by Coleen Kwan
Her amusement tickled him. Brody’s lips twitched, despite his best intentions. “Okay, I’m better at the natter than the knitting. But I need to be there in case Katherine O’Brien mentions something about her son. You sell coffee, don’t you? I could be your coffee maker, your barista.” He nodded, satisfied with his solution.
Abigail’s brow puckered as if she was about to protest, but then she heaved out a sigh of deep resignation. “Oh all right. Guess I don’t have much choice. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”
Something about her reluctance pricked his ego. “Hey, cheer up. Some women like having me around.”
“And what kind of women would that be?” She slid him a cryptic look. The kind of look a woman gave to assess a man’s sexual prowess.
“All kinds.” He found himself blandishing her with his easy, practiced smile, the one that Shane wryly dubbed his panty-dropping smile. “I don’t discriminate.”
She stared at him for a moment. “You don’t say.”
He sensed the eye-rolling going on in that head of hers, and he was pretty sure her panties wouldn’t be dropping anytime soon. Which was a pity, because he had a feeling Abigail Brightwater would be occupying his thoughts for some time to come. Forget it, the logical part of his brain said. Plenty of women out there who couldn’t get enough of his panty-dropping smile. In fact, some of them had been very keen to take things beyond the panty-dropping stage, though Brody had never been tempted.
When it came to women, it was better to stick to what he knew, and that did not include Abigail. Besides, she was involved in his stakeout, and therefore off limits. He didn’t want to blow his chances of catching his man, and flirting with Abigail might prove too distracting. He couldn’t risk it. Firming his jaw, he sent a stern message to his body. Keep your eye on the job and off the girl.
Brody walked out of his lieutenant’s office with the necessary paperwork for the stakeout finally signed. In the bullpen, his cop buddy and occasional partner, Shane Jackson, raised his eyebrows at Brody from his position slouched in his chair, feet propped up on the desk.
“Well?” Shane asked. “Got the okay from the boss?”
“Sorta.” Brody rested his butt against his own desk adjacent to Shane’s. “He thinks it’s a long shot O’Brien will contact his mother, and catching O’Brien isn’t a high priority with him. He doesn’t want to commit too many resources to a stakeout. So it looks like it’ll just be me some of the time and a motion-activated camera doing the rest.”
“You know you can count on me to help you out.”
“Thanks, bud, but you’ve got a mountain of open cases. I can handle this myself.”
At the back of his brain, a snarky voice piped up that he also didn’t want Shane clapping eyes on Abigail. His buddy wasn’t known as “Action Jackson” for nothing. Shane had some panty-dropping moves of his own, and Brody didn’t like the thought of him practicing those moves on Abigail. Because she wouldn’t appreciate them, he told himself. Because he only wanted to protect her from Shane’s games. Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that.
“You’re in the same boat,” Shane pointed out. “Plus we’ve maxed out the overtime budget for this month.”
Brody shrugged. “I don’t care about claiming overtime. I just want to catch O’Brien.” His jaw tightened. “Lieutenant Farrell thinks I’m getting too obsessed.”
“Maybe you are.”
Brody pinched the bridge of his nose. “How can I not be?”
Shane pulled himself to his feet and leaned toward Brody. “Listen, man. It happened when you were a rookie, first week on the job. No one blames you, least of all Campese. There was nothing you could have done to stop O’Brien shooting him.”
Maybe, but he could have stopped O’Brien from getting away with it. The events of that day nine years ago were still raw in his mind. Fresh out of police academy, he’d been partnered with Officer Dave Campese, a seasoned veteran who’d been on the beat for fifteen years. Their night-shift patrol had been slow and routine until they’d responded to a call of a burglary in progress. At the house in question, Campese had told Brody to cover the back of the property while he went in through the front.
