Kansas City Cop Page 14

  He followed her into the living room, pausing at the couch as she quietly opened the bedroom door and peeked in. Even through the shadows cast by the lone lamp, he could see her smiling.

  “Sylvie asleep?” he whispered.

  Gina nodded before opening the door wider. Mike glanced down at his wrinkled shirt, grinning at the mismatched buttons and buttonhole Gina had missed in her haste to redress him.

  “Mike?”

  He glanced up to see her padding back across the hall to meet him. “Something wrong?”

  She drew her shoulders back, steeling her posture before speaking. “It’s the five o’clock shadow. The way it’s just enough beard to be interesting, but not so shaggy that it obscures your face.” He frowned in confusion. She touched his face, running her fingertips along the line of his jaw. “Catnip,” she explained. “That’s my catnip. What I find attractive on a man. Something about the angles and the rawness is muy masculino. There’s something a little bad boy about it that I want to touch.”

  He didn’t need to be fluent in Spanish to understand that compliment. His face eased into a smile beneath her touch. He turned to kiss her palm before she pulled away. “Happy to oblige. Now get some sleep. I’ll stay up and keep an eye on things until the first black-and-white drives by. See you in the morning.”

  Mike waited for the bedroom door to close behind her before he went back into the kitchen to splash some cold water on his face, tempering those last vestiges of desire lingering from that kiss. He called a couple of friends from his father’s SWAT team and explained the situation, needlessly promising a free lunch or workout at the clinic in exchange for their help watching the house.

  Once his friends Trip and Alex had arrived and parked their truck across the street from Gina’s, Mike peeled off his shirt, belt and shoes and stretched out on the couch that was too short for him. It was after midnight when he heard the hushed sound of a door opening and closing. More curious than alarmed, he peeked around the end of the couch to see Gina in a long-sleeved T-shirt and pajama pants. Instead of heading for the bathroom, as both Lupe and Rollo had done earlier, she kissed her knuckles and rubbed them against her heart.

  Mike remembered the superstitious action from the shooting range. “What do you need luck for at this time of night?”

  She didn’t startle at his teasing voice from the shadows. “Not luck. Courage.”

  He sat up, concerned by her answer. “Gina?”

  “I saw the men out front. Thank you.” She circled the sofa and sat beside him. “I don’t want to have sex. I’m not ready to complicate us like that yet. But...could we snuggle for a little bit? I can’t seem to get warm again, and I can’t sleep when I’m cold, and...”

  Relieved to know that Sylvie and everyone else in the house were safe, he wrapped the blanket around her and pulled her into his arms. “You don’t have to be the strong one all the time. Take a breather tonight. I’ve got you.”

  Turning onto his side, he stretched out on the couch behind her, spooning his chest against her back. “This doesn’t mean anything,” she insisted. “I’m just cold.”

  “Understood.” Grinning at the tough act he wasn’t buying, Mike draped his arm around her waist and tucked her as close as the blanket and dimensions of the couch allowed. “Warm enough?”

  She nodded, resting her head on his arm. “This doesn’t make your legs cramp or hurt, does it?”

  “Nope. Your shoulder okay?”

  “It doesn’t hurt at all when I lie on this side.” Several seconds passed before he felt her body relax against his. “Sylvie gets up at seven for school.”

  He ignored the bottom nestling against his groin and reached for his phone. “I’ll set my alarm for six.”

  “You’re driving me to the crime lab and Sin City Bar in the morning.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Could we do that before my therapy session?”

  Mike’s laugh was as hushed as the shadows surrounding them. “Only if you stop talking and get some rest.”

  “Not my mother, Choir Boy.” Her answering laugh faded into a yawn.

  He nudged aside the dark curls at the nape of her neck and pressed a kiss there. “How about your partner?”

  She brushed her lips across the swell of his bicep. “Deal. For now.”

