Page 86 of Spark
Dallas Garrity sat backat the Crooked Angel bar and grill and watched the crowd.As a former Rescue Squad firefighter, his observation skills were both finely tuned and solidly sewn-in.As a behavioral analyst and a restrained/thinking/social introvert—the triple crown, as his mentor, Dr.Bailey Redstone, liked to say—he knew how to blend in and observe.
It was the last Friday night before Christmas, with the holiday only days away, so the place was packed with first responders from Station Seventeen and the Thirty-Third, along with a bunch of doctors and nurses from Remington Memorial.Faurier stood by the pool table, wearing a red Santa hat and his infamous cocky grin, gesturing toward his live-in girlfriend, Lucy de Costa, before making a combo that sank both the ten ball and the thirteen.Faurier whooped and raised him arms in triumph as Lucy groaned through her laughter, giving in to the latter when Faurier planted a big kiss on her cheek.
Dallas had pegged Faurier’s high-wattage bravado as a smokescreen after six weeks of working with the guy, although Dallas’s active firefighter days were ancient history now.His bond with his squad-mates wasn’t, though, and he could still read them like a CIA operative.He had to admit, he hadn’t quite seen the whole Faurier-de Costa thing coming.But if anyone was going to get past Faurier’s bluster to find the man beneath, he wasn’t surprised it was de Costa.As the battalion chief’s daughter and an Engine firefighter herself, she had badass written all over her.She and Faurier were happy together—their body language was a dead giveaway, with all the open posture and mirroring.Well, and the kissing.
Faurier lowered his pool cue, swinging de Costa in a for a less PG kiss this time, and Dallas laughed at how well his buddy had just proved his point.Faurier and de Costa stood by Dempsey and Hale, who hadn’t stopped giving honeymoon vibes for the past six months, and a temporary firefighter named Aiden Maddox, who doubled as a paramedic and was filling in on Engine and Ambo while Luke and Quinn were on parental leave.Maddox was a bit of a challenge to read, but not in the bad way.Dallas had an expertly tuned asshole detector—went with the job—and he didn’t get the sense that the guy wasn’t good people.But Maddox kept mostly to himself.In fact, tonight was the only time Dallas had seen the guy outside the fire house, and he looked about an inch away from the door.The floater must have a hell of a story to go with all those walls around him, but Dallas had learned (yep, the hard way) not to make assumptions about people.Maddox’s story would have to remain a mystery, at least for now.
Dallas took a long, slow sip of his beer, his gaze landing on Gates and Chloe standing at a bar table nearby, with Chloe’s ward, Esme, and Hawk rounding out the group.Having helped the team on the case at the end, Dallas knew about the larger events that had brought Gates and Chloe together to protect Esme.Now that the danger was all firmly in the rearview, the girl was clearly doing well.Her dark hair was pulled into an intricate braid, a pair of felt-and-glitter reindeer antlers perched on top, and her smile was bright as she handed over a matching pair to Hawk.The big fucking teddy bear put them on right away, of course, not giving a single shit that he was a two-hundred-twenty-pound wall of muscles, salt and pepper scruff, and tattoos wearing glitter antlers, and yeah, looked like the firefighters on squad were all protectors in their own way.
Except Dallas.Except when it had counted.
He let the thought sting for a second before very carefully placing it back into the bolt-hole in his mind, putting his beer down on the bar with a stern internal warning that whatever had let the reminder slip out keep better guard.He considered something stronger than beer—he’d never been able to drown the memory, but there was a first time for everything—but before he could catch the bartender, Sawyer’s, attention, Sergeant Sinclair appeared beside him.
“Garrity,” Sinclair said, making Dallas’s pulse pitch.Not that Sinclair was a bad guy.On the contrary, he’d always been one of the most just, fierce cops Dallas had ever known, and Dallas’s official change in job title had put him in contact with a lot of cops.But the man’s appearance usually meant one thing, and one thing only.
A victim.Or two.Or more.Usually not breathing.
It sure as shit put thehazardin occupational hazard.
“Sergeant,” Dallas said, his attention now sharp.He could tell a lot about a case just by how Sinclair brought it to him.How gruesome.How grave.How urgent.
Right now, this one was checking the box for All of the Above.
“I just got off the phone with Detective Wilson, over in Homicide,” Sinclair said, his voice low enough to keep the conversation away from anyone else’s ears.“They found a body a few blocks from Montgomery Park a couple hours ago.”
“Not a lot of homicides in that part of the city,” Dallas said, his brain beginning to turn over rocks.A robbery gone wrong.An overdose.A drug-related beef, although the neighborhood made that one far less likely than the other two.It wasn’t exactly a hotbed of narcotics activity.Still, Dallas never ruled anything out until he got all the facts.
“No, and definitely not like this one.”Sinclair’s look sent a chill across Dallas’s skin despite the warmth of the bar.“The victim is female, mid-twenties.The M.E.will have to do an autopsy to determine the official cause of death, but ligature marks on her neck strongly suggest she was strangled.”
Dread claimed Dallas’s gut, dropping it toward his boots as Sinclair added, “There was also significant facial trauma, and the victim had a silk scarf stuffed in her mouth.”
It took control Dallas had to manufacture not to let his jaw drop.That wasn’t possible.Itwasn’t.
Not again.
“That’s concerning,” Dallas finally managed.Although the Sunday Slayer murders had been fairly high profile, the police had kept certain details from the press in order to work the case, namely that the killer had removed each victims’ eyes with near-surgical precision and placed a blue silk scarf in their mouths after he choked them to death.That someone had now claimed a new victim in the same way meant not only that they had a copycat on their hands, but this new killer knew things he shouldn’t.“Last I heard, Murphy was still on lockdown at Remington Penitentiary.”
“He is,” Sinclair said.The Intelligence Unit had worked as part of a joint task force to solve the Sunday Slayer, a.k.a.Ezekial Murphy, murders, nearly three years ago.“The Feds are reforming the task force to handle the new case.But there’s a bit of a complication.”
“It gets more complicated than a copycat serial killer?”Dallas asked.
“Wren Lennox is on her way down from Virginia.I’m not sure how, but she got herself appointed to the task force.”
Dallas froze.Wren Lennox was rapier sharp.A highly dedicated cop.Passionate.Fierce.Gorgeous.
She was also Ezekial Murphy’s twin sister.