Brody had barely reached the rear yard when a couple of gunshots rang out and a big, muscular guy barreled out the back door, a gun in his hand. A full moon picked out his features, his surprise when he spotted Brody. Brody called out for him to freeze, his weapon already gripped in hands that weren’t quite steady. A bang and a hot whine near his ear were Brody’s first clues that he’d been shot at. And missed. He shot back, instinctively and inaccurately. The perp leaped over the back fence like a frenzied demon and disappeared into the night. Brody charged into the house to find Campese lying on the ground, groaning—thank God he was alive—and his knee a bloodied mess.
Even now Brody could still taste the acrid bile that had risen as he called for assistance and tried to staunch the blood flowing out of his partner’s leg. Campese had turned the air blue with his cussing, and Brody had never been so glad to hear it. When they learned the suspect had got away, he’d expected some of that cussing to be directed at him, but Campese had never once blamed him, which had only made Brody feel worse. A few years passed before a string of robberies was linked to Dave Campese’s assault, and Brody knew the man he was searching for was Michael O’Brien.
Brody met Shane’s concerned look. “I know that, but that doesn’t mean I’m ever going to stop looking.”
As if he’d sensed being the subject of discussion, Campese walked into the bullpen and nodded at the two detectives. “Hey, fellas. How’s it hanging?”
As usual, Brody forced his eyes not to linger on the sergeant’s gimpy leg that had never fully recovered from the gunshot wound. Somehow, Campese’s unwavering friendliness always made him feel more guilty, and now that Brody and Shane were permanently assigned to the second district—after yet another head-office managerial shuffle—where Campese was stationed, he got to feel guilty on a daily basis.
“We’ve just finished our shifts,” Shane said.
“Going down to Kelly’s for a beer?”
“Nope. Got a date tonight.”
“How ’bout you?” Campese asked Brody. “S’pose you’ve got a girl waiting for your call tonight.”
“Not me. Think I’ll watch a movie on TV tonight.” Or maybe take a drive past Katherine O’Brien’s house one more time. You never knew.
“My date’s got a friend who’s just your type,” Shane said to Brody. “Want me to get her number for you?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
Shane gave him a weird look. “Didn’t you hear me? I said, she’s just your type, and believe me, I know what your type is.”
Brody rubbed the back of his neck, feeling strangely contrary. Somehow his type didn’t hold any appeal to him tonight. Maybe he wanted something different. Maybe he was growing old. Shit.
“Aw, shucks, the poor guy needs a rest,” Campese said, studying Brody’s ripped jeans more closely. “What happened on your shift today, man? You look like you’ve been in a scuffle with some asshat.”
Yep, no doubt about it, he never would have hauled Abigail down here. Campese and Shane would be cracking up if they knew who he’d been scuffling with.
“Naw, it’s nothing.” Brody shrugged, close-mouthed.
Campese gave him another narrow stare before his expression relaxed into a grin. “Glad I’ll be finished with asshats soon. Only four weeks before I sign off for good. I got a fishing rod with my name on it waiting for me.”
The sergeant limped off, leaving Brody frowning after him. Campese might put on a brave face, but everyone knew the leg injury was forcing his early retirement. Before that retirement cake was cut, Brody wanted to bring in the man responsible. That was all he was going to concentrate on this coming month.
Chapter Three
An imper
ative knocking on the downstairs door roused Abigail from her bed on Sunday morning. Heavy with sleep, she flung on a dressing gown and fumbled her way down, only to find Detective Brody Donovan standing at her front door. Dressed in dark blue jeans—a clean pair without rips—and a white T-shirt under his sports jacket, he brought with him the crisp morning air and a sense of purpose that only made her feel more disheveled and hazy.
“What’s the emergency, Detective?” she asked, tugging the edges of the dressing gown closer to her.
“I woke you up. Sorry.” His hair was fresh and thick, his hazel-green eyes clear like forest pools. He indicated the gym bag he was carrying. “I wanted to start my surveillance as soon as possible.”
She licked her dry lips, threaded her fingers through hair that felt like a haystack. “I didn’t realize you’d want to start so early, but I guess you’d better come in.”
