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Oh, yes, there is. You just don’t know it.
His body brushed hers as he let the door swing shut, and lightning shot through her. What the hell? She knew what unexpected lust was. She often wrote about it, but it wasn’t a feeling familiar to her personally. Certainly not in a situation like this. Maybe this was a bad idea, after all.
“So, what kind of mendoyou jump into trucks with?”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
His smile was a little softer as he ushered her into his office. “If not strange men, what kind?”
“None.” She made her voice as clipped and professional as she could.
“This is a small town, Miss Moretti,” he said once they were seated. “People are very neighborly and reach out to help each other. If you stick around for any length of time, you’ll find out we don’t have marauders prowling the streets.”
“But you did once, didn’t you?” she shot at him.
His face tightened and all traces of the smile disappeared. “You’re talking about the pedophile cases, which happened a very long time ago. Folks aren’t happy about the fact you want to dig it all up again. May I ask why all this interest in a case that’s been dead for twenty-five years?”
Dana took a deep breath to center herself. “It’s what I do. Researching old, unsolved cases. It’s how I make my living.”
His lips thinned. “Raking through other people’s misery?”
And sometimes giving them answers.
“Isn’t that whatyoudo?” she shot back at him.
“I investigate crimes as an officer of the law.” His voice had gone from being polite to hostile. “I’m not in it for the publicity.”
“Publicity is a byproduct that helps me sell the books,” she snapped. “I examine old, mostly unsolved crimes. Look for new angles. Try to form a psychological profile of the killer or killers. Put it all into a book. Let people know we let the monsters out of the closet and destroy them with enough work.
He tapped her business card lightly against one hand. “You know, I’ve actually read some of your books.”
Dana lifted an eyebrow. Was that grudging admiration in his voice? “I’m surprised.”
“That I can read or that your books would interest me? I hate to admit it, but you do a pretty good job with unpleasant subjects.” He leaned forward, his eyes pinning her. “But I don’t understand how you can go back years later, when people have finally come to terms with tragedy, and rip them open again. Doesn’t that bother you?”
Dana sat straight in the chair, her posture matching the aggressive line of Cole’s body. Now that she was in familiar territory, where the tension wasn’t sexual. “If you’ve read my work, you should already know that people are usually happy to cooperate with me. They see it as a way to get closure. I would think the people involved here would be more bothered by the unanswered questions.”
“Really.” His face was carefully expressionless. The man was doing his best to press all the wrong buttons.
She forced herself to speak calmly. “Doesn’t anyone want to know who did such terrible things to those children? Don’t they care that a pedophile got away with terrorizing and killing children? Don’t you all want answers?”
I certainly do. Hell, if I don’t get them, I might as well crawl in bed, pull the covers over my head, and call it a life because I won’t have one left to go back to.
He stared at her for a long moment. “That was twenty-five years ago. It’s over and done. There’s nothing left to investigate.”
Dana tightened her hands into fists. “I’m getting the feeling there’s some kind of conspiracy here to keep the lid on this. As if you all know who it was and no one wants to admit it.”
That thought had plagued her ever since she’d made herself face the truth of that terrible night. Was it really possible? Could it have been someone they were all familiar with and an entire town had bonded together in a conspiracy of silence? Her stomach roiled at the thought, and she swallowed hard.
Cole’s eyes blazed, the corded muscles in his neck evidence of his effort at control. “Don’t toss that kind of crap at me,Miss Moretti. If we knew who it was, he’d have been skinned alive long before this. That’s a shitty thing to say.”
Not as shitty as having to live with the nightmare all these years.
“Then let me do what I’m here for. I’ve had success before in finding evidence that slipped through the cracks. Flushing people out who thought they were home free.”
His eyes narrowed as he held her gaze. “You think this is going to be another one like Clyde Montauk? You nearly bought the farm on that one, I heard.”
Clyde Montauk was a man who preyed on lonely women for years. After wooing them, he took them to a secluded place and raped them before cutting them up and leaving their body parts all over Palmetto County, Florida. No one had a clue who he was until she came along. She dug hard enough and brought enough new information to light that he’d come after her and walked right into a trap.
