Page 54 of Only You

Like he had to ask.

Eileen:Haven’t started yet. I was in with the captain.

Declan:I order you to eat.

Eileen:Oh, do you, now? Also, Eddie said he would trade secrets for a burger any day of the week.

Three dots appeared, then disappeared. Then reappeared before the text came in.

Declan:I might have to take him up on that. Now, stop texting with me and eat.

So, for once in her life, she would do what a man told her to and start eating. God, the man knew how to cook, and before long, she had devoured the whole thing.

“Damn, that was fast,” Eddie said.

“Like you can talk.”

He smiled at her just as her phone rang. She thought it was going to be Declan, but she was wrong. Instead, it was a reporter she knew worked for one of the big national news agencies. She sighed. Since she was the lead on the case, she couldn’t ignore him.

“O’Reilly.”

“Detective O’Reilly, this is Johnathon Carmichael, and I understand you have a serial in town.”

“We do?”

There was a pause. “I thought there had been a connection made between the two cases in the last two weeks. Young women stabbed to death with a knife with an ornate handle.”

That had not been released to the public.

“We have not made any connections between the two cases.” It was true. The two women did not cross paths that they could tell. “And even so, you know that the FBI considers serials to be three or more murders that are similar.”

“Hmm. That’s odd. I had Detective Henry call me with the information.”

For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. Vic Henry died ten years earlier. She knew because he had been one of the detectives who had worked on the Norma Wilson case.

“From this precinct? I think you’ve had a prank caller. We don’t have a Detective Henry here.”

Another long pause. She wasn’t lying since they genuinely didn’t have a Henry there anymore.

“If you could give us the number, we could run it down for you.”

“It was an unknown caller.”

“Ah, well, sorry about that. I don’t know who would be messing with you.”

“If I could get a comment from you?”

“No comment. Johnathon, you know we do not make statements about ongoing investigations.”

“Fine. I will find this person.”

“You do that.”

She hung up. “Who was that?” Eddie asked.

“Johnathon Carmichael.”

Then, she rose out of her seat and headed back to the captain’s office. She knocked and waited for him to call her in.

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