LITMIR.BIZ

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let’s clean up and call it a night,” Kieran said. She stood and started picking plates up from recently vacated tables.

      Declan looked at Craig with a shrug.

      Craig knew all the Finnegan siblings well—he was pretty sure that he knew what they all might be thinking: better get involved; make it your case. This is haunting Kieran, and therefore, she will definitely be haunting you!

      Twenty minutes later, they were at Kieran’s apartment, which he had mostly been calling home as well for at least the last year. They still used his place now and then. Somehow—though he couldn’t remember the last time they’d slept apart—they were still maintaining two apartments. They really needed to get rid of one of them. His apartment was larger—they both actually liked it better. But Kieran’s was in the Village, and often more convenient when they’d been out for a night, and they had gotten into the habit of staying there.

      More of his things were even at her place, rather than his own.

      Not even the sushi bar/karaoke place on the ground floor of Kieran’s apartment building was still going, and the streets surrounding St. Mark’s Place were quiet, as well.

      Kieran seemed really tired as they trudged up the stairs past the silent bar and to her apartment level. Of course, she was tired. She’d worked some grim cases with him—little could have been much worse than some of what they’d already seen, endured and survived—but it had to have been traumatic for her, having a baby thrust into her arms.

      And seeing the woman who had entrusted that baby to her staggering down the street with a knife in her back...

      He intended to give Kieran whatever space she needed; respecting that might be a need to curl up in bed with her own thoughts, praying for sleep.

      He was startled when she turned to him with a grin. “Race you to the shower!” she said, and she was gone.

      Racing to the shower.

      He’d thought she’d be so exhausted.

      Apparently not.

      He followed her.

      There were, of course, all kinds of ways to deal with strange happenings.

      She was already naked, beneath the spray of water. He hesitated at the door, then left his Glock in the bedroom and shed his clothing.

      He stepped into the tub. She was instantly in his arms.

      Sometimes, people just needed to be held.

      And sometimes, they needed more.

      Her lips moved over his throat and chest, while her fingers danced down his torso. Her touch...the water...

      He was instantly aroused.

      They kissed and teased in the water. They lathered one another, intimately.

      Then she laughed and moved away, escaping from the shower.

      They’d long ago realized that for a man Craig’s size, making love in the shower wasn’t particularly erotic. It could be awkward, and slippery in the wrong way.

      But heading out of the shower could be completely wonderful, catching up with another with clean flesh, sliding into a damp embrace with token pats from towels, and then falling down into the bed, the coolness of the sheets against the heat of their flesh.

      Foreplay quickly became something urgent, something needed, something more and more passionate with each brush of their lips, with the intimacy with which they caressed and kissed one another, with which their eyes met, and they came together at last.

      Craig loved Kieran; she loved him. There was no question about that.

      It still amazed him how intense their connection could be.

      Just as it amazed him that they could live together, sleep together, wake together each morning, and still find it so new and exquisite every time they made love.

      He thought that she would want to talk as they both came down after a sweet and wicked climax; she did not.

      She curled against him, sighed and seemed to fall asleep almost instantly.

      He dozed himself, but woke when she moved. He guessed she hadn’t been sleeping at all.

      She crawled as silently as she could out of bed, wrapped herself in a terry robe and headed out to the living room.

      He followed, and found her looking out the window on what remained of the night.

      She didn’t hear him at first.

      He sighed softly. “Kieran?”

      She started and turned to him. “Craig, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s Saturday—and you actually have time off. You can sleep as long as you like.”

      “I was planning on sleeping past four in the morning,” he assured her. “Come back to bed.”

      “I can’t forget that woman, Craig. I just can’t forget her.”

      “I know. Come back to bed.”

      “Kidnapping. That’d be an FBI matter,” Kieran told Craig.

      “We don’t know that it was a kidnapping. Maybe the woman was the baby’s mother—or grandmother. Maybe she just wanted the child to be safe. Kieran—”

      “Kidnapping,” Kieran said. “Craig, you know that poor little girl was taken from somewhere.”

      “At the moment, the case belongs to the cops. The Bureau might be brought in, but right now, it’s not my call. We work hard to keep our relationships between agencies all nice and copacetic. I’m not running down there and demanding that we take the case. I’d be put in my place in two damned seconds,” he told her.

      “But it must be kidnapping. You can talk to Egan, at least, okay?”

      “I will speak with Egan—when it’s possible to speak with my director, I promise I will.”

      “Really?”

      “I just told you that I would.”

      “What if he fights you on it? What if he’s dismissive?”

      “I’ll fight back.”

      “Really?”

      “I’ll push and be obnoxious and call in all kinds of favors, okay?”

      “Yeah. Okay. I like it.”

      He led her back into the bedroom and she slipped into his arms. Resting against his chest, she fell asleep.

      He thought about his promise.

      He hadn’t seen the woman, had no connection to the case, and in his life, he’d seen too many murders.

      But he would keep his promise, and he was damned determined that they’d get to the bottom of what was going on.

      The woman had known Kieran’s name, and she had brought the baby straight to her, and that could mean...someone out there would be wondering just what Kieran knew about the woman, the baby—and the killer.

      And that meant that Kieran might well be in danger now herself.

      * * *

      It was her fault, and she knew it. Craig was up early.

      She’d finally fallen asleep. But knowing she’d kept him up meant that guilt riddled her. When he got up to leave and head into the office, she got up to start the coffee.

      She pulled out her laptop. She had a desktop computer at work but had it networked with her laptop—it was a good setup. It had often enough saved her from having to go back into the office over a small detail—a note that one of the doctors might need, or even something that she wanted to reread herself to help her with a case they were working on.

      She often interviewed and provided therapy for abused

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