Breaking Bad by Karin Tabke Read Free Book Online

got too hot he took off for Denver and there he made his second kill.” Stevie moved back toward him to bring that victim’s face up. When Jack refused to move, she nudged him with her elbow, then grasped the mouse. “Erica Strauss—”
    “Wife of Leon Strauss, reviled pastor of Glad Tidings Mission.”
    “Yes.” Stevie brought up the crime scene and flinched. As many times as she saw it, it still elicited a visceral reaction from her. “She was brutally murdered. Not with the finesse of our three victims. This was more personal in that it was so violent, but she bled out and he staged her the same.”
    “For all that Strauss spewed his homophobic rhetoric, he lived the life.”
    Wide-eyed Stevie asked, “Are you saying the pastor was gay?”
    Jack nodded. “I was working violent crimes out of our Denver Bureau at the time. Because of their extreme ideology that lent itself to extreme violence, we’d been watching Glad Tidings for a while. Strauss was training haters like al-Qaida trains terrorists, all while he was trolling the Denver gay underground.”
    “When I contacted the pastor he refused to discuss his wife’s murder with me. I requested the case files from Denver PD last month. ”
    Jack sent another text. “We’ll have them tomorrow morning.”
    “Can you get surveillance footage of the pastor and his hanky-panky travels?”
    “That will be included in the file.”
    Stevie pursed her lips. Apparently there were advantages to working with a fed.
    “I’ll bet you a Val’s burger, that footage will out more than a few high profile faces.”
    Jack grinned. “I haven’t had a Val’s burger since that day you introduced me to them.”
    His eyes darkened. “That was a good day, Stevie.”
    She swallowed. Up to the end of that day, it had been the best of her life. It was the day Jack—
    “I don’t know who was more surprised when I kissed you,” he said. “You, me, or the recruits.”
    Her breasts thickened as her nipples hardened and the memory came flooding back. It had been pouring rain. They’d just come off a long grueling day of PT out at the Santa Rita facility. Soaked and mud covered, she’d raced Jack the last fifty yards of the long-distance course. Just as he was about to pass her for the win, she grabbed his arm to knock him off balance, but he grabbed hers and they both went down, Jack twisting his body to absorb the impact, her on top of him, both sliding several yards in the mud and pouring rain, laughing their asses off. When they came to a stop, she was sprawled on top of him. He’d grabbed her braid, wound it around his fist and forced her lips to his. He’d done it with no regard to the rest of the recruits stomping past them.
    She’d paid for that kiss. For the remainder of her time in the academy she was ostracized by her fellow recruits. A smile cracked her lips. Totally worth it.
    “You should do that more often,” Jack said his voice low and husky.
    She looked up at him and caught the raw desire in his eyes that he made no effort to hide. “Do what?”
    “Smile.”
    She scowled. “Before or after I gain more weight?”
    “When’s the last time you ran in the rain?”
    “When was the last time you minded your own business?”
    Stevie turned back to the computer and printed out the pictures of Spoltori’s cousin and Erica Strauss. She taped them to the right of the Oakland victims, then wrote their names and date of death beneath each.
    “Have you made contact with the aunt?” Jack asked.
    “I called her, but she refused to talk to me and there isn’t money for a trip to Maryland.”
    Jack pulled up a chair, “I wonder if the kill dates of Jessica and Erica were full moons?” He quickly did a Google search, looked up at Stevie, and smiled grimly. “Full moons. I’ll bet you another Val’s burger each of the attacks at Northwestern were during a full moon.”
    Stevie dragged over the other chair, nudged his hands off the keyboard and pulled up her