“I’m sorry.” She breathed against the middle button of his shirt. “I never fall apart like this.”

“You just need to get some sleep,” he murmured gently. He rubbed soothing circles across her back, trying to ignore her sweet, inviting curves. His attraction to her was completely wrong, and yet, holding her like this felt completely right.

Her fingertips stroked his spine, as if trying to placate him. But at her gentle touch, a deep, illicit longing surged inside him. Man, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do other things, too. But he’d be content if he could just keep her in his arms throughout the night. If he could touch her and know she was safe, know she was with him.

“If you tell anyone that Shauna Cartwright is…”

What? Beautiful? Tough? Sexy? “Human?”

Her nod was a caress against his chest. “I’ll put a reprimand in your file if you let that one slip.”

Eli grinned. “Your secret’s safe with me, boss lady.”

Baby Jane Doe
Julie Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Precious Doe (aka Erica Michelle Marie Green), whose tragic story inspired a police force and an entire city. And for the good, kind citizens of Kansas City, Missouri, who loved a little girl enough to create a lasting memorial to a precious angel. While inspired by a real event, the details and characters of this story are entirely the results of the author’s imagination.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up and 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 P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Shauna Cartwright—KCPD’s most public face. The acting commissioner has her hands full with an unsolved murder, an anxious city and a possible saboteur on the force.

Eli Masterson—Kansas City’s most private cop. An Internal Affairs detective still living down the sullied reputation of his corrupt partner. After saving his boss’s life, a forbidden attraction develops.

Seth Cartwright—Shauna’s son, a vice cop at KCPD.

Sarah Cartwright—Shauna’s daughter. Unlike her overprotective twin brother, she likes the new man in her mom’s life.

Austin Cartwright—Shauna’s ex just won’t stay away.

Michael Garner—Shauna’s right hand in the commissioner’s office.

Rebecca Page—Crime beat reporter. Just who is her inside source?

Yours Truly—Is his vendetta against the commish personal or professional?

Baby Jane Doe—Her unsolved case united an entire police force. But new evidence at her suspected killer’s trial can rip the city apart.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter One

Nice.

Three customers ahead of him, one window over in the lobby of the Cattlemen’s Bank in the heart of downtown Kansas City.

Detective Eli Masterson didn’t need the eye for detail he possessed to notice an attractive woman when he saw one. Her mocha-colored suit, a few shades darker than her short blond hair, hugged some prime feminine curves. The light wool skirt stopped just short of hiding the dimple at the back of her right knee. The sensible brown pumps that matched her leather shoulder bag didn’t detract from the long arch of her calves. Even in heels, Ms. Tailored Professional Lady barely topped Eli’s shoulder, putting her at average height. But he’d bet a good part of her was legs.

Long, fit, curvy legs, capped by that sweet butt.

Very nice.

Eli breathed deeply, savoring the quickening rhythm of his pulse. A good, lustful look was about all he had time for these days. So he waited patiently and enjoyed his wayward private thoughts before he had to move to the front of the line and deal with reality again.

He’d taken the morning off because he had Jillian’s hearing at ten o’clock. Today he was transferring what was left of his parents’ insurance money into his checking account. His baby sister might be fined for possession, or more likely, she’d be sent straight to rehab again. Eli intended to be able to sign on the dotted line and drive her there himself. Maybe this time they could get her off her cocaine habit and make it stick. Lord knew he’d run out of ideas about how to keep her safe from herself.

He moved forward in line as the skinny kid at the front thanked the teller and turned. Despite the sunglasses and hooded sweatshirt, a passing glance revealed that the man at the front of the line wasn’t a kid so much as a thirty-something who needed to lose the saggy pants and accept that gangsta was a look few people over sixteen could pull off without drawing undue attention to themselves. Of course, that was probably the point.

Eli’s gaze slid back to the blond chick. He’d much rather pay attention to her more subtle charms.

She didn’t seem to mind the early-morning crush of customers, hurrying in to take care of business before they had to report to work themselves. She stood out from the others in line the way a froth of cream cooled his morning coffee.

He liked a woman who was calm and sophisticated, and buttoned up tight like her conservative suit. Women like that played relationships the way they conducted business. There were always rules to follow, barriers to respect. A man couldn’t get in too deep with her, which suited him fine.

Intelligent conversation was good. Shared interests even better. Mutual lust was a bonus. But Eli knew enough about getting burned by emotional connections that once he detected any hints of personal commitment going on beneath the suit of a pin-striped pinup, he walked away from them as fast as his size thirteens could carry him.

Hmm. Not just a nice bod. She was observant, too. Blondie had noticed the over-the-hill rapper wannabe as well. She hesitated as she approached the teller window and turned her head ever so slightly to watch his departure.

Eli caught a glimpse of her profile and a spark of recognition tried to catch hold inside him. But she smiled and turned away at the teller’s greeting before a name could click into place.

What did register was that she was older than he’d suspected from the rear view. But she wore it well. The fringe of hair that framed her face had blended into the clean contours of her jaw and cheek. And the hints beside her eye and mouth that she might be closer to fifty than forty hadn’t appeared until they’d crinkled into view with her smile. Pretty as she was, Blondie probably had a successful husband, two-point-three kids and a house in the suburbs to go home to.

Ah, yes. Reality. Though certainly not his.

Time to tone his interest down a notch.

Another teller reported for early-morning duty at a third window, and Eli used the shifting of the waiting patrons to adjust his silk tie and find something new to study. The man with the gangsta look slipped into the elevator instead of exiting through the brass-trimmed glass doors. Maybe there was a problem with his account, and he’d been told to take it to one of the offices upstairs.

Eli rolled his neck against his crisp white collar. That scenario didn’t sit right. The guy had been too friendly with the teller. A man with a problem would have raised a stink.

A second man, who stood out from the suit-and-tie crowd as much as over-the-hill gangsta had, swooped into Eli’s peripheral vision at the new window. The tension in Eli’s neck crept out across his shoulders. This guy wore a regulation business suit like almost everyone else, but he’d topped it with a long black trench coat. The calendar might say autumn, but it was still early enough in the season that the air hadn’t crisped yet. There was certainly no chill to chase away on a sunny morning like this one.

Trench coat man wore a pair of mirrored Ray•Bans that he left on as he struck up a flirty conversation with the young woman who was still setting up her cash drawer. An internal sensor, borne of fourteen years on the force and a lifetime of cleaning up other people’s messes, blitzed across Eli’s nerve endings, warning him that something was wrong with this picture. Two men in sunglasses early in the morning? Eli shook his fists loose down at his sides and squeezed his left arm against the Glock holstered inside his jacket.

He slid his gaze back to the front door to the uniformed guard who had checked his badge and cleared his gun before allowing him to enter the bank. The young black man was focused on something out on the front sidewalk rather than on the six, seven—Eli silently counted them off—make that ten customers and staff here on the first floor. A second guard, as close to retirement as the other was to his rookie year, strolled through the lobby, chatting with customers and staff.

Blondie was curiously assessing her surroundings, too. Her movements slowed as she stuffed a bankbook into her purse and angled her head toward Mr. Trench Coat, watching him stride across the geometric designs of the carpet and disappear into the public restroom.

Eli was more suspicious than most cops. And those suspicions were eating at him now, making him fidgety inside his skin, though he allowed no trace of his thoughts to show. His instincts were to follow Mr. Trench Coat and verify that he knew something about the weather forecast that the rest of them did not. Though he prayed the man’s unusual appearance had such a benign explanation, Eli’s suspicions warned him otherwise. He tried to catch the guard’s eye again to find out if the younger man had taken note of the two out-of-place customers.

“Good morning, sir. May I help you?” The teller’s bright blue eyes smiled a greeting as she drew Eli’s attention back to the teller’s station. But Eli zeroed in on the three-piece-suited man behind her who shuffled out from the vault area with an expanding folder tucked under his arm. He stuffed his hand into his pocket, pulled out a white handkerchief and mopped at the perspiration dotting the top of his balding head. Then he nearly jumped out of his oxfords when the older guard greeted him from across the room.

Baldy managed a nod and a vague response. But the guy was sweating. In the air conditioning. The pasty skin from forehead to pate indicated the man was either having a heart attack or…

Damn. Eli’s growing tension clenched through every muscle, then dissipated, leaving an icy chill of certainty in its wake.

Do not rob this place this morning.

He had to get to court. He had to be there for Jillian.

He didn’t have time to be right about this.

Eli jerked his head from side to side. Elevator to the north. Bathroom to the south. Baldy behind the counter. A perfect triangle surrounding the customers, the guards and the money inside the tellers’ drawers.

