Lover Beware

Donovan. “Maybe if I dab a bit behind my ears she’ll come sniffing at me.”
    Anna narrowed her eyes at Armstrong. “Not in this or a hundred lifetimes, pal.”
    Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Too many distractions. She was drawing a blank and the longer she stood there in the unbearable heat the queasier she became as the foul odor of blood crawled up her nostrils.
    “This is futile. I can’t concentrate.” She pulled Jerry aside. “We come back later. Tonight. Just the two of us. No interference. Okay?”
    “What difference is it going to make?”
    “Trust me on this one, Jerry. I need my space.”
    He frowned and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “Killroy won’t be happy.”
    “Killroy answers to you—right or wrong?”
    “Damn it, Anna. I’ve got the entire department pissed at me for bringing you in on this. Now you’re trying to strong-arm the case detectives out of the process?”
    “Hardly. Hey, if you want me to walk away, I’ll walk away. Otherwise, I have the freedom to do what I’ve got to do the way that I do it.”
    He sighed. “Fine.”
     
    ANNA SPENT THE next long hours at the police department memorizing the Cox reports and photographs, comparing them to the Damascus murders. Donovan brought Tyron Johnson in for questioning—grilled him out the ying-yang but the sleazy pimp never backed off his story about being with Marcus DiAngelo on the night of the Damascus murders. He had alibis as well for the times of the other murders and went so far as to demand a lie detector test. But when pushed for the names of the girls’ regular johns, he shut up tight as a clam, declaring his clients were above reproach. He didn’t hand over his girls to just anyone and pointed out that most of his girls’ clients were pickups anyway. Tourists out to experience the heights of good old New Orleans debauchery along with the bars on Bourbon Street. Then, of course, there were the Tulane students with a pocketful of Daddy’s money to burn. Nameless johns came and went.
    Right. That very fact was what made this kind of case the most difficult. And why the perp was harvesting the heads of the lost women walking the streets at night. They were easy prey. Most had broken ties with their family. Friends were scarce. Few, if any, would miss them when they were gone.
    Anna arrived back at her hotel room at just before ten P.M . Jerry would pick her up at eleven thirty. She showered. The hot water did little to wash away the stink of blood that had permeated her skin and hair.
    As Anna pulled on her jeans and T-shirt, tied the laces on her Nikes, then pulled her hair back in a ponytail, she thought about her upcoming meeting with Costos. He’d been more than vocal about his resistance to this midnight jaunt to the crime scene. Drilled her repeatedly about the necessity of it.
    She couldn’t tell him about the Parapsychology Division, of course. It was as hush-hush in the FBI as the CIA’s Grill Flame, the most secretive operation of the Stargate program. Even during their four-year relationship, she had never mentioned her occasional flashes of insight. Perhaps because she hadn’t understood them herself. Or wanted to.
    What now?
    Jerry knew her better than anyone had in her life. He hadn’t become the most successful D.A. in New Orleans in the last fifty years for nothing. He had a way of mentally processing a crime, and the criminal mind, that made defense attorneys and their clients quake in their shoes. Within his first four years as district attorney he had become a legend. Any criminal with a fiber of intelligence knew if he was arrested in Orleans Parish he was going down for the maximum count Jerry could wring out of the judge and jury.
    He already suspected that her assignment to the French Quarter Killer was not the norm. He’d noted immediately her mind and body’s response to the flash that had assaulted her that afternoon on the Pauline Street sidewalk.
    Anna reached for her shoulder holster and gun, checked the Glock—loaded and ready—secured it in the holster, then reached for the jacket she had tossed over the back of a chair.
    She needed time—just a few minutes on her own—to prepare herself. Not just for the physical and emotional blows that would come from the crime scene, but from Jerry. She couldn’t allow what they had once shared—still shared—to get in the way of the investigation. It would, of course. She was certain of it.
    Reaching for the phone, she