Chapter 1
A sleepless night was a hell of a way to start the day. Lucas McKinley closed his eyes and leaned back in the creaking desk chair. It tipped to the side, as usual, and he propped his feet up on the scarred desk for balance.
An hour’s sleep was all he needed. After that, coffee could get him through the rest of the day. As he slid lower in the chair, the weak morning light from the window next to him filtered through his eyelids, making his eyes burn. Someone had to turn down the sunlight, he thought drowsily, shifting to get into the shade. He thought longingly of the couch listing against the wall, but put it firmly out of his mind. He couldn’t afford to sleep the day away.
Footsteps snapped on the linoleum outside his door, but he ignored them. No one ever came looking for him this early in the morning. His clientele tended to be creatures of the night. At this hour of the day, most of them would be getting into bed, not out of it. Just like he should be doing, he thought sourly as he adjusted his position again.
The footsteps stopped outside his door. When they didn’t move on after a few moments, he groaned and pulled himself upright. Undoubtedly it was another newly arrived immigrant, speaking little or no English, looking for the podiatrist or the employment agency farther down the hall rather than his office, which offered private investigations. Maybe after he helped them find the right room, using the few words of Polish he’d learned in his last two years on the northwest side of Chicago, he’d stretch out on that couch after all.
The door swung slowly open and he let his feet drop to the floor, plastering what would have to pass for a pleasant smile on his face. When his visitor stepped into the sunlight streaming into the office, his smile froze and his face hardened until he thought it would crack.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, almost as if she were gathering her courage. Then, with a deep breath, she closed the door behind her and took two more steps toward him.
“Good morning, Mr. McKinley.”
Her voice was low and pleasant, just like he remembered it. He’d thought at the time that anyone with such a sexy, husky voice shouldn’t be capable of shattering his world so easily and so completely.
“May I come in?”
There was only polite inquiry in her voice, but a shadow, quickly hidden, flickered across her face. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she looked uncomfortable.
But that was impossible. Julia Carleton, the queen of cool, was never uncomfortable. The ice princess of the Chicago Police Force’s Internal Affairs Department never showed a crack in her marble facade.
“Of course,” he said, waving his arm as he slouched in his chair and watched her warily. “Have a seat. Make yourself at home.”
She looked around uncertainly at the dark red leather couch that leaned drunkenly against the wall, and opted instead for a battered wooden chair that stood in front of his desk. Setting her briefcase carefully on the floor, she smoothed the skirt of her dark blue suit and balanced herself on the edge of the chair.
As he watched her settle herself the old anger stirred, and he abruptly tipped the chair back to the floor. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Her hands clenched together a little more tightly in her lap. “I’ve come to offer you a job,” she said, the words spilling out just a little too quickly.
For a moment he thought she meant his old job on the force, and he wanted to jump up with a shout of triumph. Then, as he looked at her sitting tense and wary on the edge of the chair, his elation dissipated abruptly. That wasn’t what she’d meant at all.
“You want to hire me, you mean.” His voice was flat.
“Of course.” She seemed to gather her composure as she gave him a long, measuring look. “You are still accepting clients, aren’t you?”
“I’m still accepting clients. When I’m in the mood for new clients,” he said deliberately. He rubbed his hand over the sandpaper of his face and watched her steadily, not missing the tiny flare of embarrassment in her eyes. “What are you doing here?” he finally asked again, his words both harsh and unwelcoming.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought a faint wash of color came and went in her cheeks. “I need to hire a private investigator, and your…qualifications are perfect.”
“My qualifications are perfect for a lot of things. That didn’t make much difference two years ago.”
He was right. There was color in her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. “I didn’t come here to rehash what happened two years ago. You know why you were dismissed. I had no choice, and you know that, too. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a dead issue.”
“Well, maybe it isn’t a dead issue as far as I’m concerned. And maybe I don’t need another client right now.”
