by Julie Miller
“You’re preaching departmental protocol, Detective Watson. And that’s not a good enough answer.” He stopped at the outer door, dipping his head slightly as he faced her one more time. “You find out who killed Kober, and I guarantee you’ll find a lead on Dani’s murderer. It may even be the same man who committed both crimes.”
With that warning, he ducked beneath the tape and stalked away. Olivia shook her head at the uniformed officer’s questioning look about whether or not he needed to stop Knight before he pushed his way through the gathering of onlookers and got on the elevator.
She was still processing the oddly charged and cryptic encounter when she felt a tap at her elbow. She nodded to Jim and he lifted the crime scene tape for her to exit in front of him. “You know who you were talking to, don’t you?”
“Yeah. He said his name was Gabriel Knight. He’s a reporter.”
“Not just any reporter.” They stepped onto the elevator and Jim pushed the button for the ground floor. “Gabe Knight writes the Crime Beat column for the Kansas City Journal.”
Her instincts about men must still be out of whack after dumping Marcus. Otherwise, she’d have pieced together the name with the clues he’d dropped.
“He’s the guy who wrote all those editorials about KCPD not being able to catch the Rose Red Rapist?” And when the task force did finally catch the creep and put him on trial, there hadn’t been one word of praise or apology, merely a recitation of facts and something like, “About damn time.” Olivia groaned at her ineptitude as she walked out with Jim. Somehow she felt as if she’d betrayed her brethren cops by even having a conversation with the department’s most outspoken critic. “And I was nice to him. Well, I was civil. He thinks Kober’s murder is related to the unsolved death of his fiancée a few years back. Danielle Reese? He’s the one who got us invited to the crime scene.”
They circled the gathering of television cameras and reporters on their way to her SUV. She felt Knight’s blue eyes following her from the crowd awaiting the press conference as they crossed the street, but studiously ignored the urge to meet his watchful gaze.
“He probably approached you because he thought you’d be softhearted and sympathetic to his cause.” She glared at Jim over the hood of the car before they both climbed in. “Clearly, he doesn’t know you very well.”
Okay, so Jim’s dry wit could make her laugh, too, just like her brothers’ teasing guff usually did.
Olivia’s smile faded as they fastened their seat belts. “He’s poking his nose into our crime scene, trying to get the scoop on the rest of the press—and then he turns around and criticizes us for not catching every last bad guy, or doing it fast enough to suit his idealistic timetable? That just sticks in my craw.”
She looked through the windshield to glare at the presumptuous Mr. Knight. But those smug blue eyes were nowhere to be seen. Even with a second search among the reporters gathered in front of the building, she didn’t spot his rich, coal-black hair. “That son of a...” Had that self-important buttinsky snuck back inside the building? Un-uh. Not on her watch.
Olivia pulled her keys from the ignition and opened her door. “Can you get a ride with somebody? I’m going to have a couple more words with Mr. Knight.”
Jim climbed out on the opposite side. “Do you need me to go with you?”
“No, I can handle him.” As soon as he’d closed his door, she hit the locks and hurried around the hood of the car.
“Olivia, we’re a team, remember? I’ve got your back.”
“I know.”
“How come I don’t quite believe you mean that?”
Olivia stopped midcharge. Marcus Brower had supposedly had her back, too. And while her former partner had never once let her down out on the streets, his betrayal behind closed doors would probably always taint her ability to trust a man who wasn’t family again.
But Jim Parker didn’t deserve to be blown off because some other guy was a two-timing jackass she’d put her career on hold for. “Sorry. You and I are still in the getting-to-know-you phase, I suppose. Sometimes, people like Gabriel Knight don’t take a woman cop seriously. I need him to understand that when I tell him to go away and let us handle things, I mean it.”
Seemingly satisfied with the apology and that much of an explanation, Jim nodded and pulled out his cell phone. “The man’s a cool customer from what I hear. Don’t let him rile that Irish blood of yours.”
“Too late for that. Say, maybe you can pull out the file on Dani Reese’s murder so I can get up to speed on whatever it is Knight is blaming us for. See if we can find that connection to Kober he claims, too.” She waved goodbye as Jim placed his call. “I’ll catch up with you back at HQ.”
“Roger that.” She heard an amused voice behind her as she darted across the street. “Good luck, Mr. Knight.”
Chapter Two
“Are you deaf or stupid, Mr. Knight?” Gabe halted on the seventh floor’s concrete landing at Olivia Watson’s voice. “I’ll bet it’s neither one. You’re just too damn arrogant to think that the rules apply to you, aren’t you?”
It was the husky undertones coloring that voice, not the words themselves, that turned him to face the detective.
She glared at him from the bottom of the stairs, her chest subtly expanding and contracting beneath that trim leather jacket. It hadn’t taken the police as long as he’d expected to notice him sneaking through to the back stairs and chase him up six flights of steel and concrete. This one was smart. Determined. Ticked off.
“Detective,” was all the verbal acknowledgment he gave her. Because the hammer of his traitorous pulse was already acknowledging way more than it should, given that she was a cop, she was a Watson and she wanted to shut down his investigation.
