He glanced back, staring at her while she stared at him. Raising his hand in a small wave goodbye, he stepped into the elevator and disappeared.

She waved back to the empty corridor and closed the door. Resting her forehead against the wood, she cursed with frustration. “Shit, shit, shit.”

THERE WAS a period after her husband’s death when she’d lost the taste for sex. Then she found herself sleeping around too much, picking up strangers in hotel bars and going to their rooms. Since coming home, she’d struggled to find a middle ground between the nun and the slut. While her night with Augie had thrown her off balance, her relationship with Garcia was sending her into a tailspin. Far from being just a boss, he was becoming her friend, and buddies as hot as Garcia were hazardous.

Chapter 5

GARCIA HADN’T VISITED the cellar in a while, and Bernadette had slacked off in her filing. She went to work early Tuesday to try to straighten the office before he showed up with the paperwork from the drowning cases.

She shrugged off her coat and tossed it over the back of a chair. As she started lifting up layers of files from one of the spare desks, she heard a familiar bass voice and felt a cold draft rolling in from the hallway outside her office.

“Finally fixing up the place. Long overdue. It never looked this bad when I worked here solo.”

“Go away,” she muttered without turning around. “And close the door behind you, Ruben.”

“It’s ‘Agent Creed’ to you, missy. Keep it professional.”

She heard the door shut but knew he was on the wrong side of it. She pivoted around, a pile of folders in her arms. A tall, slender African American man with short graying hair was sitting on the office’s ancient sofa, his ankle crossed over his bony knee. She’d been using the couch to store old newspapers, and on one side of Creed was a stack of Star Tribunes and on the other side was a New York Times tower. The newspapers framed his figure like Roman columns and made him appear even more cold and imposing. She especially resented the way he always strolled in impeccably attired as if ready for work, with his dark suit and dark tie and stiff white shirt. That hint of an accent—he was a native of the South—added to his air of superiority. “Whatever you have to say, make it quick,” she told him. “I’m busy.”

He propped one elbow on the Times pile and then had second thoughts. Lifting his arm, he brushed off his jacket sleeve and folded his hands on his lap. A saw buzzed overhead, and Creed frowned at the ceiling. “What in blazes is going on up there?”

She went over to a waist-high metal file cabinet, pulled the drawer open with the tip of her shoe, and dumped her armload of folders inside it. “They’re renovating the building.”

“It’s about time,” he said.

“I guess,” she muttered, and picked up another stack of folders.

A jackhammer fired up, drowning out the saw. “How can you work with all this commotion?”

“Lots of Tylenol.” She went back to the file cabinet, dropped the folders inside the drawer, and forced it closed.

“What kind of cockamamie filing system is that?”

“I’ll straighten it out later.”

“That’s precisely the attitude that got you where you are today.” He picked up a Star Tribune and waved it at her. “You know those people you read about in the paper, the ones with those garbage houses? That’s how it starts with them. I’ll straighten it out later, they think. I’ll do the laundry tomorrow. Next thing you know—”

“Ruben … Agent Creed … I don’t have time for you today.” Her cell rang inside her coat pocket, but she didn’t want to take a call in front of her visitor. “You’d better go for a hike.”

He dropped the paper back on the stack and squared it. “You’d better answer that phone. It’s our ASAC.”

She plucked a collection of Starbucks cups off her desk and dropped them into the wastebasket. “My ASAC. He isn’t your boss. Not anymore.”

The cell stopped ringing. “You’d better pick up the next call. It’ll be him again.”

“How do you know? Are you God or something?”

“I know people who know people.”

“Why don’t you go visit those people and leave me alone?” The phone on her desk rang. She glared at Creed, but he wasn’t budging. She sat down at her desk and picked up the receiver.

Garcia: “Why didn’t you answer your cell just now?”

“Tony … uh—I—” She saw Creed grinning mischievously from his throne across the room. She turned her back to him and continued talking into the phone. “I had my hands full. I’m trying to get some office work done before you come by.”

Garcia: “Relax. I won’t be by the cellar until this afternoon, after my meeting at the cop shop.”

Swiveling her chair around, she saw Creed still sitting on the couch with his smug grin. She spun the chair back so she wouldn’t have to look at his mug. “You’ve got the files?”

“Got them.”

“Great. See you later.” She hung up.

“Are you going to brief your partner about the case to which we’ve been assigned?”

She got up from her chair and planted her hands on her hips. “Agent Creed, you are not my—” She stopped herself. If not partners, they were at least office mates, for better or worse. There was no harm in filling him in on the latest. Who was he going to tell? “You know all those college students who’ve been turning up dead in the river?”

“The ones who killed themselves?”

She wheeled a chair over to the couch and sat down across from him. “I don’t think those deaths were suicides, at least not all of them.”

“Keep talking.”

“I went out to a murder scene yesterday. Another Minneapolis drowning.”

“In the Mississippi?”

“A much smaller body of water,” said Bernadette. “A bathtub.”

“Why do you think it’s related to the river deaths? If those were indeed homicides—”

“I know, I know. Killing people in their own tubs is a much different MO.” She crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward. Surprisingly, she discovered she enjoyed hashing the case over with Creed. “Hear me out, though.”

“I’m listening,” he said.

“The victims have the same profile. They’ve all been white females attending the University of Minnesota or the University of Wisconsin. They’ve all had emotional problems …”

“Which would make it easier for a killer to pawn the murders off as suicides.”

“Exactly,” she said excitedly.

“Why the switch from the river to a tub?”

“Garcia and I discussed this,” she said. “I think the murderer is seeking a deeper thrill, a more up-close-and-personal method of execution.”

He got up from his throne and walked back and forth in front of the couch. “You’re implying this is a sexual thing.”

“What else would it be?”

“Have you researched this … what should we call it?”

“Water fetish. Drowning fetish.”

“Yes.” He stopped pacing and pointed at her. “What do you know about it?”

He seemed more alive than she’d ever seen him. It must be boring to be trapped in the world of the living, with nothing constructive to do, she thought. Maybe she could rope him into helping her. “I imagine there’re things on the Internet. I suppose I could ask Thorsson to lend a hand.”

“Thorsson. That idiot. What’s he doing in town? Don’t tell me Milwaukee dumped him on Minneapolis.”

She grinned, pleased that Creed was equally disdainful of the agent. “Because two of the deaths were in La Crosse, Milwaukee sent Thorsson and another guy to Minneapolis when the girl turned up dead in the tub.”

“In case there was a connection.”

“Exactly.”