Dark Falls (Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller Book 1)
Author: Lori Ryan; D. Falls
Date: 2018-10-08T22:00:00+00:00

DARK FALLS

DARK FALLS, CO ROMANTIC THRILLER BOOK 1

LORI RYAN

CONTENTS

Dark Falls

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Also by Lori Ryan

About the Author

DARK FALLS

The DARK FALLS Series

Dark Falls - Lori Ryan (Oct. 9, 2018)

Dark Secrets - Savannah Kade (Oct. 9, 2018)

Dark Legacy - Trish McCallan (Nov. 6, 2018)

Dark Nightmares - Becca Jameson (Nov. 6, 2018)

Dark Terror - Sandra Owens (Jan. 8, 2019)

Dark Burning - Lori Ryan (Jan. 29, 2019)

Dark Echoes - Savannah Kade (Feb. 26, 2019)

Dark Memories - Sandra Owens (Mar. 26, 2019)

Dark Rage - Becca Jameson (Apr. 23, 2019)

Dark Tidings - Trish McCallan (May 21, 2019)

Dark Obsession - Lisa-Marie Cabrelli (June 25, 2019)

Dark Prison - Lori Ryan (July 30, 2019)

Copyright © 2018 by Lori Ryan

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CHAPTER ONE

“Retch tan.”

Detective John Sevier muttered the words under his breath, not really talking to anyone but himself. The fact that the color of the walls in the conference room was bothering him told him more about his mood than anything. He’d looked at these walls for years and not cared one way or another what color they were.

Still, retch tan about summed it up.

“Puke tan.”

John swung his head around. So much for not talking to anyone but himself. Nate Ryder, one of the other detectives in the Major Crimes unit of the Dark Falls Police Department was contemplating the walls as though their conversation might reveal a major secret to the universe instead of settling on the best name for the paint.

“Cat-yak tan,” someone else offered.

John shook his head. These guys could easily spend the next hour debating this. What the hell had he started?

The conference room had a table that could hold up to ten of the detectives in the unit. Of course, with ten, they’d have to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with no room to take notes or bend an arm to chug the mud-water coffee the machine in the corner spat out. Today, there were only six of them in there, so they had elbow room, at least.

Still, the room was making John edgy, and he wasn’t an edgy kind of guy. No, scratch that. It was the case they were working that had him on edge, not the room.

“Toe jam tan,” Nate said, leaning back to high five one of the others.

John cursed and reached for his coffee cup, then thought better of it when he realized his stomach felt like a bear had crapped in it at some point while he slept. Coffee wasn’t going to help that.

There was a big-screen television mounted on one wall that let the officers watch interrogations in progress in any of the three interrogation rooms assigned to their team.

John currently sat in front of the other wall—the one with a dry erase board covering the full length of it—squeezing the hell out of the blue gel ball that had started out as Nate’s but had become more of a department-wide stress ball.

Rhys Evans stood at the white board. When they wanted to get to Rhys, they called him Sport—a reference to his high school and college football days. He had that star quarterback look to him, all blue eyes and dirty blond hair.

John guessed people might describe him in much the same way. He was built, working out more than ever since his divorce meant he had no one to go home to. He had brown hair and brown eyes that one girlfriend in high school had insisted were honey-colored instead of brown. Whatever that meant.

John’s partner, Eric Cantu, was the opposite of John and Rhys’s clean cut looks. Eric was tanned with black hair that was longer than most of the unit wore it, and a nose that made his Italian heritage absolutely clear. His chin always had a bit of stubble to it. The captain gave him shit about it, but Eric swore he shaved every morning, that it grew back in on the drive to work.

Eric had rolled his chair back into a corner so he could stretch his legs out and slouch down in the chair, trying to get a nap in before the meeting started. Eric had pulled an extra shift the night before, covering for one of the guys on the night unit.

When Rhys turned around, ready to start, John tossed a pen at Eric, hitting him on the chest. In seconds, his partner straightened and pulled his chair to the table. No one begrudged any of the detectives a nap when they needed one. You grabbed sleep where you could, whether that was in the precinct or at home. Luckily, they didn’t have to worry about wrinkling their suits.

Unlike detectives on television, they didn’t wear cheap suits in the Dark Falls Major Crimes unit. Unless they were going to testify in court, they wore business casual. Most days, the men and women of Major Crimes were in button-down shirts and jeans or a polo shirt and pants. They all kept a blazer hanging in their cubicles for trips to court, but that was really the only time they put them on.

Dressing casually came in handy if they had to walk into a convenience store to scope out a suspect without anyone thinking, shit, that guy looks like a cop. They also sometimes drove around town in a soccer-mom van when they were trying to track down a suspect. There was something about the look on a scumbag’s face when the doors to the nanny-van they’d considered harmless opened to dump six guys in tactical gear at their feet. It was priceless. And it made the job worth it. Most of the time, anyway.

Rhys didn’t bother with preliminaries. They were here because their captain had ordered the Major Crimes unit to attack the jewelry store robberies that had been happening in the last few months around the city.

Rhys was probably the most buttoned up of the group. He was quiet and always looked like he was thinking about something important. The snippets of tattoos peeking out from under his short sleeves were the only giveaway that there was something more going on under that façade.

“We’re working the jewelry store robberies today, everyone.” Rhys Evans was writing what they knew about the recent string of jewelry store robberies on the white board. “Cap wants these solved and off the books before more people get hurt.”

John’s head shot up at that. He didn’t know anyone had been hurt. Flashes of a woman with big brown eyes and a wide smile standing behind a jewelry store counter taunted him.

John sat up straighter, reaching for the coffee after all. To hell with his stomach.

“We’ve had three robberies in the last three months that appear to have been committed by the same group. Four suspects. All look to be male, but they’re good at covering their faces. Actually, everything is covered—jeans, boots, long sleeved shirts, gloves, ski masks. We can’t tell if there are tattoos or identifying marks.”

“This last one,” Nate, another of the detectives, put in, “an employee at the store was hurt. No major injuries, but one of the suspects didn’t think the salesman was acting fast enough. He slammed him into a glass case, broke his nose, and he’ll likely have a few scars from where the glass cut him.”

Rhys nodded. “They’re hitting stores in less upscale parts of town. Places that won’t have a guard or panic alarm.”

And thank God for that, John thought, clenching and unclenching a fist. It wasn’t fair to the victims, but he had his own reasons for being glad these guys weren’t hitting the higher end shops yet. With a city the size of Dark Falls, there were quite a few jewelry stores they could hit.

Still, they would run out eventually. What remained to be seen was whether they might move on to something else, like pawn shops, or start hitting the higher end places.

Rhys continued, oblivious to the cramping in John’s gut as he thought of where this might go. To most of the guys, this was a typical robbery investigation.

“They spray paint the video cameras as soon as they enter. In and out in under four minutes.”

John checked his notes, shaking off the agitation he’d been feeling all day, and focused on the job. “If it’s the same group, they’re still following a pattern as far as timing. Three to four weeks between hits.” He paused and counted the days. “No, wait, this one is one day under the three-week mark. Other than the fact they’re choosing low-rent stores, there’s no location pattern. They’re spread out across the poorer parts of town, but not clumped together in one neighborhood.”

He grabbed the still shots they’d pulled from the snippets of video they had. “I’ve looked over the video footage from the scenes.”

“Anything worthwhile?” their captain asked as she entered the room. Captain Eve Scanlon wasn’t a bad captain, but she had an uncanny ability to catch a lot of a conversation when she wasn’t even in the room yet.

She was in her early forties with long, jet-black hair she kept pinned ruthlessly back in a bun. People often mistook her wide eyes and red lips as signs she wasn’t sharp and tough as hell. If they acted on that mistake, they were schooled quickly.

She’d put in her dues working as a detective before moving behind the desk. It was one of the reasons they all respected her. That, and most of the time, she let them do their jobs.

Rhys shook his head. “Shit cameras in a lot of them. One has piss poor angles, and the other has such grainy footage, it’s hard to make much out before they block them. I don’t know how these businesses were getting insurance coverage this way.”

“On top of that, as soon as our guys enter the store,” John said, “They hit the cameras with black spray paint. We get a few seconds of footage, then it’s out.”

Nate leaned forward, signaling to John with an open hand that he wanted the stress ball. “I’m reaching out to some of the other businesses in the area,” Nate said, catching the ball and tossing it from hand to hand. “There are a few places that might have an angle we can get something on. A gas station across the street from one of the jewelry stores and an ATM next to the other. Maybe they’ll have better quality.”

Captain Scanlon brought the focus back around to John. “See anything on the footage we have so far, Sevier?”

John shook his head. “Not much. Four suspects, appear to be male, but they’re making an effort to cover themselves up. Black boots and black jeans. T-shirts all have local bands on them, or no logo at all. On two of them, I can see blue or purple hair sticking out from under the masks and hoods in some of the shots.”

Gerald Osborn snorted. “Punk rockers. My nephew’s been dressing like that for the last year. Can’t get him into anything else.”

Osborn and his partner, Craig Patel, were the older guys on the team. They had a lot more knowledge than the rest of them, and were still in good enough shape to be on the streets. Didn’t mean the guys didn’t make fun of them some days for being the grannies of the group.

John nodded. “Has that feel to it. The jeans are tight, some ripped knees, that kind of thing. The boots go anywhere from ankle height to all the way up the calves. They do look like they could be in a band.”

“Maybe they are,” Eric said.

John had thought of that, too. “I checked the websites of the bands that showed up on the t-shirts a few of them had on. No matches there. Wrong heights and builds. I ran histories on the band members just to be sure. A couple of the members had shoplifting or PI arrests.” Public intoxication arrests weren’t all that unexpected among bands that played in bars and stayed out late drinking afterward.

And shoplifting didn’t really carry over into armed robbery.

John summed up his findings. “Nothing that screamed bank robber to me, but it’s possible they’re in some other band. Hell, they could be fuck-knuckles playing in their mom’s garage.” He pushed the printouts of the reports into the center of the table in the universal signal for the team to have at it. They checked each other’s work all the time. He had no issue with that.

“Tattoos? Jewelry?” another sergeant asked.

John shook his head. “All skin other than the eyes are covered up. I can tell you we’ve got at least two guys who dye their hair and we have one with brown eyes, one with hazel eyes, and two blue.”

Eric slanted his crooked grin at John and then hit the side of his head a few times, like he was trying to shake his marbles back into the right spots in his head. “Thought I woke up to a beauty pageant there for a second.” He reached for the carafe of coffee that sat in the center of the table and poured himself two cups, one for each hand.

Eric was the comic relief on the unit. He kept them all from getting too serious, until they needed to buckle down. When Eric Cantu stopped joking, you knew shit got real.

“A Point Break kind of gang? A punk band instead of surfers?” Eric asked.

John shrugged a shoulder. At this point, anything was possible.

“Still nothing in pawn shops? They have to be selling this stuff someplace,” Eric said.

Nate shook his head. “We’ve put the call out to the shops. Not getting any hits so far. Could be doing it for the thrill?”

As they moved on to brainstorm some of the other cases in the unit, John tried to shove thoughts of a certain jewelry store owner aside. Ava McNair wasn’t a part of his life anymore, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of where she was and what she was doing.

He hadn’t worried so much about her when the first jewelry store heist happened, or even the second. Now that the third one hit, he was itching to go warn her.

There wasn’t a reason to stay away from her anymore. His divorce had been finalized a couple of years ago. He didn’t have to stay away from an old college girlfriend out of respect for Lucia.

Not that it would be that kind of visit, anyway. If he’d learned one thing over the last few years, it was that he wasn’t meant to be in a relationship. No, if he went to see Ava, it would only be to warn an old friend to be careful.

The meeting broke and John and Eric moved down the hall toward their cubicles.

“You good?” Eric asked, eyeing John.

“Yep.”

“I thought you were gonna bust Dahlia in there, you were squeezing her so hard.”

John stopped in the aisle between the cubicles. “Come again?”

Eric held up his hands and squeezed the air like an inept teenager might squeeze a woman’s breasts. “I was thinking, that stress ball Nate’s always got. It’s like he’s looking for a substitute woman. Thought we should give her a name. I’m trying Dahlia out.”

John rolled his eyes, but had to admit, the look on Nate’s face when he heard that one would be funny.

They settled into John’s cubicle, John in his desk chair, Eric in the corner in the single guest chair that rarely had anyone other than one of the other cops in it.

“Tell Uncle Eric all about it. What has your panties in a bunch this morning?”

“My panties aren’t in a bunch.” They were, but he wasn’t about to open up to Eric about that.

“You need to get laid. I thought you were seeing that woman. What’s her name? Lily? Lacy? Lola?”

It was Laura, but John wasn’t going to give Eric the satisfaction of correcting him. His partner was able to remember the smallest details in a case. He knew damned well the woman John sometimes slept with when she wasn’t in a relationship was Laura. He also knew damned well Laura had met someone a few months ago and hadn’t been in John’s bed since.

Eric wasn’t exactly good at hiding his strategy. He wanted John to get annoyed enough to tell him off and then start talking. The two were close, but that didn’t mean he was going to go all psychiatrist’s couch with the guy.

John stood, grabbing his wallet and keys. “Got an errand to run, then I’ll swing by and grab us lunch. Back in an hour.”

Eric raised a brow but didn’t say anything as John walked out. With the best partners, a look was enough to get the message across, and Eric’s message was clear. He knew good and well John was off his game. And a cop off his game was a danger to them all.

Ava McNair smiled as she watched the couple leave her store. She loved seeing couples find the perfect engagement ring to start their lives together. These two were young, but she could see the devotion in the way they looked at each other.

He’d come in ahead of time to choose a ring, then told his girlfriend he needed to swing by and pick up a watch his mom left to be repaired. The look on her face was priceless when he dropped to one knee after Ava passed him the ring box.

“Nice,” Kirsten James said, winking at Ava from her spot by the door. The woman might look harsh in her guard uniform, but she was as much of a softy when it came to that kind of thing as Ava was.

Ava grinned and turned to go to the back to check on her sister, but the door chimed again. What she saw when she looked back was anything but expected.

The man entering her family’s jewelry store had filled out. His face was different, worn in a way, but in a good way. At least, she thought it looked good on him. His eyes were the same, though.

John Sevier’s eyes trapped and held her, his light brown gaze doing things to her just like they had years before when she’d been stupid enough to walk away from him.

To say he was the one who got away was an understatement. She’d been so naïve and focused on all the wrong things at that time in her life. She never realized what she was losing until it was far too late for her to do anything about it.

Not that she would have been able to hold on to him anyway. Halfway through college, her life had changed drastically, and she’d had to drop out to help her dad and sister. She would have lost John then, anyway. Still, an eighties rock ballad was playing in the back of her head somewhere as she thought about not knowing what you had ’til it was gone.

Kirsten stiffened and looked ready to move into action if Ava didn’t say anything. It was no wonder. A six-foot-one man who looked like he could eat glass for breakfast if he got the craving, was standing frozen in their showroom. And Ava probably looked like a deer in headlights.

“John.” Ava breathed the word out, then shook herself to clear the fog. She waved a hand at Kirsten. “It’s all right. John’s an old friend.”

She thought she saw something flicker in his eyes at the words, but if it had been anything more than her imagination, it was gone.

“Um…” Ava looked around the showroom. One of her salespeople was on the other side of the store helping an older gentleman pick out a bracelet for his granddaughter. Kirsten was still staring at her and John.

Ava swung a hand in the direction of the workshop and offices at the back of the store. “We could, um…”

Thankfully, John nodded, seemingly unconcerned at the fact she couldn’t seem to get a sentence out that didn’t include “um.” Scratch that, she hadn’t actually gotten a complete sentence out, period.

She went to the back, hoping to pass right through the workshop where her sister, Janna, designed most of the jewelry they carried. They had other artisans who worked for them, repairing jewelry and watches and such, but Janna was their only bench jeweler. Anything in their cases that her sister didn’t make was ordered from jewelry wholesalers or outside artisans.

Janna stood at her bench, the spotlights that surrounded her all aimed at a four-inch square space in front of her as her hands worked with small samplings of metals and gems. Janna had a habit of getting lost in her work, but today when Ava hoped she might do just that, her sister looked up.

Janna’s eyes went from Ava to John and back to Ava in a comic demonstration of her surprise at seeing a man with Ava.

Yeah, it was somewhat of a shock to Ava, too.

“John, this is my sister, Janna. Janna, John and I were friends in college.” Ava watched as Janna’s eyes went wide.

John smiled and nodded. Whether he remembered Ava mentioning Janna’s issues with anxiety when they dated, or he just read people really well, she didn’t know. But for whatever reason, he didn’t offer his hand to Janna to shake. That was good. It was what Janna was more comfortable with.

Janna looked to Ava. “Big John?”

Oh Lord.

Ava’s cheeks flamed hot, and she knew they must be red. She and Janna shared everything, which meant Janna knew all about the John Ava had dated in college. She just hadn’t expected Janna to put the man standing before her together with their conversations about John in college. And yes, Janna had truly nicknamed him Big John in college, but it wasn’t for the reasons one might think.

Not that he couldn’t have earned the nickname that way. Back in the day, one of Ava’s friends had described John’s body as “call him if you need your house moved over a few inches” kind of big. She wasn’t wrong.

Ava put her hands to her cheeks, and a small semblance of a laugh slipped from her lips. She dodged John’s smiling eyes and Janna’s impish grin without answering and led the way back to her office.

She could try to explain to John that Janna had given him the nickname because that was how he’d seemed to her at the time. Ava had talked about John so much when they were dating that Janna had labeled him “big” in Ava’s world.

She didn’t know how to say all that without making the whole situation worse, though, so she clamped down on her lips, imprisoning them between her teeth as she shut the door behind them.

The look he gave her told her he was enjoying this far too much.

“For your information,” she said, crossing her arms, “Big John is another John. Not you. It’s…” she didn’t have any ideas… “someone else.”

“Uh-huh.” He matched her crossed arms and let a smile cross his face.

Ava deflated a little. It was good to see him. She’d known he moved to Dark Falls after college. He and his wife had made the city their home when he’d been offered a spot on the police force. She heard about him from time to time from old college friends, and they’d run into each other once at the farmer’s market downtown.

She’d heard about his divorce, too.

She leaned her hip on her desk and tried to get her heart to stop pounding and her hands to stop shaking. “It’s good to see you. You look good.”

Oh hell. She should just shut up.

