Or it could mean the alternative—out-and-out unprovoked homicide. That would have been too much for Robards, even with all his internal support, to try to bluff his way through. But it also seemed too far out there even for this man. Robards was, they agreed, a jerk, a bigot, a racist, a sexist and a dinosaur, but for a cop, even one like Robards, the step to murder was still a long one.
Miguel didn't know whether to be angry, to despair or to rejoice. In the end, he gave free rein to all three. He was angry because being a cop was tough enough without vicious idiots like Robards making it tougher and despairing because, if Kit's information was accurate, taking this particular cop down was going to be a high-wire act he didn't know if he could pull off.
But underlying it all was a feeling of grim satisfaction that could pass for rejoicing. He'd been waiting for this chance for a very long time.
They didn't talk as he helped her clean up, or as they walked into the living room. He paced the length of the room a couple of times, then sat on the comfortable sofa when she took a seat in an overstuffed chair. She waited silently, and he knew the ball was in his court.
For a long moment he looked at her before he said, "If you want to drop this, now's the time. I'll walk out of here, it will end right now, and you'll never hear another thing about it."
She looked startled. "It's not up to me. Is it?"
He held her gaze steadily. "It's got to be, Kit. You're the one who stumbled across this. Robards already knows that. Even if I tried to take it over, keep you out of it, he'd know you started it."
"I know that."
"If we pursue it," he went on, "it's going to be ugly. Uglier than just about any internal investigation I can think of, considering who's involved. And there's no way to keep you out of it once it starts."
"But we can't just let it go. He may have killed that boy!"
"I just want you to be sure." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "But be sure of something else, too, Kit. I'll be there. Every step of the way. This is big enough and we're shorthanded enough that I can justify doing the investigation myself. You'll have whatever clout I've got behind you, no matter what happens."
It wasn't much, he thought, when weighed against what she'd be risking. If they were wrong, Robards could bring the whole thing down around their ears. And if they were right, it could cause nearly as much damage in a variety of places and ways. And no matter how much he tried to shield her with his office, Kit would be the center of the storm, the one who initiated the action. Inevitably there would be sides chosen, and she would bear the brunt of it.
She met his gaze unflinchingly, and he saw in her expression that she knew it, that she'd thought of all this before she'd told him. And she'd trusted him enough to tell him despite it all.
"We can't let him get away with it," she said simply, as if there was no other answer possible.
Emotion flooded him, a tangle of the respect and admiration he'd always had for her mixed with something new that he didn't recognize but that made him want to… He wasn't sure what it made him want to do, only that he didn't dare do it. Didn't dare even think about it. He had to wait a moment to steady his voice.
"We go ahead, then?"
She nodded without hesitation. "We do."
"I'm very proud to know you, Kit Walker."
The glow that lit her face seemed out of proportion to the simple words, but it warmed him nonetheless. As did her trust. He knew that trusting her was the least he could do.
"It's only fair that you know something," he said. "I'm not unbiased here. I've been looking for years for a way to take that man down."
"I suspected as much," she said. She held his gaze evenly. "You're at the head of a long line, sir. There are a lot of people with reason to despise him. And I confess I'm among them."
"That's why I—we have to be very, very careful. This can't be personal or look like a vendetta."
He knew she was aware that Robards had been the loudest voice protesting her promotion to sergeant and her transfer to detectives. Miguel had had to overcome the man's fierce fighting and lobbying every time he'd been up for promotion. They would have to be very careful.
Kit nodded in understanding. "I've known I had to walk carefully since I saw his name on that crime report. And I admit I would dearly love to see him in the wrong. But not enough to embarrass the department without cause."
"And it would do just that," he agreed. "But then, just having a cop like that around is an embarrassment."
"And then some." She looked thoughtful. "It fits," she said.
"What fits?"
"He wasn't always so blatant. It's gotten worse in the past few years. I used to think it was just that he was getting older."
"But maybe he was just getting more arrogant." He didn't say, Because he thinks he got away with murder, but he knew they were both thinking it.
"I hate this," she said fervently. "But I hate what he's done more."
"I know, Kit. But not everybody who looks at what we do next is going to know what kind of man we're dealing with. They're going to see a thirty-year cop, a lot of experience." He smiled wryly. "Some may agree with his approach. There are a lot of disgusted people out there who think we'd be better off if we went back to his era. Some might even figure we're trying to dump him in some kind of age discrimination thing."
"Then we'll just have to make sure they do see what kind of man he is, won't we? If he beat Jaime Rivas to death, I want him hung out to dry, cop or not."
He nearly smiled at her grimly determined tone. Kit Walker was as tough as she had to be, and then some, he thought. But then, no fragile female would have survived the job, let alone the kind of abuse Robards heaped on her, just as he did anyone else who didn't meet his WASP male standards.
"So do I, Kit," he agreed, "in the worst way. I don't just want him gone, I want him punished. But you realize we may have to settle for … less."
"Less?"
He got to his feet, restless, and began to slowly pace the small room as he answered her.
"After all this time, with the one real witness dead, and this Mako only seeing him in the area, all we have is hearsay. And most of that secondhand."
