Читать книгу KCPD Protector - Julie Miller - Страница 9

Chapter Two

“Sorry, Spikey.”

Elise laughed at the furry black bullet that shot out from beneath her spirea bushes as the first spray of water from the sprinkler hit the tiny white flowers and dark green leaves. The dog was in her lap the moment she climbed up onto the new wood deck and stretched out on the chaise lounge, demanding a tummy rub and some kind words to make up for being splashed.

“Maybe you shouldn’t bury your treats out there. If you’d chew them up when I give them to you, instead of hiding them in the yard, you wouldn’t risk taking an impromptu bath when I turn on the water.” Elise rubbed the dog’s soft, curly hair a few seconds longer, then kissed him on his head and set the miniature poodle/terrier mix on the deck beside her. “It’s still too hot for a cuddle, though, you brave little toodle face. You’d better scout out the perimeter before we turn in for the night.”

With a soft tap to his rump, Spike scooted down the steps and followed his nose into the grass. Elise would be happy if the warm wind shifted and misted some of the water over her bare legs, shorts and paint shirt, but not the dog. She grinned, watching Spike circle along the fence, avoiding the spray while he reclaimed his rawhide chew from beneath the bushes.

Truly relaxing for the first time today, Elise picked up the icy glass of tea on the table beside her and flicked away the condensation before taking a long drink. She touched her damp palm to the nape of her neck before leaning back to enjoy the peaceful retreat of her backyard at twilight. She figured the reprieve would last about five to ten minutes before the mosquitoes found her. But by then, she’d be heading back in to finish cleaning up from the evening’s renovation work.

She took another leisurely sip, purposely letting the moisture from the glass drip onto the front of her dad’s old button-down shirt and trickle beneath the placket to her hot skin. The soft, worn cotton was stained with all the colors of her remodel, including a splash of dark blue from the shutters she’d been painting for the living and dining room areas this evening.

Once, she’d dreamed of restoring a home like this with her former boss, Quinn Gallagher, and raising a family together in the big house and spacious backyard. But Quinn, a widower who’d needed his trusted assistant to fill in as babysitter, comforter and sounding board, had fallen in love with someone else. And the need that Elise had hoped would blossom into something more had vanished in the span of a few hectic, dangerous days, leaving her reeling and alone. Easy pickings for Quinn’s business associate, Nikolai Titov, who had said all the right things and made her feel wanted...and then used information she’d inadvertently shared to not only ratchet up his plot to destroy Quinn’s security empire, but to murder Quinn and his daughter. Fortunately, Quinn’s new wife, a rifle-toting member of KCPD’s premier SWAT team, had been there to save them both.

A familiar knot of guilt and regret twisted in Elise’s stomach. While she couldn’t fault Quinn and his daughter for claiming happiness and moving on with their lives, there’d been no one but her parents to help her pick up the pieces of her broken dreams two years ago. And she’d been too humiliated to share everything with them. She hadn’t even shared all the details with the counselor who’d evaluated her before qualifying for the job at police department headquarters. How foolish or desperate did a woman have to be to have an affair with a man, and not know until he sent her flowers from the airport as he was leaving the country that he didn’t feel anything for her at all—that he’d only been using her?

Eric and Susan Brown had known something had changed in their daughter after that. They’d helped her make the down payment on this run-down Victorian with good bones in a quiet neighborhood south of downtown K.C. They’d encouraged her to dip into her savings for new appliances and updated wiring. They’d set her up on a couple of dates and said they understood when Elise bowed out of seeing those perfectly nice men a second or third time.

It was just her and Spike and a lot of hard work now. Hardly her dream life. Quinn and his wife were raising a family, all right, but Elise wasn’t any part of it. After Quinn and Nikolai, she didn’t want a man in her life. It hurt too much to love the wrong person, to believe in something that wasn’t really hers. She couldn’t trust a strong shoulder to lean on, even if it did smell of crisp cotton and musky man.

An image of George Madigan’s stern countenance drifted into her thoughts. Turning to him for grounding comfort had been so tempting this afternoon. A full-fledged smile from the man would probably awaken the hormones she kept in careful stasis inside her. And she could guess that a man in the prime of his life like George would definitely know how to use that firm, masculine mouth to kiss a woman.

