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  That was all Hunter needed.

  “How did you happen to find out about this, anyway?” Hunter asked the other detective. He slowed down in order to allow Wilson to catch up.

  “Heard two detectives talking in the snack room. Thought of that cold case you had,” Wilson said with a touch of bravado. They got to the elevator and he pressed the down button. “What do you think are the odds that these hands and head are your cold case’s head and hands?” Wilson asked.

  “Well, given that this isn’t a run-of-the-mill kind of kill,” Hunter speculated as the elevator car arrived, “I’d say the odds are better than fifty-fifty.”

  Getting in and holding the door open for Wilson, he waited until the other detective got on, then pressed for the basement. Ordinarily, the medical examiner’s offices were housed in a different building. However, in the interest of efficiency, in the last few months the office had been moved to the building that housed the police department. It now occupied the same floor as the CSI lab and the computer tech department.

  The elevator arrived in the basement, but as the doors opened, Wilson remained where he was. When Hunter glanced at him, Wilson said, “I’ll let you go the rest of the way yourself.”

  “You don’t want to come with me?” Hunter asked.

  He’d been surprised that the detective had accompanied him this far and had just assumed that Wilson would tag along to see if this was indeed connected to the cold case he’d taken over when he first came to the division.

  However, Wilson looked more than a little pale as he hung back.

  “I’ve seen enough things on this job to give me nightmares as it is. I don’t need this to prey on my mind, too. Just wanted to bring you the ‘good news,’” Wilson said, raising his voice just as the elevator doors closed again.

  Hunter shook his head. “Takes all kinds,” he murmured under his breath.

  He wasn’t particularly anxious to see a dismembered head either, but if it brought closure to the case he’d worked on over the last few years, it would be well worth it. Maybe now he could go through the database and put a name to the headless, handless person who had been his first case. Put a name to him and possibly bring closure to a family if the murder victim actually had one.

  In any event, as long as the fingerprints weren’t burnt off—and he really doubted that they would be, because why get rid of the hands if you could burn off the prints more easily—he stood a good chance of at least giving the victim a name.

  The moment Hunter stepped into the medical examiner’s room, he knew that the head and hands didn’t belong to the man whose file was in his desk. The head and hands on the ME’s table looked much too fresh, as if whoever had been dismembered and buried had suffered the indignities less than a week ago. Decomposition hadn’t gone too far yet. The victim in his cold case file had been killed several years ago and his hands and feet—unless extraordinary measures had been taken to preserve those body parts—would have been badly decomposed.

  Still, he was here so he might as well ask a few questions, Hunter thought.

  “What do you have for me, Doc?” Hunter asked, walking in.

  “Not all that much yet I’m afraid,” Dr. Alexander Rayburn said, gesturing toward the three body parts on his table. “The crime lab techs just brought this lovely package to me about two hours ago.”

  The head he was looking at had gray hair and a very pale complexion. If nothing else, the victim hadn’t been a sun worshipper, Hunter thought. “Can you tell me how long he’s been dead?” he asked the ME.

  “Well, all this is still preliminary, but my guess is that he’s been dead for about a week, possibly less, maybe a little more. Judging from his face, I’d say that he’s a man in his later fifties. A professional man,” the doctor added.

  Hunter looked at the ME, puzzled. “How can you tell that?”

  “The hands,” the doctor answered. He picked up one carefully in his gloved hand. “There are no calluses on his hands, no rough skin. He didn’t work with his hands, he worked with his brain.”

  “Which it seems was generously delivered to you, as well,” Hunter commented, looking at the victim’s head. He circled the table slowly, looking at the three dismembered parts that were laid out on the table. “What kind of a person does this, Doc?”

  “That’s an easy one to answer,” the ME said. “A sick person. A methodical person. And an extremely organized person.” He looked at Hunter. “These cuts weren’t made hastily, or haphazardly. The killer knew exactly where to cut for minimum damage and bone resistance. My guess is that the victim was anesthetized—or more likely, already dead—when he was cut up.”

  Hunter separated himself from the deed that the ME was describing. It was a coping mechanism he’d learned to use on his first case. Otherwise, he’d be spending every available moment in the men’s room, throwing up his last meal.

  “Anything else?” he asked the ME.

  “Yes.” The doctor looked up at Hunter and said with atypical passion, “I hope that the bastard who did this rots in hell.”

  “You and me both, Doc,” Hunter agreed.

  Well, he’d gotten what he came for. This didn’t involve his cold case. Even so, Hunter remained in the room and continued to thoughtfully look at the body parts that were laid out on the ME’s table.

  “Something on your mind I can help you with, Detective?” the ME asked, glancing at Hunter over his shoulder. “You said these aren’t the missing parts from your cold case.”

  “They’re clearly not,” Hunter agreed.

  “Well, I know that it isn’t my scintillating company that’s keeping you here,” the ME said, “so what’s the problem?”

  Hunter went on studying the dismembered parts on the table. He had an eerie feeling about them. About this whole thing.

  “The problem is that I think my cold case might very well have been the first victim for whoever killed this man.”

