just can’t figure it out. I think we need to dig deeper into Melinda’s background, find out exactly what kind of woman she is.”
“And I think you need to get out of here and come with me. Some of the guys are calling it a day and doing a little unwinding at Johnnie’s Tavern. Pitchers of beer and New York–style brats with spicy onion sticks that will blow the back of your head off.” Richard stood. “Come on, Mark. Take the night off and fill your head with grease and booze. We all need a little downtime.”
“Okay,” Mark relented. He didn’t often join the team for anything but the daily briefings. Mark was a loner who allowed in few people, and he knew it was because so many people found him intimidating with his intelligence and strange because of his abilities and his social awkwardness. Richard understood this. However, at the moment, the offer appealed to Mark because not only did he need a break from thinking about the cases, he also needed something to make him stop thinking about Dora.
* * *
A half hour later he sat with Richard on his left and Donald Thompson on his right. Lori Delaney was across the table along with Agents Larry Albright and Joseph Garcia.
Within minutes three pitchers of beer adorned the center of the table and orders had been placed for everything from mozzarella sticks to hot wings and, of course, the onion sticks that were a signature dish of the dingy, typical college-town tavern.
“Hey, Mark, nice of you to climb out of your head long enough to join us,” Delaney teased when the waitress had left.
“As long as I don’t have to crawl into your head, I’m good,” he teased right back.
“Right now my head is filled with thoughts of a bubble bath in my own tub and a full night’s sleep in my own bed. I hate the motel we’re stuck in. I swear they put the noisiest guests in the room next to mine night after night.”
“I never thought I’d say it, but I’m actually starting to miss my wife’s cooking,” Larry said.
Everyone groaned. It was a well-known fact among their team that Larry’s wife was an enthusiastic but very bad cook.
As everyone at the table began to talk about what they missed most being away from home, Mark thought of Grace and the phone call and promise he’d made to her.
He’d forgotten to mention it to Dora and it had been Dora who had prompted him to make the call, to make an attempt at being the kind of father Grace needed in her life.
He gazed across the table at Lori Delaney. She was a nice-looking woman with shoulder-length brown hair like Dora’s. But Mark didn’t want to tangle his hands in Lori’s hair. He didn’t want to pull her close against him and feel how well their bodies molded together. He wanted to do that with Dora.
He wanted to feel the strands of her hair whirled around his fingers, pull her close to see if her hair smelled of wildflowers. He could easily imagine how neatly she would fit against him.
Sarah was a short, petite woman, and their embraces had always felt awkward, as if they were two pieces of separate puzzles. He knew instinctively that physically Dora’s height would make them fit together neatly, as if they were from the same puzzle.
“Earth to Mark.” Joseph’s voice pulled him back to the tavern. “You’ve got to try these onion things. They are mucho hot.”
“It’s the capsaicin,” Mark replied.
“The what?” Richard asked.
“Capsaicin, a molecule that is the main component in chile peppers. It’s actually an irritant that causes the burning on the tongue.” His cheeks flushed as he realized he’d delivered a short speech on something nobody really cared about.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t ever want to play trivia with you,” Lori replied ruefully, and Mark relaxed as everyone laughed.
He used to think that people were laughing at him, but he knew these people who surrounded him. They were colleagues who knew and appreciated his quirks, people who often came to him for minute bits of trivia when investigating one thing or another.