“I think you do,” she said quietly. She looked away from him and let her gaze drift over the office, from the leather couch with the shine completely rubbed off by the countless rear ends that had sat on it, to the worn, faded carpet and battered-looking desk and chair. “I’m willing to pay you half of your fee up front and all expenses.”
She was right, he needed the money. But he’d be damned if he’d crawl to Julia Carleton. “That’s my usual arrangement,” he drawled. “If you want me to work for you—” his voice emphasized the you ever so faintly “—you’ll have to do a lot better than that.”
“Just what would you require?” Her voice was cool and she raised her chin just a bit.
In spite of himself, he had to admire her composure. He was being about as rude as it was possible to be, but she wasn’t turning tail and bolting. She had guts, he had to give her that.
“To begin with, I don’t take any cases without knowing all the facts.” He leaned back in his chair again. “So what do you have? A boyfriend that needs checking out? Someone who needs to be followed, maybe, to make sure he’s not cheating on you?”
The quick flash of color came and went in her cheeks again. “This isn’t personal.” Her voice was tight. “It’s police business.”
He stood abruptly, towering over her. “Then have the police take care of it,” he said harshly, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “That’s not my job anymore.”
Instead of retreating, she drew herself straighter in her chair and looked him in the eye. “That’s not possible. I need an outsider, someone who’s not a part of the police department. With your skills and your police connections, you’re the perfect person to help me.”
“But what if I’m not interested in using my ‘police connections’ to help you?” he said, his voice soft. He didn’t sit, but continued to stare down at her.
“It was my understanding that there was very little you refused to do these days, if the money was right,” she said coolly. She leaned back in her chair and met his gaze without flinching.
He let his gaze travel slowly down her body, then up again. “Even I have my standards.”
Holding her head just a fraction higher, she asked, “Aren’t you even interested in the details?”
Again, he felt that unwilling surge of admiration for her. Julia Carleton was no coward. “All right,” he said suddenly, sitting down and pulling his chair closer to his desk. “What are the details?”
In answer she leaned over and searched through her briefcase. Her curtain of heavy, dark red hair fell forward over her face. The jacket of her suit fell open, exposing the creamy white blouse beneath it. Perfectly ordinary, conservative business attire, except that when she bent over farther, the fabric tightened against her chest, outlining something lacy and delicate beneath the plain white blouse.
Unable to tear his gaze away from the lacy thing she wore next to her skin, he stared at her chest and his body tightened. He’d have bet a hundred dollars that Julia Carleton wore plain, functional white cotton underwear. The lace that strained against her blouse couldn’t belong to the buttoned-up, straight-as-an-arrow, go-by-the-book investigator that he’d known two years ago.
As he watched her, alarmed and angered by his body’s instinctive reaction, she straightened in her chair, holding a fistful of file folders. When she met his eyes she stilled, her hand suspended over his desk in the act of giving him the files.
The moment seemed to stretch on forever. Neither of them unlocked their gaze, and the air in the room became taut and edgy. Finally Julia cleared her throat, laid the files carefully on the desk and looked away.
With a bitten-off oath, Luke jumped to his feet and shoved his chair back. It spun into the wall with a dull thud, and he whirled around and stood in front of the window, staring blindly at the busy street below him.
Julia Carleton was not a woman, he reminded himself. She was an investigator with the Internal Affairs section of the Chicago Police Force. And she was personally responsible for getting his butt thrown off the force. No matter how his body reacted to her, there was no way he was going to think of her as anything other than his enemy.
“Are you all right, Mr. McKinley?”
If he didn’t know better, he could almost imagine that it was concern he heard in her voice.
“I’m fine.” His voice was brusque. “I was up all night on a surveillance and I’m a little tired.”
He forced himself to turn around and sit down, keeping his eyes on the stack of files on his desk. “Before I read this,” he said, pausing as he picked up the top folder and finally looked up at her, “why don’t you tell me what it’s about?”
Julia took a deep breath, unclenched her hands, and settled back in her chair. She’d rehearsed this part so often that she could practically recite it in her sleep. She had to focus on why she was here, what was at stake, and not on the man watching her from the other side of the desk.