Glancing over his shoulder, Eli tried to catch the guard’s eye at the front door.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

“Sir?” The teller’s voice demanded action.

Eli leaned across the counter, pulling open the front of his jacket to flash his badge and whisper into the startled girl’s ear. “Hit your silent alarm. Now.”

“What?”

“Do it.”

He didn’t want to start a panic if he was wrong, but his gut told him he was right. Something was going down.

Blondie sensed it, too. She’d pulled her cell phone from her purse and was walking straight toward the older security guard. She touched the man’s arm, urging him to mask his stunned expression. Blondie turned and faced Eli full-on, but she was pointing past him toward the public john.

What the hell?

Eli wasn’t the only cop in the building.

Recognition did him little good now. There was no time to identify himself. No time to do more than to warn the teller to get off her stool and seek shelter down behind the counter. “Hit the ground. Now!”

The bathroom door swung open. The elevator dinged. Guns came out of billowing coats and saggy jeans. A thunderclap exploded outside and a blast of shattered glass and flying metal rained down inside the lobby. The young guard went down. A deadly staccato of semiautomatic gunfire erupted over their heads.

The older guard’s hand never reached his gun. With a startled gape, he grabbed his chest and sank to the floor, taking Blondie with him. Eli glimpsed the red blooming beneath her hands as she crouched over the fallen guard and tried to staunch his wound.

“Take cover!” Eli shouted over the screams and chaos, grabbing the startled black man beside him and shoving him to the carpet. Others ducked behind the counter. In one fluid movement, Eli dove and rolled toward Blondie. He rose up on his knees, slung his arm around her shoulders and dragged her to the floor, tucking her beneath his long body as bits of ceiling and light fixtures and bullets crashed down around them. “Eli Masterson.” He ground the words against her ear. “Detective. KCPD.”

“GET OFF ME!” Shauna Cartwright ordered between tightly clenched teeth. She didn’t know which angered her more—the senseless violence that left a man bleeding to death just beyond her reach, or the tall, muscular detective who’d wrapped himself so thoroughly around her that she could feel his holster jammed against her shoulder blade and smell his love for coffee on his breath.

His broad shoulders masked her view of the scene and absorbed the brunt of the debris raining down on top of them. Masterson had gone all macho to protect the perceived “little woman” while innocent bystanders cowered unguarded beneath the hail of intimidation shots. As though she couldn’t take care of herself!

She’d spotted the body armor beneath the trench coat of the man who’d disappeared into the john. She’d alerted the guard, paged 911 and kept her head low when the bullets started flying.

Shauna squirmed beneath the immovable weight of the determined detective and repeated the command. “Get. Off.”

But she went still beneath his surrounding warmth when the bullets abruptly stopped. She recognized the sound of the thieves switching out their ammo. Would they fire again? Choose more living targets this time? Could she reach her gun in her purse? Where was her purse? Was there any way to get to the two wounded guards and help them? The eerie silence after the deafening barrage of gunfire made her thoughts seem loud inside her head.

“Shh.”

At the whisper against her ear, Shauna caught her breath, thinking for one crazy moment that she’d uttered her thoughts out loud and given herself away. She might have trembled as fear found a chink in the adrenaline charging through her system. And Detective Masterson’s arm might have tightened imperceptibly around her, offering reassurance as well as protection.

For one deep, controlled breath, Shauna allowed herself to accept Eli Masterson’s comfort. A man’s personalized warmth and strength were a rare treat in her life, and for that one breath, she let herself be a woman who was sheltered and cared for.

But that wasn’t who she was. With the next inhale, she became a cop again. And not just any cop.

An acrid cloud of gunpowder, plaster dust and fear stung her nose. But the only thing she reacted to was the shift of hard muscles against her back and bottom.

The instant she felt Masterson move, Shauna snatched at his arm, silently warning him to stay put. The detective could play cowboy on his own time. But not when there were hostages present. Not when the perps’ intent remained unclear.

“Easy,” she breathed against the dusty wool of his sleeve. Though he stopped moving, the tension in his body never relaxed. “Assess the situation before we act.”

“Everybody stay put and no one else gets hurt!” The man in the trench coat took charge. The movement of his voice indicated that he’d gone behind the counter. “Get the documents and whatever cash you can grab.”

Documents? Shauna frowned. So this wasn’t a straight-out robbery. She should have guessed as much from an assault that had started with a precisely timed explosion.

As the voices moved farther away, the detective began a succinct report in her ear. “The situation is you’ve got two armed men, possibly three—”

“—the sweaty banker behind the counter?”

“Sharp eye.” So Masterson had been suspicious of a possible setup, too. “Those guns were stashed so they could get past the guard. And who knows what’s waiting outside? That could have been an unmanned bomb, a projectile shot—”

“These guys will have a getaway car waiting. This robbery’s too well planned not to.”

Masterson nodded agreement. “Early-morning strike. Minimal hostage risk.”

Shauna wriggled a few inches of freedom from beneath him. “Those hostages should be our first concern. I need to get out and help the guard.”

She had both arms free and was pushing up before the detective cinched his arm around her waist and pulled her back into the heated curve of his body. “Look who they took out first. I don’t think these men would be too impressed to find out we’re cops.”

Turning her cheek into the carpet, Shauna looked into Eli Masterson’s cool brown eyes. “You know who I am?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She supposed that was the curse of having such a public face. Detective Masterson thought he was earning brownie points. Fat chance. On a more charitable note, maybe he was just being a team player. If that was the case, she wasn’t cutting him any slack. He should be obeying the chain of command.

Shauna pried his arm from her waist. “Then chances are, they do, too. Keep your sidearm holstered and don’t try to be a hero.” She got her knees beneath her and wrenched free before Masterson could nab her again. “I’m a trained negotiator. I’ve dealt with situations exactly like this one. I’ve already paged—”

“Backup’s already on the way,” he informed her. His hard exhale matched her own. “Stay put. Let these guys take what they want and walk out of here. They won’t get far.”

“You two. Shut up.” The antsy thirtysomething, whose street-tough look lacked the bulk of his partner’s Kevlar vest, leveled his Smith & Wesson at Shauna’s forehead, silencing the debate. “Get behind the counter with the others.”

But Shauna was insistent. She looked up along the gun barrel to his nervous, darting eyes. “That guard needs medical assistance before he bleeds out. I have first-aid training. You don’t want this to turn into a murder scene. Let me help.”

Without waiting for an answer, Shauna slowly rose to her feet, keeping her eyes on his the entire time.

“Okay. Hey! Not you, big guy.” Shauna froze as he swung his gun toward Masterson, who deliberately ignored the order and stood up beside her. “Don’t move!”

Though he held his hands up in surrender, Masterson towered a good four or five inches over the armed man, and the cold mask of his expression didn’t so much as blink at the gun pointed his way. “I can help the other guard,” he offered.

The man with the gun contradicted his own order and jabbed the gun into Masterson’s chest, knocking him back a step. “Get behind the counter.”

“Get him back here. Now!” The man in the trench coat appeared to be in charge of the robbery. He left the banker to cram what stacks of bills would fit into a briefcase already stuffed with files. He pointed his snub-nosed rifle at them as he whirled around the corner. “Do what we say and live. Okay, lady—help the cop.” He shoved aside the other thief to personally back Masterson behind the counter. “You? Move!”

Though he’d mistakenly referred to the fallen guard as a member of KCPD, Shauna wasn’t about to correct him. She hurried over to the wounded man, peeled off her jacket and pressed it against the hole in his chest, murmuring soothing words when he groaned in pain.

The guard’s gun was still in his holster, within arm’s reach—unlike her own weapon, which was ten feet away inside her purse. Of course, she shouldn’t try to play hero, either. Not with hostages involved. Not when they were up against a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun with a fresh clip of fifteen bullets. And if they robbed the patrons, went through pockets and purses and discovered badges and guns…

She prayed KCPD’s response time was as good as she’d claimed it to be in her last television interview.

“Is he gonna be okay?”

Shauna started at the perp’s voice beside her. But the sniff of gunpowder residue clinging to him and his gun kept her from feeling any compassion at his remorseful tone. She didn’t mince words. “He needs an ambulance.” She tipped her head to the side, indicating the guard lying by the shattered front door. “I need to check him, too.”

“He’s moanin’. Breathin’ normal. So he can’t be hurt that bad.”

“Internal injuries are hard to evaluate just by looking at a man.” She let the shooter see her bloody hand before she wiped it on her skirt and smoothed the guard’s white hair off his forehead. “Please let me call the paramedics.”

