Lover Beware

instant she looked into his eyes.
    At twenty-six her dreams—indeed her entire life—had shone golden as the Holy Grail before her. Children hadn’t been part of the scenario. Marriage to a brilliant, kick-ass attorney and a career as an agent for the FBI had been the dream. But Costos hadn’t seen it that way. Marriage, a home with a white picket fence, and a yard full of pink-cheeked babies had been his ideal of happily ever after. He simply couldn’t handle her career as a field agent for the FBI.
    But at thirty-two, she felt her biological clock beginning to tick. No time for romance. Marriage. Or children. At some point in the last year she had begun to question her choices in life. While she felt fulfilled by her accomplishments with the agency, she wasn’t fulfilled emotionally. There was an emptiness inside her that grew more hollow with each passing month. While standing in Jerry’s presence it had yawned like an abyss beneath her.
    Anna put aside the cup of tepid tea and phoned the desk for a wake-up call, then slid under the covers. She wouldn’t let herself think about the vulnerability she had heard in his voice…. She couldn’t.
     
    ANNA HAD ALWAYS been obsessively punctual. Some things just never changed.
    Jerry checked his watch. Ten twenty-five. Standing at his office window, he watched Anna leave her car and make her way up the sidewalk. All business. Navy blue suit, skirt short enough to show off her incredible long legs, her mass of red hair slicked back from her face and wound in a knot at her nape as if the severe hairstyle would somehow diminish the fact that she was beautiful enough to stop traffic.
    Right. Some things never changed.
    He turned from the window and moved toward the coffeepot. His head hurt like hell. What little sleep he had managed after leaving the Bobbie Cox crime scene had left him feeling hungover. His mood was sore and, judging by the muted conversations and the hooded looks of the detectives with their heads together, things were only going to get worse. They weren’t particularly happy that he’d called in a profiler. Though Anna’s presence here was strictly in an advisory role, the department would see it as a blatant slap from the district attorney’s office—as if he didn’t trust their abilities to tie up the case.
    As he reached for his coffee cup, a spasm of pain flashed through him. Not just pain. Fresh fury. The cup had been given to him last Christmas. A gift from J.D.’s son, Billy. His godson’s smiling face decorated the cup with the scrawled words I LOVE YOU, UNCLE JERRY !
    “So you wanna fill us in a little on this profiler, Costos?”
    The question had come from Detective Second Grade Donovan—fifteen years on the force. Donovan was a no-bullcrap officer with the looks of a movie star and an up-yours attitude that too often made Jerry grind his teeth in frustration. Donovan was the finest detective in New Orleans, bar none, and Jerry fully understood his irritation over the D.A.’s office getting the FBI involved, even if it was only in an advisory role.
    Jerry filled his cup with coffee. “What do you want to know, Donovan? A profiler is a profiler is a profiler.”
    “Like what the hell is this guy doing coming here? Don’t they usually tackle this kind of thing at Quantico?”
    Jerry glanced at Killroy, captain of the city’s Eighth District, who sat nearby, also not happy over the FBI’s involvement, but, like the D.A.’s office, his strings were being yanked hard by the political pressure of Governor Damascus. Since the murder of the governor’s daughter-in-law and grandchildren, the case had taken on a nationwide focus. His interest wasn’t due to any familial heartbreak—the cold son of a bitch didn’t give a damn about his family, had disowned J.D. when he married Laura, whom he considered the ruination of J.D.’s future political career. Governor Damascus was more concerned over the impact the serial murders would have on the city’s reputation and tourist business. Since all the murders had taken place in the French Quarter, the city’s financial heart, tourists would think twice about prowling the streets after dark. Over the last seventy-two hours the D.A.’s office, as well as Killroy, had felt the gnash of the governor’s teeth to solve the case pronto, and it hadn’t been pretty.
    Costos moved to the open office door and glanced down the hall toward the elevator before turning back to Donovan. “I