It was true, though. He still wore his brown hair short in what she guessed was some kind of police regulation, above the collar kind of cut. His skin was tanned and scarred in some spots, making her want to trace the pattern of his history written there and ask him about every little mark. His jaw was the kind you read about being chiseled, and that mouth looked like it could do things no woman could refuse.

What was she doing? She focused back on his eyes and tried to get her inner hussy to shut the hell up for a minute.

“You, too. I should have stopped in and said hi before. I, uh…” He ran a hand over the back of his head, from the base of his neck up to the top of his head. It was something he’d done in the past, too.

“I’m sure you’re busy,” she offered. “I heard you made detective.”

He nodded. “That’s why I’m here.”

Ava tilted her head.

“I wanted to stop in and make sure you knew about the jewelry store robberies that have been happening.”

She frowned. “I think I saw something in one of the papers about a store being robbed last week, but honestly, I don’t pay a lot of attention to the news when I get busy. There are others?”

John was all business now. “Yes. There are details I can’t share, but what you need to know is that three stores have been hit. They’re all lower end stores that don’t have a guard posted. You have your guard out there all day, every day?”

Ava was stunned. She didn’t think people really robbed jewelry stores anymore. There were guards in many of them and most of the other owners she networked with had high quality cameras and good security systems.

She looked toward the front of the store where Kirsten was standing guard, even though there were several walls between them, and she couldn’t actually see the showroom from her office. “Yes, Kirsten works two days a week, and we have two others. Kirsten and one of the others are former military, and the other is a former campus officer from one of the out-of-state colleges. I don’t remember which school.”

At the moment, all she could remember was that they all had families, loved ones. She brought her hand to the gemstone on her neck. Her birthstone, garnet. “Have there been injuries?”

John looked grim. “Thankfully, only during this last robbery. One clerk was shoved into a glass case. No serious wounds, though. He’ll be fine.”

Ava stared at a spot over his shoulder. She had to wonder how fine she or any of her people would be if they were held up at gunpoint. She assumed they had guns, or a weapon of some other sort.

He went on. “They’re not hitting shops like yours yet, but I wanted to make sure you guys are on your toes. Your cameras and alarms are working?”

“Of course.”

“You’d be surprised how many times people let those go, thinking the alarm sticker in the window is enough of a deterrent. Until their insurance company forces them to get into compliance, they let things go.”

Ava blinked. “Our cameras and alarms are all working. We put paste jewels in the window displays, but that’s the only fake thing around here.”

John stepped closer, and Ava was overly aware of the small size of her office in that moment. The man had always taken her breath away, but now that he was more than a college boy, he was almost overwhelming.

She’d long known she’d been an idiot to let him go. The point was no more obvious to her than it was right now as his eyes bore into hers. Still, he was here for business reasons. She needed to remember that, even if her body seemed to have other ideas at the moment.

“Good,” he said. “I want you to be safe.”

Ava swallowed. She opened her mouth to say something—she had no idea what that would be, since the sight of him in her office after all these years had her flustered beyond reason—but the intercom on her phone buzzed.

“Ava, you’re needed in the showroom, please,” came the polite voice of her salesman. He probably had more than one customer. They knew from experience, if you let someone browse too long without helping them on the showroom floor, they’d walk out without making a purchase.

John stepped back. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

Ava nodded, trying to let the breath she’d been holding slip out slowly and quietly enough that he might not hear it.

John led the way back to the showroom, pausing to turn to her when they were in the doorway between the front and back of the store.

“You look good, Ava. Really good.”

Ava nodded again, still struck mute, it seemed.

“Stay safe,” he said as he turned away.

“You, too, John.” She echoed his words in her head. Stay safe.

Then she watched for a moment, not letting herself worry about customers and sales quite yet. She stood at the back of the showroom and watched as John Sevier walked away.

CHAPTER TWO

Corey clenched his hands into tight fists as Josh lit into Adam.

“Goddammit, Adam, what the fuck was that?” Josh railed.

That hadn’t been at all what they’d planned. “Fuck.” Corey swore as he looked at his hands. He couldn’t stop the shaking. He scanned his friends, clenching his fists at his sides again. Maybe they wouldn’t notice.

Adam looked ready to do damage to Josh if he didn’t let up on him, but those two had grown up together. They always went at it.

Adam’s sneer was in place where it always was, and his pupils looked huge. Corey didn’t know if it was because he was so cranked up or if Adam was on something. They all smoked a little pot sometimes, but Adam had been doing other shit lately. Corey was sure of it.

“The guy was dicking around. We don’t have time for that. If we aren’t in and out on these jobs, we’re going to get caught.” Adam closed in on Josh as he talked, using his size to push Josh back.

Josh stood his ground. “We won’t get caught, but if you pull that shit again, the cops are going to be coming down on us hard. You think they gave a shit about some small-time jewelry stores in the armpit of Dark Falls? Nobody gives a fuck about these places. But if you start beating the shit out of people, they’re going to come looking for us. They’re going to crank up the heat a lot hotter than we can handle.”

Corey couldn’t get the sight of Adam pummeling that store clerk out of his head. Yeah, the guy had been moving slowly, but fuck, Adam had made a mess of him. Josh was splattered in blood from where he’d pulled Adam off the old man.

Tommy shuffled forward. “Drop it, all right, guys? We got what we wanted, and we got in and out without getting caught. Just…” He ran a hand through his hair, and Corey saw he was shaking too. The only one who wasn’t was Adam.

Corey came to stand next to Tommy. “Let’s not do this, okay? We can’t turn on each other.”

Adam’s ice-cold eyes held Josh’s for another minute. He never liked to be shown up or told what to do.

In a dizzying shift, Adam broke into a grin and stepped back, hands raised. “Sure, Tommy. It’s all good. I got carried away when I realized the guy was holding us up on time. Didn’t want him to jack us up, is all.”

The tension broke with that gesture, and the guys all gave some version of an “it’s all right,” as they moved to the living room to unload the duffle bag and look through the stash.

It wouldn’t be a big haul. The places they were hitting had lower end stuff. A lot of gold bracelets and necklaces with chips of diamonds in them instead of larger stones. There were some diamond engagement rings, though, and gemstone necklaces that looked like they could be worth something.

They pawed through it, most of them quiet now. Usually, after a job, they were cranked up. Things had shifted today. It was palpable on the air as it crackled around them.

Corey kept his mouth shut for now, but he was edgy. This wasn’t at all the way this should have gone. None of it was the way it should have gone. They shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be doing this.

He watched as Adam packed everything away and passed the bag off to Tommy.

“It’s your turn, Tommy,” Adam said.

Tommy nodded and took the bag. “I’ll head out in the morning.”

The words were unnecessary. It was how they always timed it.

They all nodded, and Corey caught Josh’s eye. There was a warning there. Adam was getting out of hand. Corey wasn’t an idiot. He could see that, too. The only problem was, he wasn’t convinced they could do anything to keep him in line.

He rubbed at his chest. The tightness that seemed to be there all the time now was getting to him. He didn’t like this. Didn’t like any of it. But there wasn’t a way out. He was stuck.

CHAPTER THREE

“You’re a man whore,” Nate said to Eric. The two sat in Eric’s cubicle in Major Crimes. The partition walls were shorter than they would be in a business office, letting the detectives talk to each other more easily as they worked. This was a unit that needed to be able to communicate quickly and easily at all times.

John couldn’t argue with Nate on the man whore label, though he did want to stick up for his partner. Still, it wasn’t easy since Eric openly took advantage of the badge bunnies who trolled Leo’s, the bar most of the law enforcement in Dark Falls gravitated to at one time or another.

Eric saw nothing wrong with, as he put it, taking what was thrown his way. He meant it literally. He didn’t have to do anything to impress these women. The fact he wore a badge was enough.

At least Eric wasn’t married. There were guys on the force with wives at home and a beat girlfriend—a woman they slept with in the precinct—on the side. One thing John could say about his failed marriage, he’d never once cheated on Lucia, and he was pretty sure she’d never cheated on him.

He’d let her down in more ways than he could count, hadn’t been able to give her the one thing she needed most, but he’d never cheated.

Even after his divorce, John just wasn’t that guy. He didn’t jump from one bed to another. Eric, on the other hand, absolutely was.

Eric grinned at Nate, not a repentant bone in his body at the accusation. “Damned right I am.”

So much for having to stick up for his partner, John thought. At least Eric told the women he got involved with exactly what they’d get from him: a good time, respect, friendship if they wanted it… but nothing more.

“There once was a man whore from Mumbai. He loved soft women, cold beer, and sweet pie. The women loved him, he said with a grin. There was nary a one he’d deny.” Eric finished the limerick with a laugh.

John tossed a pencil at him. “You’re not from Mumbai.”

Eric shrugged. “Details.”

Conrad Underwood poked his head in the door of the third-floor bullpen, where the detectives of Major Crimes had their cubicles. He caught John’s eye, a question on his face.

John waved an arm at him. “Come on in, Connie. We can find something for ya.”

Connie was a green cop, still only two years into his required four years on patrol. He aspired to be a detective, though, so he’d come into the Major Crimes division whenever he could to pick up assignments from the guys. Sometimes that meant staying a few hours after his shift. Other times, Captain Scanlon offered him and some of the other uniforms overtime when Major Crimes needed boots on the ground running down leads.

Rhys came in just as Connie settled into the guest chair next to John’s desk. Connie made to stand and give the seat to Rhys, but Rhys raised a hand to still him. He spoke over the cubicle wall to Eric and Nate, including all of them in the conversation.

“OPS.”

John saw Connie’s confusion and mouthed, “Official Police Shit.” It meant shut up and pay attention.

Connie nodded, and Rhys went on. “Patrol units just responded to another jewelry store robbery.”

John felt the tight sensation, like his skin didn’t fit him right, hit him almost immediately and had to fight the urge not to claw at the back of his neck. It was a feeling he got when something wasn’t right on a case, although, this time he suspected it had to do with the fact Ava owned a jewelry store and might end up in the sights of this group if they didn’t stop them.

He and Ava might not be anything more than friends at this point, but he still felt a protective rush when he thought of her being hurt.

“Where?” he asked, his voice tight.

Rhys rattled off an address that let John breathe again. Small place, not a great part of town, same as before.

“They’re escalating. Beat one of the employees. He’s on his way to the hospital, but patrol is holding the scene and has the other employee there for us.”

John and Eric stood, Connie hopping up like a jumping bean next to them.

“We’ll head to the scene,” Eric said.

Rhys nodded and gestured over his shoulder to where his partner, Mason England, stood. Mason looked a little like a tank with short-cropped dirty blond hair. He and Rhys could almost be twins, except for their eye color. Mason’s were green to Rhys’s blue.

“Mason and I are going to head over to Penny Al’s, see if he’s heard anything about how this stuff is being sold.”

Penny Al bought and sold all kinds of things. He didn’t own a storefront, but sold out of his trailer home on property twenty minutes outside of downtown. Back in the day, he was where you went to fence stolen goods, but he seemed to have gone clean. Still, he didn’t have a storefront, so he didn’t receive the notices of stolen goods the pawn shops did. It was worth talking to him.

John and Eric nodded. They all knew Penny Al still had contact with the kind of people who might be buying this stolen property. He might hear things the pawn shops didn’t.

“Connie, you’re with us,” John said as he and Eric headed toward the elevator. While they were talking to the witnesses on scene, they could send the kid to interview other store owners nearby and check for video footage in the surrounding areas that might have caught something as the suspects approached or left the scene.

CHAPTER FOUR

The minute John, Eric, and Connie entered the shop, Eric’s joking ended. He was as professional as the rest of them when they were working, especially when there was an injured victim like they had in this case.

On the way to the scene, they’d gotten word the victim was an elderly man. He would survive, but he had several broken bones in his face. This hadn’t been a light beating.

John scanned the small space. It was a long, narrow store set between a liquor store and one of those places that sold things for a dollar. Two uniformed officers stood by the door, one logging who entered, the other talking quietly to a younger man who was probably their witness.

The store was lined on either side with standard jewelry store glass cases, and most of the merchandise was gone. A few pieces sat discarded on the floor or still in the shelves. One glass case wore the evidence of the fierce beating the man had been given. Blood spattered and smeared the surface.

It had been vicious and cruel, the kind of gratuitous violence that told them something had shifted with their suspects with this one. Whoever had delivered this beating, they liked taking advantage of the glass cases in the shops they were hitting. The last victim had been slammed into one of them, as well.

John looked to the witness and saw the man had gone stark gray, looking like he might pass out. He didn’t seem able to take his eyes off the bloodied case, and John knew he was likely seeing the attack play out over and over.

John stepped between the case and the witness, purposely blocking the man’s view.

Connie and Eric stood to the side.

“Sir, my name is Detective John Sevier. This is Detective Cantu and Officer Underwood. I know you’ve given a statement to the officers here, but I need you to talk me through what happened here.”

The man nodded, still seeming a little stunned.

“Can you start by telling me your name, sir?” John prompted.

“Jordan Morgan.” The man was in his twenties, maybe five-ten or eleven inches, but it was only a rough estimate since he was sitting down. He wore a cheap suit that looked like he’d probably worn it every day that week, going by the wrinkles.

“Have you worked here long, Jordon?” John asked, trying to bring the man back to them. He looked at the man’s pupils and assessed him for signs of shock. If he needed medical attention, they needed to get that for him before they questioned him. EMTs had been on the scene for the other victim, and normally they’d spot it if this guy needed care, but John wanted to be sure.

Connie stepped up and handed a cup of water to the witness. That seemed to wake the man up, and he nodded and took a sip.

“I’ve been here a couple of months.” His gaze tried to go back to the bloody spot behind John, but John shifted his weight and caught the man’s attention again.

“Dale was here forever,” he said. “He’s been working here since he was in his twenties, he told me.”

“Dale is your coworker?” John prompted.

Jordan nodded. “Yes.”

“Can you tell us what happened when you were robbed today?”

John didn’t take notes. Connie was scribbling beside him, and he knew Eric would be writing down anything they needed to record behind him, as well. That’s the way they worked. Whoever wasn’t doing the questioning took notes.

“We were getting ready to close. It was a little early, but as long as the owner doesn’t find out, we do that sometimes. No one was here.”

John nodded. “So you close at what time, usually?”

Jordan blinked at him. “Eight. Sometimes there’s a person or two still here then. Sometimes not, so we ain’t all that strict about it. We were just going to lock up at seven-forty-five tonight. That’s all.”

The poor kid said it like if they hadn’t started locking up early, this wouldn’t have happened. Like karma had somehow sent them a beating for the minor infraction of skipping out of work a few minutes early.

“And then what happened?” John was asking wide open questions right now, not wanting to lead the witness in any direction or another.

“I had my back turned to the door. I was cleaning the cases.” His eyes shot past John again, but he brought himself back this time.

“I heard a loud crash, a bang. They kicked the door. I mean, it was unlocked, they didn’t need to kick it in or anything, but they did.”

John didn’t have to say anything to Eric. He knew his partner would be sending a message to the crime scene techs that were on their way. There was a good chance they’d get a pristine shoe print on that door that they could match when they caught someone. Assholes always thought they were cool kicking in doors, but it left some beautiful evidence behind.

He waited for the witness to continue. Behind him, he could hear the techs arriving and speaking with Eric.

“They had guns,” the witness offered.

“Can you tell me what the guns looked like? Long or short?” For the most part, when someone had a gun held on them, what they saw was gun. It was hard to see anything other than down the center of the barrel. It was too easy to get lost focusing on that spot where the bullet would come from. John’s job was to try to dig information from this guy’s brain, and then he’d show him pictures and see if they could narrow things down some.

“Uh,” Jordan said, “short. Handguns.”

“What color were they?”

“Black, I think?” Jordan paused. “Most were black. I think one guy had a silver one.”

“Okay, so let’s focus on the black ones first. Did they have a round cylinder where the bullets would go, or were they more like the ones you see police using in TV shows?”

Jordan sat taller, realizing he was giving good information now. “Like the TV shows. All of them, even the silver one. They were that kind with the thing you jam in with bullets.”

John nodded. “Okay, good. I’ll show you some pictures of different handguns later to see if you can help us narrow that down, but let’s talk about the men. What can you tell me about them?” Again, he went with broad first.

Jordan shrugged. “There were four of them. Black clothes. Masks.”

“What kind of masks?”

Over the next few minutes, the witness told them things John already knew. The boots, the jeans, the colored hair sticking out.

“That leader,” Jordan said, “he didn’t need to do what he did.”

“The leader?” John hadn’t heard any of the previous witnesses talk about any of the particular suspects acting as a leader.

“Yeah, the big guy. The one who hit Dale.” He swallowed. “He was in charge.”

“What makes you say that?”

Jordan made a face as he seemed to think about the question. “Just something about how he moved. When they came in, two of them sprayed the cameras with something, then they all went to the glass and started breaking shit. They were pulling things out of the cases, like they had an assignment, but he came to Dale and told Dale to empty the safe.”

“Anything else?” John asked.

“When he started to hit Dale, the others seemed to hesitate to stop him. They seemed surprised. Only one other guy got in there and pulled him off. He was the smallest of the bunch, but he was the only guy who got in there and stopped the big guy.”

They’d already gotten him to estimate the heights of everyone, so John knew he was talking about the suspect Jordan had said was an inch or so shorter than him. John had also confirmed with Jordan that he was five feet ten inches tall, so that made one of their suspects five feet eight to five feet ten, give or take an inch or two.

The uniformed officers had informed them that the manager was on his way in to download the surveillance video for them. Now that this had risen to the level of at least aggravated assault, they could have their tech people take the time to analyze the few seconds of video they might get for heights of all the suspects. The crime scene guys would measure the door height and other prominent items in the room, and that would let the technicians make some pretty accurate measurements once they got ahold of the video.

“He didn’t need to do it,” Jordan said, confusion evident.

“What’s that?” John asked.

Jordan’s eyes went to the post behind John again. “Hit him. He didn’t need to hit Dale. Dale told him he was going to open the safe. He was just nervous, that’s all. His hands were shaking. He told the guy his hands were shaking, and he needed a minute, and the guy just lost it. Started hitting him and wouldn’t stop. He was enjoying it.”

John nodded, his jaw set and tensing by the minute. At least one person in this gang was escalating, and John didn’t like where this was headed.

CHAPTER FIVE

John dialed Ava’s store before pulling out of the parking lot the following evening.

