Heroes in Uniform: Soldiers, SEALs, Spies, Rangers and Cops: Sexy Hot Contemporary Alpha Heroes From NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Authors

by Sharon Hamilton

  So much for honor and integrity.

  “Did you mention these, Josephine?” Anger brushed the shell of her ear.

  She didn’t need to look down to see the long silver scars that lined her abdomen in diagonal crosses. Rage heated until it was a white-hot mist as Marsh exposed her biggest secret—her greatest shame—to the whole world. The shocked expressions on the cop and feds’ faces should have been comical, but the obvious repugnance and pity she saw there made her stop fighting.

  “You have blood on you, miss.” Detective Cochrane’s eyes were troubled now and Marsh’s grip tightened, driving the air from her lungs.

  “It’s nothing.” She hadn’t had time to clean up after that sonofabitch had attacked her, but she hadn’t told the cops that. She hadn’t told them that he’d hurt her or what he’d said. She looked over her shoulder into Marsh’s grim, unsmiling face. “Let go of me or I’ll rip out your fucking throat.”

  Fire lit his eyes, but his voice was soft. “You don’t scare me, Josephine. At least, not that way.”

  Marsh lowered her to the stair, held her securely while she regained her balance and jerked her sweater back into place. Fury and pride demanded she hurt the bastard, but when she turned to face him, he showed an impressive display of psychic ability, and took a step away.

  Tears swam in her eyes. She bit her lip. How did he know about the scars? Despite his badge, she’d never doubted his almost overbearing sense of honor.

  Now she wasn’t so sure.

  “Let’s go.” Special Agent Dickwad grabbed her arm like he’d solved the case and hustled her toward the door.

  Jerking out of the idiot’s painful grip, she glared over her shoulder about to curse Marshall Hayes with every foul word she’d ever learned, but her anger evaporated as quickly as it had come. Something about his haunted expression tore at her. He looked like she felt—as if he’d been in a fight for his life and had barely escaped alive.

  * * *

  His toes tingled painfully with cold. Transferring his weight from one foot to the other helped, but if the cops didn’t give a statement soon, he was leaving. Job or no freaking job.

  A cup of Starbucks helped ward off the chill. He sipped the creamy sweet brew and noted it too was beginning to cool. He was too old for this crap. Twenty years on the job and the crime-beat still sucked.

  Nelson Landry glanced around the crowd, noticed small huddled groups whose breath rose as a cloud of steam through the sodium vapor of the streetlights. They reckoned serial killers got off watching the action from the sidelines. He peered closer. Were any of these guys the Blade Hunter? His gaze ran over the figures but no one stood out as a sadistic psycho and he grew bored looking at those young eager faces.

  The guy to his right looked respectable enough, but who knew what that overcoat hid or what the guy’s fingers were jangling deep in his pockets. Nelson huffed out a laugh at the image he’d conjured. God help him, he’d been doing this way too long.

  Cops and feds began pouring out of the building like ants on a mission. Stretching his five-foot-five frame to the limit, Nelson peered past an NBC cameraman’s shoulder. Cops were loading up cars and trucks with evidence bags and equipment. The body was long gone.

  One of the feds was coming across the street to give a statement. Heaving a sigh of relief, Nelson took the digital recorder out of his pocket, shifted his weight, thankful he’d soon be in the comfort of his own bed. The G-man moved like he had a poker shoved up his ass, almost on tiptoes. Out of the corner of his eye, Nelson spotted a blonde being escorted to a black Lincoln sedan.

  Who the hell is that? A real looker. A model or film star he wouldn’t wonder.

  “Check out the list of residents,” he spoke into his voice recorder and raised his Nikon with his other hand, reeling off a few shots of the fed. Then he turned the camera toward the blonde, and centered the shot through the viewfinder. One of the men walking beside the woman made his lips draw back over his teeth.

  SAC Marshall Hayes.

  The man who’d gotten him busted back down to the crime-beat only a couple of years from retirement, because he’d written an article about a cover up over the death of some curator from the Museum of Modern Art.

