Shayla had taken the wrapped sandwich and fries out of the bag and placed them on the small table in his equally small kitchen.

  Flattening the bag, she held it up for him to see the Malone’s logo.

  “It’s a local bar and grill run by a retired detective. Actually, everyone who works there used to be with the police force,” she added. “You should come down sometime.” Her face lit up at the thought. “I can take you there.”

  If he told her not to come, Gabriel sensed that wouldn’t be enough to put the woman off, so he told her shortly, “I’m not planning to have any time for that.”

  “You can’t work all the time,” she told him, thinking about the old saying that all work and no play made for a dull person. Shayla pressed her lips together, deciding that saying so out loud could probably just lead to an argument that she didn’t want to have right now.

  He focused on what she had just said about his not being able to work all the time. His eyes narrowed, taking it as a challenge. “Try me,” Cortland told her.

  “Right now, I think you should try the steak sandwich,” Shayla urged, deliberately changing the topic. “It tastes good cold, but it’s even better warm.”

  It did smell good, Gabriel thought almost against his will. The tempting aroma just reminded him that stale crackers for dinner didn’t quite cut it. But he wasn’t about to have this bossy little fresh-out-of-the-box detective telling him when and what to eat.

  And he really wanted to get her out of his apartment.

  “Maybe later,” he told her as he took a step back toward the front door.

  But Shayla didn’t move. She remained exactly where she was and nodded toward the food she had placed on the table.

  “Let’s just say that you’re not getting rid of me until I see you eating.” She deliberately didn’t phrase her statement to say, “Start eating.” She wanted the process to include finishing the meal, otherwise, she wouldn’t put it past him to stubbornly throw the food out.

  She could see by the look on Cortland’s face that he was definitely considering that unspoken option.

  “You really do know how to make a pest of yourself, don’t you?” Cortland said, stunned by her behavior and, at the same time, rather surprised by her single-mindedness. It occurred to him that she would be a driven detective if she applied that same stubbornness to a case she was on.

  Rather than be insulted that Cortland had called her a pest, Shayla smiled complacently at him and said, “I have a PhD in it.”

  Gabriel came close to laughing. “I just bet you do,” he answered. Turning on his heel, Gabriel spared his annoying partner a glance and said, “Well, c’mon,” and then walked into the small kitchen.

  Buoyed and hopeful, Shayla followed.

  Against the wall there was the small table where she’d placed the sandwich and fries. Three chairs surrounded the table. Cortland took a seat directly opposite the one that Shayla slipped into.

  “Good?” she asked after Cortland had had a chance to take a couple of bites of his sandwich.

  The sandwich was still warm, but Gabriel just shrugged. “It’s okay,” he said in between more bites.

  “I’ll pass that heady praise of yours to Reese, who currently does all the cooking at Malone’s. I’ll just make sure all the knives and meat cleavers are out of reach before I say anything,” she confided, a smile playing on her lips.

  Sharp green eyes narrowed ever so slightly as Gabriel looked at her. “Is sarcasm your first language or your second?” he asked.

  “Second,” she answered without hesitation. “Being around certain types of people just seems to bring it out of me,” she said innocently. And then, still looking up at him, Shayla promised, “I’ll try to keep a lid on it.”

  Gabriel shrugged again, trying not to allow his irritation to surface. Ever since Natalie had been killed, he’d had trouble holding on to his temper. It was better now than when he was drinking, but it still wasn’t the way it used to be.

  “Suit yourself,” he told her.

  “I usually do,” she answered honestly. “But I also like taking the people around me into account.”

  He found himself wondering again if she was on the level. “Must get tiring,” he noted.

  “At times,” she agreed. She was still looking at him pointedly. “But at other times it can be extremely satisfying.” She sat back and continued to watch him eat.

  Gabriel realized he was waiting for her to stop. To grow tired of being this cheerful Pollyanna and allow her true colors to finally surface. This woman had been perpetuating this act all day, and even people pretending to be Santa Claus had to give it a rest eventually, right?

  But this eager beaver seemed to enjoy this act she had been playing all day, and she gave no sign of stopping or even of backing off the tiniest bit.

  “You seem really invested in having me finish every last bite,” Gabriel noted. “Is that when the cyanide kicks in?” he asked sarcastically.

  “No, not until a day or two later,” she answered with such a straight face, for a second Gabriel actually thought that she was being serious.

  And then she started to laugh, giving herself away and, coincidentally, annoying the hell out of him.

  “That wasn’t funny,” he informed her icily.

  “Neither is treating me like the enemy or some invading force,” Shayla countered. Pausing, she told herself to regroup. “Look, why don’t we both return to our corners and start over?”

  For the sake of getting along, she had placed herself in with him, but in her honest opinion, her grumpy partner was the only one who needed to return to his corner and start over.

  But she wasn’t here to judge him, Shayla reminded herself. She was here to try to win him over and make him realize that she wasn’t just his partner. She could be his friend if he only let his guard down a little and let her in.

