Force of Habit: A Falcone & Driscoll Investigation by Alice Loweecey Page B

Because True Love hadn’t actually done anything, all the police could tell her was to be careful and let them know if things changed.”
    He stopped tapping the pencil.
    “A week later the letters got simpler: ‘We’ll be together forever.’ Accompanied by photos of both of them with a dripping heart around their faces. The hearts were drawn in blood. She called us. A judge issued a restraining order.”
    “Fine. That’s exactly what restraining orders are for.”
    “Oh, God. Grow up. Three days later her boss called us. She hadn’t shown up to work, and her neighbors hadn’t seen her. Rookie Driscoll got the key from her landlady, opened her door, and puked his guts up a minute later. True Love knew how to use those knives. Karen lay on the kitchen floor surrounded by a heart. Made from her own guts. We found her actual heart on the wall in True Love’s apartment. Two other hearts next to it had already shriveled. True Love came after Driscoll’s partner with one of the knives, and Driscoll shot True Love’s leg out from under him.”
    Giulia’s heart contracted. “That poor girl. But if he was that misguided, could anything really have stopped him?”
    “Misguided?” The pencil snapped in two. “Do you have a brain under all those curls? He was a twisted killer, and she died because we didn’t take him seriously till it was too late.”
    “No one is irredeemable—”
    Frank slapped both hands on the desk. “Listen to me. Forget the crap you fed your students. You want this job, you drag yourself out of the nunnery and onto the streets. I don’t care if you get on your knees every night to pray for whoever is stalking Blake, as long as you know this is not a game.”
    “I am quite aware of that.” She recognized her tone of voice. The last time she sounded like this, her Superior was lecturing her about her lack of decorum.
    “Then act like it. Have you started a spreadsheet of Blake’s and Pamela’s notes and packages received?”
    “Of course.”
    “Add a tab for yourself. We’ll hope this is a fluke, but it absolutely has to be catalogued.”
    Giulia counted to ten this time. “Frank, it can’t be anything other than a one-off. I’m no threat. Am I rich? Tall? Blonde? Do I come from the right background? Please.”
    He drummed his fingers. “Jealous women—”
    “Even our jealous and obsessive stalker picked the appropriate target: Blake’s new tall, blonde, rich, Barbie doll.” She waved the folder in front of her face. “Why is it so hot in here?”
    “I closed the window so the fingerprint powder wouldn’t blow all over the room.” He felt the back of his neck. “I didn’t notice the temperature.”
    Giulia went to the window and shoved it up. Pretending to adjust the screen bought her a minute. What a pig-headed, arrogant know-it-all. She inhaled mingled coffee, baking bread, and the overflowing dumpster between the buildings before she turned around. “Your advice has been noted and filed. Please dismiss the idea that I take any of this lightly.”
    Damn him for that look on his face—puzzled and frustrated and... charming. Damn him for making her curse. Damn her for losing her objectivity.
    “I’m taking an early lunch. Should I take the pomegranates to the dumpster?”
    “Uh... no, not yet. I want to study them some more.”
    “All the spreadsheets will be updated and in the shared directory by the end of the day.”
    She managed not to slam the outer door.

“Tomorrow night, seven to eight-thirty, Master Class Karate Studio on Euclid Avenue.” Frank ripped a page from the Cottonwood Community News and held it in front of Giulia until she took it.
    “ ‘Learn self-defense from a Master.’ ” She rolled her eyes. “Frank, I thought we—”
    “We did not. We left the conversation unfinished.” He folded the rest of the tabloid-sized paper and dropped it in her trash can. “Before lunch you said you took this job seriously. That means, of course, you’ll