In the Line of Fire

by Beverly Bird

  He fell back to plan B, stopping at a florist in town. The daisy arrangement he bought was cheap and bedraggled but he was damned if he was going to spend his few remaining dollars on the man who had found the convenience store money in his apartment.

  Armed with the floral arrangement, Danny finally tucked his car around the corner from the police station and, holding the flowers prominently in front of him, he went inside to the personnel office where he’d found Molly the night before. The woman there was slightly overweight, and the color of her hair defied any palette Danny had ever heard of, but she had a grin as big as Texas.

  “Why, you shouldn’t have,” she said, lifting her brows at the flowers when he entered.

  Danny grinned right back at her, turning on the charm. “Wish I could, though, if they weren’t for someone else.”

  The woman sighed gustily. “That’s the story of my life. Who’s the lucky girl?” Then she eyed the flowers. “On second thought, maybe she’s not so lucky. A little wilted, aren’t they?”

  Danny held up the daisies and inspected them. “They’ve seen better days. Maybe that’s the point. The woman who came in and ordered them seemed a little distraught.”

  “Distraught?” Curious, Evie came to the counter and leaned against it. “Come on, spill. Tell me all.”

  “You’re breaking my heart, ma’am. You’re forcing me to disappoint you again. There’s not much to tell.”

  “That’s okay,” she said magnanimously. “Just give me the details.”

  “A blonde on a crying jag came into the shop a little while ago—I work over at the Floral Connection. Wanted these delivered to her boyfriend. Beau Maguire. She said he’d understand what they meant and she didn’t want to include a card.”

  Evie’s eyes went round. “A blonde? No kidding? Beau’s running around on Janine with a blonde? Now, see, you’re not disappointing me at all.”

  Danny arched his brows. “Maybe he’s running around on the blonde with Janine. Ever think of that?”

  Evie hooted. “You’re delicious, sweetie. I could just gobble you right up.”

  “If only I had met you a month ago.” He sighed.

  “There’s someone else now, huh?” She winked conspiratorially. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve got someone, too. I just like to flirt. Anyway, I guess you need to get those poor things to Beau now, right? Well, you got lucky, handsome. He’s not usually here during the day but I just saw him pass by outside the door there. Try looking for him in the task-force war room. It’s in the old lunch room right down the hall here. Keep going straight, you can’t miss it. Last door on your right.”

  “Thanks, but which of the men I find there would be Beau Maguire?”

  “He’s about five foot ten, black hair—kind of slicked back and greasy, you know? Blue eyes. He’s got a navy-blue jogging suit on today.”

  “Good enough. Thanks, beautiful.”

  “Ah, you made my day.”

  Danny left her and checked out the war room. It was empty. Then he got lucky. He was headed back in the direction of the main doors when he saw a guy matching the man’s description coming out of the men’s room.

  Danny picked up his stride. “Beau Maguire?”

  The cop looked back at him, scowling. “Yeah. Who are you?”

  “Delivery. The Floral Connection.” Danny handed him the daisies.

  “There’s no card.”

  “The lady said you’d know what they meant.”

  “Janine sent me flowers?” He grinned, then he scowled. “Man, they’re beat up.”

  “Maybe that’s the point.” Danny shrugged. “That was one very distraught blonde, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “Blonde?” Maguire scowled at him. “Janine’s not blond.”

  Danny took a step back toward the main doors, holding his hands up as though to ward off a blow. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.” He pushed backward through the outside doors and escaped. He had a knack for this, he decided. Maybe he could pick up a few extra bucks working for the flower shop.

  He figured Maguire might spend some time puzzling over the daisies and he was right. Danny had time to jog across the street and slip into the diner there before Maguire exited the police station. Now he could identify the guy. Now he was ready to blend into the background.

  When Maguire finally followed Danny outside, the man was empty-handed. Danny let himself chuckle at that, then he made note of the car the man got into, jotting the license plate on a napkin. It was a pale-blue Dodge, several years younger than his own.

  Mission Creek wasn’t that big. If he lost him now, Danny thought he could probably find him again. He was ready to head for his own car, anyway, but the cop only got comfortable behind the steering wheel and started talking on a cell phone. Even when he disconnected, he sat and sat and sat.

  It was going to be a long day, Danny thought. “Come on, Maguire, do something stupid.”

  A waitress came to his table. “I’m sorry, sir, did you want something?”

  Danny answered absently without taking his eyes off Maguire. “No. She’s just got me talking to myself now.”

  Molly put in for her sick time, then she paid a quick visit to Eli Tripician to bring him up to speed. Finally she headed home. She wanted a shower and clean clothes more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Well, maybe not anything, she thought, her thoughts gliding to Danny again. For a moment, she simply stood in her entryway and let herself remember the feel of him, the taste of him, the texture of his hands on her skin.

  He wanted her. He really wanted her. It almost seemed to be too good to be true.

  She turned all the locks on the front door, then she went to the back and made sure that was secure, too. She moved around to all the windows, double-checking them, then she drew the blinds and the drapes. Getting shot at tended to make a person a wee bit more diligent about such things, she discovered.

