by Alicia Scott
Then he’d turned to her with that dark, sinful gaze, whispering sweet words in French, and she’d started fantasizing about moving straight from dinner to dessert. At her house. She’d wanted the Cajun’s shirt off. She’d wanted his pants off. She’d wanted to strip the man naked and lap him up like a bowl of cream. She, the woman who had a rule about no necking until date three.
She’d taken Mike home after dinner. She’d broken every rule she’d ever had about men, and he’d made it so much fun, she’d broken them all again the next morning. On the sofa, in the hallway, somewhere halfway inside the bedroom, the marble countertop of the master bath.
When she’d finally made it to work the next day, she’d been so flushed and happy, she’d moved the board meeting outside and had a picnic lunch with her secretary. Maria had told her whatever she’d done, she should do it again and often.
So Sandra had. Mike showed up with flowers just to say hi. They made love on a sea of rose petals in the front hall. Mike swore the next night he’d actually take her out to dinner. They coupled like wild animals in his truck still parked in her driveway. They decided they would have to go out in public if they wanted to have a conversation. They ended up horizontal in an elevator Mike conveniently knew how to jam between floors.
Sandra lost five pounds that first week alone. Her friends remarked on how radiant she looked. Her mother wanted to know what spa she’d discovered. She told them nothing. Mike was hers in a way nothing had ever been hers before. He was magical, romantic, tender. He was whimsical, physical, and sexy as hell. He brought out parts of her she hadn’t known existed. He made her whole.
And sometimes, when just the sound of his voice on the phone brightened her day and brought a silly little grin to her lips, he frightened her. She’d never wanted anyone the way she wanted him. She’d never spent an entire Saturday waiting for a phone call, then feeling deliriously happy when it came. A Friday-night date would have her glowing all week. An unexpected Wednesday dinner left her flying.
He consumed her world with terrifying speed, and even when the sensible part of her mind told her they were too different to last, the rest of her simply wanted more.
Then, six months later, on a warm sultry night, he took her out to an especially fine French restaurant, her favorite. Afterward they strolled around, enjoying the fading days of August and the scent of petunias in the air. Mike was quiet, which she thought was odd. But then she was feeling strangely quiet herself.
Wordlessly they went back to her place. And there, he cradled her against his chest and told her that he loved her. He peeled off her clothes piece by piece. He played with her wild chestnut hair. He worshiped her body until she begged. And when he finally entered her body, hot and panting from the strain, they both kept their eyes wide-open. They shared the wonder, the slow-building heaviness, the driving need. They shared the climax, and for reasons Sandra had never fully understood, she’d wept.
Mike kissed away her tears. He gazed at her with a dark intensity she’d never seen in his face before. He asked her to be his wife.
Sandra never hesitated to say yes.
It had been one of the happiest moments of her life.
Now, alone in her office five years later, Sandra did her best not to think about the rest.
Her lieutenants were sullen. Sandra tried to compliment them on some aspect of their leadership, but it wasn’t enough and they all knew it. They’d been good cops and they’d assumed being good cops would make them good lieutenants, which would make them good chiefs of police. That they practiced nepotism and received kickbacks shouldn’t matter. Hell, everyone did that.
Sandra understood that all three of them thought she would fail. Outsiders, after all, couldn’t get cooperation, and it was hard to run a law enforcement department without help. The first time she had a high-profile case—say a shooting by a thirteen-year-old gang member—one of them would call in an old favor and the Crime Scene Unit, the CSU, would magically lose a shell casing. The Medical Examiner’s Office would suddenly need four weeks to run fingerprints, and heaven help her if she wanted an autopsy performed fast. Need a search warrant? The ADA would be busy. Need a cross-reference with an old case file from Gang Task Force or robbery homicide or Vice? What old case file? Never let it be said that middle-aged law enforcement bureaucrats weren’t passive-aggressive.
