by Julie Miller
USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Miller returns to The Precinct with a tale of a killer on the loose and a tornado about to hit Kansas City
There was no way Deputy Commissioner George Madigan was going to let his beautiful assistant fall prey to a stalker. Because Elise Brown wasn’t just another employee. Her vulnerable blue eyes triggered all of George’s protective instincts…and now her life was in jeopardy.
Working together almost 24/7 to bring the perp to justice—and sharing kisses passionate enough to ignite a Kansas City heat wave—George and Elise had forged the kind of partnership that could keep her out of harm’s way and potentially lead to happily ever after.
Until a deadly tornado struck and Elise was taken hostage….
“He was in my bedroom.”
The cushion beside her sank and her balance shifted as George sat down. “I believe you.” He pulled both her hands between his and gently rubbed them.
His simple statement of faith in her sanity swept out the cobwebs of self-doubt and touched her bruised heart.
Curling her legs beneath her, Elise pushed herself up, looping her arms about George’s neck, knocking him into the back of the couch. “Thank you.”
He folded his arms around her, flattening one hand against her spine to anchor her to his body. He pushed aside the jacket’s collar and threaded his fingers into the short hair at her nape to massage the tension in her neck.
“You’re okay. You’re safe now. No one’s going to hurt you.”
KCPD
PROTECTOR
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Julie Miller
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those books she read growing up. When shyness and asthma kept her from becoming the action-adventure heroine she longed to be, Julie created stories in her head to keep herself entertained. Encouragement from her family to write down the feelings and ideas she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where this teacher serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Julie believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.
Born and raised in Missouri, this award-winning author now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and an assortment of spoiled pets. To contact Julie or to learn more about her books, write to P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162 or check out her website and monthly newsletter at www.juliemiller.org.
Books by Julie Miller
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
841—POLICE BUSINESS*
880—FORBIDDEN CAPTOR
898—SEARCH AND SEIZURE*
947—BABY JANE DOE*
966—BEAST IN THE TOWER
1009—UP AGAINST THE WALL**
1015—NINE-MONTH PROTECTOR**
1070—PROTECTIVE INSTINCTS‡
1073—ARMED AND DEVASTATING‡
1090—PRIVATE S.W.A.T. TAKEOVER‡
1099—KANSAS CITY CHRISTMAS‡
1138—PULLING THE TRIGGER
1176—BEAUTY AND THE BADGE‡
1201—TAKEDOWN*
1245—MAN WITH THE MUSCLE
1266—PROTECTING PLAIN JANEΔ
1296—PROTECTING THE PREGNANT WITNESSΔ
1321—NANNY 911Δ
1350—THE MARINE NEXT DOOR§§
1367—KANSAS CITY COWBOY§§
1391—THREE COWBOYS
“Virgil”
1408—TACTICAL ADVANTAGE§§
1427—ASSUMED IDENTITY§§
1444—TASK FORCE BRIDE§§
1462—YULETIDE PROTECTOR§§
1509—KCPD PROTECTOR*
*The Precinct
**The Precinct: Vice Squad
‡The Precinct:
Brotherhood of the Badge
ΔThe Precinct: SWAT
§§The Precinct: Task Force
CAST OF CHARACTERS
George Madigan—Deputy Commissioner of the KCPD. He’s an old-school, by-the-book man’s man with a badge. The one rule he’s tempted to break? Getting personal with the leggy brunette who runs his office like clockwork. But when a campaign of psychological terror threatens his assistant, this career cop puts his life on the line to protect the city…and the woman he’s falling for.
Elise Brown—Three strikes and you’re out in the relationship department. With her humiliating track record with men, Elise has given up on love and devoted herself to her work in the deputy commissioner’s office. But when a dangerous stalker turns her well-ordered life upside down, she relies on one man she trusts, the one man she knows she can never have—her boss.
James Westbrook—Elise almost married him back in college. But career opportunities took them in different directions. Does he want her back in his life?
Courtney Reiter—George’s needy ex-wife can’t seem to let him go.
Denton Hale—A police officer worried about his job. And maybe he should be.
Quinn Gallagher—Elise’s former boss. She once thought he’d be the love of her life. Now she’s lucky this business tycoon is still a friend.
Alexsandr Titov—The brother of a slain mob boss. Why is he in Kansas City? And how much does he know about Elise’s relationship with his late brother?
Shane Wilkins—A young, ambitious police officer George mentors. He takes his job guarding the command floor of KCPD headquarters very seriously.
Nick & Annie Fensom—George’s nephew and niece-in-law—a KCPD detective and a CSI who understand the meaning of family helping family.
Spike—The best guard dog ever…if not necessarily the most intimidating.
Mother Nature—Her summer heat wave and violent storms have the entire city on edge.