She led the way back upstairs, all the while conscious of the big cop right behind her and feeling as if she were letting a dangerous tiger into her apartment. Detective Brody Donovan had left a permanent impression on her brain, including the image of him peeling off his shirt to reveal a broad, muscled chest that had got her heart vrooming and other lady parts positively panting. Thank the lord he’d kept his undershirt on or she might have been in serious trouble there.
This was the second time they’d met, and again she looked less than optimal. Maybe not as bad as being squashed into a hot, lumpy costume, but still…her teeth needed brushing, and after the restless night she’d endured, her hair looked like a bird’s nest.
To make matters worse, Brody was channeling the James Dean look so perfectly he was even sexier than yesterday, which made this early-morning meeting a little awkward. For her, anyway. He didn’t seem fazed by her untidy appearance, but what did he have to go on, anyway? For all he knew she always looked like a mess.
“That’s a fancy thingamajig you’re wearing,” he remarked as they entered her apartment. “Looks like something out of Mad Men.”
She glanced from her green silk brocade dressing gown to him, unable to resist raising her eyebrows. “You watch that show?” He didn’t look like a Mad Men watcher; he seemed more the Breaking Bad type.
“My sister’s a big fan. She likes the dresses and the décor. She’d think this apartment really cool.”
Abigail couldn’t help smiling. “Well, Mad Men is set in the sixties. My Aunt Edna was big on the fifties.”
“You must be a fan too, judging by that.” He tilted his chin at her dressing gown, and his gaze traveled over her body in a very male, very frank appraisal, making every inch of her aware she was a woman.
She should have been offended. She usually didn’t care for men eyeing her like that. But Brody was different. Maybe she liked him appreciating her.
Telling herself not to be so silly, she pointed at his gym bag. “I suppose you want to set up your spy cameras in my bedroom?”
“Is it unoccupied at the moment, or should I come back later?”
She couldn’t help a spurt of color warming her cheeks. “No, it’s empty at the moment. The orgy only starts in the afternoon.”
He grinned right back at her. “I’ll have to check in this afternoon, then. Just to make sure my equipment isn’t being, shall we say, violated.”
Shoot, why did she have such a runaway mouth in his presence? “You know I’m kidding.”
“You were?” He raised his eyebrows in mock disappointment. “And here I was thinking I’d found some fresh entertainment for my Sunday afternoons.”
“I doubt you’ll find anything entertaining around here, at least not your kind.”
He considered her for a moment, his eyes becoming thoughtful as he went over her one more time. “You might be surprised.” Before she could reply, he walked down the hall and into her bedroom.
Wondering what his kind of entertainment was, she hurried after him. Leftovers from last night lay scattered about her bedroom—a black-and-white shift dress flung over a chair, black stockings tossed on top of it, and black kitten heels lying near the window where she’d kicked them off.
Brody used his foot to carefully shift the shoes aside before setting down his gym bag. “Looks like you had a more entertaining Saturday night than I did.”
“That depends. Do you find slam poetry entertaining?”
“You’re into slam poetry?”
“No, but my friend Luna is. You might see her around. She helps out in the store occasionally. She dragged me along to this club last night where she was performing. She was good, but I felt out of my depth. I guess I’m not edgy enough to appreciate it. I like my poetry old style.”
“I never got poetry.” Brody gave a mock shudder. “As soon as my high school English teachers started reciting poetry, my brain would go all foggy and shut down. William Blake, T.S. Eliot, Byron, it was all torture for me. Guess you had a better teacher, huh?”
A dull pain contracted her chest. Robert Lindhoff had been an excellent teacher of poetry. She’d admired the college professor she’d worked for as a research assistant. She’d put him on a pedestal and fallen hopelessly in love with him. So inevitable, so predictable. He’d wooed her with pretty quotations, but when the scales had finally fallen from her eyes, she’d seen him for the manipulative liar he was. He’d hurt her. And he’d soured poetry for her too, damn him.
To make matters worse, last night at the poetry slam, she’d spotted Robert across the crowded room. She hadn’t seen him for twelve months, had succeeded in putting him out of her thoughts, and then he had to intrude on her life again. The old pain had welled up at the sight of him looking so urbane and polished in his tweed jacket and silk scarf and horn-rimmed glasses.