He recognized her voice as the one that said, “McNair Fine Jewelers, how may I help you?”

He remembered nights of listening to that voice for hours. She had the kind of low, sultry voice that made his cock stand at attention even if she was doing something like reciting the damned phone book. And when she said his name with that voice? If she cried out when they were in bed? Damn, that did things to him.

He could easily picture the face that went with her husky voice. Long brown hair he used to love to run his hands through while she slept. Deep brown eyes that somehow seemed to hold a light all their own, and a smile that some might say was almost too big, but that worked for her. She was gorgeous, and when she hit him with that smile, everything stopped.

He cleared his throat, shaking himself out of the memories. “Ava, it’s John Sevier.”

“Hi, John. Is everything all right? I set up a news alert about the robberies after you left. I saw what happened on the local news site yesterday, but there hasn’t been much information.”

He looked at his watch. No, there wouldn’t have been many updates because there wasn’t much news. They didn’t have many leads. The doctors had put the victim in a medically induced coma, but hoped to wake him tomorrow.

John and Eric were heading home for the night. A few of the others were going to follow up on some other things overnight, but he and his partner were going to be the ones interviewing the victim in the morning, so it was agreed they needed to get away and catch some sleep and recharge.

Still, John hadn’t been able to make himself drive home. He was still cranked, and he realized he didn’t want to let his visit to Ava’s store be the end of things. He wanted to see how she was, find out more about what she was doing and what her life was like.

He realized she’d thought he was calling about the robberies, and that was totally fair. It was probably weird for him to call out of the blue.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re chasing leads on that. But I was calling to see if you want to grab dinner.”

“Dinner?” she asked.

This was stupid. She would think he was asking her on a date, and that was really the last thing he wanted her to think. But he wanted to see how she was doing, what she’d been up to for the last decade.

He rushed to explain, hoping she’d understand this was just a friend thing he was asking for. “I just thought it would be nice to catch up, you know? It’s been a long time.”

He could almost hear her relax over the phone. “I’d like that.”

“I’m leaving the station now. I can come get you at the store?”

He could hear her moving around in the background as he talked.

“No, I’m on my way out. My employees are closing tonight. I’ve got to drop Janna off at home. Can you pick me up at my place in an hour? Is that too late?”

“Not at all. That’s perfect.” She gave him her address, and they said goodbye. That gave him enough time to run home and shower and change.

CHAPTER SIX

“Hey Pop,” John called out, walking into the living room of his dad’s house. It wasn’t where John had grown up. They’d lived in another town, but his dad had sold that place a few years back and moved to Dark Falls.

“Pop?” He worked his way through the house and out back to the garage, which was where he’d likely find his dad.

John could always count on finding his dad either in the garage or just coming in from working on a car. His dad restored old cars for people all over the country, working on one hand-picked project at a time in the garage behind his house.

“What brings you here?” His dad spoke from under the hood of a ’55 De Soto Fireflite Hemi.

“Pie. I’m looking for pie,” John said, patting his stomach. It was close to dinner, but he didn’t care. The truth was, he was coming by to slip more cash to his dad. He’d already put it into the canister on the top shelf of the pantry on his way through the house. It was the only way he could get his dad to let him pay back the debt he owed him.

“No pie,” his dad laughed, coming out from under the hood, already wiping his hands on a rag. “But I’ve got carrot cake.”

His dad had once been a cook in the Navy. When he was injured and honorably discharged, he’d gotten a job at a diner three towns over, going in before anyone else was awake and functioning to bake the pies, cakes, and pastries. He’d always said it was a hell of a change from Navy cooking, but anyone could see his dad loved baking.

When he started restoring old cars for a living, he had quit that job, but he still baked regularly, and John took advantage of that fact as often as he could.

“Perfect. Vegetables.” John grinned as his dad huffed over John’s interpretation of a serving of vegetables.

“Why the De Soto?” John asked when his dad had put a serving of cake in front of him at the kitchen table.

The car was a nice one, but it wasn’t the usual job for his dad. After years of work, his father had built a reputation for quality work that let him choose the restoration jobs he took. Some of the wealthiest car collectors paid him to restore unique cars that usually needed months of hunting down the right parts or modification of parts to get the restoration done right.

A ’55 De Soto Fireflight was a fairly easy job, something that could be done by someone with a lot less skill and talent than his dad.

His dad laughed. “One of my clients let his grandson choose his next restoration. I didn’t have the heart to turn him down.”

John tried to smile, but it was stiff, so he chose to fill his mouth with cake to avoid answering.

The cake went to sawdust in his mouth, but he used the milk to chase it down anyway.

There was the kind of heavy silence that said his dad knew where John’s mind had gone, but neither was going to try to fill the quiet space.

“Your sister is coming for a visit in March,” was what his dad finally offered when they’d both made some progress on their food.

John’s smile came back as he answered. “Who’s she bringing?” His sister, Penny, was forever bringing home men she swore were “the one.” Whoever he was, the guy was always subjected to the grilling from hell by their dad and John and within days of the trip home, she’d decide Prince Charming didn’t measure up after all and dump the poor bastard.

John felt for the guys in a way. Here, they thought they were coming home with her, meeting the family, and getting ready to “take the next step,” only to find out she was done with them a week later.

John ducked his dad’s playful slap to the back of the head and stood, taking his plate to the sink. The rule in their house had always been that you bussed your place. His dad would do the dishes once you got them to the sink, but you had to clear them.

That’s not to say John didn’t do chores growing up. He’d been responsible for doing his own laundry from the age of ten up, and every weekend he was expected to mow the lawn or rake leaves. When it snowed, he and his sister bundled up to clear the walkways and driveway. When you lived in a household with a single parent and an income that didn’t have room for a ton of extras, you had jobs to do. It was as simple as that.

“You staying for dinner?”

John shook his head, but a stab of guilt at not spending more time with his pop kicked him in the gut. His thoughts went to his planned dinner with Ava. He didn’t mention it to his dad. Any talk of dinner with a woman would get his dad’s hopes up that he might be dating again, no matter how much he explained he and Ava were only friends.

His dad had been both mother and father to John and his sister after his mom walked out on them when John was three. It was a little funny how much the old man could act like the stereotypical mother, wanting his kids married and happily producing grandkids. Not that they talked about that openly anymore. His dad would never go there with John, but he didn’t need to say anything for John to know what he was thinking.

The funny thing was, he found he had to remind himself not to think of Ava as anything more than a friend. Not to hope that what they’d once started years before could start up again. Hell, he was having a hard time getting his body to get the memo on that one. He still responded to her just the way he had in college. In fact, she was more attractive now. She had more character to her face with the light lines of laughter framing her mouth and a confidence she hadn’t had when they dated.

John went to leave, but his dad opened the pantry and pulled out the canister where John had slipped two-hundred dollars earlier.

“Thought I told you to stop with this shit,” his dad said, tossing the folded bills to John. “I don’t need your money.”

John let the bills land on the counter between them, untouched. “It’s your money.” It was a conversation they’d had before, and for a while John had given up on trying to give his dad the money, but it never sat right with him, leaving the debt out there.

His father’s face tightened. It wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone else, but John knew the man well. He also knew how to read faces. His dad had a lot more he wanted to say on the matter.

John sighed and reached for the money, thumbing it before reaching out with it toward his dad. “I never wanted that money to be more than a loan, dad. Lucia and I appreciated what you did for us. You gave us a shot at having a kid that we never would have had if you hadn’t given us that money.”

John stopped, his voice betraying the way the subject still got to him. The pain it caused him to talk about any of what he and Lucia had gone through. He swallowed hard.

The softening in his father’s face was every bit as subtle as the tension in it had been.

John continued pushing the money toward his old man. “We appreciated what you did, but Lucia and I wanted that money to be a loan. I want to pay you back.”

John could see his dad’s jaw working and would bet his father was trying to think of an argument. Something about how badly they’d all wanted that baby. How much of a disappointment it had been when it hadn’t happened for them. It wasn’t anything John wanted to hear.

He pulled his dad into a one-armed hug, putting the money into the chest pocket of the coveralls his dad wore like a uniform. “Thanks, Dad, but let me do this. Let me pay you back.”

His dad grunted a reply, but he kept the money this time, and John breathed a little easier for it as he walked out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“You look exhausted. Are you sure it’s okay for me to take you away from work and sleep right now?” Ava smoothed her skirt as she and John sat, menus in front of them at a small restaurant in downtown Dark Falls.

The spot was one of her favorites, and she wondered if he remembered from when they were together that she loved Italian food. The thought made her stomach flip, even though she told herself it was probably just a fluke. He probably wasn’t remembering the way he used to hold her hand and rub small circles on her skin with his thumb. Circles that had much more of an affect on her than they probably should have.

She reminded herself this was a friendly dinner. They were two old friends catching up.

Well, that wasn’t quite right. They’d been much more than friends at one point, but when she left college years before, that was what they’d left as. He and Lucia had been together and Ava and him had been the kind of friends who said hello when they saw each other on campus. Nothing more.

“I’m sure,” he said, picking up her menu and pushing it into her hands. “I’m too cranked up to go home right away anyway. I’ll crash in an hour or so. Right now, getting out of the precinct and off the job for a bit is exactly what I need.”

“If you’re sure,” she said, not really able to tell if he was telling her the truth or only trying to reassure her.

His smile warmed her, and the exhaustion seemed to clear from his face as he looked at her. “Absolutely. This is right where I need to be.”

A waitress approached their table, setting a basket of warm rolls on the table. Ava’s mouth watered. There was nothing better than warm bread and butter.

Except dessert.

When the waitress got through her spiel on the specials and took their drink order, John looked at the bread basket.

“Tell me you haven’t turned into one of those women who won’t eat bread.”

Ava couldn’t help but laugh. She reached for one of the rolls. “You’re crazy if you think I’d even consider passing these up. I don’t know what they put in them, but they’re like crack. I can’t pass these things up.”

“So, you’ve been here before?”

“All the time,” Ava said. “My dad and Janna love it, too, so we come pretty often. How about you?”

John shook his head, his mouth full of the roll he’d just tasted. He had polished off half of it with that first bite. When he swallowed, he added, “I remembered your obsession with Italian food.”

Ava half-cringed, half-laughed. “I’m not sure you could call it an obsession. More like, a healthy appreciation.”

He tilted his head. “Hmm, at least moderately fascinated.”

Now Ava full-out laughed. He was right. She was a little too attached to her pasta and melted cheese.

She spent the next ten minutes telling him in great detail about the desserts on the menu, before their meals came. He had ordered the lasagna and she was having the manicotti.

She reached over with her fork and took a bite of his. “I love the lasagna.”

John stabbed at her with his fork. “Then you should have ordered it.”

The smile she shot him was pure playfulness, and she realized how good it felt to be sitting there with him, even if this was only a friendly dinner. When they’d dated in college, it had been about more than attraction for her. She really liked him as a person. Being with him had been fun and easy.

He was younger than she was by a couple of years, but he’d had his head on straight and then some. He’d been serious about studying and working two part-time jobs to keep his loan debt down.

Going to college had been different for her. She had been all about reveling in the fact she’d been away from home, on her own for the first time. She had pledged a sorority and wanted to spend at least four nights of the week partying.

And then he’d come along and spun her around with the power of her feelings for him. When things got intense, she had run. She broke up with him, using the excuse that he was too serious for her, too set on the future and goals. She had told him she didn’t want to miss out on the college experience.

It was one of the dumbest things she’d ever done. It didn’t take her long to figure that out, but by then, he met Lucia, and Ava knew she couldn’t get in the way of that. She was at least mature enough not to try that.

She forced herself back to the moment, not really wanting to live in the memory of her foolishness at losing the man in front of her. “But I wanted the manicotti, too,” she said, putting the stolen bite of lasagna in her mouth.

He cut a chunk off his meal and put it on her plate before taking a piece of her manicotti and transferring it to his.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Mm hmm.” His response held a teasing tone and his eyes burned with a playful taunt.

He was having fun with her, but she could see the sharp edge being a cop had given him. There was a heavy weight around him, like he’d seen too much, knew too much of the evils of the world.

He also had an aura of power to him, the kind of thing that made her realize he’d already assessed the room, knew where each exit was and who he might have to take down to get out.

It made her sad in a way. She wondered how much of the boy she’d known was still there. He might have been serious about his studies and work in college, but she had seen a fun side to him. How much of that was gone?

Flashes of that fun returned to her. They’d had a lot of “fun” out on the roof of her dorm, laying on a blanket under the stars. It had been more than messing around that happened up there. He’d been playful sometimes with her, making her laugh or squeal when he tickled her.

Ava toyed with the stem of her glass. She didn’t know what to say next. She wanted to ask what had happened with his marriage. If he still loved his ex-wife. She felt uncomfortable asking, though, so she searched for something else.

“Tell me about your work. You’re a detective? Do you handle robberies all the time?”

John nodded, pushing aside his own plate as he leaned back. “I’m in Major Crimes, so I handle robberies, burglaries, homicide. There’s some talk of dividing us into more distinct units since the city has been growing. It’s hard for us to cover everything, and there’s some advantage to having detectives who focus on things like family violence or sex crimes. But for now, we take on most of that.”

She raised her brows. “Wow, that’s a lot. I can see why it would be hard to pull yourself away from things.”

John shrugged, and there was a vibe to the movement that said he didn’t want to talk about that.

“Will you get married again?” She didn’t know where the question had come from or why her brain didn’t screen it before she blurted it out.

John’s expression was… regretful? “No. I won’t put someone else though that again.”

Ava didn’t know why his answer hurt her. They were two friends catching up. She’d gotten over the loss of him a long time ago.

She knew they didn’t have kids and almost asked him about it, but something in his expression told her not to. Actually, it wasn’t just his expression. His whole body said he was shutting down the topic of his marriage.

Ava toyed with her water glass, smudging the condensation on the outside with her thumb.

“What about you?” he asked. “Any plans for marriage?”

Ava sipped her water, hedging. “I’m not sure I have room for that in my life right now. My dad and sister need me. I feel like there’s nothing left for something else.”

“Remind me about Janna. I know you said she had special needs, but I don’t remember the specifics.”

“She’s on the autism spectrum, and she also suffers from severe generalized anxiety. She needs a lot of support. My mom passed away four years ago, and my dad isn’t in the best of health. He’s had two mild heart attacks. For now, I live in a house at the back of the property, and they share the main house. It keeps me close so I can help out when they need me, but it takes a lot out of me. With that, plus managing the shop, there just really isn’t room for more.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Ava shook her head. “Don’t be. I make it sound like a sacrifice when I say it like that, but I love my life. I wouldn’t change it for all the world. I love that I’m able to be there for them. Not everyone is lucky enough to be that close to family.”

He nodded. “That’s true. My sister is only an hour away, but I don’t make time to see her often enough. I should get over there more.”

They slowed their conversation while the waiter cleared their dishes.

“Tiramisu?” John asked with a raised brow.

“Absolutely.” Ava grinned. She was addicted to the dessert. In her mind, soaking cakes in expresso was a stroke of genius never to be missed when it was available.

John nodded to the waiter. “So,” he said, when the waiter walked away, “it looked like Janna was designing jewelry at the shop? Does she do all your jewelry there?”

“Not all of it. Most, nowadays, though. She loves it, and it’s something that calms her. As long as she doesn’t have to meet with the clients, she’s happy, so I handle all of that, and she stays in the back and buries herself in gemstones and metals.”

“Do you keep in touch with anyone else from school?” John asked a few minutes later as they shared a large serving of tiramisu.

They had gone to school a few hours away and, as far as she knew, only a few of their classmates had settled in Dark Falls when they graduated.

“Not much,” Ava said. After her father’s first heart attack, she had left school early and hadn’t graduated with her class, though she’d gotten a degree online later. Then her mother had been sick, and there wasn’t time to go back to school for the advanced business degree she had been hoping for. “I still talk to some of my sorority sisters occasionally, but most of them have kids. They’re at a different point in life. How about you?”

John grinned. “Lucia got them in the divorce.”

Ava almost choked on her wine. “Excuse me?”

He laughed. “Didn’t you know? Even in a somewhat amicable divorce, there are always sides. She got the college friends. I got the cop friends.”

“I see. So it was amicable?”

She could see he tried to remain carefully blank, and he almost succeeded. But there was a heavy darkness to his eyes as he answered. She couldn’t see the sorrow in his expression, but she felt it nonetheless.

“By the time we filed for divorce, we’d moved past the stage of trying to hurt each other. We’d hurt enough when we were together. We were tired, I think. We were just finished.”

Ava put down her fork and sat back, wishing there was something she could say to that. There wasn’t anything but “I’m sorry,” so she offered that, weak as it was.

“’S okay. She’s getting re-married in a week. I’ll be at the wedding.”

“That’s great. I mean, not the divorce. That part sucks, but it’s good you guys were able to stay friends.”

John pulled out his wallet and signaled for the waiter. She knew better than to try to pay for the meal. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t a date or that they lived in the 21st century, John was old fashioned in many ways. He believed in women working, if that’s what they wanted to do. He believed in women in politics and women in power. That much, she knew.

But he was firm on a few things. Men held doors for women, they didn’t sit if there was a woman who needed a seat, and men paid for meals.

She wasn’t above teasing him about it, though. “Still insist on paying and opening doors?”

He gave her that patented John Sevier grin. “Of course.”

She’d be lying if she said it didn’t feel really nice being the center of attention with him again. He’d always had a way of making her feel like she was the only person in the world when they were together. It would be too easy for her to forget that this was a “just friends” thing and start to wish for more.

He followed up with an offer of proof he wasn’t a chauvinist. “I’ll have you know I work for a female captain and have zero problems with that.”

The waiter swung by the table and took John’s card to process the bill.

“Oh yeah?” She couldn’t help pushing him. He was fun when he was playful, and she wanted to see more of that. “What’s that like?”

He laughed and shook his head at her. “No kidding. Our captain is a woman, and she’s great. Knows what she’s doing, paid her dues to get where she is, and she’s fair. I respect her.”

When they’d finished at the restaurant and headed out to John’s car, he squeezed her hand before opening the door for her. “I’m glad we did this,” he said. “It’s been good seeing you again, even if it wasn’t for the best of reasons.”

Ava’s eyes met his and for the smallest of moments, she thought she saw something there. Something of the same thing she’d been feeling as they walked side-by-side. That old heat that had always been so strong between them. The desire that hit her so hard when they were together so many years ago.

