Schultz grinned, then jerked his head toward the board at the corner of the room.
I went with them, staring at the face of a stone-eyed man that looked perpetually pissed off. Even though he was eating ice cream next to a beautiful woman.
“This is the assistant to the hair chick,” Schultz said.
“Why do y’all keep calling her that?” I wondered.
“Because that’s her name. Or her company’s name. The Hair Chick. This is Raymond Pasqual. He’s a thirty-eight-year-old man.” Easton paused. “Look familiar?”
I frowned as I studied the man. “No. Should he be familiar?”
“Maybe not,” Chief Wilkerson said. “But this guy should.”
He moved to the chalkboard where he pinned up a photo of another man.
This one that was very familiar.
A man that, until recently, I’d done very good at shutting out of my every thought.
“Monk.”
“Monk,” Chief Wilkerson confirmed.
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed. “And how are they related?”
“Monk is Raymond Pasqual’s brother-in-law,” Easton said as he twisted the board around with all of the writing, pictures, and diagrams on it.
That’s when I saw all of Monk’s information, there for all to see.
Monk was my case. My career-defining case that set me on the path to being known as the best detective there was in the area.
Monk had, for lack of a better word, gotten off scot-free for three murders until I was able to find information on him. And that information I’d found had put him away for close to life without the possibility of parole.
What was that information? I’d found a woman that was willing to testify to some things that she’d seen while helping Monk perform certain tasks for a particular clientele base that wanted to off their spouses.
He’d helped kill what we thought was hundreds of people, all for men and women that wanted their spouses dead for one reason or another. And the informant had been unwilling to the nth degree.
In fact, the only thing that’d kept that informant in line was a child that Monk had control over. A child that I’d saved from a car wreck. A child that, it’d been found, had brain cancer, after a routine CT scan of his head.
A child that was immediately flown to children’s hospital in Dallas where he was ‘safe.’
The mother had heard of me and had broken down and told me everything about her boss who’d been holding her and her son hostage, forcing them to do things they’d never wanted to do.
After finding her a place in witness protection, she’d finally been able to testify against Monk, and Monk, as well as almost all of his employees—those that were willing—went to jail for a very long time.
Only, it looked like we’d missed one, if the feeling I had was true.
And usually they were.
“Pasqual spent eight years learning. He has a doctorate in Criminal Investigation. Worked at a crime lab for two years. And all of a sudden, he’s now working as a menial driver for the Hair Chick,” Chief Wilkerson said.
And it all made a sick sort of sense—how he was able to do everything so perfectly to the point where zero evidence was left behind.
“Fucking sick.”
Chief Wilkerson nodded at my assessment.
“We’re bringing him in now,” he said. “Lucky for us, they’re in Paris this week.”
I nodded. “I’ll be here for the interrogation.”
• • •
Sixteen hours later, I was exhausted, ready to crawl back into bed, and pissy because I’d have to do it by myself.
Unless I could talk Fran into going to bed at seven in the evening.
Though the way I’d have to convince her would take energy, and I was quite low on that right now. Even after downing eight cups of coffee over the last few hours.
Arriving home, it was to find it empty.
No Fran in sight.
I frowned hard, wondering where the hell she was.
Picking up my phone, I saw all the missed calls.
Scrolling past Madden—he’d be pissed because we were supposed to have a meeting tonight about financials and I’d completely blown him off—I went to Fran.
But she didn’t answer.
I cursed and went to my voice mail, hoping to find an answer there, but only got a voice mail from my Grans saying that she loved me, and a pissy one from Madden for standing him up at the restaurant.
Grumbling under my breath, I went to the shower and quickly moved through my routine, coming out only two minutes later.
The steam rushed out right behind me once I opened the shower door, and I blinked when I saw Fran standing there with a bag of food in her hands.
She grinned at me when I finally noticed her.
“Hey,” I said quietly. “Where have you been?”
“I went and did all my errands for the day, then I went to my house and showered and changed, then went to CrossFit. Explained to Madden what was going on. Then went back home to shower and change because I was stupid and did it before class instead of after. Then I grabbed food, and was bringing it back here to put in your fridge for you to have when you got home, but found you home instead.” She paused for a breath of air. “And I got this sweet little show.” She indicated with her hand to my dripping body.
I snorted and pulled the towel down over my hips and covered up the goods, causing her to frown oh so cutely.
“What kind of food did you get?” I wondered.
“The stuff to make macaroni and cheese, and a rotisserie chicken.” She paused. “I’m not the best of cooks. You should know that before you finally do pop the question and ask me to marry you for real.”
A swift grin came over my face at her words.
“I know how to cook. Our children will be fed,” I mused.
Laughing, she turned on her heel and walked away, heading to what I assumed was the kitchen.
That was exactly where I found her once I’d slipped on some underwear and a pair of black sweatpants.
She looked at me as I entered the room, her gaze centering on my crotch.
“I like the gray sweatpants better,” she admitted. “They show off more of the goods. The black just aren’t doing it for me.”
Smiling, I walked up behind her and wrapped her up in my arms, making sure to rub my dick against her ass.
“Don’t worry,” I murmured against her neck. “My dick is most definitely still there. And always hard for you.”
Snickering, she started the water boiling on the stove, and then turned in my arms to wrap her hands around my neck.
“I’m assuming, since you were gone for so long, that you caught a break?” She sounded so hopeful.
“We did,” I confirmed. “But we can’t find him. We have every authority in three states now aware of who he is, though. Not to mention his face was plastered across almost every single TV station on the five o’clock news. If that doesn’t flush him out, I don’t know what will.”
“Did y’all share it on social media?” she asked.
I pulled out my phone and showed her the link. “Over a hundred thousand shares.”
She shook her head. “Wow.”
“People are fuckin’ scared. Especially around here. So yeah, they’re going to share it because they don’t want him taking their kids and wives,” I told her.