Partner-Protector Read online

  “Someone has to talk to her. Take her statement, at the very least. If there’s any credibility to what she has to say, I know you’ll be fair.”

  The captain thought Kelsey Ryan was that important? Or was this more ego stroking to bribe him into taking a job nobody else wanted? He still wasn’t about to accept this assignment wholeheartedly, but there was a certain wisdom in pleasing the boss. “All I have to do is take her statement?”

  Captain Taylor nodded. “She claims she can help with the Holiday Hooker murders.”

  “Let me guess. She thinks she was a hooker in another life.”

  That one actually made the old man smile. “Don’t dismiss her yet. We can’t afford to alienate any citizen right now.” He shoved this morning’s Kansas City Star newspaper across the desk and pointed to a headline near the bottom of the front page.

  K.C.P.D. No Closer To IDing Remains Of Infant Girl

  “Ouch.” The discovery of a baby Jane Doe’s body in one of the area landfills more than two months ago had galvanized the entire department from homicide to missing persons to traffic cops. Every man and woman on the force seemed to take it personally that that child had been killed. But even the special task force assigned to the investigation had been thus far unable to put together many leads.

  “Ouch is right.” Captain Taylor boxed up his emotions and set them aside the same way Merle had to. “The new commissioner, Shauna Cartwright, is desperate for some good press for a change. She’s ordered us to pay attention to every report that comes in. And to solve some cases.”

  “So meeting with Kelsey Ryan would be doing a favor for the commissioner?”

  “You’d be doing a favor for me.”

  “All right, then.” It was enough that Mitch Taylor had asked him to do this. That the captain trusted he was the best man for the assignment—even if it was a lousy one. And hell, his hide was thick enough to withstand a little razzing from his peers.

  Merle pushed to his feet, adjusting his jacket over the badge and gun clipped to his belt. “I’m off to make headlines for the department.”

  “Just make sure they’re good ones.”

  “Yes, sir.” Before leaving, Merle paused, exhaling caution on one overly curious breath. “How is Ginny doing?”

  Mitch might have inside information on the petite blond detective. He was more than Ginny’s boss. He was her cousin-in-law and her husband’s best friend. They were all part of a big, happy family that Merle could hang out with and admire, but never truly be part of.

  Mitch didn’t know his secret. Didn’t even question Merle’s interest. After all, it was perfectly normal for a cop to inquire about his partner’s health and well-being. “She’s fine. These last three months on total bed rest is driving her nuts, but Brett’s keeping a close eye on her to make sure she does everything the doctor says.” God, how that big brute loved his wife.

  Just as Merle loved her.

  But he was nothing more than Ginny’s friend. The kid brother she’d never had. His feelings were anything but brotherly for his detective partner. But she loved somebody else.

  Merle nodded, breathing through the pain with a smile, hiding much more than Mitch or anyone else would ever guess. “Give her my best when you see her.”

  “Why don’t you stop by? She’d love to see you. Hell. According to Brett, she’d love to see anybody.”

  Merle laughed right along with him. “I’ll do that.”

  The phone on Captain Taylor’s desk rang. He put up one finger, ordering Merle not to leave quite yet. He picked up the receiver. “Yeah, Maggie?” His gaze shot to Merle’s. The call had something to do with him. “I’ll tell him.”

  Merle splayed his hands at his hips, waiting as the captain hung up the phone and stood. He tilted his chin ever so slightly to maintain eye contact with the bigger man. “What’s up?”

  Was that a smirk? The captain’s barrel chest heaved with a sigh. “If nothing else, your flake is punctual. Maggie says Ms. Ryan just checked in. She’s waiting for you at your desk.”

  Merle crossed to the blinds and peeked out, needing a moment to gather the gentlemanly composure Captain Taylor thought he had in such abundant supply. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  He’d seen her in grainy black-and-white news photos, and in caricatures scribbled onto notepads. But nothing had prepared him for the real thing.

