Battle Tested. Janie Crouch

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СКАЧАТЬ for the last part. I don’t have any concern about her.” Steve smiled, but it was stiff, as if it had been so long the muscles seemed to have forgotten how. “Just want the reminder not to be a jackass again.”

      “Oh man, are we profiling Steve?” Liam asked from the doorway. “I missed all the good stuff.”

      Liam would probably make the worst profiler ever. The man didn’t care how people thought, just wanted to understand the best way to bring down bad guys.

      “Don’t worry, Liam, I’ll try to control myself and not use your own weapon against you.”

      Liam at least had the good grace to look sheepish. “Sorry about that, boss. I know I—”

      “Don’t worry about it.” Steve cut him off. “I know I haven’t been the easiest person to be around for the last few months.”

      “Are you kidding me? I have a wife trying to nurse newborn twins. She hasn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since they were born. You are not the grumpiest person I know.”

      Steve snickered. “Glad to hear I at least beat out an exhausted new mother.”

      “Yeah, well, I keep my weapons away from her too.” Liam grinned.

      The two men took a seat. It was good to feel something besides anger. Listening to Brandon’s profile had helped Steve realize it was time to let it all go.

      Yeah, he’d been a fool and had gotten played. But now it was time to move on.

      * * *

      STEVE LEFT LATE that night and was back in the office early the next morning, as per his usual habits. Like always, Cynthia was in the office before Steve got there.

      “Morning, Steve.” She handed him a stack of papers as he came in. “I’ve got your overnight Washington, DC, briefings, your weekly Omega Division Directors’ update and your Pensacola police briefings.”

      Steve took the papers from her. “Thanks.”

      As he got to the door to his office, he turned back. It was time. Past time.

      “You can stop the Pensacola PD briefings. I don’t need those anymore.”

      He didn’t even know why he had started them in the first place. Well, actually, he did. He figured Rosalyn would probably be arrested at some point. If she was a small-time crook preying on traveling salesmen, she would probably get arrested eventually.

      What he really didn’t know was what the hell he planned to do if her name came across his desk in an arrest report. Press charges himself? Or go get her released and keep her with him and make sure she never did anything that stupid again?

      He shook his head, irritated with himself for his thoughts. He walked over to the evidence bag with the glass. He picked it up and carried it to the trash can by his desk. He hesitated just the briefest of moments before tossing it in.

      It was time.

      Steve set the division updates—the weekly reports that allowed all the directors to know what was happening in the different sectors of Omega—in one pile. He grabbed the Pensacola police reports and prepared to throw them in the trash.

      A picture from that group caught his attention and brought him up short. A Jane Doe the Pensacola police hadn’t been able to identify.

      It was Rosalyn. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully.

      But the picture was from the county morgue.

      Rosalyn was dead.

       Chapter Five

      Steve caught the first flight he could get to Pensacola. Sadness and guilt weighed on him the entire time.

      The prints on the glass in his office—immediately fished out of the trash—were being run right now. If Rosalyn was in any law enforcement system, Steve would have the full results by the time he met with the Pensacola police.

      Damn it, he should have run them earlier. Should’ve gotten her information and gone after Rosalyn himself. Okay, maybe she might have had to do a short stint in prison for theft, but at least she would be alive.

      Steve had known something was wrong, known Rosalyn was in serious trouble, but he hadn’t been able to look past his wounded pride to see she got the help she needed.

      And now it was too late.

      He got the information about the prints via email as he was getting off the plane in Pensacola.

      Rosalyn Mellinger.

      Twenty-four years old from Mobile, Alabama.

      Her prints actually weren’t in any of the law enforcement databases; that’s why the Pensacola PD hadn’t been able to identify her. Cynthia had been able to identify Rosalyn from something to do with her juvenile record. She couldn’t access the full record but had been able to link the print from the glass to the record.

      Steve drove straight to the police department, which also housed the coroner’s office. It was midafternoon but Steve was determined to identify Rosalyn’s body today. Somehow he couldn’t stand the thought of her sitting another night unidentified in the morgue.

      The Pensacola county sheriff and the coroner were both waiting for Steve when he walked in.

      “Agent Drackett.” The sheriff, a portly man in his fifties, extended his hand for shaking. “Is agent the right title? I’m Sheriff Harvey Palmer.”

      “Just call me Steve.” He shook the man’s hand.

      “This is Dwayne Prase, our county coroner.” Steve shook his hand too.

      They began walking down the hallway to the morgue.

      “We really appreciate you coming all the way from Colorado,” Sheriff Palmer said. “I have to be honest—I didn’t expect your call.”

      “I don’t know the victim in any official capacity. I met her when I was on vacation here six months ago. We spent a few days together. I recognized her immediately when the Jane Doe picture came across my desk.”

      “I see.” The sheriff nodded and thankfully didn’t ask why Steve would be getting police reports from Pensacola. “No one here has missed her at all. No missing-persons report or anyone asking about her. Her prints didn’t show up in any of our computers.”

      Steve nodded. If he hadn’t had access to the Omega databases, he wouldn’t have known anything about Rosalyn either.

      “She was definitely murdered?”

      Palmer nodded. “Yes, strangled. In her car in a parking lot.”

      “She’d been dead for hours before anyone found her,” the coroner chimed in. “And has been here unidentified for nearly thirty-six hours.”

      Steve brought his fingers up to the bridge СКАЧАТЬ