Hidden Desires Read Online Free PDF Page A

money the company brings in helped me form the cold case unit in the Chicago PD. That’s what I’d rather focus on.”
    She felt compelled to ask him why cold cases seemed so important to him, but she bit back the question. Knowing Travis, he wouldn’t tell her anyway, and besides, just hearing about his specialty had lightened her chest with hope.
    In all honesty, she really did want answers. She knew she would never rest until she knew what happened to her sister. And she doubted she’d be able to unravel the mystery without the help of someone like Travis. But, before she allowed herself to smile, suspicion set in. Though Travis seemed sincere, she’d had plenty of experience with men, thanks to her mother. Men never did anything without wanting something in return, and she knew exactly what that something was.
    “Why would you want to help me?”
    As if he could see the trepidation in her eyes, he straightened on the couch, turning his posture from relaxed to strictly professional.
    “I’d be curious for some answers myself, but it’s not just that.” He rose from the couch and approached the door, being careful not to step inside her space. “I’ve always regretted not being there for you after Carrie died.”
    He took her hand, and she felt the sharp contrast in the warmth of his touch against the ice of her fingers. Apparently feeling it himself, he cupped her hand between his and began rubbing in some warmth.
    “Let me do this for you and Carrie.”
    Rachel wanted to say no. She wanted to believe Travis was no different then all the men who’d walked through the revolving door of her childhood home. She wanted to believe he was just after her body, that he would just steal her heart and crush it like all the others. But she couldn’t shake the genuine sincerity of his gaze.
    He had been a friend, after all. It was long ago, buried under years of hurt and betrayal. But he had been a friend, nonetheless. A friend she had been quick to accuse, and in a fit of regret for all the years she’d hated him, she heard herself say, “Okay.”

    Chapter Three
    “Any developments on the Harris case?” Travis asked, poking his head into Matt Grafton’s office.
    His partner’s blond head was bent over a file folder, and when Matt looked up with a satisfied grin on his face, Travis knew they’d gotten the news they’d hoped for.
    “DNA results just came in,” Matt replied, holding out the file for Travis. “We got our man.” Travis stepped toward Matt’s desk and took the folder, opening it and skimming the lab report. Nicky Thomas’s DNA and the genetic blueprint from the hair strands found at the scene were one and the same.
    The odds that Thomas wasn’t their guy were one in forty-eight trillion, and Travis liked those odds.
    “I’ll write up the final report,” Matt said. “You can call Maggie Harris to tell her we found her daughter’s killer. Even if it is five years too late.”
    “It’s never too late,” Travis said harshly.
    He left Matt’s office and stepped down the narrow, stark-white corridor toward his own office. At the moment, not even the harsh fluorescent lights of Chicago’s Thirty-second Division fazed him. A wave of satisfaction flooded his body, as it always did when he and Matt put another scumbag behind bars.
    In his office, he headed for his desk and sat on the brown leather chair. He reached for the little gold key hidden in a tin of paper clips and unlocked the bottom drawer.
    A quick glance at the open doorway, then he was rummaging through the papers in the drawer until he found the photograph.
    A lump of sorrow lodged at the back of his throat as he looked at the image in front of him. Big blue eyes. Long blonde hair. A lopsided smile.
    We did it, Jess. We got another one off the streets.
    The achingly beautiful woman in the photo didn’t answer, but Travis knew she was happy, wherever she was.
    With one last look at the picture, he returned it to the drawer and