Page 37 of Chilled

“Yeah, but there’s no guarantee I know him.”

“True.” He nodded at the laptop. “You want to bring that with us to the station?”

“You betcha. I have a lot more work to do, and I’m not letting that drive go up in smoke like Dr. Drummond’s office before I get a thorough look.” As Brenna gathered her computer and slid her arms into her jacket, she summoned the courage to say, “You know, I don’t remember getting from the computer to my bed last night. I must have been really sleepy.” There. If that wasn’t fishing for answers, she didn’t know what was.

“Yeah, you must’ve been really tired.” He headed for the door, no expression whatsoever on his face.

What was that supposed to mean? Did he see her go to bed or not? Brenna counted it off as not and breathed a sigh of relief. She’d hate to think he’d picked her up and carried her into her room while she’d slept like a baby. Not that he would, since it wasn’t part of his job.

Without waiting for Brenna, Nick pulled the door open and walked out first. “By the way...you snore.”

“What?” Her short-lived relief kicked up into a swarm of butterflies in her stomach.

“You heard me.” He didn’t slow down, just kept walking.

Brenna hurried to catch up, all her concerns about this stranger burbling up inside.

Snore?

“I do not.”

“Hey, boss, Agent Jensen.”Paul climbed out of his car at the same time as Nick and Brenna.

“Find anything at the doctor’s office?” Nick didn’t wait for his response as he hurried toward the station.

“Fire chief said there was some kind of electrical device in the plug with the computer. And get this.” Paul opened the door for them. “It triggered a short in the circuit that started the fire.”

Nick stopped short. “Sounds like our guy knows a little about electronics.” Interesting. He glanced at Brenna.

“I’ll add that to the list of things to look for in that patient file. I’m not sure the doctor would have made note of something like ‘not afraid to use knowledge of electricity to torch buildings,’ but you never know.” Brenna stepped around him and continued down the hall to the war room.

Nick followed her, liking the way her black jeans swayed side to side. Familiarity with the muscles beneath didn’t help his concentration. She’d probably be furious if she knew he’d carried her to bed last night. Not to mention having slept most of the night with her curled up against him.

No, Agent Jensen would not be happy. But Nick had slept a whole lot better knowing she was in the same room. Now, if he could just get the curve of her hips off his mind and get back to the business of finding one psychotic murderer.

“Nick, you gotta check this out,” Melissa called from the computer in the corner.

Nick, Paul and Brenna gathered behind Melissa and stared at the screen.

“I didn’t find any recent arson cases, but I found something more interesting. I did like you asked and searched on the victim’s names, starting with Dr. Gomez. Look at this.” Melissa clicked a button, and the screen displayed an online newspaper article with a picture of a smiling Dr. Gomez. The header read “Riverton Women in the News.”

Nick’s stomach clenched. “Any clues in the article?”

“None that I could tell, but wait, there’s more.” Melissa rolled the mouse over a saved website icon and clicked. A picture of Dr. Drummond flashed onto the screen. “You see what I’m seeing? Riverton Women in the News.”

Brenna leaned closer, her face pale and her eyes intent on the picture. “You think he’s targeting these women because they were in the news?”

“I don’t know, but it looks awfully suspicious.” She looked back at Nick.

“What about Michelle Carmichael?” Paul asked.

“She’s in there, too, a week after Gomez.” Melissa clicked and Carmichael’s photo appeared. “It gets worse.”

Nick was almost afraid to ask. “What do you mean?”

She clicked on another icon and a short list of names appeared with dates next to them. “These are the other articles under the same series.” She clicked again, and Brenna’s picture appeared.

Nick’s chest tightened and his glance shot to Brenna.

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