  Asshole.

  The guy worked art fraud, so what the hell was he doing at a murder scene? On autopilot, Nelson thrust his recorder toward the guy giving the official statement and watched the man who’d wrecked his life lean up-close and personal to the blonde before climbing into a Beemer parked further along the street and speeding away.

  Marshall Hayes hated the press. Loved making their lives as difficult as possible. The world clicked into place in a serendipitous moment and Nelson grinned. He was about to return the favor.

  Her Last Chance: Chapter Three

  Back at the FBI New York field office, Marsh watched the interview through the one-way mirror. Josephine flashed an award-winning smile and sipped delicately from a cup of coffee Special Agent Sam Walker had fetched her—in a china cup, no less.

  She had that effect on men.

  Long blond hair was tied into a messy knot on top of her head. Her lips were pink and sweetly bowed, her face pretty enough to make you believe any lie you told yourself to justify those unprofessional thoughts about getting her naked.

  He hadn’t realized exactly how badly he’d missed the irrational, foul-mouthed vixen until he’d seen her again. And it was galling to know that this woman, who loathed him with a passion, was the only one he wanted in his bed.

  He rubbed the muscles jammed tight in his neck.

  “So why didn’t you mention that this man cut you?” Walker asked, placing a hand on her elbow, trying to inspire trust. Mr. Benevolent. Playing good cop to Agent Nicholl’s scowling bad cop.

  Studying her closely, Marsh saw Josephine freeze for that fraction of a second before she laughed self-deprecatingly and forced herself to relax. She put both hands flat on the table in front of her, probably to stop her body language giving her away when she lied her ass off.

  If they thought they were going to get anything out of her this way, they were as dumb as she made herself look.

  “I didn’t even know he’d cut me, until Marsh, Agent Hayes…” Her voice grew husky and she glanced at the mirror, “…flashed you all like that.”

  Color crept into her cheeks and he frowned. Everything about Josephine’s façade was highly polished deceit except her embarrassment about those scars. They weren’t pretty, but unfortunately, they weren’t a turn off either.

  His cell phone buzzed against his hipbone.

  “Dancer, what have you got for me?” God help him, he still had an art-theft investigation to run.

  “Philip and Gloria Faraday are siblings. Born in England,” Dancer reeled off. “Parents deceased. No police record, no suspicion of dealing under the table.” He gave a big yawn that reminded Marsh it was well after midnight.

  The one-way glass was smeared with handprints and the effect was like looking through a soft focus lens. Josephine made a big show of checking her statement. Sentence by sentence as the agents quizzed her. Walker leaned over her like some proprietary wolf and Marsh gritted his teeth.

  Dancer carried on. “The lab agreed to send a crime scene tech to us because of the unusual circumstances. Once they’re done, Aiden can examine it for authenticity and get the paint analyzed. There aren’t any field agents available to help out at the gallery. The SAC said tonight’s homicide got priority.”

  Marsh had no problem with that. Human life was more important than art or money and this case had been cold for years. “Go back to the hotel and get some sleep. I’ll meet you at the gallery at nine to interview the Faradays again. See if we can shake something coherent out of Gloria this time.”

  “Is it true this serial killer attacked Josephine Maxwell?” Dancer asked.

  Marsh sighed. They’d worked together for years and Steve Dancer knew him better than anyone. Dancer also knew Marsh and Josephine had shared on
e night of sex that had led to deep-seated mistrust on both sides.

  “Yeah. He killed another woman in her apartment building, and then attacked Josephine in the lobby. Lucky for her they were interrupted and he fled the scene.”

  Lucky…

  Clamping his molars together, Marsh fought the urge to retch. The bastard had actually cut her; he’d had his hands on her flesh and it was a miracle she wasn’t dead.

  Shit.

  There was a long beat of silence on the other end of the line.

  “But how did you know? In the bullpen…” Dancer cleared his throat. “I mean the way you ran out of here when you saw those pictures…how did you know?” One of Dancer’s greatest strengths was uncovering classified information, but Marsh had never told anyone about Josephine’s scars. Tomorrow, he’d be lucky if they weren’t national headlines.

