In Bed with the Badge

by Marie Ferrarella

  Riley twisted around in her chair just in time to see Detective Sam Wyatt stride in, then lean his long, muscular frame against the doorjamb. He’d filled out some since she’d last seen him.

  “Morning, Chief,” Sam said, nodding at Brian. “You sent for me?”

  “Always know how to make an entrance, don’t you, Detective Wyatt?” Brian said with a shake of his head. He gestured to the chair beside Riley. “Sit down,” he instructed.

  “Yes, sir.” He deposited his body into the vacant chair, sparing Riley a nod. “And as for making an entrance, in this case, I had to, sir. I sneaked up on McIntyre once and nearly wound up getting a .22 right to the chest.” Sam flashed a wide, two-thousand-watt smile known to melt women at three hundred feet. “Still as fast on the draw as you were?” he asked Riley.

  She wasn’t the kind to boast, but something about his tone made her say, “Faster,” without hesitation.

  Not one to leave anything to chance, Brian made it a point to know as much as possible about the detectives under his command. He’d discovered a while back that Sam Wyatt and Riley had been friendly rivals coming up together at the academy. The thirty-two-year-old Wyatt was a bit of a charmer and there was no denying that he was flamboyant, but the man was still a fine detective and could be relied on to keep an eye on Riley until she was back in fighting form. To him, the two detectives made perfect partners—they would keep each other on their toes.

  He’d gotten excellent feedback about Wyatt from Joe Barker, Wyatt’s lieutenant and, as it happened, the detective’s partner had just transferred back east to be near his ailing father. Wyatt needed a new partner.

  And so did Riley.

  “Well, since you two know each other, I’ll leave it to you, Wyatt, to help McIntyre here get up to speed.”

  A sense of uneasiness wove its way through Riley. She really didn’t want to switch departments right now. Ordinarily, she wasn’t one to expect personal favors, but this one time, she fervently hoped that the chief’s connection to both her mother and her would tip the scales in her favor.

  Riley leaned forward in her chair. Blocking out Wyatt and focusing only on the chief, she asked, “Is this really necessary?”

  “Yes, this is really necessary,” Brian assured her.

  Riley suppressed a sigh. There would be no winning today. “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, you’re dismissed,” he told them. Riley rose, as did Sam. She was about to leave the office when Brian said, “And Riley—”

  She stopped and looked at her stepfather over her shoulder, hoping that he’d had second thoughts about this. “Yes, sir?”

  “I want that name by the end of the week.”

  The therapist. In light of this new development, she’d almost forgotten about finding one for herself. There was no joy in Mudville tonight, she thought. “Yes, sir.”

  “What name?” Wyatt asked her as they walked out of the chief’s office.

  “Nothing that concerns you,” she told him tersely.

  Sam shrugged, taking her retort in stride. “Okay, but you’d better hustle.”

  Riley stopped walking and looked at her new, “temporary” partner. What was he talking about? “And why should I do that?”

  “Because the end of the week’s just three days away,” he informed her simply, “and the chief likes things to reach his desk in the beginning of the day, not at the end of it.”

  Just who did Wyatt think he was, telling her things about her own stepfather? Did he think she lived in a closet?

  “You don’t have to explain the chief to me,” she retorted, annoyed, walking away from Sam.

  “Right, he’s your stepfather.” He held his hands up as if surrendering. “I know, I know.” Sam dropped his hands to his sides again as he increased his stride to keep up with her. Did she think this was a race? “I also know that him being your stepfather doesn’t ultimately make any difference in the game plan. The chief’s a fair man like that.” The smile on his lips spread. “But there I go again, preaching to the choir. You’d already know that, too, wouldn’t you?”

  Give me strength, she prayed. “This arrangement is just temporary, you know.”

  “I know,” he said cheerfully. “Until I get a better offer.” Riley gave him a dirty glance. “Was I supposed to say until you get a better offer?” he asked innocently. And then he grinned again. “Sorry, didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, McIntyre.”

  Reaching the elevator, she punched the up button. “I don’t remember you being this annoying in the academy,” she said.

  Reaching over her, Sam pressed the down button. The look he gave her said that she’d made a mistake. Robbery was on the second floor. Homicide was located a floor above them. But she wasn’t part of Homicide anymore. “Funny,” he said, “I was just about to say the same about you.”

  Her temper flared. “Look—”

  The elevator arrived. Stepping to the side to allow Riley to get on first, Sam followed and then pressed the button for the second floor.

  “Hey, I get it. You feel like you’ve just had the rug pulled out from under you. Losing a partner can really do that to you,” he agreed sympathetically. “But the only way you’re going to land on your feet is to get over it and move on. I did,” he told her. “Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on with your life—or the chief will leave you in Robbery—with me as your wet nurse.”

  Chapter 2

  The fact that Wyatt could even say he thought of himself in those terms—as her wet nurse—made Riley’s ordinarily subdued temper flare to dangerous new heights.

  Since when did she need a babysitter, for pity’s sake?

  Was that what the chief thought, that she needed to be watched over? Worse, was that what her stepfather had intimated to Wyatt when he’d proposed the pairing to the smug, grinning hyena of a detective?