  When Cortland made no response, she leaned in a little, reached up to take hold of an imaginary bell and said, “Ding, ding, ding.”

  He frowned at her. Maybe it was her imagination, but the frown didn’t seem quite as intense as it had been initially. Progress? she thought hopefully.

  “You missed your calling,” Cortland told her. “Maybe you should be doing voice-overs in cartoons.”

  “Maybe,” Shayla replied, nodding as if she was giving the idea some thought.

  He watched her for a long moment, unable to understand her motives any more now than he had when she had first arrived. “I take it this is what people mean when they refer to bending over backward,” Cortland guessed.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she replied innocently. “I’m not bending.”

  The expression on his face was the last word in skepticism. She was kidding, right? Still, he asked, “So this is normal behavior for you?”

  Her smile was almost blinding. “Now you’re learning,” she told him.

  He realized that he had almost eaten the whole sandwich—and it had been exceptionally thick, as well as good. But what really bothered him was that the food—and his no longer empty stomach—had managed to distract him.

  He never should have opened the door.

  “Look,” he started, “I don’t know what your game is, but—”

  “I already told you this morning when we were first introduced. There is no game. All I care about is working with you and, just possibly, if we do it right, making this small part of the world a better, safer place for the people who are in it.” Shayla’s eyes met his. “Nothing else really matters.”

  She was some actress, he thought. Another man might have believed her. But another man hadn’t been through what he had.

  “And you expect me to believe that?” he challenged.

  Shayla’s eyes never wavered from his. “Yes,” she replied, “I do. Maybe not today or tomorrow or even the next day, but eventually. Because it’s true.”

  Cortland grunted just the way he had done earlier in the office. Nobody was this sunny, he thought. Nobody.

  “And if you happen to cut your finger, is sugar going to come pouring out?” he asked.

  He was goading her. It was hard to keep the smile on her face, but she managed even as she rose to her feet.

  “I really wouldn’t recommend doing that to see if you’re right,” she told him.

  It took him a second to realize that she was heading toward the door. He had wanted her to do that since she had arrived, yet now that it looked as if it was really happening, he almost couldn’t believe it.

  Belatedly, he came to and followed her, walking his so-called partner to the door a step behind her.

  “Well, thanks for the steak sandwich—and the fries.” His own voice sounded almost awkward to him.

  “My pleasure,” she answered, her tone bright again. “I figured there was no advantage in having a partner whose stomach was rumbling at inopportune times.”

  Gabriel took offense at the offhanded comment. “My stomach wasn’t rumbling,” he informed her.

  “It was only a matter of time,” she promised. “Don’t forget, I did grow up with all those brothers and cousins. I am well acquainted with the sounds of hunger, and to the best of my recollection, you hadn’t eaten.”

  “I could have gotten something to eat after I left the precinct,” he pointed out.

  “Then I wouldn’t have found you with a container of stale crackers in your hand,” she told him.

  Now she was just reaching. “How would you even know they were stale?” he asked.

  “The noise they made when you bit into one,” she answered cheerfully. “Fresh crackers sound different from stale ones.”

  “And you’ve investigated crackers?” Cortland asked cynically.

  She didn’t answer him directly. “It’s all just part of conducting intense investigations,” she informed him. “You never know when one small piece of information can suddenly fit in and make everything else just click into place.” She glanced at her watch. “Now, it’s getting late, and I should go so you can get some sleep.”

  He stared at her. Just how old did she think he was? “It’s not even eight o’clock.”

  “I know, but it probably takes you a long time to finally fall asleep. I had better leave so that you can get started.”

  His sleeping patterns had been off for the last nine months. He couldn’t fall asleep for hours, and when he finally did, nightmares would quickly materialize and haunt him. He would wake up feeling even more tired than when he had finally fallen asleep.

  But he had never told anyone that. He wasn’t the kind to share. This partner of his was getting to be downright creepy.

  “How would you know that?” Gabriel asked.

  “You have bags under your eyes. The kind that come from lack of sleep. Since you’re currently not working a case, there’s only one thing that could keep you up—your own thoughts. And those are hard to bury,” she told him knowingly. The next moment, she opened his door. “See you tomorrow, partner,” she said cheerfully as she slipped out the door.

  Cavanaugh was an annoying, pushy woman who had managed, in the matter of just hours, to get under his skin like some sort of infectious rash, Gabriel thought as he watched her go.

  And, he supposed, judging by her conclusions, she also seemed like she had the makings of a half-decent detective.

  Biting off an oath, Gabriel flipped the lock on his door, closing it.

  Unless the woman had learned how to slip under the door like some sort of witch, that should keep her out, he decided.

  Chapter 6

  Gabriel arrived at the precinct the next morning at seven thirty. It wasn’t so much that he was eager to get started. Oddly enough, the quiet in his apartment after his chatty pseudopartner had left began to get to him. Every sound seemed to be amplified.

