Page 10 of Killer Clone

The team didn’t have assigned seats in the meeting room, but over time, everyone had picked their spot and usually stuck to it. Stella always sat opposite him, sandwiched between Mac and Chloe. And he sat next to Ander.

But the new agent was screwing with the system.

Anja studied him as he made his way around the meeting table. He avoided her gaze. “Agent Yates. So good to see you again.”

Hagen pulled out his chair. He’d like to have returned the compliment, but it wasn’t true. To see Anja again was not great, though also not the end of the world. But to see her sitting in his girlfriend’s chair felt like a bad omen.

For a couple months, he and Anja had dated casually. She’d initiated the hook-up. He’d ended it, which she hadn’t appreciated.

If Hagen had learned anything over the last few months, and he’d learned a great deal, it was that confronting the past often came with a price. Some things were better left behind.

“Anja. You’re working here now?”

“Fresh in town and ready for the full tour.” Her thin smile displayed more mockery than amusement.

Hagen glanced at Stella. She was still getting the lowdown on Mac’s new boyfriend as she pulled up a chair next to Anja, then she and Mac introduced themselves and shook the new agent’s hand.

Slade was the last in, and he closed the door behind him. He stood at the head of the table. His gaze passed from Anja to Hagen and back again. “So you two do know each other. Thought you might. For those who don’t know…Mac, I think you weren’t here on Friday, either, this is Special Agent Anja Farrow. She’s come to us from the San Francisco office.” He turned to Hagen. “You overlapped for a while, right?”

His stomach churned. “Briefly.”

One corner of Anja’s lips rose at Hagen’s irritation. She extended her arm and lay the palm of her hand on the table. “Excited to be working with you again, Agent Yates.”

Hagen breathed in slowly. Stella watched the exchange as Anja withdrew her hand and sat back in her seat. But Stella’s face was soft, not stern, and the small crease next to her eye suggested she’d found Anja’s flirtations funny.

He relaxed. “You too, Agent Farrow.”

“Right, that’s all the introductions we need. You can get to know each other again in your own time. Let’s get to work.”

Slade stepped aside and clicked a remote control. The screen behind him displayed an image of a whitewashed brick wall in a narrow alleyway. Hagen focused on the corpse of a young man in the middle of the picture. He sat naked, propped upright against the wall. His skin was a putrid gray, his left cheek covered with a red scar that ran down his neck and over his shoulder.

Beyond a single cut on the right side of the victim’s neck, there were no other obvious injuries. There wasn’t any blood at the scene, which told him the victim was killed in a separate location and then moved there.

On the wall above the body hung a sign, partly obscured with a swoosh of black graffiti, that warned drivers that unauthorized vehicles would be towed. A wrecking company offered a number to call if one went missing.

Slade tapped the screen.

“Our victim’s been identified as Patrick Marrion, nineteen, a student at Central Tennessee State University. A couple of bar-hoppers looking to unload their bladders in Kerrick’s Alley found him three days ago, just after one on Saturday morning. The MNPD have already informed the family.”

“I don’t envy them that.” Ander ruffled his curls, as if he could erase the whole scene from his brain.

Slade murmured something Hagen didn’t quite catch, but it sounded sympathetic. “Patrick drove a black 2007 Honda Ridgeline. We’ve already put out a BOLO on the vehicle.”

Stella scrawled notes in her notebook. “How did this case end up on our desk?”

Slade pressed the slide button. The image zoomed in on Patrick Marrion’s long, pale neck.

“Because of me. And because of you and Hagen.”

“Us?” Stella looked as surprised as Hagen felt.

“I was having beers with Captain Ramirez from Metro last night. We go way back to the academy. He mentioned this case, gave me a couple details.” Slade kept his gaze on Stella as he spoke. “When he described how the body looked, I thought it sounded familiar. Given the similarities to your Claymore case, I was concerned we might have a situation crossing state lines. I pulled some strings to get it assigned to us. But I don’t want anyone getting tunnel vision. Odds are against a connection.”

“What are the similarities?” Stella dropped her pen and crossed her arms. Hagen bit back a smile. She’d come a long way from the newbie agent who raised her hand during briefings.

“Exsanguination.”

Hagen could’ve gone a whole lifetime without hearing that word again. “Almost completely drained?”

---