He was with a girl, of course, leaning over her at the bar, murmuring something in her ear—some piece of romantic poetry, she was sure, the same lines he’d used on her. Thank God he’d left with his date soon after and hadn’t spotted Abigail staring at him or he might have believed she was still pining for him. She wasn’t. He was an egotistical jerk and nothing would change her mind about him. But she had to admit she did miss poetry.
“I’m going to make coffee,” she said, abruptly changing the subject. “Do you want some?”
“Thanks, that’d be great. It shouldn’t take too long to set up my camera.”
She slipped away, plagued by memories of her ex-lover. She got the coffee maker going before visiting the bathroom, where she cleaned her teeth and tidied up her hair. Frowning at her reflection in the mirror, she couldn’t help wondering how attractive she appeared to other men. Not men like Brody, of course. Everything about the detective shouted at her that he was the complete antithesis of what she wanted in a man. But he was a male, and one who had a lot of experience with women. How would he score her looks?
If she were to judge him solely on his appearance, she’d have to give him ten out of ten. But looks were only part of the package. In other areas, he didn’t do so well. Like poetry, for example. He didn’t need to be an enthusiast, but how could he not like Byron? She walks in beauty, like the night…
Snob, a voice snorted at the back of her head. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection and went back to the kitchen to pour out the coffee.
“Thanks,” Brody said appreciatively when she handed him one of the mugs. He sat back in her small armchair while she perched on the edge of her bed, crossing her legs ladylike and balancing her coffee mug on her knee.
A security camera rested on a tripod by the window, aimed directly across the street at Katherine O’Brien’s house. The camera was connected to a hard disk recorder.
“Is that it?” she nodded at the equipment.
“Yup. I didn’t get the okay for a full-on system, so this’ll have to do. It’s a motion-activated camera. It’ll only start recording when there’s some movement near the house.”
“What ab
out people walking past or cars?”
“I’ve been checking that and adjusting the sensor range. Can you make sure the camera doesn’t get moved out of position? If you bump it by accident, give me a call and I’ll stop by to fix it.”
“Sure.” She nodded.
“I’ve set it up so you can still close your drapes. Just leave a crack for the lens to poke through.”
“So that’s it? You just set up this camera and leave?” She felt a vague disappointment that he’d be gone soon, and didn’t care for the feeling.
“No, I’ll be up here observing the premises whenever I can or tailing O’Brien’s mother if she goes out, but I have other cases to work on and I can’t be here all the time. That’s when the camera comes in handy. I’ll need to come in to view the footage on a regular basis, since I couldn’t get the Wi-Fi smart camera. If I had that, I could check the footage via my smartphone or laptop.”
“That’s too bad,” she murmured even though deep down something in her warmed at the thought of seeing Detective Brody on a regular basis.
He took a gulp of coffee and glanced out the window at the street below.
“I’m sorry if this is all a bit intrusive,” he said, looking back at her and around the room, taking in the furnishings. “Maybe you’d be more comfortable sleeping in the other bedroom?”
Abigail sipped her coffee, contemplating his suggestion, before she shook her head. “I could use my aunt’s bedroom, but I’m sorry, I’m just not ready yet.”
His hazel-green eyes softened. “How long has it been?”
“Six months.”
Aunt Edna hadn’t feared death, but she’d worried about the journey, the possible indignities she might have to endure. Fortunately, she’d been able to die in her own bed, in relative peace, surrounded by the people who cared about her.
“What was the cause?” Brody asked.
“Liver cancer. She had an operation to remove the tumor, but the cancer had already spread to other organs. She had a good three months, and then the end came quickly, so she didn’t suffer too much.” She drew in a deep breath, her fingers running around the rim of her mug. “I’ve been slowly clearing up her things, but I haven’t gotten around to her bedroom yet. Most of her clothes are in good condition. I should give them to Goodwill, but, well, I haven’t yet.”
