Jamie raised a brow. “What kind of threats?”
“Teresa said he pulled her aside after a meeting in which we were attempting to reach a settlement. This would have been two or three days before she came to me about the restraining order. Mr. Donovan resisted the idea of settling, and left the room. Teresa went after him, and she claims he told her she didn’t know what he was capable of, and that if she kept pushing him, she was going to regret it.”
Although Finn’s expression went triumphant again, Jamie didn’t quite agree with the obvious conclusion he’d reached. It wasn’t necessarily a death threat, though when taken out of context, she could see how it might sound that way.
“Are you willing to give us a signed statement of everything you’ve told us?” Finn asked the lawyer.
Emerson seemed reluctant, but he nodded. “I suppose I don’t have a choice. If I can help put my client’s murderer behind bars, then I will.”
Finn moved to the window that looked out into the bull-pen and signaled for Anna. When she came into the office, he gestured to Emerson and said, “Anna, will you take Mr. Emerson’s statement?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
“And I’ll need to keep this,” Finn said, holding up the paperwork. “It will have to be logged as evidence.”
“I understand,” Emerson said, then followed Anna out of the room.
After closing the door, Finn walked around his desk and sat down again, giving Jamie a grim look. “Well?”
Uneasiness rose inside her. “Well what?”
“This points to premeditation, Jamie. He threatened Teresa a week before her death. Scared her badly enough that she took out a TRO.”
She couldn’t bring herself to share in his enthusiasm. “And you don’t find it suspicious that she filed the TRO two weeks before they were due in court?” She shook her head. “I don’t know, Finn. This feels too calculated on her part. She knew she had no chance of breaking that prenup. She might have been trying to garner sympathy from the judge, painting Cole as a big, scary thug in order to get his money.”
Finn looked utterly frazzled. “I know you don’t think he did it, but you can’t ignore this. Teresa admitted to being scared of him. He threatened her.”
Biting on her lower lip, Jamie forced her brain into impartial mode, so she could examine the data without any bias. Her gaze drifted to the crime scene photos littering Finn’s desk, zeroing in on one in particular. She found herself reaching for it, studying the macabre scene. Teresa on the floor, her black hair fanned behind her, the small bullet hole directly in her heart. Something niggled at the back of her mind and she struggled to bring it to the surface.
“Okay,” she said absently, more to herself than to Finn. “Okay, this is what we know. Crime of passion.”
Finn made an annoyed sound. “Yeah, I kind of figured that already.”
She held up the photograph. “It wasn’t an execution, or the bullet hole would be between her eyes. Our killer was enraged, he wanted her to die. This is where we get to see his personality.
“He’s a reserved man, aloof, keeps his emotions tightly reined in,” she continued. “I think he works in a distinguished position, he’s held in high regard. He’s a perfectionist, neat, analytical and definitely aware of crime scene procedures, though anyone could be nowadays thanks to the internet. He keeps a distance in his regular life, and as a killer, he kept that same distance. He used a gun—”
“Seems pretty up close and personal,” Finn cut in.
“The opposite actually. A gun gives the killer power, but it also allows him to distance himself from the crime.” She cocked her head. “What do we know about the gun?”
“Hasn’t turned up. But the ballistics guy in Raleigh said the bullet came from a forty-five caliber semiautomatic pistol.”
“Does Cole own any guns?”
“None that are registered.”
“Okay. Well, back to the profile. What was I saying? Right, keeping a distance. I didn’t kill her, the gun did.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Finn grumbled.
“But psychologically sound.”
“Fine, even if that’s true, that man you just described, reserved, aloof, emotionless—sounds a lot like Cole Donovan, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not who he is,” she said softly.
Before she could stop it, the memory of that explosive kiss flew into her head. She remembered the unrestrained passion blazing in his eyes, how he’d taken those big strong hands and yanked her toward him.
Hoping she wasn’t blushing, she said, “Cole’s aloofness is a show. His emotions aren’t buried deep—they’re rippling beneath the surface. All they need is a trigger and they come spilling out.”
“So you’re saying if he killed Teresa, he would have lost control,” Finn said, a skeptical glint in his eyes.
“Exactly. But this crime had an element of control. A controlled rage. The gun, the pristine crime scene.”