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The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

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“Throwing around your FBI boyfriend, are you?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Right. He tried to recruit you. It seems you’d like to be there working for him now. Maybe you need to be working for him and not me.”

I physically flinch and bite back the spew of words I’ll regret, but they bubble in the back of my throat. I need air before they bubble to the tip of my tongue. I turn away and walk to the door, but the minute my hand is on the knob, he barks, “Do not open that door.”

The spew begins. I whirl on him. “I tried to leave and get into IA, but you wouldn’t let me.”

“That was an emotional decision you would have regretted. You’ve let your father hold you back and dictate your damn life. Why?”

I’m back in front of his desk. I’m suddenly back in the department-mandated shrink’s office after my father’s murder, when she’d asked me that same question. In a weak moment, I’d blurted out a truth I didn’t even know existed: I needed to understand him. I needed to find the good in him.

I found good in all the criminals he put away and people he saved, but I found just as much bad in the gray he allowed to blacken his soul. I never found that understanding. But none of this is the captain’s business, and that he brings this up now is manipulation of the worst kind with motivation I’m not going to analyze. He’s not my concern. The Poet’s past and future victims are.

I straighten my spine, and he no longer looks as big as he did minutes ago, not with my proverbial fists drawn. “Roberts resigned by phone to you. He applied to the Houston captain by phone and email. What do you think happened to him?”

“Roberts disappearing doesn’t fit your killer’s playbook. He poses them, naked and tied to a chair, with a poem in their mouths.”

“Roberts wasn’t one of the intended targets. He was a nuisance he had to get out of the way.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know it. I feel it. I have the highest solve rate of the department and one of the highest solve rates in the country. It always starts here.” I ball my fist over my gut. “Always.”

“Feelings don’t convict criminals.”

“No, people do. I do. We have the ViCAP report in from the FBI, thanks to Wade, who isn’t just some boy toy and you know it. That report, and his team, found four additional cases we’re working to link to the ones here. But you have to know that. You talked to Lang. What if it’s Newman? What if he killed one of our own? Give me a day or two to do what I need to get warrants. What happens when the press gets this, Captain? A serial killer headline won’t be kind to our city. Wouldn’t you and the mayor rather catch him before that happens, and tell the city he’s in custody?”

His lips tighten. His entire expression tightens. “If you get your warrant and find nothing, both of us might be begging your boyfriend for a job when the mayor is done with us. If your Poet kills again, and we did nothing, we both might be begging your boyfriend for a job. In other words, get this bastard now. And get out of my office and do it now.”

I don’t need to be told twice. I get out of his office.

Chapter 62

I walk toward the conference room with my cell phone already in hand, tabbing through numbers to locate the one for the ADA on the Summer case, who’s about to inherit a second case and me yet again.

He answers on the first ring. “Detective Jazz. I heard you’re taking over the Summer case.”

“It’s not one case anymore. We have another murder with the same characteristics. Thanks to some FBI support, we believe we have connected cases in two different states over a number of years.” I pause just outside the conference room. “I need to see you today.”

“How many cases are we talking about?”

“Two in New York. One in Houston. One in Brownsville where Newman grew up. Two here where he lives now.”

“Where he grew up and lives is circumstantial evidence.”

“Six murders now if you count Roberts. He’s missing.”

“Holy hell. Roberts is missing?”

“Yes. Roberts is missing.”

I can almost hear him thinking. “Okay. Okay. You have my attention. I don’t even know when I can talk. I’m walking into court. I can’t promise what time I’m going to be free. I’ll have my assistant call you. It may be six or after.”

“Name the time, I’ll be there.”

“See you soon, Detective Jazz.” He disconnects.

I slide my phone back into my jacket and enter the conference room. “I meet with the ADA this evening. We have until then to get me something to support a warrant.”



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