LITMIR.BIZ

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his body. “I don’t need you to hit on her,” Kenzie informed him.

      “I wasn’t planning to. Whatever else you might think of me, I am good at my job. Breaking bad news is never easy and I was just offering to help since you said you knew the victim’s daughter. It might be easier on everyone all around if I handle this.”

      She resented his intrusion. Resented everything that Brannigan represented. “I don’t need you to handle anything for me,” she informed him heatedly.

      He raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender. “Point taken, Kenzie.”

      “Don’t call me that,” she snapped as they got off the elevator.

      “What would you like me to call you?” he asked. “Your Majesty’s a little formal, but I’m game if that’s what you want.”

      Her eyes narrowed into blue slits of lightning. “Cavanaugh,” she said. “Just call me by my last name, the way you would anyone else you work with.”

      “But you’re not anyone else, are you?” He all but purred the question. Before she could work up a full head of steam by telling him what he could do with that obvious line of his, Hunter interjected, “You’re Finn and Murdoch’s sister and they’re my friends.”

      Kenzie rolled her eyes. “Please, don’t remind me.” How her normally intelligent brothers could be friends with this egotist was beyond her. “C’mon,” she urged. “Let’s get this over with.”

      “Good detective work should never be rushed,” he chided, knowing that saying that would just irritate her further. He couldn’t really explain why, but he liked irritating Kenzie. Liked getting a reaction—any sort of reaction—out of her. Liked seeing the way her eyes blazed as she all but breathed fire.

      When she walked ahead of him this time, he let her. She needed to work off her anger, he thought.

      * * *

      “I found our missing person,” Kenzie told her partner when she walked back into the division’s squad room.

      Kyle Choi looked at her, a trace of bewilderment in his face.

      “So soon? Where was the guy, hiding in a cabin, somewhere away from his daughter?” he asked with a chuckle.

      “No, not exactly,” Kenzie told him with a heavy voice. “John Kurtz is a homicide victim.”

      “Oh, damn,” Kyle said with genuine regret. The detective glanced at Hunter, his bewilderment returning. “What’s he doing here?” Choi asked. He addressed his question to Brannigan. “Thinking of switching departments?”

      “It’s a long story,” Kenzie answered before Hunter could say anything to the other detective in response. She saw Hunter opening his mouth and spoke quickly. “But the short version is—no, he’s not looking to switch departments. And even if he were, he certainly wouldn’t be switching into ours,” she concluded. There was no room for argument in her voice.

      Rather than become annoyed, Hunter grinned—which in turn irritated Kenzie more.

      “To hear you talk, someone would get the impression you don’t like me, Kenzie,” Hunter commented in an easygoing tone.

      “And they’d be right,” she retorted. Her eyes narrowed as she shot a look in his direction. “I told you not to call me that.”

      “It’s your name, isn’t it?” Hunter asked her innocently.

      She decided that it would be better just to ignore him than to get into a verbal duel. So she spoke to Choi, telling her partner, “Parts of John Kurtz’s body were found thanks to yesterday’s monsoon and Brannigan—” she clenched her teeth “—is going to take me there.”

      Choi looked at Hunter quizzically and the latter lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug. “Not my idea of a romantic spot, but hey, different strokes for different folks, right?”

      Kenzie saw her partner opening his mouth and quickly intervened. “Pay no attention to him, Kyle. It’ll only encourage him to babble. We’re going to see if we can find the rest of Mr. Kurtz in the general vicinity. I don’t want to tell Connie about her father until we at least try to find the rest of him. Telling her that his head and hands were the only things that were found is just too gruesome for words,” she told Choi. “I don’t want her left with that memory.”

      Her partner nodded. As it was, he looked as if he was close to parting company with his breakfast burrito right about now.

      “I’ve got plenty to keep me busy here,” Choi told her.

      Hunter looked over his shoulder at Kenzie’s mild-mannered partner just before he followed her out of the squad room. “Wish me luck,” he said to the detective.

      He heard Choi laugh in response.

      * * *

      Kenzie glanced at Hunter disdainfully. “You do know where we’re going once you get the dog and his handler, right?”

      He knew she was trying to goad him into losing his temper, but he was having far too much fun for that. “I make it a point of always knowing where I’m going, Kenzie—sorry, Cavanaugh,” he amended before she could say anything. “But in this case, I have the ME’s report detailing where the body parts were uncovered. I am, however, open to suggestions if you have a different destination in mind,” he told her cheerfully.

      She blew out an annoyed breath. “Are you always on?” she asked.

      The corners of his mouth curved until the smile on his face was a full thousand watts. “I do my best, Detective Cavanaugh.”

      Why did every word out of his mouth annoy her so much? “Trust me, your best isn’t nearly good enough so fold up your little tent and just disappear into the night if you’re going to continue with this juvenile act of yours.”

      He put his hand over his heart. “Why, Kenzie, I’m deeply wounded.”

      Once again, her eyes darkened until they looked positively stormy, glaring at him. “Brannigan, you don’t know the meaning of the word wounded—but I can change that.”

      “Sorry, Cavanaugh, but someone already beat you to it,” he told her and for just a second, she believed him. But then, she thought, that was just what he wanted. “I can show you the scars if you’re interested.”

      “No, thanks,” she told Hunter. “I’ll pass.”

      They were outside now, heading for the kennels where the canines that were on duty were kept. “They’re really phenomenal scars,” he told her. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

      “I know exactly what I’m missing—peace and quiet,” she retorted, then regrouped. There was no point in talking to this man. It just somehow fed his ego. “Let’s just do this and be done with it.”

      He nodded. “Sounds good—your place or mine?” he asked with what was probably the most wickedly sexy look she had ever seen in her life. Kenzie could almost see what women saw in this man—if he wasn’t so transparent to her.

      “You’re never going to get that lucky, Brannigan,” she informed him.

      He grinned again. “Ah, a man’s grasp should extend his reach, or what’s a heaven for?”

      She was not impressed. “Let me guess, you minored in English lit.”

      “No,” Hunter told her. “But I once dated a girl who did.”

      “I’m sure you did.” She wasn’t in the mood to hear him spout off the list of women who had paraded through his life. “Put a lid on it, Brannigan. The less you talk, the less I’ll be tempted to shoot you.”

      He laughed at that, tickled. “I bet you say that to all the guys.”

      “No,” she responded,

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