Page 2 of Into the Veins

“And when a rich man’s daughter goes missing, you just can’t help but jump on the opportunity?” she asked.

He ignored her quip and graced her with another half-smile. “He came to me. Rachel took off for weeks at a time for her job, giving keynote speeches and promoting her books on tours, but she always stayed in touch. Only this time, neither he nor her husband had heard from her in two days.”

“She’s an author.” Blair took notes as the medical examiner prepared the remains for transportation back to the Harborview Medical Center, King County’s morgue. While publishers didn’t spend the funds they used to by sending their authors on tour, there would have to be someone who handled the victim’s schedule. An assistant or publicist maybe.

“Rachel was a social media influencer who happened to land a three-book deal with a big publisher. She’s also a business coach with almost two million followers, a podcast host, and a self-proclaimed marriage counselor.” The weight of Colson’s gaze burrowed beneath the thick layer of her uniform jacket. “She ran a multi-million-dollar company with about thirty employees without any capital investors.”

“And none of them realized she’d been missing for two days?” Blair found that hard to believe. Although the chances of all thirty employees knowing the victim’s schedule were slim.

“A main part of Rachel’s job was giving speeches to other companies, colleges, and anyone who wanted to pay her to be their own personal or business coach. A lot of people found her to be inspirational.” Those dark eyes settled over Blair’s shoulder. The hint of regret she’d caught in his voice earlier bled into his gaze, but, in her experience, private investigators were far too adept at using their clients for their own gain. Colson wouldn’t be any different. “She encouraged them to take care of their bodies, put their dreams first, and make themselves a priority. She changed countless people’s lives and never apologized for being herself.”

“I highly doubt the person who dumped her body out here found her to be inspirational.” Blair pointed the end of her pen over her shoulder. “What about enemies? Have you been able to get access to her social media accounts, mail, or email since you started looking into her? Did any of her employees or fans have a problem with her as far as you could tell?”

Colson seemed to pull himself back in the moment, straightening slightly, and another hit of awareness chased through her. He scrubbed a hand down his face, and suddenly, he seemed much younger than she’d originally believed. Almost lost. In her next breath, the confident man who’d strode onto her scene without consideration for himself stared back at her. “Sheriff Sanders, everything I’ve told you about Rachel Faulkner is public knowledge, but the details I’ve uncovered in her private life aren’t. I understand you have a job to do, but I was contracted by the victim’s father to find her. I signed a non-disclosure agreement to keep the things you’re asking for from leaking, and I intend to stand by it. If you have any further questions about Rachel’s personal life, I suggest you get a warrant for those accounts. Or you can save yourself the trouble and bring me into the investigation.”

“First, this is a homicide investigation. No judge in the state is going to hold up that non-disclosure agreement if you have information about this case. Second, you’re not law enforcement, Mr. Rutherford. I imagine it’s been fun playing pretend, but private investigators don’t solve crimes. Police do.” She stepped into him. This was how private investigators worked. Willing to give or sell information solely on their terms, despite the consequences to everyone around them, even their own clients. But she knew how to play this game. She forced herself to click the end of her pen and slid it into her jacket breast pocket with her notebook slower than she wanted to. “Lucky for me, I believe you have information pertaining to Rachel Faulkner’s death, and it’s your duty as a private investigator to give a full statement to the police.” She motioned to one of her deputies off to her left higher up the trail. “This deputy will escort you back to the station while my team finishes collecting evidence from this scene.”

His humorless laugh filled her with satisfaction as the deputy she’d signaled stepped beneath the crime scene tape and motioned him down the trail. Colson leaned into her, a hint of soap and man filling her lungs. “Well played, Sheriff, but taking me off the board isn’t going to win you the game.”

Blair cocked her head to one side. “You’ve never gone up against me.”

CHAPTER TWO

He’d been in plenty of interrogation rooms.

On this side of the glass and on the other, but Colson Rutherford had never come face-to-face with an officer like Blair Sanders. Far more intense from what he’d read about her work on that serial case and far out of his league. Her dark green uniform matched her eyes and intensified the red of her hair. Light eyebrows softened the angles of her cheeks while pale freckles across the bridge of her nose interrupted flawless pale skin.

While the victim’s father hadn’t hired him to visually appreciate King County’s finest after he suspected his daughter had gone missing, Colson would take it as a bonus. He drummed his fingers across the cold steel surface of the table between them, waiting.

The King County Sheriff’s Department’s Maple Valley office was located a mere eleven miles from where Rachel Faulkner’s remains had been found. Dark paneling, industrial carpeting, one-way glass, secure door, and a sheriff who seemed in no rush. The medical examiner had most likely transported the remains back to Harborview Medical by now. Once the autopsy had been completed, there’d be no way to hide the truth from the public. America’s social media sweetheart had been murdered and dumped on a hiking trail.

He leaned forward in his chair, pressing his elbows into the table. “What was the last thing you searched for on your phone?”

“What?” The neutralized mask over her expression failed. Confusion narrowed the sheriff’s gaze and contorted soft pink lips, and his gut clenched. She wanted him to believe she was in control, that she could shake him, but the truth was, she needed his help.

