A detective and his mysterious new partner must crack an impossible case in USA TODAY bestselling author Marie Ferrarella’s thrilling new novel!

Detective Bryce Cavanaugh already has one tough investigation—an elusive home-invasion team on a dangerous crime spree. And his enigmatic fellow cop Alexandra “Scottie” Scott keeps throwing him curves. She’s relentless at taking charge—and running down leads. But getting the stunning blonde to reveal her secrets is a challenge Bryce just can’t resist.

Scottie prefers to solve cases and save those close to her on her own. Keeping one step ahead of Bryce’s hardheaded persistence is difficult enough. But tension-filled nights and high-adrenaline days are only fueling the passion between them and putting an inescapable target on their backs!

Scottie let out a ragged breath, trying to smile. “You’re being too nice.”

“Sorry, it’s in my DNA. Nothing I can do about it,” Bryce told her, leaning in closer as he wiped away another tear that insisted on spilling out.

The moment seemed to freeze, embossing itself on the folds of time. Very slowly, Bryce lowered his mouth to hers. It was a kiss meant to comfort, a kiss to tell her it was all right to cry. A kiss to let her know that she wasn’t alone in this, that he was there for her and would continue to be there for her.

It bordered on more.

She knew she shouldn’t have let it happen, or, at the very least, that she should have pulled back when it began. But once his lips touched hers, she realized that she was hungrier for comfort than she thought was humanly possible.

* * *

Be sure to check out the next books in this exciting series:

Cavanaugh Justice—Where Aurora’s finest are always in action

Cavanaugh on Call

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two-hundred-and-fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

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To

Dr. Stephen H. Johnson

Who Always Makes Me Feel

Well Cared For

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Alexandra Scott eased herself slowly into the closest chair at the kitchen table. Her eyes were still half closed even though she’d already showered, dressed and poured the obligatory mug of inky-black coffee that she needed to jump-start her day.

Holding the oversize mug with both hands, she forced herself to take a deep sip of the brew. It tasted like hot sludge. Scottie hated black coffee, but she wasn’t drinking it for pleasure. She was drinking it because she had to. If she didn’t, she was liable to wind up sleepwalking through half her day—if not more.

The strong, black liquid landed in the pit of her stomach, spreading out like an oil slick: thick and impenetrable. Slowly it flowed through her entire body, rousing everything in its path until the sum total of her was not only awake but keenly alert.

Setting down the mug, the homicide detective took a deep breath and then blew it out again. Her breath made the wayward strands of dark blond bangs move ever so slightly.

She pushed them back impatiently. She wasn’t one who fussed with her hair, but it would be nice if it could stay put.

How was it that mornings kept arriving faster and faster these days? It felt as if she had just laid her head down on her pillow and here it was, time to get up again and face a full day.

There should be a law, Scottie thought as she reached for the paper she’d automatically picked up at her front door and brought in with her, that mornings weren’t allowed to arrive until after a person had had six decent hours’ sleep. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d been out carousing, enjoying Aurora’s limited nightlife. She’d been out keeping the citizens of that same city safe so that they could enjoy carousing or whatever it was that people enjoyed doing these days. She really wouldn’t know about that. Working one job or another since before she’d turned eighteen, for the last few years she’d been a homicide detective and that had consumed almost all of her life.

Not that she minded, but it would be nice to get a good night’s sleep every now and then.

Stifling a yawn, Scottie blinked once and tried to focus on the newspaper in front of her.

The local paper was her one attachment to her past. While everyone she knew got their news in sound bites or from the internet, Scottie still preferred to get hers from newsprint. Her late grandfather, the man she’d been named after, had been a journalist and, in a way, though the man had died when she was seven, reading the newspaper—when she had the time for it—made her feel close to the man.

She missed those days. Missed not feeling as if the world was on her shoulders.

“C’mon, Scottie, drink up. Don’t dawdle,” she urged herself under her breath. “You’ll be late for work and you don’t want th—”

Scottie almost dropped the mug she’d raised to her lips. Moving like someone in a dream, she set the mug down, her eyes never leaving the story above the fold. The one she’d just fleetingly—and unconsciously—glanced at.

She’d had no intention of reading any of the stories on page one. She’d only meant to glance at a few words here and there in passing, drink the rest of the vile black brew and go. But something had just jumped out at her, commandeering her eyes and grabbing her full attention. When she thought about it later, she wouldn’t have even been able to explain why. There was just something—something—about the story that forced her to sit up and actually absorb the words.

Scottie got no further than the first three lines of the first paragraph before the taste of bile rose in her throat and filled her mouth at the same time she felt the pit of her stomach sink, pinching the sides together.

No!

“No, no, no, no!” she cried out loud, her voice bordering on outrage. “This isn’t happening. This has to be someone else. It has to be.”

But even as she shouted the words at the news article on page one, Scottie had a sick feeling she wasn’t being paranoid.

She was correct.

Ethan.

She had to call her brother and once she had him on the phone, he’d tell her she was wrong. Not in so many words, but by his tone, his inflection. By the unspoken hurt in his voice that she would even think he was involved. She’d known Ethan his entire life and she’d know if he was lying or trying to keep the truth from her.

Willing her hand not to tremble, Scottie hit the number on her cell that would connect her directly to Ethan’s phone, all the while telling herself that this was just a coincidence. An awful, unsettling coincidence. She had worked much too hard to get him back to the straight and narrow and he had worked with her. He’d been clean and out of trouble for almost five years now. Five whole years.

He wouldn’t do this.

Not to himself.

Not to her.

“This isn’t you!” she fairly shouted at the newspaper as she listened to the phone on the other end ring.

On the sixth ring, Scottie snapped to attention. She heard Ethan’s voice.

“This is Ethan Loomis. I’m not available right now. Please leave a message and your number and I’ll get back to you.”

Fear and anger had her throat suddenly so dry she could barely get the words out. “Ethan, this is Scottie. Call me. Now!”

When she terminated the call, Scottie picked up the newspaper and finished reading the article.

Her hands were shaking.

Chapter 1

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Detective Bryce Cavanaugh watched in disbelief as his partner, Detective Peter Phelps, a tall, thin man whose suit jackets hung loosely off his body, packed the last of his personal items into a cardboard box. “You’re actually leaving?” Bryce questioned.

“And they said you’d never amount to anything as a detective,” Phelps said dryly, tossing a half-empty bag of stale chocolate-covered wafers from last Halloween into the box. “Yeah,” the older man said more seriously. “You figured it out. I’m leaving.”

“Was it something I said?” Bryce’s voice cracked, trying to cover up the fact that if this was on the level, it left him far from happy and somewhat surprised. He wasn’t averse to change, but he didn’t exactly welcome a major shake-up, either.

“Hell, it’s everything you said,” Phelps answered tongue in cheek as he opened one drawer after another, checking for anything he might have left behind. “But if you’re asking why I’m leaving the police department, you don’t have anything to do with it.”

Bryce took a seat on the edge of his partner’s desk, crossing his arms before him. “Then educate me, Phelps. Why are you suddenly spring-cleaning your desk two months late?”

The frown on Phelps’s long, gaunt face went clear to the bone. “Alice’s mom is sick,” he said, referring to his wife’s only living parent.

Bryce knew enough to look immediately sympathetic. “Hey, I’m sorry to hear that.” Still perched on the desk, he leaned in to get into his partner’s face. “But I still don’t see the connection.”

Phelps put down a copy of the 1983 Dodger Annual yearbook for his favorite baseball team, pressed his thin lips together and sighed. The sigh sounded as if it came straight from his toes. “The kind of sick where she needs her family around her, doing stuff for her.”

Bryce still didn’t see the problem. “So? Bring her out here. You’ve got those extra bedrooms since your kids went off to college—” He didn’t get a chance to finish.