Sandra wasn’t worried. For one thing, she had the mayor firmly behind her. Also, Sandra Aikens hadn’t doubled the family security business without learning a few things. What did all cops worry about? Retirement. What did all retired cops do to supplement their pensions? Work for security companies. What did Sandra’s family own and Sandra formerly work at? Ahh. She spelled it out for her lieutenants, and they looked as if they might be ill.
Mess with the new chief, they garnered, screw your future. Maybe she’d have it made into a bumper sticker. She could hang it outside her office, underneath the hastily scrawled nameplate, Bitch.
One of the lieutenants, Hopkins, would have to go in the end—he’d been too vocal about his desire to be chief and too humiliated by her subsequent appointment to ever play nice. As for Banks and Thoron, the jury was still out. Lieutenant Banks, in her opinion, was a genuinely good cop. She would go out of her way to make him feel valued in the new organization. Whether that would be enough for him remained to be seen. Lieutenant Thoron, on the other hand, was a mixed bag. He had a strong following in the department, but was also rumored to be involved in some of the “extracurricular” activities. Sandra hoped that it wasn’t true. Alexandria honestly couldn’t afford to lose two lieutenants at once; they didn’t have the replacement pool for it. Especially now, when a threat had been issued against the police department and everyone was wound tight.
Would a thirteen-year-old really open fire on a cop? How in the world would men like Koontz respond if he did?
She’d have a war. A full-scale war. Good Lord.
Rapping on the door. Sandra looked up and there stood Mike.
He was well dressed today. In honor of her first day? She didn’t know. But he was wearing navy-blue pants that caressed his powerful legs. Blue pin-striped dress shirt sharply pressed and stretching over his barrel chest. His tie appeared to be silk and had a dark blue backdrop with little gold daisies. Very daring for Mike. She wondered immediately what woman had picked it out for him and wished she’d stop thinking that way.
His face still looked exactly as she remembered. Solid square jaw already covered with a five-o’clock shadow at eleven in the morning. Full lips, curling up in one corner as if he was sharing a friendly joke. Dark, gleaming eyes framed by ungodly thick lashes and deeply etched laugh lines. The face of a man who smiled easily and often.
His black hair was beginning to gray at the temples. She hadn’t realized that before and waited for it to make him look old. It didn’t. His dark eyes were still bright, his body powerful and strong. Age would be kind to Mike Rawlins. She suddenly wanted to cup his face with her hand, to see if he would turn his lips against her palm the way he used to, and it shamed her.
Four years was such a long time. Why did it suddenly seem not long enough?
Sandra took a deep breath. Then she said, “Thank you for coming, Detective. Please have a seat.”
“Detective, huh?” Mike raised a brow as he strode into the room. “I suppose I’ve been called worse.”
She managed a smile. “I know you have.”
He chuckled, taking the lone wooden chair, turning it around and straddling the seat. Then he met her gaze as if debriefing with his ex-wife was something he did every day. She appreciated his professionalism, but then Mike’s job had always been the one thing he’d taken seriously.
“I imagine Koontz will join us shortly?”
“Uh…well, you see, he had something come up.”
“Something come up?” It was her turn to raise a brow.
“And what, pray tell, could be more important than meeting with his boss?”
“Well, pray tell, I don’t know.”
Sandra planted her hands on her desk, no longer amused. “He’s boycotting this meeting on purpose, isn’t he, Mike?”
“I’m just his partner, ma chère, not his baby-sitter. Koontz is a big boy and can speak for himself.”
She’d opened her mouth for a sharp retort, when she caught herself and gritted her teeth. The Koontz argument was old. And bitter. And something she and Mike wouldn’t resolve in the next five minutes, let alone the next five years.
She said more levelly, “Fine. I’ll debrief with you now and you can inform your partner of our discussion. Please pass along as well that I’m sorry he couldn’t be with us this morning—and if he makes me any sorrier, he’ll be spending the rest of his days writing parking tickets.”
“He’ll be delighted to hear it,” Mike assured her.
“Rusty responds well to authority, you know.”
