by Meg Benjamin
And tonight, he was officially the guy on patrol. Well, he was one of the guys, along with Dawson Kirk. But if he saw anything tonight, he’d be the one who led the charge—although he’d be careful to call for backup, having learned from Nando’s experience that it was a good idea to have someone else around before taking the perp down.
Clayton took one more careful survey of the darkened shops. He didn’t see any lights or any movement. He’d already been up the alley once, and he’d make another sweep there when he came back after he’d gone to the station. Kirk was there doing paperwork, and they’d switch over on the half hour. But he’d head out again himself soon after that. The chief had said he wanted both men on patrol at night with minimal breaks. That worked for Clayton—he hated paperwork and he hated sitting around the station waiting for something to happen.
He checked his watch again. Maybe five minutes more. Enough time for one more pass up Main on his way back to the station. His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he swept a quick glance across the shop windows, looking for a light. He really, really wanted to be the one who caught this guy.
The second time they’d made love, Kit had straddled him, riding him slowly, her hands braced on his chest so that she could stare down into his eyes until they’d both come undone. Nando had been glad Allie didn’t have any close neighbors. He figured they’d made enough noise to warrant somebody banging on the door if they’d been back at his apartment.
Now Kit lay dozing in his arms, her breath light against his shoulder, while he stared at the ceiling, trying to remember exactly what he’d said when they’d made love the first time. Eighteen months ago he’d sworn he’d never let himself be that vulnerable again, never let her close enough to wound him. He didn’t exactly feel that way anymore. Still, he wanted to make sure he hadn’t said anything that would let her know just how much power she still had over him.
He remembered telling her how good she felt, but he didn’t think that was too revealing. He also sort of remembered telling her how much he’d missed her, which was a lot more dangerous. But he thought he’d heard her say she missed him, too, although her voice was so soft he wasn’t entirely sure.
He knew for sure he hadn’t said he loved her. And he was pretty sure he wouldn’t. At least not yet. Of course, he’d already told her that before, and it hadn’t made any difference. But that might have been because he’d said it in one of those voice mail messages she’d never answered. And then there was the way he’d said it.
Do you want me to say I love you? Is that what you want? Okay, I love you. Is that enough? Does that take care of it?
He winced slightly. Jesus, that had been a godawful time. He still felt bruised when he thought about it. He knew he’d deserved her anger after Lizzie, but he hadn’t expected her to shut him off completely. To not even talk to him for eighteen months. Why had they both tried to hurt each other—and accomplished it so expertly? He’d loved her. How could he have done what he’d done to her?
He’d loved her. The tense was wrong. He loved her. Now. Still. But he sure as hell didn’t want to end up slashed to pieces and bleeding again. He didn’t want to think about how long the recovery might take this time.
“Nando?” Kit moved against him sleepily. “Are you okay?”
He ran his hand down the silk of her hair. “Sure. Go back to sleep.”
She pushed herself up on one elbow, running a finger down his throat. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He caught her hand, bringing it to his lips. “Nothing, chica. Everything’s working right as far as I can see.”
Her lips turned up in that faint smile, but her eyes looked troubled. Or maybe just wary. “Are you hungry? We’ve still got all that pizza.”
“Maybe we can finish the wine. I’ll get it.” He pushed himself up, grabbing his underwear from the floor.
He found the bottle where he’d left it on the kitchen table, then scrounged a couple of juice glasses out of the cupboard, ignoring the hallway where they’d almost had sex on the first available flat surface. Something about Kit Maldonado stripped away every last particle of good sense he’d ever had. Which was how he’d ended up behaving like the village idiot last time and being kicked in the gut as a result.
He heard a step behind him and turned to see her standing in the doorway, watching him in the moonlight that spilled through the kitchen window. She was wearing his T-shirt and nothing else so far as he could tell. He’d forgotten just how long her legs were, and now he had a terrific view of almost their entire length.
He concentrated on pulling the cork out of the bottle as he felt himself harden again. He hadn’t been this randy since high school, and even then it seemed like his recovery time had been longer than this.
“Here.” She took the glasses he’d found and put them back on the shelf, then brought back two wine glasses. “Bored Ducks deserves better than that. Bored Ducks deserves the best.”
“So do you,” he blurted.
Holy crap, he’d just sworn he wouldn’t say anything like that. Whatever happened to caution? His higher brain functions seemed to go on vacation whenever she walked into his range of vision.
Kit put the wine glasses on the table, then took the bottle out of his hands and poured them each a healthy shot. “Thanks,” she murmured. “You do too.”
He closed his eyes, sipping his wine and fighting not to pull her back into his embrace again. Just a few months ago, he’d been wishing for this, longing for this. Just this kind of night with her. Now he was scared witless that he’d lose it all again. Be careful what you wish for, cholo. You just might get it.
Helen Kretschmer parked her Mustang on the street beside the station. She didn’t use the station parking lot because she didn’t trust those cowboys who drove the cruisers not to put a dent in her baby. She’d only had it for a year, and she wasn’t ready to abandon it to Ham Linklatter’s driving skills.