Phelps eyed him as if he’d lost his mind. “Look, I feel bad for her, but there’s no way that harpy’s moving in with us. Not unless you wanna see my face on a mug shot posted in Homicide with the words ‘Rogue Cop’ over it.”

Bryce was trying very hard to understand what the other man was saying. “So what’s the plan? You and Alice’re moving in with her?”

Phelps shivered. “Different scenario, same results. Alice and I are renting a place up there.”

“There” being Fresno, Bryce recalled.

“She’s going to play Florence What’s-Her-Name and I guess I’m gonna see if I can finally write that crime thriller I’m always talking about.” The contented, wistful expression on his face faded and Phelps got back to the present. “Officially, for now I’m taking an extended leave of absence. Don’t look so glum. I’ll be back,” Phelps promised. “After all, you never forget your first,” he added with a wicked grin, followed by a heartfelt sigh.

Bryce shot the man a look that said he wasn’t amused. “Seriously, just how long is this ‘extended’ leave going to be?”

Bony shoulders rose and fell beneath the loose-fitting jacket. “A few months. Six on the outside. Doctors say that the old girl’s on her way out. Could be anytime now,” he said a little wistfully. And then reality set in. “’Course, she’s got the constitution of a rock. She just might hang around for another ten, twenty years just to stick it to me.” Phelps laughed dryly as he put the last of his things into the cardboard box.

He paused. “Not everybody’s as lucky as you are, partner. Your family gets along and they all have each other’s backs no matter what.” He picked up the box then put it back down again and, only half kidding, said, “Any chance I could get adopted? I wouldn’t take up much space.”

Bryce laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, I’ll be sure to ask.” And then he sobered as he scanned the squad room. “It won’t seem the same without you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll forget about me the second I walk out the door.” Phelps saw that his partner was looking at something or someone over his shoulder. Turning, he saw a slender blonde crossing the threshold, a miniature version of his cardboard box in her hands. “Sooner, maybe,” he commented. “Well, off I go.” He put his hand into Bryce’s, shaking it. “It’s been good. Maybe with luck, I’ll see you soon.”

And then Phelps looked around. “Anyone know where I can pick up some hemlock, cheap?” he asked, raising his voice so that it carried to the rest of the inhabitants of the squad room.

A cacophony of voices answered him as he made his way, nodding through the maze of desks and detectives, toward the exit.

He passed the blonde who was walking in. Assuming that she was there to take his place, Phelps nodded in her direction and, in a low voice, said, “The desk’s in the rear of the room. So’s your partner.” And then he smiled broadly. “Good luck with that.”

* * *

Scottie’s arm tightened around the small box she was carrying. It was only half filled, but she hadn’t been able to find a smaller box when she’d cleaned out her space in Homicide.

The transfer had come through so quickly, Scottie thought, it had almost taken her breath away. She’d been prepared to make several requests and to write long petitions before she got the okay to make the transfer from Homicide to Robbery. She’d been certain she would have to plead her case and be movingly convincing before the approval was given. After all, she’d been fairly certain she had done a more than decent job in Homicide.

She’d certainly managed to clear all her cases. But then, on the other hand, Aurora was not exactly a snake pit of crime. It habitually made the FBI’s top ten list of safest US cities for its size and she liked to think she was part of the reason for that. She worked hard, kept to herself and never challenged authority. As far as she knew, that was the winning formula for a valuable employee.

She’d thought that her commanding officer would have put up more of a fuss about losing her. But to her surprise, after she’d put in her request, stating only that she felt rather burned out working Homicide—it was the only thing that occurred to her to use as her reason for requesting the transfer—it had been granted the next morning. The captain hadn’t even tried to talk her out of it.

Her partner, Joe Mathias, had appeared a little surprised as well as dismayed when he’d learned she was transferring, but not enough to try to get her to change her mind or to attempt to block the transfer.

They had worked well together, but only in the way that two cogs located on the same machine worked well. They had never socialized after hours—her choice—and they didn’t even know any personal details about one another—also her choice. Mathias had tried—he had pictures of his wife and kids on his desk and on occasion would tell her about something he and his family had done over the weekend—but Scottie had zealously kept her private life just that.

Private.

Part of the reason for her secrecy was that she didn’t want anyone to find out about Ethan. He was not only her half brother, at one point she had also been his legal guardian. Her gut instincts had her hiding their connection—just in case.

And now “just in case” had happened—maybe.

For now, it proved to her that she’d been right about deciding to keep her private life under wraps. If her hunch was right, and Ethan was involved in what was now going on, there’d be no way that she would be allowed to work on the break-ins that had suddenly begun to plague the good citizens living in some of the more upscale neighborhoods of Aurora.

If anyone knew about Ethan and the nefarious life he had supposedly left behind, she would be barred from doing any sort of investigation that could clear his name—if Ethan was part of this. It was a phrase she kept hanging on to. She still had no actual proof that he was involved.

But then there was her gut, which compelled her to move forward. Always forward for him—just in case.

* * *

Newly seated, Bryce rose again to get a better look at the woman taking long, measured steps as she crossed the squad room. Just the faintest of hip movement marked every step she took.

He had trouble drawing his eyes away.

His first thought was that she was a hell of what his grandfather would have referred to as “a looker.” His second was that she was one of the city’s residents coming in to file a complaint involving goods stolen during the execution of some sort of a robbery.

But then he took a second look at the box in her hands, a far smaller one than Phelps had used to carry out his possessions, but still a box. That caused Bryce to reassess his initial take.

As he watched the leggy blonde walk in his direction, Bryce was vaguely aware that he wasn’t the only one assessing the woman. Small wonder. The statuesque blonde had a no-nonsense gait that captured a man’s attention from the very first moment she entered his line of sight. Slender, she was wearing a straight, light gray skirt that stopped a few inches above her knee, making her look as if she was all leg.

And what legs! he caught himself thinking. They were the kind of legs that walked right into a man’s dreams and had him fantasizing all sorts of things he had no business fantasizing about—especially if it turned out that there was some sort of a working relationship that had to happen.

Snapping out of his momentary reverie, Bryce crossed over to the newcomer as he summoned his most inviting smile.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

The low voice he heard in response sounded as if it had been wrapped in honey and dipped in warm whiskey before being poured over a glass of ice.

“With what?”

The woman’s response caught him off guard. Bryce heard himself say the first two things that came into his head. “With the box you’re holding. With finding whoever you’re looking for. Anything,” he concluded, leaving the offer open-ended.

“The box isn’t heavy,” she replied, tightening her hold on the box with its meager contents—just a few basic manuals she’d found useful during the execution of her job. “And I’m not looking for a ‘who,’ I’m looking for a desk.”

The grin was instantaneous, widening his mouth to reveal two rows of snowstorm-white teeth. “Fortunately the one next to mine just happens to be empty,” Bryce told her, pivoting on the ball of his foot and doing a 180 so that he was once again facing the direction he had come from.

“Fortunately,” Scottie echoed, her emotionless tone giving no indication she thought it was anything of the kind.

Since he had pointed to the newly vacated desk, Scottie walked toward it. Bryce was right behind her. He took the opportunity to drink in every nuance of her body from that vantage point before hurrying to catch up so that he could at least be at her side when she set her things down.

Which he was.

“I guess you’re taking Detective Phelps’s place,” Bryce said as she put the small box on the desk.

Ordinarily, Bryce didn’t have to search for an icebreaker or an opening line. In his experience, women, even those who were as easy on the eyes as this one was, didn’t need much encouragement when it came to making conversation. They were usually all too eager to do three-quarters of the talking, if not more.

But this one was different. She didn’t seem inclined to talk, which in itself was unusual. Unlike a couple of his brothers, Bryce had never fancied himself to be the strong, silent type. Besides, he’d found that the more someone talked, the more they wound up revealing about themselves. He had never been one who cared for surprises.

He liked knowing things right from the start, liked having things all laid out in front of him, nice and visible.

