He grinned. “So, how was the outing after the task force meeting?”

  “Good,” she said. “I bought a copy of your book.”

  “Really?” He lifted a brow.

  “Yes, and read the entire thing in one sitting,” Paula admitted, at the risk of giving him a big head. “It was quite interesting in giving a deeper perspective on criminal profiling.”

  “Glad you were able to pick up something from it,” Neil said, wiping perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand. “You never know how much will register and how much won’t.”

  “It registered,” she assured him. “As did what you had to say during the task force meeting.”

  “Good.” He grinned sideways. “I really do want to help in any way I can to bring this unsub to justice. Or at least give you more to work with in delving into his psyche as a serial killer.”

  She nodded. “You’re succeeding on both fronts.”

  In memory of my beloved mother, Marjah Aljean, a devoted lifelong fan of Harlequin romance novels, who inspired me to excel in my personal and professional lives. To H. Loraine, the true love of my life and best friend, whose support has been unwavering through the many terrific years together; and Carole Ann Jones, who left an impact on me with her amazing talents on the screen; as well as the loyal fans of my romance, mystery, suspense and thriller fiction published over the years. Lastly, a nod goes out to my great editors, Allison Lyons and Denise Zaza, for the wonderful opportunity to lend my literary voice and creative spirit to the Harlequin Intrigue line.

  Campus Killer

  R. Barri Flowers

  R. Barri Flowers is an award-winning author of crime, thriller, mystery and romance fiction featuring three-dimensional protagonists, riveting plots, unexpected twists and turns, and heart-pounding climaxes. With an expertise in true crime, serial killers and characterizing dangerous offenders, he is perfectly suited for the Harlequin Intrigue line. Chemistry and conflict between the hero and heroine, attention to detail and incorporating the very latest advances in criminal investigations are the cornerstones of his romantic suspense fiction. Discover more on popular social networks and Wikipedia.

  Books by R. Barri Flowers

  Harlequin Intrigue

  The Lynleys of Law Enforcement

  Special Agent Witness

  Christmas Lights Killer

  Murder in the Blue Ridge Mountains

  Cold Murder in Kolton Lake

  Campus Killer

  Hawaii CI

  The Big Island Killer

  Captured on Kauai

  Honolulu Cold Homicide

  Danger on Maui

  Chasing the Violet Killer

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Paula Lynley—A detective sergeant at Addison University’s Department of Police and Public Safety, in Rendall Cove, Michigan, she is investigating a string of suffocation murders of female professors. She enlists a criminal profiler to help crack the case and finds herself drawn to the handsome ATF special agent.

  Neil Ramirez—A visiting criminologist, he uses his expertise on violent offenders to assist the beautiful detective while gathering intel on a suspected local arms trafficking operation. Could the cases be connected? When Paula becomes a target of a serial killer, Neil is determined to keep her out of harm’s way.

  Gayle Yamasaki—An investigator for the Rendall Cove Police Department’s Detective Bureau, she is working the Campus Killer case and feels the pressure to solve it before there are more victims.

  Michael Davenport—A campus police detective, he is committed to tracking down the serial killer, whatever it takes.

  Craig Eckart—A local arms trafficker under investigation. But could he also be doing double duty as a campus serial killer?

  The Campus Killer—A cunning and determined serial murderer of attractive female professors, who deviates from the norm when going after Paula for the kill.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Murderer Among Us by Heather Graham

  Prologue

  Debra Newton loved being a journalism associate professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Addison University in the bustling college town of Rendall Cove, Michigan. In many ways, it was truly a dream come true for her, having graduated from the very school a decade earlier. Now she got to teach others, inspiring young minds for the formidable challenges of tomorrow. And with the summer session well underway, she was doing just that, putting her journalistic skills to the test with each and every passing day.

  She only wished her love life could be nearly as thought-provoking and satisfying. Bradford Newton, her college sweetheart turned husband, had turned out to be a total jerk, with a roving eye that went after anyone wearing a skirt at his law office. After one time too many of being played for a fool, she finally kicked him to the curb five years ago, and Debra only wished she had done it sooner. Since her divorce, she had just dated occasionally, with most men seemingly less interested in her brain and sense of humor than her flaming long, wavy red hair, good looks and shapely physique. While these various sides to her were important in and of themselves, she wanted to be seen as the total package and wanted the same in a partner.

  Which was why she had turned down a date with a handsome and persistent colleague who, though also single, was a little—make that a lot—too full of himself and a bit scary at times in his demeanor. Similarly, a former administrator, who on paper checked a lot of the boxes for what she was looking for in a potential mate, did not measure up in practice and real time, forcing her to reject his half-hearted advances.

