Cavanaugh's Bodyguard by Marie Ferrarella

about Valentine’s Day, or does the guy just hate a really short month?” he ended wryly.
    “You mean is he killing women to make some kind of a protest against commercialism?” she asked incredulously.
    “I think if that were the case, he could have found a more subtle way to get his point across,” she told Josh. “My guess is that someone jilted him, and I mean royally, and unlike a lot of people, he couldn’t handle the embarrassment of it.” Her mind raced as she fleshed out her theory, trying to find the pieces that fit. “Maybe he’s this invisible guy and he got tired of no one really seeing him. This is his way of getting even with the woman.”
    “And every woman who reminds him of her,” Josh speculated.
    Bridget nodded, agreeing. But there was a slight problem with that theory. “But why just in February?” she asked Josh. “Why isn’t he killing women all year round, every time he sees someone who looks like the woman who broke his heart?”
    Josh laughed shortly. The caseload would be absolutely impossible if that were the case. “Whose side are you on?”
    “Ours,” she told him with feeling. “I’m just trying to get into the guy’s head and figure out what motivates him. That way, we can finally get him.” She couldn’t think of anything she wanted more for Valentine’s Day than to get this psycho off the streets of her city.
    As he drove to their destination, Josh reviewed what she’d just said when she started using him as a sounding board. Something she’d just thrown out had stuck. “My guess would be that he’s doing it in February because that was when she rejected him, during all the hype and commercialism leading up to the ‘big day.’ Department stores, restaurants, greeting card companies, they’re making a big deal of Valentine’s Day these days. Subtly or blatantly they make a person feel like there’s something wrong with them if they don’t have someone special by their side on that day.”
    He seemed to have a pretty good lock on all the hoopla surrounding the day, Bridget thought. That had her entertaining other questions about her partner. She told herself that she was only being curious about a friend, but even she knew that there was more to it than that. But exactly what she was not about to go into or explore. That would be asking for trouble.
    “Speaking of which,” she began on a much lighter note, “who’s going to be by your side on Valentine’s Day? Since your cell phone hasn’t rung in, oh, the last two hours, I’m assuming that you and—Linda, was it?—are now officially history.” That was the way he operated. Hot and heavy for a few days and then he’d start craving the sweet taste of freedom. She felt truly sorry for any woman who really fell in love with Josh. Luckily that wouldn’t be her.
    “Don’t worry about who I’m going to be with,” he told her, flashing his thousand watt-smile. “And you know damn well her name was Linda.”
    Was. I was right, Bridget thought with a quick flare of satisfaction.
    “I’m not worried,” she informed him, “just curious. And as for my reaching for a name to your last current squeeze, there’ve been so many women in and out of your life these last three years that it’s hard for me to keep track of their names.”
    He looked at her pointedly, “No one asked you to keep track.”
    “You’re my partner,” she answered matter-of-factly. “If someone finds you strangled and naked in your bed bright and early one morning, I want to know who to go looking for.”
    Stopping at a light, he took the opportunity to turn toward her and study her for a moment. “You think of me that way a lot?”
    “What, strangled?”
    He grinned. He knew that she knew he wasn’t referring to that. “No, naked and in bed.”
    “No, but I do I think of you strangled a lot.” Changing the subject quickly before the color of her complexion changed and gave him something else to tease her about, Bridget