Then his eyes broke from hers, and she was slipping into the seat as he closed the door behind her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

John had wanted to kiss her.

So fucking bad, it made his hands burn with the need to reach out and pull her to him, to relive that feeling of being enveloped in her sweet scent the way he had in college. To feel that soft mouth give to his demand, let him part those lips and find her tongue, teasing and tasting her as she melted into him.

During their dinner, it had taken all he had not to focus on the soft curve of her mouth, the delicate spot on her neck he’d once known intimately. It was a spot he knew would elicit a moan if he blew on it. If he licked or nibbled at it, she’d practically purr in his arms.

The memory of what being with Ava was like had swamped his senses, drowning his sanity for a moment when he said goodnight to her, and he’d had to force himself to take a step back. Had to pin his hands at his side and force himself to stand down.

Even now, almost twenty-four hours later, he was thinking about the way she’d looked when she laughed at something he said. What her hand had felt like when he made the mistake of holding it.

The curb tripped John up, and he pitched forward.

Eric made a show of catching him before looking down at John’s feet. “You wanna change out of those stilettos before we do this?”

“Funny.”

“Thanks.” Eric kept moving, and John followed along.

“There once was a cop who liked heels,” Eric started, and John cringed. His partner liked limericks.

“But he probably should have stuck to wheels.”

John shot Eric a look. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

Eric ignored him. “For when he couldn’t walk, people would talk. They’d laugh, and he’d blush at their squeals.”

“Christ,” John muttered. Time to get his head in the game. They were at the hospital to interview the victim in the most recent jewelry store robbery. He needed to stop thinking about Ava.

Easier said than done. He’d thought of nothing but her in the past few days. Sometimes, he had focused on her body and what he wanted to do to her; other times, he’d been thinking how he hoped she was telling the truth when she said she was happy with where she was in life. And, of course, there was the fact he’d felt the need to tell her about Lucia’s upcoming wedding.

That little tidbit had slipped out, and John couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been trying to prove something to Ava. Like maybe he felt the need for her to know he wasn’t still hung up on Lucia.

He didn’t want to analyze why he needed to show Ava that.

He jammed a finger on the elevator button after he and Eric checked in at the front desk and got the room number for the victim.

When they entered the elevator, and the doors slid shut, Eric spoke. “You want to talk about it?”

John gave him a blank look.

“Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

John sighed. When Eric got it into his head that there was something they needed to talk about, he’d needle John until he gave in. He was like a potholder-knitting, rocking-chair-riding, teetotaling granny that way.

“What is it you think I need to talk about?”

“I think that’s something only you can answer.”

John turned to his partner, hands on hips. “You’ve been watching those psychology videos again, haven’t you?”

Eric shrugged. “Cops have mental health challenges. Sue me for wanting to get a jump on things.”

They reached their floor and stepped out, moving down the hall to the nurse’s station. John introduced himself to one of the nurses on duty and asked her to show them into the victim’s room.

“From what we’ve heard of his injuries and the severity of the assault, I’m guessing he’ll feel better seeing a nurse enter the room first,” John explained.

The nurse nodded and led the way, entering a room close to the desk they’d just come from.

“Mr. Woods? I’ve got the police officers we were expecting here with me. Do you feel up to talking?”

An older man with pasty white skin and bandages covering much of his face lay in the bed. There was no other evidence of injuries, but John knew from talking to the doctor that he had several cracked ribs.

He and Eric moved to stand over the bed so the man wouldn’t need to move his head to see them. John wasn’t even sure that was possible. He had needed surgery to repair broken bones in his face. The hemorrhaged blood in the whites of his eyes was only one of the things that would take time to heal.

“Mr. Woods, I’m Eric Cantu and this is my partner, John Sevier. We’re with the Major Crimes Unit of the Dark Falls PD.”

“You don’t look like a Cantu,” the man said, his words slightly slurred as though talking was an effort. John was surprised to see the tips of his lips tilt as if he might smile. He probably couldn’t do more than that, but even that much was a good sign. Their victim was a fighter.

Eric laughed. “I get that a lot.”

John hadn’t known it before he partnered with Eric, but apparently Cantu was often thought of as a Mexican name. Eric was Italian and his looks broadcast that fact loud and clear. He’d explained that, at one time, Cantu was a common Italian name but now it wasn’t associated as much with Italians. It was surprising how often people brought that up when Eric was introduced.

John started the interview, wanting—needing—to get the guys who did this off the street. The amount of violence done to the man in front of him was something no one should have to go through.

“Mr. Woods, we’d like to ask you some questions about what happened yesterday, if you’re up to that.”

He lifted his arm where an IV needle was attached to a vein in the back of his hand. “They’re giving me the happy juice, but I’ll try.”

John nodded. “We’ll try to make this quick. We’ve talked to your coworker, Jordan, and we’re going to be getting video footage of the robbery.”

“Jordan is okay.” Mr. Woods didn’t seem to be asking a question, more confirming something he’d already been told.

“He’s shaken,” Eric said, “but he wasn’t hurt physically.”

“He’s a good kid,” Mr. Woods said.

“Mr. Woods,” John started, wanting to get what they could from him while he was awake and functioning. “Did you recognize any of your attackers? Did anything about them seem familiar?”

He had a feeling they wouldn’t be able to question him for long, so John skipped having the witness tell them all he could remember. He wanted to lead this conversation to see if they could get anything useful before Woods hit a wall and needed to sleep.

“Covered. Masks.”

John had been hoping they might have seen the suspects in the shop in the days leading up to the attack.

“How about their voices? Did anything about them seem familiar to you?”

Mr. Woods began to shake his head, then stopped with a harsh wince, his skin going even grayer, a sharp response to what was obviously a very painful movement. “No.”

The nurse was hovering, and John knew there wasn’t anything more they would get from the man just then.

“We don’t want to wear you out, Mr. Woods. We’ll let you rest. If you think of anything you want us to know, you can have one of the nurses get in touch with us. We’ll make sure they have our contact information.”

He mumbled a response, but John could see his eyes already closing. The man had a long and painful recovery ahead of him. It wasn’t a road John would wish on anyone.

CHAPTER NINE

Ava walked into the back of the store to find her dad sitting next to Janna at her workbench. He didn’t often come into the store anymore, having retired from the business years back. For a year or so after her mom died, Ava worried he might go downhill fast. He didn’t get out as much and seemed to have lost interest in doing anything. Then he started going to a senior center in town a couple of times a week, and that seemed to help.

He still took the bus there three or more days a week to play cards and hang out with the men he called “his buddies.”

“Dad, what are you doing here?” She brushed a kiss to his cheek.

He tipped his head toward Janna. “Just visiting my girl, here. And I thought I’d just be around for closing.”

Ava pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to say more. He must have heard about the assault on the jewelry store employee in the latest robbery.

“Can you give me a hand out in the showroom with one of the displays? I could use your advice on the best way to highlight a few of the new bracelets Janna made.”

Her father nodded, most likely seeing through the ruse. So long as Janna didn’t see through it, they’d be okay. Janna was anxious enough about the world without knowing there was a threat that was hitting closer to home than usual.

He followed her out to the showroom where Carlyle, their only full-time employee, was cleaning some of the glass cases. It was close to closing time, and they likely wouldn’t have a lot of customers between now and then.

“Dad,” Ava said, turning away from Carlyle and speaking under her breath. “You know the robberies are targeting smaller stores? They likely won’t target a store with a guard present and an alarm system.”

“You sound like you know a lot about these robberies.”

She could feel her cheeks flush, though she didn’t know why.

“A friend of mine is on the police force. He came by to make sure we had a good security system in place.”

“He?” Her dad’s brows went up. There was a time in high school when he would have been all over any guy who wanted to date her. Right now, her dad didn’t have protection etched on his face. He looked hopeful. That said something about Ava’s love life, or lack thereof. Her own dad looked ready to push her on the first man she’d mentioned in God knew how long.

She raised her hand, palm out to put a stop to any ideas he was getting. “We’re old friends. Nothing more.”

“Why haven’t I heard of this old friend?”

Ava shrugged. “We dated in college.”

Her dad’s face clouded. He always regretted the fact she’d left college to come home after his heart attack. He had tried a number of times to get her to go back, telling her she needed to experience college instead taking care of an old man while she got her degree online.

She hadn’t agreed and the point was moot now. She was well past the age when she wanted to go back to college on campus.

“Are you dating now?”

She huffed out a laugh. “I thought the nothing more part covered that. We’re not dating. Just friends.”

She ignored the part of her that wished like hell that wasn’t true. John had made it clear he wouldn’t marry again.

Who says you need marriage?

The little voice in her head wasn’t necessarily wrong. Yes, she wanted marriage and a family of her own someday, but with the amount of time she put into the store and taking care of her dad and her sister, was that really realistic?

Would a man ever understand that she might need to drop everything to run and help Janna if her sister was having a bad night? Or that she might need to sleep up at the main house some nights? Or that she would never feel comfortable moving out of her small converted garage house because she couldn’t stand the idea of moving away from Janna and her dad?

She shook her head, clearing out the thoughts clinging there. “Anyway, John said they’re targeting small shops in lower end parts of town. We’re probably safe from this.”

Her dad nodded. “Just in case, I’m going to start spending time here toward closing time. We can tell Janna I’m getting lonely at the house.”

All the robberies had taken place at the end of the day. Ava would guess it had to do with having a full register, although that was a little silly when she thought about it. Most of their business was credit cards nowadays. Maybe they were hitting shops then because there were fewer customers to worry about.

She hugged her dad. “Okay, you sit with Janna, and I’ll help Carlyle close up out here.” She nodded to where one of their guards was standing by the door. “Marco will walk us all out when we’re ready to go.”

He went back to the workroom, leaving Ava to finish closing out the register and shutting things down for the night. It was too bad she couldn’t shut down the thoughts in her brain. She couldn’t stop thinking about John and whether he might be interested in something that was more than friendship but less than headed-toward-marriage. Because she suddenly very much wanted something less than headed-toward-marriage with him.

CHAPTER TEN

Corey shuffled to a stop next to Adam, wishing like hell he’d thought to bring a jacket. People always talked about Colorado being a dry cold, like that somehow made a dick’s worth of difference.

He didn’t get what the fuck they were talking about. The cold cut through his shirt, licking the heat from him. They’d been here a year, and he still hated the butt cold of Colorado.

The cold wasn’t slowing down the traffic in the Brewery, a two-block area that had once housed a large brewery for a local beer and was now a retail center and office space. The center of the space was a green park with splash pad and benches. Restaurants and shops drew people here almost every day of the week. It was something they’d counted on when they opened their business here. Unfortunately, it also meant the rent was sky-high and things weren’t panning out the way they’d thought they would.

“It’s fucking cold, Adam. Why the hell are we standing out here?” Corey kicked at the lamppost Adam leaned against. The fucking lampposts lined all the sidewalks around the Brewery, supposedly part of the charm that made the rent in the place so high.

“We should be hitting places like that,” Adam said, jerking his head in the direction of McNair Jewelers. It was one of the shops that had turned them down when they first came to the area, trying to drum up business. They’d thought for sure the retail owners in the area would use their services since they were renting an office in the complex.

The lady who owned the jewelry store had been real nice when they went in and gave her a proposal. Still, she’d said the store didn’t need their services.

He could see her now, through the glass, smiling at the woman who sometimes guarded the place. That was the trouble with stores like this. They had guards and cameras, panic alarms. All kinds of security.

A sickening dread filled his stomach as he pictured Adam slamming her into a glass case the way he had with the old man at their last job. Nausea swamped him. She was a nice lady. She didn’t deserve that.

Neither had the old guy. It wasn’t the first time Corey had thought that. He hadn’t been able to erase the images of that man’s head slamming into the glass and metal frame of the display case. The sound played in his ears again and again when he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He didn’t think he’d ever forget that sound. The look of shock when Adam grabbed him by the hair and began to beat him.

Corey shot a look around them, but no one seemed to have heard Adam. And if they thought it was odd that Adam was staring at the storefront like he might walk in and hold it up right then, they didn’t say anything. Still, Corey didn’t like the way the conversation was going, and it had only just started.

Lately, that feeling of spiders walking across the back of his neck hit him whenever he talked to Adam. He didn’t know what Adam was on, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good. And the guy showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. He’d gone past the occasional pot they all smoked and was dipping into something hardcore. He was on something more often than not nowadays. It was making him do stupid shit that was going to get them caught.

Corey wanted things to stay the way they were. He liked plans and rules. He liked knowing what was going to happen and when it would happen. They’d set up rules about what stores they would hit when they started this, and a shop like that one, right in their own backyard, sure as hell wasn’t it.

But that didn’t mean he wanted to stand up to Adam or have to choose who to side with if shit hit the fan.

He turned away from the shop, his head near Adam’s so no one would overhear them. “You know why we aren’t going after stores like that one. They have hidden cameras we might not spot right away to take out, alarms that actually work. That shit isn’t smart, Adam, and you know it. We need to be smart about this. Do what we set out to do. If we keep our heads down and stick with the plan, we’ll be done with this soon.”

He felt it when Adam spun on him, knocking into him as he walked away.

Corey followed, wanting to stay close so Adam wouldn’t start shouting God knows what across the crowded green. He hadn’t smelled pot on him or alcohol, but that didn’t mean Adam wasn’t on something.

“Adam, man, come on. Let’s go home.”

Adam turned on him again, this time coming toe-to-toe with Corey. His words were low and quiet, but the edge in them was unmistakable. “With the shit hauls we’re getting from these pissant places, we’ll never make enough money to keep our business going. We need to start thinking smart.”

They walked along the side of the old brewery building that now held a large restaurant and hotel. The sidewalk they were on led to a parking lot, but there wasn’t anyone on it at the moment.

Corey couldn’t help the half nervous laugh, half plea that came out of his mouth. He didn’t want to get into this with Adam. Why did he always laugh at times like this, when there wasn’t a damned thing to be laughing about? “Just, look, just…” he stopped in the middle of the alley and wrapped his right arm across his body, gripping his left shoulder. It was a move he’d made from the time he was a kid, any time his brothers lit into him. He dropped his arm, purposefully shaking off the defensive gesture. “Look, we just can’t do this, Adam. We have a plan. We need to stick with it.”

He looked back to where shoppers wandered as dogs and kids played on the lawn. “We’d be crazy to do something like the McNair place. It’s just crazy.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were wrong. Corey saw Adam’s jaw go tight at the word “crazy.” He raised his hands, trying to calm Adam, but Adam exploded. Spit gathered at the corner of his mouth as he came at Corey.

There were no words coming from Adam. Just guttural anger in the form of sounds that made up half words and sentences.

His fist crashed into Corey’s jaw, sending blinding pain searing up the side of his face, radiating out to his ear. Another blow landed on his shoulder and neck before Adam was gone. It was over in seconds, but it seemed longer as pain and a sickening nausea welled. It wasn’t so much that the punches had hurt—though they had—it was more that Corey knew what was coming. When Adam went off the rails like this, shit devolved quickly.

A few people on the green saw the altercation and shouted, headed for Corey, presumably to help him. He waved them off and took off, cutting through the parking lot in the opposite direction from Adam. He needed to warn Tommy and Josh that Adam was probably headed for them next, wanting to talk them into going after more high-end stores. Talk them into taking the kind of risks they shouldn’t be anywhere near.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Four days went by without any new developments in the jewelry store robberies. They were looking through the little video footage they had to see if they could spot anyone in the days leading up to the robberies who looked like they might have been casing the store.

So far, they had nothing.

John took out his phone, getting ready to text Ava. He’d been resisting all week, but he wanted to see her again. Wanted it a hell of a lot more than he wanted to admit.

Lucia had called twice. Damn, he needed to take a minute to call her. He was being an ass, but every time he started to make the call, he was pulled away to a case or distracted by something. He’d call at lunch.

He cleared the alerts about Lucia’s calls and texted Ava. Any chance you’re free for dinner again this weekend?

He waited, forcing himself to put down the phone and not watch for that little bubble that meant she was writing back.

Rhys walked past John’s cubicle and settled into his chair at his own desk diagonally across from John’s.

John didn’t stand up to talk to him. They rarely did. Calling out over the dividers was easier.

“You guys get called out?”

Rhys and Mason hadn’t been in when John and Eric arrived that morning. That could mean they were out chasing a lead on a case, or it could mean they’d caught a new case. They were up next on the lineup.

Rhys’s disembodied voice came over the wall. “No, took Zaragoza over to meet one of my informants.”

Zaragoza was new in Major Crimes, so all of the teams worked with her from time to time, even though she was officially partnered up with Nate Ryder. She was ambitious and sharp. Last John had heard, she spoke four languages. But she was also gorgeous, which could make her job tough. She was tall and lean with exotic looks and a striking appearance. Suspects liked to give her shit about her looks. She gave it right back to them, not taking any crap from anyone.

So far, John had a good feeling about her and how she’d do on the squad. She had worked in Vice for a short time before moving over to Major Crimes. That experience would help her, but sometimes detectives didn’t realize how hard Major Crimes could be. It wasn’t uncommon to be called out on a heinous crime that you knew would stick with you forever, and then not have a single clue to lead to an arrest. And even when they did catch someone, there were times when there was no reason for the crime, other than the suspect was just a shitty person with no concern for anyone but themselves.

It could get to you.

His phone pinged with a text.

Eric shot him a look. “I thought you broke up with Laura.”

John didn’t answer him. The truth was, he hadn’t thought about Laura at all since he saw Ava the other day.

Laura was the fourth woman he’d dated since he and Lucia broke up. With most of those relationships, he’d been content to let them keep going until they didn’t really work anymore. The problem was, that was happening faster and faster. He seemed to be getting to the point where he didn’t care much one way or the other whether the relationship kept going or not. After all, he wasn’t going to let anything lead to marriage.

He’d get to the point where the woman would call or text, and he’d just think, I don’t want to make the effort here. With Laura, that had happened in a matter of weeks, not months.

There was a time when maybe that would have been okay with him. That he would have said his job was enough, so why have anyone else in his life to muck shit up? He wasn’t so sure anymore. The problem was, he didn’t know how to fix that. He didn’t know how to make a relationship work for him.

So he ignored Eric and shoved thoughts of Laura and Lucia and all his exes to the back of his mind.

I’d love to, Ava wrote. I’m free Friday and Sunday. Does one of those nights work for you?

