Armed and Devastating Read online

  “Do you have some free time in the next few days that we could go over that stuff?”

  “Sure, I’ve got the time. But homicide collected most of his files. You might have better luck talking to Detective Grove. He’s heading up the investigation. I’m not sure what I’d actually be able to access for you.”

  Grove. Brooke had already provided more information on the case than he’d had a minute ago. Atticus didn’t know Kevin Grove well, other than that he’d come over from the cold case division a couple of years back and had a reputation as an experienced investigator.

  Still, Atticus wasn’t ready to leave justice up to a relative stranger. “Anything might help. Are you willing to try?”

  “For your dad, sure. I can’t understand why anyone would want to hurt him.”

  Atticus killed the conversation with his bleak pronouncement. “He was a cop for thirty years, Brooke. The man was bound to make some enemies.”

  Her grip stiffened on his sleeve and they reached the asphalt before she spoke again. “I miss your dad. The office seems so empty without his laugh or his grousing at the computer when it doesn’t do what he wants it to. John always said he just wanted to turn on the computer and have it work. He didn’t want to learn all the tricks and shortcuts, said that’s what I was for.”

  Atticus ducked his head, catching a glimpse of a wistful smile before her eyes met his and widened behind her rain-spotted glasses and she glanced away. He straightened, nodded to a passing driver, and guided her across the road. “Dad always said you were his right hand at work. If he couldn’t find a file, you knew where it was. If a case had him all worked up, you let him blow off steam.”

  “Your dad never yelled at me.” Brooke’s chin darted up as she defended her former boss.

  Smiling at her loyalty, Atticus stopped. “What I meant was, you were always a calming influence for him.”

  “I am pretty quiet.” Her chin quivered as she tried to hold his gaze, but then it dropped to the middle of his chest.

  Well, hell. That wasn’t much of a condolence to say to a woman who was more like a kid sister than a coworker. He tucked a finger beneath her chin and nudged it back up, vowing to do better. “After raising four boys who ran roughshod around the house, I think Mom and Dad were both glad you came into their lives.” He swiped his thumb over the thick round lenses of her glasses, wiping away the moisture beading there. He wanted her to see the sincerity in his expression. “You were like a daughter to him.”

  Her eyes were big and slightly almond-shaped. A deeper green than he remembered. They blinked rapidly to erase the sheen of tears gathering there.

  Brooke squiggled her chin away from the contact and tugged ever so slightly on his arm to get them walking again. “I’d have done anything for John. He was always good to me.”

  “He was a good man.”

  “He was.”

  They walked the rest of the way without saying a word. Atticus didn’t know if he was feeling that same calming influence his dad had always talked about, or if it was just the distance he was putting between himself and Hayley that made the fist squeezing his heart relax its grip. There was a straightforward simplicity to Brooke that was soothing on a day like this.

  “Here we are,” she announced unnecessarily as they reached the dark-blue compact. She released his arm to dig through her bag for her keys. “You can go now if you want to catch up with your family. Thanks.”

  “I’ll wait until you’re inside.” Atticus turned in the direction she’d nodded and spotted Sawyer, having a private word with Holden and their mother. With a yes-sir nod to Sawyer, Holden led Susan Kincaid to the black limo she’d ridden in to the service and tucked her inside. Brooke was still rummaging when Atticus turned back to her. He shifted to shield her from the rain with his body and umbrella as the search went into extra innings. “Are you one of those women who carries her life around inside her purse?”

  Her chin snapped up and Atticus wondered if it was her natural shyness or just him forcing his company on her that made her so skittish this afternoon. “I like to be prepared.”

  “For what? The siege of Kansas City?”

  Her cheeks flushed and she quickly glanced back down to her purse. She propped one knee up like a stork and rested her bag on her thigh to get to the very bottom. “With my inheritance from my parents, my aunts and I bought a small stone church that we had gutted last fall. Now we’re remodeling the inside, shoring up the structure and modernizing the place, putting in central air—we’ve hired a contractor, of course. But it’s only partially finished inside—a bedroom for them, one for me, a bath and part of the kitchen.”