"And inadmissible," Kit said glumly.
"And the rest is all circumstantial."
"And," she added wearily, leaning back in the big chair, "every circumstance could have an innocent—well, not criminal, anyway—explanation."
He turned to face her and nodded. "That he was seen in the area, that he wrote the reports himself, that he was rousting and intimidating kids on the street, that he didn't call the medics, that he did the bare minimum on the investigation and probably had his buddy Detective Brennan do the same—it all adds up to a mean, sloppy cop, but it doesn't come anywhere near a murderer. Not in court."
"But I'd swear on my badge he remembered that case instantly. He knew what it was before he looked inside that file."
"And I believe you. You're observant, and you have good instincts. But—"
"I know. My instincts would get laughed out of court by any hotshot attorney."
Reluctantly, he nodded. Every cop knew that instinct, that gut-level feeling you couldn't explain, that something was wrong, that that guy walking clown the street was on the wrong side of something, was a big part of being a good cop. They also knew there was nothing more vulnerable to the vagaries of the current justice system. You could catch a serial killer with a trail of bodies from coast to coast, but if your only explanation for why you stopped him was, "I just had a feeling about him," you were in for trouble from the defense lawyers. It could end up with the killer walking free. Years of investigating experience to cite as authority softened the blow, but a high-power attorney could take that apart, too.
He didn't say any of this. He knew Kit knew it as well as he did. And it suddenly exhausted him. He sat on the sofa, rubbing tiredly at the back of his neck.
"So what's the bottom line?" she asked.
&
nbsp; "You mean after eliminating the option of simply beating him to a pulp?" he asked wryly.
"If we must," she retorted, deadpan.
The corners of his mouth twitched at her tone despite the ugliness of the topic. But then, Kit had always been able to do that, make him laugh with her quick wit. He'd forgotten how much fun they'd all had together, although Anna had had her doubts about Bobby. "I'm afraid he's going to shortchange her if it comes to putting her or the job first. Kit needs someone like you," she'd told him one night after they'd all been out for pizza.
Someone like you.
Fire kicked through him, hot, swift and unexpected. One second he'd been remembering Anna, snuggled in bed beside him, and the next he was imagining himself looking at her—but it was Kit's face he saw.
Shock hit him as fast as the fire had and doused the heat with chilling efficiency. More warning signs than he could count were in his mind, and he shook his head sharply at the sudden pressure. Absurdly, a picture of an ancient map popped into his head with the limits of the world as it had been then known and in the far reaches the ominous words, "Here there be dragons." He suddenly knew the feeling.
"Er…"
He swallowed and tried again, afraid to look at her for fear she'd be staring at him as if he'd suddenly lost his mind. As, perhaps, he had. He made himself focus, wondering why what had always been easy suddenly seemed so difficult.
"The real bottom line is getting him off the force." He finally managed to get the words out. "We may not be able to put him in jail, but for Robards, I'm not sure taking away his authority, the badge he uses for intimidation, wouldn't be worse."
Kit's brow furrowed. "But with all his time, wouldn't you have to have just about as much to fire him as you would to charge him?"
He was able to make his voice light. "You want my job? You obviously already understand the most frustrating parts."
"Not just yet," she said in a mockingly formal tone.
He chuckled before going on with the facts he found far less amusing. "I may have to settle for a lot less than I want. We don't have any solid proof, we only have leverage. But maybe, if I play it right, enough leverage to get him to retire early. Like now."
"Retire?"
"I know it's not much. But it may be all we can get, and this way be the only chance we ever get. He's a savvy old goat and he knows how to work the system."
"I'll get more," Kit said, determined. "I'm tracking down the patrol officer who responded to the scene so I can talk to him, find out why he didn't do a supplemental report, at least. Maybe Robards said something to him. And I want to check out the story on that conveniently dead witness. If there's anything, I'll find it. Just give me some time."
"Kit, you've already been hurt—"
"This?" she said, gesturing with her bandaged arm. "This is nothing. Besides, it comes with the territory. You," she added softly, "should know that better than anyone."
For an instant those quiet words took him back to those endless days of red-hot agony after the shooting, when he'd first been afraid he would die, then afraid he wouldn't. He'd thought in those long days that if they'd just quit trying to save him, he'd be glad enough to go. Maybe Anna really would be waiting for him. He'd seen her often in those wandering dreams, but the pain that even the heavy doses of drugs couldn't hold completely at bay would always make her image shift, then fade.
Kit had been there, too. She'd been at his bedside often during those dark days. She'd talked to him, he remembered that. Exhorting him to live, sometimes, it seemed, even begging him. And sometimes, when he'd groggily opened his eyes, he'd seen her there.
And sometimes he'd seen her even when he closed his eyes. He'd seen her nearly as often as Anna until he'd lost the line between them, wondering in his dazed mind if he was confused, if Anna was still alive or Kit had joined her in death. That last memory made his stomach knot fiercely, and he had to fight it down with an effort.
