by Julie Miller
Knowing his concern for her safety was genuine, yet knowing that depending on him would only resurrect feelings that were too painful to bear right now, Josie put her hand on his chest and pushed him back out of her space. “It’s not your call to make, Rafe. Now you’ve got a meeting to get to and I’m late for my practicum. Goodbye.”
It was the most unnatural thing in the world to turn her back on Rafe and walk away. The baby seemed to know it, too. Junior shifted inside her, in Josie’s mind, trying to reach for Daddy and the heat and strength and security Rafe had in such abundance. The little traitor. She was trying to be strong enough for both of them, trying to save them both the heartache of wanting Rafe Delgado.
Sensing that Rafe was standing there, watching her every step of the way, Josie pushed the elevator’s call button and waited. The swish of movement in her belly, not quite a kick yet, but a definite presence with a determined opinion, continued. The shifting pressure settled right onto her bladder again. With her hand on her belly, and tears threatening the corners of her eyes, Josie squeezed her thighs together and whispered a plea. “Please quiet down, Junior. I’m trying to make an exit here.”
WITH FOURTH PRECINCT Chief Mitch Taylor running the Monday morning roll call meeting, Rafe was doing his best to pay attention. But the vivid memories of Josie’s touch on his skin, her hand cradling his seed in her belly and the battleground of emotions waging war inside him made it a real challenge.
“I want to remind everybody about the spring carnival we’re putting together for the KCPD widows and orphans fund this month.” Mitch Taylor pulled back the front of his jacket and propped his hands at his waist in a stance that indicated this project was every bit as important to him as the ongoing investigations on his agenda. His booming voice required no microphone. “Mark your calendars for Memorial Day weekend. Even though we’ve hired an event planner to coordinate the event, I’ll be looking for volunteers to help with everything from parking to running the arcade games for the kids.”
Rafe would make sure he didn’t get on the fun and games list, although he had every intention of helping. Besides being a successful fundraiser for a worthy cause, he wanted to be a part of the annual event that honored his fallen comrades, including his first partner, Aaron Nichols, and Dominic Molloy, a member of his original SWAT team who had been killed in the line of duty a couple of years earlier. Rafe understood the unspoken command in Chief Taylor’s request for volunteers, and had every intention of complying.
But as he leaned against the back counter between his commanding officer, Captain Michael Cutler, and the rookie on the team, sharpshooter Miranda Murdock, his focus wandered. While the chief moved on to updates about ongoing cases, Be On the Lookout for suspects, or BOLOs, and other points of concern, Rafe swept his gaze across the detectives and uniformed officers crowding into the fourth floor conference room.
This, he understood. Requests from the precinct chief. Morning reports. Strong coffee burning his tongue. The Glock 9 mm strapped to his thigh.
Lists. Rules. Expectations. He trained hard to be a SWAT cop, did his damnedest to be worthy of the trust he shared with his team. He obeyed orders and gave them with equal alacrity. He knew the penalties for failing to do his job—a reprimand, a demotion, a bullet.
So he could care about his work. He could invest himself in being a career cop because he understood his job inside and out.
What he didn’t understand were people and the unpredictability of their emotions. Why had Calvin Chambers’s murder hit him so hard? It wasn’t the first death he’d had to deal with on the job. He’d lost things far more personal than a boy he’d only known for the ten minutes he’d bled out in his arms. Why had dumping his raw emotions on Josie Nichols, pouring himself into her willing body and loving arms felt like the only balm that could assuage the grief and anger he’d felt that night? Where had that need come from?
He’d betrayed a promise to Aaron Nichols. He’d taken advantage of a friendship and that crazy, flattering, foolish crush Josie had always had on him. He’d given in to the simmering male awareness of her long legs and silky hair that he’d studiously ignored for ages because he knew damn well that he wasn’t marriage material. Josie could do better than him. She deserved a happily-ever-after that no moody, brooding bastard like him could ever give her.
