KCPD Protector (4 page)

George swiped his card and then clipped it to his belt beside his badge. He was out of smiles this morning and ready to work. “Is Commissioner Cartwright-Masterson in yet?”

Shane rightly turned his attention to his superior officer. “No, sir. Do you want me to tell her you’re looking for her when she checks in?”

George shook his head, hating that he was in such a mood. “No. I’m just curious if there’s any news on her son Seth’s baby yet. I know she wants to take a few days off then, but I’m hoping to get a little heads-up before it happens and the extra workload kicks in.”

“If I hear anything, you will, too,” Shane assured him.

“Thanks.” Elise was already heading around the corner into the hallway that led to their offices. Running away from him and his questions, it seemed. Whatever she’d been about to share in the elevator had been locked up tight inside her again. He’d be a smart man to respect her privacy and forget his concern. He’d be a smarter man to take care of the people he was responsible for. He flattened his hand on top of the counter, demanding Shane’s undivided attention. “In between screening visitors, you ought to apply some of that ‘persistence and dedication’ to studying for your detective’s exam. You got your degree in May, right?”

“Yes, sir. Finished it in three years instead of four. And that’s while I was working full-time.”

With that kind of drive, Shane was probably frustrated getting stuck on guard duty at KCPD headquarters. “You know I’ll put in a good word for you with the promotions board as soon as you pass the exam.”

“I appreciate that.”

George nodded. Sometimes, it was nice to have clout and be able to make a difference in a deserving person’s life. “Have a good one.”

“You, too, sir.”

And sometimes that clout didn’t do him a damn bit of good. George followed Elise to the reception area and the suite of offices at the end of the hallway. When he nudged open the door to her office, he was instantly hit with the sickeningly sweet smell of roses filling the air. And in the split second he wondered if a woman really was impressed with that stinky kind of excess, he plowed into Elise’s back.

“Whoa.” Before he sent her flying across the carpet, George grabbed her by the shoulders and kept her from falling. “Is there a reason why you stopped in the middle of the room?”

“They shouldn’t be here.”

And that’s when he realized she was frozen. In more ways than one. Her upper arms felt like ice beneath his fingers. He couldn’t seem to help rubbing his hands up and down her chilled skin, trying to instill some warmth. He looked over her shoulder to her desk and the yellow roses that had transfixed her, and this time, he wasn’t budging until he got an answer. “Explain.”

Elise never averted her gaze, never took a step away from him, so George never let go. She eased a sigh out on a deep, stuttered breath, then inhaled again before answering.

“It bothered me that I didn’t know who sent the roses, so I dropped them off at St. Luke’s on the way home last night. They’re too much and I didn’t want them.” She hugged her arms in front of her and shivered in his grip. “I got rid of them.”

George stepped up beside her to get a better look, dropping a steadying hand to the small of her back. “You’re certain these are the same?”

She nodded, recoiling a bit against his palm. “Cut-glass vase. There are only twenty-three roses, not twenty-four. One stem is broken. He brought them back.”

George quickly verified her description and began formulating possible scenarios to explain this twisted prank. Judging by her behavior in the elevator, he could guess this wasn’t the only worrisome puzzle Elise had been dealing with.

But how much of the story was she willing to share? How hard would he have to push her to get to the truth? And were her troubles any of his damn business?

Yes.

This was a threat to his office. A breach of security at the highest ranks of the police department. Besides, seeing cool, calm and collected Elise Brown rattled like this—to see his right arm, his executive partner being hurt this way—felt personal. They were a team. And nobody messed with his teammates. He’d had his partners’ backs for years when he’d worn a uniform or cleaned drugs and thugs off the streets. Even though his gun was locked in his desk drawer, he was still a cop. He couldn’t allow this kind of thing to happen in his office, not on his watch. Not to Elise.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, turning her back out of her office. The fact that she didn’t argue with him was as much of a red flag as the creepy reappearance of the bouquet. Something was seriously wrong here.

George led her to a couch in the reception area before marching down the hall to have Shane get a list of everyone who’d been on this floor in the past twelve hours, as well as any cleaning and maintenance staff or personnel who had master keys. He’d make sure every last one was accounted for. He’d make this right.

