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“I can't believe you figured out his pattern,” Jake Zeus said as they pored over the maps.

“It was just a hunch,” Florence told her partner, brushing off his praise. It was just observation, intuition, and good luck that she had managed to predict where the killer was going to dump his next body. “Do you think now that we figured out where he’s going to be that he’ll change things up?”

“Depends how set he is on following his modus operandi.” Jake studied the map for a moment longer and then said, “It all seems so obvious now that we know it, I can't believe we didn't see it before now.”

“We couldn’t have seen it until he did enough dumps.

” The pattern needed enough bodies before you could see what he was doing, but now the fact that he was making an eye was obvious when you looked at the map.

He was moving all across the city. The first ten body dumps had made a large circle, and the next four had started making a small circle in the middle.

Once you knew what you were looking for, it was easy to see it.

“What made you think of an eye?” Jake asked.

“The fact that he cuts into the victims the same words. I am nothing . I was just thinking that when you think you're nothing, it’s because you think no one sees you, and because they don’t see you, you aren’t worthy of being seen.

You're nothing. I looked at what we knew so far and thought that it looked like an eye. I used that to start searching dumpsters.”

“Next time you decide to go out looking for body dump sites, you should probably tell your partner.” He shot her a reproachful look.

“Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly.

“But you have the baby, and this was off the clock.

I thought I'd let you actually get some time with your family, and if it turned out I was on to something, I would have brought you in. I swear.” Florence didn't want Jake to think that she was shutting him out on purpose. He and his wife had a four-month-old baby at home, and he was always talking about how he hardly got any time to spend with them, she’d just been trying to cover every base.

“It’s okay.” Jake reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “But don’t do it again.”

“I won't,” she promised.

“So, we can add what we know to his profile, we’re getting closer to finding him.”

“The car led us to a rental agency, even though he paid them cash under the table to get them to rent him the car without a license, at least we have a description of him now.” It had been disappointing to track the license plate to a small car rental dealership and find out that someone had been paid a lot of money to agree to let him rent the car without a paper trail.

Their killer was smart, and apparently he had a lot of money to throw around because he’d paid the dealership ten thousand dollars, enough to convince them to go against their policies.

“A description is better than nothing,” Jake reminded her.

That was true, but the description was nothing special—tall, medium build, short cut brown hair, hazel eyes, and a cleft chin.

They might be able to use that once they already had their guy in custody, but it was unlikely it would lead them to the man’s identity.

Still, the sketch would be shown on news stations today in the hopes that it might garner them some leads.

More than likely, it would give them dozens of false leads, but again that was better than nothing.

“So, where do we go from here?” she asked.

They had the guy’s pattern, and they knew that he had driven on to the dumpster that had been next on her list after he’d tried to run her down, and left victim number fifteen.

That was what had proved her initial speculation that it might have been the Dumpster Killer who had tried to hit her with his car.

After she’d been pushed out of the way by Eli Lennox, he’d continued on to the dumpster, left the body, and then disappeared back into whatever hole he was hiding in.

Eli.

Why couldn’t she get him out of her head?

She wasn't looking for anything serious, and even if she were, Eli would be the last person she’d be looking at for a happy ever after.

Florence knew that he wasn't good for her. He was sexy, charming, and rich. He would chew her up and spit her out, and she’d never recover from it.

Her childhood had been rough, and if there was one thing she had learned from it, it was that all she wanted was stability in her personal life.

It was one thing to risk her life at her job, but if she was going to go home to someone, she wanted it to be someone she could count on.

Stability had been something she had longed for as a child. That and food, running water, and electricity. She would have gladly gone without all of those things if she’d had someone to take care of her, look after her, and love her. But she and her brother Fletcher hadn't even had that.

Men like Eli didn't want someone like her. They wanted a woman who would wear pearls, and attend parties, and be content to be a trophy wife. That wasn't her. Even knowing she would never have to worry about being cold, or dirty, or hungry ever again, she couldn’t live her life as a trophy wife.

Which meant no Eli.

Because no way was she going to be his next roll in the hay, then watch him lose interest and walk away.

“What’re you thinking about?”

She started, realizing that she’d zoned out, and knew her cheeks had pinked in embarrassment.

That was all it took for a slow grin to spread across Jake’s face. “You met someone.”

They’d been partners for three years now, long enough to learn each other’s facial expressions and body language. “No, I didn't.”

“You’re fibbing,” he sing-songed.

Before she could insist, a delivery man with a bouquet of flowers in his arms walked over toward their desks.

“I'm looking for a Detective Florence Harris,” the young man said.

“I'm Florence.” She stood and closed the couple of steps between them.

“Then these are for you.” The man handed her the flowers and headed back toward the lifts.

“Thought you said you don’t have a new boyfriend,” Jake said, curiosity brimming in his voice.

“I don’t,” she insisted.

“Then who’s sending you flowers?”

Setting them down on her desk, she saw a small envelope taped to the colorful paper, and she pulled it off and slid a small piece of card from inside.

Florence, I'm looking forward to getting to know you better over coffee.

Hope you like the flowers, I chose snapdragons because they remind me of you; fierce and beautiful.

Your savior ;-)

Eli’s confidence knew no bounds. She’d told him again this morning that she wasn't going to go on a date with him, and yet instead of believing her, he was sending her flowers and continuing to insist that sooner or later she’d go out with him.

Her phone rang, and she picked it up cautiously when she saw that it was an unknown number. “Hello?”

“Did you like the flowers?” a cocky voice drawled in her ear.

“Eli. How did you get my number?” She had decided against giving him her card in case he remembered anything about the car or its driver because she hadn't wanted him to misinterpret it as an invitation to keep asking her out.

“I have my ways.”

“Did you have someone look into me?”

“So paranoid, darlin’. No, I didn't have to. I called the precinct and told them who I was and that I had thought of something else about last night and asked for your number so I could call you. They gave it to me. So, dinner tonight?”

“You’ve gone from coffee to dinner?”

“Right about now, I’ll take whatever I can if it comes to spending time with you.”

The sincerity tugged her mouth into a reluctant smile.

She’d never had a guy take such an interest in her that they would pursue her like this.

The romantic side of her brain wanted to insist that he had to like her to go to all this trouble because as wealthy and good looking as he was, he could have his choice of women.

The practical side of her brain insisted that this was just a challenge to him, he probably wasn't used to being turned down and he didn't like it, once he convinced her to date him and got her into bed, he’d lose interest and move on.

The two sides of her warred on, and she didn't know what to do.

Her body still felt the imprint of his hands touching her, her heart wanted to give it a go, thrilled at the possibility that someone might really care about her, but she was a woman who listened to her head, and it said run.

“Florence? You still there.”

“I'm still here. Thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”

“I sense a but coming.”

She huffed a mirthless laugh. “I don’t think we’re a good match, Eli. We come from two different worlds. Thank you for saving my life, but I'm not going on a date with you. Goodbye.”

She ended the call and set the phone on her desk beside the bunch of flowers. She had made the smart move, the safe move, but it felt like she’d just made a mistake.

8:04 P.M.

This was not how he wanted to spend his evening.

No, strike that, this was how he wanted to be spending his evening, but the woman sitting across from him at the table wasn't who he wanted to be spending it with.

Eli would have canceled the blind date if Florence had agreed to go out with him, but she’d said no every time he’d asked, and at some point, he had to accept that chemistry wasn't enough.

Just because he felt that sizzle of attraction, and just because he was sure that she felt it too, didn't mean that he could force her to let go of whatever fear was holding her back and give him a chance.

Didn't mean he had to like it.