He typed back. Barring any changes, Friday looks good.

He felt the need to put a caveat in there. People outside the life always thought they understood things might need to be up in the air when they were dealing with a cop, but in reality, it could get tiring needing to have plans be tentative. Better to show her that right up front if they were going to renew their friendship. Or whatever the hell it was they were doing. He honestly didn’t know.

He’d figured out sometime in the last few days that staying away from Ava McNair might not be possible for him. He didn’t want marriage and he couldn’t offer her anything permanent, but Ava was gorgeous and the pull he’d felt toward her back in college hadn’t gone away.

When she dumped him in college, he’d been pretty devastated. Not that he had shown it. Hell, back then, he wouldn’t let anyone know his feelings.

When he asked Lucia out a month later, it had been because he was trying to get over Ava. Lucia had helped him with that, for sure. Looking back, he could see Lucia wasn’t the one for him, but he’d been so damned set on making it work with her after things fell apart with Ava, he’d overlooked a lot of things.

Like the fact when he and Lucia were together, they were usually having sex. He’d seen that as a good thing. Hell, what college guy wouldn’t? It never occurred to him that talking or laughing with someone was as important as what happened between the sheets. Or up against a wall. Or in the back of a car.

When they started trying for a baby, it never in a million years dawned on them that might not be possible. The strain of that effort, of trying everything from prayer to medical help to have a baby, was something their marriage wasn’t able to sustain.

She started dating another man right after the divorce, and John couldn’t help but wonder if they would make it where she and John had failed. There was always going to be some level of “what if” there for him. What if he’d tried harder? What if he was a different guy? What if he could have given her the baby she’d told him she needed for her to be happy.

The whole situation had left him sure of one thing. He couldn’t offer more than a fun time to any woman.

He almost laughed at the irony of it. He needed a relationship like the one he and Lucia had mistaken for love. Only this time, he wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking it was anything more than lust.

His phone pinged again, just as Eric walked into John’s cubicle and sat on the edge of the desk.

Great! If things change, just let me know.

John read Ava’s text and typed back a quick confirmation before shoving his phone in his back pocket.

Eric made a show of leaning over to look at the disappearing phone, as though he might be able to read it from where he sat. Zaragoza came up behind Eric on her way through the bullpen, and John couldn’t resist.

He lifted his foot from where it had been resting on his desk and nudged Eric, tipping the other man over so he lost his balance. Zaragoza’s grin said she was feeling more comfortable on the unit with the other detectives.

Eric laughed as he caught and righted himself. “I hope you’re making an appointment to have your panties straightened out. They’ve been in a damned twist something awful.”

John started to laugh but sobered when the radios that sat at either end of the room crackled to life. They were small black units that remained silent most of the time. They were only activated when an officer’s emergency radio button was pressed. When that button was hit, the officer’s voice would broadcast to all the dispatchers, no matter the region they covered, and to the Major Crimes unit where they now sat.

It was a uniformed officer’s lifeline if they were in trouble.

John and all of the other detectives stood and listened to the all-call. They would get the recording to analyze later. John went still and silent as he listened to the sound of the young man’s voice across the line.

“10-33.” The code meant the officer needed immediate assistance. The strangled sound in the man’s voice told them he was hurting. “Shots fired.”

There were shouts and arguing in the background and the sound of a gun being fired again. John leaned in, trying to hear more. Hoping for some sign that the second shot hadn’t ended the officer’s life.

He knew dispatch would be sending all available units in the area to back up the officer. They’d have an ambulance on the way. They’d be doing all they could to get to that officer and bring him in safely.

John looked up and met Eric’s sober gaze. God, he hated it when Eric was serious. It meant shit had gone to hell again.

Someone yelled, muffled and distant, “go, go, go!” in the background of the call.

They could hear the dispatcher, calm and collected. “Officer Hall, I’ve got backup and an ambulance en route. Can you tell me if you’re secure?”

Another voice came through the radio. A woman.

“Help, help! They shot this guy! They shot the cop. Can you hear me? I don’t know how to work the radio.” Her words were punctuated by sobs.

“Ma’am, I can hear you. The channel is open, so I can hear everything that’s happening. Can you tell me your name?”

“Vivian.”

“Vivian, did the shooter leave the premises? Are you safe?”

“Yes, they’re gone. They were fighting and they ran out.”

“I’ve got your location as Crane’s Jewelry at 501 East Riverside Parkway. Is that correct?”

“Yes. He’s bleeding badly. I—I think he’s unconscious.”

Another voice came on the line. “Vivian, this is Bob Hines. I’m with the paramedics. The dispatcher patched me in on the call with you. Can you tell me where the officer has been shot?”

“In his stomach.”

“Okay, Vivian, can you find something to apply pressure on that wound for me? A jacket or bandages if you have a first aid kit.”

There was noise in the background and they all waited. This was likely another hit by their jewelry store thieves, and this time an officer had been shot. John felt the weight of that and knew the detectives around him did, too. If they’d gotten these guys off the streets before this, this wouldn’t have happened.

“I’ve got it,” came the woman’s voice again. “I’ve got a coat and I’m pressing, but I don’t know how hard to press. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Just firm pressure is fine. You’re doing fine,” came Bob’s voice again. “My guys are at the end of the block. They’ve got officers with them who will clear the scene. Can you hear the sirens?”

The woman’s voice broke as she answered. “I hear them.”

The rest of the call was scuffles and the no-nonsense discussion between the EMTs that could be heard as they treated the patient.

Silent communication took place between the detectives. John, Eric, Rhys, and Mason left, headed toward the location of the call. The paramedics were fast. They would likely have the officer out of there and en route to the hospital before they arrived. The sooner they started questioning witnesses and processing the scene, the better. This case had just risen to top priority on all their desks.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Thirty-seven hours later, they had nothing more than they’d had before Officer Levi Hall was shot.

Officer Hall went through eight hours of surgery and was expected to recover, but that was something none of them wanted to see any officer suffer. The kid had only been on patrol for a year, and now he’d be taking time off to recover and, most likely, do the grueling work needed to get his head back in the game so he could get back out there. If he ever did.

Captain Scanlon looked at all of them as John, Eric, Rhys, and Mason stood before her. “Go home. Sleep, shower. Be back in four.”

None of them wanted to do it. They hated being told they had to do things like eat or sleep when they had people who were clearly willing to take out a cop on the streets.

“Cap, they went from three weeks between robberies to a matter of days. The violence is escalating. These guys aren’t going to take time off.” Eric spoke for all of them.

The captain gave him a look. “Cantu, you can bet your ass these guys have taken a nap between now and then. And even if they haven’t, I don’t want any of you out on the street without getting some down time. You’ll be a danger to yourselves and others if you try to take these assholes down without taking a break. I’ve got people running down evidence. The work won’t stop.”

Her tone said she wasn’t really debating the issue with him. That was the way she was. Captain Scanlon wouldn’t debate an issue when she knew she was right, but she respected her team enough to give them more than a because I said so answer.

They filed out, and Eric tossed John a look. “Pick me up a coffee on your way back in?”

John passed by their favorite coffee place on his way to work. “Yep. See you in four.”

Twenty minutes later, John stood on Ava’s front step, under the light of a single porch bulb. He knocked on the glass, quietly, telling himself he needed to replace her front door with a solid one. The glass windows in hers might look better, but they made it all too easy for someone to break the glass and unlock the door.

She needed a brighter front light, too. He looked around at the windows that were pretty low to the ground. She needed a lot of things to make this place secure. He’d come over here on the weekend when this was over and take care of some of it for her.

When she came to the door and looked through the glass at him, she was wrapped in a sweater with her hair a little mussed. Hell, it was almost eleven. What had he expected?

“John?” She looked past him when she opened the door, as though there might be some explanation for his presence behind him. “Is everything all right?”

He nodded and leaned closer. He wanted to wrap himself up in her, but he didn’t dare. The other thing on his list for when this case was over was to see if she might be interested in … well, hell, he didn’t know what. In a no-strings relationship, he guessed. Or was that just friends with benefits?

He didn’t know. But he would talk to her about something.

“Everything’s fine.” It wasn’t, not really. They had a cop in the hospital and no leads. The violence of these robberies was escalating and he had a feeling at least one of them was now motivated by thrill-seeking as much as money, or maybe more than money.

Thrill-seeking meant taking risks. That meant going after the kind of target that would present more risk. A target like Ava’s store.

“I can’t stay,” he said.

Ava reached out and put her hand on his chest. “I heard about the officer. Is he doing okay? They said on the news, he’s expected to recover.”

John nodded. It was harder than he thought it would be not to reach out to her. He’d only come to tell her in person he wouldn’t be making dinner the following night. Now, though, his arms itched to pull her into them.

He told his feet to step back. They moved closer.

“He’s going to be okay. I need to go home and shower and sleep for a couple hours. I just needed …”

He stopped.

She stepped toward him, both hands coming to his chest. “Yes?”

John leaned in and kissed her. Softly at first, in question. When she moaned, he let the question fall away and took the kiss to another level, hard and fast. His whole body committed to that kiss, giving in to the pleasure that raced through his senses at the feel of her.

She met him wholeheartedly, and damn, if it wasn’t the same as it was in college between them. There was something so different about the way she felt in his arms. No woman had felt this way before. Not even Lucia.

It took all he had in him to keep control and stop the kiss before it went too far.

He broke apart from her. All he managed was, “we need to talk before this goes further.”

She nodded, looking as shell-shocked as he felt.

“I need you to be careful. These guys are upping their game.”

She furrowed her brow. “What?”

“The robberies. The guys doing them are getting more violent and taking more risks. I know they haven’t been hitting stores like yours, but I need you to be careful. Think about closing early. You should consider locking the door during business hours and having anyone who wants to enter show ID.”

He saw her face fall. Damnit, he was an asshole. One minute, he was kissing her, probably making her think he wanted more than he could give her. The next, he was telling her how to keep her store safe.

“John, I can’t make my customers show ID to get in the door. And I can’t close early. We do a lot of business in the evening when people are strolling around the green.”

He wanted to shake her. Hell, he wanted to do a lot of things to her.

He rubbed his forehead instead. He knew the store was not just her livelihood, but her family’s, also.

“Promise me you’ll be careful? Maybe keep the front door locked, and have your guard unlock it as people approach? It’ll give the guard a few seconds to scan for anything suspicious, and your customers can feel like they’re getting golden glove treatment, or whatever.”

She laughed at him. “You mean white glove treatment.”

He scowled. “Whatever. I want you to be safe.”

“I want you to be safe, too,” she said, coming forward, putting her hand to his face this time.

John knew he was going to let this woman down. He’d probably already gotten her hopes up that there could be something real between them.

He put his hands to hers and pulled them away from his face. “Ava, I need you to know, I can’t…” he cursed under his breath. “This can’t be more than sex between us. It can’t go anywhere other than that.”

She shocked the shit out of him when she grinned and nodded, her eyes sparkling like he’d just told her something fantastic. “I know. Isn’t it great?”

He did one of those comical double takes. “It is?”

If his chest tightened a little at that, he didn’t acknowledge it.

Her amusement was clear. “Yes.” She looked around, as though she thought her dad or sister might be listening in, and lowered her voice. “We were always great in bed together. I don’t have time or room in my life for a real relationship. You don’t want to get married again. It’s perfect.”

John nodded.

Why the hell did it sound like the exact opposite of what he wanted when it was coming from her mouth?

She came up and pressed her lips to his again, just a brief kiss.

She stepped back, gone before he could wrap his arms around her and pull her in for something more. For something that might start to get at what he needed from this woman.

“Go and rest. I can see you need it. And be safe out there. Let me know when this is over, okay?”

“Yeah,” John said, taking a step back. Yeah, he thought. Over. He needed to close this case so he could come back to her.

He watched to be sure she slid the deadbolt in place before he walked away.

He had one more cause to add to the long list of reasons these guys needed to be stopped, fast.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

When he handed Eric his coffee, John felt only marginally better. He’d showered—a cold one designed to knock the Ava from his brain—and slept for all of an hour and a half before he had to head back in to the precinct.

He felt the vibration of his phone in his pocket and pulled it out. Lucia’s name showed on the screen. He hit the side button to lock the screen and slid the phone back into his pocket. It wasn’t that he minded talking to Lucia. They were on speaking terms.

He just needed to wait until his mind wasn’t so crowded with the case he was working so he could focus.

“Everyone else make it back?” John looked around the room.

Eric nodded. “Rhys and Mason are on their way up. Nate and Zaragoza caught a homicide. Guy was mugged and left in an alley. No witnesses or video, so they’ll get crime scene on it and then come back to get into this with us, if they can.”

They spent the next hour poring over tips that had come in on the precinct tip line. There wasn’t anything that looked like it would lead to more than a waste of time, but they had to chase the threads to be sure.

John looked up from his desk when Erica Cross, one of their technicians in the city’s somewhat small crime lab entered. She was a short African-American woman and not someone you’d notice on the street, but she was sharp as hell. Most people figured that out within a few minutes of talking to her. She followed every rule by the book and often worked miracles with the limited budget they had for the city’s lab.

Rhys was the first to speak. “What have you got, Erica?”

Eric, John, Rhys and Mason all stood, watching Erica as she stopped in the walkway between the cubicles.

“The hair’s not real.” She held up photos with evidence labels on them—blown up shots of the hair samples they’d found at the latest two jewelry store scenes.

“Hair that’s been dyed these bright punk colors can look pretty fake. I think the tech that collected this at the scene probably didn’t think anything of it, but I put it under the scope and it’s synthetic. A cheap wig.”

“Anything we can trace?” John asked. Not that he expected the answer to be yes, but sometimes you had to ask the question, even when you knew the answer.

“Nope. You can get it at any costume store, a lot of the big chain stores, a hundred stores online—”

“I get it,” John said, putting a hand up to stop her.

“Anything else?” Rhys asked.

Erica shook her head. “We’re going through the footage from the scene. Nothing we didn’t know. Officer Hall went in and was shot immediately. Like the witness said, the suspects started fighting right away. The one who shot Hall aimed the gun to fire another shot, but one of the other perps shoved him away and the shot misfired. We’ve got that bullet and the casing, but so far nothing is turning up in any of the databases.”

So their firearm wasn’t used in any crimes other than this one. At least no other crimes in a jurisdiction that would enter the information into one of the databases they relied on. Or it had been used, but the information wasn’t entered into the system yet.

They’d been told by the witness that the suspects began to argue as soon as the one had shot Officer Hall. They’d left, still shouting at each other, one guy practically dragging the shooter out the door.

Erica left, and the four detectives looked at each other. They went to the conference room and took seats, knowing without needing to say anything that they needed to pore through the evidence again.

John ran his hands down his face. “All right, we know these guys are covering anywhere that might have tattoos or piercings. They have fake dyed hair sticking out of their masks. We’ve been assuming they’re goths or punks or whatever because of their clothes and the hair color, but what if that’s all fake?”

Rhys nodded. “It ups the organization level of these guys a little. I mean, they not only covered everything, they purposefully left fake clues, they’re only hitting stores that won’t have a guard and that are less likely to have high-quality or hidden security cameras.”

“I feel like we just found out Santa’s not real,” Eric said.

Connie entered the room, carrying a tray of sandwiches. “Got food. I saw Erica in the hallway. She told me about the hairs.”

The young officer set down the tray and grabbed a sandwich for himself, then looked up like maybe he’d done something wrong by assuming he was staying.

Eric laughed and slid a chair closer to him. “Sit.”

Connie gave a nod and sat, looking around the table. John remembered when he’d been like that. Glad for any time he was able to spend in Major Crimes. He still loved his job a lot of the time, but cases like this got to him. The ones they couldn’t close stayed with him. That feeling when you weren’t able to get justice for a victim never went away. It ate at you day in and day out.

This was fast looking like it might be one of those cases, and the fact it involved a cop getting shot meant not closing it would burn even more.

Eric gestured to Connie. “You know Officer Hall?”

Connie’s face fell, and he nodded. “Our shifts overlap a few days a week, so I see him coming and going in the locker room sometimes. He spotted me at the gym a couple of times, too. He’s a good guy. Has a couple of cute kids he’s always bragging on.”

They all nodded as they ate. No one said anything, but they didn’t need to. It was unspoken that they’d move heaven and hell to get justice for Hall. When a victim was a cop, everything cranked up a level. Knowing it was a cop with kids, a young guy just on the force, really sucked. There were no more eloquent words for it. It just plain sucked.

Gerald Osborn entered. “I smell food.”

Eric pushed the sandwiches toward the end of the table where Gerald stood. “You have to work for it.”

Gerald nodded and sat as he grabbed one of the hot sandwiches from the deli around the corner.

“I heard we have fake hair.” Gerald’s words were spoken around a mouthful of food.

“Is there anyone Erica didn’t tell?” Eric wondered.

John snorted. “As far as she’s concerned, she just gave us our first lead in a week.”

“Not far from the truth,” Rhys said.

John couldn’t argue with that.

Zaragoza poked her head into the room. “Hey guys, Nate wanted me to see if you need anything. He’s going through missing persons reports for our victim in the alley. Said I should see what you need.”

With a body found in an alley, it takes time just to make an ID, and there often aren’t a whole lot of friends and family to interview. It was the nature of the thing. People who lived on the streets without a permanent address turned up in alleys. It didn’t mean they didn’t deserve just as much attention from the Major Crimes division to get justice for them, but it meant they often didn’t have leads to run down right away.

“Heard it was a mugging gone wrong?”

Zaragoza nodded, and John could tell she was thinking. She was the type of person who thought before she spoke. It would serve her well in their job.

“Young guy, wallet was there but cards and license and money are gone. Doesn’t look like he had any reason to be in the alley other than a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. No track marks or anything. Doesn’t have the look of a coke head. He was in nice clothes. Maybe we’ll find out different, but I bet he was cutting through on the way to a bar or something, and someone jumped him. He fought back and got a bullet for his trouble.”

“Here,” he said, pushing a sandwich her way. “Eat while you can. This is your first homicide, right?”

She took the sandwich and sat in an empty chair next to him, unwrapping the waxed paper that surrounded it.

“Don’t rush anything,” John said, “and stay focused on the victim. Remember that you’re doing all this for him, for his justice, not for yourself or your career or any of that.”

She nodded, listening as she chewed. Officers who moved up from patrol already knew one of the most important lessons in policing; eat while you can, when you can.