The blonde at Phelps’s desk obviously didn’t subscribe to that philosophy. At least, it didn’t seem that way.

“Apparently,” the leggy blonde said as she almost bonelessly slid into Phelps’s chair.

Having gotten involved in observing what was nothing short of poetry in motion, Bryce blinked then narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at the newcomer.

“Excuse me?”

Scottie recreated the last two bits of dialogue. “You said it looked like I was taking Phelps’s place. I said ‘apparently.’ There,” she announced in a tone that was nothing short of dismissive. “I think that we’re all caught up.”

Bryce pulled over his own chair, positioning it so that it was inches away from facing hers, and then straddled it. He crossed his arms over the top of the creased black padding as he looked at her. His sharp green eyes all but bored right into her, giving the impression that he could glimpse everything clear down to the bone, every thought, every fear, everything.

“All caught up?” Bryce echoed with just the slightest bit of mockery in his voice. “No, I don’t think so. Not by a long shot.” And then his easygoing manner returned as he asked, “Don’t you want to know my name?”

Soft, expressive blue eyes rose to look into his. “Bryce Cavanaugh,” she replied.

Bryce’s amused grin widened. So she’d done her homework. But why? Was this woman his new partner? And how did everyone but him know that he was getting a new partner?

“Okay, so you know my name,” Bryce conceded. “Don’t you want to know anything else?”

The same slightly disinterested tone she’d used before now accompanied the single word that emerged next from her lips.

“No.”

Undaunted, Bryce informed her, “Well, I want to know some things.” When his seatmate raised her eyes to his again, giving him the impression that she was waiting for his question, he asked it. “Just who the hell are you?”

“Detective Alexandra Scott.” She stopped short of telling him that most people wound up calling her Scottie. He’d find his way to that soon enough—and if he didn’t, that was okay, too. Her priority had always been solving cases, not nicknames.

“Where did you come from?” Bryce questioned, his eyes once again washing over her. Who was this woman and had she been around all this time without him seeing her? He really needed to get out more. “It’s too early for Christmas, so I know it wasn’t a sled with eight tiny reindeer that brought you here. Besides,” he continued as if he was really being serious, “I don’t think I was that good a boy this year to merit someone like you under my Christmas tree.”

Scottie blew out a breath. If she didn’t give him an answer and set him straight, this one looked as if he could go on talking nonsense like this indefinitely. There’d been a number of Cavanaughs in Homicide Division, as well, so she was well acquainted with the way they behaved.

She supposed this was what came of having a huge family to fall back on. People like that could afford to wisecrack and act as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

It was different for her. All there was in her world were cares. Big cares. She’d never had anyone to fall back on. Her father had died before she was eight and her mother, it had soon became apparent, hadn’t been able to keep it together for more than a few days at a time. She wound up mothering her mother as well as Ethan, who was a product of one of her mother’s one-night stands.

Things had never gone smoothly, but they had gone well enough for a while. But then, in a bid for “uniqueness,” Ethan had begun to act out, hanging around with this one small group until he’d gotten in trouble and gotten caught.

It was easy to see that the path he was on had only one final destination. Temporarily putting her own life on hold, she’d sued to become her brother’s guardian, citing that her alcoholic, pill-popping mother was unfit. Shortly after she had, her mother had overdosed and died. That had been over seven years ago.

Scottie had refused to let herself cry. She’d just pushed on, holding down two part-time jobs, going to school online and trying to make a home for herself and Ethan. For a while, things were going all right. Ethan behaved and she wound up joining the Aurora police force.

And then Ethan had fallen back on his old ways. She’d tracked him down, dragged him back and, over the course of one very long weekend during which she’d locked herself up with Ethan, she’d managed to eventually get through to him.

He’d been out of trouble, holding down a job for close to five years.

Until now. She needed to find him before it was too late.

“I just transferred from the Homicide Division,” she heard herself telling the inquisitive detective. She knew she needed to answer just enough of his questions to not arouse any undue suspicions as to her real motives for the transfer.

“By choice?” he asked.

Why was he asking her that? Did he think she had an ulterior motive for getting into his department? “Yes.”

Bryce’s expression was completely unreadable. “Whose?”

She looked at him quizzically for a moment before saying, “Mine.”

Bryce nodded. “I can’t say I blame you. It can get to you, looking at dead bodies all the time. Even one can be too many for some people.”

“Thank you for your understanding,” Scottie said crisply, hoping that was the end of it.

It wasn’t.

Bryce made no effort to vacate his chair or move it back where it belonged. “The seat’s still warm.”

Scottie blinked, totally lost. “What?”

“From my last partner. He just now literally got up and walked out the door a couple minutes ago.” Bryce nodded toward the doorway. “I think you even might have passed each other. Anyway,” Bryce said, shifting to another topic, “I’m surprised they found a substitute so soon.”

“I’m not a substitute, I’m a transfer,” Scottie corrected. When she’d put in for the transfer, no one had said anything about a position being vacated. But given the current string of break-ins, she’d just assumed that the department would be open to getting extra help.

Bryce misread her defensive tone. “I didn’t mean to make that sound belittling.”

Whether she liked it or not, if she was going to get along with this man, she had to get a grip. Learn the ropes. So she forced herself to flash a half-apologetic smile in his general direction.

“Sorry, it’s been a rough morning,” she told him vaguely.

Bryce was nothing if not a sympathetic ear. His sisters had taught him well. “Care to share?” he asked.

She’d grown up bottling up every single emotion she’d ever experienced. She’d done her best over the years to be Ethan’s pillar. But no one had ever been hers. There was no way she was about to start now.

“No.”

For some reason he hadn’t expected her to say anything else. Bryce suppressed a laugh. Instead he said, “Scottie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” paraphrasing the closing line in one of his favorite old movies, Casablanca.

“If you say so,” Scottie replied dismissively. All she wanted to do was to settle in and get down to work.

Chapter 2

She’d never heard any talk that one of the innumerable Cavanaughs to be found within the police department was a little lacking in the cerebral area. But then, Scottie assumed that wasn’t exactly a topic that anyone would bring up if they could help it. Over the years the Cavanaughs had become the very lifeblood of the police department and since the chief of detectives was a Cavanaugh—an exceptionally fair, evenhanded man, she’d heard—it seemed only prudent to not muddy the waters if it could possibly be avoided.

Still, in her opinion, the detective whose desk was butted up against hers seemed far too prone to just smile for no particular reason, like some sort of happy idiot.

She supposed he could be on the level.

What was it like, she wondered, just to be happy for no reason at all?

Was it even possible?

Great, only five minutes into her transfer and she was already waxing philosophical, Scottie upbraided herself. If she wasn’t careful, she was in real danger of turning into one of those people she had always disliked and thought of as useless. People who lived to contemplate absolutely nothing of consequence and went on about it ad infinitum.

Quickly putting away the few things she had brought with her from her old desk, Scottie was acutely aware of the fact that Bryce Cavanaugh was still hovering over her like a drone trying to decide just where to finally strike.

Scottie shut her middle drawer and focused her attention on the handsome, annoying man looming over her.

“Is there something I can help you with?” she asked in a crisp, distant voice.

Bryce’s smile was nothing if not affable. “No, I kind of thought it might be the other way around.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t need any help,” she informed him.

“I was just volunteering to take you to Lieutenant Handel and introduce you.” For just a fleeting second he thought he saw a silent query in the blonde’s laser blue eyes. “You know, the guy who barks out the orders and sends us out on our assignments. It’s usually protocol to report to him first thing when you join his squad.”

Damn, she’d forgotten all about that. She hated slipping up like this. She was usually so detail-oriented. But she’d been so consumed with trying to locate Ethan and head him off—if this really was Ethan’s work—as well as getting transferred to Robbery that she’d forgotten all about the final steps involved in a department transfer.

