Prime Suspect

by Maggie Price

  “I don’t see you had much choice. The message her brother left on your machine, combined with what you found in his locker, has ‘dirty cop’ written all over it.”

  “I was damn well convinced of that before A.J. got here,” Michael said, rubbing at the tension knotted in the back of his neck.

  Tony arched an eyebrow. “You thinking now that Duncan was set up?”

  “It’s possible.” Michael’s thoughts veered to the brown eyes that had steadily matched his gaze moments before, to the masses of dark hair that shadowed her high-boned cheeks. A.J. had defended her brother with an unswerving, to-hell-with-the-evidence loyalty. In his years with Internal Affairs, Michael had seen iron-nerved cops break down in the face of lesser evidence. Not A.J. Duncan. Determined was a tag he’d give her. A woman of courage and smoldering intensity—and probably hell to live with when hot under the collar.

  “Mike, you want to tell me what planet you suddenly decided to visit?”

  Michael blinked. “Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “I can see that.”

  Tony’s presence helped ease the gnawing frustration that held Michael in its grip. They’d been friends since childhood; Anthony DiMaiti was one of the few people Michael trusted implicitly.

  Michael held up the printout. “Finding this and the deposit slips in Ken’s locker was convenient. Could be too convenient. Maybe instead of Ken doing something illegal, he caught another cop in the act.”

  Tony raised a broad shoulder. “Wouldn’t be the first time one cop got the goods on another.”

  Frowning, Michael shoved the printout into its folder. “If that’s the case, where the hell does A.J. fit into all this?”

  “Good question. Do you think she came clean with you?”

  “Hell, no.” A grim smile curved Michael’s mouth. “I think she held something back to protect Ken. And I suspect she’d have cut her arm off before she told me.”

  A.J.’s fortitude hadn’t surprised Michael. After all, she’d had the grit to sit stone-faced through her brother’s funeral, eyes fixed, lips tight. She had unblinkingly watched the cold ground swallow up Ken’s casket, all the while comforting her frail aunt. A.J. hadn’t shed a tear. Not one. Michael knew, because he’d kept his eyes on her the entire time.

  Yet, here in his office, she’d been on the brink of tears. Because of him.

  Dammit, he’d had a job to do and he’d done it, but that didn’t stop him from feeling like a jerk. To make matters worse, he’d almost made her faint.

  He remembered the feel of her, so small and fragile, as if she might come apart in his hands. So vulnerable...and so damn pale.

  He scrubbed a hand across his face. His eyes felt gritty. A headache had worked its way up from the base of his skull.

  Shifting his gaze back to Tony he said, “Any word on Snowman?”

  “Nothing. The DEA’s been trying to get a lead on whoever he is for months, then Ken Duncan all of a sudden drops his name.”

  I’m into something...need help getting out. Has to do with a dealer named Snowman. I’ve got evidence to turn over.

  Damn Ken Duncan and his cryptic phone message, Michael thought. There was no deciphering the meaning, no interpreting the officer’s intention.

  Michael clenched his jaw against the nerve-aching frustration that had been building in him since the Duncan case landed in his lap. “Meanwhile, word on the street is that there’s a pair of dirty cops dealing drugs,” he stated. “Snowman could be their supplier. And just maybe, Ken Duncan got the goods on them.”

  “Or, he could have been one of them.”

  “If he was, there’s still one left. And it’s my bet he’s wondering if Ken told A.J. anything.”

  “Yeah,” Tony agreed. “You got any better idea which way the wind blows where Greg Lawson’s concerned?”

  “Right now, he looks squeaky clean. And I’ve got no reason to think otherwise.”

  Tony nodded and glanced toward the dark outer office. “She was watching you,” he said almost absently.

  Michael frowned. “A.J.?”

  “Yeah. I drove up after her and followed her in.” Tony grinned and pointed at his scuffed boots. “Rubber soles. Great for sneaking up on do-wrongs. Anyway, A.J. waited outside your door while you were on the phone. She was checking you out.”

  “Sizing up the adversary, I imagine.”

