Man with

the Muscle

Julie Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

About the Author

JULIE MILLER attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and to shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Ms Miller believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at PO Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162, USA.

Prologue

The acrid stench of fear and burnt flesh tainted her expensive perfume and quickened his pulse as he put out his cigarette on her sculpted cheekbone.

Her silent scream spasmed through her and she gurgled beneath his hand on her throat, sputtering words with no sound. Her eyes pleaded, wept, their vain tilt not so pronounced as they’d been out on the terrace yesterday evening, laughing at him in the moonlight.

His gloved hand was dark against her alabaster skin.He carefully tucked the cigarette butt into his pocket. It was a lousy, disgusting habit, but tonight had called for something special. He brought both hands to her neck, squeezing a little harder, then easing his grip before closing off her airway again—teasing her, tormenting her with the false promise of freedom.

Just as she had tormented him with her promises.

No more. He was the one with the power over her now. He was the one in control of their destinies. He couldn’t be hurt. He couldn’t be used. He wouldn’t be denied. Strength surged through him. Dominance. Superiority. His hands jerked around her throat as the anger consumed and cleansed him.

His breath came deeper, stronger as hers constricted. He straddled her chest and sat, feeling her writhe helplessly, weakly, futilely beneath him.

“You’re not so high and mighty now, are you, Gretchen?” He pulled up his stocking mask, wanting her to see his eyes, to know he was the one who’d put her in her place. “You want to rethink saying no to me?”

She nodded.

Tears and desperation and the blood on her cheek made her look vulnerable, more human than the icy beauty who’d led him on for so many months—smiling at him, sharing conversations, accepting his gifts—yet ultimately dismissing him as if he was of no more importance than a piece of furniture. For a moment, he paused to tenderly brush aside the damp golden hair that stuck to her forehead. She looked beautiful, stretched out beneath him, begging to do his bidding. This was how it could have been between them—how it should have been. He wanted to kiss her. He nearly did. But no, he wouldn’t leave even that little trace of DNA. He was too smart for that.

Too smart for all of them.

Stupid bitches.

“Too late.” With a snap, he crushed her windpipe. In a matter of seconds, she was dead.

When the spark faded from her eyes, it took his rage and need with him and he breathed a sigh of relief. He reached for his bag.

Precisely three minutes later, he set about the tasks of cleaning her wounds, untying her wrists and ankles and rewinding the electrical cords before returning them to their storage compartment inside the bag. He wrapped her in her pink silk robe and carried her into the adjoining room where he laid her on the bed and arranged her just so, crossing her hands over her heart in sweet repose, draping her hair over her damaged cheek, carefully removing one of her diamond earrings and closing her eyes.

“Goodbye, sweetheart.”

He returned to the opulent, oversize bathroom where he’d surprised her and quickly rolled up the drop cloth he’d used and cleaned any other signs of his presence there. Finally, he stripped off the tan coveralls he wore, packing them and his gloves inside his bag. When he was certain the upstairs hallway was clear, he hurried down the back steps and locked the bag in his vehicle outside. The music from the violins, viola and cello filtered through the crisp night air and masked his footsteps as he flicked the cigarette butt into the storm drain at the curb.

Then he straightened his jacket and jogged around to join the others at the mansion’s front drive, ready to be shocked and outraged when some poor unlucky soul discovered Gretchen’s body.

And the message he’d tucked beneath the covers beside her.

Chapter One

“You’re the saddest bunch of heroes I’ve ever seen.” The chiding female voice cut through the buzz of lively conversations, three different television broadcasts and the chattering clacks of pool balls breaking across a table behind Alex Taylor. “You got the guy. The D.A. will put him away.”

“Let’s hope.” Alex slid onto the green vinyl seat in front of the Shamrock’s polished walnut bar and pulled some cash from the front pocket of his jeans. Not even the bright blue eyes and sympathetic smile of Josie Nichols standing on the other side could shake him from the mood he was in. “I need to order some beers.”

“Hello?” The bartender slapped her washrag on top of the bar with a purpose, demanding his full attention before glancing over at the flat-screen TV hanging in the corner behind her. “You hope? KCPD’s standoff with that gangbanger Demetrius Smith is all over the news. Getting him and his lieutenants off the streets just made Kansas City a hell of a lot safer. If I can walk out to my car at night and not have to worry about getting mugged or raped or caught in the cross fire between his gang and someone else, then I’d say you got the job done. You should be celebrating. Not bringing down the mood of the bar.”

“Smith’s gotten out with nothing more than a slap on the wrist more than once. Evidence disappears. A witness decides not to testify.” Alex closed his eyes and shook his head, seeing the gangly body of a ten-year-old boy cradled in Sergeant Delgado’s arms as he crouched down behind an alley fence, waiting for their commanding officer’s all-clear order. He’d have thought the kid was sleeping if it hadn’t been for all the blood on Delgado’s uniform. Two bullets in such a tiny body—and there’d been nothing they could do. Alex opened his eyes, sharing a bit of the grim truth that was forever etched in his memory. “Smith was laughing when we brought him out of that house. An innocent boy died today, and he was laughing. Like he wasn’t even accountable for what happened. He’s got connections we can only guess at. If the D.A. doesn’t make the charges stick—”

“That won’t happen this time,” Josie insisted. “I can feel it in my bones. Smith’s going to prison. That makes you heroes.”

Try telling that to the mother of the boy they hadn’t been able to save. If they’d cleared the house where Smith and his buddies had been holed up ten minutes sooner, Alex and his team of SWAT—Special Weapons and Tactics—officers might have been able to get him to a hospital before he bled out. Calvin Chambers didn’t even have any gang tats on him. And he sure as hell hadn’t fired any gun. He’d been an innocent kid cutting through the wrong backyard at the wrong time.

Alex knew more about gang life than young Calvin probably had. He’d had the remnants of the Westside Warrior tattoo he once thought meant he belonged to something important lasered off his baca decade ago, after he’d been adopted into a real family as a teen. Once he’d been Alexis Pitsaeli, street punk and foster home nightmare with no father to speak of and a mother who prized her drug addiction more than her child. Up until Gideon and Meghan Taylor had set him straight and loved him enough to make him a Taylor, too, Alex had been headed straight to prison or an untimely death.

If Alex hadn’t been adopted into the Taylor clan, it wouldn’t have surprised anyone to find him shot dead in a gangbanger’s backyard. But Calvin Chambers?

He swallowed the bile of irony and rage and guilt, and laid a twenty on top of the bar. “First round’s on the new guy.”

He nodded back to the corner table where Captain Cutler and the rest of his five-man SWAT team had taken up residence to lose the stress of the day to booze, camaraderie or the company of one of the pretty ladies who seemed to get a thrill out of flirting with the cops who frequented the Kansas City bar. Raucous laughter from the corner table bounced off the walls. Great. He’d missed the joke. It had probably been on him, anyway. Though he’d been on the force for five years now, he’d only been a member of SWAT for eight months. It was like surviving his rookie year all over again.

“Five drafts and some pretzels,” he ordered.

Josie shook her dark brown ponytail down her back and pushed the twenty dollars beneath his fingers. “You need to learn the rules of the house, Taylor. On a night like this, the first round’s on me.” Apparently, she was more intuitive than a cheerleader. “I’m sorry about that boy. I know it’s hard to lose anyone on a call like that. But you didn’t shoot him.”

“I didn’t get him home safe to his mom, either.”

A bit of temper flared in the bartender’s cheeks. “Smith and his thugs are the only ones you should be blaming. You and Rafe, Trip, Holden and the captain ought to all be commended for stopping those losers. That drug house was just outside a school zone. Kids walk by there every day. Bringing guns and drugs and violence into a family neighborhood just … galls me. As far as I’m concerned, we’re lucky no one else died. And we owe that to you and your team.”