The badge she wore like a necklace, the gun resting on the curve of her hip, and the accusation filling her green? gray? gold?—curiously indefinable eyes did little to diminish her striking beauty. She might wear her sable dark hair in that mannish cut and talk the same sarcasm and suspicion the male cops he knew used, but there was no mistaking the femininity in that husky voice and her leggy, athletic build—or his damnable reaction to them.
For the six years he’d been obsessed with finding Dani’s killer, he’d been anything but a fan of KCPD. That another woman, a cop—Thomas Watson’s daughter, no less—should get him thinking randy thoughts about stripping off all that hardware and attitude didn’t sit real well with his celibate devotion to the fiancée he should have saved. His curious fascination with the mysteries surrounding the lady detective who’d tracked him down rankled his long-held contempt for the police department that had failed to bring Dani’s killer to justice.
“I need you back downstairs,” she ordered. “Now.”
Thanks. The sharp command took the sexy out of her voice and made it easier for Gabe to dismiss his far too male reaction to her.
He moved to the edge of the landing, toward the woman attempting to stop his return to the taped-off office suite on the tenth floor. “There’s no such thing as a perfect crime, Detective. Only an inability to see and understand the clues that are there. If you aren’t willing to find the connection between the two murders, I will.”
With a curt nod, he turned to the next set of steps, skipping a stair and another pointless conversation with KCPD.
“Don’t make me pull my gun, Mr. Knight.”
He stopped and leaned over the railing. “Why don’t you join me and do some real police work, instead of standing there, trying to make me think you can stop me.”
“Trying?” The curse that followed definitely wasn’t feminine. Gabe laughed and climbed the steps. He heard her charging up the stairs after him.
Good. He’d goaded at least one KCPD cop into taking some action. Even if she argued every step of the way, Detective Watson’s presence wo
uld get him back into Ron Kober’s office so he could pick up what the CSIs and detectives were saying, and he could get a closer look at the crime scene for himself.
But Gabe’s smug smile flatlined when he felt a strong tug at his shoulders. “What the—”
“You are officially trespassing in a restricted area.” Olivia yanked his jacket halfway down his arms, twisting them back and restricting his movement long enough to snap a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. She wrapped her hand around his elbow and turned him to face her. “And you’re annoying the hell out of me. Now, either go out front with the other reporters, or I’ll happily escort you to a jail cell myself.”
Locking his hands behind his back wasn’t going to stop his investigation. “I know Dani Reese is in your cold case files.”
“Fine. I’ll look it up when I get back to the precinct. You’re still leaving.”
With a tug on his arm and a dare to defy her challenge bringing out the green in her eyes, Gabe reluctantly fell into step beside her and headed back down the stairs. She might have changed his direction, but she hadn’t silenced his voice. He calmly explained his reasons for ignoring her order to clear the building. Again. In case Olivia Watson had more bravado than brain cells going for her. “I’m trying to speed the process here, Detective. Dani was getting inside information on strong-arm tactics and a possible mob connection to Senator McCoy’s campaign. Six years ago. And now he’s running for reelection?”
“I get your timeline. And I get that the events are too serious to dismiss as coincidence. You said Kober was feeding your fiancée intel on the senator’s campaign?” Her fingers tightened around his arm as they turned the corner—probably standard procedure to provide extra balance to a man in handcuffs. But his pulse leaped at Olivia’s firm grasp on him, momentarily distracting him from the questions laced with skepticism. “How do you know that? Were you working the story, too?”
“No. It was Dani’s big scoop. She was trying to make a name for herself. I didn’t even realize what she was onto until it was too late.” Taking a deep breath, he pushed aside his lusty reaction to Detective Watson’s touch and let his heart fill with its customary guilt and grief. It wasn’t hard to replace Detective Watson’s changeable eye color with the sky blue beauty of Dani’s soft gaze in his mind. “I started reading the notes she had saved on a zip drive one night. I found Kober and Senator McCoy’s name, along with the draft of a story on kickbacks from Leland Asher.”
Olivia’s pace slowed. “The alleged crime boss?”
“You know there’s nothing alleged about the way he conducts business. That man has more ways to launder money than an industrial linen service. When I confronted Dani about the scope of what she was working on—and warned her of the danger—she got mad and stormed out. By the time I found out where she was meeting her contact, it was too late.” He stopped on the landing, needing to set his feet to withstand the memory that chilled his blood like a ghost passing through his body. He should have stopped Dani that night. He should have gone with her. He should have covered the damn story himself and not let a junior reporter—no matter how good her instincts might be—take that kind of risk. When he found his breath again, when he could firmly close the door on the gruesome images from the past, Gabe continued. “The next time I saw Dani, she was lying on a slab in the morgue. She’d been shot three times. The ME had to identify her by the dragon tattoo on her ankle and what was left of her teeth.”
“I’m sorry.” Olivia’s fingers curled into a fist and she pulled away. “I know that’s rough. Losing someone you love is tough enough. Seeing them in the morgue...”
Gabe glanced down to see her unfocused gaze staring off into the corner. Was that real empathy? Some haunting remembrance of another case she’d worked? An official training technique to gain his cooperation? Didn’t matter.
