Julie Miller - Partner-Protector

He pulled back the front of his tweed jacket and shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks, pacing the confines of the small office. The twinge in his right knee was more pronounced with the bitter temperatures plaguing the city these past few weeks. But pain was just something a mature man lived with. Banning had been on the force for seven years now, had been a detective for five. He’d long since outgrown his naive new kid on the block status.

Taking a couple of bullets that left his body scarred and his soul ancient beyond his twenty-nine years did that to a man.

In those seven years of service, he’d unholstered his weapon only twice while on duty. He’d been forced to kill a man each time.

Those were the kinds of odds that sobered a man’s way of thinking. Made him understand the value of cold, hard facts and leaving nothing to chance.

That’s why this made no sense.

He stopped and looked into his superior’s sage brown eyes. “Why me, Captain?”

For such a big, robust man, Mitch Taylor was surprisingly gentle as he adjusted the framed picture of his wife and young son on the desk in front of him. When he sat down, Merle took the clue and eased into a chair on the opposite side. The old man wanted to talk, and Merle had learned it paid to listen to the veteran cop.

“One thing I’ve learned about you over the years, Banning, is that you’re smart. You don’t just learn from your books and computers, but from people. From mistakes and successes, your own and others’. I’m counting on the fact you might be willing to learn something from Ms. Ryan, too.” The captain nodded toward the blind-covered windows that separated his office from the rows of desks and cubicles that formed the Fourth Precinct detective division. “I can name at least a half-dozen men out there who’d just brush her aside. But I can count on you to be gentleman enough not to laugh in her face when she tells her story.”

Merle couldn’t stop the sarcasm from bleeding into his voice. “You want me to work with her because my mother taught me good manners?”

“Someone has to talk to her. Take her statement, at the very least. If there’s any credibility to what she has to say, I know you’ll be fair.”

The captain thought Kelsey Ryan was that important? Or was this more ego stroking to bribe him into taking a job nobody else wanted? He still wasn’t about to accept this assignment wholeheartedly, but there was a certain wisdom in pleasing the boss. “All I have to do is take her statement?”

Captain Taylor nodded. “She claims she can help with the Holiday Hooker murders.”

“Let me guess. She thinks she was a hooker in another life.”

That one actually made the old man smile. “Don’t dismiss her yet. We can’t afford to alienate any citizen right now.” He shoved this morning’s Kansas City Star newspaper across the desk and pointed to a headline near the bottom of the front page.

K.C.P.D. No Closer To IDing Remains Of Infant Girl

“Ouch.” The discovery of a baby Jane Doe’s body in one of the area landfills more than two months ago had galvanized the entire department from homicide to missing persons to traffic cops. Every man and woman on the force seemed to take it personally that that child had been killed. But even the special task force assigned to the investigation had been thus far unable to put together many leads.

“Ouch is right.” Captain Taylor boxed up his emotions and set them aside the same way Merle had to. “The new commissioner, Shauna Cartwright, is desperate for some good press for a change. She’s ordered us to pay attention to every report that comes in. And to solve some cases.”

“So meeting with Kelsey Ryan would be doing a favor for the commissioner?”

“You’d be doing a favor for me.”

“All right, then.” It was enough that Mitch Taylor had asked him to do this. That the captain trusted he was the best man for the assignment—even if it was a lousy one. And hell, his hide was thick enough to withstand a little razzing from his peers.

Merle pushed to his feet, adjusting his jacket over the badge and gun clipped to his belt. “I’m off to make headlines for the department.”

“Just make sure they’re good ones.”

“Yes, sir.” Before leaving, Merle paused, exhaling caution on one overly curious breath. “How is Ginny doing?”

Mitch might have inside information on the petite blond detective. He was more than Ginny’s boss. He was her cousin-in-law and her husband’s best friend. They were all part of a big, happy family that Merle could hang out with and admire, but never truly be part of.

Mitch didn’t know his secret. Didn’t even question Merle’s interest. After all, it was perfectly normal for a cop to inquire about his partner’s health and well-being. “She’s fine. These last three months on total bed rest is driving her nuts, but Brett’s keeping a close eye on her to make sure she does everything the doctor says.” God, how that big brute loved his wife.

Just as Merle loved her.

But he was nothing more than Ginny’s friend. The kid brother she’d never had. His feelings were anything but brotherly for his detective partner. But she loved somebody else.

Merle nodded, breathing through the pain with a smile, hiding much more than Mitch or anyone else would ever guess. “Give her my best when you see her.”

“Why don’t you stop by? She’d love to see you. Hell. According to Brett, she’d love to see anybody.”

Merle laughed right along with him. “I’ll do that.”

The phone on Captain Taylor’s desk rang. He put up one finger, ordering Merle not to leave quite yet. He picked up the receiver. “Yeah, Maggie?” His gaze shot to Merle’s. The call had something to do with him. “I’ll tell him.”

Merle splayed his hands at his hips, waiting as the captain hung up the phone and stood. He tilted his chin ever so slightly to maintain eye contact with the bigger man. “What’s up?”

Was that a smirk? The captain’s barrel chest heaved with a sigh. “If nothing else, your flake is punctual. Maggie says Ms. Ryan just checked in. She’s waiting for you at your desk.”

Merle crossed to the blinds and peeked out, needing a moment to gather the gentlemanly composure Captain Taylor thought he had in such abundant supply. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

He’d seen her in grainy black-and-white news photos, and in caricatures scribbled onto notepads. But nothing had prepared him for the real thing.

He saw her hair first. It stuck out from the crown in an explosion of short, flamboyant curls, with little wisps spiking around her ears and onto her cheekbones and neck. A sweep of bangs curled down over her forehead, flirting with her eyebrows and parting to one side as she pushed them off her face with the tips of her turquoise-gloved fingers.

But the gelled, pop-star style wasn’t the most noticeable thing. It was the color. Red. Not copper. Not auburn. But a flashy, unnatural tint that reminded him of rubies and fire engines and flagging down ships.

A quick scan farther down her body indicated that subtlety just wasn’t part of her vocabulary. Her knee-length, black-and-white checked coat hung open. A knitted scarf of bright turquoise draped around her neck and clashed with the electric-blue, snowman-patterned sweater she wore over a long denim skirt and clunky black lace-up boots.

Her cheeks and nose were flushed from the cold and wind outside. But instead of huddling her posture for warmth, she sat ramrod straight, shamelessly glancing all around the office and taking note of everybody’s business.

But there was a sharpness to her light brown eyes that conveyed more than nosy curiosity. She was gauging distances, occupations, degrees of interest in her presence the way any con artist would upon entering a den of cops.