Just Eight Months Old...

“My father trained me to be a police officer from the time I could walk. Far from turning in his grave, I bet he would have been proud.”

Now Hannah forced her gaze away from the precinct doors and the uniformed officers going in and out. It had taken Uncle Vic years to do what he promised mere weeks after he was promoted from commanding sergeant to captain: He’d made her quit.

Victor Marconi, whom she hadn’t talked to since leaving the force, was just another ghost from the past she’d just as soon avoid right now. She looked at the other. Chad Hogan openly returned her gaze.

She opened the car door and slipped behind the wheel. “I think it’s a good idea for you to catch a cab from here, Chad.”

“You want to talk about something?”

He got into the car after her and she started it. “About what?”

“About what you were thinking just now.”

Puzzled, she sat concentrating strictly on her breathing for a scant moment. “Victor Marconi is more than the captain of the precinct. He was…um, my father’s partner. Up until the night Dad was killed in the line of duty.” She handed him the manila folder.

Chad took the data and put the file aside without opening it. “You told me your father died, but left out that it was in the line of duty.”

She swept her hair back from her forehead. There were a lot of things she’d left out. And one of them was across the river now, waiting to be picked up. “Despite the history between Marconi and me, or maybe because of it, he won’t hesitate to have us both arrested if he finds—”

“You didn’t respond to my comment, Hannah.”

She pulled away from the curb. “Maybe because there isn’t a response.” She looked at him. “When we were together we were either working, arguing or…making love. There wasn’t much time for anything else.” She turned her head away from him to gauge the traffic.

The silence in the car was strained until Hannah pulled up to the Ugly Duckling rental agency that owned the rust bucket they sat in. Which was just as well because it took Hannah as long to regain control over her emotions. In the back corner of the lot, the red Alfa’s waxed hood shone under a security light.

“She looks good,” Chad murmured.

She led the way up to the small shack where she traded keys with Frank, a skinny punk rocker wearing untied combat boots and a chain connected from nose to ear. Within moments she and Chad stood on either side of the gleaming Alfa Romeo. He stared at the For Sale signs in the back windows.

“You’re selling her?”

“Uh…yes.” Hannah felt as if she had betrayed him in some way with her answer. Despite the car’s role in their breakup—she’d wanted a ring, he’d bought her a car—she had grown attached to the Alfa. In an odd way it served as a concrete reminder that Chad had cared about her in his own way, even if it wasn’t the way she needed him to care about her. She avoided his probing gaze. He didn’t have to know that with the money she would get from Elliott for this trace, she’d be able to afford to keep it and pay the sky-high insurance premiums.

She disarmed the alarm and slid into the driver’s seat, not objecting when Chad tossed his duffel into the back and entered the other side. She pressed a button and the canvas top folded back. She stared up at the ribbon of star-filled sky visible between the towering buildings.

“I used to pass this car every day on the way to Blackstone’s before I…” His voice drifted off. “It had your name written all over it, Hannah. It still does.”

Hannah sensed his gaze on her profile and slowly looked at his finely etched face, features she had once memorized with her hands and mouth. She wondered at the changes there. They were harder somehow. More skeptical. Her gaze flicked over his thick brows and his eyes. Gray eyes that hinted at a smoldering fire, rimmed by thick, dark lashes. Her attention focused on his mouth. That enticing, teasing, infuriating mouth that had once brought her more happiness than a hundred star-filled nights. And had made her hurt more than she would ever tell him.

“You never said that.”

Chad’s lips played at a crooked grin, turning the right side of his mouth up just enough to make his emotions known. “There was something about the—” he stretched his arms, his right one going out over the side of the car, his left finding the back of her seat “—about the freedom of it that reminded me of you.”

His strong fingers sought and found the back of her neck. Hannah tensed.

“I saw you in it. Hood down…red hair flying around your face.” Chad’s voice lowered to a provocative hum, his fingers doing interesting things to the sensitive nerve endings at the base of her neck.