Scottie took a deep breath, pulling herself together as subtly as possible.

“Right,” she lied, “I was just getting to that. I didn’t want to just leave my things all over the place when I went to check in with the commanding officer.”

She rose and so did Bryce.

His attention entirely on his new partner, Bryce pushed his chair back toward his desk without sparing it a single glance. It still came to rest in the right place. “Let’s go,” he said.

“I don’t need an escort.” She thought she’d already made that clear. “Just point out his office.” Although she actually had a fairly good idea where to find the squad leader.

Everyone was out in the open. As with the Homicide Division, the person in charge occupied a glass office located against the wall farthest from the squad room’s entrance. Originality was not exactly the department’s strong suit.

“I was taught it wasn’t polite to point,” he told her, humor glinting his green eyes.

He’d almost be cute if he wasn’t so damn annoying, Scottie thought. But he was annoying and, besides, she wasn’t in the market for cute. She was in the market to either put her mind at ease about Ethan or, barring that, to clear Ethan’s name and extricate him, if possible, from any kind of mess he had allowed himself to get mixed up in. “Cute” had no place in that.

Bryce’s smile widened. “Humor me. You’ll find I can be a very useful guy,” he added, hoping that was the end of the discussion.

Scottie had learned to work alone. A partner, especially one who apparently fancied himself as God’s gift to womankind as this one so obviously did, would only get in her way in more ways than she could count. But she didn’t want to commemorate her first day in the department by butting heads with one of the Cavanaughs—especially since it looked as if the man was going to be her partner.

Could it get any worse? Scottie asked herself.

The question no sooner occurred to her than the answer came to her. It could be a lot worse—if Ethan was actually involved in these break-ins.

She stifled a shiver, trying not to go there mentally.

“Lead the way, Useful Guy,” she told Bryce, making no attempt to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

This is going to get interesting, Bryce thought, amused while he did exactly as she requested.

Since the door to the tiny room was open, Bryce paused to knock on the office door frame then stuck his head into the lieutenant’s space. “You got a minute, Loo?” he asked.

“Not since I signed on to take over this department,” the older man lamented.

Pausing and saving the screen he was working on, Lieutenant Mike Handel, father of three and twenty-one-year veteran with the department, turned his chair fifteen degrees to the left and looked at the two occupants standing in his cubbyhole of an office.

“Yes?”

“Phelps just left,” Bryce informed his superior. Then, gesturing toward the woman beside him, he said, “And this appears to be his replacement.”

Handel half rose in his chair in a minor show of respect. Gaunt, with what looked to be a two-day shadow, he appeared to be impressed. “Nice to know that Personnel can operate so efficiently. I don’t recall even sending down the proper request form to Human Resources for a replacement.”

“You didn’t,” Scottie said, speaking up. “It was just serendipity. I asked for the transfer.”

The lieutenant smiled but his expression beneath the smile was unreadable.

“‘Serendipity,’” he repeated. “Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day. I’m Lieutenant Handel,” he told the young woman standing in front of his desk. He extended his hand to her.

“Detective Alexandra Scott,” Scottie replied, taking the hand the man offered and shaking it.

“Tell me, ‘Detective Alexandra Scott,’ I’m curious...” Handel asked, sitting again. “Did you request to be transferred into Robbery or out of Homicide?”

Scottie paused only for a second before answering. “A little of both, sir.”

Handel nodded. “Good answer—except for the ‘sir’ part. ‘Sir’ is for my father and the Chief of Ds. If you want my attention, just say ‘Loo.’” And then Handel put his hand out again, waiting.

Belatedly, Scottie remembered that she was still holding on to her transfer orders along with a file containing a thumbnail summary of her police service background.

“Sorry,” she murmured, placing the file in front of him on the desk.

“Nothing to be sorry about, Detective.” Opening the file, Handel skimmed through it quickly then looked up at her again. “Everything seems to be in order, Detective. I take it that you already know you’ll be partnering up with Cavanaugh here.”

Scottie didn’t pretend to smile at the prospect. “Yes, sir—um, Loo. But I thought I should mention that I work better alone.”

Mentally, Scottie crossed her fingers even though she had a feeling that it was hopeless.

Just as she’d guessed, her statement had less than no effect on her new commanding officer.

“Superman works alone. The rest of us work in pairs. Except for me. I work with all of you. Trust me,” Handel went on, “in this department, you’ll need all the help that you can get. Stupid criminals exist mostly in amusing anecdotes in Reader’s Digest. Today’s breed of thief is smarter, quicker and way sharper than the thief from your father’s generation.”

Scottie was still standing at military attention. “I’ll keep that in mind, si—Loo.”

Handel laughed, clearly tickled by her struggle to address him correctly.

“Work on that, Detective. You’ll get the hang of it.” And then Handel turned to look at Bryce. “Why don’t you help the new kid here catch up on what you and some of the others have been working on?” he suggested.

“You got it, Loo,” Bryce answered, more than ready to accommodate his superior. He and Scottie turned, beginning to leave the small inner office.

“Oh, Scott,” Handel suddenly called out.

Scottie turned and glanced at the man, wondering if he was having second thoughts about her transfer or if there was something else that was wrong. She had learned, long ago, never to expect smooth sailing even if the surface of the lake was as smooth as glass.

“Yes, Loo?”

Because she hadn’t stuttered and stumbled over his name, Handel smiled his approval then told her what he’d wanted to say. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

She followed her new partner out.

“He takes a little getting used to,” Bryce confided as if he could read her thoughts. As do you, probably, Bryce added silently.

“No more than anyone else,” she replied with a vague shrug. “Everybody’s got their rules and quirks.”

“What are yours?” he asked as they got back to their desks.

“I’ve just got two,” she told him simply. “Rules, not quirks,” she clarified. “Do a good job and never mix work with home. Can we get to work now?” she asked, signaling an end to any exchange he thought they might be making.

“Absolutely. I take it that you’re aware of the series of break-ins that have been going on these last few weeks,” Bryce said, pulling his chair up a little closer to her desk as he lowered his voice just a shade.

She’d been the one to request they get to work, yet the question he’d just led with seemed almost out of the blue. So much so that it almost appeared he was asking her personally rather than just as a general introduction to the case she would be working.

Ever mindful of the possibility that Ethan was involved in these break-ins, her main concern was that, somehow, the connection would be made and once it was known that she was Ethan’s sister—even his half sister—she wouldn’t be allowed to work to clear his name.

“Why?” she responded uneasily, watching Bryce’s every move.

Bryce studied his new partner. Suddenly she appeared rather jumpy. Was that because she was the new kid on the block or was there something else going on that he needed to look into? Something he needed to know about before things went any further, both in the investigation and besides that?

After a moment he chalked up her momentary display of nerves to her wanting to do well on her first assignment in the new division. He couldn’t exactly blame her for that.

“Because it’s all over the news these days, for one thing,” he explained, still covertly studying her reaction to this whole scenario.

“Oh, right. Sorry,” she apologized. And then she knew just how to play this—survival in all sorts of situations had taught her that. “I had too much coffee this morning and I guess I just want to carry my weight right off the bat. Didn’t mean to sound jumpy.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to carry your own weight—and mine, too,” he added with a chuckle. “I’ve got a list of people who’ve come home to find that they’ve been paid a little visit by our local friendly break-in artists. It’s here somewhere.” As he spoke, he began searching through the various files on his desk.

The files looked as if they’d been dropped on his desk by a passing hurricane. Nothing seemed to be organized.

In her opinion Cavanaugh had an awful lot of unnecessary papers scattered over on his desk. It became abundantly clear that the papers were stuck into files in no particular order, either. Finding just one specific thing would be like going on a wild-goose chase.

Finally she couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. “Wouldn’t you have more luck if you had all that on the computer?” she asked.

He countered her suggestion with a list of reasons why he hadn’t had anyone input the material into files on the computer. He was computer literate, but he had never become a fanatic about it.

