LITMIR.BIZ

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a burly man with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail climbed out of the Chevy. Shoulders hunkered beneath his denim jacket against the cold, he lumbered toward the bar’s entrance.

      “Recognize him from the mug shots you studied?” he asked.

      “Howard Klinger. a.k.a. Howie Kling.” Carrie snapped off the mirror. “He has priors for larceny. Was once nabbed on a residential burglary charge, which got reduced to possession of stolen property.”

      “Good memory, McCall.”

      “Comes from all those years riding patrol. You have to keep track of the baddies and what they’re up to.”

      “Yeah.” Linc also possessed a cop’s honed memory. One that enabled him to picture in detail the portion of a snake tattoo captured two years ago on a grainy surveillance tape. He was haunted by the possibility that the tattoo had been one of the last things his wife had seen. Most nights he jerked awake in a cold sweat, half expecting to see the dark, slippery tail of the snake slithering beneath the closet door. Recently, a snitch had seen a pool player at The Hideaway with a similar tattoo. If Linc didn’t spot Kim’s killer on this visit, the assignment he’d engineered for himself gave him the luxury of spending as many nights at the bar as necessary until the bastard showed.

      “Where’d you go, Reilly?”

      He slicked his gaze across the SUV’s front seat. Carrie sat unmoving, studying him with the open scrutiny of a cop.

      “Just running over the details of this assignment one last time,” he stated. “Ready to get started?”

      “Ready.” Leaning, she nudged her purse under the seat. “So I don’t have to keep track of it all night,” she explained.

      “Where’s your gun?”

      “Inside my left boot.”

      He looked down, saw she had on black leather boots with low, spiky heels. “No cowboy boots for you, McCall?”

      “I put a lot of thought into image, and decided to go with my own unique look. Since our undercover personas have money to burn and no jobs, I opted for a mix. Jeans and silk. Toss in a little faux fur.” She shook back her hair. “What’s the verdict, Reilly? Like the combination?”

      His gaze moved down her short, mink-look fur jacket to the black jeans that molded her trim butt and slim legs. “The look works for me,” he answered calmly, even as his blood stirred. “What are you packing in your boot?”

      “A .25 baby Browning. How about you?”

      He shifted his left leg, felt the reassuring hardness of the automatic secured in the leather insert he’d had sewn inside the top of his left boot. “Brought my .380 Sig. Let’s go.”

      What had been on Reilly’s mind? Carrie mused as she slid out of the SUV into the dark, cold air. She doubted it had been their assignment as he’d claimed. She could think of nothing about a covert bar investigation that would set his mouth in such a grim line and transform those yellow-gold eyes into hard, cold chunks of amber.

      Her thoughts scattered the instant Linc settled an arm around her waist and nudged her against his side. When her shoulders did an instinctive jerk, he glanced down.

      “We’re hot for each other, remember?” he asked while bass rhythm coming from the bar thumped on the night air.

      “Right.”

      His arm tightened on her waist. “You need to get used to this.”

      “No problem.” Despite the layers of clothing they both wore, she was aware of the strength in his arm, of the hardness of his thigh against her hip. The faint, spicy fragrance of his aftershave made her insides clench. She gave silent thanks he didn’t know about the little flips going on in her stomach.

      Flips that had no business being there, she told herself. It wasn’t like he was someone she could consider jumping into a relationship with. The man had maybe murdered seven people. Even if he turned out to be as innocent as a virgin, he was a co-worker. Her partner. She’d learned the hard way the pitfalls of getting romantically involved with another cop.

      She swallowed around a knot of tension as she and Linc crunched their way across gravel through the sea of vehicles. To get her mind off her flipping stomach, she focused on the structure coming into view.

      Linc had mentioned The Hideaway’s management had set up shop in a vacant farmhouse. The place hadn’t totally lost the look, Carrie judged when they advanced up the steep steps leading to an old-fashioned wraparound porch. She checked both ends, half expecting to see a wooden swing hanging from ceiling hooks.

      “Want to bet about a zillion drunks have toppled down those narrow steps?” Linc asked.

      “I’ll pass.” The weathered boards beneath her feet vibrated with music. “You’d rake in all the chips on that one.”

      “I know.” Grinning, he raised a shoulder beneath his scarred bomber jacket. “I only wager on sure things.”

      A red glow from the neon beer signs hanging in the front windows angled across his face, highlighting day-old stubble. In the crimson light he looked sexy, rugged and a little ruthless.

      The flips in Carrie’s stomach transformed into somersaults. Why did the cop she’d been ordered to investigate have to be the type of man who lured her like a moth to a blowtorch?

      When Linc pulled the door open, a wall of sound and a cloud of smoke hit them. “After you,” he said over the noise.

      Inside, a bouncer with huge biceps looked them up and down. A red bandana topped his shoulder-length blond hair; he wore black pants and a sweatshirt with the sleeves razored off. Carrie pictured him lying on a weight bench, straining beneath a barbell loaded with iron plates the size of tractor tires.

      “No cover charge for chicks,” the bouncer said over the racket of pool games, loud talk and a country tune crooning from the jukebox. He nodded toward Linc. “Men pay twenty bucks.”

      “Sure thing.” Linc tugged the department-supplied flash roll from the front pocket of his snug Levi’s.

      Stepping away, Carrie slid off the faux-mink jacket she’d picked up that morning in a trendy consignment shop. Through the smoke-laden air she noted the glint in the bouncer’s eyes when Linc peeled a twenty off the thick layer of bills.

      “You charge all male customers to get in?” Linc asked.

      “Not the regulars.”

      “How many visits do I have to make before I’m a regular?”

      The bouncer’s mouth curved, more sneer than smile. “I’ll let you know.”

      “First rip-off of the night,” Linc murmured when he joined Carrie.

      “Get the feeling the Incredible Hulk runs the complaint department?” she asked. “Grouse about something, and see how fast he pounds you into dust.”

      “I’ll try to avoid that.” Wrapping his hand around hers, Linc threaded a path for them through a maze of occupied tables.

      His touch reactivated the somersaults in her stomach. Get real, McCall, she told herself, and shifted her attention to her surroundings.

      As Linc’s sketch had shown, the long, polished bar spanned one entire wall, booths another. Tables filled the rest of the main room, surrounding a spacious dance floor, presently packed with couples waltzing to the country tune oozing from the jukebox. Through an archway Carrie glimpsed several pool tables, each with a rectangular light fixture suspended above it. Beyond the pool tables was a wall dotted with closed doors. Linc’s snitch had said those were the small rooms where The Hideaway’s working girls entertained clients.

      Just as they reached the far end of the crowded bar, two men slid off their stools and tossed bills beside their empty glasses. Carrie draped her jacket across the back of one stool while Linc did the same to the one beside it. The

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