CHAPTER TWO
River
FREYA DANVERS DOESN’T speak another word for the rest of my lecture. I’m not used to someone so brazenly interrupting me. I continue through the slides on autopilot, but my gaze keeps coming back to her. The way her ginger hair tumbles in front of her face as she makes her notes. The way she flinches ever so slightly when the slide shows yet another victim. The way she refuses to make eye contact with me. I wait till the rest of the attendees are gathering their belongings, then call out to her. “Detective Danvers. A moment, if you will.”
She looks up from her bag and meets my gaze.
I raise my eyebrows a touch and wait at the bottom of the lecture theater as Freya makes her way down the stairs. The woman who only moments ago was speaking up in the middle of my lecture seems timid now, her feet unsure as she fidgets in front of me.
“You’ve studied the Maxwell case before,” I state.
She shrugs, her hand gripping the strap of the bag hooked over her shoulder. “A little. We did it my second year at the Academy.”
I want to question her. To keep her here until I figure out what it is about Freya that has my profiler sense on high alert. Before I can think of an excuse to delay her exit though, a young woman calls her name from the doors.
“Sorry,” Freya says, “I have to go. My shift starts soon. Thank you for the lecture, Agent Park.” She spins on her heel and is up and out of the auditorium faster than a suspect fleeing the scene. I know how to read people. The last thing Freya wanted to do was talk to me. The question is why? I don’t like not having answers and her comments from earlier bite at my heels as I leave the stage.
“Find out everything you can about Freya Danvers,” I snap the order at Oz.
He stands up from where he was leaning against the wall and blinks at me as I walk past, but I’m already on my phone. “Dr Knightly. I have a theory and I need you to tell me whether or not it’s likely.”
“Hello to you too, River.” Sarcasm colors Dr K’s smooth voice. “I can fit you in tomorrow afternoon.”
“Today.”
The line goes silent. My Oxfords clack against the Academy’s hard wood floor. Oz is already tapping at his phone as he follows. The Quantico representative who organized for me to give my talk today is chatting with a colleague and I don’t have time for pleasantries. I bypass her and the security in the front of the building. I walk through the sliding doors and head towards the black SUV out front.
Dr Knightly’s voice sharpens. “Agent Park-”
“It’s the Cross-Cut Killer,” I say.
A rush of air carries down the line. The grey sky darkens through the tinted windows as I get in the SUV and a few spots of rain hit the windscreen.
“You’re already on your way, aren’t you?”
My answer is to put the phone on speaker and turn on the engine.
Dr Knightly sighs. “Fine. But you can talk to me while I dissect.”
That’s fine by me. After five years chasing the worst killers in the States my ability to detach myself from a situation has developed to an unhealthy degree. It allows me to get the job done though, and that’s all that matters.
I’m checking my mirrors when the passenger door opens and Oz slides in.
“Don’t wait for me or anything,” he grumbles, shrugging out of his suit jacket without taking his eyes off his phone.
I indicate and pull out into the road. “What have you got on Danvers?” The name feels wrong on my lips. I don’t want to call her Danvers, it seems too impersonal, too generic when this woman is anything but. Calling her Freya would be unprofessional though. In this line of work, you form walls, certain lines you don’t cross in order to stay sane. I keep things professional. Always.
Oz taps at his phone. “Not much.”
I do a double take, glancing across at him as I speed down the road. His brow is knitted, his ginger hair mussed up by the drizzle outside. Oz is the best hacker this side of the Atlantic, give him internet access and he’ll know your entire life story in minutes. “‘Not much’ as in nothing of interest?” I ask, hoping he’s merely being selective with what he shares. He does that at times, for a hacker Oz has a bizarrely healthy respect for privacy.
“‘Not much’ as in she’s practically non-existent.”
My grip around the steering wheel tightens but I’m not altogether unsurprised. I follow my instincts for a reason and Freya Danvers, with her fiery gold curls and cream white freckled skin, sparked every last one of them.
Oz scowls at his phone before slipping it into his pocket. “I need my laptop. All I’ve got so far is that she graduated from the Police Academy third top of her class and was promoted to detective a year ago, aged twenty-two.
“Young.”
