Read Online Seductive Reasoning (TASK FORCE HAWAII Book 1) by Melissa Schroeder - Free Book Online Page A

in his edgy expression and the dark circles under his eyes. She hadn’t seen him ever look this way. But then, they had never dealt with a case like this.
    He was looking over her notes and white board.
    “You think you can find something this way? Some connection?”
    She nodded. “There is something there I am missing, but with only one murder and nothing else to go on, it has been slow going. And where were his other kills? Most of them had to be international.”
    He glanced sharply at her. “You think this isn’t his first?”
    She nodded. “This was too planned. Seriously, if someone wanted to come up with a plan to get away with murder, this would be one of the cases I would hold up as an example.”
    “Are you saying we can’t catch him?”
    She shook her head. “No, you can catch him. But it is going to take some kind of connection. That is what I have been looking for. The problem is there is not a good database worldwide of these things. They have them, and they are definitely hackable—” she broke off when he rolled his eyes. “Bloody hell, I didn’t mean to tell you about that.”
    He sighed and shook his head. “Go on.”
    “Alright, well, I definitely think the tattoo has something to do with it, but I have yet to find any connection to it. And it could be a new element.”
    He nodded. “True.”
    He went back to studying the board. Her stomach rumbled loudly again.
    “Get something to eat,” he said. “I want to look some more of this over.”
    She hesitated, because she didn’t like people looking over her work. It was usually a hodgepodge of things that made no sense to anyone. But she knew from experience that Del could make sense of her scribbles. Fighting the urge to explain the details, she walked into her kitchen.
    The flat wasn’t small by Honolulu standards, but most people from the mainland would find it tiny. Her kitchen overlooked his living room with a three person breakfast bar separating the two rooms. She grabbed a piece of pumpernickel bread and slathered some peanut butter on it.
    “Do you want anything?”
    “No thanks.”
    She poured herself a glass of milk and rejoined him in the living room. As she waited for the inevitable questions, she munched on her snack.
    “You believe all this stuff?”
    “Bloody hell, no.”
    His mouth curved and she tried not to react, but her hormones were an independent lot. Her hands grew so damp, she thought she might drop the glass. She set it down on the coffee table.
    “Then why do you have it listed?”
    “I am trying to work in his mind. I don’t believe that much in analysis, but I do think that he does. He has a reason behind what he is doing. That, I cannot deny. No one orchestrates a murder like this, one that has all this symbolism. Especially where he left her.”
    “What about it?”
    “She was in view of Diamond Head, which is considered sacred to the Hawaiians. It could be nothing, but with the goddess tattoo on her back, I would venture to guess wherever he leaves them is important. I also find it odd that he picked a goddess and killed her.”
    “Why?”
    “In mythology throughout the world, women were often more powerful than men, or at least held the same level of power. Like here in Hawaii, you have Pele, a goddess who held her own and ruled the Earth while her lover ruled the seas. Or some similar sort of story.”
    “But she did not have Pele’s face on her back.”
    “Well, no, but then Grace Singh was a science teacher.”
    He nodded again, and then looked at her. The moment stretched, and she tried not to fidget. Fidgeting was a sign of weakness according to Jaime.
    “What?” she asked.
    “Why do you live here?”
    Okay, the conversation was turning weird. And when she noticed that, it was really, really odd. “Here? In Hawaii?”
    “No. Here where the ocean is out your window every day.”
    She glanced out the massive windows that showed her a view of the Pacific. The light waves rolled in from