LITMIR.BIZ

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      She was right.

      Within twenty minutes of her inquiry, the Chief of Detectives’ daughter-in-law had discovered where Kari’s decidedly reluctant parter-to-be had lived before supposedly vanishing.

      “Why didn’t you just go to HR?” Brenda asked curiously as she handed Kari the address she’d just printed out.

      “Too much red tape,” she answered. Besides, as far as she knew, there were no family members in HR. Kari believed in using leverage whenever she could.

      Glancing at the address, she folded the paper in half. Fernandez lived closer to the precinct than she’d thought. In fact, his place was on her way home.

      Perfect.

      “Besides, I don’t think I’m supposed to actually get my hands on this information without some kind of authorization,” she confessed.

      “And yet, you did,” Brenda said, pointing out the obvious. “Why come to me with this request?”

      “Other than the fact that you’re a freakin’ genius when it comes to finding things via the internet?” Kari asked without a hint of a smile on her lips.

      Brenda’s grin was wide enough for both of them. “Other than that fact, yes.”

      Kari nodded at the paper in her hand. “The Chief of D’s wants me to change this detective’s mind about handing in his shield.”

      “And you’re planning on ambushing him at home, where he thinks he’s safe.”

      Kari bobbed her head. “Like I said, you’re a genius.” However, despite the accolades, she could tell that the other woman wasn’t exactly gung ho about the situation.

      True to form, Brenda indicated the paper she’d just handed to Kari. “As long as you know that you didn’t get that from me...” she cautioned, clearly wanting to distance herself from any possible fallout. With the ease of an unobtrusive pickpocket, using only her thumb and two of her fingers, Kari folded the paper into quarters until it disappeared entirely inside her palm. Then she unselfconsciously slid her hands into her pockets and smoothly deposited the paper with the address she’d requested.

      “Get what?” she asked in complete innocence.

      Brenda merely laughed and then waved her away. “Go. I’ve got work to do,” she told her unexpected visitor.

      “I’m already gone,” Kari reassured her.

      The next moment, opening the first door she came to, Kari made good on her promise.

      * * *

      Esteban frowned, mulling over his present situation and its apparent lack of options.

      He had no idea what he was going to do with himself from here on in. Getting justice for his family had consumed all his time and energy for so long’ever since Julio’s overdose more than three years ago’he had no clue where his mission ended and he began. At this point, they were one and the same, and without this single-minded purpose, it was as if someone had sucked all the air out of his lungs...depriving him of the very will to breathe.

      Now what? he silently demanded of the darkness around him.

      The police department didn’t want him to work undercover anymore’and he knew why. They didn’t want him getting killed on their watch.

      But he himself had no such concerns, no such worries shackling him. Death didn’t scare him. Inactivity was what scared him.

      He had to be doing this, making a difference where it counted, doing everything in his power to bring down the cartel and its brethren, so that no one else’s brother or child would be discovered dead on the floor of their room after OD’ing on drugs.

      And, by extension, he was doing this so no one else’s father would be grief-stricken enough to go out, half-crazed, and hunt down the dealer responsible for the overdose, killing him in cold blood and suffering the consequences of that action: prison for twenty years.

      Maybe, Esteban thought as he poured himself another two fingers’ worth of whisky from the bottle he’d unearthed earlier, he could just become a crusader, fight these bastards on his own.

      He didn’t need the police department’s blessings to do this, he mused, urging himself on. Fact of the matter was, he could accomplish this mission without them. He had a little money saved up and didn’t really require very much to live on.

      The idea appealed to him.

      He’d become an avenging angel.

      “No,” he corrected himself out loud, “an avenging devil.” Because men like the one his stepfather had shot dead only understood a show of force. In this case, the show of force would be put on by a man whose soul was as black as theirs.

      Maybe, in its own way, blacker.

      “That’s it,” Esteban decided with a firm nod of his head, “I’ll be an avenging devil.”

      He laughed, relishing the sound of that.

      The next second, the laughter died in his throat as he froze. Immediately, his hand covered the hilt of the service revolver’his backup piece’that he’d tucked into his waistband before he and the bottle of whiskey had sat down together.

      He’d heard something.

      Someone was knocking on his door’the bell had long since given up the ghost and he’d had no reason to fix it. Visitors weren’t welcome.

      Instantly alert, he stealthily made his way over to the front door in the dark. He saw no point in switching on any of the lights and giving whoever was on the other side of the door enough illumination to target him. The fact that his potential killer would announce himself by knocking on the door seemed completely plausible to him. Acting in a normal fashion was meant to throw him off, to quiet any of his suspicions that might arise.

      At the door now, Esteban held his breath, anticipating whatever might happen next. He slowly drew his weapon out, holding it at the ready so that if his unexpected “caller” decided to break in, he’d be right here, waiting for him’

      “Fernandez?”

      His eyes narrowed as he stared at the door, as if that could somehow help him see whoever was on the other side.

      The voice clearly belonged to a woman, but that could still be some sort of a trick, a way to get him to relax his guard’

      “Fernandez? Are you inside there? It’s me. Cavelli-Cavanaugh, or just Cavelli...if that makes you more comfortable. Are you in there?” she asked again.

      Kari had already circled the perimeter of the forty-year-old home once, and she had seen the car that she’d identified as the detective’s. It was parked over on the next block rather than in front of the house’by force of habit, no doubt.

      But whether or not it was habit didn’t matter. What did matter was that the hood was still warm, but not hot. That meant that Esteban had driven it over sometime after he’d left the precinct.

      That in turn meant that he was here.

      “I come bearing gifts, Fernandez,” she informed him in a tone that was infinitely sweeter than the one she typically used day-to-day. “C’mon, open the door,” she coaxed, then added, “unless you want me to pick the lock, of course’because I do know how to do that.”

      Of course she did, Esteban thought darkly. He’d intended to wait her out, but that course of action was quickly aborted when he saw the doorknob jiggling.

      Muttering a curse under his breath, Esteban quickly released the locks and yanked open the door. His weapon was not only out, but ready, in case the woman the Chief of D’s was trying to push on him was here under duress.

      But when he opened the door, he saw no one else but her. The shimmering moonlight, out in full force, had turned her skin almost a golden hue.

      She

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