“Really?” Alarmed by the sudden drift of her thoughts, Elise put the glass to her own lips, mentally warning herself to chill. She knew the hazards of a workplace romance better than anyone.

She shouldn’t wish that she had more hugs and laughter and love in her life. She had her job at KCPD and her own place that was gradually transforming into a thing of beauty. George needed her to keep his life and office running efficiently, not speculate about kissing him. After a hundred years of use and neglect, this house needed her to care for it. Her days were full. Both jobs were as rewarding as they were exhausting. She’d adopted a wonderful dog from a shelter to keep her company. She didn’t have to depend on anyone. She didn’t need anything more.

She shouldn’t want...more.

A drop of ice-cold water fell from the glass and splashed her thigh near the fraying hem of her denim shorts, startling her from the depressing quagmire of her thoughts. “Oh. Wow.”

She hadn’t gone to that dark place for a while, and hated that she’d allowed the loneliness to creep into her head the moment she’d stopped for a break. Must be the flowers she’d received at work and deposited at St. Luke’s Medical Center afterward for distribution to needy patients. The gift reminded her of that horrible time, that was all. It didn’t mean she still had to wallow in the past.

Dismissing any remnants of longing or dissatisfaction, Elise wiped away the rivulet of water on her skin and swallowed the last of her tea. Swinging her feet down to the deck, she sat up on the edge of the chaise lounge and peered over the railing to find the dog before heading inside. “Spike?”

Just as she put her lips together to whistle, he let out a high-pitched bark and charged through the yard, heedless of the spinning water that dampened his hair as he ran past. He was sounding the toodle alarm, barking at something or someone at the side of the house.

Elise set down her glass and stood. “Spike! Shush!” With the last fingers of daylight leaving the high, cloudless sky a muted shade of gray, she could guess it was around nine o’clock. Some of her older neighbors were probably trying to settle in for the night. “You’ll wake someone.” She clapped her hands to divert his attention. “Spike!”

But fifteen pounds of ferocious guard dog wouldn’t be silenced.

Elise hurried down the steps and followed him to the chain-link fence to see what had alarmed him. But when she saw the tall blond man walking up the sidewalk to her backyard gate, she slowed her steps. Her guest might look handsome enough in his pressed jeans and polo shirt, but he wasn’t necessarily welcome. “James.”

“Is it safe?” James Westbrook tucked the skinny sack he carried beneath one arm and knelt down to hold his hand flat against the fence to let Spike sniff and lick his palm. “Hey, big guy. Remember me?” Spike’s barking quieted with the recognition of a familiar scent. But his long tail curled between his legs and he darted behind Elise when James reached over the top of the gate to pet him. “I guess not.”

As he pulled back to his side of the gate, Elise brushed her hair off her forehead, although that was probably the least messy thing about her ratty painting attire. She noted with annoyance that James’s well-gelled hair was barely moving in the bursts of wind swirling dust and dirt through the air. “What are you doing here? It’s late.”

“I rang the doorbell, but no one answered.”

Elise glanced up at the steady hum of her bedroom air conditioner, sticking out from the window above the back door. She hadn’t heard anything. Of course, the sprinkler made a little bit of noise. And she’d been neck deep in self-pity for the past few minutes, too.

But wouldn’t Spike have heard the doorbell? Or the slam of a car door? Maybe that’s what had alerted him in the first place. If so, James had decided pretty quickly to come to the backyard rather than wait on the porch for her to answer.

Despite the ninety-degree heat that lingered, Elise shivered with an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. Since the debacle of Nikolai, she never had liked surprises. And now she’d had two in the same day? She tipped her chin up to assess James’s unexpected arrival. “What are you doing here?” she repeated. “You got my message, didn’t you?”

“That you were working late?” He adjusted the slim glasses he wore and smiled. “I thought you meant at the office. If I’d known you were painting tonight, I’d have gotten some takeout and come over to help.” He glanced down at the gate between them, then pulled off the sack to reveal the bottle of wine he’d brought. “May I come in? It’s a cabernet sauvignon, like we drank back at Mizzou.”