  “Probably so.” Tony dropped his gaze to examine his watch with suspicious concentration. “You know, Mike, all the time we’ve talked about this case you never mentioned A.J.’s looks.”

  Michael lifted his chin. “Her looks make no difference.”

  “Right,” Tony scoffed. “All you said was she lived with her spinster aunt and was married to her job. I figured A.J. was some office drone who’d have to sneak up on ugly.” Tony swept a hand toward the outer office. “I’m creeping up behind her. She does a half turn and the light hits her face. Knock out are the two words that come to mind.”

  “Knockout is one word,” Michael said levelly.

  “Whatever,” Tony countered with a flick of his wrist. “Now that I’ve seen her, I’m wondering if you’ve gone blind since your divorce.”

  Michael propped a forearm on his desk. “I’d be dealing with the same mess if A.J. had three eyes and weeping sores. Whatever the hell the mess is.”

  “Well, you don’t have to deal with it much longer,” Tony commented. “Chief McMillan’s announcing your promotion tomorrow. Lieutenant Ryan—Homicide. You’ll forget about IAD when dead bodies start piling up.”

  “Wrong,” Michael said, pulling the thick file across the desk. “For whatever reason, Ken Duncan called me. He could have brought what he had to any of this unit’s officers, but he chose me. That makes it personal.” Michael crammed the file into his briefcase. “Besides, somebody pumped two slugs into a cop’s chest. Duncan’s death was a homicide, and as of tomorrow, homicide is my business.”

  “I can’t argue that.”

  “Just like the DEA’s business is drugs,” Michael observed. “So don’t take forever to get the goods on Snowman. He has something to do with the Duncan case, and I need to know what the hell it is.”

  “We’ll do our best.” Tony rose, stood for a quiet moment then said, “A.J. limped like hell when she left here. I didn’t notice her walking like that when I followed her in.”

  The limp had been more pronounced at Ken’s funeral, Michael thought. She’d leaned on Greg Lawson’s arm while her faltering gait distanced her from her brother’s grave. Clad in black, with her dark hair pulled off her face, she’d appeared as breakable as glass. About the same way she’d looked moments ago when her knees gave out and it had been all she could do not to faint.

  And all he could do to keep from pulling her into his arms.

  He’d wanted to touch her, needed to make contact, had to trace a finger along that hypnotic curve of her cheek.

  “Car wreck,” Michael said, his throat tightening with the memory of the personal tragedy the background check had revealed. “A.J. was in a car wreck when she was in college. She and her fiancé went to a party. He had a few too many, so she drove home. It was dark. Raining. A dog ran in front of the car and they skidded into a tree. A.J.’s leg was broken in three places.”

  “What happened to the fiancé?”

  “Went through the windshield. Dead at the scene.”

  Tony gave a thoughtful nod. “You sure as hell got all the details—”

  “I’m investigating her,” Michael said and rose. “It’s my job to know her background.” He saw no need to admit the intense curiosity that had driven him to discover what lay beneath the outer shell of the woman.

  “Yeah,” Tony agreed as he delivered an affable slap on Michael’s back. “Listen, why don’t you come have dinner with Marie and me? We’ll celebrate your promotion.”

  “Thanks, but the chiefs waiting for a report on my meeting with A.J.,” Michael said as he pulled on his coat. “I’ll take a ra
in check.”

  Scowling, he flipped off the lights and walked with Tony through the dark outer office. A.J. Duncan attracted him in a way that no woman had drawn him in years—it was as if some primal need had suddenly ignited inside him.

  Michael lent silent acknowledgment to the fact that his feelings were a complication he hadn’t anticipated. Didn’t welcome. Lose your objectivity, Ryan, and you’ll make mistakes.

  With so many unanswered questions, he couldn’t afford, to slip up. Couldn’t afford to get distracted.

  Couldn’t afford to get involved.

  Chapter 2

  “If you’ll tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I can help.”

  A.J. looked up from the fearsome stacks of file folders and computer printouts spread across her desk. “I wish I knew,” she said, pulling off her tortoiseshell reading glasses.

  Tim Ford, a short, thin man in his twenties with roughly cropped red hair and a freckled face, gave her a wild-eyed look from the chair in front of her desk. “And they called me mad at the home.”