  As if that wasn’t almost enough to turn her off of romance for good, there was the fact that one of Debra’s students had become fixated on her to the point of stalking. Though she had made it abundantly clear that she would never even consider dating a student—not even one who was nearly her own age, having been a late bloomer as an undergrad—this one didn’t seem to take no for an answer. She had decided that enough was enough. She would bring it up to the director of the School of Journalism, as well as report it to the campus police, for the record.

  After classes were over, Debra hopped into her black Audi S3 sedan and headed home. Peeking into the rearview mirror, she could have sworn that she was being followed by a dark SUV. Was her imagination playing tricks on her? Maybe she was getting paranoid for no reason, brought on by her musings.

  This apparently was the case, as the vehicle in question veered off onto another street, the driver seemingly oblivious to her imaginative thoughts. Much less, out to get her. Relaxing, Debra drove to her apartment complex just outside the college campus on Frandor Lane, parked in her assigned spot and headed across the attractively landscaped grounds. She climbed the stairs to her building’s second-floor two-bedroom, two-bath unit. Inside, she put down her mini hobo bag with papers to grade, kicked off mule loafers and strode barefoot across the maple hardwood flooring to the galley kitchen. She took a bottle of red wine from the refrigerator, poured herself a glass and considered if she should eat in or go out for dinner.

  While still contemplating, Debra bypassed the contemporary furnishings and took the wineglass with her to the main bedroom. Maybe I’ll just have a pizza delivered, she told herself, while removing the hairpin holding her bun in place, allowing her locks to fall free across her shoulders.

  Then she heard the sound of a familiar voice say almost comically, “I was beginning to think you’d never get here, Deb.”

  The unexpected visitor’s words gave Debra a start, causing her to drop the glass of wine, its contents spilling onto the brown carpeted floor. He was standing in her bedroom as if he owned the place. How did he get inside her apartment? What did he want?

  “When I sensed that you might be on to me as I followed your car, I took a shortcut to beat you here, while giving you a false sense of security.”

  She recalled the SUV that had been following her and then seemingly wasn’t. Why hadn’t she remembered the type of vehicle he drove?

  “Sorry about the wine,” he said tonelessly, glancing at it and the glass on the floor. “At least you managed to have a sip or two. As for what’s probably foremost on your mind, honestly, it wasn’t all that difficult to break into your apartment. It has a relatively cheap lock that’s easy to pick for someone who knows what he’s doing.”

  Debra froze like an ice sculpture while weighing her options, then asked him tentatively, “What do you want?” Was he actually going to rape her to get what he wanted? Then what? Leave her alone to forever remember what he did? Or report it to the police and have him arrested and charged with a sex crime?

  Why couldn’t he have simply put the moves on someone else who may have been interested in his advances? Or did he get his kicks from power tr
ipping by forcing the action? No matter how she sliced it, Debra didn’t like the outcome. Maybe she could outrun him and escape the apartment, wherein she could whip the cell phone out of the back pocket of her chino pants and call for help. Except for the fact that he was now standing between her and the exit from the room.

  “It’s not good for you, I’m afraid.” His voice burst into her thoughts, while taking on an ominous octave. “You need to die, and I’m here to make sure it happens.”

  As her heart skipped a few beats in digesting his harrowing words, this was when Debra knew she had to make her move before it was too late. What move should that be? The answer was obvious. Anything that could get her out of this alive. And, hopefully, not too badly injured.

  * * *

  HE ANTICIPATED THAT she would try to hit him where it hurt, easily blocking her futile efforts. He was also way ahead of her next instinct to try to somehow worm her way around his sturdy frame and escape what was to be a veritable death trap. He caught her narrow shoulders and tossed her toward the platform bed, expecting her to fall onto the comforter. But she somehow managed to stay on her feet and was about to scream her pretty head off, alerting neighbors. He couldn’t let that happen.

  It only took one well-placed hard blow to her jaw to send Professor Debra Newton reeling backward and flat onto the bed, where she went out like a light. Now it was time for him to finish what he started. She had no one to blame but herself for the unfortunate predicament she was now in. They were all alike when it came right down to it. Believing they could screw guys like him over and not be held accountable. Wrong.

  Dead wrong.

  He lifted the decorative throw pillow off the bed and, just as she began to stir, placed it over her face, pressing down firmly. Though she struggled mightily to break free, he was stronger, far more determined and, as such, took away her means to breathe air before she lost her will to resist altogether and became deathly still. When he finally removed the pillow, he saw that her blue eyes were wide open, but any life in them had gone away for good.

  He sucked in a deep breath and tossed the pillow back on the bed beside her corpse, pleased with what he had done to the professor and already looking ahead for an encore. After all, she wasn’t the only one who needed to be taught a lesson that only female educators could truly appreciate. He laughed at his own sick sense of humor before vacating the premises and making sure he was successful in avoiding detection while engineering his masterful escape.

  * * *

  IT WASN’T LONG before he picked up right where he’d left off. Again and again. Now yet another one bit the dust. Or, if not quite ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the good-looking professor was very much dead. He had seen to that, watching as the life drained out of her like soapy water in a tub. She had been expecting someone else, apparently. But got him instead. Her loss. His gain.

