Someone he could love.
At the time, he had given them the best smile he could manage and lied, "Maybe someday."
Now, all he could think of was Kit.
That scared him. Deeply. He wasn't ready to try caring again. He didn't know if he ever would be. But even if he was, Kit was off-limits. Never mind that she was a friend, that she'd been one of Anna's best friends. She worked for him, and that was a nest of hornets he didn't dare stir up.
That the realization might have come a bit too late was something he didn't want to think about.
Nor did he want to think about the fact that he was experiencing a profound regret that he hadn't kissed her good-night.
* * *
Chapter 11
«^»
It was a sad state of affairs, Kit thought, when the only time she felt she could breathe without being watched was in the ladies' room. And she wasn't even certain about that. If there was a way to spy in here, she was sure Robards would have found it. It was with half-seriousness that the women in the department checked the walls of the bathrooms and their locker room for any changes, such as new holes in the walls or ceilings or new pieces of equipment.
Once they found a bug in the alarm clock in the small dressing area adjacent to the showers, but since the clock had been requisitioned out of the department's unclaimed property, they couldn't prove a thing about the origin of the tiny microphone. After that, Kit had occasionally used the department's equipment to sweep those areas for any electronic devices. Although none of the women would speak of it, they all knew what she suspected and were relieved when she passed along an all clear.
And right now she needed that all clear. She needed some place to think. She'd barely made it in on time today, had woken up so late she'd been running since the instant her bleary eyes had focused on the clock. She hadn't had time to think.
Maybe that was just as well, she thought, her mouth curving into a wry smile as she sat on the bench in front of her open locker. Because what was there to think about except the reason she was running late and had been scrambling to catch up all morning? What was there to think about except the reason she'd slept so late, the simple fact that she'd lain awake long into the night thinking about Miguel.
She still found it difficult to let go of the protection of referring to him by his rank, or even by his full name, especially here. But even more difficult was believing his simple and clearly heartfelt words.
I thought about how brave you'd been and told myself I couldn't do any less.
That she'd been an example, even an inspiration, to anyone during that time was hard enough to accept. That she'd been that to Miguel was almost impossible. She'd been so shattered she'd barely been able to function in those days after Bobby had died. He'd never regained consciousness after being shot, and she carried with her ever since a feeling of incompleteness. She'd said goodbye when they told her it was inevitable, but she couldn't be sure he heard her send him on his way with all the love she had in her. She wanted to believe he heard, that he had known, but…
She had indeed been a basket case, she thought. And when she'd first gone to the hospital after Miguel had been shot, it had taken every scrap of nerve she had to make herself walk into what she was sure would be the same dying situation all over again. The report had been that he'd taken a round to the left thigh that had nicked the femoral artery and a second round through his left side just below the rib cage. The blood loss had been massive, but they'd had a steady replacement supply—nearly every person at Trinity West had donated for him—and Roxy had fought like a demon to keep him alive long enough to get him out of the ER and into surgery. They'd all known it was no small miracle that he'd survived.
After a battle with herself, she had finally walked into his small cubicle in ICU. She had taken one look at him, hooked up to machines and bags with wires and tubes, had seen the ashen cast of skin that should have been beautifully bronze, had seen his tall, strong body laid low, helpless, like Bobby had been, and she'd panicked. She'd darted out of the room blindly, knowing she couldn't go through this again.
Roxy had found her huddled in a small supply room, the first place she'd been able to find to hide from the small crowd in the waiting area and the steady stream of Trinity West people coming in and out. Roxy had begun with her usual teasing, but when Kit had glanced at her, one look at her eyes had been all it had taken for the young doctor to shift gears.
In some vague part of her mind, Kit had known Roxy was using the manner she used with frightened children, soft, warm, coaxing and exquisitely gentle. She'd seen her do it before, in the year since she'd come to work, at Marina Heights Hospital. She didn't mind. She felt like a frightened child. With a cup of strong coffee poured into her system, she'd been able to steady herself. She found herself telling Roxy about Bobby, something she rarely spoke of. And Roxy had empathized, sympathized and said all the right things, and then she had returned to her normal, sassy self.
"Now that you've had your catharsis, you listen up. There's one big thing you're not taking into account here."
Kit had looked at her, startled by the sudden change in tone. "What?"
"Me," Dr. Roxanne Cutler said determinedly. "And that man is not going to die, not if I have anything to say about it."
Roxy had been as good as her word. It wasn't really her case, once he'd been passed along, but she haunted ICU, double and triple checked everything that was being done and made some suggestions. The case doctor had at first rebelled, then listened, then acted, and Miguel had recovered.
And Roxy Cutler, Kit thought with a smile, had become a savior at Trinity West.