“Paper files don’t suffer glitches or suddenly become unavailable because of power outages. Besides,” he said, sparing her a grin before going back to the hunt, “this way’s easier.”

Her eyes swept over the haphazard piles of files. “If you say so,” she murmured.

Eventually, Bryce laid his hands on everything he was looking for. He in turn handed them all over to his new partner.

For her part, Scottie spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon going through the various files that Bryce, his former partner and a couple of other detectives in the squad room had compiled.

There had been eight break-ins in this latest wave of home robberies. All the robberies had taken place in Aurora’s more exclusive, upper-end neighborhoods. That was the one thing all the incidents had in common. The only other thing they had in common—for now—was that there had been no one home at the time of the break-ins.

But beyond that, nothing seemed similar to her. The people who’d had their space violated had no common thread running through all their lives. They didn’t attend the same church, didn’t shop in the same stores and they didn’t send their children to the same schools. Two of the victims were single men, while the other five were families.

At first glance the break-ins seemed to all be just random invasions, haphazardly picked, but Scottie knew better than that. There had to be a common thread running through them, something that had drawn the thief’s attention in the first place, like a theme, or a memory, or payback for something.

She just prayed that the common thread running through all these home invasions wasn’t Ethan.

For the umpteenth time Scottie slipped her phone out of her pocket and swiped the screen, bringing it to life. She checked her texts and then her voice messages.

Nothing.

Ethan hadn’t called her back, hadn’t texted. Something was wrong, she knew it.

The old Ethan, the one she’d had to bail out of jail on more than one occasion before he’d finally come to his senses, wouldn’t have called her back. He would have carelessly ignored her messages until it suited his schedule to call her back. But the new Ethan, the one who was finally amounting to something, the one who gave meaning to her life, he would have definitely called her back. He would have called her the moment she’d left her first message.

It occurred to her that she hadn’t heard from Ethan in a month.

She’d just chalked it up to his being busy. She didn’t want him to feel as if she was breathing down his neck, but she really did want to know where he was.

Where are you, Ethan? she silently demanded as she stared at her phone.

“Checking for messages from your boyfriend?” Bryce asked.

Scottie swung her chair around, narrowly avoiding hitting the detective smack in his knees.

“Don’t you make any noise when you sneak up on people?” she accused.

“I think the answer to that is self-explanatory, otherwise it wouldn’t be called ‘sneaking.’ But since I have your attention, I was just curious. You’ve checked your phone at least once every hour since you started working those files. Hot date?” he asked, amused.

“To answer your question, no, I’m not checking for messages from my boyfriend. I don’t have a boyfriend, consequently there is no ‘hot date,’” Scottie informed him rather coldly.

Now that, Bryce thought, he found very hard to believe, given the way the woman looked.

But he let the topic drop, to be followed up some other time.

“Well, it’s time to call it a day, anyway. Why don’t you join me for a drink at Malone’s?” he suggested.

Malone’s, run by a retired policeman, was where more than one officer of the law could be found unwinding and temporarily setting down the burdens of the day. Bryce assumed she was familiar with it since, at one time or another, they’d all frequented the establishment.

“I thought we could celebrate your first day on the job. I’m buying,” he added, hoping that would erase any objections she might voice at the idea.

Scottie shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll have to pass. I have somewhere else I have to be.”

Before he could ask her where, Scottie had picked up her slim messenger bag, slung the strap over her shoulder and walked quickly out of the squad room.

Chapter 3

It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later, when he started to leave the squad room himself, that Bryce saw the cell phone still laying on his new partner’s desk. The cell’s black case made it easily blend in with the desktop.

Snatching it up, Bryce quickly hurried out of the squad room and to the elevator to catch up with his new partner. But he was too late. She had already gotten on and went down.

Not bothering to wait for another elevator car to arrive—that would only cost him more time—Bryce opted for the stairs. He fairly flew down the three flights to the ground floor. But as he emerged out of the stairwell, he found the elevator car standing open and empty. Scottie was nowhere to be seen. She must have just left the building.

Just how fast did this woman move?

Not bothering to contemplate the question, Bryce exited the building via the rear entrance. The second he got out, he saw Scottie in the distance. She was just getting into her car. He whistled and called out her name, but she obviously didn’t hear him.

Bryce regarded the phone in his hand. He supposed he could just give her the cell phone tomorrow when she came in. That would be the simplest thing to do. But since cell phones were no longer just phones but the owner’s vital connection to the world, Bryce decided to give it one more try and go after her.

Pocketing the cell, Bryce hurried over to his own vehicle and got into it. After he started the car, he went out the same way he assumed his partner had.

When he left the lot, he just barely managed to catch sight of her silver subcompact making a right at the corner.

Employing his best tailing skills, Bryce followed the silver Honda for several blocks. He made sure to keep one car length behind her. He knew that he could just speed up, flip on his siren and catch up to her, but he had to admit his curiosity had been aroused. Just where else was it that his partner just “had to be” that had caused her to turn down a friendly drink and forget to take her phone?

Keeping her in his sights, Bryce wound up following his new partner beyond the city limits into the next city. Vaguely familiar with the area, he saw that she was driving toward a less than upscale neighborhood.

Just where the hell is she going at this time of day in this area?

By the time he saw Scottie’s car pull into a parking lot, his curiosity was not just aroused but fully engaged. Especially when he looked around and realized she had parked right in front of a homeless shelter.

That did not look like the kind of place someone like Scottie would go to, he thought. At least not unless she was following a lead.

Could that be it? Had she picked up something in all those files he’d given her to review and not said anything to him? Just exactly how much of a Lone Ranger was this woman?

Needing answers, Bryce pulled his car up into the lot and parked several spaces away from hers in the first spot he could find. Shutting off his engine, he sat back and waited.

And waited.

Since it was still light out, it allowed him to absorb the details of the squat, two-story building and its surrounding area. He supposed, as far as homeless shelters went, this one looked to be in decent repair. As he sat, he watched several people enter the building, all looking as if what they needed most was a bath and a container of hope.

Thirty-five minutes later, he saw the door open from the inside and watched as Scottie finally came out. He snapped to attention. She did not look happy, he noted.

Judging from the scowl on her face, she appeared to be frustrated.

“Okay, time for some answers,” Bryce muttered to himself as he got out of his car.

Ever alert, the sudden movement caught her eye and Scottie swung around to face it. When she realized who it was, she frowned. Deeply.

What the hell was he doing here?

Incensed, she strode quickly toward the man and his vehicle.

“Are you following me?” Scottie challenged, not bothering to hide the fact that she was less than happy about the prospect of finding him there, obviously watching her.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I am,” Bryce admitted, seeing no reason to hide the fact. “It didn’t start out that way but, well, here we are.”

Didn’t he even have the decency to be embarrassed about being caught?

“Where the hell do you get off, following me?” Scottie demanded. By this point, she was standing next to Cavanaugh, glaring up into his face, her eyes shooting daggers. “Is this some kind of weird hobby of yours? I can’t think of a single reason for you to be following me.”

He appeared completely unfazed by her growing anger even though it looked as if she was going to explode at any moment.

“Can’t you? Try harder,” he coaxed. In response, he saw her anger spike up to another level.

“What is this, a game to you? Are you hazing me? Hazing the newcomer, is that it?” She struggled not to shout the question into his face. “Because I’m not a newcomer. I’ve been on the force for five years and I have—”

Part of him wondered just how angry she could get and just what she would wind up ultimately threatening him with. But if he let her detonate like that, there’d be no coming back. And it wasn’t exactly going to guarantee that they’d work well together. No, he needed to dial this back a bit because they were obviously going to be working together, at least until she transferred again.

She appeared to be on the verge of sputtering.

Reaching into his pocket, Bryce took out her phone and held it aloft before her.

