Page 5 of Blood and Sand

“Because it’s DeeDee, man,” he said, like I was the dumbest person on Earth. “Just go to Atlanta so she can do that crazy shit she does. You remember how many cases she helped us solve while she was in school. We need her help, Rey. There’s no other way. We’ve never dealt with anything like this.”

“So, you want me to just show up at her job out of the blue? You think after three years, she’ll see me?”

“Regardless of what you think, Rey, you were the center of DeeDee’s world, and no matter how much you hurt her with your decision, if she would see anyone out of the blue, it would be you. I have no doubt she would help, but I think you should be the one to ask her. Not me.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think about it—do it before he drops two more on us.”

Contacting Dana would be hard, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to face her, even after three years.

“We’ll go talk with the guy who found the bodies, and hopefully, we can identify these women and notify the families before the media gets wind of who they are.” Not only had solving these cases become my life’s work, but identifying these missing women and returning them to their families had also become my mission. I wanted the families to have the opportunity to say their proper goodbyes and not think about their loved ones’ last days.

We walked over to the water’s edge, where the stench of death intermingled with briny algae and the decay of rotting dead trees. I had gotten used to the smell of death and the bayou. I’d been around death for years as a homicide detective and grew up on the bayou, but the mixture of the two would have most upchucking their lunch.

The divers gently removed the two bodies from the water, carefully placing them on two orange basket stretchers that had been latched together to push them out of the water onto the bank of the bayou. Rotting vegetation and scummy water covered their lifeless grayish skin while white clouded eyes stared back at us.

Fucking eerie and heartbreaking at the same time.

“I’m not one for hating people, but damn I hate this guy,” Amir muttered when Dr. Nguyen, the medical examiner, zipped the black body bags.

“Me and you both,” I said.

We walked back toward the throng of media personnel barricaded behind squad cars, ignoring their questions. The coroner’s office placed both bodies in the back of the van to head to the morgue.

“You riding with me?” I asked Shaw.

“Nah, I’ll meet you there.”

I nodded and jumped in my truck, headed to the police station to see what information I could gather from the man who’d found the bodies. Then, I would work to identify these murdered women.

Well, if I can’t drink my misery away, at least I can work through it.

Chapter three

Dr. Dana LaCroix

Atlanta

It had been three years since I accepted my dream job in Atlanta, and despite all the accolades, awards, and accomplishments, a part of me was still missing. I knew why and who caused the feeling, and I still hadn’t been able to push the asshole from my heart completely. Now, lying here in another man’s arms, a man I should give my all to and move forward , I couldn’t.

“Your mind is working overtime, Dana.”

Aaron pulled my naked frame closer to his muscular body. The warmth from his skin caused me to snuggle closer. He ran his fingers through my kinky hair, massaging my scalp. I groaned and closed my eyes, surrendering to the feeling of being in Aaron’s arms and not Rey’s, if just for this moment.

“You want to talk about it?”

His deep, gruff voice brought an awareness to what my reality truly was. I was no longer married. I held tighter to Aaron while I tried to push thoughts of Rey out of my mind. Aaron had a crazy way of reading me, especially when my thoughts strayed to Rey. I didn’t know if a look showed on my face that he’d learned to recognize, but when it happened, he had no problem calling me out on it.

Aaron’s here, not my ex-husband, and this isn’t a conversation I want to have.

FBI Special Agent Aaron Hart had been my on-again, off-again boyfriend since my divorce was finalized three years ago. With both of us having grueling schedules, it was hard to have a meaningful relationship, but we clung to each other anyway after we’d gone through our divorces around the same time. We understood the ache of losing someone we’d hoped to spend the rest of our lives with due to our careers, and we’d connected with one another through that experience.

Although, right now, we were in our off-again stage, I had a tough time turning down an explosive night of sex with him, especially when there was a tough case, and I needed to relieve stress. I assumed he came to me for the same reason since he was the one who’d asked for time apart.

At first, I had reservations about getting involved with him so quickly after my divorce. We were colleagues, and I wasn’t completely over Rey, even if I was the one to start the divorce proceedings. But after learning Rey had moved on with no other than Chanel Boudreaux before the ink had even dried on our divorce papers, I let my reservations go.

Only a couple of months after our divorce was finalized, I returned to Louisiana to see my goddaughter, and Chanel had been more than happy to divulge her relationship with my ex-husband after we ran into each other at a local department store. It had taken everything in me not to throttle the woman, but what would be the point? Rey had made his decision, and he didn’t choose me.

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