Page 34 of Justified Fear (TFH Team Bravo #2)

He’s got a killer to catch and no time for love. Fate has other plans.

Former Army Special Forces Officer Martin “Del” Delano has enough on his hands chasing a serial killer and heading up TASK FORCE HAWAII.

He definitely doesn’t need the distraction of Emma Taylor .

From the moment they meet, she knocks him off his feet, literally.

Unfortunately, she’s the best person to have on the team to make the connections to help them catch their killer.

For Emma, it’s hard to ignore the lure of a man like him.

Tats, muscles and his Harley cause her to have more than a few fantasies about Del.

He’d never be interested in a geek like her, but she can’t resist toying with him.

When she pushes the teasing too far, she ends up in his bed.

She convinces herself she can handle it until the moment he steals her heart.

Del can’t help falling for the quirky genius.

She’s smart, funny and there’s a sweet vulnerable side to her that only he can see.

As Emma gets more involved with the investigation, she becomes the target of the psychopath.

When the danger escalates, Del promises to do anything to save the woman who not only captured his heart but also his soul.

Martin Delano stepped out of his pickup and shut the door, as a light trade wind danced over his skin. He slipped his shoulder holster on, then looked up and down the street. Finding no traffic, he jogged over to the other side, following the lights set up by the Honolulu Police Department.

Being former military, he should be used to the early morning wakeup calls, but it didn’t mean he had to be happy about it—especially this morning.

The lights burned his eyes. Damn, he was getting old when he couldn’t seem to make it up and at work without a cup of coffee.

He should have grabbed one before he left his house in Hawaii Kai.

Police tape marked off the spot, and a very serious looking young officer in uniform stood by the entrance. His militant expression told Del this was his first big assignment. The kid raised his hand as if to stop him…or die trying. God save him.

He wasn’t in the mood.

“HPD only, sir,” he said, his voice stern.

Del sighed and pulled out his Task Force badge.

He’d been there a year and people in the department still didn’t know who he was.

Of course, the officer looked like he was straight out of the academy, so that was probably the reason.

However, the department was small, and Del had been on TV enough that he thought everyone knew his face.

And, as the local members of his team kept telling him, everyone knows everyone else on the island.

The officer’s face reddened. “Sorry, sir.”

Del nodded and attached the badge back onto his belt. “I’m looking for Rome Carino.”

“Of course, sir.” He turned and motioned with his hand. “He’s right over there, by the Medical Examiner.”

Del glanced over and saw where he was talking about. There was a barrier set up along the opposite side of the bridge. That would have been done probably before the ME had shown up.

“Mahalo,” Del said, as he walked past the officer towards the ME. He passed a few familiar faces. Some smiled, some frowned, and others barely acknowledged his existence.

The air was muggy from the recent rain, and the sun would start rising soon.

Traffic in Honolulu was always a bitch. The influx of tourists added to the locals’ aggravation, but figure in the water main breaks and the rail construction, it could be a real pain in the ass.

Being Monday made it worse, and the McCully Bridge over the Ala Wai Canal was always busy.

As he approached the group, he noticed a handful of detectives he knew.

He had been there for a year now, and he still felt like an outsider.

Being a Haole didn’t make for easy detective work in Hawaii.

Not to mention, a few of them thought he shouldn’t have been given the job.

Carino had been offered the job at one time, but he declined.

Now, Del was starting to understand why.

Del knew it was a bad sign when Carino called him. Del’s team only handled the major crimes, the ones that would require more than a little diplomacy working with various law enforcements. Not that he was always good with diplomacy, but in other words, Carino didn’t want the headache.

He noticed Drew Franklin, the ME assistant.

Nice kid, local, tall and skinny, with a world class mind and an irritating habit of trying too hard.

But he was good on the job, even if he did have an odd sense of humor, and an odd choice in clothing.

He was wearing a pair of jeans today, his regular sneakers, and a T-shirt that said ‘I like big books and I cannot lie.’

“Howzit, Del, I just got here too.”

Del nodded. “Did you get the call?”