Another gift.

Perhaps not as significant as twenty-three roses, but unsettling, all the same.

“James,” she began. Elise inhaled a deep breath, clearing the Go away from the tip of her tongue and summoning a polite explanation. Not that she really owed him one. But bitchiness just wasn’t in her nature. “I did work until about six. Then I had errands to run. By the time I got home, it was too late to meet you anywhere. So I changed into these old clothes, zapped some leftovers in the microwave and went to work on the shutters.”

“What do you do for fun, Lise?”

Trying not to bristle at the pet name he’d given her when they’d been dating, Elise gestured toward the pale gray siding and white trim. “Reclaiming this house is fun for me.”

“No. That’s rewarding,” he corrected with a teasing smile. “Sounds like you’re avoiding me.” He raised the wine bottle again. “Could be why I felt like I needed to bring a peace offering.”

Guilty feelings surfaced, then eased out on a breathy sigh. “It’s not you, James,” she assured him. “It’s me.” And a screwed-up love life, a little lack of confidence and nary a spark of the attraction a younger, more innocent Elise had once felt for him. “I’m flattered by your attention, but I’m just not interested in a relationship right now.”

“I get that.” He dropped his hand to the gate, but she still made no move to open it. “You and I broke up a long time ago when we graduated from college and I took that job in Korea. But we’re still friends, right? We share history. I’ve been back in the States for a couple of months now, but Kansas City doesn’t feel like home yet. I find I’m still thinking in a foreign language. I make wrong turns in the neighborhood where I grew up. Landmarks have changed or aren’t even there anymore.” He slid his hand over to rest on hers. “Can you blame me for seeking out a familiar face?”

Elise pulled away from the warmth of his fingers and bent down to pick up the dog. It was an obvious wall of defense she was putting up, but Spike didn’t seem to mind. The dog licked her jaw a couple of times before settling into her arms and Elise smiled, even as James’s faded. “What about your father?” she asked. “Isn’t he retired now? Won’t he spend time with you? There’s a Royals game on TV tonight.”

“To be honest, I was hoping for some younger, prettier company than Dad. You and I could watch the game.” He slipped the wine bottle back into the sack and held it out to her. “I promise to keep the evening perfectly platonic.”

The streetlamp in front of her house flickered on and grew bright. Even if she trusted James’s promise, the hour was late. She had to be at work early in the morning. “To be honest, I was getting ready to clean up and go to bed.”

His eyes narrowed behind his glasses before he sighed and shook his head. “Once upon a time you and I talked about getting married, Lise.”

The regret in his tone cooled the air around them. She’d admit that there were some good memories between them. But that was all they were—memories. There was not one pang of hope or regret when she looked at James now. “We were practically kids then. You wanted to see the world, and I’d snagged that internship at Gallagher Security Systems. We just weren’t meant to be.”

“You turned that internship at GSS into a career, didn’t you. I bet you were making good money there.” He folded his arms over his chest, eyeing her like the businessman he was. “Why’d you leave that kind of success and take a job with the city?”

Her smile faded. She rubbed her fingers along the soft warmth of Spike’s flank, buying time to compose herself before deciding on the appropriate answer. She wound up using the same vague truth she’d given in her interview with George Madigan. “Money isn’t everything. There was nothing more for me at GSS. I wanted new surroundings. I needed a new challenge.”

“Turning this into a showplace isn’t challenging enough?” He pointed to the painter’s tape lining the glass inside the dining room windows. “Are you sure I can’t help you do something here?”

Elise looked at his hands, which were pale and pristine compared to the stained fingers with which she was petting the dog. He wasn’t really into home repair work, was he? “I’ve made enough of a mess for one night. I’m really tired.”

“Maybe another time?” He put up his hands in placating surrender before she could answer. “Strictly as friends. I don’t know why you’re so gun-shy about rekindling things, but I won’t put any pressure on you. Like I said, I’m just looking for someone my age to hang out with until I get my feet under me again.”

