Twisted (Burbank and Parker 1)

Derek was in a foul mood.

He’d done a thorough job of prepping John Lee for tonight’s stakeout. The listening device he’d given Lee was concealed in a pen, so tiny and unobtrusive that no one would spot it. Lee was edgy but under control. He’d do what he had to, since the alternative was jail. The entire squad was prepared for a long night, and Tony had made up the surveillance schedule.

With luck, they’d not only find out if Lo Ma really was responsible for the brutal killings of Xiao Long’s girls, but they’d get some solid evidence on both Dai Los to pass along to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

So everything was in place. And Derek was wound up and ready to go.

Back in his Ranger days, he’d learned to eat when he could, since the next opportunity to do so might not come for a while. With that in mind, he wolfed down a sandwich, grabbed some bottled water and a bag of chips, and headed back to his desk, intending to type up his interviews and return his e-mails.

That’s when his mood had gone south.

At his desk, he’d found Sloane’s voice mail waiting for him.

The message itself was pretty cryptic, saying only that she had a lead on the Penny Truman case, and she needed to talk to him as soon as possible.

Its vagueness was irritating enough.

But the fact that her voice still had the power to get to him the way it did—now, that really pissed him off.

He leaned back in his chair, linked his arms behind his head, and grudgingly let his mind go where he’d avoided letting it go since Monday.

When he’d walked into that conference room and she’d been standing there—it was like a punch in the gut. He’d written his reaction off as the result of being blindsided. After all, she’d been the last person he expected to see when he stepped through that door.

But now there was no excuse. He knew she was working for the Trumans, and he knew she had a personal stake in the case, since she and Penelope Truman were childhood friends. He was the agent of record. It was natural she’d be calling him with any information she stumbled on.

Derek was a hard, fast realist. He didn’t delude himself—not then, and not now. He wasn’t over Sloane. What they’d shared had been much more than an affair. Everything about it had been intense—the attraction, the connection, the sex. It had started—and ended—like an explosion, knocking them both on their asses, going up in fireworks and down in flames.

There’d never been any closure. There hadn’t even been good-byes.

She’d been a stubborn, stoic coward, who’d shut him out and then walked away when the going got tough.

And he? He’d been a hotheaded, judgmental ass, who’d been too pissed off by her decision to see things rationally.

Abruptly, it was over.

That didn’t stop him from thinking about her. He did. A lot more often than he liked. That was bad enough. But his reaction to seeing her again, hearing her voice, that wasn’t just remembering. That was vulnerability. And vulnerability was not some

thing he could accept in himself.

As if to challenge that weakness head-on, he picked up the phone and punched in her number.

She answered on the second ring. “Sloane Burbank.” The road noise told him she was in the car.

“It’s Derek.”

“Oh, good.” Her relief was genuine. “Thanks for getting back to me so fast. I was afraid I’d miss you, and I’ll be out of town for the next two days working twenty-four/seven. Phone tag’s not an option. We need to jump on this right away.”

“What is it we’re jumping on?” Derek asked drily.

Sloane filled him in on what Doug Waters had told her, about her trip to Richard Stockton, and about her conversation with Deanna Frost.

“So Penelope did buy that ticket to Atlantic City. It just wasn’t her final destination.” Derek scribbled down some notes.

“She meant to attend that seminar. We know she got to the college campus. So she disappeared on or near there, sometime between eleven-fifteen and noon. We need to figure out who else she might have talked to, where the common walking paths are, if any other suspicious activities were reported during that time period. We need to interview campus security, local police—”

“Hey, drill sergeant, stop.” Derek snapped out the interruption. “I don’t need an education in how to conduct a missing persons investigation. What I do need is some clarification. By we, I assume you mean me. And that’s not going to fly.”

“Don’t tell me you still think Penny disappeared voluntarily,” Sloane responded in a tight voice.