  The idea sent a sick chill up and down her spine. She struggled not to shiver.

  As for the other comparison he’d just made, well, Wyatt was way off base. That he even thought they were comparable showed just how little he understood. The man obviously had no instincts or feelings.

  “Your partner transferred to another state,” Riley told him through gritted teeth. “Mine was killed—murdered,” she emphasized. “It’s so far from being the same thing that it absolutely takes my breath away.”

  The thought of taking her breath away briefly flashed through Wyatt’s mind. Not the way she implied, but the more standard, sensual way.

  It was not without its appeal.

  But Sam knew Riley McIntyre well enough to understand that it wasn’t safe to tease her about that, at least, not right now. So instead, he took the easier route and just explained his reasoning.

  “They’re both gone.”

  “And you and mules both breathe, but that doesn’t make you the same thing,” she countered, then added a bit tartly, “despite the obvious resemblance.”

  If she expected him to take offense or announce that this partnership wasn’t going to work, she was disappointed. Her words appeared to bounce right off him like rain off the freshly waxed hood of an automobile.

  “Nice to know you’re as sweet tempered as ever.”

  “Only with people who bring it out of me,” she shot back, her mouth curving in a smile she definitely didn’t feel.

  The elevator stopped on the second floor and slowly opened its doors. Sam stepped out, then waited for her to do the same.

  “Well, just a word to the wise—or in your case, wise ass,” he said glibly. “Lt. Barker likes his detectives quiet—unless they’re talking about an ongoing case.”

  She stopped walking and stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  His face was deadly sober as he asked, “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was pulling her leg. She vaguely remembered that he had an outlandish sense of humor back in the day, but there was no glimmer of it right now. Or so it appeared.

  �
�With you,” she told him, “it was always hard to tell.”

  “Well, I’m not.” He shoved his hands into his pockets as he resumed walking down the hall to the squad room. “Barker likes two things, hard workers and cases cleared. Personally,” he confided, “I think Evans came up with that story about his ailing father because he couldn’t take the lieutenant anymore.”

  “Evans,” she repeated, rolling the last name over in her head. It wasn’t really familiar. “That would be your partner?”

  “Ex-partner,” Wyatt corrected, then nodded. “Give the little lady a prize.”

  She stopped walking again. “Wyatt?”

  Something in her tone told him to be on his guard. He had no idea what was coming. “Yeah?”

  “You call me a ‘little lady’ again and an irreplaceable part of your anatomy will be handed to you so fast you won’t know what hit you.” She delivered her warning with an angelic smile.

  “Yep,” he murmured more to himself than to her, “every bit as charming now as you were back then.”

  Working with Riley McIntyre was going to be a challenge, he thought.

  Once they arrived at the squad room, Sam pulled open the door for her, wondering as he did so if she would find the act of courtesy offensive on some militant-female level. But he wasn’t about to make any apologies for the way he’d been raised.

  “C’mon,” he coaxed. “Might as well let Barker see what he’s in for.”

  Bracing herself, Riley walked into the eerily quiet squad room.

  The faces were different, the disorder was the same, she noted. Files haphazardly piled on desks and on top of computer towers. More than one stack threatened to fall at any second, waiting for the right passing vibration to send it cascading to the floor.

  Organized chaos was the way she liked to think of it and she was as big an offender as anyone. Riley found she couldn’t think clearly if the top of her desk was visible or her files were aligned neatly. When things were all spread out across her desk, her mind felt more opened, more prone to working fast.

  Walking with Wyatt to the back of the room and Barker’s office, Riley nodded at several familiar faces as she passed. The police community was a close-knit bunch and most detectives knew one another by sight, if not by reputation.

  The latter was a communal one as far as she and her siblings went. At least, it had been, through no fault of their own. For a while there, all four of them were thought of as the offspring of an undercover agent gone bad.

  But that was before Brian Cavanaugh had married her mother. Once vows were exchanged and it was clear that the Chief of Detectives considered Lila’s children his own, the talk had abruptly stopped. Almost everyone liked the chief and those who didn’t still respected and/or feared the man.

  Chief of Detectives Brian Cavanaugh, younger brother of the former Chief of Police Andrew Cavanaugh, was known as a fair man who firmly believed in speaking softly and carrying a big stick. Not only carrying it but, on occasion, using that stick judiciously. The upshot of the situation was that no one wanted to get on the Chief of D’s wrong side. Careers were known to have faded in that darkened area.

  Seeing the way the detectives responded to his new partner, Sam commented, “I guess I won’t have to introduce you to anyone.”

  “You can if you want to,” she told him. “If it makes you feel useful, I wouldn’t dream of depriving you.”

  Wyatt made an unintelligible noise she let pass rather than ask him to repeat himself. Instinctively, she knew it would be better all around that way.

  Riley had never felt nervous meeting new people or even new superiors. But she felt something icy—a premonition?—slide down her spine as she looked through the glass wall that comprised Barker’s office and saw the man sitting at his desk.

  The word “trouble” ricocheted through her brain, refusing to fade away.

  Sam knocked once then waited for the lieutenant to beckon him forward.