Josie shivered from the top of her head to the hem of her jeans as the emotions worked through her system, and Alex felt his lips curve with half a smile. “So how do you really feel about it?”

She reached across the bar and flicked his shoulder with the towel. “Don’t you get smart with me, Taylor.” Rocking back on her heels, she pointed a big-sisterly finger at him. “And stop battin’ those baby browns at me. I can’t help it when I get my Irish up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Somehow, she’d successfully broken through the gloom and doom that had settled around his shoulders. Yes, a boy had died tragically today. But many more would be safe because of his SWAT team’s actions. For the sake of Josie’s smile, he’d look on the bright side.

“There’ll be no ma’aming around here, hotshot. Heck, I bet I’m younger than you. What are you, twenty-six?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Ha.” She tapped her thumb against her chest. “Twenty-four. So no ma’ams. And put your money away—it’s no good here.”

When she turned around to pull out five frosted glasses and start drawing beers, Alex stuffed the twenty into her tip jar. He didn’t know Josie all that well, beyond the fact she was a slain cop’s daughter and could play a mean game of pool. But he’d seen the thick backpack and textbooks that meant she was in school, and suspected that tending bar at the Shamrock was how she supported herself. He wasn’t going to let her big heart and true blue loyalty to KCPD keep her from putting food on the table.

While he waited for her to set up the tray of drinks and pour a bowlful of pretzels, Alex let his gaze wander back to the news broadcast on the television. Michael Cutler, the leader of SWAT Team One and the man who’d recruited Alex from a list of prospective beat cop candidates to join KCPD’s most highly trained and specialized response team, was finishing up a recorded interview with the reporter. Cutler’s tall build and salt-and-pepper hair cut a commanding figure as he answered the blonde woman’s questions. Cutler was a good ace—he reminded Alex a lot of his own adoptive father, Gideon Taylor, the fire department’s chief arson investigator. He was no-nonsense, tough, but fair.

Cutler handled the interview with the same confident air of calm with which he ran the unit, explaining their mission to assist the drug task force in storming the house while protecting the security of the officers on the scene. When the reporter asked whether he thought the cops or someone in Smith’s gang had shot that boy, a pointed glare from Cutler indicated the interview was over.

With the reporter on live back in the studio, Alex watched the tape continuing in the corner of the screen, showing Trip and Sergeant Delgado escorting a handcuffed Demetrius Smith into the back of a police car while Captain Cutler and Holden Kincaid stood guard over Smith’s two compatriots being loaded into another black-and-white. Alex was nowhere to be seen in the camera shot. He’d had the inglorious duty of stowing gear and coordinating cleanup with the task force.

A gofer with a gun and body armor. Despite eight months of training and working together, he was still definitely the new guy. Any friendship, respect or trust Delgado, Kincaid and Trip showed him was on a strictly trial basis. He had yet to earn anything more permanent.

As the reporter turned to do a live interview in the studio with Kansas City’s D.A., Dwight Powers, Alex’s thoughts wandered. He half suspected that the main reason he’d gotten the SWAT position over several other older, more tenured candidates was because he was a Taylor. In addition to his dad’s work in conjunction with the police department, his uncle Mitch was chief of the Fourth Precinct. His uncle Mac ran the day shift at the crime lab. He had two other uncles who were cops, and one who was an FBI agent assigned to the Kansas City Bureau. His uncle Brett, the only one who wasn’t involved in law enforcement, was married to a cop.

His adopted brother, Edison Pike Taylor, worked in the K-9 unit. His two youngest brothers, Matthew and Mark, while still in college, were both already on their way to similar careers.

With a powerful, venerated family history like that, it made good press within the department to assign one of the next generation of Taylor cops to KCPD’s premiere SWAT unit. But it didn’t mean a thing to the members of his team.

Especially when a cop had to die for the position to open up in the first place.

Not only was Alex the new guy, he had the unenviable task of replacing a well-loved friend who’d been shot down in the line of duty. He had a lot to prove no matter how he looked at it.

Better content himself with fetching the beer.

The wry thought faded when another photo popped up on the TV screen beside Smith’s booking picture. The woman looked delicate, pretty in an icy-hot way. Striking light red hair. Creamy skin. Wide, slightly full, could-be-sexy-if-they-weren’t-pressed-so-tight lips. She was a stunning contrast to Smith’s mahogany skin and shaved head. She was all class, all uptown, compared to Smith’s decidedly downtown street style.

Beauty aside, noting her knowing arch of one auburn brow, Alex could tell there was some fire under that buttoned-up suit and cool facade, as well. He’d bet those lips softened like honey when she smiled. He wondered what it would take to get her to smile, what a man might do to ignite the fire beneath the surface of her skin.

Alex’s pulse shook off the last of its doldrums and beat at a healthy tempo. Nothing like a little sensual delight to take a man’s mind off his troubles. He tuned into the story—something about the attorney taking on Smith’s prosecution—trying to catch the name of the flame-haired fantasy.

Audrey Kline. Audrey. He grinned at how well the old-fashioned name fit her tailored suit and pearls. Was she another reporter covering the story? She must be new to this station since he hadn’t seen …

Wait a minute. Assistant District Attorney Audrey Kline?

Alex’s pulse tripped over a warning as recognition kicked in. He leaned in slightly, tuning out the noise of the bar around him and reading the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

Audrey Kline—daughter of Rupert Kline of Kline, Galloway & Tucker, Attorneys at Law. That name he recognized. Rupert Kline was one of the—if not the—most revered lawyers in Kansas City. His firm often represented the wealthiest of clients and, more than once, had poked holes in the tightest of KCPD’s cases and gotten various slime bags freed or released from jail time with little more than a slap on the wrists.

The enemy was arguing Smith’s case?

“No way.” Alex’s Latin blood hummed through his veins as irritation mixed with the initial attraction he’d felt.

What the hell was the D.A. thinking, putting a pampered society princess in charge of prosecuting Demetrius Smith? Did he really think some rookie wannabe was equipped to handle one of Kansas City’s most important cases? Nailing Smith for any number of charges, from drug trafficking and assault to witness intimidation and murder, would put a substantial dent in the city’s gang activities and violent crime stats.

He hadn’t risked his life to bring Smith in—Calvin Chambers hadn’t died—so that Red there could play at her daddy’s game and get her picture on TV. Audrey Kline was too young, too pretty, too … fluffy … to be taken seriously and win the case.

What was she doing working for the city when she could be handling contracts or civil suits at Daddy’s law firm, anyway? Was there some kind of political agenda going on here? If that murdering SOB Smith got off because Dwight Powers wanted to do a favor for her father …

“You okay, Taylor?” Josie was demanding his attention again.

Alex checked his temper as well as his hormones as the bartender scooted a bowl of pretzels across the bar. “Yeah. Just caught up in the news of the day, I guess.”

“I can change the channel,” she offered.

He shook his head and stood, tamping down the frissons of unexpected frustration and desire still sparking through his system. “I’m good. I’d better get back to the party.”

“If you take this to the table, I’ll bring the drinks over in just a sec.” She pointed to the waitress standing at the end of the bar. “I need to get her order filled first.”

“Sure.”

Audrey Kline’s picture disappeared and Alex cursed himself for breathing easier. Stupid move, Taylor. Twisting his shorts into a knot over some woman he’d never even met and a case that was out of his hands.

He tucked his money clip back into the pocket beneath his badge. Must be the guilt of the day combined with the pressure of the past year that left him feeling the need to connect to the right woman and get some of this pent-up frustration out of his system. He wasn’t getting anything but a friendly one-of-the-guys vibe from Josie, and he was cool with that.

But Audrey Kline? One head shot on the news and he’d been thinking of ways he could peel those pinstripes off her. So maybe he’d been a little obsessed with work lately, and hadn’t really dated since he’d accepted the SWAT gig. Needs that had been put on hold for too long, simmering too close to the surface, were the only reasons that made sense when it came to explaining his instant awareness of the red-haired attorney and his knee-jerk reaction to her assignment to the Smith case.

