Next of Kin Page 4

  Evan stopped in midstride to glare at her.

  "Please." Dawn pointed at the chair, her voice soft, but her gaze firm and steady, not giving an inch.

  Evan picked up the chair but didn't sit down. She stood behind the chair, her hands clenched around its back. "Why do you think you can help a fucked-up kid like me when all the other shrinks couldn't? You think you're the Mother Teresa of mental health or what?"

  Dawn couldn't help smiling. She's more intelligent than she lets on. I bet she could be a straight-A student, but of course that would ruin her tough-girl image. "Because I don't think you're fucked-up or a kid. You're an intelligent young woman, and you want me to help you."

  Evan snorted. "And you're delusional, Doc. What makes you think I want your help? The way I treated your office furniture?" She barked out a laugh, a sound devoid of humor.

  "No. The fact that you stayed here and talked to me for the last thirty minutes when you didn't even want to say so much as 'hello,'" Dawn answered with a smile. She turned the small clock on top of her desk around so Evan could see the time.

  Evan stared at the clock. Her eyes held an almost panicked expression when she noticed she had, in fact, been lured into a conversation during the last half hour.

  "So now that we've established you're not fucked-up and I'm not the enemy, do you think we can give each other a chance and see if we can work together?" Dawn offered her hand again.

  Evan ignored the gesture as she had before, but she settled back down into her chair. "If I stay, it's only because I'm bored. There's nothing on TV, and I ran out of weed yesterday."

  Dawn just smiled and made a mental note to ask Evan about her drug habit later. "So tell me a little about foster mom number thirty-seven. Does she have a name?"

  CHAPTER 4

  "LIEUTENANT VASQUEZ?"

  Del looked up from the paperwork on her desk and found a stranger lingering in her doorway, apparently not eager to enter her office. "Yes?"

  "Officer Cassidy Logan," the woman said. "My sergeant told me to meet you here."

  Translation: I wouldn't have come if he hadn't ordered me to, Del read between the lines. She could tell Officer Logan didn't want to be here.

  Cassidy Logan stood ramrod straight, the gray uniform hat tucked neatly under her arm, and looked at a point somewhere above Del's shoulder. While Del appreciated a professional attitude, this strict, almost military demeanor was not what she expected from a police officer.

  "Take a seat," Del said, pointing at the chair in front of her desk.

  Cassidy Logan sat down but kept her stiff posture.

  Del was instantly reminded of Kade, and she needed a few moments to figure out why. At first glance, Kade and Cassidy Logan had nothing in common but the color of their hair. While Kade's straight red hair fell just beyond her shoulders, Officer Logan's hair was much shorter, curling just slightly around her ears and neck. Kade was a little taller than Logan, and where Kade's body possessed feminine curves and refined elegance, Logan appeared more sturdy.

  Finally, Del realized that it wasn't Cassidy Logan's looks that reminded her of Kade. It was the cool, detached air the officer projected like a shield. She appeared cut off from the emotions Del could sense stirring beneath the surface and from the people around her, focusing only on her job. Del was on a mission to change that with Kade, and she hoped Cassidy Logan had someone who reached beyond the surface in her life too.

  Officer Logan cleared her throat. It was obvious that she didn't like Del's close scrutiny. "You wanted to see me?" The "why" was clearly heard, if not said aloud. The question was justified since Officer Logan was with the Mounted Patrol Unit and not part of Del's team of homicide detectives.

  "It's about Officer Morland," Del said.

  Suddenly, Officer Logan's cool detachment disappeared. She lost her perfect soldier stance as she leaned forward, waiting for more information on the edge of her seat. "Any news on the investigation? Did you find –"

  "No," Del interrupted, not wanting to give her false hope. "No, there's nothing new, but we're not giving up."

  Logan's shoulders slumped for a moment, then the perfectly straight posture was back. "Why did you want to see me, then?" she asked, her almost brusque tone in contrast with her by-the-book stance.

  "Your sergeant thought you might find it helpful to talk to someone who lost her partner too," Del said softly.

  Officer Logan jerked, but her expression was unreadable. "No, thank you, Lieutenant," she said stiffly. "I don't need any help."

  "I said the same thing when my partner was killed, but we both know it's not true." Del studied her, and when Officer Logan didn't answer, she added, "Did you talk to his wife?"

  A tangle of emotions flashed across Cassidy Logan's normally controlled face for a second before she carefully schooled her features into a calm, almost bored expression. "I didn't know that was a departmental requirement."

  Del thought of Grace, and her temper flared. "It's simple human decency!" She stopped herself. "Talk to her. It might resolve a few things for both of you."

  "Anything else, Lieutenant?" Officer Logan asked, once again staring at a point above Del's shoulder.

  Del sighed. They both knew she couldn't order her to seek help. "That will be all." She watched the officer turn and walk away. I can only hope that she has a Grace in her life too. Someone who grabs her by the ear and forces her to talk and deal with her emotions instead of ignoring them.