“You and I both know I’m not going to break the NDA I signed when I was hired to find his daughter, which means you’re stalling. Probably to determine cause of death and, since you’re at the start of your investigation, see if I had anything to do with it.” Colson sat back, his wrist skimming across the table’s surface. “If that’s the case, we might as well get to know each other while we’re here.”

“Very well, then.” Removing the same favored notebook he’d memorized at the crime scene, Blair poised her pen above the creased paper. “How did you know Rachel Faulkner would be on that hiking trail, Mr. Rutherford?”

“You answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.” Her last words at the scene echoed through his head. You’ve never gone up against me. The sheriff had had run-ins with private investigators before, didn’t trust them. It was obvious in the way she tried to keep her voice even, in the way the tendons between her neck and shoulders tightened when she addressed him, but she couldn’t hide the venom in those emerald eyes. From the little interaction they’d had at the scene, he’d known exactly which buttons to press and when. As much as she tried to stay in control, Blair Sanders wore her emotions on her sleeve. Including him in the investigation would get them both what they wanted. Justice for Rachel Faulkner and payment to finance his next interest.

“This isn’t a game.” She pulled a stack of papers from the file folder between them. “I ran a background check on you. Fifteen jobs within the past five years. Anything from grocery store clerk to a two-year stint as a sponsored rock climber. You’ve even hiked to Mt. Everest’s base camp, but more recently you decided to try your hand at private investigating, which, as far as I can tell, is the longest job you’ve held. It’s not very often I see this much change in someone’s life. Unless they’re running from something.”

A rock solidified in his gut, and he couldn’t help but pull a weak smile from his defensive arsenal. Running? No. Not in the way the sheriff had implied anyway. But there’d always been a piece of him that hadn’t been able to stay still. To be happy where he was while life passed him in a blur. Like she obviously was, but he’d wager against all that attempt to control the crime scene, all that guarded seriousness, there was a lot more to Blair Sanders than she let on. “Is the question how I became so amazing? Because that might take a while to answer.”

“Your finances are a wreck. You’re broke, Mr. Rutherford. My guess? You were depending on that fee from Rachel Faulkner’s father when he hired you to find her, but now she’s dead. Once he hears the news, you’ll get nothing.” The weight of her attention threatened to crush the air from his lungs. She softened her voice, leaning into the table slightly as though to keep her words from reaching whoever stood on the other side of the one-way glass. “You’ve profited off of your clients’ pain the moment you became a private investigator. Do Rachel Faulkner and her family a favor for once so I can make sure the person who left her out there on that trail doesn’t get away with it. Do the right thing. Help me find justice by giving me everything you uncovered about the victim and an alibi between four and five this morning to clear you as a suspect.”

The sheriff had done her homework on him, and she was right. His agreement with the victim’s father had been to find Rachel Faulkner and bring her home. Hard to do that when she was currently on her way to the morgue, but Colson hadn’t gone to that crime scene blind either. He’d known exactly who would command the scene, and he wasn’t finished getting what he’d come here for.

There was only one way to guarantee that fee from his client. He needed to find out how the victim died and the killer responsible for leaving her out there on that trail, but he couldn’t do it alone. “I was downtown giving the victim’s father an update on my investigation. I’d run out of leads. I told him I wanted to question Rachel Faulkner’s husband. He said he would reach out on my behalf, but that I wasn’t to have any direct communication with Braydon Caddel in case there were paparazzi or eager fans staked outside of her home. I’m sure you can find a way to contact him to corroborate my alibi.”

Colson spotted her obvious disappointment. “Sheriff, you and I are on the same team here. There isn’t a judge in the country who will grant you a warrant to access Rachel Faulkner’s social media accounts unless you’re able to prove they’re directly tied to her death, and you can’t break into her phone without bringing the feds into the investigation. You and I both know they won’t get involved until they have to. Even then, both of those options take time, which you don’t have considering—”

“Considering the evidence and the body dump suggest Rachel Faulkner was murdered.” Blair narrowed that defensive gaze on him, and his blood pressure ticked up a notch. Despite the obvious resentment that’d tautened the muscles around her jaw when she’d realized what he did for a living, she wanted justice for the victims she investigated. That much had been made clear from the coverage of the serial case she’d closed two months ago. “Fine. I’m listening.”

“I’ll give you everything I have on the victim. Access to her social media accounts, her private messages, calendar, her email—everything I’ve uncovered during my investigation. No warrant necessary.” Colson memorized the hard set to her mouth then focused on the pulse point along her throat. Blair Sanders needed to be in control, to feel secure. Hell, there might even be a part of her that used her work as a shield to detach herself from the people around her. If there was one good thing he’d taken away from his stint as an independent psychological profiler for the bureau, it’d been his ability to target people’s weaknesses. He’d read Blair’s case files. There hadn’t been a single investigation she’d consulted with outside help on other than the FBI. He wanted to know why. What was it about private investigators that set her on edge? Colson sat back in his chair. What he wouldn’t give to be the one to break through that guarded wall she’d thrown up between them. Just to prove he could. “Though you’ll have to explain to the prosecutor you came by the information through a private investigator.”

“But not out of the goodness of your heart,” she said. “And at the risk of breaking the non-disclosure agreement you signed when your client hired you.”

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