  She kept her gun in her hand as she headed for the bedroom. Was this overkill? she wondered, laying it on the bed as she undressed. That bullet last night had been real. Given that, and what these guys had done to Bobby, she figured she couldn’t be too careful.

  Molly moved into the bathroom. She spent a few seconds stretching some precious, new kinks out of her muscles, then she turned on the shower and stepped inside. She groaned with pleasure as the hot water pelted down on her. Long before she was ready to, she turned the water off again. As much as she might have liked to stay in there all day, she wanted to get back to the rec center more.

  She pulled back the shower curtain, smiling to herself, then she screamed. Danny sat on the vanity, leaning back against the mirrors, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Some security system you’ve got here.”

  Molly felt anger pound at her temples. After last night, she hadn’t thought she could ever be mad at him again, but, apparently, there was no telling what depths he could sink to. “You just took five years off my life!”

  “You look great, by the way.”

  She stepped out of the tub and snatched a towel off the back of the bathroom door. “You are never, ever going to see me naked again.”

  He had the audacity to grin. “Honey, I can talk you out of your knickers anytime without half trying. And that’s just about the way I got in here ten minutes ago, too—without half trying.”

  “You broke into my apartment!” She wrapped the towel around herself hard and fast.

  “Yeah. To see if it could be done. And it can. You cops are so sanctimonious about your security. One bullet and—boom—that dead bolt is gone. Crooks don’t observe niceties, Molly.”

  She gaped at him. “You shot my dead bolt?”

  “No, I jimmied it—something else that’s reasonably easy for a professional to do. I’m just trying to make a point.”

  She thought about it. “Well, your point ticks me off. You scared the hell out of me.”

  He slid off the vanity. “Beau Maguire is sitting down the st
reet keeping an eye on your front door. I wanted to get in here first. I figured you wouldn’t care how I did it.”

  “I—” she began, then she broke off. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  Her knees went weak. “Danny, this is bad.” She paused. “I knew he was one of them.”

  He caught her when she seemed to sway a little. “He followed you to that little office you went to at the edge of town, too.”

  “Eli Tripician’s place,” she murmured. “The PBA president. I was checking in on the IAD thing.” She couldn’t think when his strong hands were stroking her arms like that. Then he let her go.

  “By the way,” he said, “you’ll probably want this back, too.” He took her gun from the back waistband of his brown jeans. “Smart move, Officer, leaving it on the bed.”

  Molly let out a shaky breath as she took her service revolver from him. She couldn’t even argue with him about this one. “I don’t suppose Maguire did anything incriminating besides tail me? I didn’t even pick up on him behind me!”

  “You weren’t looking for anyone. And no, he didn’t do anything else. You want to take that towel off now?”

  She pulled it tighter. “Not with Maguire out there.”

  “Who cares? The one sensible thing you did do was pull the drapes.” He wiggled his brows at her. “Let’s fool around.”

  Molly kept her mouth hard and unyielding when he kissed her—even though it killed her. He groaned and stepped back. “I guess not. I guess you’re still mad at me.”

  A grin tugged at her mouth. “It’s mostly over the part about being able to talk me out of my knickers without half trying.”

  He kissed her sweetly this time, tracing the curve of her bottom lip with his tongue. “I’ll prove it later if you want.”

  She was melting. “I want.”

  “Good. You’re staying with me tonight in case you haven’t figured that out yet. There’s only one way in and out of my place.”

  She shuddered a little, coming back to earth. “I still can’t believe you got in here.”

  “There’s not a lock in the world that can’t be broken. A really sexy police officer told me that once. Then she went bad, breaking into a personnel office.”

  “I did not. Evie—”

  “Don’t split hairs.”

  Molly let herself sag against his chest. “These guys are really fired up about me, Danny. Hasn’t anyone ever suspected them before? Am I that unique?”

  “Oh, you’re definitely unique.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “My guess is that they’ve been skating along without incident for quite a while now, especially if they had anything to do with framing me. That goes back six years. Maybe someone outside the department suspected them, but I’ll bet none of their colleagues did until you started nosing around and speaking your mind.” He paused, thinking it through. “Then Bobby turned, tried to get out. They had to be afraid he would tell you why, confide in you, given your connection to the rec center.”

  “They meant to kill him.” It was hard for her to get the words out. Her heart seemed to be throbbing in her throat.

  He wrapped his arms more tightly around her. “I don’t know, honey. Maybe they were just warning him to keep his mouth shut and it got out of hand. He probably fought back hard.”

  “Now I’m a loose end that has to be tied up. I guess they figure if they can get rid of me before I talk to anybody else, they’ve restored the status quo. But that’s not entirely true. I know for a fact that Spence Harrison is at least a little suspicious of them, and Joe Gannon definitely is.” Then her blood went ice-cold and sluggish in her veins. “They probably guess that I’ve been talking to you. You’re in danger, too.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not going to let them get to either of us.” Danny finally set her away from him. She felt the reluctance in his touch. No one had wanted to hold her—just hold her—for a very long time, not in any recent memory she possessed.

  “Put some clothes on before I forget my promise to the nurse at the hospital that I’d bring some of the rec center kids back to talk to Bobby,” Danny said.