He liked the black-and-white assurance of routine and regulations. He hated the gray area of relationships. If a child loved his parents, and trusted that they loved him in return, then why use him as a whipping post to vent their frustrations with the world? If a young man wanted to be worthy of the faith of a mentor, then why promise to take care of a family when he lacked the skills to do so?
If a beautiful young woman told him he was going to be a father, then why couldn’t he feel joy? Why couldn’t he see the result of a night of feral compassion as anything other than a huge mistake for both of them?
Where were the rules he could apply to relationships? He understood the anger she’d directed toward him Friday night. He’d been even more angry at himself for putting her into this situation. So why did it stick in his craw that Josie had kept her pregnancy a secret from him?
“I don’t want anything from you. Just think of this baby as all mine. I do.”
He wasn’t sure if it was hurt or anger or maybe even shame that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him the news. So maybe he had been a particularly moody son of a gun lately—a child’s senseless death did that to a man. But that night in his truck had been, what, six months ago? Hell of a long time to keep a secret.
He’d never intended to be a father, but hadn’t ten years of looking out for her taught her that he’d do the right thing by her and the baby? She’d rejected his offer to take care of her outright less than an hour ago. She’d rejected his brotherly advice about the Kyle Austin murder. She’d walked away as though she didn’t want a damn thing from him if she couldn’t have everything. And he couldn’t, he just couldn’t, open up like that again.
But she didn’t need to be working on her feet every spare hour she wasn’t sleeping or studying. She didn’t need to be dealing with Patrick and prison visitations and trying to save the lives of convicted kidnappers.
Whatever he was feeling didn’t matter. Keeping his promise to Aaron Nichols demanded that Rafe do something about Josie and her baby. Despite her protests, he could pay her bills, start some kind of insurance or trust fund for the kid. He’d take more responsibility with Patrick, too. Hell, getting him off the streets and into jail and its mandatory drug rehab program had probably saved Patrick’s life, although Rafe was sure Josie’s half brother didn’t see it that way.
Rafe stared down into the coffee mug he held in his hand, thinking the rich, dark color didn’t do justice to Josie’s glorious hair. He remembered what the long, velvety softness had felt like clutched between his fingers, what its citrusy scent had smelled like filling up his senses.
And just as that forbidden desire stirred in his veins, he saw the hand gripping the mug and a grim observation hit him like a punch to the gut. The scars that marked his fingers and knuckles were just the tangible evidence of what Josie must see when she looked at him. He was beat up, inside and out. The marks from his childhood ran deep. The detachment he needed to do the work he did had been polished and reinforced like a well-fitted suit of body armor. He was tough, intensely private and on guard against the world 24/7. He certainly wasn’t the patient, warm kind of fuzzy that a child needed or a woman might want for the long haul.
He needed rules and predictability and black-and-white.
A young mother needed patience and flexibility and lots of sympathetic support—things that just weren’t in him to give.
Josie had been smart to keep the baby’s existence from him. It was a matter of self-preservation. An emotional survival tactic.
And that was something Rafe understood in spades.
Didn’t mean he was going to let her shoulder the responsibilities of
parenthood all by herself. He’d find a way to ease her burden somehow.
“Sarge.” Captain Cutler’s whisper nudged Rafe from his thoughts. “Late night?”
Rafe slowly shifted on his feet, quickly scanning his surroundings and calculating just how many seconds had passed since he’d been aware of the meeting. “What?”
“You’re miles away from here.” The captain pointed to the half-empty mug Rafe held, then to the front of the room. “Drink your coffee and pay attention.”
Chief Taylor’s gaze went to the back of the room where they stood, his sharp eyes meeting Rafe’s for a moment, sending a silent message that seemed to say “Welcome back to my world, Sarge.”
“…put our SWAT teams and bomb squads on alert,” Chief Taylor said, his watchful eyes moving on to the next target who might not be completely focused on the details of the morning report. “These may be random, isolated threats against Quinn Gallagher. But the flak vests that most of you are wearing were probably made by Gallagher’s company, so a little reciprocal protection has been approved by the commissioner.”