Or else he’d never be able to shake the memory of Elise trembling against the palm of his hand and murmuring to herself, “He brought them back.”

Chapter Three

Missing keys. Unwanted gifts. Unanswered questions.

Elise was beginning to wonder if someone was trying to gaslight her into thinking she was nuts. Or maybe she really was going crazy.

George had removed the flowers before she reentered her office that morning. And though she was curious to know what he’d done with them, she was more relieved to have them gone.

He’d made a couple of calls on his cell phone. No one at the medical center remembered seeing her the night before. And the clerk at the information desk said she’d handled too many deliveries to recall any one particular bouquet of roses.

Elise watched George pace in and out of their office suite, keeping an eye on her and warning her to stay put, even after she’d come to her senses, reined in the fearful paranoia and assured him she was fit for duty. She was nearly an hour behind brewing coffee and sending out the daily correspondence before George and Annie Fensom, a petite, dark-haired woman from the crime lab, exited Elise’s office and her boss had declared she could go in.

Although Elise recognized Annie from the wedding photos in George’s office, she knew the CSI hadn’t answered his call to take care of family business. She’d come with her lab kit and left with a kiss on the cheek from her uncle-in-law and a promise to try to identify the “numerous prints” she’d found in and around Elise’s desk. Not that Annie was holding out much hope, she’d overheard. There were no fingerprints on the vase itself, not even Elise’s, indicating the glass had been wiped clean. And any prints around the room could be attributed to the KCPD personnel, maintenance staff and registered guests who came in and out of the office on a regular basis.

The deputy commissioner had ordered Shane to bring her a bottle of water, and then put him to work compiling a list of everyone who’d been on this floor between the time they’d closed up shop the evening before and when Shane had reported for duty this morning. Shane had offered to make a second list of anyone in maintenance or other departments who had keys to access the building offices, earning him some brownie points with the deputy commissioner for his thorough thinking.

While she was glad George had been there to keep her sane and upright when she might have done something stupid like burst into tears or hurl the vase out the window to the sidewalk below, Elise knew it was important to renew her independence and resurrect the emotional walls that kept her boss at an impersonal distance again. She wouldn’t turn over her trust to a man simply because she needed someone, the way she had with Nikolai. And she couldn’t sit around and do nothing while everyone else around her worked—especially when it was her problem they were trying to solve.

It had taken two friendly assurances, and finally a third “Go” that was a little more terse, to convince George to leave for his lunch meeting.

Frankly, Elise was glad to have an hour of quiet while she ate her lunch at her desk and got her day back on schedule and her head back where it needed to be. She’d already sent out two memos with the wrong date this morning before she caught her mistake. Not that being a day off would cause anyone any grief, but the police department prided itself on getting their facts straight, and, as a representative of KCPD, so did she.

Quiet. Focus. Normal routine. Those were the things she needed to get her day back on track.

Quiet, she’d managed by staying in the office instead of joining her coworkers in the break room. Typing and filing and organizing were about as routine as her job could get.

But focus? Elise had turned on a small fan to disperse the lingering odor of the roses that had filled the room, but she was having a harder time dispelling the clean, masculine scent of George Madigan that seemed to permeate every inch of carpeting and upholstery in the adjoining rooms. Or maybe his was just a unique fragrance that had burned into her memory when she’d leaned into him this morning.

She could rationalize that the remembered scent was a mental association that had to do with strength and security. Thinking of her boss as a man who made her feel safe was perfectly reasonable. But there was nothing rational about wishing she could burrow into that heat and strength and enticing scent, and simply forget about the weird happenings of the past two days. If she wasn’t careful, that need to feel safe, that latent awareness of an attractive man, might blossom into an emotional connection, into those feelings of trust and desire that had been her downfall more than once in her life.

Elise drank a long sip of iced tea through her straw and wished she’d opted for hot coffee so that the strong smell of brewed java could drown out the imagined scent of George Madigan that lingered in her nose. No matter. By sheer strength of will, she would override her hormones and emotions and concentrate on the job at hand. She needed nothing more, and she wanted nothing less. Right?