“How about I invite you over the next time I have a big piece of furniture to move.”

He laughed, and the awkwardness between them eased a little bit. “Deal.” He thrust the wine over the top of the gate. “Here. You’d better take this.”

Elise backed away a step. “I couldn’t.”

“Of course, you can. It’s a gift.”

If he was hoping she’d invite him in to share a glass, then he’d be in for a long wait. Still, she sensed he wasn’t going to move until she accepted the so-called peace offering. At least she knew who was giving her this gift. She wrapped her hand around the neck of the bottle.

“Thank you.” Ask him. Why not? Clearing up the mystery would go a long way toward improving her chances of getting a good night’s sleep. “Did you send me flowers at work today? There wasn’t a card attached, and the officer at the front desk said he didn’t find one, either. I haven’t had a chance to check with the florist yet. It’s a bit of a mystery.”

“You used to like it when I sent you flowers.” He grinned. “Remember? A daisy or a rose? To commemorate any little event—acing an exam, the start of spring break...” He grasped the rail at the top of the gate and leaned in. “Thanking you for a special night?”

Yes. Those had been sweet and romantic and fitting for the young couple they’d once been. Not the point. “The flowers I got today weren’t cheap.”

He snorted. “That cabernet wasn’t cheap.”

“James, did you—?”

“I can see I’m not getting anywhere with you tonight.” He shook his head, then adjusted his glasses, glancing skyward before zeroing his gaze in on hers. “Keep an eye on the weather. We’re under a tornado watch until midnight. I wouldn’t want you or the pooch there to get hurt. Good night.”

And then he was striding away.

Her mouth opened to call after him to clarify his response to her question, but Elise wisely snapped it shut. Better to just let him leave. “Good night,” she muttered.

Were straight answers really so much to ask for? Elise plopped Spike down on his feet in the grass as James walked to the curb where he’d parked. A black-and-white police car cruised past on its regular rounds for the night, giving her ex the impetus to climb behind the wheel and start the engine when he hesitated at the open door, no doubt readying another argument as to why she should rethink sending him away.

Elise waited for James to pull into the driveway behind her car and back out in the opposite direction to leave the neighborhood, and then she turned off the water and picked up her glass. “Come on, boy. Here, Spike.”

The dog bounded up onto the deck and followed her into the house. He danced around her feet while she locked the back door and headed into the kitchen. She hit the light switch with her elbow, flooding the room with light before setting the wine on the granite counter and rinsing out her glass. She turned on the radio to get an update on the possibility of dangerous weather, got Spike a treat from the jar next to the sink and set about her nightly check of the doors and windows on the first floor.

She secured locks and pulled window shades and makeshift curtains, listening to the jingle of Spike’s tags as he lapped up a drink of water in the kitchen. She stopped for several seconds in front of the living room air conditioner, unhooking the top couple of buttons on her paint shirt and cooling the perspiration on her skin before turning it down for the night. Moving into the foyer, the growing noise from the wind cruising through the leafy trees outside and knocking twigs and other debris against the house fully registered. Elise paused with her fingers on the front door’s dead bolt.

She could hear the dog in the kitchen at the back of the house.

Her breath hitched in her chest at the disquieting thought that crossed her mind. Praying that she’d be proved wrong, Elise quickly returned to the living room and turned the AC unit back on high. The light in the foyer flickered at the sudden drain on the neighborhood’s overtaxed power grid as the machine roared to life and the cold air blasted her again.

Noisy enough. She couldn’t hear Spike anymore.

Then she opened the red front door and reached outside to press the doorbell.

The instant the bell chimed, Spike barked and came running from the kitchen. He barked again, eager to greet or warn off their visitor.

“Shush. It’s okay, sweetie. It’s just Mommy testing a theory.”

But the yapping and squealing continued until she picked him up and pushed open the storm door to show him no one was there. Greeted by a wall of summer heat and uncomfortable suspicion, Elise crossed the porch, mentally timing how long it took her to reach the railing at the edge of the house.

Elise hugged the dog against her shoulder, patting his back as if burping a baby. “He lied to us, Spike.”

