LITMIR.BIZ

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For half a moment, Trip considered poking his nose in and warning Sergeant Delgado to back it up a step. Couldn’t he see how she braced her hands at the small of her back? The woman was dead on her feet, attending nursing school by day and working long hours at her uncle’s bar at night. She didn’t need whatever grief Rafe was giving her right now. But then Trip’s rescuing skills seemed to be a little on the fritz right now.

      Still, Rafe seemed to be taking his overprotective-big-brother thing with Josie a little too far. Since she was the daughter of his first partner, who’d been killed in the line of duty, there was probably a stronger connection there. But it turned out there was no need to intervene. Josie flattened her hand in the middle of the sergeant’s chest and pushed him out of her space before spinning around and returning to her duties behind the bar.

      Seemed like Charlotte Mayweather wasn’t the only woman who didn’t want SWAT Team One looking out for her.

      “Here we go.” Randy Murdock, the newest member of the team, was driven and talented and female. Miranda, a feminine name that didn’t seem to fit either her personality or her deadly aim with a Remington sniper rifle, set a tray of beers on the table. The unwritten law was that the new guy bought the second round of drinks, since Josie Nichols seemed to always find an excuse to serve their first drinks on the house. “Everyone wanted a draft, right?”

      “Works for me.” Trip reached across the table and picked up his second beer. He wouldn’t resort to getting drunk to get his frustration with a certain toffee-haired heiress out of his system, but getting his hands busy with something else might. “Thanks, newbie.”

      Randy slid into the chair beside Trip’s, pulling a beer in front of her, too. “I don’t want you guys to think that just because I’m the only woman on the team that I’m going to be serving the drinks all the time. And don’t expect me to bake brownies or darn your socks.”

      “Don’t expect me to darn yours, either,” Trip teased, appreciating the normal interaction with a woman.

      “You can sew?” she countered.

      “You can cook?”

      The blonde’s cheeks blossomed with a blush that she quickly hid behind a swig of her beer.

      “Down, you two.” Captain Cutler chided them like a stern father, setting the report down on the table and picking up a glass. His dark blue eyes zeroed in on Randy. “As long as you keep making a perfect score on the target range, you don’t have to bring me another beer.”

      “I don’t mind doing that for you, sir.”

      Michael Cutler grinned. “Relax, Murdock—I’m paying you a compliment. Team One’s score today was the highest ever recorded on the course. Captain Sanchez on Team Two owes me twenty bucks. And I intend to collect.”

      “Congratulations, sir.”

      “Congratulations to my team.” Cutler raised his glass and signaled to Sergeant Delgado to come over to the table and join their toast. “Now, you all perform that well on the street, and I can rest easy when I go home to my wife at night.”

      Trip raised his glass and took a drink to honor his team’s performance on the mock-terrorist-attack drill this afternoon. Even during those lucky stretches of time when there was no real bomb threat or fugitive alert or hostage crisis that needed SWAT on the scene, they trained in weapons and strategy to keep their skills and instincts sharp. Today’s drill had gone by the book—full cooperation, each playing to his or her strength, no mistakes.

      So why couldn’t he be savoring that victory instead of stewing over some eccentric kook …?

      Trip’s gaze skidded to the neat shock of red hair on the man walking through the Shamrock’s front door. One thing about hanging out at a cop bar was that eventually, almost every cop in KCPD, active or retired, would stop by. Even the ones he didn’t particularly like. Trip barely knew Spencer Montgomery, but something about a detective relentlessly badgering a witness in an ambulance when it was plain to anybody who looked that she was about to lose it, put him on Trip’s don’t-turn-your-back-on-him-yet list.

      Detective Montgomery must have felt Trip’s eyes on him because he paused before sitting and turned, trading nods of acknowledgment, if no smile of kinship, with him. Montgomery and his dark-haired partner had been assigned to the Rich Girl Killer investigation. A serial killer had already tortured and strangled two of Kansas City’s wealthiest beauties and was believed to be responsible for one or two more unsolved deaths. Just last year the killer had targeted Alex’s fiancée, but the perp had eluded identification and gone underground. Did Montgomery think there was some kind of connection between the dead chauffeur and the murderer he was after?

      Trip sat up straight in his chair.

      Was that the killer Charlotte Mayweather feared?

      The man she’d thought he was?

      Maybe the prickly heiress’s paranoia wasn’t all about the trauma of being kidnapped ten years ago.

      “All right, sweetheart, I’ll see what I can do. You will not. You will not.” Alex’s voice interrupted Trip’s silent speculation. “If that’s the case, it’s not up for negotiation. As soon as I’m done here, I’ll swing by to pick you up.”

      “Problems with the soon-to-be missus?” Trip felt he’d better make a comment before anyone noticed his unusual preoccupation with his thoughts tonight.

      “Just a little discussion about taking unnecessary risks.” Alex closed his phone and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans. “We reached a compromise.”

      “She’ll go ahead and do what she wants and you won’t complain about it?”

      “Ha-ha, big guy. I wouldn’t be giving me too much grief. You’ve been all kinds of quiet since that night at the Mayweather Museum.” So his brooding hadn’t gone unnoticed. “On the other hand, whatever you said or did, Charlotte’s still talking about it. Audrey’s at her house right now.”

      “Is she filing a harassment claim with the D.A.’s office?”

      “Not exactly.”

      “What exactly is she saying about me?”

      Captain Cutler put an end to the conversation. “What is this, junior high? You two settle your love lives on your own time. I just won a bet.”

      “Congratulations, captain,” Alex took a drink and then pushed his glass away. “Sorry to cut the celebration short, but, since we have the next couple of days off, I’ve got a favor to ask.” The others stopped their joking and drinking long enough to listen in. “Well, Audrey’s the one making the request, but—”

      “What does the counselor need?” Sergeant Delgado asked. As moody as he’d been lately, he had a soft spot for Audrey Kline, the assistant district attorney who’d put away the murderer of a little boy who’d died in Delgado’s arms back in November. They all owed Audrey a favor for that conviction.

      “She’s looking for some extra security to keep an eye on the guests at Richard Eames’s funeral tomorrow. I guess he’d been with the Mayweather family so long that they’re all attending the service and hosting a reception afterward at the estate.”

      “They’re all attending?” Trip was still pondering what accusations, or unlikely compliments, Charlotte had to say about him. She’d made it clear that she had a phobia about people, about strangers—about big, scary men like him, especially. He couldn’t see her standing with a crowd of mourners around a grave site, or welcoming them into her home.

      “Charlotte said Richard Eames was like an uncle to her. They’re going to find a way to sneak her in to the graveside service,” Alex explained. “But they’re worried about paparazzi and curious fans. Anything about the Mayweathers is usually newsworthy, but if word gets out that Charlotte is finally making a public appearance after all these years, it might bring the crazies out. They’d like to keep their mourning as private

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