  The strong fingers of her right hand latched onto his. In a matter of minutes, the tension eased from her body, and her soft, even breath against his skin let him know that she’d finally fallen asleep. “I’ll be your armor tonight, Tiger,” he whispered.

  Mike settled into the most comfortable position he could manage and drifted toward sleep himself, knowing three things. One, Gina liked to keep things even between them—he’d revealed a secret, so she had, too. Two, there was far more danger surrounding this woman than even he’d realized. And three, the attraction simmering in his veins, the unexpected caring that took them beyond therapist and patient, or even friends, was mutual, no matter how stubbornly independent she tried to be.

  Logically, he could see the pattern of his life repeating itself: play Knight in Shining Armor to a woman who needed him. Stir up his hormones and get his heart involved. The next inevitable step would be her realizing she no longer had a use for the strength and support he provided, and him getting hurt again.

  But he couldn’t stay away from Gina. Out of all his relationships—Caroline, Frannie, others who’d grown tired of Mr. Nice Guy before anything real had started—none of them had gotten him twisted up inside as fast and feverishly as Officer Gina Galvan. Her bravery and vulnerability, her fierce determination to improve her standing and protect her family, her passionate impulses and the stubborn emotional shield she couldn’t quite keep in place—all got under his skin and inside his head and into his heart, refusing to answer to caution or logic.

  He was falling for Gina Galvan. Falling hard and fast. And the closer he got, the more he realized there were too many ways he could lose her.

  Chapter Ten

  Gina fingered the badge clipped to the belt of her jeans, trying not to feel as if she was impersonating an officer this morning, as she stared out the window of Mike’s pickup at the heavy steel door below the Sin City Bar sign. Technically, although she was on medical leave, she was still a member of KCPD, and she’d earned the right to wear this badge. And, until that losing skirmish with Bobby Estes last night, she’d believed she was always going to be a working cop again. An elite cop. A SWAT cop.

  Now she was feeling a bit like Sin City’s fraudulent facade. At night, their sign lit up with red and yellow bulbs, bathing the entryway in a warm color, welcoming patrons. But the bright sunlight of a chilly spring morning revealed chipped white paint on the outside walls. Rust at each corner of their sign stained the painted brick and faded awning over the door. With the blinds drawn at every window, there was no promise of a party at a friendly bar to draw in customers.

  Just like wearing the badge didn’t mean she could do this job the way she wanted to again.

  Looking at the row of motorcycles and the beat-up van in the parking lot beside the bar, she was certain she was about to get another opportunity to chat with Gordy and Denny Bismarck and their biker buddies. And she suspected them being here at this time of day meant they were either very good friends with the manager and bartenders she’d hoped would break their alibi—which meant that probably wasn’t going to happen—or they had gotten wind of KCPD looking into them as the potential cop shooters and they were here to make sure that no one gave them up. Either way, she was on their turf. Asking questions and getting straight answers wouldn’t be easy, even on her best day.

  “You ready to go play good cop/bad cop?” Mike’s angular features crooked into a teasing smile as he pulled in beside the van and turned off the engine.

  Drawn from the doom and gloom of her thoughts, Gina smiled back. One more day and that sexy beard stubble of his would cross the line into scruffy.

  But in the dark hours of last night, she’d admitted there were plenty of other reasons why Mike Cutler was her catnip. Her family had felt reassured by his presence at the house, and anyone who was that kind and patient with her family was a hero in her book. That long, hard, rebuilt body had been a furnace at her back, keeping her warm and secure enough to enjoy the best night’s sleep she’d had since the shooting. His hands had awakened an answering need inside her with each purposeful touch. And she shouldn’t even think about the gentle seduction and commanding firmness of his mouth moving over hers. Even his do-the-right-thing stubbornness that matched her own was becoming less of a frustration and more of a type of strength she respected. She’d lowered her guard with Mike last night, both physically and emotionally. She’d felt normal, free of all her burdens, for a few hours. Mike Cutler managed to be strong for her without making her feel weak or foolish or at any kind of disadvantage.