Such a small slip of the tongue. Maybe nothing more sinister than a clichéd response.

I rang the doorbell.

No way had James stood on her front porch, announcing his arrival. He would have needed to sprint down the steps and around the side of the house to the back gate to reach her before Spike heard the bell and sounded his alarm. But James had strolled up the walk. His breathing had been perfectly normal, without a drop of sweat visible anywhere.

Glancing up and down the street, Elise peered into shadows beyond the streetlights but saw nothing out of sorts. The only thing that wasn’t right was the portentous wind that made her clothes instantly stick to her skin again, and the nagging suspicion about a man who claimed to be her friend.

Why would James lie? What was the point of sneaking around her house? And when she’d asked him about the flowers, he’d never actually confirmed sending them. Or denied it.

She’d gotten rid of the roses. She’d gotten rid of James.

But she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that her life had taken a very weird, very unsettling turn.

* * *

GEORGE HEARD THE hurried rhythm of a woman’s high heels tapping across KCPD headquarters’ marble floors behind him.

“Hold the elevator, please.”

Even if he hadn’t recognized the voice, he would have pushed the button to hold the doors open. It was the polite thing to do. But he did recognize Elise Brown’s articulate, slightly breathless tone, and his blood suffused with an instant warmth.

“Thanks.” Elise tilted her head and smiled as she darted into the car and moved to the railing behind him.

He knew it was wrong to identify his assistant by the warm contralto pitch of her voice. And he shouldn’t be familiar with the faint whiff of tropical fruits that emanated from the soft waves of her chin-length hair as she breezed past him. His gaze dipped down to the navy blue heels she wore without hose, a choice made in deference to the forecasted triple-digit temperatures, no doubt. While a part of him admired the sensible concession to the summer heat wave, George’s chest constricted and he resolutely averted his eyes.

He wasn’t admiring her sensibility. He was imprinting the curve of her smooth, tanned calves beneath a hemline that brushed the top of her knees to memory, coming up with another completely inappropriate, equally unmistakable way to identify Elise Brown.

Yeah, his life would be a heck of a lot easier if he wasn’t so observant of little details like that—especially where his executive assistant was concerned.

Pushing the button for the eighth floor, George tempered the quickened pace of his breathing and made sure his commander-in-chief expression was in place before he turned to greet her. “Good morning, Elise.”

He might have hit fifty, but he wasn’t dead. He was single and he was a man. Couldn’t blame a guy for noticing an attractive woman. Still, it wasn’t quite protocol to charge up with this rush of energy just because she’d smiled at him, just because he got to spend a few moments alone on the elevator with her clean, fresh scent. He felt more awake, more alert, than he had a few seconds ago. And he hadn’t even had his first cup of coffee yet.

She tucked her sunglasses into the modest neckline of her sleeveless dress and brushed a swath of nut-brown hair off her cheek. “Good morning, sir.”

Way to kill the buzz. It was one thing for the men and women he outranked at KCPD to refer to him with the respectful title. It was something else again for the woman he worked with every day of his life to call him sir. Hearing that from Elise, no matter how well intended, always made him feel like one of her father’s friends or a Dutch uncle. It was easy to squash any perky urge to smile now.

The doors drifted together and the elevator made a slight bounce before starting its ascent. “It’s George, remember?”

“I’m sorry. Good morning, George.”

“No need to apologize. I’ll just keep reminding you until you get it right,” he teased.

Only, she didn’t seem to get the joke. Her blue gaze darted up to his before she suddenly needed something from her flowered purse and focused her attention there. “Of course.”

While he was careful about crossing the line into anything that could be construed as sexual harassment, there was no harm in being friends. Yet Elise seemed to shoot down every overture of appreciation or concern that could take them to being more than polite acquaintances who shared the same connected office space.

Even yesterday afternoon, when the delivery of those flowers had clearly upset her, she hadn’t opened up one bit. Maybe a small stab of unprofessional jealousy had made him linger in her office longer than he’d intended. She’d lit up at first, once she found out the bouquet was meant for her, and he’d been curious enough to find out what kind of man she was dating who could turn her serious, practical head like that.