“No can do.” She could smell the sweat, fueled by fear, on him. “We’re almost done. We’ll be out in a minute and then you can call whoever the hell you want.” He turned and shouted over his shoulder. “You got all the papers the boss wanted?”

“Shut up, bozo!” the man in the trench coat yelled. “Why don’t you give them our names, too, while you’re at it?”

Shauna could make out Detective Masterson’s feet sticking out from the end of the counter. He’d cooperated by obeying the command to lie facedown on the floor. Thank God he wasn’t stirring up any more trouble. She also caught a glimpse of movement outside. A uniformed officer moving some curious onlookers who’d gathered across the street. She hoped his silent arrival had escaped the thieves’ notice. And that he wasn’t alone.

The man in the trench coat stepped over Masterson’s prone body and leveled the gun at the banker who closed and locked the briefcase. “Is that everything?”

“Just like we…discussed.” He stuttered when he got an eyeful of the gun barrel. “What are you doing?”

“Following orders.” He pulled the trigger.

The banker slumped. Hostages shrieked in panic and cursed.

“Hell, man, are you crazy?” The man with the gun next to Shauna didn’t seem to know where to point his gun now. “You said we were just gonna scare the crap out of ’em and nobody would get hurt.”

“I lied.” The other man turned his rifle and fired.

Shauna ducked as the shot hit the man square in the chest and knocked him off his feet. She didn’t bother checking to see if she could help him. She knew a dead man when she saw one.

And she knew she was next.

Though she was already moving, the sinking certainty slowed her reaction time. When Shauna lifted her head to locate the dead man’s weapon, she looked up into the glint of fluorescent light reflecting off the shooter’s sunglasses. She didn’t need to see the eyes behind the lenses. They were focused on her.

Just like his gun.

Nanoseconds ticked off like eons.

He smiled.

Shauna dove for the floor.

He squeezed the trigger.

A gust of steel-tipped wind rushed past her ear.

But the bullet never hit her.

“KCPD!” With the clean precision of a surgical blade, Eli Masterson put a bullet center-mass in the shooter’s chest, knocking him off balance. The shooter stumbled backward but didn’t fall. “Drop your weapon!”

But the man ignored the order and swung his gun toward the unexpected attack.

“Cease fire!” Staying low to the floor, Shauna picked up her cell phone and threw herself against the counter, keeping her back to the only protection the lobby offered her. “Dammit, Masterson, we’ve got hostages. Cease fire!”

“Negative!”

She redialed her 911 call and snagged her purse to retrieve her service weapon. From the low angle of the fire, Detective Masterson was down. Was he hit or had he taken cover?

“Masterson? Report!”

Shauna crawled to the end of the counter for a visual. The gunman lunged toward the elevator doors, chased by a hail of bullets, unable to return fire. Two more rounds hit the back of his trench coat. The man jerked, but stayed on his feet. The elevator doors opened. He jumped inside. Swung around. Raised his gun and grinned in triumph. “You’re out of ammo.”

Idiot!

She could kick herself for forgetting. “He’s wearing a Kevlar!”

Before she could get her own gun aimed, Masterson rolled. As the doors drifted shut, he snatched up the dead thief’s discarded Smith & Wesson and put a bullet in the killer’s knee, taking him down.

The man in the elevator screamed in agony as Shauna and Masterson scrambled to their feet and approached, guns drawn.

“KCPD,” Shauna announced in a clear, firm voice. “Drop your weapon and come out.”

“Like I could, you bitch.” Several more obscenities tainted the air, condemning KCPD and her own parentage, as well as promised retribution against the man who’d crippled him.

“Shut up.” Detective Masterson’s big brown shoe blocked the doors before they could close. With his gun trained on the wounded man, he pushed the doors open and picked up the rifle. He handed it to Shauna before stepping inside to lock the doors open and drag the man out into the lobby. “The lady said to move.”

With the man’s curses abruptly silenced by something whispered in his ear, Detective Masterson pinned him to the floor, patted him down for other weapons and cuffed him. “He’s got no ID on him.” He tossed aside the sunglasses and jerked the perp’s chin up toward Shauna. “You recognize him?”

Icy gray eyes like that she would remember. “No. But we’ll run his prints if he doesn’t cooperate.”

“Like I’m gonna—”

Masterson ground the man’s face into the carpet, silencing him.

By the time the detective was on his feet again and holstering his gun, Shauna had retrieved the briefcase and given the dispatcher instructions for police and paramedics to move in.

Maintaining his protective stance over the perp, Detective Masterson glanced down over the jut of his shoulder at her. “You all right?”

Other than some bruises and rug burns she wouldn’t complain about, Shauna was in one piece. She nodded. “You?”

“He had you in his sights.”

Shauna pretended his deep-pitched admonition didn’t send an ominous chill through her veins. “I’m fine.”

She took note of the two-inch cut oozing blood along the edge of his short, coffee-colored hair. But, for the moment, she ignored his forehead and watched the piercing intensity of his dark eyes cool to golden brown detachment. More than his 20/20 aim with the gun, they hadn’t missed a detail of all that had transpired here. Not even the personal threat to her life.

Which Shauna refused to comment on. It was all part of the job, right?

She tucked her phone and the gun in the waistband of her tweed skirt and stuck out her hand for an official introduction. “I’m Shauna Cartwright.”

“I know.”

She waited until he took her hand. His grip was as strong and firm as the rest of him had proved to be. And though an often-ignored part of her wished she was meeting such a seasoned, attractive man under different circumstances, she knew succumbing to her feminine longings was out of the question.

“Eli, was it?” He nodded. “May I see your badge, Detective?”

A scoffing sound marred his smile as he let her hand go to reach inside his jacket. “I heard you were a tough one for rules and regs. Are this morning’s events going into my file?”

Shauna ignored the taunt and quickly read the ID beside his badge. Eli Masterson. Thirty-six years old. Fourteen years on the force, the majority of them having filled a necessary but difficult role.

“Internal Affairs?” She glanced down at the man moaning at their feet. “And you made that shot?” She indicated the small gold star on his ID before handing it back. “Why would an I.A. detective maintain his sharpshooter’s badge? You planning to transfer to S.W.A.T.?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Does Captain Chang,” she referred to the chief of the I.A. division, “have this much trouble getting you to cooperate with your fellow officers?”

“Yes, ma’am, he does.”

She almost laughed at his dry delivery of the truth, and though she appreciated a man with a smart wit, she never allowed the humor to soften the taut curve of her own lips. “Well…, thank you for saving my life, Eli. You saved all our lives today.”

He seemed hesitant to accept her praise. “No problem.”

Leaning in, she caught him off guard as she nabbed his handkerchief from the pocket where he’d stuffed his wallet. She surprised him further by pressing the cotton to the wound on his forehead. “Make sure one of the medics clears you before you leave. I can’t tell if that’s a shrapnel cut or a bullet graze, but it looks like you could use a stitch or two.”

It felt almost intimate, like a woman caring for her man, to stand there in the midst of the bustling recovery team, gently tending Eli’s wound. She felt herself warming beneath the scrutiny of his gaze as he tried to figure out whether her kindness was genuine or a ploy he should guard against. His fingers brushed against hers as he took over staunching the wound and retreated a step. “I’ll do that, ma’am.”

“Good.” Wouldn’t it be nice to skip the ma’am’s for once and just be a woman with a man? But she was more than that. And the suspicion in Eli Masterson’s eyes said he knew it, too. So she pulled rank. The way he expected. The way she was supposed to. “You got away with playing cowboy today, Masterson. But when I tell you to do something, I expect it to happen. The chain of command needs to be followed, no matter what the situation is.”

“I’ll remember that next time.”

“Please do.”

“Is that all?”

“I’ll expect a report from you tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Shauna watched him turn and disappear into the crowd of officers, medics, CSI techs and curious thrill-seekers bustling about outside.

“Damn,” she muttered, spotting the deputy commissioner, Michael Garner, breaking through the same crowd and flashing his ID to the scene commander. If the main office already knew she’d been involved in a shoot-out, that meant the reporters would be following shortly. Once the press got wind of this, her children would find out. They’d worry. But Seth and Sarah were adults now. She could handle them.

What worried her was the possibility that he would find out. He seemed to know every secret about her life. Shauna shivered with a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the air or the scene around her.