  The doctor looked up from the notes he was taking and looked pointedly at the detective. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Hunter nodded. “I think we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” the doctor said, pausing, “but doesn’t it usually take three victims before someone can be declared to be a serial killer?”

  Hunter nodded, but even as he did, he said, “I’m sure there’s a third body out there somewhere. And possibly a fourth and a fifth. I’m going to take a cadaver dog out there with me and check that whole area where these hands and head were found,” he informed the ME.

  The ME sighed. The doctor had a very clear picture of what lay ahead if Hunter was successful in his “mission.”

  “I’d say ‘good luck’ but I’m not sure which way that would be,” the ME told Hunter.

  Just as Hunter was leaving the room, he almost walked right into MacKenzie Cavanaugh. Backing up, he inclined his head as he smiled at her. “Kenzie.”

  She nodded, as well, uttering a crisp, “Hunter.”

  “Suddenly there’s a really cold chill in the room,” the ME commented.

  “Well, Brannigan’s on his way out, so the chill’ll be gone soon,” Kenzie told the medical examiner.

  The doctor looked in her direction. “What brings you down here?”

  Kenzie wanted to make sure that she wasn’t trying to locate a man who was already dead, so starting out in the ME’s office made sense. “I came to find out if you have any unclaimed bodies down here.”

  “Only mine,” Hunter volunteered, speaking up from the doorway.

  Kenzie chose to ignore him. Hunter Brannigan might be really close friends with two of her brothers, but she had no intention of encouraging the ladies’ man to talk to her any more than absolutely necessary.

  “Who are you looking for?” the ME asked Kenzie.

  But at
that moment, Kenzie had glanced down at the dismembered head on the table and her mouth dropped open.

  “I’m looking for this man,” she said, the words almost dribbling out of her mouth as she held up the photo that Connie had given her.

  Chapter 3

  The medical examiner looked briefly at the photograph that Kenzie had in her hand. There was no doubt about the match.

  “Then I’d say you found him. Or what there is of him at the moment,” the doctor amended.

  Kenzie felt shell-shocked. This was so much worse than what she’d expected. Connie was going to be devastated when she broke the news to her.

  “When—when did this happen?” Kenzie asked, trying not to let the scene get to her. It wasn’t the gruesomeness of the crime so much as the crime itself that she found unnerving.

  The medical examiner looked at her. “You’re the second person to ask me that in the last few minutes. I’ll tell you what I said to Detective Brannigan—” Dr. Rayburn got no further.

  Kenzie looked at the ME sharply. “Detective Brannigan?” she echoed in surprise.

  “That would be me,” Hunter said, raising his hand as he walked back into the room.

  She whirled around to look at the man who had managed to rub her the wrong way more times than she could possibly begin to remember.

  “Why were you asking questions about John Kurtz?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t,” he told her. “I was asking questions about the person whose body parts were spread out on the doc’s table.”

  “John Kurtz,” she repeated, as if to drill the name into his head.

  “So it would seem, but I didn’t know that at the time,” Hunter pointed out.

  Brannigan was just trying to confuse her, something he had always taken far too much enjoyment in doing, Kenzie thought. She deliberately turned her back on him as she addressed the medical examiner.

  “You were about to tell me about John Kurtz’s time of death, Doctor,” she prodded.

  “As I told Detective Brannigan here, I still have to run more tests,” the doctor said, focusing on what he had on his table, “but my best guess is that your Mr. Kurtz has been dead for a week.”

  “Where was he found?” she asked. “Who brought him in?”

  The interest in her voice was obvious. It in turn piqued Hunter’s. He circled around Kenzie until he was facing her.

  “Do you know him?” he asked.

  “I know his daughter. She came in this morning to file a missing person report on him,” Kenzie answered stiffly, addressing her words to the doctor, not Hunter. She deliberately avoided making eye contact with the detective. “Who found him?” she asked again.

  The medical examiner told them what he knew. “From what I gather, he—or at least the parts that you see here—was in a shallow grave that yesterday’s downpour washed up. A couple of kids playing in the mud made the discovery. Their rather hysterical mother called the police. The rest you know,” the doctor concluded.

  “Where was this?” Kenzie asked.

  “Along the border of Aurora Park,” the medical examiner answered.

  “I’m taking a cadaver dog with me to the scene where the body parts were found,” Hunter told her, speaking up. “Care to come with me?”

  This time she did look at him.

  The first time she had ever heard of Hunter Brannigan, two of her brothers, Murdoch and Finn, were talking about how Brannigan had a different woman on his arm every time he went out. To hear them say it, Hunter ran on batteries and Southern Comfort, although, amazingly enough, he was also considered a damn good detective who had risen rather quickly through the ranks on his own merit. He was assigned to the Cold Case Division because the thinking was, if anyone could clear the old cases, Brannigan could.

