LITMIR.BIZ

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to let her personal baggage color her professional behavior toward one of her workshop attendees. Then again, Detective Studpuppy had asked for it.

      “You leered at my legs.”

      He raised a dark brow. “That’s it? My giving your legs an appreciative look made you decide payback was in order?”

      “You leered.” She lifted her chin. “You reminded me of someone I don’t like. As a matter of fact, he’s a total weasel.”

      Annoyance narrowed his eyes. “Are you always this quick to make assumptions about someone you’ve never before laid eyes on?”

      Yes, she thought. Especially when the person was a man with the type of charmer’s grin that put a sizzle in her blood. She’d been pulled in once by a blinding grin that prevented her from seeing the truth. Never again.

      She ran a hand across her briefcase while acknowledging how bitter, vindictive and totally lame she sounded. “Look, I had a rotten morning even before I got lost twice on my way here. That little encounter with you went all over me.”

      “So you pulled out my paper on the off chance you could hammer me? What if I’d spent all day yesterday volunteering at an old folks’ home or something?”

      It was her turn to arch a brow. “Then I doubt you’d have mentioned turning on the lights.”

      “Lights,” he repeated with derision. “Your area of expertise might have merit, Carmichael, but I’m not buying your explanation that you know someone’s got sex on their mind just because they walk into a dark room and flip on a light switch.”

      She smiled at the temper smoldering in his eyes. “Was I wrong about what happened between you and your companion?”

      “We argued. The way you came up with that makes sense. And it isn’t a huge mental step to figure the odds are low of two people in the midst of a fight winding up in bed.”

      “You think it was a good guess on my part?”

      “Exactly.”

      Paige eased out a breath, reminding herself it had also taken her time to buy into the merits of statement analysis. “You’re entitled to your opinion, Sergeant. Maybe as we get deeper into the subject matter it will change.”

      He started to say something just as his cell phone chimed. Shoving back one flap of his suit coat, he pulled the unit off his belt and answered.

      Watching him, Paige saw the way his eyes went flat and cool as he listened to the caller. No one had to tell her she’d just witnessed McCall slide into his cop’s skin. She’d done it often enough herself when she carried a badge.

      After a minute passed, he said, “I’m on my way. Make sure the uniform keeps the scene secured. Until the lab guys get there, he doesn’t allow anyone in that freezer, including himself.”

      He hung up, clipped the phone back on his belt. “I’ve got a homicide to work. Don’t expect me back today.”

      Paige blinked. “You’re enrolled in my workshop and on call to work cases?”

      “Have to. My partner’s on maternity leave. With three of us from Homicide taking your workshop, things are spread thin.”

      “Hopefully you’ll rejoin us tomorrow.”

      He paused and looked at her. Paige had the sense he was sizing her up with the same intensity he would if she were a suspect in the murder case he’d just been assigned.

      “If I do make it back, how about giving me a break?”

      She hoped he would be back. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt an intense challenge to make a believer of Nate McCall. “I’ll consider it, Sergeant.”

      Hours later, Paige rose from behind the desk in the office used by the center’s guest instructors. Grateful she had the first day of the workshop behind her, she set the locks on her briefcase, then retrieved her coat from the closet tucked into one corner. The headache that had stayed with her all day hammered behind her eyes, tension knotted her shoulders and she hoped she could find her hotel without repeating the wrong turns she’d made that morning.

      “Dammit,” she muttered after she pulled on her coat and turned back to her briefcase. She’d had the secretary run a copy of each of the workshop assignment sheets so she could leave the originals untouched when she analyzed them. But she’d stuck the copies in her briefcase and left the original statements stacked on one end of the desk. Not wanting to take time to rekey the briefcase’s combination, she coiled the sheets like a roll of paper towels and slid them into her red suede purse.

      Swinging its strap over her shoulder, Paige grabbed her briefcase, then headed out of her temporary office. The click of her heels echoed against the now-deserted main hallway.

      To acknowledge the three-year anniversary of her life getting blasted to smithereens, her evening plans included cracking open the minibar, room service and a long soak in the tub. With her headache drumming, she revised those plans to include a couple of aspirin.

      Car keys clenched in one hand, briefcase in the other, she shoved open the door and stepped into the cold afternoon gloom.

      With thoughts of the escaped Edwin Isaac never far from her mind, she paused just outside the door. The wind gusted, raking through her dark hair like wild fingers while her senses strained to catch the slightest noise, the slightest movement.

      Maybe it was just the low, ominous-looking gray cloud bank sucking up what was left of the daylight that compelled her to settle her briefcase at her feet and slip her hand into her coat pocket. When her fingers failed to connect with the asp she habitually carried there, she swore a silent oath. She’d stowed the collapsible tactical baton inside her suitcase for yesterday’s flight from Dallas to Oklahoma City. In her haste this morning, she’d forgotten to retrieve the weapon.

      “Can’t just stand here,” she muttered. Picking up her briefcase, Paige hunched her shoulders against the chill and headed around the side of the building.

      The instant she came abreast of a thick, bushy shrub she sensed a presence. Motion. The hair rose on the back of her neck. Her right hand instinctively went for the holstered Glock she hadn’t carried in three years.

      At the edge of her vision she glimpsed a towering black-clad figure wearing a leather mask charge from the shadows. Adrenaline blew through her system, and she had a crazy half second to think how her day was about to get worse.

      Chapter 2

      Paige’s elbow swept up toward the man’s jaw at the same instant the side of his hand slammed into her temple. The blow shot jagged lights behind her eyes.

      Stumbling off balance, she smashed against the hood of her rental car.

      She had no time to think, to work out if the attacker was Isaac. No time to wonder if he had a weapon. There was no time to do anything but act and react.

      Sucking in a breath like a diver going under, she tightened her hold on the briefcase, spun upward. Her mind catalogued her attacker’s black leather mask and gloves as she slammed the briefcase into his gut.

      His breath exploded in a grunt. It turned into a cursing rush when the toe of her shoe plowed into his knee. She knew if he had a weapon, odds were he’d have gone for it by now.

      He locked an arm around the briefcase and yanked. Snarling, she held on like a pit bull.

      Still gripping the keys in her right hand, she shoved one between her clenched fingers. She jerked on the briefcase’s handle, yanking him into a forward stagger as she jabbed the key at his left eye.

      He feinted and, instead, the teeth of the key raked a furrow along the side of his neck, drawing blood.

      Howling, he swung his fist.

      The blow to Paige’s cheekbone sent pain grinding down her face. Reeling, she knew she was going down, and made

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