  She’d never expected that a man could make her feel like that—like she could fall in love with him if she wasn’t careful.

  She reached over the console to brush her fingers across his jaw. Sí. She had definitely developed a craving for that handsome face. “Not a cop, Choir Boy.”

  The color of his eyes darkened like cobalt at her touch. Just like that, with a piercing look and the ticklish caress of his beard beneath her sensitive fingertips, her stomach tightened with desire.

  But she was here to work. She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she couldn’t fit a relationship into her life right now. If she could, there would be only one candidate. But reality made falling in love low on her priority list. It made falling in love with Mike nearly impossible. She pulled her fingers awa
y and unbuckled her seat belt. She eyed the officer stowing the last of the yellow crime scene tape from Frank McBride’s shooting into the trunk of the black-and-white police cruiser already in the parking lot.

  “Looks like Derek’s ready for us.” Having her partner here made this interview sanctioned, despite her own self-doubts. He’d met them at the crime lab earlier so she could deliver the bullets she’d taken from Bobby’s and Emanuel’s guns to the ballistics tech. He would run a comparison between them and the spent rounds recovered from the police shootings, including her own. “You wait in the truck.”

  Mike shook his head, pocketing his keys in his jacket. “I can’t very well watch your back from here.”

  Gina paused with her hand on the door handle. “Derek will have my back. I’m guessing the Bismarck boys aren’t going to cooperate, and I need you to stay safe.”

  “How about we double our efforts?” He pointed through the windshield to the garage on the opposite side of the bar’s parking lot. “An auto-repair and customization shop right next door to their hangout? Want to bet that one or more of them works there? I can wander in and ask if anyone there remembers them from the day of your shooting, or if they saw them here yesterday when Frank was shot. Maybe I’ll get an estimate on rotating my tires.”

  “And, while you’re in there, see if you spot any familiar vehicles like the rusty old SUV the shooter used or the tan Mercedes that’s been following me?”

  “Is that a bad idea?”

  “No. It’s a smart one.” Derek was out of the cruiser, heading toward the truck. As uneasy as the thought of Mike investigating on his own made her, she couldn’t deny that he had inherited all the right instincts about being a cop from his father. Other than the fact he was unarmed. But then, so was she. “All right. You check out next door while Derek and I see if we can break anybody’s alibi. But if the Bismarcks or their friends are there, I don’t want you to engage any of them. Turn around and get out of there. I’ll meet you back here.”

  “Ten minutes give you enough time?”

  Gina nodded. “No heroics, okay? Just get information.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Derek was waiting beside the truck when she shut the door. He rested an arm on the butt of the gun holstered at his waist, his eyebrows arched in confusion as Mike jogged across the parking lot and entered the automotive shop. “I thought Cutler was just driving you around until you’re cleared to do it yourself. What’s he up to?”

  “Detective work.” Kissing the back of her fingers and rubbing them against her heart, she sent up a silent prayer that Mike wasn’t on a mission that could get him hurt. Then she butted her elbow against Derek’s and headed for Sin City’s front door. “Come on. We’d better do the same.”

  On a different day, if she was in uniform and back on patrol, Gina would have run in the bar’s owner, Vince Goring. The myopic manager was already serving a drink to a dazed old man who, judging by his ratty appearance and eye-watering stench, had probably been sitting on the same barstool since closing time the night before. She wondered if he was the drunk who’d allegedly witnessed Frank McBride’s shooting yesterday afternoon.

  Nothing about this quest for answers was going smoothly. The deep voices and laughing conversation from the back of the bar fell silent by the time her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting. She’d been hoping she could talk to the owner alone, find out who’d been tending bar that wintry afternoon when she’d gotten shot. But Vince was carrying a tray of coffee mugs to the back booth, where Gordon and Denny Bismarck, Al, Prison Tat Guy and one of their potbellied buddies were sitting. Denny pulled his flask from his pocket and doctored his coffee before passing the container around the table. Oddly enough, none of them seemed to be sporting a black eye or broken nose, or other signs that’d they’d been involved in the fight that had lured Frank McBride here. But in this dim lighting, it was hard to tell.