Logic said there could never be anything but distance between a rich daddy’s girl like her and a streetwise cop like him. She probably owned shoes that cost more than his monthly salary. Unless she went slumming for some secret kind of sex life, he could guarantee that a former gang member turned weapons and recon specialist for KCPD wasn’t the kind of guy she’d even deign to notice—much less want to connect with.

And an attorney who lacked the cojones to go after Smith and win wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted to be with anyway, right?

Carrying the oversize pretzel bowl in one hand, Alex made his way between a row of booths and two pool tables, sparing a moment to trade winks with a cool blonde. That was who he should be gettin’ the hots for. She was interested, willing—and not responsible for bringing Demetrius Smith to justice. But he moved on with a thanks-but-no-thanks smile when giggles and chatter erupted around her table. Too perky. Too easy. While Alex wasn’t averse to spending time with a beautiful woman, he just wasn’t in the mood for light and playful and meaningless tonight.

Besides, he had a feeling that if he didn’t deliver these snacks soon, he’d drop even further down that invisible hierarchy of prove-you-deserve-to-be-here attitude he got from the members of his team.

“Pretzels are up,” Alex announced, setting the bowlon the table and sliding it to the middle. “Josie’s bringing the drinks.”

“Thanks, shrimp.” Joseph Jones, Jr., nicknamed Triple J and often shortened to Trip, stuck a finger into the thick paperback book he was reading and helped himself to a handful of the salty twists.

So Alex was only five-ten. He hated the nickname Trip had stuck him with. Of course, as tall and powerfully built as the tank-size Trip was, anyone under six feet probably seemed small. “At least my mama knew more than one letter of the alphabet when she was coming up with names.”

Trip looked up from his book as the others, including Holden Kincaid on his cell phone beside him, laughed. “Good one, peewee.”

Yeah. Like that was better than shrimp.

“Thank Josie.” Alex pulled out a chair and took a seat between Sergeant Delgado and Captain Cutler. “She saw us on the news. She wouldn’t take my money.”

“What? Hell.” Rafe Delgado glanced over his shoulder at the bar where Josie and her uncle, the Shamrock’s owner, Robbie Nichols, were busy serving drinks. “She can’t afford that.”

“I left a twenty in the tip jar for her,” Alex assured him.

“Can’t even get one lousy order straight,” he grumbled. The lanky, dark-haired sergeant spun his chair around and shoved it under the table. “I’m going to see if I can at least save her the trip over here.”

“She’s the one who offered to—”

But Rafe was already striding away. Alex turned at the strong hand that squeezed his shoulder. Captain Cutler’s typically stoic expression was eased by a fatherly smile. “Let him go, son. It’s not personal.”

The reprimand sure felt as if he’d insulted Josie in some way. And he hadn’t meant to. “I paid her for the drinks, I swear.”

“I know you did. And somewhere under the strain of having that boy die in his arms this afternoon, he knows it, too.” Cutler swatted Alex’s shoulder and pulled away, including the other two men at the table with them in his explanation for the sergeant’s abrupt departure. “Josie’s a hell of a lot prettier to look at than any of you. With what we’ve been through today, I don’t blame Rafe for choosing her company over your ugly mugs.”

“Sarge likes her?” Alex asked.

“I think it’s more of an overprotective big brother thing,” Cutler explained. “His first partner when he joined KCPD out of the academy was her dad. He’s watched her grow up.”

“So no hitting on Josie or Delgado will cut you off at the knees, shrimp.” In one smooth motion, Trip pointed a warning finger at Alex and scooped up half the pretzels remaining in the bowl. He glanced over the top of his book. “And you can’t afford to be any shorter.”

Alex flicked a pretzel across the table, hitting Trip in the middle of his forehead. The book went down on the table. Alex caught the pretzel that came flying back at him and crushed it in his fist, crumbling the dregs down into the bowl.

“Oh, you da man, Taylor.”

“That’s right, big guy. I’m the man.”

“Children …” Captain Cutler warned with a smirk of his own.

Alex’s and Trip’s respective pretzels were dutifully stuffed into their own mouths. The silliness of the interchange lightened Alex’s mood, and while Trip went back to reading with a grin, Alex turned to spot Sergeant Delgado plucking the tray of beers from Josie’s hands and trying to squeeze a word in through the argument his actions triggered.

They were finally shaking off the grim events of the day. SWAT Team One was going to be okay. Alex was fitting in. No one was on his case for being too new, too young, too short—too lucky to have this job because he was a Taylor—too anything. He shifted his shoulders inside the black cotton sweater and leather jacket he wore and relaxed against his chair.

“Liza said to tell everyone hi.” Sharpshooter Holden ended the call to his wife and set his cell phone on the table. “I’m leaving after the first drink. I have orders to come home with cookie dough ice cream or not to show up at all.” He tapped his cell phone and grinned in a boyishly excited way that belied his ability to go stone-cold still to make a kill shot or bring down a suspect. “With the way her appetite’s kicking into high gear, I think we could be having the baby any day now.”

Captain Cutler chewed around a pretzel as he spoke. “I thought Liza wasn’t due until Christmas.”

“It’s practically Thanksgiving already.”

“In two weeks. You’re hopeless, Kincaid.”

“Oh, and when you and Jillian decide to start making babies, you’re going to be all cool, calm and collected about it?” Holden challenged with a grin.

The captain smoothed his palm across the top of his short, salt-and-pepper hair. “I have a teenage son. I know about making babies.”

“So you and Jillian are working on giving Mikey a little brother?”

“Mind your own business, Kincaid.”

“Or maybe a little sister.” Holden whistled through his teeth. “I’d hate to be the guy who tried to date her.”

Alex easily pictured an image of Captain Michael Cutler, suited up in body armor, weapons and badge, greeting an already-nervous teenage boy at the front door. His daughter’s unsuspecting date would probably pee his pants. Wisely, Alex buried his amusement by pulling the snacks away from Trip and helping himself to a bite before they were all gone. Only golden-boy Holden could get away with such teasing.

“You finished?” The captain arched an eyebrow as Holden’s chuckle erupted into laughter.

“I can’t hear myself think over here,” Trip groused, giving Alex the evil eye as he easily reached across the table and pulled the pretzels back in front of him.

“You can think?” Holden snatched the book and the bowl from his hands before pointing to the booths behind Alex. “Read on your own time. Single women. Go.”

Trip grabbed the book right back, but turned his focus to Cutler. “Permission to take him down, sir?”

The captain grimaced, looking very much like a babysitter who’d lost control of his charges. “Where are those beers?”

“Right here.” Rafe Delgado had returned, seemingly even more grumpy than when he had left. He plopped the tray down, sending foam cascading over the top of the frosty pilsner glasses. “Help yourselves.”

Wisely, each man kept his comments about the testy waiter to himself and reached for a beer.

Holden’s phone vibrated on the tabletop just as the cell on Alex’s belt buzzed. He set down his beer and wiped his hand on the leg of his jeans before answering. Trip and Sarge were opening their phones, too, as Captain Cutler’s went off. The noise of the bar instantly muted and the tension around the table thickened as the captain picked up the call. Alex checked his watch. After 10:00 p.m. They’d been off the clock for more than an hour. A call summoning KCPD’s premiere SWAT team at this time of night couldn’t be good.

Alex was clearing the Call Dispatch message off his touch screen when the captain rejoined them at the table. “Got it. My men are still with me—I’ll notify them. Cutler out.” He disconnected the call and addressed the team. “Hold off on those drinks.” He glanced at Holden. “Tell Liza the ice cream will have to wait.”

“What’s up, boss?” Alex asked.

“Looks like we’re getting some overtime tonight. Rafe, I need you to head on back to HQ to get the van. We’ll need all our equipment. We’ll meet you at the Plaza address Dispatch gave and suit up there.”

