Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel by Mari Carr (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

laptop resting on her knees as she read through one of the countless files on the thumb drive she’d received from the fleet admiral two days earlier. Outside her windows, a group of drunk students went by singing loudly enough for her to hear them. Classes would begin again in a week or so, and students were making the most of their Christmas break.

Jakob sat across from her, mindlessly clicking through the TV channels without stopping to watch anything. Given the fact he’d muted the sound, she suspected he wasn’t interested in watching television at all. She’d felt his gaze slide to her several times over the past few minutes, but he hadn’t spoken, even though she was certain there was something on his mind.

Jakob was a reserved man, a consummate professional, the type of person capable of compartmentalizing his emotions in order to focus on his job. It was an admirable quality in a Ritter. However, it was frustrating as hell for her, a woman who had once made a living from reading other people’s words and emotions to analyze their actions and predict their reactions.

Of course, if Annalise was being honest with herself, it wasn’t the psychologist in her who was frustrated by her inability to figure out what Jakob was thinking or feeling. It was the woman.

What had begun as a spark of attraction had grown, despite her best efforts, until now she was consumed by a longing she’d never experienced. She wanted her bodyguard, and the absurdity of that cliché was not lost on her.

She pretended not to notice Jakob’s occasional glances, forcing herself to concentrate on the file she was reading. It was difficult. More and more she found herself thinking about Jakob. Not in a professional way but rather a naked, sweaty way.

She constantly reminded herself that her feelings for him were a byproduct of circumstance and situational intimacy. Perhaps a form of transference, since he was an authority figure with whom she had a close relationship, and who had “rescued” her from the bugs, then continued to protect her.

There wasn’t a term for this particular situation, and she’d considered having one of her advanced classes do research on it. There was, perhaps, an interesting journal article that could be written about it. They could call it damsel-in-distress syndrome, though she disliked the gendered nature of it.

Unfortunately, knowing the psychology behind her feelings didn’t dim them or make them easier to dismiss.

And to make matters worse, Jakob was locked up tighter than a drum, his own feelings toward her a complete mystery.

Annalise sighed and tried once more to push all thoughts of Jakob out of her head. She’d promised the fleet admiral she’d study the files and attempt to come up with a profile. Picking up a pen, she jotted down a note and for a few minutes, she was actually able to concentrate on the file she was reading.

That concentration was broken when Jakob turned off the television and shifted to face her.

She set down her pen and tipped down her laptop screen, not closing it all the way. “There’s clearly something on your mind, Jakob. Say it.”

“Are you certain you want to work on this case?”

“Do you think I should have said no?”

Jakob quickly shook his head. “No. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just concerned that…”

He didn’t finish his statement, didn’t have to. He’d been with her enough in the past few years to understand how hard her confidence had been shaken by her stalker, by Adele’s attack, and her failure to find the man and bring him to justice. She’d morphed from an intelligent, assertive profiler to one who questioned everything she’d thought she knew about herself and her abilities.

Annalise gave him a sad smile. “I want to do this,” she said, with a strength she didn’t really feel.

Jakob frowned—of course her forthright response hadn’t fooled him—but he didn’t immediately speak. She was used to his long pauses, accustomed to his habit of thinking before he spoke. She appreciated that about him, preferring it to people who expressed inane or stupid sentiments without thought or care.

At last, he said, “I think it will be good for you. To profile again.”

Sometimes she struggled to recall her time with the Kripo, her life as a profiler. It almost felt as if she’d been someone else back then, an entirely different person. Someone who, more and more, she wanted to be again.

“Perhaps it will.”

Jakob nodded toward the pad of paper where she’d scrawled several of her thoughts. “What have you found?”

“The fleet admiral’s search basis is too large, and as such, the victim pool is muddy. Plus the fact that Josephine O’Connor’s body was not found—only her head—also complicates it. What I need to do is narrow the parameters without relying solely on Josephine’s file. There simply isn’t enough there.”

“How?”

“I’ve done a cursory read-through of all the files, starting with victims who were dismembered.” She held up two fingers. “There are two distinct classifications within the files.”

“Classifications.” Jakob looked at her with a calm, focused expectation.

“Most of the dismemberment files were attributed to organized crime or another potential source of societal violence, such as drug cartels or gangs, by the investigators. The victims often had either fingers, toes, ears, or noses removed before they died—as noted in their autopsies.”

“Torture.”

“And scare tactics, precisely. I’d say ninety-five percent of these files were correctly attributed, with the perimortem dismemberment a form of punishment or torture as you just pointed out. But, the cause of death is not the torture.” She checked her notes. “Most often it was a gunshot wound, often to the head, or carotid artery severed with a knife.”

“The kill was quick. Professional.”

“Exactly, and for the files in this classification, my reading of it is that the postmortem dismemberment was a function of either necessity for disposal or extended punishment for those victims who come from cultures where funerary practices rely on an intact body.”

“They were denied a proper burial.”

“Yes.”

“The other five percent?”

“Those,