Maggie K. Black - Undercover Holiday Fiancée

“That wasn’t pretend.” She blew out a long breath. “Not that I expect you to understand that.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that, but now was hardly the time for arguments. “Are there any casualties?”

“Not that I know of,” she said. “There are two college students in the upstairs exercise room—a young woman named Poppy and a hockey player from Haliburton named Johnny. They’re on the phone with 9-1-1 and barricaded themselves in. I also helped Brandon’s sister, Lucy, escape. She told me the security guard had gotten out, too.”

“And hostiles?” he asked. “I disarmed three.”

“I only saw three, too.” She touched her right sweatshirt pocket with the back of her hand, like she was checking to make sure something was still there. “Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, Henry, but you have exactly sixty seconds to explain what’s going on. Because now, thanks to you, there’s probably a whole parking lot full of cops thinking that one of their own is being held hostage by a goof in a goalie mask.”

A goof?

“What are you even doing here?” he asked. Trust Chloe to barge into the middle of his undercover investigation and start demanding answers. “You just happened to be hanging out in a random, small-town sports center when gang violence broke out?”

“I’ve been popping by here to work out,” she said, without meeting his eyes. “I have the week off work, and I own a house in the country about half an hour from here. This is the closest gym that has a pool and equipment room.”

He didn’t doubt she was telling the truth. The Chloe he knew would never lie to him, and it wasn’t unheard of for people in rural parts of Ontario to drive even farther for a grocery store or bank. Other college athletes and teams came from all over the area to use the facilities and rink. But, he also knew her well enough to know that there was more to it than just that. Fine, if she wanted to keep things to herself, so could he. His eyes traced down her slender throat to the lanyard she wore with her detective’s badge.

“You identified yourself as a cop,” he said.

“Of course I did. I had to rescue multiple people, report a crime in progress to the authorities and fight for my life against a Gulo gang member. So, yeah, I was going to pull on everything I could to get through.” Her arms crossed over her badge. “And your minute is down to thirty seconds.”

He let out a long breath and ran one hand through his hair. It was a lot shaggier than he liked, not to mention a bit of white had started to creep in at the temples right before he’d turned thirty-six. Then he ran his hand over his beard. That had taken some getting used to, too.

“I’m undercover—”

“I got that. You’re Coach Henri.”

“And a teacher at Trillium College,” he said. “And you’re here because of the payara investigation, aren’t you?”

“Not officially,” she said. “But I won’t deny I’ve been very curious. Gossip’s running pretty thick that Butler’s botched the investigation so badly so far that some people think he’s corrupt.” Her tone implied she wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t sure what Butler had done to earn such loyalty from her.

“And you’ve been hanging out here because you thought he could use your help?”

Something flashed in the depths of her eyes. “Well, I’m guessing you think you could, too, considering you kept calling me.”

“Maybe,” he said. He crossed his arms, too. “I’m undercover, trying to find who’s been making payara. Yes, I wanted your input. But, no, that doesn’t mean I wanted you to barge in and snoop around. All I wanted was to go out for a simple coffee—”

“Because you’re so good at showing up for coffee.”

Yikes! She was still upset about that? Yes, he knew last time they’d spoken, months ago, he’d made plans to meet up with her at a diner. But then he’d gotten a new, immediate assignment and it had seemed easier just to leave than to go through the messiness of explaining he didn’t know when he’d be able to talk to her again. Looks like he’d made the wrong decision.

“I apologize for that. Standing you up was a mistake.” Asking her out in the first place had been an even bigger one. What had he been thinking? A woman like her was way out of his league, and the nature of his work made it all but impossible to form real relationships. “I could give you a long explanation, but it would all come down to the fact that I had a new case to start and had to disappear. If you want a longer explanation it will have to wait for another time. You’re a cop. I’m a cop. All that matters now is dealing with the mess we’re in.”

She didn’t answer, but she also didn’t argue. He took that as a signal to keep going.

“Yes, a baggie of payara was found in the hockey team locker room garbage can a few months ago,” he went on, talking as quickly as he could. “It contained thousands of dollars’ worth of pills. It’s like nothing our drug guys have ever seen before. And, as you know, a drug can’t be properly banned until its exact chemical compounds are analyzed and made illegal, which means anyone arrested for dealing it is at risk of bouncing. I’m told it feels like a superhigh burst of adrenaline and endorphins without a crash afterward, which makes it popular with students and athletes. Also makes people aggressive, highly suggestible and wrecks their impulse control.”

“So, it’s your job to figure out how the drugs ended up in a small little town like Bobcaygeon?” she asked.

“The opposite. Bobcaygeon is the source. We’ve never busted anyone with more than a few pills on them. So a great, big baggie-full turning up in a sports center locker room is the biggest break we’ve had in the case. We suspect one of the third-line players you rescued left it there. The assistant coach had them skating laps the night the drugs were found. There was no payara in the locker room when they walked into it and thousands of dollars of it in a baggie in the garbage can when they walked out—”

“By who?” she interjected.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. And he should. He’d cracked much harder cases in much shorter periods of time. “Either nobody knows but the one guy who threw it there, or the others have chosen to keep it secret to protect each other. I don’t know which. Police apparently couldn’t get them to crack, so I went in undercover to try to build a relationship with them.”

Light dawned in her eyes. “No wonder people think Butler is corrupt if there’re only four possible leads and one of them is his grandson Brandon.”

He almost smiled. This was the Chloe he’d missed. The one whose brain was so quick and sharp he could almost feel it sharpening his. “I’ve spent a lot of time with Third Line and none of them strike me as criminal material. Not to mention I still have no idea where in town the drug lab is or who’s making the drugs.”

“Why do I get the impression this is urgent?” she asked.

“One way or the other, my cover job finishes after Christmas. I’m supposed to start a much larger gang-related investigation in the new year.”

“Wow. Ticktock.” Chloe slid past him, filling his senses with lavender and wood smoke. She always smelled far better than any cop had business smelling. “So, what’s the plan?”

“The fact that everyone knows you’re a cop is going to complicate matters if we’re seen together.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. Further complicating matters was the fact that he had a picture of them together, smiling and hugging like the happy couple they sometimes pretended to be, displayed prominently on the desk in his office at Trillium. Fictional relationship ties were an important addition to an undercover persona, and he’d happened to still have the photo around from an undercover case they’d worked together. Thankfully she didn’t know about that. “You go out there and do what you do. I’ll wait a few minutes and come out after you. Then hopefully we can meet up later and talk further.”