Lay Down the Law

  “You’re doing fine, Erin.”

  “Hey, it was just a little wreck. Of course I’m fine.” She said the words with a little too much enthusiasm.

  Nick sighed, not bothering to point out the “little wreck,” as she’d put it, could have cost her her life.

  “The doc isn’t going to keep me here, is he, Nick?”

  “You got something against hospitals, McNeal?”

  “Only when I’m in them. Do you think you could take me home now?” she asked. “If I get poked one more time I’m afraid I’m going to have to draw my weapon and start shooting doctors.”

  He forced a smile at her attempted humor, wondering if the repercussions of what had happened had penetrated the fog of shock and medication. “I’ll take you home,” he said. “We can talk there.”

  * * *

  Even through the haze of medication, every muscle in Erin’s body ached with a vengeance by the time they reached her apartment.

  Nick opened the door, then motioned toward the sofa. “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll get you a blanket, then I’m going to make some coffee.”

  Without protest, she limped to the sofa and eased onto a cushion. Hugging a throw pillow to her chest, she pulled her legs under her, and tried not to think about how close she’d come to getting seriously hurt—or worse.

  The incident had done more than shake her physically. Her confidence had taken another direct hit. She didn’t like feeling so…helpless. She certainly didn’t like feeling threatened. The instant she’d seen that shotgun pointed in her direction, Erin had been bombarded with a hefty dose of both.

  The clatter of dishes in the kitchen drew her attention to Nick, and she sighed. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she was glad he was there. He represented solidity in a wild, unpredictable sea of too much emotion and not enough fact—elements Erin could do without in her present state.

  From her perch on the sofa, she watched him stride from the kitchen to her bedroom. Erin tried not to notice the controlled grace with which he moved, or the underlying restlessness that surrounded him like a dark aura. He seemed thoughtful tonight. Edgy. Unsettled. She wondered if any of those things had to do with the way he’d reacted at the accident scene. Nick wasn’t the kind of man to let something like a car wreck shake him. She wanted to think he’d been shaken up because he’d been worried about her, but the more logical side of her knew that wasn’t the case. He’d been thinking of Rita, she realized. Erin knew firsthand the face of grief, and saw clearly the mark it had left on this man’s heart.

  He returned a moment later with the comforter from her bed and draped it over her. “Is your head clear enough for you to answer some questions?” he asked. “The coffee is going to be a few minutes.”

  She nodded, knowing it was silly to think she could delay talking about what had happened. She was a cop. She was going to have to face the fact that someone had tried to kill her. Then she was going to have to do something about it.

  “I need to know everything.” He dropped into the love seat across from her and looked at her expectantly. “Details. Descriptions. Possible motives.”

  Erin told him about the black Lincoln, the passenger with the shotgun, and how her cruiser had been run off the road. Nick listened intently, making an occasional notation in his notepad, his dark eyes watchful and razor sharp.

  When she finished, he went to the kitchen for their coffee, then took his place across from her again. “That’s not the kind of crime we normally see here in Logan Falls.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s happened twice since you’ve been in town. First, the dark sedan tries to run you down at the school crossing, and now this. Both of them had Illinois plates. What do you make of it?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, bringing the cup to her lips and sipping. “Seems a little coincidental, doesn’t it?”

  “Makes me wonder why someone is trying to kill you.”

  The words jolted her, even though they’d been expected. “I was a police officer for nine years. I worked narcotics for a year. Maybe I ticked someone off. Maybe someone I put away got out of prison. I don’t know.”

  Nick didn’t look happy about the scenario. Rising, he strode to the kitchen and snatched up the phone. She watched him as he called in a description of the vehicle and put out an all points bulletin with the highway patrol.

  Erin couldn’t quite believe this man had so many facets. One moment he was hard and uncompromising, the next exquisitely gentle. The same man who chewed her out on a regular basis could also kiss her senseless, and take her self-control apart bit by bit with those long, magical fingers of his.

  He still wore his uniform, and she found her eyes drawn to the wide span of his shoulders, his muscular forearms, the way his torso tapered to narrow hips and runner’s legs. The top button of his shirt was open, revealing a layer of fine, black hair. She wondered what it would be like to part that shirt and run her fingers along that pelt of hair to the hard muscles of his abdomen. She wondered if he would resist her. If he would pull her into his arms and kiss her until she was intoxicated with pleasure. She stared, fascinated, appalled that she was openly fantasizing about a man she could never have a relationship with.

  Hanging up the phone, he walked back to the living room and took the love seat across from her. “Is there anything you haven’t told me?” he asked. “A convict recently released from prison? A personal vendetta? Anything like that?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What about the shooting you were involved in six months ago?”

  She should have anticipated the question, but it jarred her with unexpected force. The warehouse. Danny. The mistake she would never live down. Oh, how she wanted to put all that behind her. “I’ve already considered the possibility of a connection,” she said. “It doesn’t pan out. What happened that night doesn’t warrant any kind of…vendetta.”

  “Most shootings don’t make a lot of sense, when it comes right down to it.” Leaning forward, Nick set his cup on the coffee table between them and hit her with a narrow-eyed look. “I need to know exactly what happened that night, Erin.”