Lucas McKinley wasn’t happy to see her. But then, she’d expected nothing less. If she’d had any other choice, she wouldn’t be sitting in this office, steeling herself against his hostility. If she’d had any other choice, she wouldn’t even have considered asking him for help.
But she’d run out of other options a couple of weeks ago. Even then, she’d refused to accept the inevitable, choosing instead to keep plugging doggedly ahead, looking for other evidence, trying to put together a case. When her boss told her yesterday to either come up with something or turn the case over to someone else, she’d known that she couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to go to Lucas McKinley.
And now that she was here, she had to persuade him to help her. Swallowing once, she shifted on the hard chair and forced herself to look directly at him. “I’m working on a case of corruption within the department.”
From the flicker in his eyes, she knew she’d touched a nerve. People had said a lot of things about Lucas McKinley during his years on the police force, but no one had ever accused him of being less than completely honest. He was legendary for paying for every single cup of coffee and each doughnut he’d consumed. McKinley had held nothing but scorn for officers who’d bent the rules even a little.
“You don’t need me for that.” He tossed the folder over the desk in her direction and leaned back in his chair. “You have the unlimited resources of the Internal Affairs Department.”
The bitterness in his voice made her flinch inside, but she didn’t take her eyes off him. Taking a deep breath, she scooted forward on her chair. This was it. McKinley might resent her, he might hate her guts, but she had to have his help. If her next words couldn’t convince him to help her, nothing would. And if he didn’t help her…She wouldn’t allow herself to think of that possibility. He had to help her. Too much was riding on this investigation.
“Internal Affairs is under a lot of pressure right now,” she said carefully. “The head of the department has been mentioned as a candidate for a citywide job, and we’ve all been ordered to close our cases in order to…make him look good. No one is very disposed to help anyone else when their job could depend on finishing their own investigations.”
McKinley stared at her with hard eyes, his mouth a tight line. “I hope you didn’t come here expecting any sympathy from me.”
“I came here to hire you. I need help with my investigation, and I need it now.”
He eased his desk chair to the floor and leaned forward, his gaze skewering her in her place. “Let me see if I have this straight. You need help with one of your investigations, and you think I’m the person to help you. You want to pay me two hundred dollars a day to bail your butt out of trouble.” His chair wobbled on two legs as he stood suddenly and towered over her. “What fantasyland are you living in, Ms. Carleton? Did you really think I would help you?” She heard the incredulity in his voice. “I wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.”
You expected this reaction, she reminded herself as she dug her nails into her palms. Remember what’s at stake. Ignore McKinley and think of Bobby.
“I didn’t expect you to jump for joy at the prospect of helping me,” she said quietly. “But before you make any decisions, I think you ought to look at the file and the names of the officers I’m investigating.”
He stared at her for a long time, challenge in his eyes. If she said another word, she suspected, he’d throw her out of his office and that would be it. So she just sat there, watching him, daring him to pick up the folder.
Slowly, still watching her, he reached across the desk and plucked the top folder from the pile. When his gaze dropped to the papers inside, she quietly let out the breath she’d been holding. Forcing herself to relax against the back of the chair, she watched his face as he read.
She saw him scan down the list of names. His face darkened and he threw the folder onto the desk. “What is Eddie Timmons’s name doing on this list?” He glared at her, daring her to confirm what he’d seen.
“Detective Timmons’s name is on the list because he’s a suspect, like the rest of the officers on the list,” she said evenly. “Now do you understand why I came to you?”
He rubbed at his face, and suddenly she saw the weariness in his unshaven jaw and gray skin. His blue eyes were shadowed with fatigue, and his clothes were rumpled and wrinkled. Apparently he had been up all night, just as he’d said. But it didn’t surprise her—whatever McKinley did, he’d give it his all. He certainly had when he’d been a detective on the Chicago Police Force.
“What’s going on?” he asked wearily. “Do you people at Internal Affairs have a vendetta against my old precinct? Or is it just detectives in general?”
