Death Notice

city, but also those of several surrounding towns. I’d like to thank the officers from those towns for joining in this effort even though their communities haven’t experienced any killings.”
He nodded at the men and women, most of whom were known to Jen. She counted representatives from five of the neighboring towns. All five communities either bordered the city without intervening countryside or were within five miles of it. Obviously the city fathers of all five recognized that a serial killer would be unlikely to respect such an arbitrary boundary as a city limits sign.
“Additionally, we can consider ourselves fortunate that we’ve received an offer of assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I personally spoke with the Special Agent in Charge of the district office in Cincinnati, and he was kind enough to send these two men to our meeting today.”
Buchan gestured to the man on his right.
“This is Special Agent Donald Hawkins from the Cincinnati office.” He turned to his left. And this is Special Agent Will Anderson from the Chicago office. They’re assigned to our task force for as long as we need them.”
Chicago? Jen was surprised. The FBI had a small office in Jefferson, the county seat, but she knew both of the incompetent turkeys assigned there. She had assumed that these agents were out of the regional office in Cincinnati. Why would the FBI assign a Chicago agent to southern Ohio murders?
Jen looked up and into Agent Anderson’s blue eyes. He was looking at her as if they had just been personally introduced, seeming to ignore the other men and women in the room. He nodded at her, the corners of his lips curling upward again in that half-smile, before he slowly turned his attention to the rest of the room and nodded again.
“Looks like you’re going to be working closely with the hunk,” Jamie whispered at her side. “That is, if he has anything to say about it.”
“Hush,” Jen muttered through gritted teeth.
Glancing at her boss, she saw Lonnie trying to hide his grin. He is going to make my life miserable, she thought.
“I’d like to turn this discussion over to Agent Anderson now. He has some information that may be of interest to us in these cases.”
Buchan took his seat, and Will Anderson stood.

CHAPTER 2
The FBI agent didn’t speak at first but took his time looking at each of the officers in the room, a smile of greeting on his face. Jen thought his eyes lingered a second longer on her than they did on the others in the room, but she might have been imagining it. Was it wishful thinking, she wondered and hoped that it wasn’t.
“Well, I’m certainly glad to meet all of you, although I wish it could have been under better circumstances.” His gaze swung back to Jen, and one side of his luscious mouth twitched slightly. “Still, I’m looking forward to working closely—very closely—with you on this case.”
Oh, my God, Jen thought, feeling her face redden again. No, she wasn’t imagining it. Can the man possibly make it any more obvious? He’ll probably proposition me publicly in about five more minutes and throw me down on the conference table and rip off my clothes ten minutes after that.
What an interesting idea, she thought involuntarily and immediately suppressed it.
She was fast become irritated with the federal agent. He was incredibly handsome and sexy. There was no doubt about it. But add that to the fact that he was an FBI agent, which most women probably found glamorous, and you ended up with a man who was in all likelihood insufferably conceited. He was probably used to women throwing themselves at him. So here he was, far away from home—and probably far away from a wife and a boatload of kids—and looking for a warm and willing body to keep him warm in his motel bed.
Well, he didn’t need to think it was going to happen here. Maybe he could find someone on the task force who would fall for his charms—which were plentiful, she had to admit—but not this cop. After all, she thought with some regret, it won’t be the first time I’ve denied myself something that looked good.
As if he realized he’d pushed it about as far as he could without making a scene, Anderson turned serious. He looked down at the files in front of him for a few moments, as if trying to decide how to phrase what he was going to say.
“I’ve been with the Bureau a little over fifteen years,” he began. “Before that I was with the Minneapolis P.D., working my way through law school in my spare time.”
So he hadn’t always been an FBI guy, Jen thought. He’d been a cop like herself. In a way, that fact made her even more uneasy. She wanted to be able to dismiss the man as another Ken doll, as many of the officers referred to FBI agents. It would be considerably harder to do now that she knew he’d once done law enforcement the down and dirty way.
Of course, she’d never have mistaken him for a Ken doll anyway. She’d never seen a Ken doll with such a sexy smile. Or with such nice buns.
“About a year before I left the P.D. and went with the Bureau, several killings took place in Minneapolis. The M.O. was almost identical to the M.O. in these cases. The victims were all females in their twenties or early thirties, they were all killed in their homes, and they had all been severely beaten before their throats were cut. They were found tied to their bed frames with a pillowcase over their heads held in place by a black satin ribbon.”
An excited murmur ran through the room, as all the officers looked at one another, their faces hopeful. Jen held back, knowing somehow it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“We sent out a teletype asking for any information of similar killings in