Amanda Stevens - Secret Admirer

Clare’s gaze softened, as if she’d decided to cut him some slack. Or maybe she was remembering little Julie Betts, too. Clare had been the one to pull Tony away from Robert Betts when they’d gone to make the arrest.

“I know you don’t go that far—not even close—but you are something of a Dirty Harry, Tony, you can’t deny that. You should have called for backup the other night, and you know it.”

“I was more concerned with saving two lives. Three, if I could have.” He hadn’t wanted Franco Mancini to die. Tony had tried to persuade the man to throw down his weapon and surrender, but Franco, eyes glazed from whatever drug he’d been popping or snorting, had just kept on shooting.

Tony rubbed his forehead, where a migraine was starting to throb. The light in Clare’s office was suddenly almost blinding.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Clare frowned, and the compassion she might have felt moments earlier vanished. She said coldly, “You’ve got a woman threatening you because of your actions that night.”

He shrugged. It wasn’t the first time, and he doubted it would be the last. Still, if he were honest with himself, he’d have to admit he wasn’t exactly comfortable with Maria Mancini’s vendetta against him. The woman looked pretty edgy herself.

“One of these days,” Clare warned with a hint of maliciousness, “someone is going to make good on their threats against you.”

He wondered if she was talking about Maria Mancini or herself. If memory served, Clare had made a few ugly promises of her own the night Tony had split. The scene had been nasty and brutal, not something he wanted to replay even in his head.

As if she were recalling that night herself, she lifted her chin, glaring at him. “You’ve pretty much been allowed to go your own way around here because, frankly, none of the other detectives want to be assigned with you. But like I said, things are changing. As of today, you’ve got yourself a new partner.”

Alarmed, Tony straightened in his chair. “I thought we had an agreement. I work best alone.”

She smiled. “That agreement was with your old lieutenant. Any promises you and I made to each other have long since become null and void. Isn’t that right?”

Her tone and her gaze challenged him, and Tony said, “You’re getting off on this, aren’t you? You like making me suffer.”

“You’re such an easy target. You and all your pent-up angst.”

He groaned. “Spare me Metzer’s psychobabble. Who are you putting me with? Davis? Sanchez?” He’d give either of them a week at the most.

“She’s new. Transferred from the North Side a couple of weeks ago.”

She? Oh, hell… “The North Side? That’s your old stomping ground, isn’t it? You two pals or something?”

Clare hesitated. “I may have seen her around a few times. She worked vice.”

“What happened? She get tired of wearing spike heels and leather hot pants?”

“It wore a little thin after a while,” a soft voice said from the doorway behind him. “I didn’t mind it on Saturday nights, but every night of the week got to be a real drag. Maybe you should try it sometime.”

Tony glanced around as his new partner walked into the office. Clare gave him a derisive smile. “Tony, I’d like you to meet Eve Barrett. Detective Eve Barrett. I’m sure Detective Gallagher’s reputation precedes him,” she said dryly.

Eve held out her hand, and Tony grudgingly stood. “You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly. “Stand, I mean.”

“So it’s that way, is it?” he muttered, almost under his breath.

She shrugged. “I don’t want to have to stand every time you come into a room.”

He gave Clare a withering look, as if to say what the hell did I do to deserve this?

“Not that I don’t appreciate the thought,” Eve continued. “But we’re going to be working together as equals. I’d like for you to treat me as you would any other partner.”

He could almost see Clare smirking, but Tony wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of glancing her way. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, checking Eve Barrett out in spite of himself. She wore a conservative business suit, not unlike Clare’s, but the skirt was just a little shorter, showing legs that were a little younger and firmer but, to Tony’s mind, no more shapely. They both had great legs. Hell, he’d hit the leg jackpot in here, he thought with perverse appreciation.

Eve Barrett was thin, toned, an all-American girl with her shiny, shoulder-length brown hair and scrubbed complexion. In spite of the shield she wore clipped to the waistband of her skirt, and the faint bulge where her shoulder holster rested beneath her jacket, she looked all of twenty years old. Tony wondered how she’d ever ended up in vice. He couldn’t imagine anyone looking less like a hooker.

Except, of course, for those legs…

He had a sudden vision of her in the aforementioned hot pants and spike heels, and something unwelcome stirred inside him.

As if she were reading his mind, her hazel eyes narrowed on him. “You don’t have a problem working with a female partner, do you, Detective?”

He shrugged. “No. I just don’t want a partner period.”

Something flashed in her eyes. Anger, he hoped, but it sure as hell looked like hurt. Jeez…

She gave him a cool smile. “Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we…Tony?”

The way she said his name…her voice…

For a moment, recognition teased at the fringes of his mind. Had they met before? She looked a little familiar, but surely he would have remembered that body. Those incredible legs.

“Why don’t you wait outside, Eve? I’d like to have a word with Tony before you two hook up.”

“Sure.”

Eve gave Tony a tentative smile before she turned and left the room. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he caught a whiff of her perfume as she walked by him. The fragrance was light, flowery—not at all like the heavy musk Clare had always been partial to. The floral scent was more like the perfume Ashley had worn.

Ashley…

Yes, something about Eve Barrett reminded him of Ashley, but he couldn’t say what, exactly. It wasn’t their looks. Ashley had been tall, willowy, blond. Drop-dead gorgeous. Eve was shorter, thin but more athletic looking. Attractive but not beautiful. Not even close.

Still, there was something about her that had momentarily taken Tony’s mind off his headache. Looking back at Clare, however, the pain hit him right between the eyes.

She gave him a slow smile. “So, what do you think? Can you work with her without driving her crazy?”

Was that really what Clare wanted to know? “I’d say she has potential.”

The smile disappeared from Clare’s red lips. “Consider this a trial. A probation of sorts. If you screw up…”

His brows rose. “Yeah?”

“Not even the Gallagher name will save you this time.”

Had it ever? Both his brothers were cops, just as his father had been before he’d disappeared almost eight years ago while investigating Ashley’s murder. Tony’s family had a long tradition in Chicago law enforcement, but he wasn’t so sure that history had ever helped him out of a jam. In fact, maybe the pressure of trying to live up to the name—and not succeeding—had been his downfall.

Or maybe he was just a screwup, Tony conceded with an inward shrug. The black sheep of the family. At least Fiona still had hope for him.

“So how old is she, anyway?” Tony nodded toward the door. “She looks like a kid. How long was she in vice?”

“A while,” Clare said evasively. “She graduated from the academy a year after you did. Top of her class, I might add. You didn’t graduate top of your class, did you, Tony?”