  He saw her hair first. It stuck out from the crown in an explosion of short, flamboyant curls, with little wisps spiking around her ears and onto her cheekbones and neck. A sweep of bangs curled down over her forehead, flirting with her eyebrows and parting to one side as she pushed them off her face with the tips of her turquoise-gloved fingers.

  But the gelled, pop-star style wasn’t the most noticeable thing. It was the color. Red. Not copper. Not auburn. But a flashy, unnatural tint that reminded him of rubies and fire engines and flagging down ships.

  A quick scan farther down her body indicated that subtlety just wasn’t part of her vocabulary. Her knee-length, black-and-white checked coat hung open. A knitted scarf of bright turquoise draped around her neck and clashed with the electric-blue, snowman-patterned sweater she wore over a long denim skirt and clunky black lace-up boots.

  Her cheeks and nose were flushed from the cold and wind outside. But instead of huddling her posture for warmth, she sat ramrod straight, shamelessly glancing all around the office and taking note of everybody’s business.

  But there was a sharpness to her light brown eyes that conveyed more than nosy curiosity. She was gauging distances, occupations, degrees of interest in her presence the way any con artist would upon entering a den of cops.

  There was a hint of arrogance about her, a defiance that surprised him.

  Kelsey Ryan didn’t want to talk to him any more than he wanted to talk to her.

  Merle frowned. He didn’t know whether he felt relieved or insulted by that observation.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Mitch.

  Oh, yeah. But this was for the commissioner. For good press. For Captain Taylor. Out loud, Merle said the only thing he could. “No, sir.”

  He adjusted his tie as if donning a suit of armor.

  Then he opened the door.

  BROOKS BROTHERS. Ten o’clock.

  Kelsey kept her body facing straight ahead, but turned her eyes to watch the man approach.

  Khaki slacks. Navy tweed blazer. Maroon silk tie. Dark blond hair cut too short for any strand to be out of place. Chiseled features cleanly shaven and devoid of humor. Trim, evenly-proportioned build from broad shoulders to slim hips. A coiled strength to his stride to hide the hitch in every step.

  The little frisson of awareness that shimmied down her spine was inconsequential.

  This guy was too neat. Too clean. Too buttoned down and under control to be open-minded at all.

  Ho boy.

  He was the worst kind of cop to tell her story to. Not that any of them in her limited experience had been gung ho about taking her talent seriously.

  Still, that woman last night had been so alone.

  For a few seconds last night, Kelsey had shared her stark, hopeless terror.

  That woman had no one but Kelsey to help her. To remember.

  As the detective neared the desk, she guessed him to be about six foot, maybe half a foot taller than herself. And despite the slight smile that touched the corners of his mouth, she didn’t sense that he’d gotten any friendlier since stepping out of that office. Kelsey rose to meet him, instinctively clutching at the crystal pendant hanging beneath her sweater and camisole, warming her skin.

  “Detective Banning?”

  He nodded and extended his hand. “Ms. Ryan.”

  Since she still wore her turquoise gloves, she didn’t hesitate to clasp his hand and exchange a polite, professional greeting. It might be the only civility she’d find here this morning.

  “Have a seat.” He gestured to the straight-backed chair beside his desk, then sat in his own chair and
pivoted to face her. “So you found out something about the Holiday Hooker murders you’d like to report?”

  Kelsey glanced down at the black leather backpack propped beside her chair and thought of the box with its well-wrapped doll tucked away inside. She wanted to hand over the tragic object with all its hate-filled psychic residue and get its poisonous influence out of her life.

  But that would be disloyal to that sad, frightened woman whom she’d gotten to know so well in her last few seconds of existence.

  Kelsey’s grandmother had taught her to use her curse as a gift. Grandma Lucy Belle had said that by helping others who couldn’t be helped in any other way, her inherited talent would feel less like a burden. Kelsey’s grandmother had been so wise. So loving. She wouldn’t disappoint the faith Lucy Belle had had in her.