“Right.”

Popping a baby carrot into her mouth, Elise printed off the draft of the speech she’d typed for her boss and stood to pick up the papers from the printer on the credenza beneath the window. She swallowed the carrot and crunched her way through another before sliding the speech into the folder she’d prepared and carrying it into George’s office.

Elise studiously ignored the picture of George and his sister’s family behind his desk as she set the file on the blotter. But after seeing her just a few hours earlier, Annie Fensom’s wedding gown drew Elise’s eye. The CSI and George’s nephew, Nick Fensom, made a striking couple with their dark hair against the lacy white gown and gray tuxedoes adorned with bright red boutonnieres.

But it was the distinguished-looking man standing behind the groom and his mother that kept Elise’s attention. She’d walked by those pictures dozens of times every day for the past few months. How had she never noticed that before? She reached out and touched her fingertip to the glass over George Madigan’s face. “You’re smiling.”

Without even thinking, Elise smiled, too. The relaxed expression on George’s face was so compelling, so rare, that she wondered just what it would take to see that handsome grin again.

But just as quickly as the intriguing challenge registered, Elise pressed her lips into a frown. “Idiot.”

Would she never learn her lesson?

The telephone on George’s desk rang, startling her. A word cursing her own foolishness slipped out before she picked up the receiver. “Deputy Commissioner Madigan’s office,” she snapped.

“Elise?”

Every raw emotion and dangerous thought in Elise’s head short-circuited at the familiar tenor of the caller’s masculine voice. “Mr. Gallagher.”

“Really?” She heard a wry laugh. “You haven’t called me that since the first day you worked for me. Don’t tell me George or KCPD is insisting on that kind of formality.” Quinn Gallagher, a wealthy inventor and the CEO of Gallagher Security Systems, was teasing her. “You and I are old friends.”

Friends. Right. Her heart had been far too slow to understand that little distinction in their once close relationship. Funny how talking to the man she’d loved and lost could turn her light lunch into a rock at the pit of her stomach. Still, she’d moved on with her life. And, if nothing else, she prided herself on being the quintessential professional. “Hi, Quinn,” she answered with a rueful smile. “How are you?”

“Happier than I’ve been in a long time.”

“How’s Miranda?” she forced herself to ask.

“Still can’t get that woman to cook a decent meal. I thought when she got pregnant some kind of natural domestic instinct would kick in.” He sounded younger, energized, blissfully content, as he always did when he talked about his wife and daughter. “Fortunately, she knows all the best take-out places, and she and Fiona have been setting up picnics on the living room floor this past week.”

Any pangs of jealousy Elise felt were beaten back by the guilt of knowing she’d nearly cost her former boss this second chance at love and the family he was enjoying now. “Sounds like fun.”

“How are you?” Quinn asked.

“Loving my work,” she answered honestly. “And the house is halfway done. The kitchen and bathrooms have been redone and the exterior is all painted.”

“I know that house is your therapy, but I wish I could tear you away from it. Are you sure a raise wouldn’t convince you to come back to GSS?” His generous salary had enabled her to afford the extensive remodel in the first place. “I’m still having a hard time breaking in my new assistant. Working with you was so easy. I think you could read my mind. You spoiled me for anyone else.”

“You’re too kind, Quinn.” But their working relationship had never been the problem between them. “The commissioner’s out at a lunch meeting. May I take a message?”

Quinn’s teasing tone sobered. “This is a subject I’d rather discuss in person. Soon, if George has got a half hour for me in his schedule.”

Elise clicked the mouse on George’s desk and pulled up his appointment calendar on the computer screen. “What should I tell him it’s regarding?”

“Alexsandr Titov.”

Her legs turned to jelly at the unexpected answer, and Elise sank into the plush leather chair behind George’s desk. “Nikolai’s brother?”

“The same. Did you ever meet him?”

“Only over the phone.” Alexsandr had called her from Lukinburg, the night of Nikolai’s murder.
What can you tell me about my brother’s death? Did your jealous husband do this to him?
Apparently, he’d found her name on a hotel receipt in Nikolai’s bloody jacket pocket. For a moment, Elise couldn’t catch her breath. “It was a brief chat.”