“Trust me, I know. Let’s get down to business. I have a case for you and Koontz that I’d like you to make top priority.”
Mike looked mildly surprised. “Someone’s died and I haven’t heard about it?”
“No one’s died. That’s the point of this case. I want you to keep it that way. I want you to find the boy who wrote the letter to the paper. This Vee.”
“Huh?”
Mike was genuinely startled. She’d expected that. He and Koontz were homicide detectives; they only got involved with kids like Vee when one turned up dead. But the Gang Task Force had a lot on its plate right now. And the Gang Task Force contained the majority of the men Internal Affairs was about to begin investigating for police brutality. Not that Sandra could tell Mike that.
“Hey, ma chère—”
“Chief. Chief Aikens. Not ma chère.”
“Hey, Chief, maybe I should explain the different departments to you. Homicide, Vice, White Collar, Gang—”
“Mike, I know the departments. Listen to me. You were at the meeting this morning, you know the mood around here. We have tensions between blacks and whites, tensions between civilians and policemen, tensions between the haves and the have-nots. And now we have a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the middle of this storm. He’s angry, he’s resentful, and he’s disenfranchised. According to you, he’s also experienced. So what do you think will happen if he makes good on this threat?”
Mike conceded her point with a nod. “War. A big war. Which I suppose would then be homicide. Lots of homicides.”
Sandra gave them both a minute to absorb that thought. Then she said quietly, “This case is very serious, Mike. I need the best men in the department on it—that’s you and Rusty. I know you both have the time and the ability, so what do you say? Help me out on this one?”
He appeared to consider it, leaning back, crossing his arms over his chest and giving her his famous slow appraisal. Sandra didn’t really doubt his answer—Mike was too good a cop to say no—but she understood his need to drag it out. It wasn’t often she asked for anything from him. And having your ex-wife at your mercy had to have some perks.
“I suppose we could check the gang database,” Mike drawled shortly. “It has all the known gang monikers cross-referenced with the kids’ legal names. Even if he isn’t known, you gotta figure he’s already in the system somewhere. Been picked up for loitering or possession, maybe burglary or assault. Not too many thirteen-year-olds in the east side who don’t already have a record. NCIC might spit him out for us.” He nodded. “So say I can punch a few buttons and find the kid. Then what? We pick him up and bring him in?”
“No, I don’t want him brought in, at least not right away.”
“Chief, the kid threatened to shoot cops. You don’t let that kind of thing go unanswered. Particularly when you’re the new chief of police.”
“Hear me out. This kid already feels cops are the enemy. In his own words, they shot his father in the back and are hardly a symbol of security. Right now, he’s angry, but he hasn’t done anything yet. Two cops standing on his front door, however, may decide matters for him.”
“The kid wrote a letter declaring war, honey. I don’t think he’s undecided.”
“Yes, sweetie, but that’s the point. He wrote a letter. He didn’t simply open fire. He wrote.” Sandra leaned forward, all sarcasm aside, and looked at her ex-husband earnestly. “Think, Mike. You say he’s probably had experience in killings, that he’s not an innocent. If he really wanted violence, why wouldn’t he just wait for the night patrol and open fire? We don’t generally wear vests. We wouldn’t be expecting it. He could have easily taken out two good men before they would’ve had the chance to blink. Instead of doing that, however, this kid wrote a letter and sent it to the paper. That’s reaching out.”
“Or building a rep.”
“What, is it standard practice for gang members to notify the newspapers of their intended targets?”
“Not yet, but maybe the kid is starting a trend.”
“Mike, he’s just thirteen—”
“Nah, nah, don’t go saying that.” Mike threw his hands up in the air. “Now see, this is where you get yourself in trouble. You’re looking at Vee as a kid, as an age range for you to fit into some standard mold of other thirteen-year-olds you’ve seen at your parents’ parties. Cute, maybe a little awkward, still kind of on the small side. Mon Dieu, Sandy, he’s nothing like that, and what the hell are you doing having two detectives waste valuable time hunting him down for a chat?”