  When her balance started to waver, Atticus wrapped his hand around her upper arm to steady her. “Easy.”

  Her foot plopped to the ground and he released her as she kept on talking—using more words than he’d ever heard her string together at any one time. “We barely have closets and we’re living out of suitcases because there’s still so much dust from the ceiling and drywall work in the main room and the sun porch and deck they’re adding on, that I never know when things will be clean or if I can get to them, so I carry… Victory!”

  The word klutzy had already come to mind by the time she fished out her ring of keys and beamed in triumph. It took another few moments to sort through all of them to find the remote and beep the lock open. There was an endearing absent-minded professor quality to Brooke that was at the far end of the spectrum of chic femininity from a polished professional like Hayley Resnick. Something about her sweet lack of artifice made him want to straighten her glasses on her nose and join the victory celebration with her.

  “Allow me.” The smile that lightened Atticus’s face and mood while he opened the door for her was genuine. With a high-stress job such as his father’s, he could definitely see why he’d choose an assistant like Brooke over someone more staid, or perhaps even more experienced. She was uncomplicated. As straightforward and eager to please as she seemed awkward within her own skin. Usually quiet, as she’d said, though he might attribute her bursts of rambling to nervous energy.

  And when she smiled as she had a moment ago—over something as inane as finding her keys—the words plain and frumpy seemed to disappear from Atticus’s extensive vocabulary.

  “Thank you.” She tossed her bag across to the passenger seat where it landed with a thunk. She pushed the door farther open and the rain whipped inside before Atticus could adjust the umbrella. Brooke squinched up her face as the water hit her and she quickly slid behind the wheel and closed the door—leaving a good ten inches of her dark flowered skirt and khaki-green raincoat hanging out and soaking up water from the pavement.

  Atticus reached for the door handle at the same time Brooke shoved it open from the inside. The steel door cracked against his knuckles, shooting a tingly flash of pain along every nerve right up his arm. “Damn.”

  He shook his hand, stirring feeling back into the tips of his fingers.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He flexed his fingers as normal sensation quickly returned. “It’s only a minor compound fracture.”

  “What?”

  Her crestfallen look made him feel guilty about the joke. “Relax. It’s nothing. I’ll live.” He opened the door wide and stooped down to rescue the hem of her dress and coat.

  She’d turned in her seat, her eyes following his every movement. “I’m sorry.”

  He wasn’t. Sorry, that is. Not with the view he was getting. Right in front of him, stretching out for what seemed like miles and miles, was a smooth, creamy thigh. Long. Shapely. Fit.

  When the hell had mousy Brooke sprouted legs like that?

  Why did she hide them under long skirts and slacks?

  And why the hell did he care about unflattering clothes? Or surprisingly flattering appendages?

  Rationalizing the instinctive reaction to a pretty stretch of leg as the by-product of the day’s stress, Atticus pulled her dress down, covering her up to
a more familiar, less distracting level.

  “Atticus?” She reached out, her touch so light on his shoulder, he could barely feel the weight of it.

  “I’m okay, I promise.” He tucked the wet material inside the car and stood, dismissing her touch and her concern. “I’ll see you at Mom’s.”

  She nodded, waiting to make sure Atticus stepped safely aside before pulling the door shut. “See you.”

  He retreated another couple of steps to allow her to pull into the procession of exiting traffic.

  Masking his scrutiny with the scalloped point of his umbrella, Atticus scanned the vehicles to make sure Hayley and her male friend had gone. Good. Not a platinum blonde in the bunch. Atticus breathed a heavy sigh, cleansing his conscience. Maybe he should feel bad about using Brooke as an escape from a painful episode from his past. After all, what made his relationship with Hayley so painful was the fact that she had used him.

