With Ties That Bind: Book 2 (The Broken Bonds 5)

He licks his lips as he pulls back and holds up my keys. “You’ll know where I’ll be. Come on. I’ll follow you there first.”

I watch him leave my office, taking a moment to collect myself before I’m able to face my lab. There’s another body, another dead girl. And this time, I know she didn’t die in pursuit of the Trifecta serum.

If the Alpha Killer is trying to send a message, it’s been received.

4

Crosshair

Quinn

Avery’s scent lingers in the air of her bedroom; the fragrance of lavender and vanilla mingles with a faint antiseptic trace of the crime lab. It tightens my chest, knowing she’s too far away. Tucking my unease down deep, I make quick work of locating her suitcase and packing essential items.

I have half the department keeping an eye on her at the crime scene, but that does little to ease my nerves. If she wants to go off alone, she’ll find a way. I shove a toiletry bag with her toothbrush and other necessities into the case, forcing myself to stay calm. The less she has to worry over, the easier it will be for her to accept. She has to be with someone at all times until this is over.

And putting her up at my place will ensure no one will get to her. What I can’t control is her own damn lab. For that, I’ll have to trust Sadie. As uneasy as it makes me, I know she’s the only one who I can count on to keep Avery covered.

Once I’ve made a thorough mess, having lost my patience and strewn clothes around the room, I huff a defeated breath and place her suitcase next to the door. I’ll clean up later. But first, I need to find her laptop.

The interface is easy enough to navigate. I click my way through logging in and locating her contacts. I do a quick search for any screen names or pseudonyms that might be associated with Maddox. It’s a slim chance, I know, but I’ve still got it bad for that lawyer. I’m not sure how dirty he is—whether or not his services to his clients extend to acquiring rare drug ingredients such as ambergris—but I know he isn’t squeaky clean.

Proving it will be the difficult part. With a firm like Lark and Gannet backing him, and his campaign running for the Commonwealth, Maddox has built a solid wall around himself.

If I discover he had even the slightest role in Avery’s abduction, he’ll need a hell of a lot more than that to protect him. Finding no red flags around Maddox, I end the search and pull up her last correspondence. It’s basic. A simple order and scheduled drop, where Avery would pick up the ambergris.

I push back in the chair, my gaze glossing over the details. I should be at the crime scene with Avery and my team. Every second and every bit of evidence is sensitive, and needs to be analyzed on site. I look at my phone and open the last received message.

Avery: Just meeting up with Carson now. Nothing to report yet—I’ll keep you posted.

Dragging my hands down my face, I stare at the laptop screen. Fuck it. I’m not on duty. I have no one to answer to. I type out a message to FalconStar10, Avery’s ambergris hookup, and hit Send. Then I take the laptop with me as I head to the door.

Before I leave, I grab the one picture frame on the mantel. It’s been turned facedown. I noticed it the first night I was here, when I was searching for any trace of Avery’s family, people she could turn to. I open the back of the frame and take out the picture of Avery.

Her brown eyes stare at me, her lips creased in an easy smile. It must’ve been taken when she first moved here; her first day as the new lead medical examiner. I pocket the picture in my jacket inseam and head out.

The drop is a small coffee shop on the corner of Wilson and Barton. It’s an intimate setting, unlike the big coffee franchises, and the perfect place to organize a meet. Avery did good. She’s smart, picking a public place, but not too busy where a person might overlook a meet gone bad.

I’ve been parked in front of Bean Friends for ten minutes, waiting for Mister Falconstar. Since Avery already knows what he looks like, I couldn’t ask that he sport a red baseball cap. I have to go on instincts.

I recline back in the driver-seat, prop my hands on the steering wheel. I had just enough time to drop Avery’s stuff at my apartment and grab a shower and change clothes before making the meet.

With a huff, I reach down and unclip my phone. I read over Avery’s last update, again trying to decipher her state of mind, and anything that could clue me in on what’s happening.

Avery: All evidence points to the same offender. No ID on the vic yet. I’ll have more once the vic is taken to the lab and processed.

My detective Spidey senses are tingling. The vagueness of her report has me damn near forgetting this whole meet and heading straight to Wexler and demanding to be put back on the case. Especially since the two perps we arrested yesterday have their bond hearing in a couple of hours. If Maddox gets his clients out on bond and they walk for now…

Anger spikes my blood at the thought. That won’t happen. Captain won’t let that happen. But I should be the one to take the first crack at questioning those fuckers.

The past two days feel like an eternity; no down time to think. And now, as I sit in the silence of my car, my brain won’t stop thinking—thinking about what those fucks had planned for Avery after injecting her with the drug.

I grip the wheel hard, my knuckles breaking the newly healed skin.

Avery was out of her mind with lust. Suffering, in agony, the only way to relieve her torment was to achieve sexual release. If a synthetic drug like that hits the streets, if that’s what the intent is behind all this, the world will become a rapist’s playground.

My stomach roils with my mounting fury, and I know that no matter what, we have to stop that from happening.

Before my thoughts can swallow me, plunging me to the pit of my own plagued mind, I spot a guy with a dark backpack making his way toward the coffee shop. He doesn’t go in. He looks around a few times before settling at one of the outside tables.