“I don’t know! You want the truth, Mike? I don’t know. But I’m betting two officers on the front porch will lead to war. So I’m going for option number two. Identify who he is. Learn about his life. See if we can pinpoint people who are important to him, say an adult he trusts. Clergyman, teacher, parent, what the hell, his parole officer. Then we can approach this person and, hopefully, through them, get some kind of dialogue going. Outreach. Communication. Work him through his rage.”
“And if he opens fire first?”
“We hope that doesn’t happen. We move fast to help insure that it doesn’t happen. You and Koontz move fast.”
Mike rolled his eyes, but at least he’d stopped shaking his head. Sandra was thankful for that. She didn’t want to have to force the issue. She didn’t want to have to confess to her ex-husband that he had to take this case because he was the only person in the department she could trust.
“Yeah,” he said abruptly. “What the hell. We’ll track the kid down and do a full background report. If he’s in the system, we could have it to you by the end of the day. Then you can approach him to your heart’s content. Outreach away.”
“Thank you.”
He shrugged. “It’s the job.”
“Sure it is.”
“No, honey, it’s the job.”
“Mike, it’s been four years. We’re divorced. I know you don’t owe me anything, okay. I got it.”
The outburst was too defensive, and shamed them both into silence. Mike’s gaze dropped to the floor. Sandra felt simply humiliated. Fifteen minutes into her first conversation with Mike, and she already sounded angry and hurt. She had to bite her bottom lip to keep from sighing heavily.
Mike said abruptly, “Nice meeting this morning.”
“Yeah? You think I alienated everyone? I was trying very hard to.”
“I think you can consider yourself a success.” His gaze came up; he wore a reluctant grin. “You always did have style, ma chère.”
“Thanks.” She bounced her pen against the desk. “So what’s the pool at?”
“The pool?”
“You know, the ‘how many weeks until I run screaming from the office’ pool.”
“Oh ma chère, we’re not counting weeks.”
“Days?”
“Hours, honey. Hours.”
“Ah, hence the new nameplate.” While she’d been meeting with the lieutenants, someone had thoughtfully taken down the Bitch plate. Someone else had thoughtfully replaced it with a new four-letter word. One that w
as far worse.
Mike looked troubled again. “I’ll take that down on my way out.”
“Don’t bother. They’ll just put up another.”
“Well, maybe I could pass the word around—”
“Not your war to fight.”
Mike’s jaw clenched. “No,” he said after a second. “I suppose it isn’t. You know, Chief, maybe it shouldn’t be war. Maybe going head to head only guarantees that you’ll lose. So some of these boys are rough around the edges. So Rusty likes to mouth off. He’s still a good cop. Give him a little ground now, maybe you’ll get it back later.”
“You’re blind to Rusty, Mike. He doesn’t just mouth off. He believes what he says.”
“He’s a good cop—”
“He’s a racist, sexist, egotistical pig, and I’m not just speaking from past experience. For God’s sake, he’s carrying a gun in the name of the law, not selling life insurance.”
“Is that really why you hate him, Sandy, or is it simply ’cause he’s my partner?”
She drew up short. So did Mike. He exhaled first. “Sorry,” he acknowledged. “Shouldn’t have gone there.”
“I think we have to agree to disagree on that subject,” she said stiffly.
“Yeah. Maybe we should make a list, all the things we aren’t allowed to talk about during these meetings.”
“Then the meeting would be too short.”
“Yeah, yeah.” His lips twisted. “Ah, hell.”
He drifted into silence, and Sandra understood how he felt. She was trying her best, too, and it was still hard not to hit old buttons. Or escape old memories and emotions. Everything had always been so tangled between them. Love and war, passion and pain. So unbelievably good inside the bedroom. So completely incapable of carrying on a simple conversation outside of it.
Sandra had hoped four years would be enough time to put things behind them. She’d been wrong.
“Sandy, how are you? I mean, how are you?”
