Assumed Identity by Julie Miller Page A

was big. This is a guy who works out. He looked...dangerous.”
    “Does this ghost have a name?” Detective Montgomery paused with his pen hovering over his notepad. “I don’t like it when potential witnesses flee the scene.”
    At least the relentlessly inquisitive detective hadn’t called him a suspect. “He wasn’t fleeing. I get the idea he’s not a very social kind of a guy. I asked Mr. Lonergan if he saw the man who attacked me, and he couldn’t tell me any more details than the description I gave you. He stopped the attack. Got us safely inside. I don’t think he saw the need to stick around.” The two detectives exchanged a curious look across her desk when she mentioned her rescuer’s name. “What? Do you know him?”
    Nick Fensom gave his partner a curt nod, and then excused himself from the conversation and exited the room. “I’ll check it out.”
    “You do know him.” Ignoring both pain and fatigue, Robin pushed to her feet and laid a hand on the sleeve of Spencer Montgomery’s light gray suit. “I don’t care if he’s on your most-wanted list. Please don’t pester him. I don’t want to get him into trouble. He saved my life.”
    “It’s my job to pester people. If I don’t ask questions, I don’t get answers. And I like answers.” Pulling away without betraying his suspicions about Lonergan, he folded up his notebook and tucked it away. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the attack?”
    Other than the fact there wasn’t a muscle in her body that didn’t feel battered and in need of a long, hot bath? Robin shook her head. “I’d like to get back to my daughter. Are we finished?”
    “For now. CSI Hermann and her team need to finish processing your car before you can drive it home.”
    With her home nearly forty minutes away out in the Missouri countryside, and dawn ready to peek around the corner in another hour or two, that wasn’t going to happen. “We’ll be staying in town tonight. At my friend Hope Lockhart’s apartment across the street.”
    The detective nodded, added that information to his notepad, and turned to the dark-haired CSI still labeling items and packing her evidence kit. “Do you need anything else, Annie?”
    CSI Hermann looked up from her work and frowned an apology to Robin. “Just so you know, we removed the severed seat belt so we can take it back to the lab and compare tool marks to see what kind of blade was used.”
    One more thing for Robin’s to-do list—get her damaged car into the shop for repairs. “I understand.”
    “We need to take the car seat, too, and the sleeper your daughter was wearing. We’ve already dusted for prints, but if the perp left any evidence behind—”
    “He was wearing gloves.”
    With a sigh that sounded like frustration, Annie Hermann brushed the dark curls off her forehead, giving Robin a glimpse of a fresh pink scar in her hairline. “I’m familiar with that scenario. But there could be a fiber or some other kind of transfer left behind that we can use.”
    “I already changed her to keep her dry. Her clothes are here in the hamper.” Robin turned to get them, pulling out the baby towels she and Lonergan had dried off with and reaching back inside. But the criminologist asked her to stay put. She waved her gloved—sterile—fingers in the air as she circled the desk to collect Emma’s things.
    Feeling that unfamiliar helplessness again, Robin hugged the damp towels to her chest and watched the woman bag and label Emma’s clothes. Since she wasn’t physically being allowed to do anything to reclaim control over her life tonight, Robin’s brain went to work. She put together Annie Hermann’s scar and frustration, and finally placed the younger woman’s face from shots she’d seen on the evening news. “You’re the CSI who was attacked at that murder scene on New Year’s Eve.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Did you catch him?”
    “We did.” The younger woman’s gaze bounced away,