LITMIR.BIZ

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together,” Collins told the pair. “Make me proud,” he added as he nodded at the paper he’d just given Kane. He began to walk away, then stopped in his tracks for a few seconds. “Oh, and, Durant?”

      After reading the address written on the white notepaper, Kane looked up and waited for the captain to continue.

      “See if you can hold on to this partner for longer than a month, okay? The paperwork that’s generated every time you break up with your partner is hell,” Collins complained as he made his way back to his office.

      This time Kane’s eyes slid over the woman who had hurried to catch up to him and was currently standing less than an inch away.

      “I’ll do my best,” Kane murmured more or less to himself.

      “Do better than that.” Collins apparently had heard Kane’s comment despite the growing distance between them as he walked back to his glass-enclosed office.

      To Kelly’s momentary surprise, Kane turned around and walked out of the office again. She found herself hurrying again just not to lose sight of him.

      The sooner they got to the location the captain had handed over to Kane, the sooner they could start working on the case.

      “Is that your personal best?” Kelly asked him as they went out again.

      “Is what my personal best?” Kane asked brusquely. What the hell was she talking about? The woman apparently could jump from topic to topic faster than a frog touching down on a pond filled with burning lily pads.

      “A month. With a partner,” Kelly added as clarification since Durant wasn’t answering her and gave no indication he planned to. Not if that disinterested look he’d just sent her way was any indication. “Is that the life expectancy of a partnership with you?” she asked.

      Kane shrugged, apparently totally uninterested in her choice of topics or her edification as to his professional habits.

      “Give or take,” he finally replied vaguely, aware of the way she was watching him, waiting for an answer. “I don’t keep track,” he added with an air of finality that was meant to close the subject once and for all.

      Or so he had naively thought.

      Kelly nodded. “Fair enough,” she told him. Then she explained, “I just wanted to know what I was up against, that’s all.”

      His eyebrows drew together in an outward sign of confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Kane asked.

      She gave him a roundabout explanation. “I’m planning to look at this partnership as a challenge. If I can hang on beyond a certain point, say longer than your longest-lasting partner, then it’s okay. I made it. You know, kind of like staying on a bucking bronco for eight seconds.”

      If the woman wanted a challenge, he had one for her. He’d challenge her to make sense out of the gibberish she had just spouted. Instead, though, he settled for a throwaway line that he assumed would tell her just how disinterested he was in anything she had to say beyond whatever pertained to the case they were about to investigate.

      “Whatever floats your boat,” Kane muttered dismissively.

      “Where are we going?” she asked as they got back on the elevator.

      “To the scene of the robbery,” he told her matter-of-factly.

      If he was trying to rankle her or get her to lose her temper, Kelly thought, it was going to take more than that. Having grown up with four brothers, not to mention two sisters, she had learned how to survive under adverse conditions.

      “Which is...?” she asked him patiently.

      He seemed deliberately to wait several minutes before saying, “Quail Hill.”

      Kelly whistled, impressed. For the most part, the citizens of Aurora were middle-class and upper middle-class. But Quail Hill was where the beautiful people with deep pockets lived.

      After reaching the first floor, the elevator came to a stop and opened its doors. The moment they stepped out, Kane resumed his quickened pace, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he didn’t like the idea of being coupled with her. He was putting distance between them as quickly as he possibly could. She was welcome to keep up—if she could.

      Too bad, Durant, but I don’t like this any better than you do, she thought, once again lengthening her stride.

      “Well, if I was a thief, that’s where I’d go to pull off a heist,” she said, addressing Kane’s back. “The really filthy rich part of town.”

      Kane merely grunted in response as he came to a stop before a dark sedan. He hit the release button on his key, opening all four doors simultaneously.

      Kelly looked at his vehicle in surprise. He seemed to take it for granted that she was just going to let him take over every little aspect of their partnership.

      “That’s it?” she questioned. “No discussion about which car we’re using and who’s driving?”

      Rather than answer her, Kane opened the driver’s side door and got in behind the steering wheel.

      “I guess not,” Kelly concluded, answering her own question.

      Opening the passenger side, she slid in. The moment she inserted the metal tongue into the slot of her seat belt, Kane took off. Kelly felt the jolt. The sedan was instantly hugging the road, doing the speed limit—and just beyond.

      Kelly gave it to the count of ten in her head, allowing her new partner to gather his thoughts together before he said something.

      Anything.

      When there was only silence riding along in the car with them, Kelly decided that the man she’d been assigned to was comfortable with this level of silence.

      She, however, was not.

      “You know, you’re going to have to talk to me sometime,” Kelly pointed out patiently. There was no point in raising her voice or losing her temper. That wasn’t the way to go with this man.

      Kane continued looking straight ahead as he drove onto one of the city’s main thoroughfares.

      “Why?” His voice was steely, his interest in the conversation barely engaged.

      Exasperation hovered around the edges of her voice, but Kelly managed to keep it in check.

      “Because that’s what partners do. They talk. They share and somewhere in between the small talk and the theory spinning, they solve crimes.”

      “If you say so,” Kane responded in quite possibly the most disinterested, distant voice she had ever heard. “But it’s cliché.”

      She wasn’t trying to be original, just to make a point. There was nothing wrong with using a cliché if it applied to the situation—and this, in her opinion, did.

      “I’ve got another one for you,” she told Kane, her stubborn streak rearing its head. “Ever hear the old saying, ‘Two heads are better than one’?”

      “You planning on growing another head, Cavanaugh?” he asked.

      If he meant to get her annoyed with that, he was going to be disappointed, she thought.

      “Was that a joke, Durant? Could it be that you actually have a sense of humor buried beneath that muscle-bound, hulking exterior?” she asked, feigning shock as she splayed her hand across her chest.

      He merely slanted a dismissive look her way before returning his gaze to the road.

      Taking a deep breath, Kelly decided she had nothing to lose by taking this new partner of hers to task about his attitude when it came to her. “Look, Durant, I don’t know what your problem is—”

      He pointed up to the rearview mirror. “Mirror’s right there,” he said, his meaning clear.

      Kelly dug

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