When Michael waved to her and hurried over with concern shining in his eyes, she wished she could disappear as easily as Eli Masterson had. Michael certainly was an efficient one. He’d wasted no time in getting here. She glanced down at her bloody hands and the stains on her cuffs and skirt. Her appearance should earn a few personal questions she was in no mood to answer. If she asked, Michael would organize the reports from this deadly fiasco and handle the press. She could go home and clean up, lock her doors and isolate herself from the death and destruction surrounding her.

But she couldn’t ask.

KCPD’s Commissioner of Police didn’t have that luxury.

Chapter Two

“Masterson.”

Eli topped off the coffee in his plastic cup before acknowledging the unmistakable sound of authority behind him. “Captain Taylor.”

“What brings you to my precinct?”

Though he doubted running into each other in the break room was a coincidence, Eli took his time before stepping aside for the patriarch of the Fourth Precinct to fill a Kansas City Chiefs mug with the thick, steaming brew. “Routine follow-up on the shooting by your man, Banning.”

No sense wasting pleasantries. There was no love lost between Internal Affairs and the Taylors since Eli and his former partner, Joe Niederhaus, had investigated the captain’s cousin, CSI Mac Taylor, four years ago. Especially since his old buddy Joe had done such a bang-up job of framing Mac and nearly getting Mac and his future wife killed. Turned out Joe was the one taking bribes, stealing evidence and blackmailing fellow cops.

Eli had been a much younger detective then, naively blinded by loyalty to his veteran partner and unable to see the truth until it was too late. There was nothing naive left inside Eli anymore. And though he’d been the one to put the cuffs on Joe and had even, reluctantly, testified against him in court, several members of KCPD judged Eli guilty by association. He already triggered guarded suspicion whenever he entered a roomful of cops. He was Internal Affairs—the cop who policed other cops and held them accountable to the highest standards of their sworn duty. But there were some, like Captain Mitch Taylor, who seemed to take their distrust a little more personally.

Polite and professional as the captain might be, he wasn’t here to make Eli feel welcome. “Will anything go into Banning’s permanent file?”

“Everything points to a clean shoot.” Eli chucked an empty creamer into the trash, stalling for privacy while two younger plainclothes officers waltzed in and grabbed a snack and a seat at the table on the far side of the break room. After a friendly scuffle over ownership of the remote control, they turned on the television and debated the merits of each show as they scrolled through the channels. “But any detective who’s been involved in more than one previous incident deserves a thorough double check.”

Captain Taylor watched and waited as well before adding, “I hear you’re nothing but thorough.”

“I do my job. I do it well.” Except for the glaring error of not seeing his partner’s corruption, Eli’s reputation made it a fact, not a boast.

Taylor sipped his coffee, but there was no nonchalance in the steely set of his shoulders. “Just make sure you do it right. Banning’s one of my best investigators. I don’t want him stuck behind a desk indefinitely.”

“Barring any glitch in the paperwork, you can have him on the streets by lunchtime.”

The teasing scuffle on the far side of the room grew louder.

“Your mama’s on TV again, Cartwright.” The taller of the two young officers, a lanky smart-mouth with a shaved head, razzed his partner. “You know, if she wasn’t old enough to be our mother, and I wasn’t so damn handsome—”

“She is my mother,” the shorter one articulated. “And you’re not that good-lookin’. So put your eyeballs back…”

It wasn’t their friendly, ribald banter that caught Eli’s ear so much as recognition of the name. Cartwright.

As in Shauna Cartwright, owner of the tempting backside pressed to his groin in the heat of gunfire, and the clean, subtle scent that had fueled some forbidden dreams last night. As in Commissioner Cartwright, the memory of whose laser-sharp tongue and official rank had rudely awakened him from his fitful sleep and sent him into the bathroom for a mind-clearing shower before dawn.

The commish had a kid? A man she’d raised? The family resemblance was there in the blond hair and the green eyes. But mother and son? No way. This stocky guy was twenty-five if he was a day. And she was… Hell.

Shauna Cartwright had to be a decade older than Eli. But the illicit beat of his pulse didn’t slow with the knowledge.

Instead, it irritated him to discover he was attracted to a woman who was off limits for too many reasons to keep track of.

“You’re not dating my sister, either,” the young Cartwright warned to his fellow officer. “I’ve seen how you operate.”

“A sweet guy like me?” Baldy feigned offense and saluted the television with his last bite of bagel. “I’m just sayin’ she’s—”

“Gentlemen.” Taylor subdued them with a single word.

Eli’s gaze slid to the TV, where a stock photograph of the commissioner graced the corner of the screen while the commentator related highlights of yesterday’s robbery and double homicide at the Cattlemen’s Bank’s downtown office. Masking his interest behind a swallow of coffee, he listened for any mention of the other police officer who’d been on the scene and had taken down the alleged gunman with a shot to the knee.

But the focus was all about Commissioner Cartwright and how KCPD’s top bureaucrat hadn’t been behind a desk so long that she’d forgotten how to protect and serve the citizens of Kansas City when danger struck.

“Ah, c’mon, sir,” the bald one was protesting. “We’re on our fifteen.”

“The morning briefing’s in ten.”

“Then we’re on a ten-minute break?” Baldy tried to appease his boss.

“Better make it nine and a half so you can get front-row seats.”

The two young officers echoed a dutiful, “Yes, sir.”

“Front and center,” Baldy added for good measure.

“Just be there.” Taylor shook his head as though Cartwright and Baldy were the problem children of the Fourth Precinct. But there was no smile, indulgent or otherwise, when the captain took his leave of Eli. “Masterson.”

“Captain.”

“Whoa, man, there she is.”

Eli pulled his gaze from Taylor’s departure and tuned in to the television, too, to catch highlights from yesterday’s news conference outside the Cattlemen’s Bank.

A dramatic shot of two ambulances with their swirling red lights, and the bank’s shattered front window formed a backdrop as Shauna Cartwright faced off against the press of reporters and photographers. The spotlight from several stations’ television cameras bathed her even features in a cold, harsh glare. Her short hair formed a careless fringe about her cheeks and forehead, but there was an energy shining from her intelligent eyes and upturned chin that seemed to command the crowd—even more than the guarded stance of the man at her side. With the distinct, receding points of his dark brown hair, and the impeccable suit that masked the gun he wore at his waist, Deputy Commissioner Michael Garner was instantly recognizable.

Garner’s dark, narrowed eyes scanned the crowd as he inched closer to Shauna’s shoulder. The man was expecting danger. An answering tension squeezed like a tight fist at the back of Eli’s neck. Even through the television screen, Garner indicated that he sensed some kind of threat in the audience behind the camera. Maybe the man was protecting the office—not the woman. Maybe he was guarding KCPD itself from any questions that probed too far into events from the robbery/homicide.

Meanwhile, Shauna seemed unaware, or perhaps impervious to any potential danger as she fielded a barrage of questions.

She pointed to a dark-haired woman with a tape recorder. “Ms. Page.”

The reporter wasted no time. “Having finally put a man on trial for the Baby Jane Doe abduction and murder, and now personally thwarting a bank robbery, do you feel you’re settling into your new role as the head of KCPD?”

“You had to bring up Baby Jane.” Officer Cartwright shot his wadded napkin at the TV screen, nailing the reporter’s image. “Mom’s had the job for almost a year now, toots. She had to take command before we finally got the damn case solved.”

“Down, Tiger,” Baldy raised a hand to calm his partner.

Young Cartwright crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. From the most seasoned veterans to newbies like these two, the Baby Jane Doe murder case was a sore point that had plagued KCPD for over two years. A mutilated baby girl left in the city dump—unclaimed, unidentifiable. No parent had come looking for her; no clue had led to a real suspect. For months, the city had lived in fear for its children. Kansas City had mourned for the little girl whom no one seemed to miss, while they railed against the idea that such violence had come to their town. Through a charity drive headed by KCPD, citizens had raised money to give the girl a proper burial. But they still couldn’t give her a name.

Closure was a long time coming for a weary police force with its reputation on the line. Eli knew firsthand there was often that one case which haunted a detective throughout his career. Baby Jane Doe’s senseless murder was a case that had united the entire department, in frustration and sorrow.

But things had changed a few months ago. When Shauna Cartwright had been appointed to finish the term of the ailing commissioner, one of her first acts was to appoint a task force dedicated to the Baby Jane Doe investigation. Kansas City finally breathed a little easier. The task force arrested Donnell Gibbs, a known pedophile, who’d confessed to the killing. The D.A.’s office was set to prosecute Gibbs for murder. Preliminary hearings in Gibbs’s trial made news reports almost every night.

The story made good press, Eli supposed. But until Gibbs was in prison and the girl’s story was laid to rest, there wouldn’t be any real closure for Kansas City or KCPD.

