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Jason shut the armoire door. Not only did he not know what they were looking for, he was uneasy about why they were in Kerk’s hotel room at all. Sure, per Title 18, United States Code, Section 668, it was a federal offense to obtain by theft or fraud any object of cultural heritage from a museum. But they had already established that the painting in question was not a major artwork, let alone stolen from a museum. On their walk from the crime scene with Hickok, Sam had not volunteered why he needed to personally examine the victim’s belongings. Why he could not trust Santa Monica PD to do their job.
Typical Sam. Hands-on. He didn’t trust anyone to do theirs properly. Properly meaning like he would do it.
Jason listened to the rustling sounds of Sam—wearing his spare set of gloves—going through the stack of receipts he’d found on the small desk on the other side of the dividing wall.
Okay, maybe to do what Sam did, to achieve those legendary results, he needed this. Maybe he couldn’t get enough information from photographs and reports. Maybe he required this tactile experience of the victim’s environment in order to form a picture of both prey and predator.
If so, that was opposite of the way Jason liked to work. Jason found this much contact, call it familiarity, with the victim distracting. Even disturbing. He preferred to keep an emotional distance. Could do his job better if he kept an emotional distance.
>
But then very rarely was Jason dealing with victims of homicide. He was usually on the trail of thieves, forgers, con artists. Not that he didn’t run into violent offenders. Humans were always unpredictable. He rubbed his right shoulder absently.
“Do you want me to take the bathroom?”
“That would be helpful.” Sam sounded preoccupied.
Jason stepped into the shining marble bathroom and raised his brows at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. Now there was a look: black tie and bulletproof vest. The wind had whipped his hair into dark tufts like devil horns. One of his cuffs was flopping loose.
“Shit.”
“Problem?” Sam appeared in the open window that divided the bathroom from the bedroom. His eyes were very blue in the bright overhead light. Jason had forgotten how blue they were.
“No. Well. I lost a cufflink.”
Sam’s pale brows rose. Clearly he had no response to that, but those cufflinks had been a gift from Grandfather Harley when Jason turned sixteen. Besides being Tiffany and rare, they held sentimental value for him. He had idolized the old man.
Sam left the window, and Jason began retracing his footsteps. Introducing forensic evidence into a crime scene was every bit as bad as removing evidence, and losing a freaking cufflink was a particularly idiotic thing to have happened.
As he moved quietly around the room, he couldn’t help thinking that this was a very strange—and very strained—reunion. Not that he’d been expecting to fall into Sam’s arms, but for the last nine minutes, he and Sam had been alone for the first time in months, and Sam seemed to have nothing to say to him. Seemed unaware he was even in the same room.
It wasn’t going to violate the professional code of conduct to say, Hey, nice to see you again, Jason! Was it?
Especially after all those months of phone calls.
All those midnight long-distance conversations when Sam had maybe a drink too many or Jason was half falling asleep. All those playful, provocative comments about what they’d do when they finally met up again.
Well, here they were.
Jason glanced at Sam’s broad back. Actually, he didn’t think Sam was unaware of him so much as deliberately tuning him out. Which was probably the professional and appropriate thing to do.
Sam continued to ignore him as Jason finished retracing his movements around the room. The goddamned cufflink was nowhere to be found. He’d probably lost it on the beach, which at this point was the best case scenario. If it turned up when SMPD conducted their own search, he’d never hear the end of it.
He returned to the bathroom and proceeded to inspect under the lid of the toilet tank. Aside from a surprisingly nice Rothko-esque print over the porcelain fixture, there was nothing of interest. He checked out the sink and bathtub drains and the heating vents.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
A damp bath towel hung on the back of the door. There were still pools of water on the sink counter. So Kerk had washed up before his fatal stroll. Which might mean he had been planning to meet someone. Or maybe he was just a tidy, well-groomed guy. Actually, judging by the amount of personal care products, he was for sure a tidy, well-groomed guy.
“How did you find out about the Kerk homicide?” Jason asked, sifting through the tubes of toothpaste and hair gel, verifying that they did indeed contain toothpaste and hair gel.
After a moment, Sam’s voice floated through the open window. “Santa Monica PD contacted LAPD’s Art Theft Detail. Hickok contacted the LA field office once they realized they had a dead German national on their hands.”
“Right. But—” Jason stared at his own listening reflection. Furrowed brow. Green eyes narrowed in thought. He looked a little worried. He was a little worried.
Because how the hell had Sam arrived so fast? It wasn’t like the FBI flew around the country in private jets. Not even the BAU.
As though reading his mind, Sam said, “I was already in LA.”
