In His Protective Custody

“I’m off duty,” Zane called back to the desk sergeant.

“Not for another seven minutes,” the desk sergeant countered, pointing to the large clock that hung on the wall behind him. “C’mon back, Calloway. I don’t want to have to put you on report for failing to obey a higher-ranking authority.”

Zane didn’t bother suppressing a sigh as he turned around. The white-haired sergeant had earned the right to pull rank. For the most part, Stubbs was a decent, fair man. But Zane was tired and he just wanted to go home and get something to eat.

Or maybe to drink to wash away the taste of the day. He’d had a kid die on him today, a fifteen-year-old who had everything to live for and no reason to die except that he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time when an inebriated driver had lost control of his vehicle. Zane was in no mood to be accommodating.

“Have a heart, Sarge. I pulled a double shift because Martinez’s wife had her baby three days early. Technically, I was off duty hours ago.”

The sergeant looked at him over the rim of his reading glasses. It was that “no-nonsense” look he gave the rookies. It hadn’t intimidated Zane then, and it didn’t now.

“I don’t deal in ‘technically,’ Calloway. I deal in phone calls. In good citizens who call in because they need us.”

Returning to the desk, Zane rolled his eyes. “Spare me the violins, please.”

Stubbs chuckled under his breath. Zane had never known anyone who actually chuckled before, but the sergeant did.

“Don’t know what you’re missing, Calloway.” Stubbs tore off the page on which he’d written both the complaint and the name and address of the person calling in making the compliant and held it out to him. “Here. This is on your way home. A domestic violence case. Neighbor called it in. A Dr. Pul-lass-key,” he added, drawing out the name to get it right.

Zane took the piece of paper with the information on it and frowned as he scanned it. Alleged domestic violence cases rubbed him the wrong way, but not for the reason most people would have expected.

“Another neighbor with her ear pressed against the door, trying to hear what’s going on,” he commented under his breath.

The sergeant heard him. Wide, squat shoulders rose and fell beneath the navy blue shirt in a careless, dismissive gesture. “We get a call, we’re obligated to check it out, no matter who it’s from.”

Zane tucked the piece of paper into his pocket. He glanced at the desk sergeant’s craggy face. His work on the streets and four divorces had made Jacob Stubbs look older than his years.

“Easy for you to say,” Zane told him, “sitting behind that desk.”

Stubbs looked down his Roman nose at him. “That’s ’cause I’m the desk sergeant and you’re just a lowly officer.”

“Not after I pass my exam,” Zane reminded him. It had been Stubbs who’d given him the heads up—and the books—about the exams, saying he was too damn smart to spend his days patrolling a beat. After a while, Zane had decided he had nothing to lose by studying. If he didn’t feel ready, no one was holding a gun to his head to take the exam.

Never hurt to keep his options open.

“Yeah, the exam,” Stubbs echoed with a laugh, knowing nothing goaded the young policeman on more than being dismissed. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then—” He let his voice trail off as he motioned Zane out the front entrance, his meaning clear.

“Right.” Turning on his heel, Zane headed for the door one more time. “Waste of time, you know. Probably just another false alarm.”

“Then it won’t take long,” the sergeant called after him.

Taking out the paper again once he was outside the precinct, Zane glanced at the address. The sergeant was right. It was on his way home and wasn’t all that far away, about a mile from Patience Memorial, as he recalled.

Of course, a mile in Manhattan wasn’t equal to a mile anywhere else, except maybe in Los Angeles, where the traffic was equally as maddening at any given time, night or day.

Zane headed for the parking structure where he’d left his car.

He’d probably make better time walking, even at this time of night, he reasoned darkly. But he had no intentions of doubling back to the precinct to get his car once he took down the neighbor’s report and talked to the couple who were supposedly fighting. No, once he checked this out, he was going to “check out” himself for at least the next eight hours and recharge some very badly depleted batteries.

He’d left his vehicle on the third level. Once he located it, he got in and drove down the serpentine path to the street level. He was impatient to have this behind him.

The traffic gods were kind to him this evening. Vehicles flowed at an even pace and he got to the address the sergeant had handed him in less than half an hour. He parked his car directly before the entrance, much to the apparent displeasure of the doorman, who attempted to point him in the direction of the building’s underground parking.

“Won’t be here long enough to need underground parking,” Zane informed him in his no-nonsense, baritone voice. Deep and resonant, it didn’t leave any room for argument from anyone except the most foolish and reckless. Neither of which A.J. Green, the doorman, was. He stepped back as Zane entered the building. “Elevator’s on your right, Officer,” A.J. called after him.

“I kind of figured that out,” Zane commented as he pushed the up button with his thumb.

A minute and a half later he was knocking on the door of apartment 5E. The hall, he noted as he’d walked up to the door, was as silent as a tomb. There was no sound of an argument, heated or otherwise.

Just as he’d expected.

“Who is it?” a soft voice on the other side of the door wanted to know.

“Officer Calloway,” he announced. “NYPD.” He stepped back two steps so that the woman could verify the information for herself if she looked through the door’s peephole. “We received a call from someone reporting some kind of domestic disturbance going on in this building.” Try as he might, he couldn’t quite manage to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Was that you?”

Alyx opened the door, expecting to see, given the man’s tone, a slightly down at the mouth, scowling police officer. Most likely somewhat paunchy. Definitely not friendly.

What she saw, instead, could have best been described as the answer to every woman under the age of a hundred’s fantasy dream man. At the very least, the man for whom the phrase “tall, dark and gorgeous” had been coined.

Because he was.

He was also scowling fit to kill.

Chapter 2

Something about the officer’s tone put Alyx on the defensive. She studied his face attentively as she answered his question. “I made the call, yes.”

He gestured impatiently around the well-lit hallway with its alabaster walls. “So where is this alleged disturbance?” he asked.

“It was—” she emphasized the word because there was nothing but silence in the hallway now “—coming from the apartment next door. 5F,” she added in case his sense of direction took him to the apartment on the other side of hers.

He turned his head toward 5F and remained quiet for a moment, straining to listen. Nothing but silence met his ear.

“Sure it wasn’t just the television you heard?” he suggested. “Some of the programs on the cable channels can get pretty loud and violent.” Obviously, he thought this was the source of the commotion. But Alyx knew what she’d heard and she intended to stand by it, even if Mr. Drop-Dead-Gorgeous-Policeman was smirking at her.

“It was the man next door,” she told him firmly, then added for good measure, “and he was shouting at his wife.”

All right, maybe she had heard raised voices, Zane allowed. But that didn’t automatically mean that there had to be violence or abuse involved. “Some guys get a little hot under the collar and they don’t realize how loud they sound when they shout.”

Why was this policeman so adamant about her being wrong about what she’d heard? Was he a friend of Harry’s and trying to protect the man?

“There was also banging,” Alyx insisted.

“Maybe he slammed a few drawers or cabinet doors to knock off some steam.”

“His wife had bruises.”

The statement caught him up short. “You saw bruises?” Zane demanded.