And not a particularly friendly one.

Quinn continued, “Since you knew Nikolai, you may want to sit in on this meeting, too.”

“Me? Why?”

“Alexsandr is here in Kansas City, according to my sources. Staying in a hotel downtown near Embassy Row.”

Only a few miles from this very office. She had no husband. She’d had nothing to do with Nikolai’s death. Still, the news of Alexsandr Titov setting foot on Missouri soil felt like a threat. “Do you know why he’s here?”

Words like
payback
and
revenge
came to mind.

Quinn laughed, but there was no humor. “That’s the million-dollar question. Since Nikolai’s death, his younger brother, Alexsandr, has been rebuilding Titov Industrial. He’s had pretty good success selling military rifles and ammunition in the Far East. Kansas City is a big import/export area. He could be here legitimately, trying to expand his business.”

The words on the computer monitor had blurred. Elise blinked them back into focus and searched for a free block of time on George’s calendar. “Or he could be as big a criminal as Nikolai was.”

“Exactly why I want to give George and KCPD a heads-up. Since he handles equipment and munitions purchases for the department, I wanted to make sure he isn’t spending any money on a dummy corporation that’s laundering money or selling arms illegally the way his brother did. And...” Quinn paused again.

“What?”

“The deputy commissioner has a perfectly legitimate reason for investigating Titov Industrial as a potential resource. I want to know if Alexsandr’s visit has anything to do with Nikolai’s death.”

Guilt stabbed through Elise. “Your father-in-law killed him.”

“Vasily might have used his mob connections to eliminate Nikolai after he tried to kill my daughter and destroy GSS. But you and I both know that Nikolai’s hate ran pretty deep. He blamed me for his business going under and his son’s death. And he turned you into an unwitting mole.” Until she came to her senses and gave testimony to the police and FBI that helped get Nikolai deported back to Lukinburg...and a waiting assassin. “I don’t know if it’s the same for his younger brother or not. Like I said, he could be in the KC area for legitimate business reasons.”

She’d never met Nikolai’s younger brother, but if one Titov could break the law and take advantage of a heartsick woman to gain access to procedure codes and personnel files, it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to believe another Titov would be willing to terrorize her or use her for some nefarious purpose.

Maybe he’d send twenty-three roses just like Nikolai had.

Or steal the key to a woman’s house.

Guilt wasn’t the only emotion churning through Elise’s stomach now.

She pulled the receiver from her mouth to muffle her strangled gasp. Was Alexsandr plotting something to make her pay for his brother’s death? Or was this yet another creepy coincidence her suspicious imagination was turning into something more dangerous and disturbing than it really was?

“Elise?”

With too many questions and no answers, and no one to calm her fears, Elise went back to the one thing that had never failed her. Work. Tucking the receiver between her shoulder and ear, she typed Quinn’s name into the computer. “Would tomorrow morning work for you?”

“That’ll be fine. See you then.”

Elise replaced the receiver in the phone cradle, holding on until she heard the voices in the other room. She pushed the chair back from the desk and stood, but not before George Madigan filled the open doorway.

“What’s wrong?”

Stone-gray eyes locked on to hers, and Elise nearly answered the concern written there.

But the shrill voice of common sense interrupted before she gave in to temptation.

“It’s not as if I’m asking you to do this for a stranger.” The curvy blonde who made frequent appearances in the deputy commissioner’s office nudged George aside and walked into the room. She picked up a file folder from the desk and, after an exasperated sigh, fanned herself with it. “Ken Biro was your partner. You’d think you could help with a simple birthday party.”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Mad—Ms. Reiter.” Elise corrected her greeting to the boss’s ex-wife, tipped her chin to a relatively confident angle and crossed the room to return to her desk. “Quinn Gallagher just made an appointment for tomorrow morning to discuss Titov Industrial and potential munitions contracts with the city,” she reported to George. “I marked your calendar. I’ll bring in the file with the negotiations transcripts to review for your two o’clock. The retirement banquet speech is on your desk.”