  She gripped her mug and concentrated on the warmth radiating into her icy fingers. “Like I told you before, I botched a bust and got myself shot. Danny got hit. I hit one of the perps—”

  “Who?”

  “We never identified him. He was gone by the time backup arrived.”

  “How do you know for sure you hit him?”

  “There was quite a bit of blood at the scene, but no suspect and no body.”

  Interest flared in his expression. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I know what you’re thinking, Nick, but none of what happened that night is relevant to what happened today. It happened months ago, in another city, and we have nothing that ties the two incidents together.”

  “No ties we can see. You know as well as I do that we can’t rule out a connection.” His jaw flexed. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

  Erin knew she’d made him angry for not being up front from the beginning, but she didn’t like dredging up what had happened that night. She wanted to put it to rest, wanted to put it behind her so badly she could barely bring herself to think about it, let alone discuss it.

  “Tell me the whole story. Now. No holds barred.”

  She flinched at the steel in his voice. “I’ve already told you what happened.”

  “You left out a few crucial details, McNeal. Now spill the rest of it.”

  “It’s…complicated.”

  “I’ve got all night.”

  She’d thought she was prepared. But the swirl of shame in the pit of her stomach told her how much it was going to hurt to see the condemnation in Nick’s eyes when she told him the truth. She didn’t want to believe his opinion had become so important to her. But it had. And she knew then what the truth would cost her. His respect, she realized. The tentative friendship they’d formed. Whatev
er it was that had been burgeoning between them since the moment she’d walked in the door of the police department and he’d leveled her with those dark, dangerous eyes of his. Until now, she hadn’t even realized how precious those things had become—and the realization thoroughly stunned her.

  “Danny and I got an anonymous tip that there was going to be a drug buy in a warehouse down on the South Side. A few pounds of black tar heroin. Some cash. It was routine stuff. We were both pretty sure of ourselves back then. Cocky. A little too fond of the rush.” The laugh that squeezed from her throat held no humor. “We went in alone. No Drug Enforcement Agency. No backup. We wanted all the credit.”

  The memory crystallized. The anticipation. The exhilaration. Then the crushing blow of disaster. “Danny went in first—two, maybe three minutes before me. I waited until the last minute, then radioed for backup. I went in through the rear. We should have waited. We should have…” Her words trailed off as the weight of their mistakes pressed down on her. “Things went awry from the start. By the time I got inside, two men already had Danny down on the floor. They were well dressed. Armed to the hilt. Calm.” Her voice sounded strangely foreign in the dead silence of her apartment. “They were going to kill him,” she said. “Execution style. A cop, for God’s sake. Just like that.”

  A shiver swept the length of her, and she realized with some surprise that her teeth were chattering. She hadn’t expected the retelling of that night to be quite so difficult. Not after all this time. But it took every ounce of strength she possessed to continue.

  “I couldn’t let them kill my partner.” Her eyes met Nick’s. For the life of her, she couldn’t guess what was going on in the depths of that cool, emotionless gaze. In light of what she was about to tell him, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “I was outnumbered. Outgunned. But I wanted that bust. I didn’t care about the risks. I didn’t consider the possibility that someone might get hurt.” In her mind’s eye, she saw clearly the terror on Danny’s face. She recalled her own terror with such stark clarity that she could feel her heart beating out of control, her breath coming shallow and fast, the oxygen stalling in her lungs. “I drew my weapon and ordered the men to drop their guns and get on the ground.”

  Nick stared at her, his expression intense. “What happened next?”

  “There were only supposed to be two of them. That’s what Danny’s snitch had told him. He’d been reliable in the past. I didn’t see the man on the catwalk until it was too late.” The horror of that moment crept over her like an avalanche, cold and smothering. “He came out of nowhere. I looked up at the catwalk, and…like I told you before, he was just a kid. Sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. He smiled at me. That freaked me out.” Leaning forward, Erin put her face in her hands, trying to shut out the images, the blood, the guilt. “He had a gun, Nick. I should have stopped him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot that kid. All my training—none of it mattered because I didn’t have the courage to stop him. I just stood there like a stupid rookie while he raised his pistol and shot me down.”

  Across from her Nick cursed.

  “I fired as I went down—and hit him, evidently—but by the time I got my senses back, one of the other two men had already shot Danny in the back.”

  “You’re certain you shot the suspect?” he asked.

  “Yes. I saw him fall from the catwalk.”

  She closed her eyes against the wave of emotion. She hated the thought of telling him the rest of it. In a small corner of her mind she wondered how he was going to react when he found out she’d traded her own life for her partner’s.

  “I could have stopped it. Had I reacted like a cop, I could have prevented both of us from getting hit.”

  “Hindsight is twenty—”

  “Danny got shot because I didn’t have the guts to do the right thing.”

  “You were under fire,” he said. “If you weren’t scared at a moment like that, you wouldn’t be human.”

  “I wanted the bust so badly I didn’t use good judgment. When the chips fell and things went awry, I panicked. I shot the kid, but only when it came down to saving my own neck. I didn’t do the same for Danny. I didn’t back up my partner. My God, that’s unforgivable….” Her voice broke.