Now there was one cool lady, Eli mused, mesmerized by the TV screen.

Without batting an eye, Shauna looked into the camera and diverted attention away from that hot-button topic by talking about the bank’s two wounded security guards. “All of KCPD is keeping them in our prayers.”

“Do you have the officers’ names?” shouted another reporter.

“Not at this time. We’re waiting, of course, until their families can be notified. The men are in good hands at St. Luke’s Hospital, and I know their families will want to join them there.”

“What about the two men who were killed? And the man you took into custody?”

The first detectable glitch in her control came when she rolled her shoulders as if she’d suddenly discovered a stiff muscle, no doubt a result of Eli’s flying tackle. But she still made no mention of him.

Michael Garner had noticed the change, too, as he dragged his gaze from the audience down to the woman at his side. He whispered something to her, out of ear-shot from the camera. Shauna shook her head and crossed her arms in front of her, rubbing her palms along the sleeves of her white blouse as though nothing more ominous than a chill had shivered through her.

“We’ll be sharing more information as it becomes available,” she continued, ignoring Garner and her own discomfort. “In the meantime, we appreciate you honoring the guards’ privacy and giving the doctors time to do their work. Thank you.”

Before the news clip faded and the picture returned to the studio anchors, Eli zeroed in on the blood staining the commissioner’s cuffs. The tension in his neck shifted and throbbed at his temple. He reached up and touched the two butterfly bandages that cinched the wound in his hairline.

Was that his blood? For all her cool, calm and collected facade, Shauna’s hands had been surprisingly warm and urgent as she’d tended him. And her shapely body had shaken with fear, or perhaps simply an over-abundance of adrenaline, when she’d been sandwiched between Eli and the floor.

“What the hell?”

Before Eli could quell his hormones’ masculine response to the vivid memory of his boss’s subtle feminine attributes, her grown son shot to his feet, swearing at the television.

“What?” Baldy asked, scrambling to catch up with his partner’s mood swing.

“Did you see her clothes?” Cartwright tugged his cell phone from his pocket. “She didn’t tell me she got hurt.”

Eli drained the last of his coffee and observed the interchange, a very curious fly on the wall.

Mr. Comedy sobered up with a remark to calm his partner. “If it was serious, she would have told you. I heard she gave first aid to one of the downed guards. It’s probably his blood, not hers.”

Cartwright punched in the number. “Damn it, Coop, I’m calling her.”

Baldy stood and tapped his fingers against his partner’s fist. “Seth, your mom’s a grown woman. And she didn’t get the job she has just because she’s pretty. She can take care of herself.” He crushed his paper cup and made a neat, three-point shot into the trash can. “Besides, Captain Taylor will be waiting for us. Maybe he’s going to finally brief us on that gambling case he wants us to work on.”

“I guess you’re right.” Seth Cartwright paused to consider his partner’s words, though his posture remained stiff and unyielding. “But after the meeting—”

“—I’ll dial the number myself. C’mon.”

Cartwright nodded. He flipped his phone shut and turned to follow his partner from the room. That’s when he realized the six-four fly on the wall had never left the room. Cartwright’s chest expanded with a deep breath as he glared at Eli. “What?”

Eli shrugged off the taunt. “Nothing. Just got caught up in the news report. The commissioner’s your mother?” No response. Why didn’t that surprise him?

Thick arms crossed in front of his wrestler’s chest. “You’re Masterson. That I.A. guy who’s going after Detective Banning, aren’t you?”

Going after? Hell. Would it kill anybody to say good morning around here? “How about, I’m the I.A. guy who’s doing his job? Just like you. Banning has nothing to fear from me unless he did something wrong. Personally, I don’t think he did.”

“Uh-huh.”

The visual standoff lasted a split second longer before Seth’s partner, Coop, called him to get his butt in gear and get to the meeting. With a dismissive nod, effectively telling Eli to mind his own business and keep any comments about Seth’s mother to himself, the young officer strode from the room.

So Seth Cartwright was defensive about his mom. His partner’s teasing was probably a mild example of the heat he took from his coworkers for being the head honcho’s son. Probably had to prove himself a dozen times over to show he’d earned his spot on the force.

Of course, the young man had almost blown a gasket when he saw that blood. Maybe he wasn’t defensive about his mom so much as he was defensive of the woman who’d raised him. Eli could have confirmed that none of the blood on the commissioner’s clothes was her own. But it wasn’t his place to say, nor was it his habit to make friendly reassurances.

Time to seek out Merle Banning and finish up the paperwork. Eli was anxious to clear his desk before he had to sit down and answer to a hearing about his involvement at yesterday’s bank shooting. At least his name and face had been kept out of the media. Publicity generally meant even closer scrutiny. And while Eli had developed a knack for flying under the radar, he knew it was only a matter of time before one of his colleagues at I.A. called him into his or her office.

Eli hadn’t even cleared the doorway when his cell phone rang. If he was a superstitious man…

Shaking his head, he pulled the phone from his belt and glanced at the number. Though he recognized the KCPD prefix, the number was unfamiliar. Hell. Why not? He wasn’t superstitious.

He pressed the Talk button. “Masterson.”

“Detective.” The woman at the other end of the line breathed a sigh of relief before slipping into a more familiar clipped and confident mode. “It’s Shauna Cartwright.”

“Ma’am.” His initial surprise at hearing her voice gave way to a misplaced pleasure, and more quickly to irritation. Shauna Cartwright had no reason to call him, except for business. And the only business they had in common was the damned paperwork for yesterday’s robbery/homicide. He’d barely had a chance to scribble his notes, much less get them typed up. “If you’re looking for my report, tomorrow’s the earliest I’ll be able to get it to you. And that’s working on my own time.”

Working off the clock certainly wasn’t unheard of in his profession, but it would be damned annoying if he had to give up this particular evening to satisfy the boss’s demands. Not that Eli had anything more momentous planned than dinner with his sister Holly. But Holly was the one person with whom he could commiserate over their baby sister’s plight.

After yesterday’s hearing, complete with Jillian’s sullen mood and accusatory glares, he and Holly would have plenty to hash out. Tough love sucked. But coping with an addict like Jillian had destroyed the whole warm-fuzzy-family thing among the three siblings long ago. While Jillian detoxed without any outside contact for two weeks, Eli and Holly needed to do some healing themselves.

Unfazed by his surly tone, the commissioner asked, “Can you come by my office this afternoon? I’ve already cleared it with Captain Chang. He gave me your direct number.”

Running the request past his supervisor ensured cooperation, if not eager anticipation. Nothing like being master of his own destiny. Eli nipped the sarcasm and checked his mental calendar. “I can swing by about four-thirty if that’ll work for you.”

“That’s fine. I’ll have Michael take my last meeting.”

“That anxious to get my report? Or are you going to lecture me about not following the chain of command again?”

Her volume dropped to a throaty whisper. “Please. I’d rather not discuss it on the phone. I need to see you.”

Cryptic. Her hushed plea carved a delicate pinhole in Eli’s defensive armor. Commissioner Cartwright hadn’t struck him as a woman of mystery, but he couldn’t help but be intrigued.

An image of the murdering Mr. Trench Coat’s nearly opaque lenses trained down the barrel of his rifle toward Shauna Cartwright blipped through Eli’s memory.

Forget intrigued. Tension twisted a knot at the back of his neck. “I’ll be there at four-thirty.”

BY QUARTER PAST FOUR that afternoon, Eli was sinking his oxfords into the plush silver carpet on the top floor of KCPD headquarters. The receptionist at the center of KCPD’s administrative offices had offered him a seat, but Eli preferred the view at the row of windows facing into the heart of downtown Kansas City. At least he could see people moving outside.

KCPD’s limestone tower wasn’t the tallest building on the skyline. Originally built in the 1930s, the interior had been in a continuous state of refurbishing for the past six years. But it wasn’t the new decor or updated technology or even the row of commissioners’ portraits staring at his back from the long hallway that impressed him. It was the eerie quiet about the place.

There was an ominous weight to the air, a stuffy silence that lacked the relaxed comfort of a library or the creative intensity of a classroom of students taking a test.

Every floor in every precinct building he went into was a bustling hive of activity and purposeful noise. Machines. Conversations. Energy. Even the Internal Affairs division where he was based boasted more movement and warmth than this stylish tomb. Talk about your ivory tower.