  A.J. chuckled and leaned back, her chair thudding into the credenza behind her. Her boxlike office had barely enough room for her desk and chair, two visitor chairs and a credenza. The walls were a dim city-issue white; ancient varicose-veined linoleum covered the floor.

  “I know you’re in the dark on this, Tim. Trouble is, all I have is a hunch.”

  She’d had nothing to go on when she gave the crime analyst the assignment, just Michael Ryan’s vague reference to a burglary ring. She’d gone over the information Tim had compiled until she was cross-eyed, but found nothing to connect to Ken.

  “You’re the boss, A.J. I’m here eight to five. No matter what work I do, pay’s the same.” Tim waved a freckle-spattered hand at the desk. “That’s the breakdown on all burglaries—residential, business and auto for the past six months. I can’t get a handle on a pattern, but I’ll keep plugging away if that’s what you want.”

  A.J. took a thoughtful sip from the steaming mug of coffee Tim had carried in for her. Already it was the first week of December; Ken had been dead over two weeks. When she thought about his funeral, her foremost memory was the sun’s unseasonable warmth, its afternoon rays a stunning reflection off the lid of the polished coffin. Last night, winter had tightened its hold on the city with two inches of paralyzing sleet. Time had trickled away, and despite her obsession with Tim’s printouts, A.J. knew nothing more than the little she’d gleaned from Michael Ryan.

  Like an unwanted intruder, the memory of the man’s touch flashed through her thoughts. She tightened her jaw in acknowledgment of the sexual tug that came with the thought, then forced it away. Setting down the mug with decision, she said, “Go back to just doing the breakdown for Patrol like always.” With a sense of failure, she folded Tim’s printouts and stuffed them into the credenza.

  He remained silent for a long moment. “A.J., does this have something to do with Ken?”

  She felt her heart sink as she stared across the desk. Was it general knowledge around the department that Ken had involved himself with a burglary ring? She met Tim’s questioning gaze, forced her own expression to remain neutral. “Why do you ask?”

  “That last call Greg and Ken answered was a burglary in progress. The scuzz who killed Ken is still out there.” Tim lifted a shoulder. “I thought you might be trying to help the boys in Homicide.”

  A.J. expelled a slow breath. “Something like that.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything,” Tim said and rose. “I liked Ken. It’s a damn shame what happened.” He gave her a sympathetic smile before he walked out, leaving the door open behind him.

  A.J. watched through the single glass panel that faced the analysts’ office as Tim settled behind his desk. He promptly grabbed his telephone and began punching in numbers.

  Familiar sounds from the outer office filtered in as the other two analysts, Joan Allison and Katie Morton, went about their duties. Computer keys clicked, phones buzzed; two detectives laughed at a joke while they waited for Katie to finish a run on white males stopped in red pickup trucks.

  A.J. gave a contented smile over her desk’s clutter, proud of the unit she’d supervised for the past five years. Work got done, brisk and thorough, thanks to the analysts’ friendly competence. Day after day, a soothingly repetitious operation.

  She closed her eyes. Hiring on at OCPD and immersing herself in her job had proved the needed antidote for the empty space Casey’s death had left in her life. Empty space, which over time had transformed from all-consuming grief into small snags of sadness when she thought of the man she’d loved and all that might have been. Acceptance had come slowly, as had contentment with the pattern in which her life had settled.

  A.J.’s brows slid together as an uneasy realization played at the edge of her thoughts, then crystallized. The satisfaction she’d once derived from her work had disappeared, and she knew it was Michael Ryan’s doing.

  Damn him, she thought, shoving up the sleeves of her navy wool dress. She’d received no more of his expertly timed summonses, but the memory of Ryan loomed over her, his warning of her vulnerability dangling in her thoughts like grapes on a vine.

  She wouldn’t let him do this to her, she absolutely would not. With the heat of determination burning inside her, she opened a file folder, stared at its contents...then moments later tossed it aside, unread. Her ability to concentrate had gone down the tubes the instant she heard about the promotion. Lieutenant Ryan. She’d been relieved at first. Promotion meant Ryan’s transfer; Internal Affairs would pass to another commander. Without Ryan pushing buttons, the Duncan investigation might fall by the wayside.

