LITMIR.BIZ

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ring selling innocent, underage girls to the highest bidder. Trust me,” he continued, “I’m familiar with the adrenaline rush that comes from a job well done, a deadly exchange foiled, detection narrowly avoided. Can’t bottle that or find a pill to evoke the same kind of feeling.

      “That comes from seeing firsthand that you’ve saved a life, maybe several lives, and prevented someone else from being kidnapped in the future. Doesn’t matter that that person will never know that, because of your efforts, they’ve been spared. All that counts is that they have been spared.”

      Esteban looked at his superior with newfound respect. He hadn’t been aware that the Chief had ever actually walked the walk. “You were involved in something like that, sir?”

      “I was and I know what a comedown it feels like to be handed a job that you feel an overage, half-witted Boy Scout could handle with one hand tied behind his back. But in all honesty, that feeling is unwarranted, not to mention inaccurate.”

      Listening intently, Esteban waited for Cavanaugh to continue.

      “Aurora,” Brian pointed out with pride, “seems like a sleepy little burg only because of the unending vigilance of the men and women in the police department, the officers who patrol and the detectives who piece together the puzzles.”

      Brian took a breath, allowing his words a moment to sink in.

      “So, to reiterate, this is not a demotion, but a lateral promotion. There’s been a recent opening in the Homicide Division.”

      Brian paused again, trying to ascertain the best approach to winning this man over. There was no doubt in his mind that Fernandez was an asset. But an asset who needed to have his focus redirected’and that didn’t promise to be easy.

      “We lost a good man two weeks ago,” Brian stated bluntly.

      “In the line of duty?” Esteban asked, sensing that the Chief of D’s was waiting for him to respond in some way.

      “Out of the line of fire,” Brian quipped. “Detective First Class Ernest Lau made it to retirement age and the second he did, his wife insisted that he stop pressing his luck and leave the force.”

      “What’s he planning to do?” Esteban asked, not because he was the least bit curious, but because he sensed that this, also, was expected of him. He had gotten to where he was’and lived to talk about it’because he had the instincts to intuit in most cases what was expected of him in either deeds or words.

      “Not get shot at anymore, for one.”

      The answer hadn’t come from the Chief of D’s, but from the woman crossing the threshold directly behind him. Esteban turned in his chair to glance at this newcomer walking into the Chief’s office.

      It wasn’t Cavanaugh’s administrative assistant. He knew because he’d passed the woman when he’d initially entered the Chief’s office. He’d noted that she looked like an attractive, contained woman in her late forties. This woman walking in looked as if she’d just popped out of a Cracker Jack box a few seconds ago, and the experience had clearly invigorated her to go on popping.

      How did she figure into this? Esteban wondered, even as he had the sinking feeling that maybe he really didn’t want to know the answer to that question.

      She also looked the slightest bit familiar.

      Had their paths crossed?

      And if so, when?

      How?

      For the past three-plus years, he’d dealt strictly with people who either were the dregs of society or had dealt with the dregs of society on a regular basis.

      If anything, this perky, peppy, blue-eyed blonde would fall into the second category. And yet...

      And yet he wasn’t all that certain he knew her in that capacity, either.

      Maybe he didn’t know her, Esteban decided a second later.

      For now, he would let it be. If he did know her, well, then he’d find out soon enough one way or another. It was just that simple’and possibly, just that complicated. What it wasn’t was worth his time wondering about it.

      “You sent for me, sir?” she asked genially, directing her question as well as her attention to the man behind the desk.

      She was also doing her very best not to stare at the other man in the room.

      Even so, she couldn’t shake the feeling of recognition that had instantly come over her.

      That was Steve. It had to be, she thought.

      If it wasn’t, then it was his doppelgänger. No one else she knew had hair like that, so black that it almost looked as if it had steel-blue highlights woven through it.

      And those intense blue eyes’they’d come from his mother, she recalled hearing him say once. Those same eyes were responsible for melting an entire squad of cheerleaders in high school, not to mention almost every other teenage girl within a five-mile radius of the hunky, popular quarterback.

      God knew she hadn’t been immune to him either, but she’d had no desire to beat off a throng of adoring, salivating females just to get a little one-on-one time with the devastatingly handsome football player.

      Funny thing about that. She’d always thought he would make a name for himself in the professional arena, but he seemed to have completely disappeared shortly after he’d graduated high school. They’d been exactly a year apart, even though she had shared a couple of classes with him.

      Was this where he’d ultimately wound up? Working in law enforcement and looking like someone badly in need of a haircut and a shave, not to mention new clothes?

      Maybe it wasn’t Steve, she thought, reconsidering. As she recalled, the heartthrob of the gridiron had a grin that had a way of imprinting itself on the souls of every female, young and old, whom he ever came in contact with.

      This man in her newly discovered uncle’s office had a somber, almost sullen expression. It was the kind of expression that told the casual observer that he didn’t know how to smile.

      She directed her wayward attention back to her uncle. The latter smiled warmly at her as he gestured toward the empty chair.

      “Please, take a seat,” he urged. When she did, he undertook the introductions. “Detective Esteban Fernandez, I’d like you to meet Detective Kari Cavelli-Cavanaugh.” He paused for a moment to allow the names to sink in on both sides, then he added the all-important words, “Your new partner.”

      Esteban visibly balked, his impassive expression cracking just long enough for his complete displeasure to show through.

      “Sir,” he protested, “I haven’t worked with a partner for three years.”

      “Then it’s high time that you did,” Brian told him matter-of-factly. “You’ve more than earned the right to have someone else watching your back.”

      Brian could see that the news was not being received well, but then he’d known it would take time. Rome wasn’t the only thing that hadn’t been built in a day. Neither was trust. But it all started with taking the first step. And this was Fernandez’s first one, even if he abhorred it.

      “Your lone-wolf days are over, Fernandez, so you might as well get used to it.”

      The expression on his handsome, tanned face was far from accepting. “Sir, could I have some time to think about this?” he asked in a clipped voice.

      Brian shrugged. “You can take the time it’ll take you to go home and clean up.”

      For form’s sake, the Chief pretended to glance at his watch. He was well aware what time it was. It was one in the afternoon. Fernandez had come to him straight from the safe house he’d been whisked to when he’d had to flee from the run-down apartment he’d been renting from his contact to the cartel.

      “Tell you

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