“We don’t make up the charges, Mr. McKinley, we just investigate them.” She nodded at the folder lying in front of him. “Are you still sure you won’t help me?”
“Look, I know I’m punchy because I didn’t get any sleep last night, but do you seriously think I’d be interested in helping you nail my ex-partner to the wall?” His voice became tinged with scorn. “Even for two hundred dollars a day?”
“I thought you might look at it as an opportunity to prove that he’s innocent, and get paid for it to boot.” She scooted forward in her chair again. “I have to have some help on this, McKinley. You know as well as I do that no one who works with Timmons or any of the other people on that list will tell me anything. I have to hire someone from outside. That’s why I came to you.”
“You don’t think I’ll do everything I can to prove Eddie is innocent?”
“I’m counting on it. That way, if he does turn out to be guilty, no one can say he wasn’t given the fairest shake possible.”
He watched her for a long time, a brooding look in his eyes. “How do you know I won’t make sure that Eddie is found innocent?” he asked finally.
“Because everyone knows that Lucas McKinley can’t be bought and can’t be corrupted. Whatever else you might have been, McKinley, you were honest. And I’m betting that you still are.”
“A lot can change in two years.” He watched her unwaveringly, as if gauging her reaction.
“Yes, it can.” Her gaze flickered over the shabby office. “Let’s just say I’m willing to gamble two hundred dollars a day that some things haven’t changed.”
He continued to stare at her for a moment, then looked down at the folder that lay open in front of him. Almost unwillingly, it seemed, he began to read.
She studied his bent head, her gaze drifting over his angular profile and the thick, slightly wavy black hair that lay against his neck. It was the same face that had so fascinated her two years ago, the face she’d seen in her dreams for months afterward. Except that two years ago, his eyes had been filled with a deep, searing grief that had muted the impact of his anger.
A part of her softened as she looked at him. Two years ago, she couldn’t afford sympathy for him or for the horrible events that had precipitated her involvement. Worse, she couldn’t afford to be attracted to the man she’d been investigating. Nothing she could have said or done would have changed the outcome, and she’d forced herself to keep an impersonal distance. But she wasn’t investigating him now, and he was still the man who regularly haunted her dreams late at night.
She shouldn’t have come here, she thought in a sudden panic. No matter how desperate, she shouldn’t have sought out Lucas McKinley. Bobby might be in trouble, but she was afraid that if she spent too much time with McKinley she’d be in the worst trouble of her life.
“…enough,” she heard him saying.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said that two hundred dollars a day won’t be enough. If I help you, you’ll have to make Internal Affairs cough up more money. Call it an incentive for overcoming my distaste at the working conditions.”
Something inside her stirred in anger. She opened her mouth to tell him where he could take his incentive, then slowly closed it when she saw the gleam in his eyes. He was trying to make her lose her cool, she realized. He was trying to rattle her, and he’d succeeded.
Clamping her lips together, she took a deep breath and managed to subdue her temper. “How much would you require?” She was amazed at how cool she sounded.
A quick look came and went that might have been admiration, if it were in any other man’s eyes. In McKinley, it was probably just satisfaction at making her angry.
He tilted back in his chair, never taking his eyes off her. “Three hundred a day should cover it, plus expenses.”
She shifted on the hard chair, thinking rapidly. If she was very careful about what she ate next month, she would just be able to cover the extra hundred dollars a day. Provided that they were able to find the evidence she needed in a week or less. She sat up and met his eyes again. “It’s a deal. When can you start?”
He raised his eyebrows. “No time like the present.” He gestured at the file in front of him. “This isn’t all the evidence you have, is it? A few furtive tips from snitches who may or may not be wasted from drugs doesn’t cut it in any court of law.”
“No, that’s not all the evidence I have.” He wouldn’t provoke her into losing her temper again. “I’ve spent the last couple of months studying the pattern of arrests of the suspects, their hours on duty, their partners, drug raids scheduled and completed, and about twenty-five other factors that could prove their innocence or guilt. I’m convinced they’re guilty, but I haven’t been able to come up with any concrete evidence. They’ve been as slippery as a pailful of eels.”