“Yes, sir.” Rafe nodded, his surly mood hidden behind a face that was pure business. He grabbed his jacket and jogged out the door.

“Captain?” Holden prompted. They still didn’t have an explanation for the off-duty call.

“Looks like we’ve got another Rich Girl murder. Banking family this time. The Cosgrove estate. They found Cosgrove’s daughter strangled to death in her bedroom. Signs of torture.” Cutler muttered a curse under his breath. “There was a party going on downstairs when they found her. Almost a hundred people on the scene with a dead woman upstairs.”

“That’s ballsy.” Holden voiced what Alex was thinking. “Sounds as though this guy is trying to flaunt his crime.”

“That’s the second death with that kind of victim in just over a year, isn’t it?” Trip asked, sliding a bookmark between the pages of his paperback and cramming it into the pocket of his jacket. “The first one’s never been solved. I thought a task force had been set up to narrow down a suspect.”

“Yeah.” Alex frowned. They were men of action. Troubleshooters. Protectors. They weren’t the cops who sifted through clues at crime scenes. “Why call us instead of homicide?”

“It’s up to us to secure the scene so the detectives and CSI can get in and do their job.”

“We’re on crowd control?”

“Not exactly.” The captain pulled his KCPD SWAT jacket from the back of his chair and shrugged into it. “The perp’s upping his game. The party’s no coincidence. This time he left a bomb threat with the body.”

Chapter Two

Audrey Kline squinted against the swirling strobe effect of the four police cars and other official vehicles lined up on the street in front of the Cosgrove mansion as she climbed out of her Mercedes and tried to make sense of what was going on here. The scene outside the sprawling stone house resembled the aftermath of some kind of natural disaster, with people huddling under blankets, women wearing their escorts’ suit jackets over designer dresses, one man sitting at the back of an ambulance with a blood pressure cuff around his arm, and many others silently weeping.

It was true. It hadn’t been some cruel tabloid rumor that had blipped past on her local internet news site.

Gretchen was dead.

The certainty of it hit her like a punch to the gut and, for a moment, she sagged against the open door, her shocked breaths forming frosty clouds in the damp November air. How? Why?

Screeching brakes alerted her a split second before the glare of headlights spun around the corner half a block away, hitting her square in the face. A television news van. Audrey turned away and closed the car door, instinctively shielding her face from the unwelcome intrusion.

There was already a slew of other reporters here, searching for someone noteworthy from the wealthiest and most powerful of Kansas City society to give them a sound bite. And more of those underground bloggers who’d broken the news of the murder half an hour ago were probably mingling with the guests, texting away.

But Audrey was in no mood to be a media darling tonight. Gretchen’s death was personal. Private. She needed answers. She needed this to make sense. This was the second friend she’d lost in the past two years. Her mother had died the year before that. Standing around and waiting with the others would only give her time to feel, to remember, to hurt. And to have that kind of weakness caught on tape and posted in the public eye would only make the grief that much tougher to deal with. If she ever wanted to be known as something more than Rupert Kline’s little princess, then weakness wasn’t something anyone here was going to get a chance to observe.

With newfound resolve giving her strength, Audrey buttoned up the front of her cashmere blazer, stuffed her keys into the pocket of her jeans and slipped through the suits and cocktail dresses of the party guests gathered outside the front gate. They parted like zombies, shocked and murmuring, as she made a beeline for the uniformed policeman standing by the driveway’s wrought-iron gates. “Excuse me, officer? I’m a friend of the family.”

Her father had taught her that standing as tall as her five feet five inches allowed and walking and talking with a purpose usually convinced people that she belonged wherever she wanted to be. But the young officer wasn’t fooled. Leaving one arm resting on his belt beside his gun, he raised his hand to stop her. “I’m sorry, miss. No one’s allowed to come inside the gate.”

She tilted her chin to argue that she belonged here. “My father and Mr. Cosgrove went to Harvard together. I don’t think he would mind …”

And then she saw the two detectives—one tall and light-haired, jotting notes, the other shorter and darker—talking to a pair of crime scene investigators, each wearing their reflective vests and holding their bulky kits in their hands. What were they doing outside the house? Had something happened on the grounds, as well? The blip she’d seen on her laptop said the victim had been found in her bedroom upstairs.

Why weren’t they interviewing suspects? Taking pictures? Why were they just standing around? Didn’t they know what a beautiful soul Gretchen had been? How much her parents and friends had loved her? Why weren’t they tearing that house apart to find out who’d killed her?

Audrey took a deep breath to cool her frustration, wishing she’d taken the time to don a suit and high heels instead of quickly pulling on jeans and a jacket over her pajamas. She’d been up late working at home instead of attending Gretchen’s party where she might have been able to do some good by kick-starting the investigation and putting these people to work. With no makeup and her hair hanging down to her shoulders in loose waves, she knew she looked more like a teenager than a grown woman. But she wasn’t about to let her appearance stop her anymore than had the two red lights she’d run speeding across town to get here.

She’d known Gretchen Cosgrove since kindergarten. Their adult paths had taken them in different directions, but they saw each other at social functions like this one often enough to keep in touch. A friendship like that didn’t die. A woman Audrey’s own age shouldn’t die.

“Please.” She reached into her back pocket and looped the lanyard with her Office of the District Attorney identification badge around her neck. The job was new, her switch from private practice to public prosecutor a calculated bid to establish her independence beyond the shadow cast by her father. She hadn’t had the opportunity to pull rank without her father’s influence to back her up yet. But this was as good a time to try as any. “I’m an officer of the court. I’m sure there’s something I can do to help.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the officer apologized, “but my orders are strict. Nobody crosses the cordon tape until SWAT clears the scene, not even the commissioner herself.”

“I don’t understand. Wasn’t the body found a couple hours ago? The crime scene is getting cold.”

His gaze dropped down to her ID badge. Apparently, the judicial emblem held enough sway for him to lean in to whisper. “There may be a bomb inside.”

“A bomb?”

He put a finger to his lips. “That’s what the note with the body said. Captain Cutler said until we know more, we don’t want to say or do anything that will cause a panic.”

Cutler. She knew that name. That meant his SWAT team was on the premises, and that Gretchen’s death might not be the only tragedy KCPD had to worry about. Audrey glanced around, recognizing many of the guests in attendance. There was the party planner Audrey had hired herself in the past, Clarice Darnell, along with her staff—servers, caterers, parking attendants. These were friends, colleagues, acquaintances Audrey had met at society events similar to this one. They were already traumatized by the news that their hostess tonight had been murdered. She didn’t wish more trouble on any of them. “No. We wouldn’t.”

“You can check with me later,” the policeman offered. “I’ll let you in as soon as Captain Cutler gives the okay.”

She nodded her thanks. “In the meantime, is there someone in charge I could speak with to get some details about what’s happened? It’s already on the internet. Rumors are going to fly if we don’t contain this.”

“Ma’am, all I’ve been told is to keep people back—”

“Never mind.” She put up her hands, knowing she was pushing too hard, knowing he was just doing his job, knowing she wouldn’t get her answers here. “Thank you.”

“Audrey?”

She turned at the familiar voice and hurried to meet the tall blond man striding toward her. “Harper.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her clear off the ground, squeezing her tight as he wept against her neck. “She’s gone, Audrey. Gretchen’s gone.” She held on tight and rocked back and forth with him. “I loved her, you know.”

“I know. We all did.”

He gulped in a shuddering breath and eased his grip enough so her toes could touch the ground. “We were always together at school—you, me, Gretchen, Charlotte, Donny, Val and the others.”

Audrey rubbed circles at the collar of his gabardine suit, inhaling his familiar scents of tobacco and aftershave, sharing the loss with him. Their whole group of friends through high school had been tight, and though their lives and jobs had taken them in different directions after graduation, they’d found a way to keep in touch, trading calls and notes, coming together in times of tragedy like tonight.