  Thinking of Grace reminded her that she still had a call to make, and she reached for the phone. "Hello, Tina. It's Del Vasquez. I need a bunch of flowers again.... No, I'll pick them up.... Yes, but yellow this time." For the last twenty years, she had given Grace a large bouquet of yellow roses for her birthday. "The card... um..." Del thought about it for a moment. "Just write 'Thank you.'"

  When Del put down the phone, she turned her desk chair, stared out the window, and remembered the last time she had ordered flowers for another woman.

  Five months ago...

  "We really have to stop meeting like this." Del stepped away from Kade's car and into the flickering neon lights of the underground garage, armed with her most charming smile and a bouquet of long-stemmed roses.

  Kade's steps faltered. She gave Del and the roses a wary look. "Lieutenant." She stopped next to her car and nodded a formal greeting at Del.

  Del took another step closer and extended her armful of flowers. "These are for you."

  Kade made no move to take the roses. She stared at Del.

  What is she so afraid of? Del wondered. Most women she knew loved getting flowers. She told me before that she doesn't like to be surprised. Does that extend to situations out of the courtroom too? Or is it that she's afraid of what the roses might mean? "They aren't red," she pointed out.

  "What?" Kade frowned.

  "The roses – they're not red," Del explained. "You probably can't see it in this poor light, but they're a light pink."

  Kade shook her head, dismissing the color of the roses. "Why are you giving me roses, Lieutenant? These are from you, aren't they?"

  "Of course. Can you imagine anyone else being foolish enough to lurk behind your car twice in a row?" Del asked with a disarming smile.

  "No," Kade answered curtly, "that seems to be your specialty alone. So why the roses?"

  "I want to say thank you for winning Dawn's case," Del said, looking directly into Kade's eyes. "Therefore the light pink – it conveys gratitude and admiration."

  She tried to hand Kade the flowers again, but Kade still refused to take them. "You already said 'thank you' when you bought me a drink after the trial. Flowers aren't necessary. I get paid to do my job."

  Del gave her a patient smile and decided to change tactics. "If you won't accept them as a thank-you for a job well-done, then take them as a sign of my personal admiration." She bowed at the waist, hoping to make Kade smile and finally accept the flowers.

  "Lieutenant." Kade still hesitated. "I think we should cl
ear up a few facts." Kade sounded like the confident DDA that Del had seen in the courtroom and ignored the fact that they were discussing her private life.

  Del inclined her head, willing to listen. "What facts would that be?"

  "Well, I don't want you to misinterpret the situation, so I should probably let you know I'm straight," Kade said.

  So she knows I'm offering more than a simple bouquet of flowers, and that's what has her so scared. Kade's profession of heterosexuality didn't surprise her, but neither did it diminish her admiration. Del just grinned, totally unimpressed. "And straight women don't like flowers?"

  For a second, Kade stared at her. "Of course they do," she said, speaking very carefully and precisely as if she had to take care not to stammer.

  "Good." Del pressed the bouquet of roses into her hands.

  "Ow!" Kade glanced down at her hand, and then glared at Del. One of the thorns had pierced her thumb, leaving a tiny pinprick of blood on the tip of her finger.

  Oh, shit! Del rushed forward, encroaching on Kade's personal space that she had carefully respected before. "Let me see."

  Kade hid the injured hand behind her back. Clearly uncomfortable with having Del stand so close, she stepped back. She acted as if she was looking for a tissue in her purse, but Del saw through the pretense and didn't try to come closer again. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. It's not a fatal wound," Kade assured her. "I won't sue you for an assault with a deadly weapon."

  Seeking refuge in the familiarity of legal terms, huh? Del ran her fingers through her hair and watched Kade sheepishly. I'm making a mess of things, and instead of getting closer, I scare her away. "At our first meeting, I almost scare you to death, and now I attack you with a bunch of flowers – real icebreakers, huh?" Del smiled at Kade.

  "Lieutenant." Kade held out a hand to stop the conversation.

  "I hope you know I'm not out to hurt you," Del said. She looked directly into the blue eyes, letting Kade know that she was talking about so much more than just her pricked finger.

  Kade searched for her car keys in her purse and quickly unlocked her car. "No harm done. Thank you for the flowers," she said.

  "So, will you go out to dinner with me sometime?" Del asked before Kade could jump into the car and close the door between them.

  Kade set the flowers down on the passenger seat and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish here, Lieutenant. I just told you I'm straight."

  "You still have to eat," Del said.

  "At sporadic intervals, yes," Kade agreed.

  Del smiled. She liked Kade's dry sense of humor. "Then why not do it with me – eating dinner, I mean. You don't have to answer right now. I'm a patient woman. Just think about it, okay?"

  Kade nodded warily and shut the driver's door.

  *

  Del turned her desk chair back around and stared at the phone. She would have loved to order another bouquet of flowers for Kade to remind her of her continued interest, but she knew it was not a good idea.

