Page 61 of Deadly Cry

Stacey stopped speaking as a familiar figure appeared in the doorway.

‘Damn it, I hate it when you get it right,’ Bryant said under his breath.

She’d been sure enough to leave a temporary ID at the front desk, which was now hanging around Alison Lowe’s neck.

‘No, you don’t,’ Kim said as she waved their visitor through the door. ‘In you come, Alison. You know where to sit.’

‘You were so sure?’ she asked, sliding into the seat at the spare desk, and tapping the lanyard around her neck.

‘Yep,’ Kim said, marvelling at the difference in the appearance of the woman now from when they’d first met during the kidnap case of two little girls. That day, she’d appeared in four-inch heels, stick thin and wearing a business suit that had sucked out any trace of personality, and the tightest ponytail Kim had ever seen. That day, she had looked almost ten years older than her thirty-one years.

Cut to the current picture of a woman wearing faded jeans, a college hoody with her blonde hair flowing down her back. The few pounds she’d gained suited her, and she looked exactly her own age.

‘But thanks for helping us out.’

‘Is that an admission that you finally trust us profiley, behaviourist folk?’ Alison asked with a half-smile.

‘Absolutely not,’ Kim shot back. ‘But let’s just say I distrust you less than the rest.’

Alison laughed out loud, breaking the tension in the room, although Kim noted she hadn’t looked at Stacey once.

‘She didn’t want to do it, Alison. She fought hard.’

Alison simply nodded.

Well, that was Kim’s one and only attempt at salvaging their friendship. Having Alison’s input on the letters was a higher priority than the BFF status of her colleagues.

Stacey printed off the two letters and placed them on Alison’s desk.

She glanced at them.

‘The killer is communicating with you directly?’ she asked.

‘Two murders, two letters,’ Kim said as Alison began to read.

‘So what do you think?’ Kim asked when Alison appeared to have read them both.

‘You want the quick answer?’ Alison asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Bryant wrote them,’ she said, nodding towards the sergeant.

Kim turned to her colleague. ‘Bryant, did you write them?’

He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.

Alison held up the printed sheets. ‘You know I need more than this. Where are the incident reports, the witness statements, victim backgrounds? This is like giving me a plate with no meal on it.’

Kim wasn’t surprised at her food analogy. During their last case together, they’d established Alison could out-eat a group of long-haul truckers.

‘So how long until you can give us something?’

Alison smiled and shook her head. ‘You never change, do you?’

Kim wasn’t insulted. ‘I try to be consistent.’

‘The answer is that I don’t know.’