“Have you tried to make a call since you left the precinct?” he asked, effectively cutting off her budding tirade.

Her growing anger came to a screeching halt. Silence suddenly slammed into the moment. She stared, dumbfounded, at the object in his hand.

In a far more subdued voice, Scottie said, “That’s my cell phone.” Confused, she raised her eyes to his again.

“That’s what it is, all right,” he agreed amicably, his expression giving no indication that he had just been on the receiving end of hot words.

She looked confused. “What are you doing with it?”

“Trying to return it to you,” he told her mildly. “You left it on your desk when you walked out and I thought you might need it,” he explained. “I tried to catch up with you but you really move fast for a woman in high heels.” There was a note of amused admiration in his voice.

Scottie said the first thing that came to her mind. “Why didn’t you just call out my name?”

Completely embarrassed, she could almost feel the color rising to her cheeks. She’d practically jumped down his throat and ripped out his tongue, and apparently all he was trying to do was a good deed.

She had to get a grip, Scottie chided herself. Going off the deep end wasn’t going to do Ethan any good and it could terminate her career, commendations or no commendations.

“I did, but I couldn’t get your attention. And I couldn’t very well call or text you, either,” he added with a grin. He handed over the phone to Scottie. “These days, people have their entire lives on their phone and I figured you might want yours back.”

“Thanks,” she murmured. Taking the cell, she tucked it into her messenger bag. “I owe you one,” she tacked on ruefully.

Bryce shrugged. “Have that drink with me at Malone’s and we’ll call it even.”

Malone’s again. She was tempted to ask this bright and upstanding representative of the Cavanaughs why it was so important to him that they have a drink together, but since he had obviously gone out of his way to get her phone to her, instead of questioning him about what was undoubtedly looked upon as a tradition by Cavanaugh and his crew, she decided to just go along with things.

“Okay,” she finally replied. “If that’s what it takes, I’ll have that beer with you.”

Her wording caught his attention. “So then we’ll be even, is that what you mean?”

“I don’t see it that way,” she admitted, “but since you went out of your way like this to reunite me with my phone and, for some reason I don’t understand, having a drink after work means something to you, and since I am in your debt, the answer to your invitation is yes.” Having agreed, she pressed her lips together. “I’ll follow you there.”

She expected Bryce to get into his car, but he remained where he was. “Table or stool?” he wanted to know.

Scottie stared at him. Was this some kind of code? “Excuse me?”

“If you’re following me,” he patiently explained, “that means I’ll get there first. I just wanted to know if you would rather sit at a table or take a stool at the bar?”

A table represented more privacy, a small haven from the general press of bodies and the noise, but a bar stool, while implying brevity to her also left her out in the open and vulnerable. She liked neither choice so she shrugged. “Surprise me.”

He studied her for a moment. Part of him felt she had no intention of showing up, which had him wondering a host of other things he hadn’t quite nailed down yet, but he wasn’t about to stand out there in the parking lot, negotiating details.

“I’ll do my best,” he told her with a wide, inviting smile.

The man obviously thought he was too good-looking for his own good, Scottie decided as she made her way to her car. Reaching it, she turned in his direction and waved her hand, indicting that he could go.

He didn’t. Instead he waited until her vehicle drew closer to his and then he put his car into drive and pulled out of the parking space.

Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw that Scottie was indeed following him.

How long was that going to last? he mused, still not certain he could take her at her word—which in turn would bode rather badly for their fledgling work relationship. A man had to trust his partner, otherwise his life wouldn’t be worth the proverbial plug nickel for long.

Bryce drove slowly, as if he was a sixteen-year-old driver with a brand-new learner’s permit going on a maiden run under his father’s watchful eye. Approaching intersections, if the light had turned yellow, he came to a full stop instead of pressing down harder on the accelerator to make it through before the light went red. Looking back over his life, Bryce couldn’t remember ever driving as slowly as he did tonight.

Consequently, it felt like getting to Malone’s took forever, but finally he found himself pulling into the parking lot.

He parked in the first space he found, then got out quickly and looked over his shoulder to see if his partner was still behind him.

A silver Honda was just pulling into the lot.

“Son of a gun. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” he murmured to himself, grinning. She’d actually followed him, he thought, astonished.

Parking her car, Scottie got out and then wove in and out of the rows of vehicles, making her way toward Malone’s front entrance and, apparently, to Cavanaugh who was just standing there, watching her every move.

A lesser woman would have felt self-conscious, but it had never been about looks for Scottie. Everything else had always been too important for her to waste any time worrying about her appearance or spending hours fussing with her hair. She had a living to earn and a brother to raise.

She’d done progressively better and better with the first part. The second part, not so much, she thought now. She’d showed Ethan’s photo to everyone at the shelter, but no one had seen her brother. The shelter had once been his go-to place when he’d wanted her to find him. Helping out at the shelter in turn seemed to help him and center him.

He was a good guy, she thought. He just needed help to stay the course.

“I thought you were going to find someplace for us to sit,” she said to Bryce as she approached.

“Changed my mind,” he said mildly. “I thought I’d wait since you might have trouble finding me once you were inside.”

“I wouldn’t have any trouble, I’d just follow the light from your aura,” she quipped.

Rather than get his back up, or take offense, Bryce seemed amused by her wisecrack. “And here I thought I’d hidden it so well.”

She wasn’t about to stand out there, talking half the night away. She reached for the door. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

“‘Over with’?” he repeated. “This isn’t a root canal, Scottie. It’s just two partners having a drink together, getting to know each other.” Turning from her, he reached for the heavy oak door, opened it and then stood there holding it for her.

She glanced at him over her shoulder just before she crossed the threshold.

“I don’t need to ‘get to know’ you. I know all I need to know about you,” she informed him.

“Probably not,” he countered easily. “And I know that I know next to nothing about you,” he said as he ushered her into the large room.

For a moment Scottie stood just inside the bar. She’d been on the force for five years, but this was her first time inside the bar most of the other officers and detectives frequented.

Depending on the day of the week, Malone’s was full to varying degrees of that word. Tonight, a Wednesday, it was all but teeming with patrons, men and women who made it their life’s business to keep the residents of the city safe and secure in their beds.

Slowly looking around, Scottie saw a number of people she recognized, people she had formerly worked side by side with in Homicide. She saw the surprised looks on several of their faces.

They obviously hadn’t expected to see her there. Well, no more surprised than she was to find herself there, Scottie thought. She promised herself that she would have one bottle of beer with Bryce Cavanaugh—probably not the entire contents—and then, her so-called debt repaid, she’d be free to go.

When she felt the hand on her elbow, her first reaction was to pull away. She actually tried, but the hand just took a tighter hold.

“Easy, Scottie, I’m not trying to take your elbow from you, I’m just guiding you over to that table,” Bryce whispered against her ear.

He did so because the noise level inside Malone’s was steadily increasing and he instinctively knew she wouldn’t want attention drawn to her by having him raise his voice so she could hear him. He had no way of knowing that getting so close to her, whispering so that his breath glided along her neck, would cause Scottie to unexpectedly feel something that had her instantly bracing herself.

But, braced or not, it was too late, Scottie realized. She could feel something stirring as if in automatic response.

Not the time, not the time, Scottie harshly told herself, tamping down the feeling that had no place in her life right now.

Her entire focus had to be on Ethan, on finding him and, if it came to it, saving him, although she was still fervently praying there was some acceptable reason why he wasn’t home, why he wasn’t picking up his cell phone.

A reason that had nothing to do with these break-ins.

“This okay?” Bryce was asking her.

It took her a second to focus and realize what Bryce was saying. They were at a small table for two. It looked to be almost intimate if it wasn’t for the fact that there was so much noise surrounding them. She supposed this was as good as anyplace.

“Sure, why not?” she said with a shrug.

“Good answer,” he remarked with a smile. “What’s your poison?”

Scottie never hesitated. “Pushy partners who won’t back off.”