  Still, she wasn’t here about serving drinks to someone who’d already had too much, or citing a barkeep who allowed patrons to bring in their own alcohol. Letting the glare from Denny Bismarck’s dark eyes fuel her resolve to conduct this interview, she ignored him and the whispered conversations at the table, while Vince shuffled back to the bar where she and Derek stood.

  “Mr. Goring.” Gina made no effort to whisper. If Bismarck and company knew she was here, then they had to suspect she was asking questions about them. “That group of men at the back table—are they regulars?”

  Vince pushed his thick glasses up onto the bridge of his nose before answering. “Sure. Al and Jim work next door at the body shop.”

  Gina had done her homework. She pointed to her neck. “Jim Carlson is the guy with the tats?” She remembered Al Renken, the van driver. He was bald.

  “Yep. You friends with them?”

  The last man, Aldo Pitsaeli, was the guy who’d been worried that day about getting in trouble with his wife. Denny and the others had been with Gordy at the Bismarck house before the shooting. Did the five men always travel in a pack? Would they alibi any member of their group who wasn’t there? Even if he left to go shoot a couple of cops? “We’re acquainted.”

  That seemed good enough for the barkeep to start talking. “Gordy got his bike customized at the shop. Denny, too. Although they sometimes drive a ’75 Bronco SUV they inherited from their daddy. If you ask me, they ought to take that wreck to the scrap-metal yard, or else get it customized. All painted up with a couple new fenders, folks might go for it.”

  She wasn’t here for a lesson in auto mechanics, either. “They come in here a lot?”

  He picked up a rag to wipe down the bar around the drunk who never moved. In fact, she could hear him snoring. “They hang out with Al and Jim when they’re workin’. Sometimes do odd jobs over there. They’re all motor heads. They come over here a lot when Al or Jim go on break or have a day off.”

  Derek tapped her on the arm and straightened behind her. But Gina was already aware of Denny Bismarck standing up and his younger brother sliding out of the booth behind him. She doubted they’d do anything stupid like attack a uniformed officer so soon after yesterday’s shooting, but she still felt the urgency to ask her questions faster. “Do they ever come into the bar in the afternoon?”

  “I guess.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, you mean like those cops were asking yesterday?”

  “I’m more interested in seven weeks ago, January twenty-sixth,” she clarified. “Were you working the bar that day? Were they all here?”

  Vince nodded. Then frowned and shook his head.

  Gina’s hand curled into a fist. “Yes or no? Were they here that afternoon?”

  “Seven weeks is a long time to remember something.”

  As far as Gina was concerned, seven decades wouldn’t be long enough for her to forget that day. “Well, can you remember yesterday? There was a fight in your bar. A black police officer responded. He was shot out front.”

  “Oh, yeah. That was real bad. I didn’t know what was going on until I heard the shots. Thought it was an engine backfiring next door.”

  “Who was in the fight?” She pointed to the back of the bar. “Was it any of those guys?”

  “G?” Derek’s hand brushed the small of her back, alerting her to the group of men ambling their way.

  Gina caught and held Denny’s glare as she asked Vince a follow-up question. “Are they always here together? The brothers, their friends—in a group like this morning?”

  “I guess.”

  “Was one of them missing?”

  “Yesterday?” He looked at the group of approaching men, as if seeing their faces for the first time. “As I recall, they were out front by the time I got there. Fight was over. The officer was writin’ folks up. Maybe they were in the bar. Guess they could have come out of the shop.”

  Gina bit down on her frustration and kept a friendly smile on her face. “All of them? What about seven weeks ago?”

  Vince adjusted his glasses again. “Come to think of it, Gordy wasn’t here that day.”

  No. He’d been sitting in the back of her police cruiser. “But the others were all here at the bar? Could you swear to that in court?”