“What kind of protection are we talking about, Mitch?” Captain Cutler asked.
The chief inhaled a deep breath that expanded his barrel-size chest. “Obviously, we can’t favor one citizen of Kansas City over another, so if you’re on a call, that takes priority. Just be prepared to do a thorough walk-through of Gallagher headquarters or any of the company’s plants in the area if another threat is received. And it couldn’t hurt to familiarize your team with the security setup Gallagher has in place around his home and workplaces in case we need to make an incursion there.”
“Will do.”
Rafe knew that Michael Cutler and mega-wiz security billionaire Quinn Gallagher had been friends for several years, so he had a feeling that a simple “walk-through” wouldn’t be good enough if another threat was made. He’d better prep the rest of the team to expect some extra demands on their time if they got called out on a situation with Gallagher Security Systems.
“And while we’re on the subject of SWAT,” Chief Taylor continued, his stern countenance actually dredging up a smile for the man towering on the other side of Miranda Murdock. “I want to welcome back Trip Jones to SWAT Team One. After a stint in the hospital, rehab and—did I hear a honeymoon?—he finally decided to show up for work today. He may have a couple more holes in him—but it’s good to see him standing tall and taking up just as much space as he did before the shooting.”
Trip nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
A burst of applause filled the room and everyone seated at the tables turned to face the five uniformed men in black standing at the back of the room.
A few months earlier, Trip had gone head to head with a speeding van and three armed perps to save the woman he loved. Rafe and the rest of the team had arrived on the scene to help put away the trio of would-be kidnappers, but not before Trip had nearly died in the confrontation. Rafe counted on one hand the number of men he called friend. It was good to have one of those rare ones back on the team.
As the applause and good wishes were dying down, Rafe reached in front of Murdock to butt fists with the man towering on the other side of her. “Good to see you in one piece, big guy.”
With a grin, Trip touched fists. “Good to be in one.”
For a few seconds, Rafe was smiling, too. He was relaxed and firmly back into cop mode where he felt most comfortable.
For a few seconds.
The last item on Chief Taylor’s agenda dragged Rafe back out of his comfort zone. “Now I’m turning the meeting over to Detective Montgomery so he can update us on where we stand with the Rich Girl Killer. Spencer?”
Rafe pulled away from the counter where he’d been leaning and stood squarely on his feet as the red-haired detective in the fancy suit and tie walked up to the podium at the front of the room and opened a notebook. Spencer Montgomery was the detective who’d grilled Josie about the prisoner she’d tried to save at the prison visitation center. Trip and the fifth member of their team, the chief’s nephew, Alex Taylor, perked up, as well. Both had had run-ins with the tenacious Mr. Montgomery over his investigation into the Rich Girl Murders.
SWAT Team One’s almost adversarial scrutiny wasn’t lost on Detective Montgomery, but it was dismissed with a nod before he calmly adjusted his tie and addressed the entire room. “My partner, Nick, is distributing images of the man we believe to be the RGK or Rich Girl Killer. The small picture is what he looked like ten years ago.”
Rafe’s attention briefly shifted to the short, stocky man handing out copies of a computer printout. The nondescript high-school yearbook photo he gave him could have belonged to any pimply-faced teen with glasses. As soon as Rafe had gotten a glimpse of the generic drawing of a man with a bad toupee in his hands, his gaze went back to Montgomery, silently daring him to justify his reasons for questioning Josie at all. The RGK targeted wealthy women, not working-class angels like Josie Nichols. She didn’t need to be involved in his investigation.
But Montgomery was nothing if not cool, calm and able to dismiss any challenge to his expertise. “We have every reason to believe that the RGK is responsible for the recent murder of Kyle Austin at the detention center. Austin admitted to copying the RGK’s tactics when he attempted to kidnap and murder his stepsister, Charlotte Mayweather, and her testimony corroborates that.” Rafe glanced over at Trip. Normally, the most easygoing of the team, he stood with his arms crossed and his shoulders puffed up in disapproval of Montgomery mentioning his new wife’s name. “Miss Mayweather—pardon me, the new Mrs. Jones—gave us our strongest lead in the case. She suspects—and I concur—that the RGK is Donald Rathbone Kemp, someone she and the other victims once went to school with. However, based on an eyewitness description of Austin’s killer, she could not identify this man as the boy she once knew in high school.”