It wasn’t just the uniformed officers and security gates at each entrance that made the top-brass offices feel cut off from the rest of the world. The sound-dampening choices of carpeted cubicle walls and lined drapes played their part in the silence. As did the closed doors and deserted hallways. Even with the sun shining outside—deepening the reds and golds on the trees in the park below him—Eli felt isolated.

Waiting for his appointment with the commish was a bit like being summoned to the principal’s office. Or going down to lockup at two in the morning to bail out a sister who was so zoned on booze and coke that she didn’t even realize she’d been arrested.

Eli breathed deeply, trying to dispel the tension that particular memory triggered. He pulled back the front of his suit jacket and fingered the phone on his belt. Maybe he should call the treatment center to check up on Jillian. She wasn’t allowed any personal calls during an initial probationary period, and then had to earn the privilege after that. But he could talk to one of her counselors or a nurse to see how she was settling in.

“Detective Masterson?”

Contenting his hands with rebuttoning his jacket instead of reaching for the phone, Eli greeted the receptionist with a nod. The steel-haired woman whose desk plaque had identified her as Betty Mills handed him a paper cup filled with coffee. Tepid from the feel of things. Bitter sludge that had sat in the pot all day from the whiff he got.

He still offered a polite “Thanks,” not because the woman seemed to expect it or that he looked forward to drinking her gift. But a perverse sense of irony had him wondering if kindness could soften the plastic smile she wore like a badge on her stiff expression. Nope.

“It’s inspiring to be in the company of such fine men, isn’t it?” Betty stated with awed conviction.

For a split second, Eli thought she was speaking in figurative terms, looking down at the miniature men and women outside—some in uniform, some in plainclothes—exiting down the concrete steps or entering the building for the start of their shift. But then he noted the angle of her gaze, toward the back wall and the row of portraits.

“There’s a lot of history there,” he agreed, wondering if her assessment included the commissioners who’d served in the 1920s and 1930s when there’d been suspicion of corruption among several government officials in Kansas City. But thoughts of corruption reminded him of Joe Niederhaus and soured what was left of his amiable mood.

“I’ve served with seven of them, you know. Either in the secretarial pool or as administrative assistant.”

And he’d bet she’d worn that same smile through each administration. “You’re very dedicated.”

“I still miss working with Commissioner Brent. He was destined for fine things. Loved his sense of humor.” Miss Plastic Face got humor? “Now it’s all trapped inside him. But I know he’s working hard to come back to us.”

“I hope he recovers his health. I hear that rehabilitative therapy after a stroke is tough.”

Betty straightened Brent’s portrait with tender care, though Eli hadn’t seen anything out of place. “He’s a fighter.”

The telephone buzzed on her desk and she left to answer it. Oh yeah, if she was in charge of the mood up here, no wonder it felt like such a mausoleum.

“Commissioner Cartwright will see you now.”

Eli dumped his untasted coffee in the trash and strolled toward the bank of closed office doors. “Thanks.”

But he paused when one of the double cherrywood doors opened and his I.A. supervisor, Garrett Chang, stepped out. Not the worst surprise of his life, but not a particularly good one. His captain’s dark, almond-shaped eyes instantly sought him out and flashed a warning. Eli’s mood shifted into grim. “This isn’t gonna be good, is it?”

Chang shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

This had to be about something more than a late report. Was one of the two dead men from the bank the cousin of a wealthy benefactor? Was someone suing the department? Was the lady commish p.o.’d because he hadn’t jumped the instant she gave an order? Well, he damn well wasn’t going to stand by while innocent…

“It’s not what you think, Eli.” Chang knew how his mind worked. “Whatever conspiracy theory is running around inside that head of yours, I promise, reality will be worse.”

I’d rather not discuss it on the phone.

That vague sense of protective concern returned to mellow his temper as he remembered Shauna’s call. Suspicion hardened him against the new, unknown threat. “What’s wrong?”

Shauna Cartwright appeared in her doorway and answered the question herself. “Better let me tell him, Garrett.”

“Right.” Captain Chang stepped to one side, looking first to the commissioner, then Eli. “If there’s anything I can do—for either of you—let me know.”

The commissioner smiled, momentarily distracting Eli from his supervisor’s mysterious offer. “Thanks. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

Chang took her outstretched hand, then reached over to shake Eli’s. “Be good.”

Was that a mind your manners or a do your job warning?

Garrett Chang departed without clarifying anything, and Eli began to feel the frustration of a man condemned to punishment for a crime he knew nothing about. Shauna Cartwright was no immediate help, either. She instructed Betty to hold her calls, gave her permission to leave at five o’clock, then ushered Eli into her office.

Though the decor in here was as uptown as the waiting area outside, soft touches of color added a subtle feminine warmth to the conference table and informal sitting areas. And was that…? Eli frowned at the nearly inaudible strains of a disco ballad playing from the suite’s hidden speakers. Go figure. No canned elevator music or talk radio. There were signs of life in the ivory tower, after all.

But the lock twisted into place behind him, canceling out the unexpected sense of welcome.

The commissioner circled in front of him and held out her hand. “Thank you for coming.”

Like he had any real choice. “Commissioner—”

“Shauna, please. In private, anyway.” The jolt of her smaller hand sliding against his proved as surprising as her choice of music had been. She tightened her grip to keep him in place long enough to inspect the bandages at his temple. “I see you opted for the scarred and rugged look instead of sensible stitches.”

“I’ll live.”

“I have no doubt you’re a tough one.” She led him to the sitting area, and then walked around her desk to a small kitchen area at the back. “May I get you a cup of coffee?”

The real thing? Or more of that stew Betty had served? He must have broadcast the questions telepathically because she grinned and pointed toward the door. “Betty may be as efficient as the U.S. Army, but she can’t make coffee worth a damn. She insists she makes it the same way my predecessor, Commissioner Brent, always liked it. Makes me wonder if he dumped it down the sink and brewed his own when she went on break, too.” She turned away to pour two mugs without waiting for his answer. “How do you take it?”

Apparently, there was no hiding a kindred caffeinated spirit. “With cream.”

Though a sager suck-up would have asked a polite question about how the previous commissioner was recovering from the series of strokes that had incapacitated him, Eli dumbly watched the graceful movements of Brent’s replacement.

Nice. She opened a tiny fridge beneath the counter and pulled out a carton of the real thing, whetting his taste buds in anticipation. Very nice. Regions south of his belt buckle stirred with a heated interest of their own as she bent over to replace the cream, and her navy gabardine skirt pulled taut across her backside.

Boss, Eli reminded himself, blinking and turning away.

His eyes fell on the computer printout with his name in bold print at the top, sitting at the center of her desk. That cooled his jets. She’d been checking up on him, reading the scattered commendations and more numerous complaints in his file, no doubt. How many partners had he gone through since Joe Niederhaus? Chang had finally given up trying to make him play well with others. The boss lady probably had something to say about that.

His gaze strayed to the pictures on her desk. Seth Cartwright with his arm around an attractive young blonde who shared a striking resemblance. The commissioner with a sopping, pony-sized Labrador retriever near a lake. A more formal photo of the commissioner, sandwiched between Seth and the same blond woman piqued Eli’s curiosity further. Though there was no older man in any of the photos, no wedding ring on the hand that clutched the dog, there was no mistaking the sense of family in those photos. Eli had little in common with her world.

Maybe once. But camaraderie, teamwork, laughter, trust—those had been missing from his life for a long time. Since the tragic death of their parents, Jillian had turned to drugs. Holly had turned to work. And Eli had just turned…inward.

“Eli?”

He jumped like a rookie at the sound of his name.

“Sorry.” She stood at his shoulder, close enough for him to smell the fragrant brew from the mug she pushed into his hands. Close enough to smell something more enticing than the coffee itself.

“Thanks.” Eli hid his interest with a swallow of the beverage that burned his throat.

“Do you have any family?” she asked, glancing at the photos with a loving smile.

“Two sisters. You?”

“Two children. Seth and Sarah. Twins. Three, if you count Sadie.” She reached over and stroked the dog’s picture. “She’s the only one still at home.”

“Is there a Mr. Cartwright?”

“Yes. But we’re divorced.”

Damn. His pulse should not be racing any faster. Had to be all the caffeine in his system. “Sorry to hear that.”

Soft green eyes sought him out over the rim of her cup, gauging the sincerity of his condolence. “It’s his loss.” The green eyes shuttered and she turned away, showing more willpower than Eli’s sorry hormones could when it came to breaking the unspoken tension simmering between them. “It’s my children’s loss, actually. Austin has chosen to be a part of our lives only when it’s convenient for him.”

Her gaze was focused on the pictures again. No, they were focused toward some memory from the past, Eli thought.

