LITMIR.BIZ

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Special Agent Brannigan. We get the answer to that, maybe we can get the son of a bitch.”

      A noise in the other room told her that the rookie had returned. She crossed back to the living room. Brannigan was right behind her.

      Jack looked eager to share what he’d managed to discover. “One of the neighbors on the floor said she thought she heard yelling coming from this apartment around noon yesterday.”

      “What kind of yelling?” Nick asked. “Screams for help? An argument?”

      Jack shook his head. “She just said yelling. But she said it was a man. And she thought it was the TV. You know, one of those daytime cable channel crime series that’s always being rerun. The woman said she was just about to go knock on Stacy Pembroke’s door when the yelling stopped.”

      Nick exchanged looks with Charley. “Bad luck for Stacy,” he commented.

      “Yeah,” Charley agreed sadly—if something as heinous as what had transpired in this apartment could be described with such sanitary words.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHARLEY PUSHED the key into the lock. Turning it took effort. She felt bushed, really bushed. Worn-out from the inside clear to the outside.

      This was probably the way someone with their foot caught in a stirrup felt after they’d been dragged for three miles by a wild horse. Going around in wide, fruitless, unproductive circles always did that to her.

      With a sigh almost as big as she was, Charley pushed down on the door handle and walked into her apartment. She was instantly greeted by Dakota, who moments earlier, if the warm spot that met her feet when she kicked off her shoes was any indication, had been lying on the floor directly in front of the door.

      Tail wagging like a metronome on caffeine, the German shepherd ran back and forth as if she couldn’t make up her mind what to do or where to go first.

      Charley laughed softly. “You and me both, Dakota.”

      The dog returned to angle her head beneath her mistress’s hand. It was almost as if the animal was petting her instead of the other way around. Charley smiled to herself. Dakota had her trained well.

      She could barely place one foot in front of the other and make her way to the living room where the sofa beckoned to her. Sinking into the cushion was like sinking into an old friend. The slightly worn gray upholstery embraced her.

      A beat later, Dakota joined her.

      Charley closed her eyes, petting the animal again. She’d long since given up trying to keep the dog off the furniture. The sofa was her favorite spot. But Dakota listened to her most of the time, which was more than she could say for the rest of the world.

      After a moment, Charley forced herself to open her eyes again. It was either that or fall asleep sitting up. Turning in Dakota’s direction, she noticed that the telephone on the table beside the sofa was rhythmically blinking at her like a red-eyed, menstruating Cyclops.

      Three quick blinks, then a long one. That meant three calls.

      Charley frowned.

      She didn’t have to listen to the messages. Experience told her who had called. He must have heard it on the news, she thought grimly. She had to psych herself up before she tackled returning the calls.

      Better yet, she needed to hear a friendly voice first. Charley picked up the cordless receiver and pressed a single button on the keypad, the one connecting her to the only person she could turn to at a moment like this.

      It took several rings before she heard the phone being picked up. The moment she heard the deep, rumbly voice honed by years of devoted Scotch-and-soda imbibing, she smiled.

      “Hello?”

      Charley didn’t bother with a greeting. She didn’t need to. Slipping into a conversation with Ben Temple was as easy as breathing.

      “They gave me a new partner today.” She couldn’t help making it sound like an accusation.

      She heard the voice on the other end chuckle. “About time.”

      She could envision Ben leaning back in that chair he always favored, the one his late wife had begged him to get rid of. Worn, shapeless and faded in a multitude of places, the once-hunter-green recliner matched nothing in the house except for Ben. “I kept hoping you’d change your mind and come back.”

      The shoulder that had caught the bullet still hurt when he moved it a certain way. It probably always would. At sixty-three, he didn’t heal the way he had at twenty.

      “If I do, it’s going to be to sit behind a desk and puzzle things out, Charley. Don’t forget, I’m not the man I used to be.”

      She knew Ben was only baiting her, but she hated it anyway. “You will always be the man you used to be.”

      Ben chuckled again, clearly warmed by her loyalty. Childless, he thought of Charley as the daughter he would have liked to have had if Ruth could have had children. “Saying it doesn’t make it so, kid. Saddest thing in the world to watch is a player who doesn’t know when to leave the field.”

      “Just because a pitcher loses his arm doesn’t mean he can’t be used for another position in the game.” She was only half kidding even though she knew that Ben had made up his mind. Had known it even when she’d gone to the hospital to visit him right after his operation. Ben’s disability leave had swiftly taken on signs of a more permanent nature. “You wouldn’t have to leap over any tall buildings in a single bound. I could do that for you.”

      “Charley—”

      “I know, I know.” She tried to sound upbeat, but the truth was, she missed him. He’d been gone only six weeks and she’d visited him as often as she could, but she missed him. Missed seeing his rumpled, lived-in face looking at her from across their desks every day. “But you can’t like just sitting around the house, doing nothing. I know you better than that, Ben.”

      “I’m not sitting around, getting bored,” he protested good-naturedly. “I signed up for a night class. I’m finally learning Spanish the way you always kept telling me to. And I’ve got twenty-eight years of TV programs and books to catch up on. Got a whole bunch of tapes and DVDs,” he added to back up his claim. “So give me a few years to get bored. I’ve earned it, kid.”

      “I know you have.”

      He heard the sadness in her voice and felt the prick of nostalgia. But that part of his life was behind him now, just as being part of a marriage was behind him. “So, tell me. How’s this new guy working out for you?”

      Dakota had moved her chin onto her lap. Charley began to stroke the dog’s head. It soothed her. “He’s not you.”

      Humor echoed in his tone. “Ugly, huh?” When his former partner didn’t immediately respond, Ben knew what that meant. He’d intended his gibe as a joke, but he’d managed to stumble on a little bit of truth in the process. “Not so ugly, I take it.”

      Charley paused before answering. She wanted to be fair. Special Agent Nick Brannigan might have struck her as being a lot of things, none of which she particularly liked, but ugly was not one of them.

      “No,” she finally allowed, “not so ugly.”

      What she didn’t say spoke volumes to Ben. He’d tried to pair her off with one of his nephews once, but it hadn’t gone too well. That didn’t change his opinion that Charley needed someone in her life. Someone to go home to. Or with.

      “So tell me about him,” he coaxed.

      “Not much to tell.” She tried to remember what Alice had told her when the woman had stopped by her desk that afternoon. The A.D.’s secretary had managed to just catch her in between trips out of the office. She and Brannigan had canvassed the entire neighborhood, spoken to a good portion of the people listed in Stacy Pembroke’s address book and met

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