  So what difference did it make if he told Dancer?

  She’d hate him, but then she already hated him.

  “This doesn’t go anywhere else. Josephine was knifed as a kid. Cut up bad enough that the cops didn’t think she’d make it.” Marsh closed his eyes against the graphic images still engraved on his memory from the photographs he’d seen. “I had that evidence file copied to me when we were looking for Elizabeth.”

  He’d also seen Josephine’s scars in the flesh when he’d drugged her and injected a tiny transmitter below her shoulder blade. He’d used her to track Elizabeth Ward, her best friend, and his undercover agent who’d gone missing last spring. Josephine didn’t know about the transmitter and he’d do his damnedest to make sure she never found out. Their relationship had taken an unexpected turn when she’d used those same tranqs on him, with startling consequences for both of them.

  “She has the same pattern of scars the murder victims have.”

  Dancer was silent, though Marsh heard the other man pulling all the threads together and forming an unbreakable weave. “So you think this is the same guy?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. Josephine isn’t talking.” Switching tracks, Marsh asked, “Have you notified Admiral Chambers we found his painting yet?” Another political string-puller, his father’s buddy was going to be delighted they’d finally found that piece. Especially if experts reappraised it as a Vermeer.

  “I figured you’d do it.” Dancer’s tone turned hopeful.

  Normally, Marsh would have called the admiral immediately, but Josephine’s safety was more important than anything else. Through the window, he watched her smile get more strained. The grip on her pen was so tight the tips of her fingers were bloodless.

  His own fingers tightened around the phone because he knew whatever she was writing down wasn’t the whole story. Josephine had a problem with telling the truth. Hell, maybe they both did. “You let him know ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dancer replied smartly. “By the way, I still have that photograph of you in handcuffs…”

  Marsh wanted to curse, but other things weighed too heavily on his mind. “Yeah, yeah, just make the damn call.”

  He hung up and stared through the window. The clench of her jaw and hunch of her shoulders screamed nervous tension, but he doubted she’d break. Not here. Not yet.

  What was she hiding? Why the hell was she hiding it?

  But the only thing that really mattered was she was back in his life and he had no intention of letting anyone hurt her ever again. A hum ran through his blood, an excitement he hadn’t felt in months and he wished to God he didn’t feel now. Josephine was in danger—he didn’t believe in coincidence. The Blade Hunter was trying to finish a job he’d started twenty years ago, and that job was murdering Josephine Maxwell.

  * * *

  The urgent need for a shower ate at Josie’s nerves. The scent of sweat, blood and fear clung to her, the memory of her attacker’s touch eroding her skin, gradually being absorbed into her bones and settling there like a bruise.

  She bit the end of the pen. If it wasn’t for Marshall Hayes she’d be in her apartment right now packing.

  To go where?

  She hadn’t figured that out yet. She had options. Connecticut? Montana? Or maybe she should just get on a train with no set destination in mind.

  Squinting at the page she’d written, she put down the pen and glanced up at Special Agent Sam Walker, who sat on the table swinging his leg, the gentle motion rocking the surface beneath her forearms.

  He and Nicholl were reading the latest report on the murder of Angela Morelli. Discussing it quietly between them. Her stomach clenched.

  Despite living in the same building for the last few years, Josie had barely known the woman. And now Angela was dead because of her.

  She worried a loose thread on her jacket, snapped it off. The room was dreary and stuffy, nothing but industrial gray and green. Walker’s gun sat on his hip, close to her elbow.

  Maybe I should become a cop? Too bad she wasn’t big on honesty or law enforcement. She wiped her fingers on her jeans and looked at the black holstered weapon again. Guns were something she’d always avoided—only wise guys and cops carried guns where she came from, and she didn’t trust either.

  Christ, she wanted to get out of here. She scanned what she’d written.

  I checked the mail and someone grabbed me from behind.

  The sharp blade of the hunting knife flashed before her eyes and Agent Walker’s big black gun looked tempting as hell.