“He could have been a good father if he wasn’t such a…”

Such a what? Eli felt his body shifting forward, drawn to the sorrow that shaded her voice. But perhaps he had only imagined the vulnerability that had softened her posture. Because there was steel in the set of her shoulders when she turned to face him, and there was business in her smile.

“We have more important things to discuss. Have a seat, Eli.” Oblivious to his misguided interest in her, the commissioner gestured to a sofa. “May I call you Eli?”

“In private.” The smart remark was out before sense could stop it.

Instead of putting him in his place, she laughed. “Touché.”

Eli unbuttoned his jacket and opted for a straight-backed chair at the conference table before he relaxed his guard any further and completely screwed up what was left of his day and career. “So, why am I here? I believe your exact words were I need to see you.”

“I like a man who’s direct.”

“I like a woman who’s direct.”

With a decisive nod, Shauna set down her mug and retrieved an unmarked file from her desk. “Just so you know, I’ve cleared this with Captain Chang.”

“Cleared what? Is this about yesterday?”

“As a matter of fact, I asked him to lose any paperwork regarding your involvement in yesterday’s shooting. For now, if anyone asks, we’ll say the incident is under investigation. We can throw speculation onto the guards or even myself as the shooter.”

Eli’s gaze narrowed as she returned. “I’ve got nothing to hide. Taking down Mr. Trench Coat was a clean shoot. My report will say as much.”

“Taking down Richard Powell was a hell of a shot. KCPD has had him on their person-of-interest list as a hired gun for several months now.” She circled the table. “But forget your report. I need you on the job, not confined to a desk. As far as anyone outside this office knows, you weren’t even at that bank yesterday.”

“Why the cover-up?”

She pulled out a chair and sat across from him, concentrating for a moment on placing the file folder just so on the table in front of her. But there was no hesitation in her expression when she looked up at him. “What I’m about to ask of you won’t be easy. It won’t make you very popular with your colleagues.”

He inclined his head toward her desk. “You read my file. Does it look like popular matters to me?”

“Deep down inside—somewhere—it matters. That’s why I’ve hesitated to recruit anyone for this assignment.”

Ignoring the compassion she offered and denying any truth to her insight, Eli laced his fingers together and leaned onto the edge of the table. “What’s the job, boss lady? What do you need me to do?”

He’d wanted direct. “Are you familiar with the Baby Jane Doe murder case?”

“I’m a cop and I live in Kansas City. So, yeah, I’m familiar enough.” Relieved to have something to focus on other than the way Shauna Cartwright seemed to see a lot deeper beneath the skin than he liked a woman to, Eli eased back in his seat. “Murdered African-American girl. About a year old. I’ve heard the grisly details in the locker room. The body found separately from the head. Tossed in the dump. My sister’s the M.E. who did the autopsy. There was no sign of sexual trauma, though the COD was physical abuse. Poor kid was too young to have dental records or fingerprints to ID her. I’ve followed the news stories. How people were keeping their own kids locked in at night, how they blamed the department for taking so long to arrest anyone. I know the D.A.’s office is hashing out the preliminary motions for Donnell Gibbs’s trial right now.”

“So you are familiar with the case.” She sighed wearily, as if the details were far too familiar, maybe too personal, for her. “My first priority when I took over for Edward Brent was to put together a task force dedicated to the investigation. Actually, it was Edward’s idea, before his first stroke. He was afraid of civil unrest. Lynch mobs. Untrained citizens arming themselves against a child-killer. I organized the plan, selected the investigators and put Mitch Taylor in charge. The task force gave me Donnell Gibbs.”

Eli nodded. “Now the city’s calmed down, the killer’s on trial and we’re all heroes here at KCPD again.”

“I want to reopen the case.”

A beat of silence filled the room.

“Are you nuts?” Putting Donnell Gibbs on trial for Baby Jane Doe’s murder had finally staunched the wound that had hobbled KCPD for more than two years. Even Eli could sense the city’s massive sigh of relief. “Shauna, you can’t—”

“I’m reopening the case.” She ignored his accusatory slip of decorum and pushed the file across the table, offering Eli the most unpopular job in all of Kansas City. “And I need a man like you to do it.”

Chapter Three

“You’re giving in to anonymous threats?”

Shauna peeked over the top of her reading glasses to watch Eli set aside the last of the letters sealed in plastic evidence bags. His long, dexterous fingers tucked the pile into a neat stack before closing the folder.

“Yes, I want to find out who’s sending these.” She handed over the printouts of e-mails she’d received as well. Each and every message, from the vague comments expressing concern about the Baby Jane Doe case, to the perfunctory lists of mistakes KCPD had made in the investigation, to the most recent diatribes against the entire department’s incompetence, had been signed with nothing more than a Yours Truly. “The sender might be able to provide a lead. But I’m reopening the case because I need to know that little girl’s name.”

Eli scanned a printout, then tossed it onto the table. “Ask Donnell Gibbs.”

“He says he doesn’t know.”

“He’s lying.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“Why not?” Eli’s prove-it-to-me gaze pierced the shadows falling across the conference table as the afternoon sun shifted into evening light.

Shauna imagined that that look alone could make a witness or suspect reconsider any lack of cooperation. She imagined that that look also kept well-meaning friends and serious relationships at arm’s length. The cynicism in the smooth Scotch of Eli’s eyes aged his handsome face. And she couldn’t help but wonder how a smile, one that wasn’t laced with mockery or distrust, would mellow his carved features and dark gold irises.

Still, any compassion she felt for his lone-wolf status was irrelevant. Any fascination she felt for his tall, lean body or rich baritone voice wasn’t even allowed. Crossing her arms and rubbing at the skin chilling beneath the sleeves of her blouse was all she could do to assuage the empty ache inside her. There was another man out there—one far more mysterious and infinitely more dangerous—who demanded her attention.

“I might be the only person in all of Kansas City who feels this way…but I don’t believe Donnell Gibbs killed that girl.” Shauna pulled off her glasses and got up, trying to warm the room by turning on a desk lamp and the overhead lights. “Gibbs confessed to killing her. But the man’s a registered pedophile—and our Jane Doe wasn’t sexually assaulted.”

Eli stood as well, straightening his tie and rebuttoning his collar. “Maybe he got interrupted before he could do the deed. Or she screamed too loud and he had to shut her up before he got caught.”

“She’s younger than any of his other victims,” Shauna pointed out.

“He had a need and was desperate. Maybe he discovered a twelve-month-old was too far out of his comfort zone, and that’s why he killed her.”

Shauna crossed her arms and tilted her chin. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you.”

“I’m just pointing out what the prosecution would argue. What every cop in this town is going to argue if you reopen this case.” He picked up the stack of e-mails and held it out in his fist. “You should have reported this Yours Truly wacko the moment you got that first letter. Before it escalated to…” He shuffled through the papers to find one particular quote. “‘Our children aren’t safe. If your department can’t get the job done right, Ms. Cartwright, then I’ll do the job for them.’”

Shauna shrugged and moved to collect their empty mugs. “Do you have any idea how many complaints come through the commissioner’s office? While we address all of them, we don’t give credence to every disgruntled citizen who doesn’t like the way we do business. Being frustrated with KCPD isn’t a crime.”

He slapped the letters down on the table beside her. “This isn’t a complaint. It’s a threat.”

“I’ve read worse.” Standing close enough to detect the clean, male smells on Eli’s skin and clothes, Shauna had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. Lord, he was tall. Maybe not NBA size, but the lean cut of his waist and broad angle of his shoulders made him a towering figure.

“Such as?” he prompted, pulling her wandering focus back to the discussion at hand.

She wasn’t reacting to anything Yours Truly had said, she reminded herself. There was a skewed logic about Donnell Gibbs’s arrest that just didn’t make sense to either the cop or the mother in her. She had to make Eli understand that. “Statistics say that the majority of sexual predators know their victims. They have some kind of contact prior to the attack. Gibbs claims she was a random abduction from the park.”

“How does a one-year-old get to the park without…?” Eli paused, realizing he’d just slipped toward her side of the argument by stating another unresolved question in the case.

“Without anyone reporting her missing?” Zing. She’d scored a point in their verbal debate. “And how do you account for the signs of previous physical abuse? Gibbs claims he was only with her for forty-eight hours. That girl had a tragic life before Donnell Gibbs ever met her. If he really did.”

“So there are holes in his story,” Eli conceded, following her back to the kitchenette. “He has a couple of drug arrests on his record, too. Maybe the murder is related to that and not his predatory history. The task force report says his DNA was on the sheet the girl’s body was wrapped in. That puts him at the murder.”