Hannah laid her palm against his chest. She might be having trouble with her heart, but she was grateful her head was still screwed on tight enough to stop herself from making the same mistake twice.

“Please, don’t, Chad. We’re not teenagers at a drive-in movie. Things have changed. Everything has changed.”

He stared at her. “That’s the second time you’ve said that.”

“Yes, well, that’s because it’s true. And you’ll find out why soon enough.” Oh, yes, he’d soon find out. And the instant he saw sweet little Bonny’s face, she had no doubt he’d beat a retreat faster than his last one.

“These changes…they wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the phone call you made back there, would they?” he asked.

She dragged her gaze down his face, then back up to his eyes again. “Yes, Chad. Yes, they do.”

Chapter Three

Hannah pulled up outside Eric Persky’s Forest Hills house on Juno Street and shut off the engine. She took in the large, Tudor-style structure.

“Are you sure this is the place?” she asked.

Chad checked the file Elliott had given her with the one Schindler provided. “This is it.”

“For some reason I have a feeling this case isn’t going to be as easy as I thought,” she said.

“Sure it is.” He stepped out and stared through the open window. “You planning to wait here?”

“No.” Hannah let herself out of the car. The day’s events seemed to have happened months ago instead of hours. Not only had Chad sauntered back into her life—something she had yet to fully deal with—but vivid, tender memories of her father had flooded back with disturbing clarity. Hannah longed to sit on the couch with eight-month-old Bonny, three dozen Oreos with the double stuffing, a couple of boxes of animal crackers, the remote control, enough formula to fill the pantry and a gallon of chocolate milk and forget the world existed until she felt ready to deal with it. Which might be never. The only problem was the world wouldn’t allow it. Not when the four-day time constraint on apprehending Eric Persky and Lisa Furgeson was quickly ticking by. And not when Chad stood watching her, his gaze making her want to concentrate on everything but the case.

She halted directly in front of the house, staring up at the handsome structure. Chad stepped beside her. Hannah tried to ignore how striking he looked with the night’s shadows shading the solid planes of his face. The interior of the house was dark, but to make sure no possible visiting relatives or other live-ins were home, Hannah pressed the lighted doorbell and listened to the chime echo inside. She didn’t worry that it was ten o’clock and the neighbors might be watching. As far as anyone was concerned, she and Chad were just friends paying a visit. Besides, Hannah didn’t plan to be there long enough to raise much suspicion. She rang the doorbell a second time.

“Do your thing, Chad.” She moved aside and held open the outer storm door so he could bend over the lock on the heavy wooden door. He quickly manipulated the small metal tools he slid from his back jeans pocket until the door opened inward. Hannah waited for an alarm, but none sounded. She didn’t find it unusual. The police had probably been tramping through the house all day and had switched it off.

“All yours.” Chad pushed the door open.

Hannah passed him. “Haven’t lost your touch.”

He gently caught her arm. “Haven’t I?”

Tiny little butterflies fluttered in her stomach, both at the feel of his hand against her skin and the sober look on his face. Why did she get the impression he wasn’t talking about the case anymore? And why did she want to forget Persky and Furgeson even existed and start making some sort of sense out of what was and wasn’t happening between her and Chad Hogan?

He briefly closed his eyes, then used his grip to steer her into the large foyer.

A shadow moved to Hannah’s right. Chad must have seen the same thing because he reached around her and closed the solid front door, shearing off the outdoor security light that silhouetted them like targets.

“What’s going on—Oh!” Chad propelled her off to the side of the foyer. She slowly backed away, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. Where did Chad go? She couldn’t see a thing.

Something moved. Hannah slipped The Equalizer’s charger on and held the stun gun tightly in her hands. There were two shadows. She gained her night vision and made out the shapes of two men near the door, apparently looking for her and Chad. Speaking of Chad…

“Where’d they go?” one of the guys whispered.

“How the hell should I know? Why don’t you turn on your flashlight?”

There was a rattling sound. “The batteries must be dead.”