  “You were at the hospital? How is he?”

  “About the same, but the nurse seems to think our voices might get through to him. I want to see if I can track down his sisters, but I’m not holding out much hope there. Maybe Lester and Cia and some of the others will be at the center by the time we get back there.”

  Molly nodded once, jerkily, still feeling overwhelmed. “I’ll get dressed.”

  “Molly? Keep your gun with you today even though you’re not on duty. I might need it.”

  That broke something inside her. Half of her reasoning for poking into the issue of bad cops in the first place had been to prove he’d been framed, to clear his name. She’d done a damned poor job of it. He still had a record. And if he had to use her gun, that would be the end of his parole.

  “I may have lousy locks,” she muttered, heading into the bedroom, “but I’m great with a gun. Leave the shooting to me.”

  It was dark when they left the hospital and even Lester’s usual arrogance was gone by the time they dropped him off at the apartment he shared with an adult brother. He was white-faced when he got out of the Dodge.

  “Oh, man,” he said again. “They really got him, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah,” Danny said as he, too, had been saying all night. If nothing else, he thought, maybe this would be a lesson to the other kids. Maybe it would shake them up and shake them loose from the petty crimes that kept them in tattoos and Starter jackets.

  “Hey,” he said suddenly. “Do you know what Bobby was into?”

  Lester’s face closed down. “Nope,” he said automatically.

  “Lester, we do,” Molly said quietly. “We already know. He told us.”

  The boy’s eyes glinted suspiciously. “How come he’s asking, then?” He jerked his had at Danny as he sat behind the wheel.

  “I want to make sure none of the rest of you are in it with him,” Danny replied.

  Lester hesitated, then he made a sound of disgust. “No way, man. Bobby always went his own way. I was telling you the truth. I don’t know who he was in with.”

  Molly breathed again. “Good.”

  “How about the others?” Danny asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  They watched Lester go inside. Then Danny tried to lighten his own mood, but he was bone weary and frustrated. Talking to Bobby hadn’t produced any results, though they’d rounded up all five of the regular rec center kids and Beatty Jansen, one of Bobby’s sisters, as well.

  “Do I get to prove that I can talk you out of your knickers now?”

  Molly managed a smile. “You can sure try.”

  He gave a hoarse, quick laugh and found that it was easier than he would have thought. “You’re good for me, pretty Molly.”

  She wondered.

  If she hadn’t poked into the issue of bad cops, he’d be safe right now, she thought again. As it was, she had the unshakable feeling that his probation was hanging by a thread. If the Lion’s Den didn’t actually try to hurt him—kill him—over what she might have told him, then she knew it would be a relatively easy matter for one of the Lion’s Den cops to have his probation revoked.

  “I’m so sorry,” she moaned aloud, covering her face with her hands.

  Danny started to pull away from the curb, then he stopped the car again. “You’re thinking that you brought all this down on my head, aren’t you? Don’t you get it yet? I’ve been in a hell of a lot worse positions—I’ve gotten you in a worse position—and nothing comes down on my head except what I’ve invited there myself.”

  “Me?” Molly scowled. “What do you mean?”

  Danny realized what he had just said.

  He closed his eyes briefly. He was tired, way too tired. It had been an incredibly long few days, crammed full of highs and lows. He was usually well above slips of the tongue. “Never
mind. Let’s go home.” He made a U-turn and headed back the way they had come.

  “No, I want to know,” Molly persisted. “How do you have me in a worse position?”

  “Molly, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, you can’t always have what you want. Do you need to stop at your place for anything before we head to my apartment? Toothbrush? Girl stuff?”

  “I’m not going back to your apartment until you tell me what you just meant by that.”

  Danny took his eyes off the road to glance her way, exasperated. Then something happened to his heart.

  There was a look in her eyes. It flashed at him fast as they passed a streetlight and her face was illuminated for a second. It was angry and stricken. Somehow, she knew. And even if she didn’t—yet—how long would she have to stew on it, pick at it, pick at him before she came up with the whole picture? So much had happened between them, so much good, and now his unspoken past was making something burn in his own throat. He hadn’t foreseen that, had only thought what the secrets would end up doing to her.

  “Damn it,” he snarled.

  “Now what are you doing?” Molly demanded.

  “I’m stopping the car again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to look at you when I say this.”

  Something blind was driving him, he realized, something crazy and desperate, something close to agony. Maybe he’d known from the minute he had watched Ricky walk out of that Country Club that it would come to this. But he’d deluded himself, had played stupid games, he thought viciously, with his own mind.

  He’d told himself that he could bring down the mob—somehow—and he would have a future with her. She’d never have to know why such a thing was necessary.

  He’d told himself that those papers he’d written and Ricky’s friendship were his insurance in the meantime. He just needed time to figure out a way to save them.

  He’d forgotten the most obvious thing—Ricky’s taunt. He’d ignored it, pushed it aside into dark, rarely visited corners of his mind, because he couldn’t handle it, couldn’t face it. No matter what he did about the mob, this woman was not going to forgive him for leaving her life in Mercado hands—even for a little while.