  Detective Banning was watching her with more politeness than patience when she looked up. Letting the calmness of the blue crystal pendant her grandmother had given her work its spell over her nerves, Kelsey took a deep breath. She rested her elbow on the corner of the detective’s desk and leaned in, dropping her voice to a whisper. “You understand that I don’t always see evidence in the same way you do, Mr. Banning.”

  His green eyes filled with skepticism. “So I’ve heard.” He thumbed through some papers on his desk, but she had a feeling he wasn’t reading any of them. “Captain Taylor tells me you had a dream about a murder last night, and called it in.”

  Kelsey sat back, disappointed, but not surprised by his misinformation.

  “I don’t dream this stuff up, Detective.” She adopted her most succinct, teaching-the-uneducated voice and explained. “I possess a psychic ability to sense things. When I put my mind to it, or when my guard is down like it was last night, I can see things especially clearly. When I touch people or objects, I pick up emotions, memories—”

  “You predict the future.”

  Kelsey bristled. “No. It doesn’t work like that. I can’t help you win the lottery. Sometimes I can sense what a person is thinking or feeling about the future, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. I have better luck reading the residue of something that’s already taken place in the past.”

  “Luck, huh?”

  Poor choice of words. She’d set herself up for that one. “Look, Banning, do you want to know what I saw or not?”

  He nodded, but she didn’t see any glimmer of understanding lighting his eyes. “Okay. So you touched something last night, got a little freaky sensation and called the cops.”

  Crude and suggestive, but basically accurate. Kelsey decided to let the lesson drop and continued on. “I believe I’ve accidentally come across an object that has something to do with one of those prostitutes who’ve been murdered around Christmas and New Year’s over the last decade.”

  “Nine murders in eleven years,” he clarified. But he didn’t ask about the object.

  She nudged her backpack with her boot, grateful for all the layers separating her from the doll’s frightening aura. “I don’t know if this is something that belonged to one of the victims or to the killer.”

  His gaze dropped to the backpack, as well. “Don’t tell me you found the murder weapon?”

  “No. But it’s something one of them touched. I’m sure of that.”

  “So you found some object that somebody touched, and you think it will solve the case for us?”

  Mr. Uptight Suit-’n-Tie wasn’t going to give her a break. “Look, I don’t presume to do your job. But since the murders haven’t been solved yet, I assumed you might appreciate a little help. I’d like a chance to explain what I know.”

  He was already standing up by the time she finished her lecture. “So this could take a while, right? Why don’t I get us some coffee. How do you take yours? Black? Cream or sugar?”

  Kelsey tipped her gaze up to his, refusing to be so easily dismissed. “Both, please.”

  With a curt nod, he strode across the room. Kelsey watched him move. While she regrouped her tranquility and determination with some deep, even breathing, the analytical part of her mind strayed. She wondered if Detective Banning, with more control than grace in his movements, had one leg shorter than the other. And whether the stiffness of his right knee was the cause of his limp or the result of it.

  She knew one way to find some answers.

  But touching Merle Banning, skin to skin, wasn’t an option she wanted to pursue. Hadn’t she freaked out enough men over the years by holding hands or sharing a kiss?

  Of course, she could always think about her disastrous relationship with Jeb if she ever needed a reminder about why she had no business getting involved with a man. His cruel jokes and abusive words should have been enough to kill any interest she might have in the male species.

  Speaking of…

  The distinctive sound of deep, male laughter diverted her attention to the break room. With the door propped open and windows forming the wall from waist to ceiling, she could see a short, bulky, uniformed officer resting his hip on the counter beside Banning and the coffeepot. Another blue-suited cop and a pair of plainclothes detectives sat at a table. Someone must have said something funny. Something teasing, something low-brow, no doubt.

  The stout officer’s gaze connected with hers through the glass. Oh, no. His leering grin mocked her. As if a man with only four or five strings of hair to comb over his bald pate had any right to make fun of someone else. He took his leisurely time and finally turned his back to her. Maybe he didn’t care that he’d been caught, or maybe he felt he’d already had the last laugh at her expense.

