LITMIR.BIZ

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did not look pleased. “I don’t get a say in this?” he asked, his voice all but rumbling from deep within the caverns of his chest.

      “Sure you do,” Carver loftily answered the younger man. “You get to say yes.” The lieutenant glanced around at the team, now increased by one. “You take that empty desk,” he told Sierra, pointing to the one butted up against O’Bannon’s. “Any other questions?” When no one said anything in response, Carver nodded, satisfied. “Didn’t think so.”

      Placing the piece of notepaper he was holding with the current crime scene’s address on Ronan’s desk, he stepped back.

      “All right, that’s the location of your newest dead body,” he told Ronan. “A drunk patron of the Shamrock Inn tripped over the body while apparently trying to duck out the back way to avoid paying his tab.” Carver laughed under his breath. “Seeing that body lying there was definitely enough to scare him sober,” he commented. He spared one last glance at the now team of four. “Okay. Do me proud. Solve this damn thing before it gets completely out of hand.”

      “You ask me, it’s already out of hand,” Choi murmured under his breath the moment the lieutenant left the scene. Turning his attention to the detective who had just been added to their team, the father of three smiled broadly at her. “You can ride with me to the crime scene.”

      Nick Martinez instantly came to attention. He moved in to flank Sierra’s other side. “If you want to arrive there in one piece, Carlyle, you can ride with me,” he offered.

      Choi appeared annoyed at the inference. “Hey, what’s wrong with the way I drive?”

      Martinez gave the other man a look that quipped, “Really?” Out loud he said, “Can’t go into it now. It would take too long and we’ve got to get to the crime scene.”

      Ronan turned from his desk, his dark green eyes washing over the two men he’d been working with for a couple of months now. And then he looked at the woman Carver had added to the mix without so much as a warning—as if the situation wasn’t already difficult enough.

      “You’re coming with me before these two jokers decide to play tug-of-war with you.” There wasn’t a hint of humor in his voice as he made the pronouncement.

      The last thing Sierra wanted to do was appear to take sides in what she perceived to be some sort of unspoken power struggle.

      “If you give me the address,” she told Ronan, who had already slipped the paper Carver had given him into his pocket, “I can drive there myself.”

      “Good to know,” Ronan answered drily, making no move to take the paper out of his pocket and show her the address.

      O’Bannon had just given her what amounted to a non-answer in her book. And now he was walking out of the squad room. Biting back a comment, she forced herself to hurry to keep up. Martinez and Choi were right behind her.

      “So do you want me to drive myself over to the scene of the crime or not?” Sierra asked.

      “Not,” Ronan answered, pressing for the elevator.

      The elevator arrived the second he took his index finger off the down button. Ronan walked into the empty car and was quickly followed by the other three members of his team.

      “Not very talkative, are you?” Sierra said, moving so that she was standing right next to him.

      “Pet rocks have been known to talk more than O’Bannon does,” Choi told her. Both he and Martinez were behind her and the lead detective.

      Not to be left out, Martinez assured her, “You’ll get used to it.”

      Sierra slanted a look at the man to her right. He seemed oblivious to the conversation around him, although she couldn’t see how he didn’t hear them.

      “I really doubt it,” she answered Martinez with sincerity.

      The elevator doors parted on the first floor. Ronan spared her a glance just before he got off. He had one word for her.

      “Try.”

      And then he took off again, making her hurry if she wanted to keep up. At about a foot taller than she was, O’Bannon’s stride was a good deal wider than hers.

      “Or,” she suggested, determined to keep pace, “you could try using sentences containing more than just one word.”

      Ronan made no attempt to answer her. He continued walking toward the rear exit and then made his way through the parking lot until he came to where he had parked his vehicle. Only after he released the door locks did he turn toward the other two detectives who’d kept pace with him. He told them the address he’d been given by Carver.

      “Got it,” Martinez said, nodding. It was a given that he was driving the other car. “We’ll be right behind you.”

      It was unclear, at least to Sierra, whether the other detective had said that to O’Bannon or to her in an effort to let her know she wouldn’t be alone with their wooden leader.

      Getting into the passenger side of O’Bannon’s car, Sierra buckled up. The second she secured her seat belt, O’Bannon took off.

      Doing her best to relax, Sierra waited for him to say something.

      But after they had gone two city blocks in complete silence, she realized that this was the way it was going to be, at least until they reached the scene of the murder. While she didn’t expect the detective to engage in rambling chatter, this “silent treatment” or whatever it was, was totally unacceptable to her.

      “You know, it is all right to talk,” she told him, trying to sound cheerful. Unable to “get in his face,” she leaned forward and did the best she could by peering at his profile.

      Aware that she had assumed a very unusual position, Ronan waited until he had driven through the intersection before he finally responded to her statement.

      “Why?”

      “Because,” she began patiently, “that’s what people do, especially when they’re thrown together in a situation that was not of their own choosing—like now,” she stressed. “They talk.”

      Accelerating just a little, Ronan drove through the next intersection a shade before the light turned yellow. “I don’t.”

      “Maybe you should,” she countered. She saw him turn his head slightly, as if to look at her, and then apparently he changed his mind. She began to feel as if she was dealing with a robot. Nevertheless, Sierra pushed on. “I’m sure you have something to say,” she told him, knowing she was setting herself up, but it was better than this feeling of being in exile.

      “I’m thinking,” he informed her.

      “Think out loud,” she suggested.

      He obviously hadn’t expected that. “What?”

      “Think out loud,” she repeated. “I know you’re not thrilled with this but, for better or worse, Carver made us partners for this case and partners use each other for sounding boards. That only works if they talk out loud because, despite what my brothers seem to think, I am not a mind reader.” She took a breath and waited. When Ronan still made no response, she told him a bit more forcefully, “So talk to me.”

      Rather than comment on the case they were undertaking, Ronan contradicted what she’d said earlier. “We’re not partners.”

      Caught off guard, she looked at him in surprise. “What?”

      “You said Carver made us partners,” he said. “He didn’t. He put you on my team. There’s a difference,” he informed her.

      Smiling, she said, “Now, was that so hard?”

      Because she wasn’t responding to what he’d just told her, Ronan was momentarily confused. “What?”

      Sierra spelled it out for

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