Jennifer Morey - Cold Case Recruit

His pout plumped up his lower lip some more.

Drury ran her forefinger down the tiny bulge. “Brycen is the detective who’s going to help Mommy. You don’t have to like him, but you do have to get into the SUV.” She straightened, taking his hand. “And you have to get your grades back up.” She walked with him back to the Yukon.

Brycen leaned against the front bumper, ankles crossed and phone to his ear.

As she and Junior returned, she heard him say, “Thanks.” Before putting his phone away and impassively surveying Junior and then her. “Everything okay?”

He seemed like a completely different man than the one she’d met on the tarmac. Distant. All purpose.

“Yes.”

He looked down at Junior with the same detachment.

Junior angled his head as he returned the look with defiance. “Are you going to find my daddy?”

Drury wasn’t sure Junior fully understood his father had been murdered, or what it meant when a person died. He asked when his father was coming back every so often. Even though she said he wasn’t, Junior didn’t seem to compute.

“I’m going to catch the man who hurt him.”

Relieved that he had found a gentle way to answer, Drury saw how Junior wavered over what to think of this stranger.

“You promise?” Junior asked.

Brycen pushed off from the bumper and said, “I promise.”

The absolute certainty in Brycen’s tone made Drury stop from opening the back passenger door. In Junior’s young mind, his father would someday come home. She’d tried to explain Noah would never come home, but she hadn’t been able to say it in adult language, to expose her son to such brutality and darkness. She hadn’t had the heart. Protecting him might preserve his childhood, to allow him to be a kid until he grew up. But that didn’t seem to work. Junior missed his father and he understood enough to know something terrible had happened to him.

It meant a lot to her to know Brycen had picked up on the boy’s trouble. He might not like kids, but he had a way with them. Interesting.

His gaze moved from Junior to her, communicating without words and heating her up. She didn’t remember feeling this with Noah, these instant sparks so early on. Disturbed by that revelation, she opened the back door. Kadin had sent a top-notch detective. That was all he was to her. She had a mighty thirst to avenge Noah’s death. When his case went cold, she’d gotten angry, not at law enforcement’s failure, at the killer. He could not get away with what he’d done.

Wasn’t that why she’d called Dark Alley?

Certainly not to find love again.

“Hop in, Junior.”

Junior did, head low. Closing the door, she faced Brycen, who’d opened the front passenger door. “What hotel are you staying at? We can start working tomorrow morning if you’re ready. Maybe I could meet you for breakfast after I drop Junior off at school.”

“I canceled my hotel.”

“You...” She hurried to follow his thinking. That was who he must have called when she went after Junior.

“If you don’t mind, I thought I’d sleep on your couch...in case someone does more than leave something on your front porch. Whoever left it didn’t like you digging into the case, and I’m guessing they’ll like me showing up even less.”

She appreciated him leaving out the detail of the dead cat. She hadn’t told Junior and had disposed of the poor animal before he saw anything.

“All right.” She got in and he went around to the other side.

He drove off the tarmac and into the parking area, passing the van.

Drury waved to Mac, who stood talking to the tow truck driver.

As they left the parking area, Drury noticed Brycen looking in the rearview mirrors. Only his eyes moved. She leaned forward just a little to look at the mirror on her side. Two cars trailed them.

“The Subaru Outback,” Brycen said. “It was at the airport.”

There weren’t a ton of cars parked, but enough to make it impossible to remember all of them. “How do you know?”

“It’s got a dreamcatcher hanging from the mirror. I saw it parked in clear view of the shuttle van.”

He had a vigilant eye. Someone didn’t want her investigating her husband’s death. But why risk exposure by tailing her so blatantly? She looked back at Junior, who stared out the window, oblivious in his young innocence. The stalker hadn’t attacked yet, but maybe things would change now that she had her own detective working her husband’s case.

Without driving recklessly to lose the man, Brycen pulled over and parked along the street. The Subaru passed, the driver not looking their way. The hoodie and sunglasses disguised him enough to avoid recognition.

Brycen drove back into traffic, making the stalker the stalked. He trailed behind the Subaru, making no attempt to conceal the fact that he did so.

“What if he’s armed?” They had Junior in the SUV.

“If he was going to shoot at us, he’d have done it by now. I’ll just send him a message.”

Brycen turned a corner when the Subaru did. And another.

When the Subaru reached the two-lane highway that followed the coastline to the south, the driver sped up, and not just to reach the speed limit. He hot-rodded the Subaru, springing into top speed in a matter of seconds.

The driver did not want to be caught. And instead of attacking, he ran. Had he been sent for surveillance only, or did Brycen and Dark Alley Investigations’ reputation scare him off? Either way, the driver would not slow and, more importantly, would not lead them to whomever sent him.

Drury watched as Brycen slowed, confirming her assessment. Patience was one of the ingredients to his success. Let the man run. He couldn’t hide forever. If she was that driver, she would be worried right now.

Delight tickled her insides. She had a great detective sitting across the vehicle from her. Maybe a great something else, too...

As soon as that thought floated giddily into her head, she struggled to squash it. Falling for her detective was not part of the plan.

Chapter 2

Brycen let the blinds close after peering through the crack he’d opened. Nothing stirred in the street. Still, Drury had a stalker before he’d even begun his investigation.

“Junior, what’s it going to be tonight?” Drury called from the kitchen.

“I dunno,” Junior answered absently, hands busy with a video game.

“You want to go play catch for a while before dinner?” She seemed to slip that one in.

Didn’t Junior like to play ball, or play outside? Brycen found that curious.

“No.”

“You’re not doing homework.” She’d slipped that in, too.

“Don’t have any.”

Drury frowned as though not believing him but didn’t press as she flipped a grilled cheese sandwich in the pan. “Then come in here and sit at the table. Dinner’s ready.”

Junior grumbled but got up and came into the kitchen. She deposited a plate of grilled cheese in front of him. A glass of chocolate milk came next.

Brycen hadn’t had a grilled cheese sandwich since he was about Junior’s age and wasn’t sure he wanted to break the drought. He was a cute kid, but Brycen would rather not have any kids around while he investigated a murder. And not because they disrupted the peace and quiet.

Going into the kitchen, he sat before the plate she’d set out for him, a glass of chocolate milk tapping down afterward. He saw her silky black hair float down from one shoulder, dark lashes covering what he knew to be striking blue eyes. She sat down with another glass of chocolate milk, oblivious of the fact that not everyone would consider this meal ordinary.

Junior drank his milk and set the glass down, looking at Brycen, or more like dissecting him. When Brycen didn’t look away, Junior twirled a superhero figure over his plate and then flew him toward Brycen, going back and forth in front of his face, leaning over the table to get as close as he could, which only reached halfway across the table.