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he corrected, looking, in her estimation, completely unfazed.

      “I’m not convinced that it was getting shot that made that partner of yours to decide to take a different career path, but if it makes you happy to believe that, fine,” she said. “The count is back down to five.”

      It was obvious that she was deliberately humoring him, the way an indulgent parent humored a child. He didn’t like it.

      “What would make me happy,” he told her, feeling his jaw clench as he spoke, “is if you said goodbye.”

      Okay, maybe it was time to take this head-on, Kelly thought. Sidestepping and humoring this man weren’t getting her anywhere.

      “What is it that you think you’ve got against me?” she asked. “You hardly know me.”

      “And I’d like to keep it that way,” Kane told her in no uncertain terms. “Having a partner—any partner—just gets in my way,” Kane said in a no-nonsense voice. “I don’t have time to watch your back.”

      Rather than get angry—or throw her hands up and just give up—Kelly tried another approach. It was obvious the man was keeping something buried. Something that had caused him to become soured on life as well as the world.

      She aimed to find out what that was.

      “And you don’t have time to have your own back watched?” Kelly asked.

      He laughed shortly. There was absolutely no humor in the sound. “No offense, but if I were in trouble, knowing you were out there with a gun wouldn’t exactly reinforce my feeling of well-being,” he told her.

      Kelly stared at his rigid profile. It looked as if his whole body was clenched, not just his jaw. Did the man even know how to relax? Or was he just perpetually angry at the world?

      Why?

      She had nothing to lose by asking. Heaven knew she wasn’t sacrificing any rapport she might have built up with Durant. There certainly wasn’t any to be had.

      “Were you always like this?” she asked. “Or did something happen to turn you into this distrusting outsider?”

      That was the deal breaker. If she didn’t put in for a transfer, then he would—the moment they got back to the precinct, Kane promised himself. “And just about the very last thing I need or want is a partner who fancies herself a shrink.”

      “Not a shrink,” Kelly contradicted. “An observer. Someone to talk to when things get to be too difficult for you.”

      It seemed as if he was missing every single light, Kane thought, gripping the steering wheel harder. Missing the intersection lights just made his disposition that much more surly.

      “What if you’re what’s too difficult for me?” he asked.

      She smiled, the expression filtering into her eyes, making them all but shine with warmth.

      Now why the hell had that thought even crossed his mind, Kane upbraided himself.

      “We can talk about that, too,” Kelly told him.

      The look he shot her was not the sort that cemented partnerships. “Got an answer for everything, is that it?” he asked sarcastically.

      “Pretty much,” she said, giving no indication that his attitude was getting to her.

      Something—or someone, she decided—had done a number on this new partner of hers, very effectively destroying his ability to relate to anyone. To risk relating to anyone, she amended.

      Either that or he was just an ornery SOB and there really was no reaching him.

      The moment she started to consider the second possibility, Kelly quickly dismissed it. Nobody on earth would want to be the way Durant was on any kind of a regular basis, Kelly thought. Something had to have happened to him to make him like this.

      But what?

      And how did she find out? Heaven knew she couldn’t approach him outright about that. At least, not without proper prep work first.

      She made up her mind to do some digging into her new partner’s past and see if she could answer any of the questions that were popping up rather insistently in her brain.

      Kelly began planning her strategy and who she would talk to first about Durant. A number of possibilities occurred to her, along with another thought. She was going to make Kane Durant her private rehabilitation project.

      Lost in thought and making extensive plans, she didn’t immediately become aware that Durant had stopped driving.

      After parking his sedan at the curb, he got out and then spared her a glance. Against his better nature, he prodded her.

      “Coming?” he asked her. “Or are you waiting for a private, hand-carved invitation?”

      Kelly didn’t lie as a rule. But she saw no shame in shading the truth sometimes, especially when she was dealing with someone such as Kane Durant, a man who probably had last smiled on the day he’d been brought home from the hospital.

      Possibly not even then.

      “Just gathering my thoughts together,” she told Kane cheerfully. She did, however, avoid his eyes when she said it. That, and she devoted an extra drop of care to getting out of his sedan on the passenger side.

      “Well, that certainly doesn’t require a long time,” Kane commented under his breath.

      She ignored the obvious meaning behind his comment—that her thoughts were woefully few. “No, not at this time,” she easily agreed.

      She could see that her noncombative answer surprised him.

      Brace yourself, Durant. There’s more where that came from, she promised silently. I intend to kill you with kindness. It’s probably the only way to win you over.

      Or so she hoped.

      A patrol car was parked at the end of the long, winding driveway. The vehicle looked sadly out of place beside the two other cars that were there. One was a late-model Mercedes and the other was a Lexus that was so new it didn’t have plates on yet.

      Both cars had been vandalized. Their windows were smashed and huge red letters scarred the body of each vehicle.

      “Looks like someone was taking out some really dark personal issues on the cars,” she commented. “Maybe they were using the cars as proxies for the people the perp or perps really wanted to harm.”

      Very quietly, Kane slowly circled the two cars, taking in every inch of the destruction that had occurred here, so close to home. At first glance, it seemed like a case of determined vandalism. But there might be something that they were missing, he thought.

      That was why the department had such a highly developed crime scene investigation unit. “Ask CSI to pass on their findings to me—to us,” he corrected himself, although not overly cheerfully, “once they’re finished examining the cars,” he instructed.

      Kelly nodded her head. “Consider it done,” she replied.

      Kane glanced at her and appeared on the verge of responding. Then he obviously thought better of it and merely shrugged his shoulders.

      Taking in everything about his surroundings, Kane continued walking to the building’s ornate, massive front door.

      The door was wide-open. A patrolman could be seen just inside the foyer. He seemed to be on guard. Against what was still unclear.

      The foyer, a veritable shrine to all things marble, contained uncommonly high vaulted ceilings. It clearly gave the impression of wealth as well as wide-open spaces.

      “God, I’d hate to have to pay the heating bill on this place,” she murmured as they walked in.

      Kelly hardly knew where to look first. She was accustomed

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