  With a sigh, Del grabbed her car keys and went to pick up Grace's flowers.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE FLASHING LIGHTS of two patrol units lit up the night. Ducking her head against the falling rain, Kade strode toward the house that had turned into a crime scene tonight.

  "Good evening, Ms. Matheson." The uniformed officer at the front door handed Kade the entry log and lifted the yellow crime scene tape for her to pass through.

  Just two years ago, he would have stopped her and asked for the ID that was now tucked away in her purse. By now, most cops knew her and her tendency to show up at crime scenes. It hadn't always been like this. When she had first started working with the sex crimes unit, she had only ever seen a crime scene when she looked at the photos in the case files.

  Visiting crime scenes in person hadn't seemed necessary. It had never been necessary in her former job, prosecuting white-collar crimes. Two years ago, the unlucky detective who had dared to interrupt her beauty sleep with a two a.m. phone call had been subject to one of the rare, but famous Matheson temper tantrums. She had told herself that wading through puddles in the middle of a rainy night wasn't her job. It was what her detectives got paid to do.

  Now, after hundreds of difficult and sometimes heartrending cases, it was no longer possible to keep that kind of emotional and physical distance to her work. She no longer saw her detectives as lackeys who did the grunt work for her. It had taken a while, but now Kade saw herself and the detectives as parts of the same team, cogs in the machine of justice.

  Visiting crime scenes in the middle of rainy nights wasn't beneath Kadence Matheson any longer. She liked to get involved in the cases she would prosecute as early as possible.

  She ducked under the yellow tape and entered the house.

  Aiden Carlisle looked up from the dead body sprawled across the dining room floor. "Hey, Kade."

  Kade stared down at the bloodstains on the formerly pristine Persian carpet. "So this is why the DA found it necessary to interrupt my beauty sleep." Robert Parker, the man lying dead on his dining room floor, had friends in high places. She looked at the gunshot wound to his head. "Doesn't seem like a sex crime to me, so why did the SAD catch this case?"

  "His wife was raped before they shot her." Aiden pointed at the door that probably led to the bedroom. "And there's another body in the backyard. We got some backup from homicide to help us work the case."

  Kade nodded. "Then I'll go and rub elbows with their DDA. I bet she got a wake-up call from her boss too." Careful not to destroy any evidence, Kade made her way to the backyard.

  There was no sign of Stacy Ford or any other homicide DDA outside. A tall detective and two crime scene techs crouched over the body, trying to preserve evidence before the rain washed it away. After a few minutes, the detective straightened and turned around.

  Kade froze as she recognized the tall woman. Del Vasquez. She hadn't seen Del since Valentine's Day. Kade closed her eyes as she thought back to that dreadful day.

  Two months ago...

  Kade was late. Not because she hadn't been able to decide what to wear for her Valentine's Day date that wasn't a date. She had changed into the first ensemble that caught her attention, a simple but elegant blue dress, and hadn't allowed herself to obsess about its appropriateness. Paying too much attention to what she was wearing would mean she was dressing to impress Del, and she wasn't ready to admit that just yet.

  Her tardiness was the result of an unfamiliar insecurity. She had hesitated until the very last second to leave her condo, and twice she had almost told the cabbie to turn back around. She still wasn't sure if calling Del to finally agree to have dinner with her had been a good idea. It had been one of the rare spontaneous decisions in her life, and she'd only made it after receiving ninety-seven bouquets of flowers and cards signed with "your secret admirer."

  Well, Del told you she was a patient woman, but apparently, she's also a very insistent woman. Del's determination to court her scared her a little, but if she was honest with herself, it also flattered her. She had been brought up to expect constant admiration and worshiping from the men in her life, but she had always found reality to lag far behind expectations. Romance had never warmed her heart. Since her halfhearted attempts to date the son of her father's business partner, she hadn't received flowers, and she had to admit that it was nice to come home after a long day at work to find beautiful flowers and sometimes a card waiting on her doorstep.

  At the same time, Kade had watched the friendship between Aiden and Dawn Kinsley slowly blossom into something so much more. Aiden had even spent Christmas with the Kinsleys, and Kade was sure they would do some kind of commitment thing on Valentine's Day – all while Kade would sit at home, alone with her case files and law books.

  No, she had decided. Not this year. In a rare moment of spontaneity, not allowing herself to think, she had called Del.

  Now, as she was being led to the table where Del Vasquez was al
ready seated, her stomach was in knots, and she was glad for her cool Matheson façade that she knew was making her appear calm and collected even if she was anything but.

  Del stood as Kade approached. She wasn't wearing a dress, Kade noted, or anything else with a designer label. In simple but neatly pressed black slacks and a russet blouse, she didn't look that much different from the witness Kade had questioned on the stand, the quasi aunt who had wrapped a crying Dawn into her arms after the trial, or the lieutenant she had seen at the precinct once or twice.