The corners of his mouth curved in amusement. She was feisty, he thought. He was raised with feisty women. Anything less would have been exceedingly dull. “I meant to drink.”

She gave him the name of a currently popular beer.

“That’s a new one on me. Is that any good?” Bryce asked.

“Better than most. I’m not much of a drinker,” she told him.

Even though there was so much noise building around them, his laugh wasn’t lost in the din. Instead it seemed to undulate right through her, like a shiver waiting to happen.

“I already picked up on that,” Bryce told her. His grin intensified. “See, I’m learning things about you already.” The table was several feet away from the bar itself. “Stay right here,” he requested. “I’ll be right back.”

With that, he made his way to the bar to order their drinks.

Scottie glanced over her shoulder at the front door.

Chapter 4

This would be a perfect time to make a getaway, Scottie thought. Cavanaugh’s back was to her and he was busy trying to get the bartender’s attention. The latter was taking and filling orders like a house afire, but it still looked as if it might take him at least a few minutes to get to Cavanaugh.

If she slipped away now...

If she slipped away now, Cavanaugh would undoubtedly hunt her down and insist on collecting his “debt” at some other, probably less convenient, time. Scottie sighed. She might as well resign herself to getting this over with and out of the way.

It wasn’t easy, but she stayed where she was.

Cavanaugh came back faster than she thought he would, a mug of beer in each hand.

“You’re still here,” Bryce said. There actually was a note of surprise in his voice.

That made two of them, Scottie thought.

“I said that I would have that drink with you,” she reminded Cavanaugh. “What, did you think I’d make a break for it?”

She found herself, just for a moment and very reluctantly, being drawn in to the man’s genial smile. It was just this side of sexy and difficult to ignore.

“It crossed my mind, yes,” he answered.

Her eyes met his. Maybe ground rules were called for here. “When I say I’ll do something, I do it.”

Bryce placed her mug of beer in front of her and then, straddling his chair, set his mug down where he was sitting.

“Good to know.” He raised his mug, waiting for her to do the same. When she didn’t, he went ahead with his toast. “Well, here’s to a fruitful partnership.”

Scottie knew she couldn’t very well ignore the sentiment behind that, so she nodded, raised her mug and clinked it against his.

Taking a sip, she placed her drink down again. Glancing at her watch, she wondered how long she would have to remain at Malone’s before Cavanaugh would call them square and let her leave.

“So, do you do that often?” Bryce asked out of the blue.

Caught off guard, she stared at him, quickly reviewing their sparse conversation. She came up empty. “Do what?”

“Serve dinner at the homeless shelter. I assume that was what you were doing there.” He hadn’t seen her carry in any bags of clothes to donate, so he had come to the only conclusion he could about her thirty-five-minute visit to the shelter. “Very noble, by the way,” he added.

She frowned. What she’d heard about the Cavanaughs was true. Once they latched on to something, they just wouldn’t let go. She was going to have to answer him.

“Before you start fitting me for a halo,” she told Bryce, “I wasn’t there serving dinner.”

“Oh?” He watched her over the rim of his mug. “Then what were you doing at the homeless shelter?”

The words “none of your business” rose to her lips, but antagonizing Cavanaugh from the get-go would just cause problems and she already had more than enough of those. So, she grudgingly told her partner, “I was looking for someone.”

The look in his eyes told her that his interest had piqued a notch higher. “Who?”

Okay, this had gone as far as she was willing to go with it. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I do off duty is my own business.”

If she’d offended him, she saw no indication. “No, you’ve got that right. I was just going to volunteer to help you find that ‘someone,’ that’s all.”

He couldn’t help her, not without her opening up about Ethan, her brother’s past and her concerns that it had caught up with him again.

“I don’t need help,” she told him.

The last thing she needed was to have Cavanaugh looking for her brother’s whereabouts. It wouldn’t take much for him to unearth a slew of things she didn’t want anyone knowing. Once Cavanaugh started digging, it would be all too easy for him to make the leap from her brother and his particular set of skills to the current break-ins plaguing the city’s residents.

“I don’t know about that,” Bryce countered. She looked up at him sharply and he explained, “Maybe it’s because I was raised with so many relatives, always willing to pitch in, but to my way of thinking, everyone needs help at some time or other.”

“Fine,” she said with finality, hoping this would be the end of it. “When I decide that I need help, I’ll let you know.”

Bryce studied her for a moment and she could almost feel his eyes probing her, poking around in places he had no business being.

“Will you?” he asked. The expression on his face told her he wasn’t that convinced.

She instantly responded the way she knew he wanted her to. “Absolutely.”

“I thought you always told the truth.” The skeptical note in his voice told her she hadn’t managed to fool him.

Okay, time to go, Scottie decided. She’d done her due diligence, now she had to go home. She wasn’t sure just what her next move was since no one at the shelter had heard from Ethan in several months. Hearing that had just concerned her even more. Where was he? What had caused this break in his routine?

She refused to allow panic to take center stage. If it did, then she’d be lost, not to mention that Ethan might very well be lost, as well. She had a feeling he might need her at her sharpest.

Scottie pushed back her chair. “Well, this has been fun, but I’ve got to get going,” she told Bryce, preparing to get up.

But what she’d hoped would be a clean getaway hit a rather large stumbling block when a tall, muscular man moved right in front of her.

“Damn, it is you,” he said, surprised and pleased at the same time. He looked to Bryce, who was still seated. “Is the end of the world coming?”

Scottie looked up and found herself staring into the face of Duncan Cavanaugh, Bryce’s older brother and one of the people she had worked with on occasion while she’d been assigned to Homicide.

An incredulous expression on his face, Duncan looked at his brother. “How did you manage to talk her into coming to Malone’s? She always said no when she was working Homicide.”

Bryce grinned. “I guess she just finds me better company than you.”

“Yeah, like that’s the reason.” Duncan laughed, dismissing the answer and shaking his head. He turned back to Scottie who continued to look as if she was out of her natural habitat. “Well, it’s nice to see you, Scottie. Hope things are working out for you in Robbery.”

“Too soon to tell,” she replied quietly, unconsciously slanting a glance toward Bryce.

“Nothing’s changed, I see. Honest to a fault,” Duncan commented. He smiled at her. “It has its charm.” It was unclear if he was referring to her honesty or to her new department. With that, he raised his bottle in a silent salute. “Carry on, little brother.”

“Shouldn’t you be home?” Bryce asked. When Duncan looked at him quizzically, Bryce elaborated. “Isn’t Noelle due any day now?”

“Another week or so,” Duncan answered. A bemused smile played on his lips. “But you know that old adage about a watched pot not boiling—”

Hearing that, Scottie couldn’t help commenting, “I’m sure your wife must love being compared to a pot.”

“Actually,” Duncan told her, “she was the one who came up with that line when she insisted I go about my business normally. As if I could.” Duncan laughed with a shake of his head. “Lucy’s with her when I can’t be home,” he told his brother in case the latter thought he was just abandoning his wife.

“‘Lucy’?” Scottie repeated.

“Noelle’s grandmother,” Duncan told her. “She doesn’t like being called ‘grandma.’ Likes ‘great-grandma’ even less,” he added with a laugh.

“Still, don’t you want to be sober for your firstborn?” Bryce asked.

“I am sober, bro. So sober that it’s almost painful. This is a light ale,” he told them, holding his bottle aloft. “And I’ve only had one, which is my limit these days. I’m here more for the company than the libation,” Duncan confided. “Like I said, Noelle doesn’t like having me hovering around her, being nervous.”

“You, nervous?” Bryce echoed incredulously. Growing up, Duncan had always been the one who leaped first then looked, practically giving their late mother a heart attack more than once. “I thought you were the brother with nerves of steel.”