But even when Elise’s smile had changed to a frown, and her troubled thoughts had been written on her face, she hadn’t been interested in sharing a thing. She hadn’t even wanted him to dust off his rusty investigative skills and make a few quick inquiries to find where the bouquet had come from for her.

The elevator continued its familiar climb, but there was little familiar about Elise’s oddly distracted behavior this morning. She pulled a ring of keys and fobs from her bag and clutched them in her fist, staring at them. Tugging back the front of his suit jacket, George propped his hands at his waist. “Is everything all right?”

“What?” Her eyes locked on to his, telling him one thing before she stuffed the keys back into her purse and told him something else. “Oh. I couldn’t find the spare key I leave on my front porch after I walked the dog this morning.” She patted her purse. “I like to use it so I don’t have to carry all these and be weighed down. Don’t worry. We got in through the keypad by the garage door. That’s why I’m running a little late today.”

Uh-uh. She wasn’t dismissing the confusion he’d read in her gaze. Not this time. “Are you worried someone stole the key?”

The corners of her mouth tightened as she fixed the smile on her lips. “I probably locked it inside the house the last time I used it and forgot. I didn’t have much time to look.”

George valued Elise as his assistant. His office had been a chaotic mess after the previous assistant retired. Elise had come in, quickly grasping the old information management and communication systems and updating them in ways that made his job easier, and made the entire deputy commissioner’s office a model of professional efficiency that other administrative departments were now copying.

But he’d been friends with each of his partners over the years. He’d gotten to know officers and staff alike. He knew the names of their children; whether they were football, baseball or basketball fans, or if they were even into sports at all. He knew what their favorite places to eat were and what issues they might be struggling with on the job or off the clock.

Elise went to great lengths to keep her personal life out of the office. He knew the names of her parents from her personnel file, but had never met them. And other than noting she wore no wedding ring and kept no pictures except one of a small black poodle on her desk, he couldn’t confirm whether or not she was in a relationship with anyone.

As stormy as his marriage to Courtney had been, he’d always kept a memento of her on his desk or in his wallet. And now that they were divorced, he had family pictures from his nephew Nick’s wedding on the shelves in his office, as well as a group photo from his twenty-fifth reunion at the University of Central Missouri on his desk.

But Elise? No pictures. No personal touches. Just the dog in her lap in one five-by-seven photo, and an invisible wall that said Keep Out.

George butted in, anyway. “Something’s upset you again. Something more than a misplaced key.” He shifted his stance, feeling the elevator slow its ascent. “What is it?”

For a few endless seconds, she tilted her cornflower-blue eyes up to his, giving him a glimpse of the turbulent emotions darkening their depths. Feeling an instinctive urge to respond to that unspoken plea for help, George stepped closer and reached for her.

But the elevator jerked to a stop. Elise blinked her gaze from his and moved to the front of the car. “I’m okay,” she lied.

The doors slid open and the chance to help was lost.

A lanky cop with dark blond hair that needed to see a comb rose from his chair behind the eighth floor security desk to greet them. “Good morning, sir. Morning, Elise.”

“Wilkins.” George slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks, not sure what to do with the fingertips that itched with frustrated anticipation at the interrupted moment on the elevator.

Elise hurried across the lobby ahead of him to swipe her ID badge over the computerized card reader that Officer Wilkins set on top of the desk. Her serene smile was firmly in place as she looped the ID lanyard around her neck. “Hey, Shane. How are you today?”

The young uniformed officer hooked his thumbs into his utility belt and pulled his shoulders back. “Fit and fine. Ran my five miles this morning.”

“In this heat?”

Shane laughed. “That’s why I do it before dawn. No matter what the weather does to us, I have to stick to my training if I’m going to place in KC’s half marathon on Labor Day weekend. It’s only a few weeks away.”

Elise gave an exaggerated groan. “I barely want to walk out to my car in this heat. I admire your persistence and dedication.”

The younger man winked at her. “I try.”

George swiped his card and then clipped it to his belt beside his badge. He was out of smiles this morning and ready to work. “Is Commissioner Cartwright-Masterson in yet?”