  Maybe, in another lifetime, they could have even been friends, despite his confident swagger. But she had terminated a rather painful engagement a little over two years ago, the details of which she had kept to herself. Her fiancé, Billy Gibson, had been a tomcat who’d had a weakness for prowling around despite all his promises to reform and be faithful. After his third transgression, she’d given him his walking papers. She hadn’t said anything to anyone because if her brothers had caught wind of why she’d broken the engagement off, they would have skinned Billy and proceeded to hang him from the highest flagpole.

  Since then, Kenzie had been very leery of silver-tongued handsome men. That description fit Hunter Brannigan to a T.

  “What interest do you have in John Kurtz?” Kenzie asked.

  Hunter’s shimmering green eyes skimmed over her from top to bottom before he answered. “I don’t.”

  He could make her lose her patience faster than any human being she had ever encountered, and that included Billy. Kenzie struggled now to hold on to her temper as she asked, “Then why would you be going to the scene where he was found?”

  He slowly smiled at Kenzie, knowing that it annoyed her. He couldn’t explain why, but he really liked getting under her skin. “Let’s just say I have a real interest in the person who did this to him.”

  “Why?” Kenzie demanded.

  Hunter saw no reason to keep this a secret. Teasing Kenzie took a back seat to possibly solving a case—or at least getting one step closer to solving it.

  “Because I think that my cold case might have been this guy’s first murder,” he told her.

  “Why?” she repeated.

  It was obvious to him that because of their past history, she was going to take some convincing. He had no problem with that.

  “Because my cold case is missing his head and hands, too,” he told her. “Now, you’re welcome to come along, or you can stay here and I’ll let you know what I find—if I remember.”

  He saw her eyes flash—just as he had expected them to. “This is my case, Brannigan,” she insisted.

  “That’s not how I see it,” Hunter replied mildly.

  “Now, now, children, play nice,” the medical examiner said. “I’ve got a feeling that there’s plenty enough here for both of you to share.”

  Kenzie didn’t want to admit it—since Hunter was involved—but in all likelihood, the ME was right. But even so, she had no desire to team up with Hunter.

  “I can take the dog,” she told Hunter.

  The same infuriating smile was back on Hunter’s face. He dug in. “That’s not happening.”

  She wasn’t about to have this devolve into a shouting match—and she had no intentions of letting Brannigan go without her.

  Kenzie frowned. “I have to let my partner know where I’m going.”

  “Go ahead and do that,” Hunter told her. “I’ve got to go to the K-9 unit and secure a dog.”

  “They’re not going to just give you a dog,” she informed Hunter. “If nothing else, his handler has to come with the dog.”

  “Even better,” Hunter commented. While he liked dogs, his involvement with canines ended with throwing a stick and having the dog chase it. Having someone along who knew what they were doing with canines was all good as far as he was concerned. “We’ll meet you out back once I make arrangements with the K-9 unit.”

  A red flag went up in her head. Kenzie didn’t trust Brannigan to wait for her.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” she told Hunter. “Why don’t you come with me up to Missing Persons so I can tell Choi where I’ll be and then I’ll come with you to the K-9 unit.”

  She couldn’t tell what he was thinking until his eyes washed over her again. “This isn’t first grade, Cavanaugh. We really don’t need to pair up to walk through the halls,” he told her. “Although, I have to say that it does sound like it has potential.”

  “Listen to her, Brannigan,” the ME advised. “She’s a Cavanaugh. They tend to get things done.”

  “So do I, Doc,” Hunter answered. “But in the spirit o
f détente, I’ll bow to your wisdom,” he said, inclining his head.

  Kenzie left the morgue quickly. But although she moved fast, Hunter kept up with her pace as if it took no effort on his part at all.

  They reached the elevator together. She had no intention of saying anything to Hunter, but the silence within the car once they got on became almost unnervingly deafening. She could all but feel his eyes on her, taking inventory. And when she turned to look at the man she’d heard some of her friends refer to as a dark blond Adonis, she saw that he was smiling at her.

  A rather wide smile.

  “Why are you grinning, Brannigan?” she demanded.

  His shrug was careless and utterly infuriating. “I guess I’m just a happy person.”

  “Well, stop it,” she ordered. “You might enjoy looking like a happy idiot, but I have to tell someone I know that her father’s not coming home tonight.” She set her mouth grimly. “Or ever.”

  “You want help with that?” he offered.

  If she didn’t know him, she would have said that his offer sounded genuine. But she did know Brannigan and she was convinced that he didn’t possess a genuine bone in his body. “I don’t need you to hit on her,” Kenzie informed him.

  “I wasn’t planning to. Whatever else you might think of me, I am good at my job. Breaking bad news is never easy and I was just offering to help since you said you knew the victim’s daughter. It might be easier on everyone all around if I handle this.”

  She resented his intrusion. Resented everything that Brannigan represented. “I don’t need you to handle anything for me,” she informed him heatedly.

  He raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender. “Point taken, Kenzie.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she snapped as they got off the elevator.

  “What would you like me to call you?” he asked. “Your Majesty’s a little formal, but I’m game if that’s what you want.”

  Her eyes narrowed into blue slits of lightning. “Cavanaugh,” she said. “Just call me by my last name, the way you would anyone else you work with.”