“His nerves might be made of steel, but he’s got a heart made out of pure mush,” Moira Cavanaugh, their sister, chimed in as she joined their small circle. “Hi, I’m Moira. I have the sad fortune of being their sister,” she told Scottie, indicating both men at the table.

Duncan was about to defend his good name when suddenly the first few bars of a song that almost everyone was familiar with rang out. It was a marching song written by John Philip Sousa. Both Bryce and Moira looked right at Duncan who, for the first time in his life, turned rather pale.

“It’s Lucy,” he cried before he even took out his cell. “I had Valri program that ringtone for Noelle’s grandmother so I’d know it was her calling.”

“Maybe she’s just checking in to see when you’re coming home,” Moira suggested, even though it appeared to Scottie that she was beginning to get excited, as well.

“What are the odds?” Duncan asked. Yanking the phone out of his pocket, he almost dropped it right in front of Scottie before he managed to get a better grip on it and then swipe it open. “Hello? Is it time?” he asked, his voice almost breathless. “Oh. Okay.” His shoulders sagged with relief as he told the caller, “I’ll pick it up on my way home. Be there in twenty minutes.”

Terminating the call, Duncan saw that all eyes around the small table and beyond were on him.

“Noelle wants me to pick up some mint-chip ice cream on my way home.”

Like the others, Bryce had thought it was “time.” The false alarm had him laughing. “Better get going then, bro. And give my love to Noelle.”

“Isn’t that how this whole thing got started?” Moira quipped innocently.

Duncan waved a silencing hand at her. He left his half-consumed bottle of ale on the table, nodding at Scottie as he said, “Nice to see you finally out after hours.” And with that, he made his way to the front entrance.

“I sure hope she gives birth soon,” Moira commented to Bryce and his new partner as she started walking away, as well. “Right now, Duncan’s moving around like a man in a trance.”

“As opposed to the way he’ll be moving around after the baby’s here and he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week.”

Scottie turned in her chair to see that the comment had come from Sean Cavanaugh, the head of the Crime Scene Investigation’s day shift and part of the older generation of Cavanaughs working in the precinct.

Obviously having overheard their conversation, Sean smiled warmly at the young woman at the table with his nephew.

“Poor guy doesn’t know that these are what he’ll look back on as ‘the good old days’ for the first couple of years as he struggles to get his ‘daddy legs,’” Sean said with a fond laugh.

“‘Daddy legs’?” Scottie repeated, looking toward the older man for an explanation.

“They’re just like sea legs except they’re a lot trickier to maneuver with,” Sean recalled, laughing softly as he remembered several instances. “After having seven kids, I ought to know.”

“I thought it was the mother who stayed up all night with the kids,” Bryce commented.

His uncle laughed, patting him on his cheek. “So young, so much to learn,” he commented with amusement. And then he looked at Scottie again, as if taking a close look at her this time. “You’re Bryce’s new partner, aren’t you?”

She and Sean Cavanaugh had never crossed paths. That he even knew who she was really surprised her. “Yes, but how did you—?”

The corners of Sean’s mouth curved, his expression almost bordering on the mysterious.

“There are no secrets in the police department, Detective Scott. And even less in the Cavanaugh world.” His green eyes took measure of her quickly and he clearly liked what he saw. “First time here at Malone’s?” he asked.

Was there a sign taped on her back that said tourist or something along those lines? Or was it that she just looked so out of place? She had to ask the man, “Now, how would you know that?”

“I head the CSI unit, Scottie. It’s my job to know everything,” he told her mildly. Turning toward the bartender, he signaled for the man’s attention. When he got it, Sean indicated the two people sitting at the table behind him. “The next round’s on me,” he told the bartender.

Scottie protested immediately. “No, I just stopped in for the one.”

“You don’t have to drink it,” Sean told her good-naturedly. “Just hold on to the bottle. ‘Getting a drink at Malone’s’ is, for the most part, just an excuse to linger on the premises and mingle with your brothers and sisters in blue.” His smile, a genial, comforting expression, widened as he added, “In my family’s case, that’s truer than you’d expect. Be seeing you around,” he said to both Bryce and Scottie just before he walked away and left the establishment.

“Two of the same, right?” the bartender asked, depositing two more bottles at the table that she was sharing with her partner.

“I really never drink this much,” Scottie told the man sitting opposite her.

“Like Uncle Sean said,” Bryce reminded her, “you don’t have to drink. It’s just an excuse to linger.”

She wanted him to get something straight right off the bat. “If I wanted to linger, I wouldn’t need an excuse,” Scottie told him.

His mouth quirked just a little. “The key word here being wanted,” Bryce guessed. It was obvious that she wanted to leave. He sat back. He would have wanted her to stay a bit longer, but he wasn’t about to tie her to her chair. “Well, you lived up to your bargain, so you’re free to go.” But before she left, in the spirit of honesty, he couldn’t help telling her, “I was just hoping that once you came, you’d want to stay a bit.”

Scottie had been feeling restless and antsy ever since she’d come out of the homeless shelter empty-handed. “I don’t like wasting time.”

Bryce gestured around to not just include their table but the surrounding people, as well. “This isn’t wasting time.”

She pinned him with a look. Everyone was sitting around, exchanging bits and pieces of what had once been conversation. They lived in a world of abbreviations and sound bites.

“All right, then tell me. What is it?” she asked.

“It’s recharging your batteries, maybe talking things out with other law-enforcement agents who might have a clearer perspective than you do. It’s clearing your head so that you can go home without keeping everything bottled up inside and scaring the person who means the most to you. At its simplest level,” Bryce added, “it’s networking.”

She focused on the first couple of points he’d mentioned. “So that’s what’s going on here?” she asked, doing her best to keep the sarcasm she keenly felt from infiltrating her voice. “Crime solving?”

“At times,” Bryce responded without blinking an eye. “And, like I said, at other times, it’s just kicking back, unwinding and recharging. That’s a lot more important than you think.”

“I do that at home,” she informed him and then, because it was getting noisier, she raised her voice and said, “I don’t need a network to get me there.”

“More power to you. Some of us, through no fault of our own, do need a little help with that, and being around other people who know what it’s like to lay your life on the line 24/7 makes it just a little easier to communicate.” She was leaving, he could see it in her eyes. Because his curiosity had always been unbridled, he grabbed the last chance he had and asked her one more time. “Who were you looking for at the shelter?”

His curiosity made her curious. “Why is it so important for you to know?” she challenged.

He repeated his offer, making it seem more appealing this time. “Because, you might have noticed, I have this huge network I can tap into.”

Bryce waved his hand around the bar. There were a lot of his relatives there, as well as a lot of fellow law-enforcement agents he’d had occasion to work with. Most were great believers in the “one hand washes the other” axiom as long as no laws were broken and no one was hurt in the process.

“And if you tell me who you’re looking for, I can help you find him—or her.” Bryce tagged the latter on just in case she was looking for a woman.

She supposed that he meant well, even though he was prying.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” Scottie rose. “Thanks for the drink.”

“You didn’t finish it,” he pointed out, standing.

Scottie paused to drain the last of the light beer from the first serving. The round that Sean had paid for stood untouched.

Despite the speed with which she drank the last of her initial beer, she felt nothing, not even a slight buzz.

“There you go,” she announced, dramatically putting the empty bottle down, then smiling up into her partner’s face. “Finished.”

But as she started to go, Bryce caught her by her wrist and held her in place. There was silent accusation in her blue eyes as she glared at him and tried to yank free.

“Why don’t you wait a couple of minutes until that hits bottom?” Bryce suggested. One drink was nothing, but he had no idea about her tolerance for alcohol and the last thing he wanted was to have her on the road when she suddenly became light-headed and unable to navigate that little thing she called a car.

“It’s light beer,” Scottie protested, trying to pull away again. But he only tightened his hold on her wrist. “There’s nothing to ‘hit,’” she insisted.

Bryce’s stance was unwavering. “Humor me,” he requested.

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