“Keep in touch with your ADA about the case and don’t be afraid to reach out and ask them if you have questions about your case or your evidence. Assistant district attorneys are there to help you out. They want a case to stick, so don’t be afraid to use them. Nate’s got good experience though too, so he’ll help you through this.”

She was nodding again when the conference room door opened, and Nate stuck his head in. “Marisol, we’ve got a missing persons filed on a guy matching our description.”

Zaragoza shoved the last bite of her sandwich in her mouth and balled up the wrapper, tossing it in the can.

John was envious. Getting an ID on their victim so quickly was a great break in their case. He’d kill for a break in the jewelry store case right now.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Shouldn’t we be skipping the dinner out now that we—” Ava leaned across the table and whispered— “you know, decided?”

John leaned in and mimicked her whisper. “Decided what?”

“To, you know.”

A lazy smile took over his face. “I do know, but I want to hear you say it.”

Ava leaned back and laughed, picking up a sugar packet and tossing it at him.

She liked the way he scowled at her as he caught it and tossed it on the table. She didn’t know if he realized just how sexy he was. Probably.

“Just because I know you’re a sure thing now doesn’t mean I don’t want to take you to dinner,” John said, and Ava would be lying if she said part of her didn’t want to skip dinner. She wanted to run home with him and strip his clothes off and get to the “you know” part now.

But she also kind of did a melty thing at the idea that he wanted to spend time with her outside of bed. Not that getting all melty with John was a good thing. She needed to keep reminding herself that this was supposed to be physical only. Her feelings weren’t supposed to be getting involved here.

They were at a more casual place than the last time they’d eaten out together. Instead of Italian, they were doing Falafel pita wraps. John’s name was called and he went up to the counter to pick up their order. When he came back, he sat next to her in their booth, instead of across from her, passing her order to her.

“I haven’t seen anything in the news about any more jewelry stores. I’m on a mailing list with a bunch of other shop owners, though, and everyone is nervous at this point. Some of the stores that haven’t had a guard in the past are hiring temporary guards and others are putting in better alarms.”

“That’s good,” John said when he’d swallowed his bite. “You guys are still being careful?”

“Yes. Still walking out together at the end of the day, and we’ve got the front and back doors locked. We’re doing what you said, having the guard unlock the door as they see customers approaching instead of leaving it unlocked all the time.”

“The robberies have stopped for now, at least.”

“The last one was the one where Officer Hall was shot?” Ava asked.

John confirmed with a nod. “I have a feeling they know we’ll be on them now with all we’ve got. When an officer is shot, it changes things.”

She could see the tension in his body and knew he was upset they hadn’t made an arrest yet. She rubbed his shoulder with one hand as she ate her food.

He leaned into it and grumbled, making her laugh. He’d done the same thing in college when she would straddle him, settling in on his ass so she could massage his muscles. She smiled now, thinking maybe she’d give him a back rub later tonight. She didn’t know if he’d be spending the night, but maybe …

She couldn’t stop herself from remembering what his body looked like. Even back in school, he’d been muscled and hard all over. She loved running her hands over the smooth taut skin and feeling the sheer strength of him beneath them.

He felt like he’d doubled in size, broader across the shoulders and chest than he had been back then. Her mouth watered at the thought that she’d get to explore him soon.

Ava looked at her wrap. She’d taken all of two bites, but she wasn’t as hungry as she’d been a few minutes ago. At least, not for anything on her plate.

“John,” she whispered, resting her chin on his shoulder. It felt good.

His smile was lazy and slow as he turned his head to look at her. “What can I do for you, Av?” he asked, shortening her name like he had in college and lowering his voice to a tone that said he knew damned good and well what he could do for her. His eyes seemed to darken as he looked at her and she bit her lip.

“Take me home,” she whispered.

He had them out of there and in her living room inside half an hour. The drive had been torture. John had kept one hand on her leg the whole time. The simple stroke of his hand up and down her leg shouldn’t have been as erotic as it was. But, damn, the contact of flesh against flesh, the way his hand gradually went higher and higher on her thigh had taunted and teased in the best of ways.

John was just as she remembered, only more so. He was overwhelming, his powerful body hummed a constant thrum of arousal to hers as he stripped her down. She forgot to feel self-conscious at the fact she’d aged and wasn’t as thin as she once was.

There wasn’t room for any of that. There was only him. His mouth on her skin, heated breath on her neck, her shoulder, her breast as soon as he’d gotten it bared to him. Her breath seemed to come in pants as he worked his way over her skin, moving south.

Ava looked down at John as he knelt before her, the sinew and muscle of his shoulders broad and tantalizing before her. He sucked on her nipple, making her gasp as his hands held her hips in place, kept her locked in his arms.

“You always were good at that,” she sighed, her whole body feeling the tingle and spreading heat of his actions. “Always so good with your mouth.” She wrapped her arms around his head, then let them fall to his shoulders, reveling in the warm, smooth skin.

“It’s what I’m good for,” he said, his mouth moving to the other breast.

Ava stiffened. “Good at. It’s what you’re good at, you mean.”

John growled and ignored her words, but Ava tried to pull his head up to look at her. Something about the way he’d said those words—what he was good for—struck her and stopped her cold. She wanted to know what he meant.

He didn’t let her pull him away from his focus, though. He nipped her stomach playfully then worked his way down her body, and she was lost. Her breath came faster as he stood and lifted her, bringing her into the bedroom.

He swore as he laid her on the bed and moved over her. It was no surprise when she felt his erection against her as he settled next to her and ran his hands over her body. He was as ready for this as she was.

Lord, she’d missed this man. She didn’t want to admit how much she’d missed him, but she had. No man had made her feel the way he did. Every part of her thrummed with arousal and the sweet tantalizing anticipation of what was to come. She wriggled, trying to get closer to him.

A deep laugh came from him as he ran a hand down her arm and used it to pin her to the bed beneath him. He pinned her lower half with his leg, heavy and strong on top of hers. “Always so impatient, Ava.”

“John,” she panted, “I need.”

“I know.” His torture was thorough and relentless and unyielding as he used his mouth and hands on her, then.

And it was perfect. Exquisite release came as an orgasm swept through her. It was only then that he put on a condom and entered her. And with that, the spiral that had built in her before began again, and she was begging and crying out his name when he came inside her, pulling her with him in another deliciously sensuous finish.

She collapsed against him, his arms warm and hard as they wrapped around her. She was drowsy, deep in the pleasurable coma that came after incredible sex. Still, she remembered his words from earlier.

She spoke into his chest as he held her against him. “So good at that, John. You’re so good at that, but you’re also good for so much more.”

He didn’t answer, and she felt his breathing steady and slow into the deep rhythm of sleep.

He was good for so much more.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

John was awake long before the phone rang. He’d slept for a couple of hours, wrapped around Ava’s long limbs. It was the kind of sleep he’d been needing—deep and dreamless. But soon his body had woken him, stirring and wanting more of her. It had always been like that with Ava. In college, when they’d been together, the sex was so much more than it had been with other women.

And right now, he not only wanted her, he wanted to be with her. He wanted to go back in time and have a chance at a real life with her. A chance to wake up with her again and again. To put the smile on her face she’d given him at dinnertime before she invited him home.

And the kind of smile she gave him when she thought something was ironic. And the kind of smile she gave him when she had thought of a funny joke or memory. And the one where she talked about her father and sister. He wanted all of that.

He amputated that thought line, carving it out of his mind before it could take hold. It wasn’t a place he could go. Wanting like that wasn’t a good idea for a man like him.

He had just moved on to thinking about waking Ava with his mouth and focusing on the things a man like him could have in his life, when the phone rang.

Ava looked up at him with sleepy eyes, and he couldn’t honestly say he regretted the night in any way. She was warm and soft curled against him. Damn, that softness was doing all kinds of things to make him hard. She ran her hand over his chest and he went rock hard, giving serious thought to ignoring the phone in favor of Ava.

He wanted to bury himself in her, knowing he would find such ecstasy there. Nothing but pleasure, intense and aching and sweet as hell. Christ, he wanted inside her.

“Shouldn’t you get that?” The laughter in her voice said she knew damned well what he was thinking.

He growled a response as he leaned over her and lifted the cell, swiping it to answer before he placed it to his ear. As soon as he had it situated between his ear and shoulder, he ran a hand up Ava’s body, from the gentle curve of her thigh to her waist. He let his hand settle there, working his thumb in a circle, drawing a wriggle from her.

“Sevier,” he said, knowing full well he was likely going to have to leave any minute. A phone call in the middle of the night meant he was being called to a scene.

He listened for a few seconds before rolling off the bed with a curse. He couldn’t delay on this one no matter how tempting Ava was. Their jewelry store robberies had started up again. And this time, there were no survivors.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

John studied the body on the floor. It was the kind of scene that would turn the stomach of new officers on the force, and he could see the uniform who had secured it was struggling.

He couldn’t blame him. Blood spatter made a stark frame to the flesh and teeth dotting the floor around the man’s head.

“Let me ask you something—” Eric shifted his position, turning to face the victim’s feet which were splayed out on the floor like a rag doll tossed aside by an angry child. “—why didn’t his buddies hold him back this time?” Eric asked.

John had been thinking the same thing. The older man had been beaten to death, likely with the perp’s bare hands. He lay, battered beyond recognition, in the back hallway of the jewelry store.

They’d been told another body had been found, that of a younger woman, shot to death in the store’s office. She got off easy.

“And why do I feel like we’re going to need a psych eval on this guy when we find him?” Eric mused.

John was silent. He didn’t mind that Eric liked to fill the silence, but John wasn’t up for it right now. He was picturing Ava or her sister on the floor instead of the victim.

Still, Eric’s initial point was valid. “You’re right. They either didn’t or couldn’t stop him.”

“I don’t think his buddies were with him this time.”

John turned toward the voice to find a smaller black man with scarring on the left side of his face coming from further inside the store. As one of five death investigators in the city’s department, Demetrius Johnson came to the scene when there was a dead body. The death investigators took photographs, documented the scene, and would let the medical examiner know if they recommended an autopsy on a particular case.

It was well known around the department that Demetrius was working his way through night school to get a degree. John had a feeling the guy would end up as a medical examiner one day. Maybe even Chief Medical Examiner. He was hungry and dedicated, the kind of guy they wanted on cases.

Demetrius had come from the direction of the office.

“What makes you say that?” John asked.

Demetrius pointed to the floor around the victim. “Shoes. Only one set of shoe prints in the blood. Same in the office.” He gestured with a pen at the heel of one of the cleaner imprints. “Distinct mark here tells me they're the same shoe. But the marks are your jurisdiction, not mine. Get your techs on that. We'll match it if you bring us a shoe."

Eric grunted. Sure. Get the shoe.

The death investigators didn’t normally analyze crime scene evidence like that, but Demetrius was good, and Eric and John didn’t mind input. Demetrius knew which detectives he could offer his two cents to and which to keep quiet around.

“That,” he grinned as he stood, “and Rhys already got an emergency phone warrant from a judge and dumped the security video. This was one guy.”

Rhys walked in as he was speaking and nodded his agreement. “One guy. Dressed exactly the same as the other robberies, so he’s either a really good copycat who’s spot-on in his imitation, or our guy’s on his own now.”

John looked down at the corpse, still seeing Ava instead of the man who truly lay there. Fear and anger warred. “On his own, with nothing and no one to hold him back now.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

John slowed his steps as he and Eric walked through the parking lot of the police precinct. It only took Eric a minute to see what John had spotted. Lucia was getting out of her car and waving at John.

Shit. If she’d come here, she really needed to talk to him. And he was a first-class asshole for not calling her back.

“Meet you inside,” John said, giving Eric a nod in response to his partner’s questioning look. No, he didn’t need backup to talk to his ex-wife.

John changed direction, heading for Lucia. She stood behind her car door, half in and half out of the car.

He gave a small wave and a smile, starting to prepare his “I’m a dick” speech, when he saw it.

John froze. He might need backup after all.

He stood stock still, staring at his ex-wife’s stomach. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel the sting of tears behind his eyes.

“I’ve been trying to reach you. I didn’t want you to find out at the wedding.” Lucia laid a hand on her stomach. She had to be six or seven months along. Well into the safety zone for most pregnancies.

Probably safe, even for her. All of their miscarriages had happened before the twenty-week mark.

John didn’t have words.

The silence hung between them for a long time before he broke it and walked forward, pulling her into a hug.

“Jesus, Lucia. God, this is amazing. It’s great.” He meant it. He wanted this for her, even as the ache of what this meant hit him.

When they weren’t able to conceive, the doctor had said there was no reason for it. Unspecified infertility they called it.

But if she was standing here pregnant before him …

She took his hands. “Can we talk?”

She tilted her head toward the car.

John nodded. “Yeah, sorry. Uh, sure.”

When they were settled in the car, she looked over at him, taking his hand again. The ache of the failure of their marriage hit him again. He was past the heartache of lost love, but somehow that sense of failing her loomed.

She rubbed his hand with her thumb, a gesture he’d grown accustomed to during their marriage. It was how she soothed. She wanted to soothe the hurt now.

“I need to tell you something, John.” She seemed to rush the words. “Carlos and I saw a new doctor, and this one took the time to explain some things to me.”

He didn’t know why she was telling him this. He knew Carlos had the kind of money that meant he could take her to as many fertility doctors as they needed. John, on the other hand, had had to scrimp and save for the in vitro rounds they’d done. And for the last of them, he’d had to borrow the money from his dad.

“John, you need to listen to me.”

He focused on her again. He owed her that much, no matter how much he didn’t want to hear this.

“This doctor explained some things our other doctor never did. Did you know that a diagnosis of unexplained infertility is a good thing?”

John reared back like he’d been kicked in the gut. How could she possibly be saying what they’d gone through was a good thing?

She put her hand up. “I don’t mean it like that. But what that means is that they never found anything wrong with either of us. None of the doctors we saw ever really explained it that way. They always said they couldn’t pinpoint a cause.”

John let out a slow breath as she kept talking.

“The doctor Carlos and I are seeing said she would have kept working with us, kept trying things to support fertility. She was so angry when I said the clinic you and I were working with told us they couldn’t help us anymore.”

John put the heels of his hands over his eyes and pressed, holding the steady pressure on them as he tried to process what she was saying.

“John,” Lucia pulled one hand away from his face. “She’s saying it’s very possible there isn’t anything wrong with either you or me. It’s possible you could have kids someday, just like Carlos and I.”

John didn’t know how he felt about that. He felt like he’d been hit square in the chest with a sledgehammer. He was happy for Lucia and Carlos. Lucia would make a wonderful mother.

His thoughts strayed to Ava, and he felt a small flare of hope that he could give her a future. That he could share a future with her. He doused it quickly. It didn’t matter what Lucia’s doctor said. He had failed Lucia. He had failed them both. When she’d wanted to keep trying to have a baby, he had begged her to stop. He hadn’t been able to go through it anymore.

When that didn’t work, he’d ordered her to stop. Said he wouldn’t be a part of trying anymore. He’d actually stopped sleeping in their bed. He wouldn’t make love to her. He’d turned her away, even when he heard her crying in their bedroom as he slept on the couch. A husband like that doesn’t need to be trying over with another woman anytime soon. Bad enough he’d put one woman through that hell.

John reached for the door handle, afraid if he sat there any longer, he’d break. He’d never been very good at talking about his feelings, and he sure as hell didn’t know how to put what he was feeling into words.

“I have to run, Luce.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, ignoring the worried look on her face as she watched him.

“I’ll see you at the wedding?”

John grinned, putting the small bit of acting ability he had in him into the gesture. “Absolutely. I’ll be there.”

“You can bring her,” she said, as he stepped from the car.

“What?” John asked, leaning back in.

“The woman. Whoever it was that you thought of when I mentioned a baby. Bring her with you. I want to meet her.”

John started to argue, but she waved him off.

“Women know these things, John. I saw the look in your eye. Your head went to someone important. I hope things work for you and her. If anyone deserves to be happy, John, you do.”

His head was still wrestling with those words as she drove away.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“All good?” Eric said under his breath as John slid into a seat in the conference room next to him.

John gave a jerk of his head, but he was anything but. He’d stood for a solid two minutes in the parking lot after Lucia drove away. He’d only moved when one of the uniforms had honked at him for standing in the middle of a parking spot.

“Where are we with the evidence?” he asked.

They were all planning to sit down with the evidence collected at the scene of what now had to be termed a murder more than a jewelry robbery. They were waiting on an inventory from the store owner’s wife, but John would be willing to bet there wouldn’t be much jewelry missing. He had a feeling their lone guy was now in this for the thrill more than the money.

The others had probably been chased off when Officer Hall was shot. They were likely smart enough to know the whole department was gunning for them after shooting a cop.

Eric tipped his head to the table where a sheaf of papers waited. “Not much back yet. The uniforms canvassing the area for witnesses turned in their reports. Most of the employees at neighboring shops had gone home. The guy who runs the liquor store halfway up the row in the shopping center said he didn’t see or hear anything.”

Mason leaned toward them and spoke to John. “Erica is looking over the footage from the store to see if she can post anything, but so far, the guy is wearing the same mask and wig we’ve seen in the past. Clothing looks the same, too. She did say the prints they lifted show a distinctive wear pattern in the left heel, so she can match them to any boots we pull in for a sample.”

“Cool,” John said. “Let’s just go start collecting boots off the street.”

No one bothered to answer him.

The phone on the wall rang, and Rhys leaned over to lift the receiver. He gave the rest of them a brows-up look at something he was hearing on the other line.

When he hung up, he turned to them. “We’ve got a guy just walked in off the streets confessing to the robberies and to being the one who pulled the trigger on Officer Hall.”

The room went still.

John was the one who broke it. “KMI?”

He didn’t have to explain to anyone—even Connie—what he meant. You learned that one early on the streets as a uniform. KMI meant Known Mentally Ill, a term they used for someone who was known to the police department to be suffering from any of a variety of mental illnesses.

“Not as far as they know.” Rhys pulled one of the laptops they kept in this room over and punched the keys.

He read the screen for a few minutes before turning it their way.

A man in his forties looked back at them. He had jet black hair and eyes to match. His skin was pale, and he had a scar over one eye.

Rhys summarized the information on the rap sheet. “Guy’s name is Trenton Doyle. A few arrests for shoplifting when he was a kid, then a third-degree assault that got him eighteen months.”