  The latter, Riley noted, seemed oblivious to the knock. Either that, or he was deaf. If it was neither, then Barker was deliberately taking his time, keeping his eyes on the keyboard as he typed something. Finally, just as she was about to suggest to Wyatt that they come back later for an official introduction, Barker raised his intense dark brown eyes to silently regard the newest addition to his squad room.

  An ex-marine, Lieutenant Joseph Barker looked every inch the part. From his close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair, to his unsmiling demeanor, he was military through and through. She could almost feel the man’s eyes wash over her, moving slowly as if he were conducting some kind of minute inventory.

  “Take a seat, McIntyre,” he finally said in a voice devoid of emotion. It certainly couldn’t be termed as friendly. As Sam moved to join her, Barker stopped him before he could sit down in the second chair. “Not you, Wyatt. If I’d wanted you to sit, I would have said so, wouldn’t I?”

  The question was like a sharp poke in the ribs, meant to make the other detective retreat.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, don’t know what came over me.” The sarcastic response was delivered with an open, innocent smile.

  Riley’s respect for her new partner began to take form as she waited to see the lieutenant’s reaction.

  The look that Barker shot Wyatt was dark, bordering on black. Sam left without another word being exchanged between the two men.

  Rather than say anything to Riley, the lieutenant resumed what he was working on.

  Three more minutes passed before Barker looked up again.

  Finally, Riley thought.

  Hands loosely clasped in her lap, aware that on some level she represented her stepfather, Riley offered the man behind the desk an encouraging smile.

  His first words to her were not what she would have expected.

  “I heard you let your partner get killed.”

  Riley felt as if an arrow had been shot from a crossbow straight into her chest. Barker couldn’t have said anything to make her feel worse if he’d deliberately tried. Maybe he had.

  Squaring her shoulders, Riley lifted her chin and replied, “I wasn’t with him at the time. Detective Sanchez went out on his own, without telling anyone.”

  Barker’s eyes bored into her. As uncomfortable as it was, she refused to look away.

  “He was your partner, McIntyre,” the lieutenant emphasized. “You’re always supposed to have your partner’s back. Or didn’t they teach you that at the academy?”

  “They taught us that,” she responded as politely as she could, then obviously surprised him by adding, “but they didn’t say anything about having the ability to read minds.”

  His tone was dangerous. “I don’t like flippant remarks, McIntyre.”

  She was in a no-win situation and she knew it. “It wasn’t meant to be flippant, sir. I’m just stating my side.”

  “I’m not asking you to be a mind reader,” Barker told her tersely. “It’s called second-guessing and playing hunches,” he informed her. “If you want to survive here, you’re going to have to learn how to do that.” His tone was close to belligerent as he asked, “Think you can manage that, McIntyre?”

  God, but she wanted to defend herself, to make this man back off and put him in his place. But she knew she couldn’t. So she did her best to sound subdued, as if his sarcasm didn’t affect her.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” he bit off. “Then we’ll get along. Keep your partner alive, McIntyre, and he’ll do the same for you.”

  With that, the lieutenant went back to his work.

  She sat, listening to the sound of keys being struck, for another three minutes. He behaved as if she wasn’t even in the office. Was this some kind of an endurance test? Or a contest of wills? How much longer was she expected to sit here?

  Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  Barker kept on typing, the sound of his keys echoing rhythmically. “If there is, McIntyre, you’ll know it,” he to
ld her, never looking up.

  Was he dismissing her? She realized that she was gripping the armrests. That was twice today. So far, this was not shaping up to be one of her better days. She bit back her temper.

  “Then I can go?”

  Two more keys were struck before Barker gave her an answer. “Please.”

  Riley left the office without another word.

  This couldn’t possibly be what her stepfather had had in mind for her, she thought, shutting the lieutenant’s door behind her. It took maximum control not to slam it in her wake. She knew that Brian Cavanaugh liked his lieutenants to be in charge and authoritative, but Barker came across like a petulant dictator.

  This was not going to go well, she reflected.

  She supposed she could go to her stepfather and tell him what had just transpired, how Barker had all but ignored her and definitely treated her with a lack of respect. But that would be tantamount to whining and she absolutely refused to come across like some spoiled brat.

  She’d always pulled her own weight. She was proud of that. Riley saw no reason to change now.

  Somehow, she promised herself, she was going to get through this and show that pompous jerk of a lieutenant that she wasn’t about to retreat like some overly indulged, know-nothing rookie.

  Looking around the squad room, she spotted Wyatt sitting at a desk. More accurately, her new temporary partner was leaning back in his chair, rocking it in such a precarious manner that the chair appeared in danger of tilting backward and crashing to the floor.

  Great, Wyatt still hadn’t grown up yet.

  Better and better.

  Releasing a sigh, Riley quickly crossed over to her partner. The sooner she got to work, the sooner she could figure out her role here.

  Nodding at her, Sam righted his chair. “How did it go?” he asked cheerfully.

  “It didn’t,” she ground out.

  Wyatt didn’t bother trying to suppress the knowing grin that came to his lips. “A little conflict of personalities, perhaps?”