“That puts him with the sheet. His DNA wasn’t on the body.”

Shauna set the mugs in the sink and shivered when Eli’s sleeve brushed past hers. Damn. She was a grown woman with grown children. She had an entire police force under her command. She should be past this volatile-chemical-reaction-to-a-man phase in her life. So why were goose bumps prickling along her arms again?

Eli leaned his hip against the counter and faced her. “Are you trying to stir up a hornets’ nest?”

Though his face was closer to her level, she still had to look up to make eye contact. “I’m trying to make sure we have the right man on trial. I don’t want to give anyone in Kansas City a false sense of security.”

Pulling back the front of his jacket, Eli propped his hands at his waist, unintentionally showcasing the chest that had shielded her from flying bullets and explosive debris. That chest was also radiating more heat than any other spot in her office. But he was regrouping to make a new argument, not issuing an invitation.

“That baby’s unsolved murder was front-page news for over a year. Once Gibbs was arrested, people started letting their children play outside again. The men and women on that task force were handpicked by you. They got commendations. Hell, they could get the key to the city if they wanted.” He hunched his shoulders, drawing his wounded face even closer. “You’re going to raise a huge stink if you reopen this case and try to prove those ten men and women were wrong.”

Shauna walked away, shaking off the inappropriate urge to gravitate toward Eli’s abundant warmth. She felt cold again, but that was merely a by-product of the strain she’d been under. A hot bath and a good night’s sleep would boost her flagging energy. Trusting the gut that had been honed by twenty-five years on the force and summoning the strength that had gotten her out of a debilitating marriage would bolster her courage.

“I can deal with criticism, Eli. It’s part of the job description.” Shauna stopped in the middle of the room and turned to meet the challenge in his eyes. “What I can’t live with is the guilt.”

“You’re that certain the task force arrested the wrong man?”

“After two years of nothing but panic and guilt and broken hearts guiding us, I worry that we were too eager to make this arrest stick. If the wrong man’s on trial, I want to know. An honest mistake I can forgive—I will explain it to the press and public—and I will back those officers one hundred percent.” She pulled back from her soapbox with a deep, steadying breath. “But if any man or woman on that task force skirted the facts or forced Gibbs to confess, I need to know. I need to find out who can tell me that little girl’s name.”

Eli nodded toward the stack of notes from Yours Truly. “Personally, I think you should be more worried about vigilantes than in getting Gibbs off.”

“I will not put an innocent man in prison or sentence him to death just to make the controversy go away.”

Shauna held her breath, watching the pros and cons and consideration of facts play across Eli’s face. He had to be evaluating how difficult such an investigation would be, and deciding if the grief he’d get from his fellow officers would be worth it. Damn, the man was thorough. “What if I say no to this assignment?”

“It’s not a request.”

“I see.” Eli strolled off the distance between them. “So you asked Chang who the biggest hard-ass in I.A. was, and he came up with my name for this job.”

“I asked Chang who his best investigator was. I could figure out the hard-ass part on my own.”

His mouth quirked at the corner, as if her assessment of his character amused him. “You think I can take on the task force, the pride of KCPD and the sentiment of an entire city by myself?”

“I’ll be working on the investigation as well.”

Casting amusement aside, he dismissed that idea. “You’re an administrator.”

She’d never liked being dismissed. Pulling a ring of keys from her belt, Shauna picked up the file and opened her desk to lock the papers inside. “I’ve been a cop for a long time. I think I know my way around the job.”

“Not this job, Shauna.” He followed her, propping his fists on the opposite side of the desk and leaning over it. “You don’t know what an I.A. investigation is like. You’ll make enemies. You run the whole show. You need your people to stay loyal to you.”

“I have enemies. Political ones,” she amended, as soon as she realized she might have revealed more than she should. Shauna fisted her hands and countered Eli’s stance. “Look, I can cut through red tape more easily than anyone on the force. I can get you any files you need, any transcripts—I can put you in contact with the D.A.’s office as well as Gibbs’s attorney. But, like you said, I have to balance the department’s reputation with the needs of the investigation. I can’t go to my people and ask a lot of questions. Not that they’d share their secrets with the boss, anyway. That’s why I need a front man to take the heat while I work behind the scenes.”

“Someone who has a problem keeping partners and wouldn’t automatically be linked to you?”

“Exactly.”

She wasn’t ashamed to reveal why she’d chosen him. It was the only tactical move that made sense without plunging the entire force into chaos. She needed a super-tough, super-smart SOB who could keep his head under the controversy that raising the ghost of Baby Jane Doe would surely generate. But as they stood there, almost nose-to-nose, her pulse racing and her breath coming in deep, uneven gasps, Shauna felt something inside her soften. Yearn. Need.

The air of warmth and strength that encompassed Eli reached out and touched her. Supplanted her own strength. Made her feel a lot more sheltered and a lot less alone in her quest for the truth.

“Please.” Shauna shrugged off her unsettling emotions and reached deep inside to find the cool detachment and superior tone she was famous for. “Help me do this.”

Eli released a huff that stirred a fringe of hair out of place across his forehead. “Do I have a choice?”

Her fingers itched to smooth the dangling lock away from his injury. But what she saw as an intimate caress he might see as mothering. She couldn’t have one, and she didn’t want the other.

“No. You’re on my team now.” Shauna had to step away to keep those traitorous feminine urges from upsetting the code of honor and decorum the job forced her to live by. A knock on her office door intruded, scattering both desires and resolutions.

“Shauna?” Michael Garner rattled the doorknob before his clipped voice grew more urgent. “The door’s locked. Betty’s gone home for the day. I know you’re in there. Is everything all right?”

Glancing out the window, Shauna took note of the sun sinking like a giant golden orange ball on the horizon. She checked her watch. She and Eli had been hashing through the case for nearly three hours. “Oh, no.”

“Shauna?” The deputy commissioner’s knock shook the door.

Eli turned toward the door, his posture bristling. “What’s he in such a tizzy about?”

A key scraped inside the lock. “I’m coming in.”

Eli pulled back his jacket, sliding his hand to his gun.

The overprotective testosterone level on the top floor grew exponentially and Shauna roused herself to action. She laid a warning hand over Eli’s, keeping the gun and the detective in place.

“I’m coming, Michael.”

The door swung open as she reached it, and Michael blew in, snatching her by the arms and backing her up into the room. His eyes were dark with concern. “Why didn’t you answer me?”

“You’re overreacting—”

“This place is dead up here. I saw your light. I thought…” He looked past her and the worry on his face hardened with suspicion. In a subtle yet obvious move, he pulled her behind him, positioning himself between her and Eli. “What’s he doing here?”

Groaning at his mistimed machismo, Shauna quickly extricated herself from his grasp. “Detective Masterson and I had a meeting. We were just wrapping up.” She slipped back into completely professional address now that they had an audience again. “Have you two met?”

Introductions were brief, the handshake briefer. Michael looked from Eli’s impassive expression back to her. “He’s Internal Affairs. Is there a problem?”

She turned away from his question and spoke to Eli. “Will that be all, Detective?”

With a silent plea, she begged him to keep the purpose of their conversation secret. She didn’t need the rumor mill getting ahead of, and possibly impeding, the investigation. Thankfully, she saw that those golden brown eyes could observe and understand without revealing anything. With a curt nod, Eli adjusted his tie and headed for the door. “I’ll report as soon as I know anything. Deputy Commissioner,” he acknowledged. He waited for Michael to move aside before leaving. “Talk to you later, boss lady.”

WHATEVER ENERGY Shauna had felt dissipated as Eli strode down the hallway and disappeared from sight. Strange that the touch of Michael’s fingers on her arm failed to generate even a fraction of the heat she’d felt just bantering words with Eli.

“Boss lady? That’s practically insubordination. Tell me you called him in for a reprimand of some kind.”

Boss lady. Shauna allowed herself a hint of a smile. At least Eli understood who was in charge here. Though she felt that Michael’s concern was sincere, there was something more controlling than caring in his loyal defense of her. Letting him interpret her smile as a show of thanks, she shrugged off his grip and crossed the room to get her jacket and retrieve her purse. “It was a personal meeting, Michael. I can’t disclose the details. How did the meeting with the Chamber of Commerce go?”

“Fine.” Though his mouth was set to push for more information about Eli’s visit, Michael let her change the topic. “They want to do something for Baby Jane Doe. I suggested updating the playground equipment in one of the parks. They could post a plaque with the girl’s name.”

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