Sharon Hartley - Her Cop Protector

Something, not much. But no, she couldn’t stop. She had to try.

The condo’s automatic doors whooshed open, and she entered the chilly elegance of the Enclave’s lobby.

“Why such a sad face, Junie?”

Jerked from her tumbling thoughts, she nodded to Magda, the condo’s dark-haired, eagle-eyed concierge seated in her usual spot behind the sleek oak counter.

“My goodness,” Magda continued in her lilting accent, “you look like the condo association made you get rid of Lazarus.”

Alarm shot down June’s spine. Nothing happened in this thirty-story building that Magda didn’t know about first. “Has there been another meeting? What have you heard?”

Magda held up long, manicured fingers. “I was kidding.”

June blew out a breath. Not funny, but Magda couldn’t know how worried she was about that rumor. Among others. “Good.”

Magda leaned forward, resting on her forearms. “So, what’s wrong, sweetie?”

“Just a rotten morning,” June said. The less said about her investigative activities, the better.

“Were your buses late again?” Magda persisted.

“Actually, the system stayed on schedule today.”

Magda shook her head. “I don’t know how you manage to get around Miami on a bus.”

“You just have to make that commitment,” June said and then added with a grin, “and allow enough time.”

“I need my car. Will your uncle be at the Labor Day party this year?”

“He hasn’t decided.” June removed her key from her purse and stepped to the bank of mailboxes on the wall left of Magda’s position. “The weather’s been great in New York, so he’s not sure he wants to come when it’s so humid here.”

“So, when was the last time you drove the Cobra?”

June paused in removing mail from her slot. When had she last driven Uncle Mike’s antique gas-guzzler? She’d promised to fire it up at least once a week. She grabbed mail and stuffed it inside her bag. “Thanks for the reminder. Guess I’m going down to the dungeon later.”

Magda’s face wreathed in a maternal smile. “I know you hate the parking levels.”

“What would I do without you, Maggie Mae?”

Magda blushed, looking pleased. “Oh, you do fine, Junie.”

“The jury is still out on that. Will I see you at the pool later?”

“Of course,” Magda replied, buzzing June through the security door to the elevators.

Stepping inside a waiting car, June punched PH and swiped her fob to allow the elevator to ascend to the thirtieth floor. She closed her eyes as she was gently swept upward—like the wings of a bird flying up to her private aerie in the sky.

No, she reminded herself, opening her eyes. Her uncle’s aerie. A temporary refuge. She must never forget this luxury didn’t belong to her. Not anymore. Not for a long time.

And really nothing had ever been hers. Greed had been her parents’ downfall. Had she once been like them? She couldn’t remember.

What did it matter anyway? Nothing she remembered from her idyllic childhood had been real.

CHAPTER TWO

DEAN RUBBED EYES strained from watching grainy surveillance video and leaned back in his chair. He’d played the bird-shop security video four times since returning to the station. It backed up June Latham’s version of events.

She and the mystery man hadn’t entered the premises together. He’d released the birds while the owner confronted June. She never spoke to the guy before he rabbited out of the store.

Dean lifted his mug from the table and swigged cold coffee. Why the hell did the guy open those cages? Maybe he got religion from the sight of Ms. Latham and decided to help her cause. Dean snorted. That was as likely a reason as any. Who knew why citizens did anything anymore?

And why did he give a fig about June and her smuggled birds? He’d told his rookie the review was good training. Yeah, right.

“I don’t see a crime to investigate,” Sanchez said beside him.

“Not by the woman,” Dean said.

“Glover won’t be happy.”

Dean nodded, remembering the shop owner’s sputtering outrage when June walked free. Hell, even if he tracked down this bird liberator, what would be the charge? A misdemeanor—malicious mischief or some such nonsense. Hardly worth the police’s time. “He’ll get over it.”

“Do you think Glover’s birds are illegal?”

“Who knows?” Dean shrugged. What he really meant was Who cares? “Not our jurisdiction. But I told the woman I’d send my report to Fish and Wildlife.”

A grinning Detective Lloyd Miller entered the viewing room with a steaming mug and glanced at the scene frozen on the monitor. Dean knew what Miller saw. Escaped parrots covering the floor and shelves of the North Beach Pet Shop.

“Whoa, Hawk. So the rumor is true. You got yourself a serious situation here. Birds on the lam, huh?”

“Haven’t you got somewhere else to be, Miller?”

“And here I come with a sincere effort to help your new case,” Miller said with an injured air. “My seven-year-old daughter has a little green parakeet named Birdie Bird. I’m offering her expert assistance with this bird caper.”

Sanchez snickered.

Dean gave Miller the finger. He should be used to the mocking. The entire station had been riding him since the lieutenant busted him back to patrol. Didn’t matter what case he caught, his fellow officers loved to remind him how low he had sunk.

Miller sat down and raised his mug toward the viewing screen. “I say blast those felonious birds from the air with your rifle. Tough shot, I know, but you’re just the man for the job.”

“Are you really as good a shot as they say?” Sanchez asked.

“Oh, he’s good,” Miller replied. “State champion. And very quick on the trigger, right, Hawk?”

Dean squeezed his mug, staring at his trigger finger. Best not to react. The less he said in response to this schoolhouse shit, the quicker the shit would end.

“It’s why we call him Hawk,” Miller added.

“I’ve never taken a shot that wasn’t righteous,” Dean told Sanchez.

“Not even the Wilcox kid?” Sanchez asked.

Dean leveled a look at the rookie. Damn rumors. “The Wilcox ‘kid’ was eighteen going on thirty-five with a rap sheet three miles long. He threatened his two young hostages with a semiautomatic.”

“And you took him down?”

“Something like that,” Dean said, shoved paperwork on the bird-shop case into a file. He’d been right to take that shot. He didn’t regret a damn thing he’d done that day—only Lieutenant Marshall’s decision to punish him for acting before the captain’s go-ahead. But his lieutenant hadn’t been on scene. Marshall didn’t see what Dean saw through his scope.

Had he been too quick? No frigging way. The way he saw it, only the bad guy died that day. He should have gotten a commendation, not reassignment.

Lieutenant Marshall entered the viewing room carrying a slip of paper. Dean sat up, glad he hadn’t made his thoughts verbal.

“Your lucky day, Hammer.” Marshall handed Dean the assignment sheet. “We got a body in the Sea Wave Hotel on Ocean Terrace, and I got nobody else to send. Take Sanchez. And don’t shoot anyone.”

* * *

DEAN TURNED ONTO Ocean Terrace and drove past a boarded-up art deco hotel on North Beach. If you asked him—and of course no one ever would—he considered its design as good as anything on South Beach. Not for the first time, he wondered why the beautiful people flocked to Ocean Drive seven miles south but avoided Ocean Terrace. Same beach, same architecture. But a homeless population wandered here instead of gorgeous European models.

A sleek twenty-five-story high-rise towered over the smaller historic gems, its shadow momentarily blocking the relentless August sun. Someone had tried to turn the neighborhood before the great economic bust. It’d happen eventually. Someday this area would become a gold mine for a brilliant developer with good timing.