John frowned. “Why eighteen months?” A third-degree assault charge could land a person in jail for six to eighteen months.

Connie had been reading the laptop and was the one to answer. “He assaulted a police officer. Argument at a bar, cops arrived, and the guy ended up assaulting one of them instead of the guy he had a beef with.”

“How long ago was that?” Eric asked.

“Ten years. Clean since then,” Connie answered.

“Or not caught,” Gerald said.

They all knew that was possible. Of course, he also could have been clean that whole time. The shoplifting arrests as a minor weren’t unheard of. The guy really only had that one arrest as an adult. Though, assaulting an officer wasn’t a minor thing. And it showed he was willing to harm an officer. It wasn’t a far leap to shooting one.

“Rhys, you and Mason take the interview?” John asked. He and Eric could jump in if they needed to change tactics. They often did that during an interrogation. It didn’t matter that the guy was confessing.

They would need him to lay out all of the details of the shooting. Just because someone was willing to confess didn’t mean they wouldn’t play games during the interview. There were three other people out there responsible for these crimes. Yes, they wanted the guy who pulled the trigger, but they also wanted to get those others, if they could.

Rhys and Mason nodded and left the room. The interrogation rooms were down the hall. They had observation rooms next to them, but on a case like this where they had so many detectives on it, they would watch from the video feed in the conference room. Rhys and Mason would have a uniformed officer outside the interrogation room and one in the observation room as backup if they needed it.

They all watched the screen as Rhys and Mason entered the small room where Trenton Doyle had been placed. The thin man sat with shoulders hunched, seeming to close in on himself as the detectives entered.

“Hi Trenton,” Rhys started, as though he was the guy’s best friend. The uniformed officer followed them into the room, but that was all part of the setup.

Rhys turned to the officer. “You can hang outside, man. We aren’t going to need you.” He turned to Trenton. “We don’t need him in here, do we? We aren’t going to have any trouble with you, are we? I mean you came in here on your own, right?”

Rhys was purposefully trying to get Trenton to say yes to him.

Trenton’s eyes went big and round. “No, of course not, I mean … no.”

Rhys gave the uniformed officer a pat on the shoulder. “Sorry, buddy. You’re sitting this one out.”

He’d just established that he was on Trenton’s side.

When the officer left the room and shut the door, Rhys and Mason sat across from Trenton.

“I’m Detective Evans and this is my partner, Detective England.”

Trenton nodded, but remained mute. He’d gone even paler, if that was possible, like he was beginning to regret walking into the precinct to confess.

John studied him as they all watched Rhys continue to explain to Trenton that they would be recording their conversation. They didn’t need to Mirandize him because they hadn’t placed him in custody. He’d walked in of his own accord and could walk out anytime. Of course, if he did that, they’d get someone watching him and start to dig so damned deep into his life, they’d know if he had smear stains on his tightie whities by the time they were done with him.

“Something’s wrong,” John said, leaning forward.

“You’re right,” Gerald agreed, arms crossed over his chest.

“What do you mean?” Connie asked.

Gerald explained what John was thinking as John stood and went closer to the monitor.

“There’s no way this is our shooter,” Gerald said. “Our witness said the shooter was confident, cocky. He was clearly running the show with his buddies. When they stood up to him after he shot Hall, he fought back. He shot at Hall a second time and the only reason he missed was because his buddy shoved him.”

Gerald stabbed a finger toward the screen. “This guy isn’t leader material. There’s nothing cocky about him.”

John turned and looked over his shoulder at them, adding to what Gerald was saying. “If this guy’s friends fought him on something, he’d back right down.”

“Could it be one of the other guys in the group coming in to confess for the leader? Maybe the real shooter forced him to confess, somehow?” Connie suggested.

Gerald nodded, pointing at Connie. “You’re thinking. That’s good. Rhys will see how much this guy knows about this.”

The phone on the wall rang again, and John reached for it.

“You got Sevier,” he said, knowing it would be the desk sergeant calling. The phone was only used for the desk sergeant or for someone in the evidence lab to reach them, and the rings were different to show where the call was coming from.

Anyone else wanting to reach them would have called one of their cell phones.

“Hey John,” the desk sergeant said. “You got a guy coming up with an escort. Says he’s Trenton Doyle’s brother.”

“Thanks.” The word barely left his mouth before he hung up. He was moving toward the door as he filled in the others. “Doyle’s brother is on his way up.”

John and Eric headed to the hallway.

“Think the brother is the leader?” Eric asked.

“Possible.”

They stopped and waited in front of the elevator. They could hear shouting from within before the elevator doors opened.

The scene in front of them wasn’t a good one.

John barely had time to register that the brother was yelling something about them having no right to talk to Trenton. The patrol officer escorting the brother looked too damned young to be in a uniform, and his posture said he was anything but in control in that elevator.

The man shared similar coloring with Trenton, but the resemblance seemed to end there. He was bulky where Trenton was thin. He was also confident, cocky, and in your face. A lot like the bank robber they’d seen on video who shot Officer Hall.

Within seconds, shit slid sideways, and John was looking at a fight in the elevator. He didn’t know if Trenton’s brother was going for the rookie’s weapon or just what the guy’s end game was, but he jumped into the fight without hesitation.

There was a shout behind him, and Eric was there, as well as Connie.

He wrestled with the large man, not sure where his hands had gone, but knowing if they didn’t get him secured quickly, the fight could end with one or more of them dead. John braced himself on the side of the elevator and shoved the brother, forcing him off the officer beneath him. Eric was there, grabbing one of the guy’s arms as John went for the other, but the man was strong, and he flipped, now lashing out at all of them, seemingly without any purpose other than to make it out that elevator and to his brother.

In the melee, as they fought to secure Trenton Doyle’s brother, John felt shooting electric pain up his left wrist when someone landed on him as he pinned the brother to the floor of the elevator. He grunted and grit his teeth. He didn’t know if the uniformed cop had gotten out of the way with his weapon still in his holster or not. He didn’t know what they’d be facing if this man made it up and out the door.

They used Level 4 holsters, so the chances were good that this guy hadn’t known that he’d need to unsnap the holster and press a small latch that would release the weapon from the leather sheath, but John wasn’t taking a chance on it. Eric was there, beside John, pinning the asshole to the floor with him.

“You see his hands?” John asked. “Anyone got his hands?”

“I got ‘em.” Eric shifted, and John could see that he had the brother’s empty hands together behind his back. Gerald came in and handcuffed them, helping to lift the still-cursing man off the elevator floor.

“Jesus,” Connie breathed out. He had a cut over his right eye and a bruise forming on the same side of his jaw that said he’d taken a few good hits in that brawl.

The rookie uniform who’d lost control of the guy in the first place looked like he might puke.

John understood it.

Eric and Gerald were hauling the brother down to one of the other interrogation rooms. If he didn’t settle his ass in a chair though, they’d bring him down to one of the holding cells on the level below them.

John swore as he lifted his hand. The swelling had already begun in his wrist, and he could feel the heat in it as he raised it to his chest, holding it there with his other hand. Someone handed him an instant ice pack and a towel just as Rhys and Mason came out of their interrogation room.

“What the hell was all that?” Rhys asked. The interrogation rooms weren’t soundproof. They would have heard some of that, at least, from within the room.

“Trenton Doyle’s brother is here,” John said. His wrist was swelling. He didn’t need to be told it was most likely sprained. He put the ice on it and watched as Connie was patched up. They would get the elevator video and charge the brother with a few counts of felony assault on a peace officer.

“Went after his escort’s firearm,” Connie said. One of the other detectives was putting butterfly bandages on the cut over his eye.

John was trying damned hard to ignore the pain in his wrist and immobilize his left arm against his body as he iced it.

The doors to the other elevator slid open, and Captain Scanlon came out, one hand on her holstered weapon and two uniformed officers behind her. She looked around and then relaxed, speaking over her shoulder.

“Let the guys huffing it up the stairs know they can stand down.”

Before the message could be relayed, the doors at either end of the hallway opened to show several officers looking like their captain had moments before.

The fight in the elevator would have been seen on the video monitors the desk sergeant watched on the first floor. Everyone in the building had likely just shared the nice adrenaline dump they’d all had.

Scanlon didn’t miss John’s arm. Her eyes scanned the rest of them. “Is he secure?”

John nodded as Eric and Gerald came out of the interrogation room. They asked two of the uniformed officers to take over inside the room and joined the group standing in the hallway.

Gerald spoke first. “Rhys, what did Trenton Doyle have to say?”

Rhys shook his head. “He isn’t our guy. He doesn’t have the facts right. Says he and his friends were robbing jewelry stores and Officer Hall came in on that last job, and he shot him. I fed him some misinformation and asked him why he beat him after he shot him, and he said he was pissed he got in their way and messed up the heist, as he put it. Then I asked him why he shot him three times, and he said the same thing. Lost his temper.”

It was a common tactic for weeding out false confessions. If you gave a person details that didn’t match the crime scene, and they confirmed it, you knew they weren’t your real perp.

Eric let loose with a string of curses. “Even if we don’t file on Trenton, his brother’s going to jail for what just happened.”

“What the hell is going on?” Scanlon asked.

Gerald answered. “Trenton’s brother Dylan showed up here. Instead of waiting to be shown to his brother, he started making threats in the elevator, got into a scuffle and went for the officer’s gun. The guy is beside himself with fear for his brother.”

Eric cut in. “Trenton was diagnosed with end stage cancer. His brother thinks his confession is a bid to get himself into prison where he might get some care.”

John cursed. It was something they’d seen before. Not that it was an everyday occurrence, but it happened.

They all looked to the Captain. She shook her head. “Let’s get a counselor down here for Trenton.” They worked with three mental health nonprofit groups in the area to have counselors on call twenty-four-seven. If they needed a therapist at a scene or at the station, they were able to call one in. It was a program they’d started the year before, and it was making a big difference in their city.

“And the brother?” Rhys asked.

The Captain pressed her lips together and looked over the hallway before cutting her eyes to John. “Much as I’d like to cut the guy a break with what he’s going through, I’ve got injured officers. I can’t just let him walk.”

“It’s a sprain, at worst,” John said. It hurt like hell, and the spot where his wrist should have been looked more like a fat seabass than any part of the human anatomy, but he was pretty damned sure it wasn’t a break. He hoped.

“We’ll make sure the prosecuting attorney knows about the circumstances,” the Captain said. “That’s the most I’m willing to do when someone goes after one of us.”

“Come on,” Eric said, putting a hand on John’s shoulder. “Let’s get you to the ER.”

John groaned. He’d be forced to go home for at least the rest of the day. More than likely, he’d have to sit out a couple of days before he’d be allowed back into the office to work a desk. He wouldn’t be allowed on the street until he was fully healed. He understood it, but it didn’t mean it wouldn’t put him in a piss poor mood. All in all, it was turning into a shit day.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

When sleep wouldn’t come, John headed to Ava’s store. He’d been given pain meds by the doctor, but he didn’t bother filling the prescription. Three ibuprofens and the wrap they’d put on him in the emergency room was plenty to deal with the pain. He was told he needed to take at least three days off before they’d let him back to his desk. Three days with a wack job out there attacking jewelry store owners.

Needless to say, he wasn’t doing well with being sidelined.

If he couldn’t work, maybe he could convince Ava to let him be her twenty-four-seven escort. The idea that she and her sister were sitting in a jewelry store like sitting ducks for this guy had him on edge in a bad way.

Her smile when he walked in the door did a lot to lift his mood, but still, he’d feel better if she and her dad agreed to close the store for now.

“What are you doing here?” She gasped when she saw his arm. “What happened?”

He used his good arm to pull her to him when she rushed forward. “Nothing. Scuffle at work.”

He had to admit, he liked the way her eyes searched his face.

“You’re all right? Is it broken?”

Her soft body pressed against him as she leaned into him, and he went rock hard in an instant. Damned if she didn’t take his mind off the job—all the way off the job, the robberies, all of it.

He glanced around the store, which was thankfully empty except for the security guard who had let him in, then leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You need to get us out of sight and in the back now.”

Her eyes went wide, and she nodded.

She led the way through the back, past her sister who grinned and waved at him, and into the office.

“What is it?” She had barely shut the door when he turned her, pressing her up against it, letting her feel what she’d done to him out there.

“You can’t put your hands on me in public like that if you don’t want the whole world seeing what you do to me.”

The look of shock on her face was comical. So were the slaps to his shoulder when she processed what he’d said.

“I thought you were bringing me back here to tell me what happened to you, not to …” she stopped, a pink flush hitting her cheeks. “Not to … you know.”

“Not to do this,” he said, lowering his head to her neck. He knew what spot would get her going and headed straight for it. He ran his mouth over the silken skin at her neck, then nipped lightly, loving the soft sound that escaped her lips.

He wanted to lift her onto the desk and pull open her blouse. He wanted to get his hands and his mouth on her small breasts, suckling until she cried out and wrapped her legs around him.

The pain that hit him when his bad arm brushed up against her side was sharp and unforgiving, pulling him from that haze that had taken over as soon as he’d gotten her into the small room.

He hissed and stepped backward.

Ava smirked. “You deserve it. You’re horrible, getting me back here under false pretenses.”

John stepped forward again, unable to resist. “You like my false pretenses,” he said, reaching again with his good arm.

She laughed, but this time she held him at arm’s length. “Tell me what happened to your arm.”

He shook his head. “I wrestled with a guy. He’s in cuffs, I’m here.”

“But you’re okay?” She said, her eyes scanning his body again.

Damn, he wished that was her hands checking over him.

“I am. And I also get to stay here with you and take you to dinner when you close up.” He was desperate to take a make lemonade tac here.

She looked at her watch and raised her brows. “That’s two hours from now.”

“Not a problem. I’ve got nothing to do.” He nodded toward the computer monitor in the corner that showed the three video angles for her security cameras in the showroom. “I’ll watch you work and help you when it’s time to close up.”

She took and held a deep breath as she looked around the office, before letting it out. “I just convinced my dad to stay at home. He’s been standing guard over us every day for the last week. I ended up having to worry about Janna and him, both. I’m trying to get Janna to stay home, but she’s too stressed at the idea of me being here while she stays home.”

John softened and reached his good hand up to massage the tension in her shoulder. “I’m not your dad. You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

She looked at his bandaged wrist.

“Watch it, woman. You’ll damage my sensitive male ego.”

The laugh she gave him washed over him.

There was a knock on the door. John leaned down and caught her mouth with his, stealing a quick, deep kiss that would have to tide them over until he could get her home.

The dazed look on her face when he pulled away from her made him grin. John leaned past her and opened the office door.

“Sorry, Ava. One of the accountant guys is here,” one of the store salesmen John recognized from his last visit said.

“The accountant guys?” John asked.

Ava thanked the messenger and turned back to John. “A few guys that rent an office in one of the buildings here. Sweet guys. They started an accounting company together, but I’m afraid it’s not going well. I’d love to give them some business, but my dad still does our books and he loves having a hand in the business. I don’t feel like I can take that away from him.”

John scowled at the computer monitor where one of the cameras showed a young man in an ill-fitting business suit pacing the length of one of the display cases. “Is he bothering you? If he’s coming in to pressure you—”

Ava shoved him. “Leave him alone. Corey’s a sweet kid. He just comes by sometimes to chat and see if I’ve changed my mind.”

Ava left the office, and John lowered himself into her chair, watching the monitors. His scowl deepened when he saw her wrap her arms around the guy in a hug a few minutes later. Punk-ass kid was probably copping a cheap feel.

John growled and raised up out of the chair, before forcing his ass back into it. If he went out there like he wanted to, she’d probably kill him.

Still, when she was still hugging the guy a solid minute later, John didn’t stop himself. This time, he left the office and headed for the showroom floor. Fuck it, he didn’t care if she thought he was a caveman. He didn’t want anyone else touching Ava.

“Not that she really belongs to you,” he grumbled to himself as he walked toward the showroom.

Janna looked up, startled by him. He tried to smile and wave, but it might have seemed more like gnashing of teeth than a smile. Damn, he was fucking this all up.

He slowed and moved over to where Janna was working, looking at the stunning red gems she was working with. He didn’t have to have any knowledge in gemstones to guess they were rubies.

“Rubies?” he asked, quietly.

She shook her head, this time startling him.

“No?”

“Orange sapphires.” She pointed to the stone she was working with. “These ones look more red than orange. I like them that way. I don’t like orange, but I like red orange sapphires.”

John laughed and she looked up at him, a small smile on her lips like she was happy she’d been the one to make it happen.

“They’re pretty,” he offered.

“Ava’s favorite are Cuprite.” She pointed to a deep red stone lying in a tray of gemstones to her left. The stone was so dark it looked almost like blood, but it was somehow beautiful despite that. “Heart stones,” Janna said, her focus back on her work in front of her. “Ava likes heart stones.”

John made a mental note of the information, though he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like he’d be buying jewelry for Ava. She owned a jewelry store. There would only ever be one reason to buy a woman who owned a jewelry store a piece of jewelry and that wasn’t an occasion that would happen again for him.

Lucia’s words came back to him. What had she meant when she said he deserved to fall in love again? He didn’t have an answer to that question then, and he didn’t have one two hours later when he’d helped Ava and Janna close up the shop.

He was happy to see Ava had instituted a number of precautions. They were keeping the back door locked at all times. The front door was locked, also, and the guard only opened it as clients approached. It gave the guard a few minutes to scan and make sure the people entering the store weren’t hiding masks and weapons anywhere.

Janna had needed a reminder not to take the trash out to the back to the dumpsters. But Ava seemed to be on top of that. She said it was Janna’s job to clear out all the trash bins and bring them out in the back, but they were taking it out on their way out together nowadays, with the guard accompanying them.

John eased his car to a stop in front of Ava’s house and watched as she walked Janna up to the main house. He locked his car and walked down the drive to her place. Tomorrow, he’d get some extra lights and a better lock for her door and spend the morning putting that in before going over to hang out at the jewelry store with her.

He smiled as he walked down the driveway to her apartment. Maybe being off duty for a few days for an injury wasn’t so bad after all.

Ava met him as he got to the door and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Nope. Having time off work wasn’t turning out to be bad at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Do you want a drink?” Ava asked as she shut the door behind them. She’d eaten dinner before he arrived at the store that night, but maybe he hadn’t. “Or something to eat? Did you have dinner?”

“Not hungry,” he said, and she heard the drop in his voice, the way he infused it with a hunger for something else.