  And was that…? Yes. Kelsey’s stomach twisted into a self-conscious knot. Someone was singing an off-key rendition of the theme from The Twilight Zone.

  Cute.

  Not terribly original, but cute.

  All the hurts and insults and accusations she’d endured throughout her life burned with a molten intensity in her veins. Some days, it seemed that defensive anger was the only thing that could keep her warm.

  Today was one of those days.

  She watched the interchange unfold in the break room without hearing the words. But she didn’t need to. One didn’t grow up different from everyone else without knowing when someone was calling you “The Flake” or “crazy” or “delusional.” It was too easy for people to ridicule what they didn’t understand. Most of the time she was patient with them, but not today. Not after what she’d seen and felt last night.

  She’d been so cold. So scared.

  She’d felt that woman’s death.

  Kelsey tugged her coat together at her neck and shivered inside, trying to hold on to her anger. But the fear was more powerful. She had to do something. She had to tell someone.

  As if sensing her fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, Detective Banning turned. Green eyes met brown through the glass. For a few unguarded seconds, Kelsey held on to his gaze, wanting to answer the question there, wondering if she was imagining the concern.

  With a blink, his gaze moved past her. Kelsey’s breath seeped out on a sigh. She felt strangely bereft, as if denied something precious almost within her reach.

  Banning said something to one of the detectives at the table. The singing stopped amidst another round of laughter. To his credit, Banning wasn’t laughing. A champion? He barely knew her. Just a nice guy, telling his buddies not to make fun where she could see them? Small consolation. Or was he embarrassed that they could see her sitting at his desk, linking them together, no matter how impersonally?

  Jeb had been embarrassed.

  Just like that, the anger was back. Screw this. There had to be someone else in this city she could talk to.

  Kelsey stood, adjusted her skirt down to her calves. She slipped her backpack over one shoulder and started buttoning her coat as she zigzagged between the desks and headed straight for the bank of elevators that would take her back down to the street and out into the freezing cold.

  “Hey!” She pretended she didn’t recognize the v
oice, and that he wasn’t calling to her. He’d be glad if she could slip out and never darken his desk again.

  She had the elevator button in sight when a band of fingers closed around her arm, just above the elbow. Kelsey jumped.

  “Whoa.” Banning quickly released her, holding his hand up in surrender as she jerked around. She didn’t bother with a Don’t touch me. He probably got that idea loud and clear from her startled, chest-clutching reaction. “Where are you going? We’re just getting started.” He held up the two steaming plastic cups he balanced in his left hand. “Coffee?”

  Kelsey stared at the cups for a senseless moment, then tipped her chin to look up at him. “No, thank you, Mr. Banning. We’re finished.” Her voice sounded surprisingly succinct as she pushed it past the pounding pulse in her throat. “Hard as this might be for you to believe, my time is valuable. I’m here for a legitimate reason. I saw a woman murdered. I do not make up stories, and I will not be ridiculed by you, your friends or anybody else.”

  She spun toward the elevators, but he brushed past her in an eclectic whiff of wool and spice and overbrewed coffee to block her path. “Then let’s get out of here.”

  Kelsey stopped short, lifting her gaze above his starched white collar and the jut of his chin. “Embarrassed to be seen with The Flake?”

  He didn’t deny the nickname or the embarrassment. But he did offer an unexpected argument. “Well, that hair does draw a lot of attention. I’m assuming it’s not your natural color?”

  Was that a serious question, or was he teasing her? The confusion was enough to defuse her temper. She simply explained the color choice. “I get good vibes from red.”

  “I always wondered why women dyed their hair. It’s the vibes, huh?”

  He thrust his wrist from the end of his sleeve and checked his watch. His jacket veed open, giving her a glimpse of the brass and blue enamel badge clipped to his belt beside the brown leather holster at his hip. The weapon inside was a sobering reminder that just because he was curious or teasing or polite, he was not her friend.

  “You eat lunch?” he asked.