Page 10 of Dropping Like Flies

I tamped down on my antagonistic feelings as I stepped over the threshold. Detective Chief Superintendent Wilson Baros wasn’t the type of man you went to town on. Not unless you wanted to be sent away with a flea in your ear. “Sir,” I said instead. “You wanted to see me.”

“I did.” He waved a hand at the seat in front of his desk and I sat. Shrewd blue eyes studied me. Baros might have been in his late fifties, with hair more gray than black these days, but he was still as sharp as ever. “You look tired. You need to get more sleep.”

Coming from the man who kept calling me in the middle of the night to send me to crime scenes, the comment was nothing short of hilarious. When did he think I slept? “I’ll try to get an early night,” I said with an admirable lack of irony. I would, probably at the point where I gave in my detective badge or retired, whichever of those events came first.

Baros tapped the folder in front of him. “I’ve been reading up on Satanic Romeo…”

I pulled a face at the name. It lacked imagination if you asked me. Satanic because of the symbols he left in blood, and Romeo because he picked his victims up and had sex with them first.

He held the folder up. “Is this up to date?”

“It is.”

“So no new leads?”

I shook my head. “Trust me, I wish I had better news for you. He’ll slip up, though. Everyone does eventually.”

Baros’ eyes narrowed. “But how many more will die before that happens?”

Knowing I wouldn’t get a better opening, I sat forward in my chair. “That’s why we need as many officers on it as we can. Out on the streets, I mean. Not sat here doing background checks that any junior detective could do.”

“What are you getting at, Weaver?”

“Lou said—”

Baros cut me off. “We need a fresh approach. One that’ll catch this bastard before he kills half the gay men in London. We’re already struggling to keep the finer details from the press. Once they get hold of it, we run the risk of copycats or the usual attention seekers looking to confess just to get their five minutes of fame.”

Baros’ words stung all the more for being true. It might only have been two weeks since the first murder, but those two weeks already felt like a lifetime. And four murders in such a brief space of time didn’t bode well for the future. How many after a month? Two months? “What do you suggest? I’ve already made a request for extra manpower to canvas gay clubs. He’s picking those men up from somewhere. We only found Grindr on one of the victim’s phones, so it’s unlikely he’s finding them that way.”

Baros steepled his fingers in front of him. “How many gay clubs are there in London?”

“A few, but…”

“And how many officers would it take to cover them all?”

I sat back in my chair, frustration building. “So we just sit back and let him kill again? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not saying any such thing,” Baros said smoothly. “I’m saying we take a more progressive approach. And that’s why I have a new partner for you.”

Despite the heads-up from Lou, the confirmation was no less of a kick in the gut. “How is a new partner going to help? It’s going to do the opposite. Lou’s up to date on the case, and he and I work well together. Bring someone new in and I’ll have to waste time bringing them up to speed.”

Baros’ stony expression said my pleas were like water off a duck’s back. He leaned forward to press the intercom. “Send him in.”

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Griffin Caldwell strolled in and I realized it had just gotten a million times worse, and that was putting it mildly.

“Mr. Caldwell,” Baros said effusively. “I’m Detective Chief Superintendent Wilson Baros. Please take a seat. No doubt your curiosity is running wild about why I asked you here today.” As Griffin sat, Baros waved a hand my way. “This is DCI Ben Weaver. Ben, Griffin Caldwell.”

My tongue felt too large for my mouth, like it didn’t belong there and wouldn’t do what I needed of it in order to shape words. My immediate reaction was to say we’d met, which would be akin to saying the pope was a bit religious.

Could an instantaneous connection that had rocked me to the core, a whirlwind romance, passion the likes of which I’d never experienced before or since, a year of living in each other’s pockets, and then a split that had almost broken me, be summarized as having met. I didn’t think so. Not to mention the side effects of that relationship that I still carried with me to this day. That I could feel what he felt, taste what he tasted. Granted, some days it was stronger than others, and there were a few where it barely registered at all, but it was always there in some respect.

Sometimes my emotions spiraled out of control, and it took a moment to work out that they weren’t my emotions. Instead, they belonged to this man. My fated mate because of his damn necromancer blood. The man who had made it more than clear he never wanted to see me again. The same man who was sitting less than a meter away from me and had turned his cool gaze my way, the familiar brown eyes lacking even a shred of warmth.

I could feel it, though. Beneath the impassive exterior for the DCS’s benefit, was a whirling maelstrom that told me he’d been just as unprepared for my presence in this meeting as I was his. It seemed fate had seen fit to bring us together once more.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said as I held out my hand. It was simpler to pretend we’d never met. Far fewer questions. I just hoped it wouldn’t bite me in the ass later.

His hesitation in taking my hand felt like a lifetime, but was probably only a second or two. Despite the coolness of his skin, sparks flew as our palms met, catapulting me back into memories I’d worked hard to forget. Long evenings spent in bed together, sweat still drying on our skin as we laughed at things that didn’t deserve that much hilarity. Mundane tasks made fun because we were doing them together. Meals with friends. Phone calls for hours. Gifts exchanged. A marriage proposal that had never manifested into more than that. The list was never-ending, and it burned like acid as it played like a slideshow in my brain.

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