He pushed his horn-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Dr. Middleton called. She said I didn’t need to be here, but I thought maybe Cat would be called out.”

“Nope, I was on call last night, so I took the call.”

“Makes sense.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, but it went over Drew’s head.

He just smiled as they walked together. The closer they got to the scene, Del’s worry grew. He knew it was a dead woman, but for him to be called out, it had to be huge. Maybe a celebrity or dignitary. That meant it would hit the news services soon. Damn, he hated dealing with the press.

Carino noticed him and turned to greet him.

Lean and tall, with feral eyes, he’d moved to Hawaii from Seattle several years earlier.

The homicide detective had been one of the most welcoming in the HPD.

His wife had insisted on inviting him over for dinner several times.

A lot of folks weren’t happy when they hired an outsider like him, but Carino had been a transplant also, and Del had an idea he had wanted to make everyone know that he accepted him.

“Sorry about calling you out, Del, but Dr. Middleton thought it was important. Usually, I go with her gut, and when she showed me, I was sure of it.”

He nodded. “No problem.”

Carino looked at Drew. “Dr. Masterson could use some help.”

“Of course,” Drew said and hurried off, almost tripping over his larger than average feet in the process.

Carino and he watched Drew greet the doctor with as much enthusiasm as he had Del.

Del shook his head. Was he ever that young and eager? He couldn’t remember, but he was sure that he had been when he entered the military. When he turned back to Del, he offered him a grim smile.

“Man, to be that young again,” he said, voicing Del’s thoughts.

Del nodded. “Makes me tired just listening to him sometimes.”

Carino’s smile faded. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of him, not yet, but I have a bad feeling this might be a serial.”

Del knew Carino wasn’t jumping to conclusions.

When there had been a serial killer terrorizing Honolulu, and especially the BDSM club members at Rough ‘n Ready, he had been at the head of the case.

He had caught the killer no one else had expected—with the help of an FBI agent, who had later become his wife. Carino did not make assumptions.

A heavy lead weight started to tighten in his stomach.

This was going to be a fucking nightmare.

He just knew it. And, it would put his team to the test again.

He didn’t have a background in investigative work.

Being an Army Ranger did give you a skill set that helped out in some things, but investigating a serial killer was different.

Thank God he had a team with more experience in that department.

Both Cat and Adam were in the department during Carino’s investigation.

And he knew his ME had experience with that kind of thing.

“What makes you think that? Does it resemble any other killings?”

The detective shook his head. “No, but she was posed, grotesquely. There’s just something about the way she was left…” he sighed and rubbed his temples.

“Long night?”

Carino nodded. “Yeah, and I was just thinking I was getting too old for this.”

“Nothing going on with Maria?”

He knew the detective’s wife was pregnant and entering the final few months.

Flashing Del a smile, Carino shook his head. “No, just horrible insomnia for her, which means I have it because she wanders through the house constantly.” His smile faded. “It’s going to be a bitch of a day today, considering who I think is down there.”

His head was already pounding from the lack of caffeine, and this was just ramping it up to a whole other level of pain.

“Who?”

Carino looked toward the scene, then back at Del. “We have to wait for official word, but I think it’s Grace Singh.”

The name hit him like a ton of bricks.

“Well, fuck.”

Del knew the story. Hell, everyone in Hawaii knew the story. Two weeks earlier, a pretty schoolteacher had disappeared. Right off the street in a good part of town.

There was no sign of her anywhere, which was definitely odd. From all accounts, she was sweet and unassuming, a bit of a homebody who lived with her parents—not an uncommon occurrence considering the housing situation on the island at the moment.

When the news had hit, everyone had shown up to help.

Honolulu might be a big city to some, but Hawaii still operated like a small town.

When one of their own went missing, especially a cherished teacher, they called out the reserves.

Citizens, law enforcement, everyone. They all had looked for her and could not find one bit of evidence as to her whereabouts.

“Exactly. I wouldn’t normally jump to conclusions, but she’s fresh, and I know her face, of course. That means she has been alive the last two weeks. And, it’s bad. There is no doubt in my mind someone tortured her.”