LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      ETHAN KNIGHT tried to block out the chirp of his cellular phone. He’d just gotten to bed after forty-eight tense hours dealing with a hostage situation—armed robber holding a mother and child. He sighed; the inconsiderate caller showed no sign of giving up. Rooting around under his pillow, Ethan found the phone and flopped over so his ear fell across it. “’Lo,” he muttered. His free hand batted at the cold wet nose of his big Alsatian, Taz.

      “Sorry to bother you, Detective,” said an anxious voice. “You probably barely hit the sack. It’s Sergeant Vince Paducah. We need you here, man. Our team rolled on a routine nuisance call. We walked into a helluva mess.” The sergeant rattled off a street address and an apartment number.

      Ethan reared up from his crumpled pillow and snapped on a light. Before his eyes focused, he’d scribbled the information on the ever-present notepad sitting on his nightstand beside a locked box holding his police revolver. Cursing, he shoved his legs into dirty jeans. “I know that address, Vince. What is it this time? Did Brucie-boy tie one on again and beat the crap out of his poor wife?”

      Detective Knight shrugged into his shirt and tucked it into his jeans while reaching for his boots. The caller’s voice dropped. “Way worse. The worst.” Vince uttered a string of codes—department lingo for domestic violence resulting in murder.

      Pain exploded in Ethan’s head as his fingers closed around his standard issue Smith & Wesson .38. Damn, his body was getting too old to handle the increase in after-hours cases—especially bad ones like this. “The kids?” he asked softly, trying to quell the flow of acid pumping into his gut. The team might want him ASAP, but Ethan figured he’d have to comb his hair and run a razor over a prickly chin or risk scaring two already frightened children with his wild-man look.

      “They’re spooky kids. No hysterics, no tears,” Vince said. “Have you got a good safe place for ’em?”

      “Yeah. Of course.” Closing his eyes and taking a steadying breath, Ethan pictured a four-year-old girl with huge blue eyes and her stoic six-year-old brother. Two children who’d witnessed more violence in their short lives than any human beings in a civilized society ought to see. Only that was the problem; some people weren’t civilized. Bruce Hammond ranked high among the least civilized SOBs.

      “I’ll make some calls on the way, Paducah.” Ethan checked his shield and slid it into a jacket pocket. “I’ll be there inside fifteen minutes.”

      “Good.” Paducah expelled a relieved sigh. “My partner said that since Anna M. passed on, you probably don’t have the same deal with the new supervisor. He said to phone the Child Help Center direct. But I’ve heard Anna’s replacement is a regular battle-ax.”

      Ethan had received a memorandum announcing that a Regan Grant was taking over Anna’s post. He’d never met this Grant woman, nor would he add to unfounded rumors. He merely grunted a noncommittal response and reiterated his estimated time of arrival as he hung up and stowed his phone in the pocket with his badge.

      While he did a cursory shave, Ethan thought about his fifteen-year tenure on Desert City’s police force. For more than half of those years, he’d been called the Baby Cop. It was a nickname that

Скачать книгу