“I used to think you were the one.” Harper sighed, recalling the brief time they’d dated in high school. “But when I got back from law school, something about Gretch had changed. She was still as beautiful and fun and goofy as ever, but …”

“She grew up.” She’d seen the new maturity in the once-capricious Gretchen, too.

“I asked her to marry me. We were going to announce it tonight.”

That she didn’t know. Tears welled up in Audrey’s eyes, and she pulled back to touch his face. “Oh, Harper.”

“I saw her tonight. In her bed. Before the cops chased us out.” His red-rimmed eyes were dry now, and a brave smile creased his face. “You know she never gets anywhere on time—she changes her mind about what she’s wearing or can’t find the right jewelry to match. But after the guests had been here for almost an hour, I got worried. I went upstairs to …” His smile faltered and Audrey’s stomach clenched to receive the blow. “She looked so perfect lying there, like she was sleeping. But she … That bastard hurt her. Tortured her. There were marks around her wrists and neck. Her face was … I touched her and she … she was so cold.”

Audrey looped her arms around his neck and hugged him again, hiding her own face against the starch of his collar. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s just like Val all over again.” They’d consoled each other the night Valeska Gordeeva Gallagher had been murdered, too. “Only, I never saw Val’s body until the visitation at the funeral home. I saw Gretch—”

“Shh, Harp. Don’t think of that. Let’s remember how beautiful Gretchen and Val were.”

“You’re right. You’re always right. I can count on you to say the right thing, can’t I?” Someone jostled them in the crowd and Harper pulled away, straightening his tie, breathing deeply, tightening his jaw to keep the tears from falling again. “She’s not coming back. I’ll never see her smile or hear her laugh again.”

With that grim pronouncement, the first tears spilled over onto Audrey’s cheeks. She quickly swiped them away. “Harper—”

“I’d better get back to her parents. The press want them to say something. I’ve been running interference.” He bent down to press a chaste kiss to her forehead. “They’ll be glad to know you’re here.”

Another tear burned in the corner of her eye. She sniffed as her sinuses began to congest. Harper might have sucked it up, but she needed a minute to compose herself. “I’ll be over to talk to them soon.”

“Gotta go.”

He walked away, leaving her shaking. She’d listened and offered comfort without realizing how much she needed it herself. They might not have been the closest of friends anymore, or else she would have known about the engagement—Gretchen had chosen a social path while Audrey had focused on her career—but she had been her oldest friend. And now there was a spot inside her, splitting open, emptying out, leaving grief and regret and helplessness in its place.

Audrey pressed a fist to her trembling lips and surveyed the crowd. She wasn’t going to lose it here. The size of the gathering had nearly doubled with press and police, people who knew the Cosgroves and curious strangers. She couldn’t expect to hold on to her anonymity much longer, yet she couldn’t afford to be spotted as a bawling wreck—not if she wanted to impress her father and his old-school cronies, not if she intended to win the case she’d been assigned this afternoon and solidify her position in the D.A.’s office.

But the tears were burning for release. Hugging her arms in front of her, Audrey ducked her head and shuffled through the crowd, trying to draw as little attention as possible as she desperately sought out a private refuge. Her exposed skin would flush with every emotion she was feeling—a telltale, redheaded curse she’d endured her whole life—and there’d be no hiding the ache blooming inside her.

She shifted directions, deciding she should just get inside her car and drive away. But she stopped when she reached the curb. A camera crew was setting up a remote broadcast post on the opposite side of the street, and they’d recognize her as soon as she walked by.

Her throat raw from the constriction of emotions she held in check, Audrey turned and followed the sidewalk around the fringe of the gathering and just kept walking. Once she realized the voices from the crowd were fading, she stopped and raised her head, pulling her hair back from her face and tucking it behind her ears. She’d nearly reached the neighbor’s house an eighth of a mile away.

There was her sanctuary. Not the house, but the red-leafed hedgerows and iron fencing that ran between the two properties. With the press and police focused at the front of the estate, the side yards were empty, shadowed and blessedly quiet. Audrey glanced behind her to Gretchen’s house. They’d played hide-and-seek together on the massive grounds when they were children, and the memories of Gretchen’s easy laugh and adventurous imagination reignited the grief that was set to consume her.

She needed to get out of here. Now.

She darted around the brick pillar at the corner of the Cosgroves’ fence. Oh, Lord.

The security lights in the neighbor’s front yard flashed on, reflecting off the white gold of her watch band. Reacting like the trespasser she was, Audrey tugged the sleeve of her jacket over her wrist and crouched down between the fence and hedge. The night was conspiring against her efforts to find a private moment to acknowledge her grief and center herself. Maybe she should just curl up in a ball here and let the tears flow.

But that would only add fuel to the paparazzi’s rumor mill if they discovered an assistant district attorney huddled in the mud behind a burning bush shrub outside a crime scene.

“Why didn’t I just stay home?” she muttered. Yet, as her jeans soaked up the chilly dampness from the ground beneath her knee, Audrey saw that she hadn’t triggered the security lights, after all.

Instead, she got a clear look at the culprit. An armed

SWAT cop, wearing a flak vest over his black uniform, was lugging a large metal box to the back of the SWAT van parked in the driveway. Where had he come from? He was grinching to himself, maybe complaining about setting off the lights with his approach.

He set the box on the van’s bumper with a heavy thunk, and the entire vehicle rocked, giving an indication as to the considerable weight he’d carried. The man unsnapped the strap beneath his chin and pulled off his helmet, dropping it to the concrete at his feet before scrubbing his black-gloved fingers over the top of his hair.

For a moment, Audrey forgot about the reporters and the mud and her grief. As he opened the back doors and hefted the box inside, his movements caught the lights in his short dark hair, revealing blue-black glints in the rumpled waves. Was he packing up? Did that mean the house had been cleared? The bomb discovered and dismantled?

He had the doors closed before she could think to move, and now she was forced to kneel there until the motion-detector lights went back off or the officer climbed inside the van. But he didn’t appear to be in any hurry. With his rifle looped casually through the crook of his arm, he slowly turned, taking note of the vehicles in the street, the neighbors scurrying along the sidewalk to get a closer look at all the activity. Apparently oblivious to the approach of winter in the air, he unbuttoned the cuffs of his black shirt and rolled up the sleeves over a pair of muscular forearms. With a simple tilt of his head, he spoke into the microphone strapped to his Kevlar vest.

He was on guard, looking for something or someone, scanning his surroundings, his dark gaze skimming past her hiding spot. Audrey hugged her arms closer to her body and made herself even smaller. Had he seen her? Sensed her presence? She could hide from friends and avoid the press, but something about the intensity of those watchful eyes warned her that it would be very hard to keep anything hidden from him.

Audrey held her breath. Waited. Tried to ignore the little tingles of awareness sparking beneath the emotions she held so tightly in check. He wasn’t as tall as Harper or even her father. But he was all muscle, all alertness, all coiled energy. If the killer had planted a bomb inside the Cosgrove house, he looked like the type of man who could take care of it. He looked like the type of man who could have saved Gretchen’s life in the first place.

Gretchen would have called him hot. She would have been introducing herself, flirting with him by now. She would have welcomed him as a friend and made him feel glad to be a part of her life long before Audrey even decided to admit he was handsome in an earthy, unpolished sort of way.

A tear leaked out, its hot moisture chapping her cheek in the cool breeze. Gretchen would have thought hiding in the shrubs to avoid the press and spy on hot guys was a grand adventure, but for Audrey this was pure torture. Another tear trailed along the same path, marking her skin. Grief could no longer wait for privacy and a sob squeezed through her throat in a muffled gasp.

Not here. Not now. The SWAT cop’s gaze swung back around and she shoved her knuckles against her lips, stifling the breathy whimper of each sob while the tears streamed over her hand. She could read the headlines now—Lawyer Can’t Handle Crime Scene, Muddy Misstep for Kline’s Daughter or Newest A.D.A. Runs and Hides. Just the kind of decorum and control that would inspire public confidence as she led the prosecution against gang-leader Demetrius Smith. Not.