To Pam Jones-Hamblin and Jenny Simons—
two sisters who compete to see who can
read my books first. Too much fun!
And what a lovely compliment.
I’m happy to be a part of the competition.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Excerpt
Chapter One
“Elise? I need—”
“Right here.” As soon as the lacquered black door between their offices opened, Elise Brown was on her feet, carrying the file from the corner of her desk over to her boss, KCPD Deputy Commissioner George Madigan. “Crime rate statistics for the downtown area over the past three years. I also checked the Farmers’ Almanac for the last time Kansas City had record temperatures like this and forwarded stats on the dramatic rise in reported crime incidents for that summer to your laptop. I pulled up similar stats on the increased number of 9-1-1 calls during power outages.”
“And my dinner—?”
“Done. I called the restaurant and moved your reservation this evening back to eight o’clock. Your appointment will meet you there.”
George’s firm mouth cocked into a wry grin, deepening the lines beside his steel-gray eyes as he opened the folder. “You might at least let me finish asking
my questions before you hand over the answers.”
George Madigan didn’t ask—he gave orders—but Elise didn’t mind. She tipped her face up to his and smiled. “Just being indispensable.”
“That you are. I swear you could do this job without me. But I wouldn’t manage the other way around. Thanks.” He dropped his gaze to the information he held, thumbing through the pages, already engrossed in his work.
Elise smiled at the crown of his dark brown hair. It was short and thick and peppered with shots of silver that only added to the mature air of masculinity that oozed from every pore. Not that she cared one whit about how the man looked or what he oozed. All she cared about was this job and the way George valued her as a trusted associate.
There were no miscommunications when her boss spoke. No flirty double entendres she had to evaluate and dodge. No favors or blackmail or anything that could leave her feeling like a fool for not clearly understanding what was being asked of her.
She appreciated the mutual respect in their working relationship, and had no intention of muddying the waters by wishing there might be a little more charm to his authoritative demeanor or wondering how a full-blown smile or belly laugh might soften the life experience sculpted into his angular features.
The deputy commissioner and KCPD had taken a chance on her when her confidence had been so close to rock bottom that she wasn’t sure she even deserved a job in the corporate world again. Working as an executive assistant for one of the top administrators in the department, she was rebuilding the self-assurance that had been shredded at her last full-time position. Fixing her bruised heart and shattered trust in men were projects for another day. For her, the job was enough. It was everything. It had to be.
“This is good stuff,” George praised. “These numbers should help make my case for allocating more funds.”
“You hired me to be knowledgeable, efficient and to anticipate your needs.”
To make her point, she flipped the page to point out the totals he was searching for and nodded toward the office behind him where five people sat around a cherrywood conference table, engaged in a heated discussion studded with phrases like “We’re already short staffed,” “Not my responsibility,” “How much?” and “Would you go there without a cop around for miles?”
Elise didn’t even need to drop her voice for privacy. “Emergency budget meeting? Complaints from the union about freezing salaries instead of paying overtime? The most vocal person in the room is Councilman Johnson. Ergo, you want to be armed with the information showing a direct correlation between hot weather and a higher crime rate, and how putting extra uniformed officers on the street during peak power demands will counteract that danger.”
A dark eyebrow arched as he looked up from the file. “Ergo?”
Elise met his gaze and shrugged. “So you can shut up Mr. Johnson.”
That earned a chuckle from deep in his throat. Okay. So the man did possess a little charm. “You’re onto me. Did anyone ever tell you that you’d make a good detective?”
Elise looked beyond the wide shoulders of his blue dress shirt to see the medals and commendations framed on the wall behind his desk. Her boss’s day might be filled with administrative duties now, but there was no doubt who the real detective was here. “I function much better behind the scenes than I do on the front line, sir.”
His square jaw tightened momentarily. But before he snapped the folder shut and gave voice to whatever thought had crossed his features, a light knock on Elise’s office door diverted her attention across the reception area.
“Hello?”
“Excuse me, sir.” Elise crossed the taupe carpet to meet the deliveryman hidden behind the extravagant bouquet of yellow roses at the hallway door. “Yes?”
“Is this the deputy commissioner’s office?” a winded voice asked.
“It is.”
“Finally. Do you know how far I had to carry these things?” When the twentysomething man poked his head around the tall glass vase, his ruddy cheeks and forehead were dotted with perspiration. She also noted that he was wearing a visitor’s badge around the sweat-stained neck of his brown uniform. Good. That meant he’d been cleared at both the ground floor and the security desk at the eighth floor elevators, and she didn’t need to screen him as any kind of threat to the higher-ups at KCPD.
“Has it topped a hundred degrees out there yet?” Elise asked, reaching for the electronic signature pad he pushed toward her. Since a heat wave was bearing down on Kansas City for its third straight week, it was a topic of conversation friends and strangers alike could share. She hoped her friendly smile might improve the man’s mood.
