Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(21)
She watched him walk away then dropped her forehead to the cool surface of her desk. She definitely needed her head examined if her subconscious was envisaging some sort of fairytale romance with the other agent. Sure, he was ruggedly good-looking and charming when he wanted to be, but he was also the sort of guy who was difficult to read and didn’t let anyone close. She’d worked with that type plenty of times before and was sick of constantly striving to prove herself worthy. He was a Supervisory Special Agent ten years her senior, and someone who played by the book. She was a rookie who followed her gut. And, so what if he had a nice face and nice forearms, possibly six-pack abs under that shirt, but it didn’t mean he knew what to do in the bedroom.
She huffed at her own thoughts. How had her imagination escalated to the bedroom? He could be married with kids for all she knew.
Please, please, let him be married. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about making a damn fool of herself over a man who thought of her as nothing more than an annoyance, an irritation, a responsibility he’d inherited from Van.
She didn’t need romantic humiliation to compound all the other issues going on in her life. Better to keep everything professional and concentrate on figuring out what exactly had happened to Van. She could get her heart broken in her own time.
*
Dominic pulled up outside Van’s house later again that same evening in his personal vehicle, a black Lexus. It was nearly 9 PM now and dusk. The quiet settled around him, and he realized with a thick sense of despondency it was almost exactly one week since Van had died.
Dominic got out and closed the driver’s door quietly and walked around the hood. He’d always liked this part of Virginia. It was quiet and relatively peaceful, but close enough to both DC and Quantico to have been in the running when he was looking for his own place when he’d transferred to the Crisis Negotiation Unit from LA. He’d chosen a home more in the country, and closer to work so he’d be able to spend more time with his dog and a little less time driving—theoretically at least.
He opened the passenger door and unclipped his black lab who jumped out and milled in a circle, head down, tail wagging like a truce flag. Ranger was eight now. A present from his father, presumably chosen to demonstrate how incredibly awkward and time-consuming Dominic’s chosen career was—as if being a lawyer had better hours. But, with the help of a doggy daycare near Quantico, fellow agents who loved dogs, and a neighbor who owned horses and took Ranger whenever Dominic needed to go away overnight, they managed. Ranger was beyond the crazed exuberance of pupdom and supposedly more sensible nowadays. At least he’d stopped eating drywall.
Dominic clipped on the dog’s leash and strode across the street. Ranger nosed the scents along the white picket fence as Dominic opened the front gate. The motion sensing security light flashed on, almost blinding him. He walked around the side of the house staying on the grass he’d cut earlier that day. A large shrub hid the window of the study from the street. Crickets chirped loudly and a drop of sweat ran down Dominic’s spine. Ranger whined.
He glanced around. The street was empty. No one sat in nearby parked cars. Still, the sense of being watched lingered.
The unanswered questions from earlier kept circling his brain. Why had Van’s pants been undone? Why had the window been open?
Dominic had checked the evidence logs, but no one had mentioned checking the outside of the property.
Using his cell phone as a flashlight, he pushed back the rhododendron branches, dislodging leaves in a gentle shower. He ran the beam of light over the ground beneath the window, careful to keep Ranger well away from the loose soil. It had rained last week on Wednesday around five PM. A quick shower that had soaked the parched ground. But this space was protected by the bushes and overhanging eaves.
The beam of light picked up a bunch of impressions in the dirt. Footprints. A frisson of alarm traveled over his shoulders and down his spine. Someone had been here. It could be kids daring one another to check out a death scene. It could be reporters looking for a grisly scoop. He was glad the blinds had been firmly closed against prying eyes.
But there was another possibility. Ava Kanas’s theory. Where Van had been murdered…and these could be the footprints of his killer.
Shadows thickened and deepened as the motion sensors timed out, cloaking him in a dense darkness. Dominic backed up and started walking toward the fence on the west side of the property, keeping Ranger close to heel. It was heavy dusk now. No moon. No streetlights illuminating the immediate area. He faced the house and paced about fifteen feet before tripping the motion sensors. He tried the same thing for the security lights at the back of the house. They had even less of a range due to the covered porch.
Ranger sniffed his way along the ground like a dog on a mission. Dominic wished he had the lab’s nose. How much more convenient it would be to be able to identify someone from the scent they left behind.
He walked back to the original spot and stared at the window to Van’s study. He pulled out his cell and made a call, wondering if he was making a massive mistake. “Agent Kanas?”
“Dominic?” The use of his first name caught him off guard. Warm. Intimate. Massive mistake. “What is it?”
She sounded confused. Hell, she was probably home or in bed.
“Meet me at Van’s place. I’ve got something to show you.”
“When?”
“Right now.” He hung up on her, knowing she’d come and not sure how he felt about the bond that was forming between them. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t exclude her from this search for answers. He sure as hell couldn’t ignore her.