“Have you considered the possibility that maybe you can’t find any evidence because they’re not guilty? That maybe whatever facts you’ve managed to assemble are nothing more than a pile of coincidences?”
“Of course I’ve considered that possibility! Do you think Iwant to find that seven police officers, seven decorated detectives, are guilty of accepting bribes to protect a group of slimy drug dealers?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t that your job at Internal Affairs?” He leaned back and waited for her answer. His eyes were faintly challenging, as if he’d figured he’d backed her into a corner.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “It’s our job to make sure the police don’t lose their credibility with the citizens of Chicago. If that means uncovering crooked police officers, then yes, that’s our job. That doesn’t mean we like to do it.” She leaned toward him. “How did you feel about dirty cops when you were on the force? Did you want them protected, or did you want us to get rid of them?”
His eyes darkened. “I feel the same way now as I did two years ago. Dirty cops are scum. I wouldn’t tolerate them for a minute.”
She settled back in the chair, beginning to enjoy the exchange. For the first time since she’d walked in the door, his anger was directed somewhere other than at her. And she felt vindicated. She’d somehow known he couldn’t have changed that much, that his passion for doing what was right wouldn’t have been eroded.
“That’s why I came to you,” she said softly. “I hoped you’d feel like that.”
He slammed the folder shut. “Eddie Timmons was my partner. I know him. He wouldn’t take a bribe. Hell, I know he never took a bribe in the three years I worked with him. He couldn’t change that much in two years.”
She took several more files out of her briefcase and pushed them across the desk. “One of the things. I’ve learned is that you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do, even about the people you’re closest to.” That was a lesson that had been burned into her soul. She wasn’t likely to forget it.
Shutters dropped over his eyes and he stood abruptly and turned away. After a few moments, during which the tenseness of his back seemed to seep into the air around them, he slowly turned to face her, resting one hip against the edge of his desk.
“Supposing I assume, just for the sake of argument, that you’re right. Where do you expect me to start looking?”
“Just for the sake of argument, I want you to look at all the indirect evidence I’ve collected. See if you can find any inconsistencies in it—make sure I haven’t missed anything, even the slightest detail. When you’ve had a chance to go over everything, we can decide together on the next step.”
“Together my rear end. I work alone. If you hire me, you let me do things my way.”
“This is my case, Mr. McKinley,” she said, sitting up straighter. “I’m responsible for the outcome. I’m not going to just hand it over to you and sit back and wait for you to tell me the answers. Either we work together or the deal’s off.”
She saw the struggle in his eyes. He wanted to tell her to go jump in the lake. But he also wanted to prove Eddie Timmons’s innocence. She was counting on the need to exonerate his partner being the stronger one.
“All right, then I guess the deal’s off.” He spoke coolly, but anger swirled deep in the dark blue of his eyes.
Did she dare call his bluff, walk out the door and wait for him to call her back? She didn’t have any choice. There was no way she was going to let McKinley loose on this case by himself.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. McKinley. If you change your mind, let me know.”
She stood, reaching for the files that still lay piled on the edge of the desk. When she’d stashed all of them in her briefcase, she moved around to take the folder that lay in front of Lucas. He moved just as she reached for the folder, and his hand brushed her arm.
She went completely still, waiting for him to move his hand. His fingertips lingered on the skin inside her elbow. After what seemed like an eternity, he clenched his hand into a fist and dropped it to his side.
She couldn’t seem to take her eyes away from the place his hand had touched. The skin there still burned. Slowly she raised her head to look at him. Something gleamed in his eyes, something she didn’t want to identify.
Snatching up the folder as if something had bitten her, she stepped away and shoved it into her briefcase. Thank goodness he’d refused to work for her. The awareness that had just flared between them was something she hadn’t foreseen. It was the one thing she hadn’t planned about this case. She knew for a fact she couldn’t handle it, even for her brother Bobby.
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