  And then it had hit her. Chief McMillan had announced Ryan’s promotion the day after Ryan called her to Internal Affairs. Ryan would have already known he was getting promoted. Why, then, hadn’t he turned the investigation over to IAD’s new commander? Why had he called her in when he knew he’d be off the case?

  The strange disquiet those thoughts had instilled in her was nothing compared to the sinking feeling she experienced when she received the chief’s memo announcing Ryan’s new assignment. Homicide. She had almost daily contact with that unit. In the four days since Ryan took over Homicide, she’d managed to avoid him. But she harbored no great hope that her luck would continue.

  She stared without interest at the stacks of reports and file folders cluttering her desk. An ungodly amount of work awaited her attention, yet her thoughts centered maddeningly on Michael Ryan. The man’s reputation included a reference to ice water in the veins, yet when she almost fainted in his office she’d seen genuine concern in his eyes. And his expression wasn’t the only thing she remembered. The feel of his hands, supporting her, guiding her onto the chair with an incongruous mix of strength and gentleness, plagued her thoughts.

  A surge of latent warmth rose inside her and she muttered a self-recriminating oath. Michael Ryan had accused both her and Ken of wrongdoing, and here she was allowing thoughts of arctic blue eyes and a rock-solid grip to cloud her brain. What was the matter with her?

  She dragged in a controlling deep breath and forced her thoughts to the course of action she’d decided. The first item was to prove her innocence. She had done nothing wrong. But what if Ryan was right? What if whatever Ken had alluded to in his message to Ryan was still ongoing? If more classified data from her office wound up in the wrong hands, there would be no way to defend herself—and, possibly, her staff—if she remained in the dark.

  She had no intention of spending the rest of her life knowing that a black cloud hung over Ken’s memory. Despite the anonymous call she’d received and Ken’s murderous reaction, no matter the evidence found in his locker, the part of her that loved her brother couldn’t accept he’d gone bad. Like Ryan said, every story had two sides. Somehow, someway she had to find the evidence to clear Ken.

  Shoulders squared, she retrieved her mug and took a swallow. The coffee had grown tepid; she choked
it down with a grimace.

  “That bad, huh?”

  Startled, she looked toward the door. Greg Lawson, turned out neat in a gray uniform shirt and dark trousers, lounged in the doorway, a weary grin on his handsome face.

  A.J. smiled. “Welcome back. How was Colorado?”

  “Cold. And a long drive,” he added, pushing off the door frame. “I got home last night in just enough time to throw on my uniform and make it to lineup.”

  He was tall and lanky, with friendly gray eyes and blond hair that would bleach pale when the summer came. As he neared her desk, A.J.’s gaze lifted and she felt a stab in her heart at the sight of the jagged cut that started in the center of Greg’s forehead and veered into the hairline at his right temple.

  Although healing, the wound still showed traces of inflammation. For the rest of his life, Greg would wear an eternal reminder of the night his partner died.

  Swallowing against the thought and the accompanying pain, A.J. glanced at her watch. “It’s almost nine. You should be home in bed by now.”

  “There’ve been a ton of accidents because of the ice. We got orders to stay on the street to help handle traffic.” He pushed a stack of files aside and slid a thigh onto the edge of the desk, just as Ken had done on his last visit. “Sorry I didn’t call while I was gone. My parents live halfway up a mountain. The day I got there, a blizzard hit and played havoc with the phone.” He expelled a weary breath. “Anything go on while I was away?”

  A.J. shook her head. “You didn’t miss much.”

  Greg reached across the desk, his hand tightening around hers. “You’re wrong,” he said softly. “I missed you.”

  She smiled. “I missed you, too.”

  “Don’t forget, you promised to have dinner with me my first night back.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “We still on for the Christmas dance?”

  “Sure.”

  She dropped her gaze, waiting for Greg’s touch to spark the same searing awareness she’d felt when Michael Ryan’s fingers stroked her cheek.