She extracted the key for the back door of the station from the inner pocket of her billfold. Chief Toleffson had given it to her last year, when he’d moved her from being a civilian employee to being an actual police officer. At the time, he’d said he considered Helen the only one likely to be able to remember where the spare key was kept. Helen agreed with him.
On the whole, she liked Toleffson. She’d been with the department a hell of a lot longer than any of the others, even Linklatter, who’d come on duty when Brody had been chief. Brody had hired her, too, but he hadn’t ever considered her more than a glorified receptionist. Helen had thought about asking him if she could take the training necessary to become an officer, but once she’d gotten to know him, she figured it wasn’t something he’d be likely to approve. When Brody hired his police officers, he seemed to look for crooks or fools exclusively, and Helen didn’t fall into either category.
Olema had come in after Brody had fled the area, but he hadn’t been much better as a chief. Helen hadn’t asked him about becoming an officer either, mainly because she figured he wouldn’t last long. Brody was a crook, but Brody was smart, even if it was a mean kind of smartness. Olema was honest enough, but he was also dumb as a rock, although not as dumb as Linklatter, who’d somehow managed to survive both police chiefs.
Toleffson was neither dumb nor crooked, and he’d been the one to suggest that Helen might like to take the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement basic licensing course at Austin Community College and then apply to become an actual police officer. Once she’d completed the course, he promised he’d promote her. And he had. One thing about Toleffson, if he promised you something, he did it.
Helen relocked the back door behind her. It opened off Lamar rather than the parking lot, and using it saved her having to walk around the building. It also gave her a reputation for mysterious appearances and disappearances that she enjoyed, mainly because it seemed to scare the crap out of Linklatter. Given Linklatter’s brainpower, it didn’t take much to do that, but she enjoyed it anyway.
Now
she walked into the main room and saw the new kid, Delaney, working at one of the computers at the side. He glanced up when he heard her footstep, his hand jerking toward his baton. “Jesus, Helen, you scared the life out of me.” His ears turned slightly pink. “I mean…sorry. I didn’t mean to swear in front of you.”
She gave him a dry look. “Kid, you can’t say anything I haven’t already heard. In fact, I’ll be glad to give you a few new words to use if you want.”
Delaney blushed again. From what she’d seen, he had the makings of a good cop, but the blushing thing had to go if he wanted to survive on the mean streets of Konigsburg. “What are you doing here? I thought you were patrolling.”
“I was. I mean, I am. Dawson and I are alternating on who stays here and who hits the streets. I’ll head out in another ten minutes or so, then he’ll come back here after that.”
Helen shook her head. “You don’t need to stick around here. I’ve got some work to do—I’ll run the station. You head out on patrol. The longer you and Kirk drive around, the more chance you’ve got of catching that son of a bitch in action.”
“Okay.” He pushed his chair back. “I didn’t realize you were on duty tonight. If you’re going to be here, I’ll stay out longer.”
“Do that.” She gave him a brisk nod. Technically, she wasn’t on duty, at least not paid duty. Toleffson hadn’t told her to come in. But when she weighed how much she wanted to sit around the house watching the Spurs play the Nuggets, she decided she’d be more useful at the station. Besides, a few hours when she didn’t have to keep track of Linklatter would give her a chance to bring her spreadsheets up to date.
“Go on ahead,” she told Delaney. “I’ll turn off the call forwarding and catch anything that comes in after I tell Kirk I’m here. You might want to keep an eye on the Silver Spur. Last time I drove by it was sounding a little loud. And the Dew Drop. Faro looks okay, though.”
Delaney nodded. “Right. I’ll head up there now.” He settled his buff-colored Stetson on his head and opened the door.
Helen fought back the urge to say Be careful out there. The kid could probably figure that out for himself.
Kit watched Nando sip his wine as he lay across her bed. He was naked, or mostly naked anyway. She’d almost forgotten how beautiful he was without any clothes. Actually, she’d made a major effort to forget that, telling herself he hadn’t been as gorgeous as she’d thought he was. That it was all exaggerated by memory.
Only it wasn’t. He was just as gorgeous as ever. Also nervous, if she could still read him right. He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he stared down into his glass or down at the sheets or down at his toes. Anywhere, in other words, rather than up at her face.
With anyone else, she’d think he was trying to avoid her, maybe trying to think of an excuse to duck out early and head for the hills, even though they’d just spent a couple of hours having the most amazing sex of her life. But somehow she didn’t think that was it.
The one time he’d looked at her directly, what she’d seen had looked like fear. The kind of fear that came from thinking something was too good to be true. She knew how that felt. She was feeling it herself. In fact, she wondered if the two of them would ever stop feeling it, if it would keep them from pushing over the last few barriers that were left between them.
She took a deep breath. “You were right, you know.”
He looked up at her then, his eyes immediately wary. “Have to be some of the time, I guess. Which time are you thinking of?”
“When you said I’d be back. That last fight before I left.”
“Oh.” He blew out a breath. “Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly mean it that way, but okay, I guess in the long run I was right. Here you are.”
She nodded. “Here I am.”
The corners of his mouth edged up slightly. “How do you feel about that?”
