Hostile Desires by Melissa Schroeder

any more questions for me?” McPherson asked.
    “No. Thanks.”
    Will left them alone, and Elle leveled a look at him. “Now, are you going to explain all of that?”
    He waited for the waitress to hand Elle her water before he continued. “We have to be careful who we talk to and how much info we release,” he said, pouring ketchup on his burger.
    “But why are we hiding the fact the case file is missing?”
    “For someone who was married to a cop, you don’t seem to know much about them.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Old cops are like women.”
    “I think you’re digging a hole you might not be able to get out of.”
    He leaned closer and had to fight the urge to sniff. She always smelled like roses. He could just imagine her dabbing a bit of perfume behind her ears, then between her breasts...
    “McGregor?”
    He blinked. “Sorry. Old cops. They gossip. We don’t want them knowing we don’t have the file.”
    “Because the one who does might have something to do with it.”
    “Your doctor friend might have been right. Someone at HPD might have been screwing around with the case. They don’t need to know that we don’t have any evidence.”
    “But whoever took it would know we don’t have it.”
    He nodded. “But he doesn’t know that we might have other things. Plus, there’s always a chance that he didn’t take it, and it just disappeared.”
    “And letting him know we don’t have it would have us at a disadvantage.”
    “Beautiful and brilliant,” he said with a smile.
    Elle choked on her water.
    “What does that mean?” she asked.
    “Not everyone would make the connections.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure anyone with mediocre intelligence could make the connections you laid out.”
    He didn’t like the way she dismissed her intelligence, but he thought it interesting that she didn’t address the beautiful comment.
    “Either way, we need to keep as much as possible to ourselves. The fewer people outside of TFH who know about this, the better.”

Chapter Nine
    G raeme was more than a little irritated by the time he made it back to the office, but he couldn’t figure out just why. He hadn’t expected to get much from Will, but something else was bugging him.
    “Hey, how’d the meeting with McPherson go?” Adam asked.
    “Boss told you we went?”
    Adam nodded. “He went home a little while ago. Emma was feeling under the weather.”
    Graeme frowned. “Elle had lunch with her, and she didn’t say anything.”
    Adam shrugged. “Maybe it was something she ate.”
    And she had eaten with Elle. “Elle didn’t say anything about feeling badly.”
    Adam gave Graeme a strange look. “I’m sure it’s just Emma. Did you find anything out from McPherson?”
    He shook his head. “A little background, but not much. He was assigned to the Honolulu Strangler case.”
    Adam smiled. “Yeah, everyone was pretty much considered to be on the Strangler case at the time. It’s not like they knew that much about serial killers, so everyone had a hand in it, to tell you the truth.”
    “So, were there people assigned to it specifically?”
    Adam nodded. “Yeah, sure, but they weren’t turning anyone away who might have wanted to help. Lots of unis and detectives were working off the clock to catch the bastard.”
    “Catching him would have made someone’s career.”
    “So, there is a very good chance that someone could have ignored Jenny’s murder because they might have gotten a bigger bang out of solving the Strangler case.”
    “Bastard.”
    “Yes, but be careful who you throw that name around at.”
    “You’re no’ defending the person who did this.”
    Adam held his hands up. “Hey, don’t attack me. I don’t agree with the bastard, but you’re new to this kind of work. They will stick together, especially some of the older generation. You’re seen as an outsider because of your land of birth, and you’ve not been a cop for very long.”
    “That’s why