  Like the ones that came before her, he did what he needed to do. What they forced him to do, more or less. Suffocation was such a tough way to die. Fighting for air and finding it in short supply when being cut off from the brain was challenging, to say the least. But that was their tough luck. He made no apologies for playing the villain, falling prey to his inner demons. The ones that drove him to kill and get a charge out of it when the deed was done.

  He took one final look at the dead professor and imagined her looking back at him, had her eyes not been shut for good. Maybe she would meet up in the afterlife with the others and form a dead professors’ society or something to that effect. He nearly burst into laughter at the devious thought but suppressed this, so as not to alert anyone of his presence.

  Leaving the scene of the crime, he made his way down the back stairs, and like a thief—make that murderer—in the night, he moved briskly away from the building without looking back. Only when he was in the safety of his car and on the road did he allow himself to suck in a deep and glorious breath, knowing that he had escaped successfully and could go on with his life as though he hadn’t just committed another cold-blooded murder that, like those before her, she never saw coming.

  Not till it was much, much too late.

  Chapter One

  “Looks like the Campus Killer has taken another professor’s life.” The words lodged deep in Detective Sergeant Paula Lynley’s throat like a jagged chicken bone stuck there, as she relayed this depressing information over speakerphone to Captain Shailene McNamara, her immediate superior in the Investigative Division of the Department of Police and Public Safety at Addison University. Paula was behind the wheel in her duty vehicle, a white Ford Mustang Mach-E, en route to the crime scene, the office of Honors College Associate Professor Odette Furillo.

  Shailene made a grunting sound. “That’s not what I wanted to hear to start my day.”

  You and me both, Paula told herself, in total agreement on a Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. Unfortunately, there was no getting around this, painful as it was for both of them to digest. “Ms. Furillo was apparently working late. Her body was discovered by a student this morning,” Paula informed the captain, implying that it didn’t appear to be an active crime situation to prompt a shelter-in-place order. “All signs seem to indicate that the victim was suffocated to death.”

  At least this was what Paula was led to believe by the first responder to the scene, Detective Michael Davenport, one of the investigators under her command in the AU DPPS. If true, this would mark the fourth suffocation-style murder of an Addison University female professor on or close to the campus in Rendall Cove over the past few months. The first came during the early part of the summer session, when a thirty-three-year-old associate professor in the School of Journalism, Debra Newton, was found asphyxiated to death in her apartment. And a month later, thirty-four-year-old Department of Horticulture Assistant Professor Harmeet Fernández was discovered dead in the Horticulture Gardens.

  Near the end of the summer session, thirty-six-year-old Kathy Payne, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, was fatally suffocated in her residence. Now, just a couple of weeks into the fall session, Paula had to consider the very distinct possibility that a fourth professor had been murdered in a similar manner by the so-called “Campus Killer,” the moniker the unsub was given by the press. If so, that would leave little doubt that they were dealing with a bona fide and devious serial killer on and around the campus, where there had been an increase in patrols after the first professor was murdered near the university. Apart from a general belief that they were likely dealing with a male perpetrator—based on the nature of the crimes and circumstantial evidence—as of now, there had been no identifiable DNA or fingerprints to point the blame at anyone in particular. And no reliable surveillance video that could give them a clue about the unsub. Nor had any of the suspects panned out thus far. Would it be any different this time around?

  The ongoing case was being jointly investigated by the Rendall Cove Police Department, considering that the first and third murders linked to the killer had occurred off campus, within the Rendall Cove city limits. Paula hoped that they would be able to soon crack the case with the latest purported homicide at the hands of the unsub. “Of course, we won’t know anything for certain on this front till the autopsy is completed,” she told her, as if Shailene wasn’t aware of this.

  The captain responded tersely, “I get that. Keep me posted on the developments in this disturbing investigation.”

  “I will,” Paula promised as always, before disconnecting. She sighed, feeling just as disturbed that they were involved with this type of crisis in what was normally a peaceful, beautifully landscaped campus environment, split by the Cedar River, with countless imposing trees, lush green spaces, winding paths and newly renovated buildings. But someone had chosen to threaten that tranquility in the worst way possible.

  While keeping her bold brown eyes on the lookout for bicyclers, who at times recklessly believed they owned the roads, Paula’s thoughts slipped to her personal trials and tribulations over the past eighteen months. At thirty-five, she was a year removed from her divorce from Scott Lynley. The veteran FBI special agent had once been the love of her life. It was a love that seemed destined to last forever. But somewhere along the way, things fizzled between them and, once it became apparent that no magical elixir would fix them, they decided it would be best to go their separate ways. For Paula, an African American, an interracial marriage was never a problem to her. A clash of strong wills between her and Scott, however, proved to be a major issue.