But then a KCPD pickup pulled into the driveway behind the SWAT van and she had her chance to escape public scrutiny.

Audrey pushed to her feet, stumbling back against the iron fence, as that all-seeing cop walked up to meet the truck. Another uniformed officer—minus the armored vest and extra gear and weaponry of the first man—climbed out of the truck with a German shepherd bounding down behind him, to shake hands and trade greetings. By the time the SWAT cop had stooped down to wrestle the dog around its ears, Audrey was moving. Holding up her hand to shield her face from the prickly branches of the hedgerow, she jogged several yards along the fence until the bustle and bright lights from the front of the house could no longer be seen or heard.

She inhaled a lungful of the cool night air and exhaled on sobs that shook through her. Curling her fingers around the cold, unyielding iron of a fence post, she held on and let the grief overtake her.

Seconds passed, maybe a minute or two, as the pain knifed through her. With one hand braced on her knee and the other gripping the fence to keep from toppling over, she wept for Gretchen and for the void her death created in so many lives, including her own. She’d never learned Gretchen’s gifts for spontaneity and handling stress and sharing joy, and now she never would. Kansas City had lost a generous and enthusiastic young benefactor.

Harper Pierce had lost a fiancée. The Cosgroves had lost a daughter. Audrey had lost another friend.

Finally, the sobs became little gasps and hiccups as the worst of it passed. Audrey’s diaphragm ached, her sinuses throbbed against her skull, her eyes felt puffy and hot. But she could think again. She could feel something beyond the pain—anger, perhaps, determination to honor Gretchen’s memory and vindicate her murder.

And she could hear.

Footsteps.

Audrey snapped her attention to the soft, even rhythm of someone moving through the Cosgroves’ backyard. Although muffled by the fallen leaves and dewy grass, there was no mistaking the tread of company cutting between the garden paths and towering oaks that shaded the yard on the other side of the fence.

The police officers she’d seen all carried flashlights. But this, this was something different. A noise in the dark. The whisper of stealth.

Pushing her hair away from her hot, sticky cheeks, Audrey peered between the iron bars to identify the source of the sound among the trees. Too big to be a squirrel or rabbit. Too real for her to feel safe. The breeze rustled through the hedge, sending a chill dancing along her spine. If that was a cop, where was his flashlight? And if it wasn’t, how had he gotten past security inside the front gates?

She pressed her face against the bars, trying to spot the movement among the trees. But the footsteps had fallen silent. With no sound to listen for and nothing to see, her other senses took over. The breeze was damp and cool against her skin, and it carried the subtlest hint of cigarette smoke into her nose. Since when did cops smoke on the job?

Audrey straightened, her breath still coming in stuttering gasps, her legs willing her to back away. She dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand and brushed the moisture on her pant leg. Had he gone? Was that scent the whisper of a shadow that had moved on? Or was he standing there, waiting, watching from the darkness?

Watching her?

A beam of light hit the side of her face, blinding her. With a startled yelp, she raised her hand to block the light and turned. “Stop it!” She pointed through the fence. “Were you …? How …?” Her pulse raced faster than her thoughts could keep up. Run. No. Even as the instinct shot through her, she knew she had no place to go. Game face, Audrey. Get your Rupert Kline, killer-in-the-courtroom game face on. With a noisy sniffle, she pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Could you get that light out of my face, please?”

She was going for confidence, strength, with that order. But her bout of crying and uncertain fear made the tone husky, revealing she was far more rattled than she cared to admit.

“Audrey Kline?”

Oh, boy. Here it comes. “I don’t have any statement to make at this time.”

“Okay.”

Okay? In a moment of confusion, her strength deflated. “The light?”

Thankfully, the man tilted the flashlight down to the ground. Not a reporter. Not a killer. He wasn’t giving off a whiff of anything beyond leather and starch and clean, musky man. She didn’t need to see his face to know from the width of his chest—and the assault rifle pointed down to the ground at his side—that she’d been discovered by the SWAT officer she’d been ogling only minutes earlier. “Better come out of there, ma’am.”

He pulled back the hedge where she’d been hiding. No way had he just climbed that fence. She’d been so busy sobbing and sniffling, then spying through the trees, that she simply hadn’t heard his approach from the opposite direction. She pointed over her shoulder as she stepped out. “There was someone over there. Maybe just having a smoke, maybe something else.”

“And you were checking it out?” He let the hedge spring back into place and positioned himself between her and the noise she’d heard. He pointed the beam of his flashlight into the trees on the other side of the fence.

“No, I …” Despite the warm, rich timbre of his voice, she detected the tinge of sarcasm there. “How do you know me?”

Apparently, he didn’t see anything more than she had, although he did pause a moment to touch the microphone at his shoulder and ask someone called Trip to take another check through the Cosgroves’ backyard. “You’re with the D.A.’s office.”

Audrey struggled to wedge her defenses back into place when he faced her with the abrupt pronouncement. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

“I saw you on the news earlier tonight. Besides,” he continued as he shone his flashlight on her chest, “I can read your name tag.” He swung the light to the badge hanging from a chain around his own neck. “Alex Taylor. I’m with KCPD.”

Her gaze darted from his black vest to the handgun strapped to his right thigh, over to the ominous-looking rifle and back up to dark eyes that were nearly black in the shadows. “I figured out you were a cop for myself.” Her throat grated as she coughed to clear it. But she managed a smile as she moved around him. “Nice to meet you. Excuse me.”

“You can’t go that way.”

She shrugged off the gloved hand on her arm and gestured out to the street. “Well, I can’t go that way. I’ll just cut through the neighbor’s yard and circle around to my car.”

“No.”

“No?” She uttered a sound somewhere between a sob and a curse. “I know it means nothing to you, but I have a reputation to uphold in this city. I have on no makeup and I’ve been crying my eyes out. If you recognized me, then those reporters who track my every move certainly will.”

“Do you always hide in the bushes when you’re upset?”

“Do I hide …? You …” Audrey clamped her mouth shut as her temper rekindled other emotions. She tipped her chin to look him in the eye. “I’m not trespassing on your crime scene. All I need is the chance to slip away undetected so I embarrass neither my family nor the D.A. You can’t stop me.”

He took a single step and blocked her path. “Yes, I can.”

Oh, God. He was serious.

Temper. Grief. Frustration. Humiliation. Any one of those could have busted through her tenuous control of her emotions. Being hit by all four at once released the flood gates again. Audrey’s eyes stung.

“Don’t do this.” She swiped away the first tear, chiding her own weakness.

“You don’t cry pretty, do you?”

She croaked on a sound that was half laugh, half groan, and swiped at another tear, willing it to be her last. “Gee, thanks. Is that the best line you’ve got?”

“Never found the need to use lines. Here.” He reached behind him and pulled a blue bandanna from his pocket. The hint of a smile eased the firm line of his mouth as he held out the cloth like a peace offering. “Was the woman inside a friend of yours?”

With an embarrassing snivel, Audrey nodded and snatched the gift from his fingers. She wiped her cheeks and nose, then pressed the soft cotton, still warm from the heat of his body, against her eyes. “Thank you.”

“There’s nothing pretty about losing an innocent life, is there?”

Although his hushed voice was as dark and soothing as the night around them, she got the faint impression that he was speaking about something personal rather than philosophical. Audrey shook her head. “No, there’s not.”

He shifted his stance, his eyes sweeping the area around them. “Look, I’m not trying to be a hard-ass when you’re clearly dealing with something here. But KCPD has established a perimeter and wants to control the crowd for a reason.”

“I heard about the bomb.”