  But right now, as he watched the little blue VW zip around a turn and head down the road toward the exit, he was glad he’d chosen to take his walk with Brooke. Not only because she knew more about his father’s work than anyone at KCPD, but also because he could use a little peace on a day like today. Might be his only respite for a while. And though Brooke could be a little dangerous to herself and others, she was on the whole, well…peaceful.

  Feeling centered enough to get down to the business at hand, Atticus noted the empty copse of trees and set out to join the impromptu Kincaid family reunion.

  Chapter Two

  Summer…

  “You’re no Audrey Hepburn.” Brooke Hansford’s deadpan critique was as plain and uninspiring as the reflection staring back at her from the plastic-wrapped mirror. So much for the new glasses working miracles.

  True, the lenses were narrower and reduced the pop-bottle effect that distorted her nearsighted eyes. And the subtle design of the copper metal frames was more modern and colorful than her last pair had been. She turned her face from side to side, assessing each view.

  “Maybe Katharine Hepburn?” Her breath seeped out on a wistful sigh and she reached for her hairbrush. “You wish.”

  The old movies lied. Switching to contact lenses and trimming three inches off her hair hadn’t transformed her from gal Friday to femme fatale. The only male who had gone out of his way to notice her without her glasses was her opthamologist—who’d looked deep into her eyes to study the weeping red irritation of her allergic reaction to the lenses, not because he was entranced by any sudden beauty discovered there.

  The UMKC extension class in assertiveness training that she’d taken the past semester had recommended emphasizing her strengths to build confidence when facing a new or difficult situation. Apparently, twenty-twenty vision would never be one of hers. So new glasses it was.

  She pulled the brush through the long hair and tamed the bundle into a ponytail. The golden highlights the hairdresser had added were barely noticeable. “Maybe I should go red like Aunt Lou,” Brooke speculated, trying to envision how adding an auburn wash to her blond-brown-blah color might somehow help the long curls cooperate with the humidity that was already making the morning air sticky. She should probably take some of the money she was using to make over the small stone church that was now her half-finished home and make herself over. “I wonder what miracles cost these days.”

  Brooke twisted her hair up and reached for the clip that would anchor it to the back of her head. So much for the boost of confidence the new suit and glasses were supposed to give her as she started work at the Fourth Precinct today. Not that she wasn’t excited about the transfer to newly promoted Major Mitch Taylor’s office. She was going to be administrative assistant to the man now in charge of every watch and department in the Fourth Precinct offices. She loved the challenges of her career, thrived on making her professional world run efficiently. Working with computers and data, an attention to facts and details—those were definitely strengths of hers where her confidence could truly shine.

  Her appearance wasn’t the real issue this morning.

  The new job wasn’t what was making her heart race and her mouth dry.

  Even Major Taylor’s tough and gruff reputation as a demanding boss didn’t really worry her.

  It was Atticus Kincaid. He’d be there.

  Brilliant detective. Tall. Black-haired. Capable of turning her into a stuttering idiot with a direct look or teasing remark. Two weeks of working side by side with him, poring through his late father’s files—searching for a lead on John Kincaid’s murder and finding nothing useful—had taught her that embarrassing lesson. His broad shoulders and crisp style did wonders for a suit and tie—and frustrated her hormones to no end.

  Not one of her smartest moves—developing a crush on a man who looked on her as a kid sister or his father’s frumpy secretary. There was a date that was never gonna happen.

  Though she and Atticus wouldn’t be working in the same office, they’d be working in the same building, possibly on the same floor. No doubt she’d bump into him in the break room, or have to sit across from him at a meeting table.

  How was she supposed to be competent and professional around him without getting her crowded thoughts and well-meaning words twisted up inside her throat? Chances were her new coworkers would think she was dimwitted or indifferent or just plain stuck-up before she could help them understand how thrilled and honored she was to be there and be a part of their law-enforcement team.

  And the most embarrassing part of it was that Atticus would be patient and polite no matter how badly she and her shy genes fumbled around.