  Mrs. Lauder from number three opened the front door and screamed. Attacker jumped up and ran away.

  There were a few more details she could add, but she hadn’t lied.

  The door off the street had opened with a rush of wind and Janet Lauder, her downstairs neighbor, had taken one look at the scene, dropped her groceries and run shrieking into the street.

  Josie had held up her portfolio as a shield in a last desperate defense.

  Mrs. Lauder’s screams had gathered support and loud male voices had responded—if they hadn’t, Josie wouldn’t be sitting here right now. She’d be laid out dead in the morgue. The predator had slid the knife into his pocket and walked toward one of the ground floor apartments. He’d paused long enough to make her a parting promise. “Next time, you’re dead.”

  Asshole.

  She signed the statement neatly with her trademark J Maxwell signature. Her shoulder itched the way it did sometimes but she didn’t try to scratch it. It seemed important not to show any weakness in this bastion of law enforcement.

  “Can I go now?” She shifted her feet, preparing to stand. Despite fatigue that dragged at her eyelids, she smiled. It went against her nature, but the system had taught her that looking miserable got you nothing but therapy and pep talks from dumpy-looking social workers. She was far too old for that crap.

  Nicholl picked up her statement and skimmed through it, frowned at her in that condescending way some men had.

  “Madam, I think it is time you started to tell the truth about your association with this murderer and not some half-cocked story about running into the guy in the hallway. Are you his accomplice? Are you helping him?”

  Now they’re gonna pin this on me? Never trust a frickin’ cop. Rolling her eyes, she threw a look at the mirrored window where she knew Marsh was watching.

  Time for another inch of honesty. “I don’t know what else I can tell you. I got my scars when someone attacked me when I was a kid in Queens. There was a police report.” Holding Agent Walker’s gaze she let sincerity shine through. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “How old were you?” Walker asked, frowning. He was watching her lips.

  She withdrew eye contact. “Nine.”

  “Where did you grow up?” Walker crinkled his baby-blues, trying to catch her gaze again and charm her. This wasn’t going where she wanted it. She’d wanted to deflect them away from herself but had nothing else to give them.

  “Brooklyn. I was visiting a friend in Queens.” She rested her palms on her thighs. Held them still and then relaxed against the hard back o
f the chair as she realized she wasn’t going anywhere soon.

  The room was warm so she slipped out of her jacket and crossed her legs. Both men followed her actions in an automatic male response. She might not be Sharon Stone, but she had moves.

  Josephine glanced at the mirrored window and knew Marsh wouldn’t be so easily diverted. Heat rose in her cheeks as memories of exactly how she’d distracted him returned in vivid detail. Virgins should not dabble in sexual manipulation unless they were prepared to get more than they bargained for.

  “I think I took him by surprise being there, when I was a kid.” She frowned. She’d never really figured out why he hadn’t killed her. Even in the darkness she’d seen the shocked expression in his eyes. Of course, she shouldn’t have been there. Should never have been peeping through that window from the fire escape. So she hadn’t made a sound when he’d gathered her up—hadn’t wanted her mother or her mother’s lover to find out she’d been sitting outside that window watching them.

  She pushed down a sob that came out of nowhere.

  “How old was he? It was a he, right?” Walker persisted.

  Walker was a good-looking guy. Shorter than Marsh, solid, square-jawed, there were lines at the corners of his eyes that suggested he smiled a lot. Lucky him. She concentrated on him and not his crane-like partner, nor the darkly intense man who exuded power even from a room away. Hell, distance was no object for Marshall Hayes.

  “It was definitely a guy.” She conjured up old memories that were always fresh in her mind. “He had blunt fingers, square hands.” She looked at her own tapered fingers, swallowed as she recalled the intimate caress of his hand over the knife handle. “I don’t know how old he was. Hell, I was nine. Anyone over sixteen was old back then.”

  “Was he an adult?”

  “Physically or legally? I don’t know.” She ran her fingers through her hair, pulled. The room spun slightly because she was so tired. “Why don’t you go get the police report? It’s bound to have more details than I can remember.”