“We’re thinking that was an empty threat—neither the dogs nor my team have found anything.” He nodded his head toward the street. “But it got the perp the response he wanted. Detective Montgomery—he’s in charge of the investigation—thinks the killer is getting off on all this attention. Chances are he’s here somewhere, watching.”

Audrey tensed and glanced over her shoulder, remembering the footsteps she’d heard.

“So you can see why it might not be too smart to wander off on your own.”

She turned her gaze back to Alex Taylor’s face, feeling more than a little unsettled by the possibility he was suggesting. “There has to be a hundred people involved with the party tonight. Double that if you count all the press and cops and curiosity seekers. You really think the killer is one of them?”

“I’m not the detective. But I do make sure everyone stays safe. Especially someone from the D.A.’s office who has a major trial coming up.”

“What do you know about that?”

“Like I said, I watch the news. I’m one of the men who brought in Demetrius Smith. You cannot let that murderer walk.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I’d like it better if you said you were sure you could win. Or if D.A. Powers was handling the case himself.”

Audrey bristled at the dig. It wasn’t the first time someone had doubted her abilities because of her looks or her father’s bank account or the fact she turned red in the face when she lost control of her emotions. “No one bought my law degree for me, Mr. Taylor. And I didn’t just earn it—I was top of my class. I’ve worked as a defense attorney and now for the prosecution, so I know criminal law inside and out. I asked for this assignment, and Dwight Powers gave it to me because he knew I could handle it.”

Did he just take an accusatory step toward her? “So you are trying to make a name for yourself with this trial.”

Not in the glory-seeking way he was implying. Audrey tilted her chin and met the charges head-on. “I’m doing my job. I only got the case this afternoon. Just because I haven’t had a chance to weigh all the options to develop a prosecution strategy yet doesn’t mean I’m going to lose.”

“He killed a ten-year-old boy today and didn’t bat one eye of remorse. He’s not going to be afraid of you.”

Audrey saw the anger tighten his jaw, felt the pain radiating through the edge of his voice and regretted getting on her soapbox. It explained the “innocent life” remark he’d made earlier. Despite the sting of his doubts about her abilities, a keen understanding—a shared sympathy—passed between them. “I’m sorry. You were there, weren’t you? When the boy died?”

For a split second, the intensity in those midnight-colored eyes wavered. “That bastard can’t go back out on the streets.”

“Then let’s hope he underestimates me as much as you have tonight.”

“Audrey, I … Hell. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.” With a deep sigh, those broad shoulders lifted and relaxed a fraction. “You can hang here in the shadows for a minute to get it together, but then I really need you back out by the street.”

Was that an apology? Or just a resignation to duty? Either way, after the charged intimacy of their argument, his unexpected capitulation surprised her. She found something calming about his breathing, slowing and evening out along with hers, something soothing in the way he altered his protective stance to stand between her and the world beyond this shadowy hedgerow. She touched the soft blue cotton to her eyes one more time. Even though it was just a bandanna, the old-fashioned gesture charmed her. “I didn’t think men carried handkerchiefs anymore.”

His soft chuckle warmed her. “You don’t know my grandmother. There are rules to follow with the Taylors. Family dinner every Sunday. Men carry handkerchiefs in their pockets.”

“Your grandmother tells a tough guy like you what to do?”

He winked, and Audrey felt like smiling, too. “She’s my best girl. I do what she asks.”

A check of his watch and Audrey suspected the minute to compose herself was up. She held out the bandanna. “Well then, thank her, too.”

He wrapped his hand around it and her fingers, holding on longer than necessary to give her a sympathetic squeeze. She was startled by the heat emanating from his skin, even through the protective leather glove he wore. “Keep it. And you get Smith.”

Audrey nodded, making a promise.

His grip suddenly tightened and he whirled around, pulling her behind him. A split second later, a camera flashed.

Alex Taylor was already on guard before her own defenses locked into place. “What the hell?”

Another light flashed. He took a menacing step forward.

An older, heavyset man slipped to the side, trying to make eye contact with her. “Miss Kline, could we get a statement?”

Alex shifted his shoulder between her and the reporter, giving Audrey nothing but the large white SWAT letters on the back of his vest to look at. “Get back to the sidewalk, behind the yellow tape.”

“Do you think this is the work of the Rich Girl Killer, Miss Kline?”

“The what?”

“I heard her throat was crushed like the other one.” “Oh, my God.” The white letters blurred in front of her.

Alex Taylor was moving forward. “I said, back to the street.”

She heard another reporter shouting from farther away. “It’s Audrey Kline. Over here. Miss Kline, you fit the killer’s victimology. Are you worried for your own safety?”

The whirs and clicks of flashing cameras crawled over her skin like an assault of mechanical spiders.

“This is a restricted area. If you don’t leave, I’ll have you arrested.”

“Are you friends with Miss Kline, officer? Why were you holding hands? Is she in danger?”

“I said—”

“I’ll handle this.” Audrey blinked her vision clear. It was up to her and no one else to pull it together. She touched Alex’s arm as she moved beside him, and gave him a squeeze of silent apology for getting dragged into her society-page world. His tricep was as hard and sinewed as his forearm, his skin as warm and reassuring as the grip of his hand had been. But it was time for her to be strong now. “I’ll handle this,” she repeated, pulling away.

His questioning gaze met hers over the jut of his shoulder. “You don’t have to talk to them.”

“Who knows what they’ll say if I don’t?” She stood in front of him, grateful for the wall of heat at her back as the vultures circled around them. “Officer Taylor is securing the scene of a crime. Please respect his orders and move back to the street so that KCPD can do their job and find Gretchen Cosgrove’s killer.”

“Do you think this death is related to Valeska Gallagher’s unsolved murder? You knew both victims.”

“No comment.”

“Can you comment on the Demetrius Smith trial?” the heavyset reporter asked. “Not tonight.”

“Are you and—Officer Taylor, is it?—an item?”

That was the news they wanted to report? “One of my best friends was murdered tonight. My love life is not up for discussion.”

Audrey startled at the broad hand at the small of her back and the hushed voice against her ear. “Don’t let ‘em rile you up, Red.” And then Alex was reaching around her, moving the reporters back. “Miss Kline has no further comment at this—”

“What are you doing way over here?” The small crowd parted as Harper Pierce nudged his way to the front. Without so much as a nod of acknowledgment to her or Alex, he pulled her hand through the crook of his elbow. “I leave you alone for a few minutes and you get lost.”

“Harper.” Even in that teasing tone, it felt like a reprimand, as if she was a child.

“Take the help when you can get it,” he whispered. He patted his hand over hers, pinning her fingers to his arm so that she couldn’t pull away without making a scene and really giving the press something to talk about. “I need you. Gretch’s parents want to know if you’d read a statement to the press for them.”

“I appreciate the rescue, but I don’t think I’m the best person for that right now.” But Harper wasn’t slowing down. He wasn’t taking no for an answer. Maybe he just needed a friend at his side right now. Audrey set aside her own discomfort and summoned compassion. “Of course. Any way I can help.”

Although he didn’t seem to have the will to smile either, Harper paused with her to allow a picture of the two of them together before escorting her out to the sidewalk. Then his hand was blocking the next camera and they were striding on.

The number of people in the crowd was still growing, and Audrey couldn’t help but glance at the technician by the news van, the parking attendant who was retrieving a car for one of the guests, the man in his bathrobe, pajamas and a pair of galoshes on the opposite sidewalk looking on. Alex Taylor said the police suspected that Gretchen’s killer was here somewhere, watching the chaotic results of his gruesome handiwork. Had she just brushed past a killer? Been photographed by him? Looked him in the eye? Was it that man? That one there?

Audrey’s gaze swept past two young black men, barely out of their teens, if that, lounging against a car at the fringe of the crowd. The shorter one, wearing a white ball cap twisted sideways on his head, leaned over to whisper something to the tall one in a black hoodie. The tall one laughed and looked right at her. At her.