  He could hear his ears ringing.

  Gabriel had thought of putting on the television in order to have some background noise, but there was nothing on except for either inane programs that insulted his intelligence or sickeningly “clever” newscasters who thought they were entertaining because they were bantering back and forth while making little sense.

  At that point, Gabriel had given up and just gone to bed.

  Going to bed turned out to be another futile endeavor for him. Not for lack of trying, Gabriel had managed to get in about five hours of sleep. Not straight through, but in broken snatches.

  The last time he woke up, he figured he was done for the night. Because he was, he decided to go in earlier than he was actually scheduled to come in.

  Aurora was known as one of the more peaceful, law-abiding cities in the country. Still, he reasoned, there had to be something happening now that he could sink his teeth into.

  And, if he hadn’t missed his guess, this city was exactly the type of setting that the Moonlight Killer, as he had been dubbed by some journalist, was looking for in order to leave his new mark.

  The heartless ghoul enjoyed nothing better than bringing fear into the hearts of heretofore peaceful people.

  Because of the proximity of his apartment to the precinct as well as the lack of traffic, Gabriel managed to make it from his apartment to the precinct in no time flat.

  The homicide squad room was practically empty when he walked in.

  Or so it looked at first glance.

  And then Gabriel stopped dead.

  Apparently nightmares continue even when you’re awake, Gabriel thought, seeing his partner already at her desk.

  Approaching Shayla, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Shayla had barely made it in a few minutes earlier, managing to get an abbreviated run in before taking a quick shower. Pleased with herself, she looked up at her partner, a hint of an amused smile curving her mouth.

  “I work here, remember?”

  Oh, he remembered all right, Gabriel thought. He had thought—hoped, really—that by coming in so early, he would be able to avoid her for at least an hour, possibly longer. Obviously, he had thought wrong.

  “I know,” he answered formally. “But you don’t work this early.”

  “Actually,” she told him, “I like getting an early start.” Shayla nodded toward her computer screen. “I decided to read everything I could find about that serial killer in LA and the surrounding area. By the way, that coffee is for you,” she said, tilting her head at the large, covered container standing in the middle of his desk.

  He hadn’t even noticed it. She had been what had caught his attention, front and center. “Where did it come from?” Cortland asked.

  “Well, if I said the coffee fairy, you probably wouldn’t believe me,” Shayla laughed, “so why don’t we just say that it came from the coffee shop at the end of the block?”

  He made no move to pick up the container. Instead, he continued just looking at it with suspicion. “What’s it doing here?”

  “Standing?” she supplied, amused.

  “Damn it, Cavanaugh—” The woman had just managed to make him lose his temper in record time, he thought, frustrated.

  “Ask a stupid question, you force me to give you a stupid answer,” Shayla said, then decided to tell him the truth. “I stopped to get my morning coffee at the shop and decided that you might want something a little stronger than the discolored dishwater that passes for coffee around here.” She looked into his eyes. “I am trying to make this as hospitable a workplace as possible for you, but you’re going to have to work with me a little here.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that.” Gabriel stopped.

  He had to get hold of himself or he would wind up being fired before he had a chance to even start working at this precinct. There was no getting away from the gut feeling that the fiend who had stolen Natalie from him was going to bring his killing spree here next—if he hadn’t already.

  He couldn’t explain why—he just knew.

  So Cortland forced himself to reel in his temper and did his best to sound civilized. “Sorry. Thank you. What do I owe you?” he asked, reaching for his wallet.

  “I’ll take a smile,” Shayla told him cheerfully.

  His eyes met hers. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  She grinned in response. “Ah, you’re learning.” Cortland’s expression appeared almost frozen, and then, slowly, there was just the slightest movement at the corners of his mouth. “I guess that’s good for a first effort,” Shayla told him, nodding her approval. “After all, you can only go up from there.”

  With that, she lowered her eyes and looked back at her computer screen.

  Working diligently, she had managed to find a number of stories about the serial killer, each one more bone-chilling than the last.

  The killings, she discovered, all appeared to have been committed in the evening, and oddly enough, none of the victims had been sexually assaulted.

  Then there was the fact that all the bodies had been tied up in that same painful, hog-tied fashion.

  After reading the tenth story, sickened, Shayla had had to stop for a second.

  She blew out a breath, shaking her head.

  “What?” Cortland asked, curious as to what seemed to have gotten to her.

  She realized that her partner was sitting at his desk, drinking his coffee and watching her. Was he trying to get a handle on her reaction, she wondered, or was there something else going on? She didn’t have a clue. Cortland wasn’t the easiest man to read.

  “By definition,” she said, answering his vaguely worded question, “serial killers are all sick people, but this one, it’s like he goes out of his way to be particularly sick.”

  Gabriel certainly wasn’t about to argue with that. “Yeah.”

  Cortland’s voice sounded painfully flat to her, as if he didn’t just agree with her assessment, he felt it all the way down to his bones.