But she got little more than a weary grunt in return. “I just need you to sign for these, ma’am.”
Understanding how a heat index of one hundred and ten and humidity that was nearly as high could make tempers and frustrations flare, Elise quickly wrote her name. “Could I get you something cold to drink? Some ice water?”
The man’s grim expression relaxed as he traded the vase for the keypad. “I’ve got a cooler in my van in the parking garage across the street. But thanks.”
“Looks like Commissioner Madigan has a special admirer.” Elise hefted the over-the-top bouquet into her arms. Had George won some award he hadn’t mentioned? Been seeing someone during the few hours he wasn’t in the office?
“They’re for you, ma’am.” The deliveryman glanced down at his keypad screen. “You’re Elise Brown, right?”
Surprise warred with confusion inside her at the unexpected gift. “For me?”
“Yes, ma’am. Enjoy. And stay cool.” The man was all smiles as he walked away.
Elise touched her nose to one velvety blossom, cautiously inhaling its cloying, perfumey scent as she counted. Eleven, twelve...twenty-three yellow roses, complete with golden ribbons, baby’s breath and a cut-glass vase—for her?
The flowers grew unbearably heavy. Twenty-three roses. One for every day we’ve been together.
“Easy.” Suddenly, a strong hand cupped beneath hers, taking the weight of the glass. “We don’t want a flood on the carpet.”
A flash of blue danced into Elise’s peripheral vision a split second before her boss’s crisp voice startled her from her momentary paralysis. She backed away a step and hugged her arms securely around the vase. “I’ve got them.” She turned and carried them to the corner of her desk. “Thanks.”
The flowers might be a different color, but the similarity...twenty-three? Elise breathed in deeply, clearing the troubling thought from her mind. It wasn’t possible. The florist had simply miscounted. Or the deliveryman had stolen one for his girlfriend. This was just a coincidence and she’d overreacted. That part of her past was over and done with.
Dead men didn’t send flowers.
But who would?
Shuffling through the stems and greenery, Elise searched for a card that wasn’t there. She pulled the empty plastic clamp from the vase that should have held the sender’s name or a message for her, and hurried out into the hallway. “Wait a minute,” she called after the deliveryman. “Who are these from? There’s no card....”
But he’d already disappeared around the corner by the elevators and security desk. She could either kick off her heels and run after him, or solve the mystery on her own. And since Nikolai was dead... With another steadying breath, Elise had made her decision. Ease up on the paranoia. There’s a rational explanation. Figure it out.
But when she turned around, she froze, her path blocked by George Madigan filling the doorway. His sturdy forearms were exposed by his rolled-up sleeves, and their tanned strength formed an impenetrable barrier folded across the front of his chest. “Did I miss your birthday?”
Although he wore no gun, his badge was right there, clipped to his belt, its polished blue enamel and extra brass chev
rons indicating he had the right to stop her and ask any questions he wanted in this office. Elise tipped her face up to his narrowed gray eyes. Was that suspicion she saw there? Curiosity? Concern?
She knew that George Madigan on a mission could be an intimidating thing. His devotion to the department, his single-minded determination to solve problems, made him a force to be reckoned with in city and departmental politics. But the idea of him turning that perceptive intelligence and laser beam focus on her was as unnerving as it was thrilling.
And that made those little ripples of awareness stirring her blood far too dangerous.
Tempting as it might be to share her fears with her boss, Elise nixed the idea. Her problems were her own. She understood George Madigan well enough to get her job done, and that was as far as their relationship needed to go. Mixing work and personal was definitely a bad idea.
“Elise?”
Oh, snap. How long had she been staring at the loose knot of his tie?
Despite the air-conditioning that cooled the building’s temperature to a tolerable level, Elise suddenly felt hot. She brushed aside a short dark wave of hair that clung to her damp skin and tucked it behind her ear before scooting around the file he fisted in one hand. “My birthday’s not until September.”
Two months away. Elise set the card holder beside the vase and sorted through the ribbons and greenery again. She found one broken stem being held upright by sprigs of baby’s breath and the oversize bow, but still no card.
A queasy sense of unease turned in her stomach. Nikolai had sent her twenty-three red roses after he’d gone back to Russia. A thank-you, apology and do svidaniya all in one. But Nikolai was dead. Murdered by her former boss Quinn Gallagher’s father-in-law when Nikolai had dared to threaten Quinn’s daughter.
“I know it’s not Administrative Professionals’ Week. I marked that on my calendar.” George followed her to the desk and reached out to finger one of the blooms. “These are unexpected.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” she conceded, wishing she could mask her emotions as well as her boss could. “They’re definitely a surprise.”