Eyewitness description? Ah, hell. Josie was in this up to her eyeballs.
“So your witness’s description of the RGK is pretty worthless, yes?” a detective at a table near the front of the room asked.
Rafe bristled at the unintended slur against Josie. Not that she apparently thought it was any of his business to know just how involved she was in Montgomery’s case.
“Quite the contrary,” Montgomery countered. “There’s no record of a Donald Kemp in the system, so we believe that he’s assumed a new identity or possibly has access to several identities. We also believe that he’s had plastic surgery to alter his appearance and/or is a master at disguising himself. Chief Taylor wants us to be vigilant about spotting this man when you’re walking your beat or answering other calls. I want to put him in a lineup and see if our witness can identify him.”
A uniformed officer groused from the far side of the room. “Do you expect us to stop every man on the street and compare him to this drawing?”
“I can narrow down the profile for you,” Montgomery answered. “We’re looking for a very clever man—someone who takes pride in his intelligence or expertise in whatever job he’s currently pursuing.”
“He feels superior to those around him,” his partner, Nick Fensom, added, “even if he’s working in a menial position. And, as we know from the victims he chooses, he’ll resent those in positions of power or authority over him.”
Montgomery turned a page in his notebook. “Based on the crime scenes we’ve studied, we know that he also suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. So we’re looking for someone who is fastidious about his appearance and will surround himself with a clean, tidy environment, whether it be the bus he’s driving or the briefcase he carries with him to work. If it’s soiled or out of place, it’ll bother this guy.”
Rafe took note of every detail, thinking the description sounded a little too familiar, considering he’d grown up with a father who, if his drinking hadn’t killed him four years ago, could be a viable suspect. And Josie had gotten close to this guy? His irritation with Detective Montgomery waned as he imagin
ed a man like his violent father going anywhere near Josie or her baby. A tight fist of protective anger squeezed in his gut.
And then Montgomery’s partner joined him at the podium and listed a trio of Kemp’s relatives—a father and two uncles who were serving time in prison for the kidnapping of Trip’s wife back when she was a teenager. “They were professional grifters, nomads who apparently taught Kemp from the time he was a boy to take part in whatever con they were staging. Failure, according to his uncle, was met with a beating, which sets up our unsub’s penchant for violence. When KCPD arrested the father and uncles nine years ago, there was no sign of Kemp. Speculation was that he might have been killed because he failed at his role in the kidnapping. But we no longer believe that’s the case. Instead, he went off the radar and assumed a new identity.”
“His family—these uncles and father—haven’t provided any help in locating Kemp?” Chief Taylor asked.
Nick Fensom shook his head. “They haven’t seen or heard from him since before their arrests. They each said they thought Donny was dead.”
“Or so they claim,” the chief scoffed. “You did say they were con men. How do we know this guy is still in Kansas City?”
Detective Montgomery closed his notebook and made a grim pronouncement. “Because he doesn’t like loose ends, sir. He was trained to clean up any mistake. A witness saw him commit murder, saw a version of his adult face. He won’t leave the area until he silences that witness.”
Enough profiling mumbo-jumbo. If Montgomery was right, then it was only a matter of time before the RGK went looking for Josie. “Do you have plans to put that witness in a safe house?”
To his credit, Spencer Montgomery didn’t seem surprised that Rafe had just stuck his nose into what was typically a matter for detectives and uniforms who interacted with the public on a more regular basis than SWAT cops. “That witness is anonymous, and will remain so until we have a man in custody and a positive identification has been made.” He turned and nodded to Chief Taylor. “That’s our report, sir.”