  The ensuing quiet bore down on her with the weight of the world. Shame slashed her with the efficiency of a switchblade as the echo of the words she hated to the depth of her soul resounded inside her head.

  I didn’t back up my partner.

  Steeling herself against the condemnation she expected to see in Nick’s expression, Erin risked a look at him. To her utter surprise the only thing she saw was understanding.

  “You did your best, McNeal. That’s all any of us can do. You hesitated because the suspect was a kid. That’s a tough call.”

  “A kid with a gun isn’t any less dangerous than an adult.”

  “True, but the use of deadly force is never an easy decision for a cop, especially if there’s a kid involved and you have a split second to decide whether or not to end his life.”

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, Erin looked down at her hands, pressed them hard against the pillow to keep them from shaking. “You make it sound as if it’s all right.”

  “Maybe it’s not all right,” he said. “You had two choices and neither of them were easy. That’s hard to accept, but we have to, because we don’t have a say in the matter, Erin.”

  “Danny’s paralyzed,” she said. “He’ll never work as a police officer again, not on the street. I can’t help but ask myself, did I do that to him? I see that same question in his eyes every time I see him. He doesn’t say it. He’s too good a man to lay blame. But I see it. I see it in his wife’s eyes. I see it in his children’s eyes. And I feel it in my own heart every time I think about what happened that night.” She raised her shimmering gaze to his. “So, tell me, Nick, did life go on for Danny?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Nick was no stranger to guilt, or the hell it could bring down on someone’s life. He considered himself an expert on the subject. After all, he’d lived with his own twisted version for three long years. He knew firsthand the way guilt battered the mind and ravaged the spirit, much the same way cancer invaded, then ate away at the body.

  That Erin McNeal suffered the same debilitating affliction over an event that hadn’t been under her control disturbed him deeply. That he’d been so hard on her early on—and dead set against hiring her for a job she was clearly qualified for—sent a different kind of guilt tumbling through the wall he’d sworn he wouldn’t let anyone penetrate.

  “Did you try to ID the suspect you shot?” he asked.

  “The hospital check didn’t pan out—none of the area emergency rooms had reported a gunshot wound. The lab typed the blood. DNA tests were run, but there wasn’t a match in the national database.”

  He nodded, realizing the Chicago PD had reached a dead end at that point. He and Erin had, too. If there was a connection between the warehouse shooting and the incident out at the Logan Creek bridge today, they weren’t going to find it anytime soon.

  Damn, he hated dead ends.

  “You know what happened to Danny wasn’t your fault, don’t you?” he asked.

  A smile whispered across her features, as soft and fleeting as a summer breeze. “So I’ve been told.”

  “But you don’t believe it.”

  Her gaze faltered, and she looked down at her hands, stilled them. “The last time I went to see Danny, he wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t even look me in the eye.”

  Nick wanted to go to her, but he resisted the urge. Touching her was dangerous business under the best of circumstances. To touch her now would surely lead to disaster. He wanted to comfort her, but at the moment he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to pull away. Not when her intoxicating scent filled the small space around them, and he could still vividly remember the feel of her in his arms. The softness of her flesh. The taste of her mouth. He knew better t
han to pour gasoline on red-hot embers.

  “Danny didn’t expect you to take a bullet for him,” he growled. “No cop expects that.”

  “He expected me to back him up. Let’s face it, Nick, for a cop, I committed the ultimate sin.”

  “And you’re going to make damn sure you pay for it, aren’t you, McNeal? You punish yourself with guilt. You take crazy risks. Have you ever bothered to think of the people you’ll hurt if something happens to you?”

  Her mouth tightened. “Don’t try your tough-love routine on me, okay, Chief?”

  “You did your best. That’s all any cop can do.”

  “Tell Danny that. Tell his wife. Better yet, tell his kids that when they ask their dad to play ball with them and Danny has to tell them he’ll never get up out of that chair—”

  “Stop it,” he said harshly.

  Across from him, Erin stared at him, her hands gripping the pillow. “He hates me,” she choked out.

  “He hates what happened to him,” Nick said. “That doesn’t mean he hates you. That doesn’t mean he blames you.”

  “Frank pulled me—”

  “Frank pulled you off the street to keep you safe. He knew you needed some time to recover. He didn’t pull you because you were a bad cop.”

  He watched her emotional dam fracture with all the restraint he’d come to expect from Erin. Tears welled and overflowed, but she didn’t utter a sound. She blinked rapidly. Her throat quivered with a forced swallow. Why couldn’t she just let it out and be done with it? Why did she always have to be so tough?

  Compassion tightened his own throat at her show of strength. But that sense of compassion was spiked with the dreaded awareness that at some point he’d come to care for her. The knowledge swirled in his head like a stray bullet, cutting him, penetrating a part of him he’d sworn to never again lay open to a woman. How could he let that happen now? How could he let himself care for Erin McNeal? A woman who would do nothing but put him through the wringer with her impulsive behavior and recklessness. A woman who’d already touched his daughter’s heart.