She heard the door swing open, heard the familiar sound of a cop walking—the steady stride, the slight jangle of metallic bits of equipment on a Sam Brown, the creak of leather. She stood, smiling at the young woman in the dark blue uniform of the Marina Heights police, the name badge precisely aligned over her left pocket proclaiming her L. Wiggens. Lisa, Kit thought as she placed her. She was out of last year's first academy class and out on her own on the street in the past month or so. They chatted briefly, Kit giving what encouragement she could to the young rookie. It was hard, sometimes, she thought as Lisa's excitement bubbled over, to remember ever being that young or that enthusiastic. She had probably less than fifteen years on the young officer, but fourteen of them had been spent here, and it felt more like fifty. She felt a little pang of regret but didn't know if it was because of what she had lost or what this young woman would inevitably lose if she stayed on the job.
The privacy of the empty room lost, Kit decided she'd had enough of a respite. All she seemed to do was get lost in memories these days, anyway. She picked up her purse, slung it over her shoulder and closed and locked her locker. She told herself as she headed for the stairway to the detective division that it was because they were newer that the memories of the past few days were so vivid. But somehow she wasn't quite convinced. She had a feeling any memories of Miguel were going to be vivid, no matter how old they were.
She was dwelling on one, the way he'd looked at her when he'd thanked her for being there after Anna's death, when she opened her office door. The odor warned her before she saw him. That cigar stench was unmistakable. She prayed it was residue, that he wasn't smoking in her office. She wasn't up for that kind of confrontation. They'd had a few of them before, and she always won, because she had the no-smoking policy on her side, but they were never pleasant. She knew Robards forced rather meaningless confrontations like that on occasion, just to keep his people off-guard and to give him a stage to vent his displeasure when he couldn't find any other excuse.
There was, thankfully, no cigar between the smoke-yellowed teeth. However, there was a smile on the heavily jowled face, and that made her nervous. Anything that made Ken Robards smile did not bode well for somebody else in the world. She hoped it wasn't her but didn't really want to wish him on anybody else, either.
"Something I can d
o for you … sir?" As always, it took determination and a reminder to respect the rank if not the man to get the last word out.
"No, Sergeant, it's what I can do for you."
His smile widened as he said it, and Kit's stomach twisted. This was worse than she'd feared. Robards never, ever did anything good for anybody. Which left only one conclusion.
"What's that?" She couldn't get the sir out this time, and as his smile became almost a leer, she didn't regret the lack.
"I can tell you I'll support you if you choose to take action."
Kit blinked. It wasn't often she felt so completely confused, she had to give him that. He didn't usually surprise her. "Action?"
"I know it would be difficult, him being the chief and all, but I'll back your play."
He was still smiling. Beneath that short brush of blond hair he looked like a voracious walrus that had just stumbled across a pile of his favorite food. He reminded her of one of the wood carvings Ryan Buckhart turned out, small, detailed little bits of art that couldn't, it seemed, really have come from that huge knife of his. He'd never labeled the walrus he'd done last year, but anyone from Trinity West who looked at it, who saw its smug, pompous expression, knew who it was. And the fact that Ryan kept it on his desk and got away with it spoke volumes about the miracle Lacey Buckbart had achieved in keeping Robards off her husband's back. Kit had never been able to wiggle out of Lacey what had happened, but it had obviously been effective.
Robards's expression made her nervous. Especially since she had no idea where he was going with whatever this was.
"And what play would that be?"
"Filing a sexual harassment complaint."
Kit's breath stopped. With an effort she stopped her eyes from widening in shock, kept from showing any sign of her stunned surprise. What on earth was he up to, inviting her to file a complaint against him? Not that the women of the department hadn't considered it more than once, but none of them had wanted to go through the emotional turmoil and the hours of deposition, testifying and other chaos it would cause. Not to mention if they lost, their lives would become hell. Right now it was only Robards who gave them grief. This was, for all its advances, still heavily a man's world and a man's business, and they were afraid they'd lose what support they had. A sad thing, she thought, when, with some exceptions like her close friends, you're afraid the men you work with would side with a man like Robards simply because he was a man.
And it struck her that they hadn't brought up the subject of a complaint since Miguel had become chief. That had been another reason they'd never taken action. Chief Lipton had been a contemporary of Robards, and some thought he was, although not as openly, of the same mind-set. Betty, the detective secretary who took nearly as much from Robards as the rest of them, had said that filing a complaint with him would be like the chickens going to the coyote to complain about the fox.
But Miguel, Kit thought, was an entirely different kind of man.
"An all-American girl like you would never see a man like him on a social basis unless she was forced to."
Kit blinked, suddenly drawn to the present. A man like who? Lord, she was truly far gone if her mind could wander when she was face-to-face with Robards. Not only that, it could be dangerous. When dealing with a scorpion, you had to pay attention. Only a fool believed it wouldn't sting if given the opportunity.
And then his words registered. "I'm not sure exactly what you mean," she said cautiously.
And just as cautiously, wishing she'd thought of it sooner, she reached into her purse and clicked on the small tape recorder. She pulled out her notebook to cover the action, then set her purse on the desk in front of him, trusting his aversion to things female in his precious workplace to keep him from looking too closely.
"Don't try to hide it, girl. A friend of mine saw you with him down at that fancy yuppie place in Marina del Mar."