And then they both raised two fingers and pointed them at her, flicking their thumbs as if they were firing a gun.

“Oh, my God,” Audrey gasped. She quickly turned away, missing a step and stumbling into Harper’s side.

“Are you all right?” he asked, pausing a moment to help her regain her balance.

What was that about? Did they have something to do with Gretchen’s murder? Did those boys know her? Or were they just taking delight in compounding the misery of an easy target?

“I’m fine,” she lied, knowing her focus should be on Gretchen and Harper and whatever the Cosgroves needed from her tonight. “I’ll be fine.”

She looked over her shoulder to see Officer Taylor herding the reporters who’d found them back to the restricted area. He was watching the two young men who’d mimicked a shooting, too, and was already weaving through the crowd toward them. He looked up from whatever message he was relaying into the radio on his shoulder. She caught one last glimpse of those dark, watchful eyes focused on her before the crowd shifted and he was blocked from view.

Suddenly, she felt oddly alone, even attached to Harper’s side in the midst of the crowd. The enormity of potential suspects—of one man, or maybe two—knowing, gloating, getting off on this chaos, closed in on her, constricting her breathing, making her skin crawl. She felt like a specimen under a microscope, completely at the mercy of unknown eyes.

Without really considering the significance of her actions, Audrey shoved the bandanna she still carried into her jeans. She kept her fingers in her pocket, clinging to the one true piece of comfort she’d had since hearing of Gretchen’s murder.

Chapter Three

One Month Later

The strains of chamber music muted as Audrey closed the kitchen door behind her. The din of eager, friendly voices from all the polite conversations she’d endured tonight still seemed to echo in her ears, leaving her nearly deaf in the empty room as she breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s what I needed.”

After allowing herself a moment to savor the quiet, she kicked off her strappy Gucci heels and curled her aching toes against the cool tile, wishing she could shed the fitted gown with the stays that poked into her ribs, as well. But since hostess nudity wasn’t the kind of buzz she wanted to generate with this holiday fundraising event, she settled for padding across the kitchen and opening the fridge in search of some caffeine. “Great.” She scoped the shelves up and down. “Just great.”

Not one diet cola to be found. Coffee? She closed the refrigerator and turned to the empty coffeemaker on the counter.

Out of luck. The only caffeine in the house was on the serving tables the caterers had set up, and she wasn’t going back to the party any sooner than she had to. The whole point of sneaking off to the kitchen was to find ten minutes of silence where she could nurse her headache and maybe think a bit more about how she wanted to open her statement to the jury when Demetrius Smith’s trial started in the morning.

She already had her arguments lined up. Her evidence was all in order, the witness list approved. Her boss, District Attorney Dwight Powers, had signed off on her strategy for putting away the reputed gang leader. Smith claimed he’d been an innocent bystander as the ten-year-old boy had been shot and killed in his backyard, thinking he could plead out to lesser charges. But Audrey intended to nail him to the wall for a list of crimes ranging from drug-dealing and witness intimidation to Calvin Chambers’s murder.

As it did every time she read or thought about the ten-year-old’s death, Audrey’s memories went back to the night of Gretchen’s murder—to the much more personal understanding she now had about violence and innocent lives so cruelly and callously taken. Inevitably, her thoughts of that night ended up at a shadowed hedgerow, where a dark-eyed, opinionated, compassionate cop had given her a few moments of respite from her grief.

You get Smith.

Alex Taylor had angered her, touched her heart, held her hand and handed down an edict. Right. No pressure.

Apparently, the support of KCPD, as well as career success and personal independence, hinged on winning this trial.

No pressure whatsoever.

No wonder her head ached.

It was Audrey’s first big case as a prosecutor. Her chance to prove she was smart enough, gutsy enough and tough enough to win a case without the backing of her father’s firm. Rupert Kline expected her to fail and was waiting to pick up the pieces with a hug and a told-you-so. He expected her to come to her senses and accept the lucrative partnership he’d offered in his firm. All his money and influence hadn’t been able to save her mother from the cancer that had ravaged her body and ultimately silenced her beautiful spirit. So, by damn, he wasn’t going to let anything happen to his little girl.

Even if all that love was smothering her.

So in the kindest, most reassuring way she knew how, Audrey was fighting to be her own woman, to create her own success story—to build her own life that included her father, but wasn’t dominated by him. Her mind was more focused, her goals clearer now, than they’d ever been. She didn’t need Daddy’s money to get the job done. She didn’t need his name to give her clout.

She didn’t need lectures from some doubting Thomas of a cop, either. She could do this.

She had to do this.

Beyond getting a ruthless criminal off the streets, she needed to succeed in order to prove that, at twenty-seven, with a degree from Smith and a juris doctor from the University of Missouri, she was no longer Daddy’s little girl. She was more than the pretty princess in the gilded Kline cage.

So why had she agreed to help her father host this fundraiser for a scholarship to honor Gretchen’s memory on the night before the trial began?

Proof that she was her own woman, indeed.

Audrey pulled out a glass and filled it with water from the tap, hating that vulnerable place in her heart. “Why can’t I say no to you, Daddy?”

Probably because the arts and friendship were worthy causes. Probably because she was as fiercely protective of her father as he was of her. Audrey had moved back home those last few months when her mother had been ill—to take care of Rupert as much as her mother. Despite the tragedy, Audrey had finally understood what it felt like to be needed. Her. Not her family’s money, not her father’s name. Her parents had needed their daughter to be there, to love them, to be strong when they couldn’t be.

Just like he needed her tonight. But she really should be practicing her opening statement.

Taking a long drink of water, Audrey pulled out a stool from the counter and sat. Using the center island and the two ovens as her imaginary audience, she began. “Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I’m here today to prove that every citizen of Kansas City deserves justice. Every citizen deserves to feel safe, walking his own streets …” She groaned and shook her head. “Too pompous.” She tunneled her fingers beneath the tendrils of hair loosely pinned at her nape and massaged the back of her neck. “No child should live in fear of walking home from school … What’s this?”

Lowering her glass, Audrey picked up the sealed envelope lying on top of the basket of pledge cards on the counter. Recognizing the neat handwriting on the front, she smiled. “Charlotte.”

Feeling as if she’d just gotten a hug, Audrey slit open the flap and pulled out a note card that was as smart and unassuming as the woman who’d sent it. Charlotte

Mayweather was another classmate who’d gone to the same private high school she, Gretchen and Harper Pierce had attended. Audrey tried to remember the last time she’d seen Charlotte—certainly not at Gretchen’s funeral. And she hadn’t been included on the guest list tonight because Audrey had known she wouldn’t be able to come.

Still, as Audrey read the note, she wasn’t surprised to see that Charlotte had enclosed a check for the scholarship fund. Somehow, Charlotte had known that they were honoring an old friend tonight. Although she’d never been the social butterfly Gretchen was, Charlotte had always been adamant about supporting the causes—and people—she cared about.

I wish I could be there

the note began.

Like you, Gretchen made a point to come visit me from time to time. She could always make me smile. Here’s a token of my affection for her, and how much I miss her. Thanks for doing this for her, Aud.

Good luck with the trial. I’ll be following you in the papers.

Charlotte

Good luck? Audrey sighed with a bit of melancholy as she tucked the note and check inside the envelope and dropped it back into the basket. Was there anyone in Kansas City who wasn’t watching how she handled the Smith case?

And how many of them expected her to fail?

The swish of the kitchen door sweeping across the threshold gave her a split-second notice to paste a smile on her face before company joined her. “There you are.”

Audrey turned to the distinguished man with the silvering, receding auburn hair and smiled. “Daddy.”

“I wondered where you’d gotten off to.” He picked up her sandals and carried them over to the counter where she sat. He pressed a kiss to her temple and dropped the shoes into her lap. “No fair skipping out if I can’t. Our guests are starting to leave. Will you see them off at the door while I chat up another ten grand from the Bishops?”

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