Cate’s eyes lit up as his gaze met hers, and she gave him a peck on the lips. “Henry, this is Mike Scarn.”
The men shook hands, and Henry noticed how closely Mike scrutinized him.
Must come with the job.
Cate had been like that when they’d first met. She’d held herself distant, her gaze and questions probing. But he’d caught glimpses of a woman in pain under her FBI exterior, and he’d been intrigued.
No pain was visible in Special Agent Scarn’s gaze. Just curiosity.
“Welcome to Widow’s,” Henry said, slipping an arm around Cate’s waist. She stiffened slightly instead of leaning into him like usual. Mike had watched the movement, and Henry suddenly felt he’d done something wrong.
There’s a history between them.
Now he understood, and he bit back a laugh. The agent had no chance. Henry had complete faith in his relationship with Cate. He even felt a little sorry for the agent; Cate was a beautiful, intelligent woman. “You have a hotel?” he asked Mike.
“I do. But I want to go over some notes with Cate and Tessa first.”
“Henry’s input will be valuable,” said Cate. “He helped unearth the body and can make sense of the medical examiner’s old notes on the original case.”
“Sounds good,” Mike said, his tone flat. “Where do you want to work?”
4
Cate exhaled. The testosterone rolling off Mike and Henry was ridiculous, but she knew it’d subside in a few moments. It was simply a result of a meeting of two headstrong men.
When Mike had stepped off the ferry, she’d admitted he still looked good. But Henry was where her heart lived.
“I’ve got a quiet room in the back of the bookstore where we can work,” Cate said. “It has a good-size table.”
“Perfect,” said Tessa. She tipped her head at Mike for him to follow and led him around the side of the bakery toward the rear door of Cheater’s Bookstore.
Cate took Henry’s hand and went after them. He tightened his fingers around hers, and she glanced at him, her heart contracting at the affection in his eyes. “What?” she whispered.
“You’re beautiful.”
The simple words weakened her knees. Actually it wasn’t the words; it was his tone. It sounded adoring, stunned, and thankful in one short phrase.
“Thank you.” She drank him in, never tiring of studying his face.
“You and Mike dated in the past, yes?” he asked, curiosity in his eyes.
“Yes.” She wasn’t surprised that Henry had figured that out in under a minute. He knew how to read people and paid close attention to body language. “It fizzled out years ago. He’s a good guy.”
“I’m sure you only dated good guys.”
She laughed. “I wish.”
He let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss into her hair. “Then it’s a good thing you’re done.”
Behind the bookstore, Tessa opened the door and led them to the room. As she entered, Cate inhaled, her heartbeat slowing and her muscles relaxing at the smell of books. Her days were now a succession of amazing smells, from the books to the bakery. In the last few months she’d become acutely aware of how the pleasant scents made her days brighter.
The four of them took seats. Mike pulled out a laptop and files.
“I want to see the burial site tomorrow. I have a forensic anthropologist arriving in the morning, and he’ll organize the rest of the excavations,” he said. “But for now, the pictures you sent have me ninety-nine percent convinced that this is related to the Lamb murders.”
Cate silently agreed.
“But are we looking at a copycat or more of his victims?” Tessa asked.
“That’s the big question.” Mike opened his computer. He glanced past Cate, and his shoulders jerked as his gaze locked on something. “Christ. That startled me.”
Cate turned around, knowing what she’d see. Ghost perched in an empty spot on the dark bookshelf several feet behind her, the cat’s black fur blending with his surroundings and his golden eyes glowing. “That’s Ghost. The bookstore has been his home forever.”
Ghost meowed in agreement.
Mike shook his head and focused on the laptop.
“How was Jeff Lamb originally caught?” Tessa asked.
Cate forced herself to stay quiet and let Mike answer.
Not my investigation.
“We found a fingerprint on one of the lockets,” answered Mike. “A perfectly centered thumbprint.” He gave Cate a rueful look. “Remember that? We were positive he was being cocky or trying to mislead us. There’d been no prints on the others.”
“I assume his prints weren’t in any databases?” Henry asked.
“Nope. All it did was frustrate us for a long period of time. A tip from someone who used to own property near the bodies brought Jeff to our attention. She’d dated him a few years before, and they’d often hiked near the burial site. She said he’d been engrossed with—”
“The rock,” Cate choked out. “I’d forgotten that part.” She clapped a hand to her forehead. “I was sitting on a similar one this morning. I thought it’d be a great place to sunbathe.” She shuddered.
How could I forget?
“There’s a rock near the new graves that would serve his purpose?” Mike asked sharply.
“What purpose?” asked Tessa, looking from Cate to Mike.
“An altar to pose his victims on,” Cate said softly. “Long . . . flat . . . it’s where he took a lot of their photos before killing them.” She briefly closed her eyes, remembering the hard surface of the rock from that morning.
Were there any dark stains?
She hadn’t paid attention. A shudder rolled up her spine.
“Anyway, this former girlfriend said he’d taken photos of her on a rock near where the bodies were found,” Mike said. “Normal photos—fully dressed. But she asserted that he’d fixated on the rock in such an odd way it’d stuck with her. He’d joked that she should take her clothes off to pose on the rock, which disturbed her.”
“I trust that’s when she dumped his ass,” Tessa said, crossing her arms.
“He’d also told her it looked like a sacrificial altar. We never released information that the photos of the murdered women had been taken on that rock, but when she learned the bodies had been found nearby, she called.”
“Your investigation went on for almost six months,” Henry said. “Why did she wait so long to come forward?”
“She’d moved to Arizona. Wasn’t aware of the case.” Mike wrinkled his forehead and looked at Cate. “A family member eventually mentioned it to her, right?”
“A friend who still lived in Washington,” corrected Cate.
“That’s right,” said Mike. “Our witness said she’d broken up with him soon after the photos were taken, but we decided it was a good lead and started to watch Jeff Lamb.”
“He was a manager at a local winery,” Cate added. “Everyone there seemed to like him. We wanted to get his fingerprints before moving forward.” She grinned at Mike. “I remember you and I did wine tastings three days in a row, hoping Jeff would wait on us so we could get his prints off a glass.”