Miguel? Kit thought with a shock. He was talking about Miguel?
"Now, I don't blame you, you had to go, him being the chief and all. But nobody who looks at you is going to believe you went out with him voluntarily. They'll know he must have used his rank to get you to go with him."
It suddenly struck her what he was getting at. Then she told herself she had to be wrong. Even Robards wouldn't sink so low. Besides, he hated her. Why should he suddenly change?
"Nobody who looks at me?"
"Sure. Blonde, fair, you know."
Yes, she knew. White. She said it in her mind, her shocked fury rising fast. It was all she could do to keep her voice even, but she wanted him to keep talking, had to be sure.
"I do?" she asked.
"I mean, it doesn't even look right, you together, him being … what he is. Anybody could figure it out, that he wanted to show the world he could do better than another greaser."
An image of Anna, with her laughing dark eyes, her beautiful dusky skin, her melodious voice and slight, aristocratic accent, before the awful regimen of chemotherapy had taken her lustrous dark hair, came to Kit in a rush, and it was all she could do not to hook her foot under the base of the chair and dump Robards on his backside.
Instead, she set herself the task of getting him to hang himself. She'd have to use his name, to make it clear who she was talking to. She hoped she could carry it off without arousing his suspicions.
"So, Lieutenant Robards," she said carefully, loudly enough for the recorder to pick it up clearly, "what you're saying is that you would back me if I filed a sexual harassment complaint against Chief de los Reyes because it's obvious to you that I wouldn't have voluntarily been with him last night because I'm white and he's Hispanic. Have I got that right?"
"I always said you were a smart girl."
Right. When you weren't saying I was an uppity bitch who didn't know her place and a few other choice things.
"I see," she said slowly, wondering if she could get him to go further, hang himself a little more. "Do you think I'd really have a chance, him being the chief and all?"
"With the right people on your side," Robards said confidently. "And there are a lot of men left who aren't blind, who see that a man like that isn't fit to lead."
She injected a note of awed wonder into her voice. "And they'd even go so far as to support a female officer if it would take him down?"
She wondered, as his eyes narrowed, if she'd overdone it. But after a moment, he nodded. "Some things," he said, "are more important than others."
And Robards had apparently decided that getting rid of Miguel de los Reyes was worth the humiliation of supporting a female in reporting something he didn't even believe was a crime.
How comforting, she thought, to find out his racism has a higher priority than his sexism.
"You think about it," he said, standing up. He walked out of her office with that characteristic gait of his that was half swagger, half waddle. The cigar smell, unfortunately, didn't leave with him. It lingered in the air like the permeating stench of a rotting corpse.
Kit sat down, not in her chair, where he'd been, but in the small upright chair opposite the desk. She didn't want to touch it while it was still warm from his copious body heat and quite possibly damp from his sweat.
She took a long, deep breath to steady herself. The man's evil viciousness made her sick, masked as it had been as concern and support. And the ramifications of being seen with the chief in a clearly social setting didn't escape her, either. The fact that it had been strictly—well, almost—business didn't stop her from realizing once again what an utter mess it would be to try to pursue anything else. And she didn't like the reminder, even though she hardly needed it.
After a moment, she reached in and turned off the recorder. And thought. Maybe, just maybe, there was a bright side. Maybe this could be turned to advantage. If Robards was zeroed in on this, it would keep his mind off the Rivas case. He wasn't capable of handling both at once—he didn't have the brain power.
She waited, worked on other cases, made calls, very a
ware of Robards hovering. Apparently he had decided she would be more inclined do what he wanted if he kept an eye on her, if he pressured her with his presence. Every time she turned around he was there, watching, waiting. She tried to ignore him, but it was difficult, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw him depart for his usual early lunch.
Quickly she made preparations. She left her desk cluttered with a pen and some papers and, since this area was secure, her duty weapon. After she put the lightweight Glock in plain but not obvious sight, she slipped her smaller plainclothes weapon, a classic twoinch, five-shot Smith and Wesson, into her purse. She left the jacket she used to hide it when wearing it over the back of her chair. It wasn't cool enough to need it, since she had a sweater on, a long-sleeved one that would cover her forearm, although she'd changed from Roxy's carefully wrapped gauze to a couple of adhesive bandages yesterday.
She hoped all this would stall any inquiries by giving the impression she was in the building. She didn't sign out officially, but told Betty she was leaving and that she'd be on her beeper. She didn't want the woman to get in trouble. Betty could find her, and Kit could take the heat for not signing out.
Her first goal was thwarted. The chief—she caught herself again thinking of him that way within the walls of Trinity West—wasn't in his office. Rosa told her he'd come in briefly this morning, made a few calls, then left.
So Kit adjusted her focus to her second goal, the next step in the plan to take Robards down.
* * *
It was the sudden awareness that sparked through his genial companions that first alerted him. The lewd comments and the wolf whistles that followed told him what, and some inner sense he was barely aware of told him who. So he wasn't surprised when he looked over his shoulder and saw Kit approaching.
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