He'd never realized before what a part of his life she had always been, and what a hole there would be if she left. When the spate of weddings at Trinity West had begun last year—Caitlin and Quisto followed by Ryan and Lacey for the second time, Cruz and Kelsey, then Gage and Laurey—Miguel had wondered if Kit would somehow get caught up in the string. He didn't know that she was seeing anyone. He realized he knew very little about her personal life, but still the thought had come to him, and he hadn't known what to call the odd feeling it had given him.
He wasn't sure what to call it now, either.
"Just a little more time," she said, more urgently. "If I don't find anything else, we're still where we are now. But if I do, maybe we can see that he gets what he deserves. Please, Chief, let me keep going."
Pulled out of his memories, he focused on her. She wanted this badly. As badly as he did, it seemed. And it burned so bright in her, this anger at injustice, while he had to fight to hang onto it every day. He envied her. He wished she could somehow loan him some of that energy, that spirit she never lost. As she had those days when he'd lain in a hospital bed and she'd loaned him her strength through the simple fact of her presence, her bright, caring, understanding presence.
"Under two conditions," he said.
"What?"
"First, we do this together. If it falls apart, I don't want you taking the heat alone."
That had been a trait of his predecessor. The only thing he'd done faster than usurping the credit for the work of others was shifting any blame that came his way to someone else's shoulders. Miguel been the victim of that trait more than once, and that was all it had taken to convince him there was no quicker way to alienate people.
Kit was looking at him rather oddly, nodding, but in a way that seemed less like agreement and more like he'd said something she'd already expected to hear.
"All right," she said. "And condition number two?"
"When we're alone, I'm just Miguel."
She blinked. She looked at him a little warily. Something flickered in her eyes. He wasn't sure what it was, but it drove him to say lightly, "Or Mike, if you must."
She looked startled. "Oh, no. You're not a Mike."
He grinned. "Thank you. Then Miguel it is. No sir, no chief, just Miguel. I won't make it an order, but I will say please."
She laughed, sounding almost relieved. "All right," she said.
He was still wondering about that wary look in her eyes when he left her to get the rest Roxy had ordered.
* * *
Do not, Kit ordered herself, read anything into this.
She'd lost track of how many times she'd thought it or muttered it out loud since he'd left. In another minute she would be chanting it, she told herself sourly. It didn't mean anything, except that he was more comfortable with a less formal atmosphere since they were partners in solving this crime. If they were going to be in touch a lot, there was nothing unusual in the request.
She lay in the dark, feeling the slice on her arm throb a bit, wondering if maybe she'd been hasty in declining the painkiller Roxy had offered. But then she decided it was better this way. She was glad for the distraction the pain offered. It wasn't that bad, and it gave her something to think about. Something besides a deep, rough-edged voice saying, "When we're alone, I'm just Miguel."
She didn't know why such a simple request was having such an effect on her. Was it because he'd outranked her since she'd known him? He'd been a sergeant when she'd come on the job, and he'd made lieutenant a couple of years later and captain six years after that.
But she called others on the department by their first names, even some of higher rank, ones she'd known for over a decade. True, she'd been careful, especially as a woman, to wait until she was asked to forgo the formality of rank, but once that had happened, she'd had no problem. Except for Robards—whom she called lieutenant, to remind herself to respect the rank if she couldn't respect the man—she called most everyone by their first name, as they did her.
But she had never, she realized, calle
d Miguel de los Reyes by anything other than his rank, or sir. With him, familiarity seemed to run downhill. He called her Kit, she called him chief. Even on social occasions she had done it, or avoided using any title at all, speaking to him without preamble. It puzzled her that she'd done it and never realized it. Why? Why had she treated him differently? Had he realized it even though she hadn't? Had he been wanting to say something about it for a long time?
She nearly laughed at her crazy imaginings. But she couldn't help wondering if she had clung to his rank as some kind of buffer between them, a way to keep a certain distance. But why him and no one else? And why did this whole thing unsettle her so?
Because Miguel de los Reyes unsettles you.
The silent answer came to her so swiftly she knew it had been in her mind for a while although it had never surfaced before.
Or she had never let it surface.
God, could it be? Could it be that she had treated him differently because … because why? Because she not only admired and respected him but felt something more? Had she kept that distance between them because she was afraid something more might show? He'd been Anna's husband, and Anna had been a good friend, and she would never have done anything that would hurt her.
Not that there ever would have been an opportunity. Anna's husband had loved her thoroughly and completely. And unlike many cops, he'd never made any bones about it. He'd never referred to her in the derogatory way so many cops did, as the "old lady." Anna's husband had been as proud of his place in her life as he'd been of his place in the department.
Kit realized something else, too. She had, in her mind, thought of Miguel in only two ways—as Anna's husband or as a superior on the job. She realized it had been an effort to keep him in those categories only. Some part of her had always wanted to see him as a man, and she didn't dare.
She sat up in bed abruptly, shivering, although the night was far from cool.
Kit had always thought she knew herself fairly well and that she was as honest as she could be in her dealings. It was a shock for her to realize she hadn't been very honest with herself. She'd never noticed the care with which she'd kept one man and one man only at more than arm's length. The fact that he doubtless didn't want to be any closer didn't matter. What mattered was that she'd done it, and done it unaware, at least consciously.
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