Page 35 of Dead Drift

Luke included, Griffin thought. “She is the best, but I’m sure she’s got her hands full with the terrorist case. I’ll give Jason a call.” His partner would be happy to run the search, and he’d planned to call him anyway. A partner should know everything, even if Griffin had taken personal leave to work this case and it wasn’t officially theirs.

“Oh, wait,” Finley said, her eyes darting to the bottom edge of the page. “The profiler noted some comments at the end. He suggested the killer’s movements could be related to areas he is comfortable with or areas he received a job promotion to.”

“Excellent point. Once we narrow down his possible professions, we could search for people transferred between our three states—Maryland, North Carolina, and Texas.”

“Agent Evans also listed some ways Burke’s key words could point to what’s fueling his need to kill.”

“Such as?”

“The binding of the wrists, most often with handcuffs, shows he wants to feel in control of his victims but deep down he doesn’t, and that fuels his anger toward his victims, his need to torture them. He’s punishing them, which suggests there was a significant woman in his life that he felt very inferior to or dominated by.”

Luke stepped into the store he’d left Kate in and stopped short at the sight of her conversing with Lauren Graham.

What was she doing with Kate? Had Malcolm sent Lauren to try and insert herself into Luke’s life, or was this one of Lauren’s sick games—the only kind she liked to play?

“Luke,” Kate said, looking past Lauren at him, “this is . . .”

Lauren smiled, cold and calculating.

“I’m sorry,” Kate said, turning to Lauren. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Margaret Anderson.” Her smile widened.

One of Lauren’s most often-used legends—the one she’d gone by when in charge of him, when she’d tried to seduce him. He’d nearly fallen for it, but it hadn’t taken long for him to realize what kind of twisted woman she was.

“And Luke and I are well acquainted,” she said, rubbing his shoulder.

Kate’s eyes widened, and he quickly removed Lauren’s hand from his body.

“We used to work together,” he said as Kate’s gaze quickly flashed between the two, trying to ascertain just how well they knew each other.

“Oh, come now,” Lauren said with a laugh. “We did much more than that.”

“Hardly,” he said, reaching for Kate’s arm. “Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

“Leaving so soon?” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want to catch up over a cup of coffee? No cream. Two sugars. Right?”

Kate looked over at him. She was falling for Lauren’s bit.

He kept his hand on Kate’s arm and headed for the door.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be around anytime you’re ready to catch up,” Lauren called after him, her voice raking along his nerves.

Kate swallowed. “So . . . you two . . . ?”

“Worked together, and that’s it.”

Kate’s cheeks flushed. “Certainly didn’t get the impression work was all you two did.”

“You can’t believe a word that comes out of Lauren’s mouth,” he whispered through gritted teeth, his blood on fire.

“Lauren?” Kate said as they entered Macy’s en route to the parking garage. “She said her name was Margaret.”

“My point exactly.”

“Wait.” Kate pulled to a stop.

He looked over his shoulder, surprised Lauren wasn’t following them, but teasing was more her game. “I’ll explain in the car, I promise, but for now we need to—” He dropped her arm and ducked behind the bedding displays, his heart pounding. Luke’s older brother, Gabe, was standing ten feet down the aisle.