Shane rightly turned his attention to his superior officer. “No, sir. Do you want me to tell her you’re looking for her when she checks in?”

George shook his head, hating that he was in such a mood. “No. I’m just curious if there’s any news on her son Seth’s baby yet. I know she wants to take a few days off then, but I’m hoping to get a little heads-up before it happens and the extra workload kicks in.”

“If I hear anything, you will, too,” Shane assured him.

“Thanks.” Elise was already heading around the corner into the hallway that led to their offices. Running away from him and his questions, it seemed. Whatever she’d been about to share in the elevator had been locked up tight inside her again. He’d be a smart man to respect her privacy and forget his concern. He’d be a smarter man to take care of the people he was responsible for. He flattened his hand on top of the counter, demanding Shane’s undivided attention. “In between screening visitors, you ought to apply some of that ‘persistence and dedication’ to studying for your detective’s exam. You got your degree in May, right?”

“Yes, sir. Finished it in three years instead of four. And that’s while I was working full-time.”

With that kind of drive, Shane was probably frustrated getting stuck on guard duty at KCPD headquarters. “You know I’ll put in a good word for you with the promotions board as soon as you pass the exam.”

“I appreciate that.”

George nodded. Sometimes, it was nice to have clout and be able to make a difference in a deserving person’s life. “Have a good one.”

“You, too, sir.”

And sometimes that clout didn’t do him a damn bit of good. George followed Elise to the reception area and the suite of offices at the end of the hallway. When he nudged open the door to her office, he was instantly hit with the sickeningly sweet smell of roses filling the air. And in the split second he wondered if a woman really was impressed with that stinky kind of excess, he plowed into Elise’s back.

“Whoa.” Before he sent her flying across the carpet, George grabbed her by the shoulders and kept her from falling. “Is there a reason why you stopped in the middle of the room?”

“They shouldn’t be here.”

And that’s when he realized she was frozen. In more ways than one. Her upper arms felt like ice beneath his fingers. He couldn’t seem to help rubbing his hands up and down her chilled skin, trying to instill some warmth. He looked over her shoulder to her desk and the yellow roses that had transfixed her, and this time, he wasn’t budging until he got an answer. “Explain.”

Elise never averted her gaze, never took a step away from him, so George never let go. She eased a sigh out on a deep, stuttered breath, then inhaled again before answering.

“It bothered me that I didn’t know who sent the roses, so I dropped them off at St. Luke’s on the way home last night. They’re too much and I didn’t want them.” She hugged her arms in front of her and shivered in his grip. “I got rid of them.”

George stepped up beside her to get a better look, dropping a steadying hand to the small of her back. “You’re certain these are the same?”

She nodded, recoiling a bit against his palm. “Cut-glass vase. There are only twenty-three roses, not twenty-four. One stem is broken. He brought them back.”

George quickly verified her description and began formulating possible scenarios to explain this twisted prank. Judging by her behavior in the elevator, he could guess this wasn’t the only worrisome puzzle Elise had been dealing with.

But how much of the story was she willing to share? How hard would he have to push her to get to the truth? And were her troubles any of his damn business?

Yes.

This was a threat to his office. A breach of security at the highest ranks of the police department. Besides, seeing cool, calm and collected Elise Brown rattled like this—to see his right arm, his executive partner being hurt this way—felt personal. They were a team. And nobody messed with his teammates. He’d had his partners’ backs for years when he’d worn a uniform or cleaned drugs and thugs off the streets. Even though his gun was locked in his desk drawer, he was still a cop. He couldn’t allow this kind of thing to happen in his office, not on his watch. Not to Elise.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, turning her back out of her office. The fact that she didn’t argue with him was as much of a red flag as the creepy reappearance of the bouquet. Something was seriously wrong here.

George led her to a couch in the reception area before marching down the hall to have Shane get a list of everyone who’d been on this floor in the past twelve hours, as well as any cleaning and maintenance staff or personnel who had master keys. He’d make sure every last one was accounted for. He’d make this right.

Or else he’d never be able to shake the memory of Elise trembling against the palm of his hand and murmuring to herself, “He brought them back.”