She raised her head to gaze at him directly, holding the moment. “Good. Overall, good.”
His smile became wider. “Glad to hear it.”
She licked her lips. Maybe it was time to go a little further than that. “You were right about that. But you were wrong about some other things.”
His smile dropped away again and he stared down again. “I know.”
“I always wondered what happened. What kicked off that last fight and…everything.”
He stared down for a long moment, then up again, his gaze bleak. “Not yet,” he said softly. “Please, chica.”
Kit’s chest tightened slightly. He wasn’t going to talk about it. Or maybe he just wasn’t going to talk about it now. Maybe she just needed to wait.
Nando looked up at her again, then sighed. He took hold of her hand, pulling her across the bed until she was nestled in his arms again, rubbing her face against his shoulder. “Sometime, I promise,” he murmured. “But not now.”
His mouth touched the side of her throat again, sliding down toward her collarbone. In another moment, they’d be beyond talking. She had to decide if this was enough, if she needed more from him than that.
His fingers closed around her nipple, pulling gently until it pebbled beneath his thumb.
Screw it. It’s enough for tonight.
She skimmed her lips along the edge of his jaw, and then his mouth, taking him in again. She’d worry about it tomorrow. Maybe.
Helen worked for an hour entering data and answering the occasional call. Most of them were minor. Complaints about noise (the college boys living over on Milam were kicking up their heels again). A lost dog, although what the woman thought the police could do about it was anybody’s guess. A possible prowler complaint she passed on to Kirk, although he hadn’t found anybody when he got there.
It wasn’t their guy anyway. Helen was actually hoping the call came in for that asshole while she was on the desk. It would make her night, even if she wouldn’t get to go out and drag him back to the cell herself. She had a baton, but Toleffson hadn’t yet issued her a gun, although she was pretty sure he would once he saw the results from her last round of marksmanship tests. Helen hadn’t grown up in hunting country for nothing.
She leaned back in her chair, rubbing her tired eyes. She’d been staring at the computer screen for about thirty minutes straight, which was close to her limit, particularly with the low res monitors the city bought. She’d already turned off most of the lights in the main room. No reason to waste electricity, given the city’s budgeting problems. The overtime they were spending trying to catch the burglar was already enough of a strain.
Helen pushed herself to her feet, sliding her desk chair back in place, then began a slow stroll through what passed for a bullpen.
Each of the officers had his own desk, but they shared computers, all of which were linked into the city’s intranet. Nando’s desk was piled high with bulletins from the Rangers, along with printouts of information on whatever case he was working on. Delaney’s desk was clear except for a couple of legal pads, but that was because Delaney hadn’t been around long—give him a couple of months, and he’d be as loaded down as Nando. Linklatter’s desk had a half-eaten candy bar and an unwashed coffee cup, along with takeout menus from the Chinese restaurant on the highway and the Coffee Corral.
Helen felt like sighing, but Linklatter wasn’t her problem. Or rather he was her problem, but only because he was everybody’s problem.
She turned up the hall toward the bathroom opposite Toleffson’s office. At least he’d hired a cleaning service. Under Brody and Olema, cleaning the johns had been Helen’s duty only because nobody else would do it and she wasn’t willing to live with that kind of filth.
She paused at the end of the hall, listening. Nothing. For a moment, she’d thought she’d heard noises coming from Toleffson’s office, but it was probably just the spring wind picking up.
She started down the hall again, walking more quietly this time. Outside Toleffson’s office, she paused, watching the dark line underneath the door. She knew for a fact nobody was supposed to b
e there, certainly not Toleffson himself, who spent the nights he wasn’t on duty at home with his wife. After a moment, she saw it. Just a glimmer. A light moving across the floor.
Helen stood very still, her hand resting on the end of her baton. Son of a bitch! The asshole had actually come to the station. And she was the only one here. She wondered for a moment if there was any way she could get into the weapons locker for a Glock, but she knew there wasn’t. Toleffson kept that key himself.
Anyway, she didn’t need one. She’d been waiting for something like this for years, a chance to show them all that she was the equal of any of those assholes. And she was, damn it! She could shoot better than most of them, and she’d already put in her time behind the desk. This was a chance for her.
Except she didn’t have a weapon beyond her baton. For just a moment, she thought about calling Delaney, or even Nando Avrogado, although he was off duty tonight. But the guy might hear her make the call and cut out before she could stop him.
And she’d stop him. No question.
She took hold of the door knob carefully, turning it as slowly as she could and then cracking the door to peek inside. Good thing the chief didn’t lock his office, not that there was anything in there worth stealing. A fact the burglar apparently didn’t know. She stood still, surveying the room through the crack in the door, trying to see him. She could hear a faint thumping from the far side. After a moment, she identified it as the sound of the desk drawer bumping against the lock as someone jerked on it. Although the chief didn’t lock his office door, he apparently locked his desk.
Helen shifted her position slightly so that she could see the man at the side of the room. The darkness in the office made it impossible to see his face, but he held a mini flashlight in his mouth so that he could use both his hands to try to jimmy the lock on the drawer. The open window across the room showed just how he’d managed to get in. The chief would not be pleased.