  He was as good a son to her former boss, John Kincaid, as all the Kincaid boys had been. And, like the rest of his family, he’d been sweet enough to check on her a couple of times at John’s funeral three months ago—even though she’d repaid him with bruised knuckles and mud on his uniform. She had always been so grateful for the Kincaids’ kindness to her.

  For John Kincaid’s sake, she’d bury her misguided attraction and slug her way through her social awkwardness and make a success of herself at the Fourth Precinct.

  For John.

  Brooke gripped the edge of the sink and held on as a wave of sadness washed over her. Oh, how she missed John and the familiarity of working in his warm, strong presence day in and day out. The grief wasn’t with her all the time now, but when she thought about the good friend she had lost—the mentor who had taken her under his wing and shown her what a father was like—the loss caused by his senseless murder made her heartsick all over again.

  Yet, almost as quickly as the sadness had hit her, Brooke’s frustration with the stalled investigation spurred her out of her funk. She finished pinning up her hair and tucking in her blouse. As the closest thing to an inside man familiar with the comings and goings of John’s office, she’d promised the Kincaid family to do whatever she could to help find his killer. Homicide’s investigation might have stalled; her research with Atticus might have stalled. But no way was she giving up. Standing in front of the mirror and bemoaning her deficiencies instead of expecting success did John Kincaid’s memory a disservice.

  Her former boss had seen right through her shy exterior and demanded important things from her. He’d pushed her to use every brain cell, to take chances, to be confident in all she could do. He’d recommended that assertiveness class to her in the first place, said he wanted her to see the same talented woman he saw every day, and to believe in herself. He’d set his expectations for Brooke high, and she’d risen to his challenge.

  Now she’d have to do the same for herself. Becoming that self-confident, successful woman John Kincaid believed in would be the best testimonial to the man she could offer.

  Any crush she might have on one of his sons—any guilt she might feel at not being able to help him—was irrelevant. She owed this to John.

  So, Brooke adjusted the pretty new glasses on her unremarkable face, smoothed her palms down the front of her light-gray gabardine skirt, an
d silently declared herself ready for the new day ahead. She grabbed her jacket from its garment bag and headed out of the bathroom.

  BROOKE HADN’T TAKEN three steps before her good intentions hit their first roadblock.

  “Louise! Get down from there.” Brooke spotted the artificially strawberry-blond hair nearly two stories above her. She dropped her jacket and ran across the planks of the temporary floor to grab the base of a ladder that soared up to the peak of the nineteenth-century limestone church she and her aunts now called home. “Aunt Lou? We talked about this.”

  “I’m doing a little patch work on the ceiling.”

  “On a thirty-foot ladder?”

  “How else am I supposed to reach it?” Smart ass. Louise Hansford—a ringer for the younger brother who’d been Brooke’s father if the old pictures in her scrapbooks were accurate—pulled a caulking gun from the hammer loop of her denim overalls and squeezed something into a vent where workers were installing a central cooling and heating system. “After all that rain this spring and the leaks we had, I’m not taking any chances on more water damage. We’ve put too much time and money into the bedrooms and bath downstairs to let problems in the unfinished areas ruin the work we’ve already done.”

  “We’re paying Mr. McCarthy and his crew good money to do that type of work for us. Now come down.” Brooke shifted to the other side of the ladder, hissing through clenched teeth as Louise climbed up to a higher rung to inspect another vent. When nothing fell and no one crashed, Brooke allowed herself a normal breath. “It hasn’t rained for two weeks. And unless you count the humidity, there’s no moisture in the forecast, either.”

  “My old bones say different.”

  “Don’t…” Old bones, my foot. Brooke got a bug’s-eye view of her aunt stepping from the ladder onto the steel scaffolding that gave construction workers access to the aged oak panels lining the arched ceiling. “There’s not a thing wrong with your old bones.” Louise’s occasional bouts with vertigo, however, were another story. “You’re sixty-five years old.”