“Save your pity. Do your job.” As soon as he spoke, her gaze snapped back to his. “A couple of dock workers found Dani lying beside her abandoned car near an old warehouse. The killer had taken her engagement ring and billfold, and tried to make it look like a robbery. That’s how KCPD investigated her death, as a carjacking gone bad. But I tell you, it was all about the story she was writing. That’s why you people never solved the case.”
“You people?” He watched her bristle at the dig against cops, against someone much closer to the case than she probably realized. Detective Watson wrapped her hand around his arm again and pulled him into step beside her. Ah, hell. She hadn’t really been listening. She was just humoring him. “Less talking and more moving, okay, Knight?”
Gabe lengthened his stride to get ahead of her. He stopped on the next landing and turned, forcing her to halt on the step above him. He had no problem getting in her face and making his point. “Connect the dots, Olivia. If Ron Kober knew enough about Leland Asher’s influence on the campaign to share it with the press six years ago, I don’t imagine either Senator McCoy or Asher would want Kober around now. McCoy is already under investigation. If Kober told anyone what he knew? What Dani knew? You know how the press is ready to jump on any hint of a scandal during a campaign.”
To her credit, she didn’t back down from the confrontation. “Look, I understand why you think there could be a shared motive between the two deaths. I promise, I will read through your fiancée’s case file. But I told you, I’m not even assigned to Kober’s murder. All I can do is inform Detectives Hendricks and Kincaid that—” She stopped abruptly and angled her head to the side.
“I’m telling you.”
She leaned toward the steel railing. “Shh.”
He leaned with her, demanding she pay attention. “It makes sense that the same person who wanted Kober dead might also have wanted to silence Dani. The two murders—”
“Shut. Up.” She pushed him back against the wall with a hand over his mouth.
And then he heard it, too. The double click of a door opening and closing. Footsteps in the stairwell below their position.
Running footsteps.
Even the pretense of listening to his outpouring of information had ended. She was in full cop mode now. Olivia pulled her hands from his chest and chin and plucked the radio off her belt. “This is Detective Watson. Has the building been cleared?” While other officers in the building responded, she pulled a ring of keys from her jeans and unlocked his cuffs. Her next question was to him. “Did you bring any of your reporter friends with you?”
Gabe shook his head. He shrugged his corduroy jacket back onto his shoulders and zeroed in on the sounds of huffing breaths and hurrying footfalls below.
There was the punch of another door handle and a muttered curse before Olivia got back on the radio. “I’ve got activity in the south stairwell. Maybe somebody who shouldn’t be here snuck in.” Her gaze tilted up to his. Okay, so she could do the subtle dig thing, too. “Or our perp is trying to sneak out. I’ll get eyes on it. Watson out.” She pushed open the door marked with a three and pointed into the main building, dismissing him. “Can I trust you to find your way to the front door all by yourself?”
She must have accepted his silence as an agreement because she put away her handcuffs and radio and pulled her gun in the same fluid movement. Then those long legs were booking it down the stairs.
* * *
OLIVIA PUSHED ASIDE the charged energy that hummed through her system after trading words with Gabe Knight and focused on her pursuit of the unknown subject. She saw the second-floor door swinging shut and pressed her back against the concrete block wall, keeping her attention on both the door and the stairs, uncertain which way the intruder had gone until she heard the deep, ragged panting of a man trying to catch his breath from a location below her. He’d heard her coming and had ducked into a corner to hide.
“KCPD. You on the stairs—show yourself.” She crept down to the midfloor landing, her gun leading the way. “Hands up
where I can see them.”
She smelled the sweat of fear and desperation coming off the intruder as she neared the rear exit on the first floor. Maybe this was just a homeless guy who’d wandered in off the street. Nothing like discovering a hoped-for haven swarming with cops to make a guy nervous. “I’m Detective Watson with KCPD. My goal isn’t to hurt you, but you’re trespassing. I’d like you to identify yourself, and I need to ask you some questions.”
For a few seconds, the heavy breathing stopped. Olivia focused in on the body odor wafting from the recess between the rear exit and the side of the stairs and turned. There was a guttural roar and a flash of gray before the intruder’s arms swung over the railing with a metal folding chair and knocked her down the last couple of steps.
Olivia pitched forward, landing on her hip and shoulder, hitting the floor hard. Her knuckles banged against the concrete. She lost her grip on the gun and the weapon slid beyond her reach.
Instead of capitalizing on his advantage and hitting her again, the perp in the gray hoodie ran past her. But Olivia wasn’t about to ignore an opportunity to take control of the situation. She kicked out her feet, twisted her legs through his and tripped him.
In a tumble of clanking metal and furious curses, her attacker went down. For the split second he was stunned by the impact with the unforgiving concrete, Olivia went after her Glock. The attacker extricated himself from the chair and pushed to his feet while she rolled toward her weapon and scooped it up.
“Hey! Stop!” A blur of denim and corduroy shot past her.
Olivia flipped over, bracing her gun between her hands. But the only shot she had was Gabriel Knight’s back as he shoved her attacker against the door. “Son of a...”