LITMIR.BIZ

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ambulance drivers—even the coroner’s office? Anybody could have mentioned the murder, mentioned my name.”

      “True,” he conceded with obvious reluctance. “But it’s obvious that someone—”

      “Next, you’ll be saying this whole thing—” she motioned to her bandaged head, irritation smoldering “—wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been working on a series on local drug trade.”

      “It wouldn’t have.” He ignored her scowl, picked up the phone and punched in a number.

      Trust Luke to be literal, she thought resentfully as he filled Chief Bradley in on her call. Following his logic, if she hadn’t been working on the articles, Judge Wainright wouldn’t have called and she’d never have gone to the Justice Center that night! And if Thomas Wainright hadn’t been a good friend of her father’s, she might never have gotten his cooperation. And if Pop had never been a judge, himself… Well, she could go on forever.

      She tuned back in to Luke’s fractured conversation in time to hear him deliver a curt “Yes, sir” before hanging up. His use of the phrase, more than the clipped tone, told her he wasn’t pleased with whatever the chief had said, though his carefully schooled expression told her nothing.

      “Bradley wants someone with you when you go home tomorrow.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous. I can get myself home.”

      “Getting you home’s not the problem. It’s what happens after you’re there.”

      “Are you talking surveillance?”

      Luke nodded. “Routine patrol, at the least. Possible round-the-clock if he can find the manpower.”

      Cassie’s heart sank. Even she could see the sense. She was the sole witness to a murder, living alone. But the thought of strangers invading her home, watching her every move… No. She wouldn’t stand for it.

      “Maybe your father or one of your brothers could stay—”

      “You’ve got to be kidding!” She didn’t dare tell him she’d already turned down the same suggestion over the phone four different times today. While she loved her family dearly, their concern was stifling. No, Pop would smother her with attention, and her three brothers—well, they still treated her like a tagalong little sister. “They’d drive me crazy in minutes.”

      Her face must have reflected horror because Luke suddenly grinned. “You’re probably right, but—”

      “I’ll be okay,” she insisted. “I have a phone, locks on the doors and Duffy.”

      “Duffy?” Luke raised a skeptical eyebrow.

      Cassie’s lips twitched in an effort to maintain a suitably serious expression. While she’d be the first to admit the little terrier had problems following directions, she didn’t consider his behavior a laughing matter. At least not now, when she was trying to portray him as protection. “I’ve been taking him to obedience classes,” she said primly.

      “I wondered why he raised one paw when I brought out the dog food.”

      His comment pulled her up short. “You went into my house?”

      “I had to get the tape of Wainright’s message off your answering machine, and since I was there, I couldn’t let Duffy starve.”

      He remembers where I keep the spare key.

      The thought of Luke walking through the rooms they’d once shared, touching her things, absorbing the nuances of the life she’d created without him was disturbing, but she dared not examine her feelings too closely. Shutting her eyes, she concentrated on important issues. Murder. Judge Wainright. The voice on the phone. She shivered.

      “No one’s trying to curtail your freedom, Cassie. We only want to protect you.”

      Her eyes snapped open. “I know,” she answered, wondering how he still had the ability to read her mind. “I just hate not having a choice.”

      “There’s always a choice.”

      Cassie felt a knife edge of guilt as she remembered past choices, ones he had every right to censure her for. She darted a glance at him. His expression remained unreadable. Maybe she’d imagined the blame in his tone.

      She sighed. “All right. I guess I can put up with anything for a while. I’ll just have to make the best of it.”

      Luke lips thinned into a tight smile. “You always do.”

      “Don’t be a damned idiot!” From behind his cluttered desk, Chief Bradley glared at Luke.

      Knowing the chief of police was only venting frustration on the nearest target, Luke refused to take offense. Besides, in the last hour he’d called himself far worse. He knew how his request would be viewed. Friends would suspect him of living in the past, Cassie would accuse him of meddling, and his colleagues would say he’d taken leave of his senses.

      Hell, he didn’t know, himself, why he was insisting on being put back on the case, and adding surveillance to his other duties was crazy. But he had to do it. Maybe because of the mess he’d made of things two years ago. Maybe to erase his one big mistake. And maybe because he had a weakness for people in trouble. Whatever the reason, he couldn’t just walk away now. He had to help her or carry the guilt for the rest of his life.

      “You know the rules. No family. Period.” The chief’s chair squealed in protest as he leaned back, arms crossed over his massive chest.

      “There’s nothing on the books. I checked.”

      “Okay. So it’s unwritten. It’s still damned good policy.” Bradley’s scowl deepened. “Bad enough when the creeps get off on technicalities. Imagine what a good defense lawyer would do with an investigation headed by the victim’s nearest and dearest.”

      “She’s hardly nearest and dearest. It’s been two years.”

      “Doesn’t matter,” Bradley grumbled. “They’d have a field day. You wouldn’t be able to hear the charges over the screams of prejudice and conflict of interest.”

      Luke latched onto some of the infinite patience for which he was known and kept his mouth shut, aware of the chief’s propensity for arguing both sides of the issue without anyone else’s help.

      “Crackpot lawyers,” Bradley muttered. “Whadda they know?” He stared glumly at Luke, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

      Swearing, Bradley launched himself from his chair and paced across the room. “I’ve already had three calls from the D.A.’s office and one from Mayor Brannigan. ‘Shocking state of affairs when we’re not even safe in the Justice Center,’ he tells me. Says to make the investigation ‘top priority.”’ Bradley jabbed one finger at the duty chart on the wall. “McCormack’s tied up with the Swenson case, Haggerty’s too green, and Jessup’s already whining about not enough manpower. And the mayor wants top priority.”

      Stretching his legs before him, Luke crossed one foot over the other and studied the tips of his dusty loafers, a perfect picture of unconcern.

      “Crazy bureaucrats expect miracles. How am I supposed to deliver when they cut budgets and tie my hands?”

      “Sure looks as though they have you over a barrel,” Luke observed.

      “That’s what they think.” The chief swung around, eyes narrowed. “It’s been two years, you say?”

      Luke nodded.

      “Should be long enough to put things in perspective.”

      “Plenty long enough.”

      “No regrets?”

      “None.”

      “And you were first on the scene.”

      Luke confirmed the chief’s statement with another nod.

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