Ava turned and found John watching her, a predatory appetite in his gaze as he moved her way. The long, lean strides of a man who knew what he wanted. A man who promised nothing but pleasure, with the cocky assurance that he could deliver on that promise and then some.

“Oh,” she said, the sound escaping her mouth almost involuntarily as her whole being seemed to warm and melt for him.

“Your arm,” she said, when he reached her.

“Will be fine,” he said.

He wasn’t speaking in full sentences. She liked that she seemed to do that to him. Like his mind couldn’t focus on holding a conversation. Like all of him was focused on one thing right then.

His look telegraphed what that thing was, his eyes dropping from her face to roam her body. She almost felt that look, as though his hands were on her, trailing across her body to tease and arouse.

And then they were. He’d tossed off his sling at some point and was using both his good and bad arm to stroke her hips and pull her to him. Heat pooled and spread out, and she rose on tiptoes to kiss him, wrapping her arms around him.

The kiss he’d given her in her office had stayed with her, taunting her through the rest of her shift. Now his mouth was on her again, and it was hot and tasted like him. There were no words for how he tasted.

Right. That was it. He simply tasted right to her.

She ran her hands over the rigid muscles of his shoulders and down biceps that were impossibly large. Need and want coiled within her. She knew, on some level, she was getting too close to John, wanting too much with him, from him.

She didn’t want to stop it, though. She wasn’t honestly sure she could. It would hurt like hell if he ended this. Or if he figured out she was starting to have feelings for him that went well past what they’d agreed to and broke things off because of that. But knowing those things and being able to do something about them were two different things.

John cursed as he fumbled with the buttons of her blouse with his bad hand. One look from him told her what he was thinking of doing.

Ava glared and took over unbuttoning her top. “Don’t you dare tear it.”

“Faster,” was the one-word command she got in response.

Ava took a step back and slowed her pace, toying with the buttons as she teased him.

“Ava.” The word was a low growl. A warning. One laced with heat and arousal. God, she loved what this man did to her.

She spun and walked toward the bedroom. “Patience, John. It’s a —”

She didn’t get further than that. He wrapped his good arm around her from behind, lifting her a few inches off the floor and all but running to the bed.

She was laughing when he set her down, and she crawled across the bed, watching him strip his clothes off.

She put her hands to her waistband and slid her pants and panties off in one move. She had her red blouse on still, but the buttons were undone, exposing the navy lace bra she’d worn under it.

John stood naked, his eyes drinking her in. He was glorious. That was the only word she could think of, looking at him. Muscles and tan lines, scars that wrote the story of his service across his skin.

Her hands shook as she pulled her blouse off and tried to undo the clasp of her bra. But then he was there, his mouth on her nipple over the lace, murmuring words of sweetness and beauty. How was it that this man was both so hard and so soft at once? Hardened cop to the world, tender man in her bed?

She couldn’t stop the emotion that swamped her as he laid her down and made love to her. She couldn’t keep herself from wanting more from him. From dreaming of a lifetime with this man. She couldn’t protect her heart. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Why was he hugging you for so long?” John ran his fingers over Ava’s soft skin. He loved the feel of her against him, naked and pliant from their lovemaking. She felt so damned right in his arms.

She lifted her head and looked at him. “Why was who hugging me for so long? What are you talking about?”

“The accountant guy? In the store?”

Her eyes went round and filled with a sorrow that shocked him.

“I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about that,” She said, laying back down and wrapping her arms tightly around him. “It’s horrible.”

John tensed. “What’s horrible, Ava?”

“His friend was killed. One of the boys that started the business with him. He was killed in a mugging gone wrong, they think.” She sat up again, looking at him. “Oh, it might be your department looking at it. I don’t know. I’m not sure where it happened, but I assume it happened in the city.”

John frowned. It could be anyone, but it sounded like it was possibly the case Zaragoza and Nate Ryder were working. They’d ID’d their victim, and John thought he remembered them saying it was an accountant.

“Could be,” was all he offered her. He didn’t know if his unit had caught the case, but even if he’d known anything about it, he couldn’t share it with her.

She squeezed him again as she spoke. “Anyway, it’s horrible. Corey said they thought they’d start their business and spend half their time skiing as the money rolled in. It might have, too, if they hadn’t picked such an expensive place for their office. I think they just got a little too ahead of themselves.”

John ran his hand up her arm and back down again. He could feel the sorrow in her voce for these young men. For all of them, not just the one who’d been killed.

It was something John wished he still felt. As a detective, he did his best to find justice for the victims of crimes like this and for their families. But doing his job meant he had to shut off his feelings sometimes. If he thought about the life each of the victims left behind, of what had been cut short for them, of the dreams they’d never realize—he’d lose his mind. So, he thought of all of that for each of them, but more on a generic level.

It let him maintain the kind of distance he needed to do the job. To stay on the job.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. He hated she was hurting. He hated for her to have anything happening in her world that made her sad.

She was quiet for a long time.

“Life’s too short, you know?” she said. “Those boys deserved some happiness. Everyone does.”

“Lucia said something like that to me yesterday.”

“You don’t sound like you believe it,” Ava said, sitting up to look at him with anger flashing in her eyes.

John shrugged. “I don’t. Not the kind she was talking about, anyway.”

She poked him hard in the shoulder. “Explain.”

“Ow,” he laughed, rubbing the spot with his bandaged arm before holding it up. “I’m injured. You’re supposed to be good to me.”

She threatened him with her poking finger. “Then talk. What does that mean, you don’t deserve to be happy?”

He sighed and pulled her back down against him. Talking wasn’t easy for him, but it would be easier if she wasn’t looking at him.

“Not in the way she means, honey. She means I deserve to find someone and be happy with them the way she is with Carlos.”

“The man she’s marrying?”

“Yeah.” He let his hand start its pattern up and down her arm again. “They’re having a baby.”

His voice cracked on the words, and he almost didn’t get them out.

Ava stilled. “That must be hard for you.”

John’s laugh was bitter and filled with the ache of what he had to tell her. “We tried to have a baby for so long. We tried everything. Three rounds of in vitro almost killed us financially, but when one didn’t get her pregnant and the other two resulted in miscarriages, I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t watch her go through the treatments, the heartache. I asked her to stop.”

“Oh, John.” There was so much pain in her words for him. This was why he didn’t like talking to people about things. He didn’t want to share this sadness. There was no reason for her to carry this with her, too. “But why does that make you think you don’t deserve happiness? Any man would have a hard time watching their wife go through that.”

He lay without answering for a long time. She didn’t rush him, and he loved that about her. She would push him to talk, but she’d wait for him to be ready to get it out.

“I couldn’t give her a baby. She says her doctor doesn’t think there was anything wrong with either of us. That maybe we can have children with other people, just not together. But, I’ve always felt like I should have been able to give her a baby. And then I gave up on it. On us. When she wanted to keep trying, I just couldn’t. I moved out of our room and slept on the couch. I refused to make love with her. What kind of a husband does that?”

Ava let out a weighted sigh. “A husband who’s hurting. One who experienced the losses of those babies the same way his wife did, but who was dealing with it differently. And yes, maybe you could have dealt with that differently. Maybe she needed you to do something different, but who’s to say you were the bad guy there? Maybe she could have given you more time to process things?”

“She gave me months. I just couldn’t watch her go through that again.”

“John,” Ava said, with the patience of someone who clearly thought she was speaking to a Neanderthal, “when were you talking to Lucia?”

“She came to the precinct yesterday. She wanted me to know about the baby before the wedding.”

“And she told you she wants you to be happy? That she wants you to find what she has?”

“Yes.”

“And she told you her doctor said you might be able to have a family with another woman even though you and Lucia weren’t able to?”

Ava sat up and looked at him again, the exasperation in her gaze as evident as it was in her tone. “Does that sound like a woman who blames you for anything? Who thinks you alone were at fault for your divorce or for the fact you guys weren’t able to have a family?”

John felt a little like he did when he was on the stand and a defense attorney was using him as a punching bag. Only, with them, he had his defenses up and was able to fight back. With Ava, he felt stripped bare.

“No?” he said, but damn if it didn’t come out as a question.

She took his face in her hands. “You’re a good man, John Sevier. Just because you and Lucia weren’t able to make your marriage work doesn’t mean you aren’t. And it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to have a happy marriage with someone else down the road, whether that includes children or not.”

John couldn’t stop the flash of an image of he and Ava married and happy together. Still, just because she was saying that didn’t make it all true. And it didn’t mean she’d changed her mind about what she wanted from this relationship.

What it did mean was that he was confused as hell about what he wanted and what he was feeling. But part of him wanted to believe what she was saying. Part of him wanted to believe that he could be as good a husband as she believed he could. That he could have the life and love he had given up on. Because giving up on dreaming for it had never meant he’d given up on wanting it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Yeah,” John said into the phone as he pulled his car into the lot behind the jewelry store. He had spent the afternoon putting in better lighting and locks on Ava’s place. He planned to spend the evening at the store with her and Janna again and be around for closing time. “I’ll be back by Friday. Grade one sprain. Doctor said it was no big deal.”

Eric snorted. They all knew Captain Scanlon was a stickler for them being at full capacity before they could go back in the field. John would need to have clearance from the doctor. He’d already scheduled an appointment for Thursday afternoon so he could get his forms signed and get back out there.

“Anything new on the case?” John asked, choosing to ignore Eric.

“Erica’s confirmed the guy who murdered the two employees at the last robbery is the same height and build of the guy we’ve marked as the leader of the group before.”

“Anything taken at this last hit?” John asked. Last he’d heard, they were waiting for the inventory list from the store owner.

“He took what amounts to a few handfuls of jewelry from one of the cases. The others, he just shattered but barely touched the contents.”

John was silent. It was more evidence this guy was unraveling.

“Any DNA on the victims?” John had been hoping as the perpetrator upped his violence level, he’d leave a trace of DNA behind. Not that it would get them a lead right away. They’d be lucky to get DNA evidence back in weeks, if not months. They didn’t live in a TV show.

“Possibly. The ME found blood on one of the vics that might not be from any of his injuries. He’s asked the state lab to rush it.”

John grunted. They all knew what that meant. Still, if Dr. Grunholdt said he thought the blood might not be the victim’s, he had reason to think it. Sometimes he found blood on the clothing of the victim where there were no wounds, pointing to it possibly coming from another source. Other times, he saw something about the blood spatter that told him it had come from someone standing in front of or beside the victim instead of from the victim.

Either way, Grundholdt didn’t make those kinds of statements lightly. If he had reason to think the blood was from the suspect, they’d hope the lab could rush the test and maybe get them a match in one of the databases they used for DNA.

“All right,” he said to Eric, “I’ll see you Friday. Oh, and will you let Nate and Zaragoza know I’ll be at the funeral for their victim from the alley? I don’t want them to be surprised if they’re there and I show up.”

Eric was silent, so John explained.

“The victim is friends with a guy Ava knows.”

“Ava, the woman you said owns a jewelry store? I thought she was just an old friend from college.”

“Jesus, you’re gearing up to drill me like a high school girl about this, aren’t you?” John asked. He could hear it in Eric’s tone.

“Yeah. I totally am. Spill.”

“It’s nothing,” John said, but the words sounded all wrong as he said them. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t nothing. “She knew the guy, and she wants to go to the funeral, so I’m going with her.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re a dick.”

“But I’m your dick.” Eric paused, and John knew he was trying to hold back a laugh. “Okay, that came out wrong.”

“Yes, it did.”

John shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. There were times when partnering with Eric was like partnering with a fourth grader. “I’m going to go now.”

“Okay,” Eric said. “Say hi to Ava for me.”

John disconnected without answering and headed around the front of the store to get in. They were still keeping the back door locked. It was probably against fire code, but John didn’t care right now. He needed to know Ava wasn’t going to have anyone getting into her store without her security guard getting eyeballs on them first.

The female guard was in the store when John approached. He raised his hand in greeting, and she unlocked the door.

“Hi John. Ava’s in the back in the office. She said to send you back when you get here.”

“Thank you, Kirsten.”

John went past the sales clerks straight into the back of the store. When he hit the workroom, he found Janna and Ava huddled by Janna’s workbench. Janna was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed and her eyes round and moist, like she was fighting back tears. She and Ava were looking at something on Ava’s phone, and it looked like Ava was trying to get Janna to slow her breathing.

John walked to the two of them slowly, knowing Janna wouldn’t want him barging into whatever was happening.

Ava didn’t look up at him, but spoke to him in a low voice. “Janna’s just having a little trouble today. She wants to be here with me since I need to be here, but the robberies have her frightened.”

John took a step closer, putting his hands on Janna’s workbench, but not touching her.

“I can stay back here with you, if you want today, Janna. If that would make you feel better.”

Ava looked up at him then, an apology on her face. “Thank you, John, but she gets anxious with people she doesn’t know.”

John nodded and made to leave, but Janna’s hand clamped onto his arm. She was still watching the face of Ava’s phone where a small image of a wave was moving on a loop. He could see she was matching her breathing to the movement of the image.

Ava raised her brows at him. “Okay, I guess she would like you to stay with her. If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” John said. He reached with the arm that Janna hadn’t pinned down, pulling a chair over to her workbench and settling on it. “Janna, maybe you can show me more of the stones you work with. I liked seeing the cuprites the other day.”

Now Ava really raised her brows at him. He grinned and winked, liking the surprise in her eyes at him knowing the name of her favorite gemstone.

Janna’s eyes moved from the phone over to the trays on her table. “I can show you Alexandrite today.”

She said this as though that was the only thing she was willing to show him as she pointed at some blue green gems.

“They’re beautiful.” He moved closer, but she put a hand out to stop him.

“You can’t knock the tray over. You’ll damage them.”

He sat back in his chair. “Oh, yeah, sorry.”

Ava was casually trying to cover a laugh.

John shot her a grin.

“Okay, well, I’ll just be out front,” Ava said, gesturing over her shoulder.

“Ava,” John said, waiting for her to look back. “Open the door to the office?”

From the look on her face, she understood what he was asking. She bit her lip and nodded, moving to open the office door so he could see the video monitors from where he sat. He couldn’t see them well, but he’d be able to see if it got particularly busy out there or someone suspicious came in. And if one of her patrons started swinging or pulled a gun, he could be out there in seconds.

He bent his head to look at the jewels Janna was showing him. She named each one for him, sounding more like an encyclopedia at times than a woman of twenty-five, but she seemed to be settling as she spoke.

He saw Ava look back one more time and gave her a wave. “We’re fine,” he mouthed, rewarded with one of the smiles she reserved for private communication.

Maybe tonight he should tell her he’d been wrong about what this was between them. Wrong because now he wanted so much more with her than they’d agreed to. And maybe, if he was the luckiest bastard in the world, she’d want the same thing from him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“I’m sorry,” Ava said, stealing a moment to lean against John. It was almost time to leave for the night. She still couldn’t get over the fact he didn’t mind spending half the day there every day. “You’re probably bored stiff.”

John’s arms came around her, and he lowered his head to her ear, his mouth brushing her skin. “Not one bit. I like watching you work.”

Ava shook her head at him. “On a computer monitor, from twenty feet away? That’s a load of crap.” He’d spent the day at Janna’s workbench, watching the front of the shop on monitors. There was no way he could see a damned thing.

He grinned and slid a large hand down her backside to her ass. “I saw enough.”

She laughed and shoved at his chest, not managing to push him a bit, but liking the way his chest felt under her hand. “You’re bad.”

“I plan to be very, very bad when I get you home.”

Ava planned to take him up on that.

“Janna, wait,” John said, stepping back from Ava so suddenly she almost fell. “I’ll go with you,” John was saying.

Ava turned to see Janna in the doorway, her face crumpling at John’s words. She carried a bag of trash and Ava knew instantly what had happened. Janna was having trouble remembering that the back door needed to be locked. An outsider would think with Janna’s increased anxiety over the robberies, it would be easy for her to remember not to go out into the back alley by herself, but routines were crucial for Janna. She thrived on them, so the pattern of collecting the trash and taking it out each night was an almost automatic response for her.

“I didn’t mean to.” Janna ducked her head, looking at the floor, and Ava could hear the self-hatred spewing under her breath. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. I messed it up.”

John took the trash bag from Janna. “Why don’t we just put this by the door, and we’ll put it out on our way out? We forgot to show Ava my masterpiece.”

“Masterpiece? What does that mean?” Ava looked from one to the other, hoping his distraction would work. Janna had been so stressed all day before John arrived. Ava was still pretty floored at her sister’s reaction to him. Janna responded to him in ways she never did with other people.

Janna didn’t make eye contact with him any more than she did with other people, but she did interact with him a whole hell of a lot more than most. Right now, her sister was all smiles as John took the bag of garbage from her and set it by the door.

Janna took Ava’s hand and led her to the workbench on the other side of the room.

“John is making a bracelet.”

“Really?” Ava shot a look of surprise over her shoulder at John, who was laughing.

“It’s not very good.” John warned.

Janna proudly showed off her protégé’s work, which turned out to be a lump of copper with glass gems in the center. Ava laughed as she recognized the materials Janna had learned on when she was young. Copper was cheaper than silver but could be melted down and molded in a similar way. The glass gems were self-explanatory.

Ava was actually impressed. For a first go at jewelry making, it wasn’t horrible. “I was so bad at this when I was little,” she said. “I think I made two or three pieces and gave up. Janna had an eye for it right away and was willing to sit and practice for hours on end without stopping to eat. In fact,” she put her arm around her sister, “we still have to force her to stop some days, and she’ll almost never choose to stop to eat on her own.”

Janna frowned. “I like making jewelry.”

Ava gave her a squeeze. “Yes, but eating is important, too.”

Janna only shrugged at that.

An hour later, she and John were snuggled on the couch with a bottle of wine. She had taken off her blazer and kicked off her heels, leaving her in the pants and camisole she wore that day. Eventually, she’d go get into something more comfortable, but she hadn’t had the energy yet. It had taken them a little while to get Janna settled in with their dad up at the main house, and Ava was finished.

He sat with one leg stretched along the couch and one leg on the floor, cradling her back to his front.

She sipped the Merlot in her glass and tilted her neck to the side, making room for the one-handed massage John was giving her shoulder.

When she moaned, he leaned in and gave a warning growl. “Careful. Keep that up and I’ll toss the wine and the massage and skip to the naked part.”

Ava leaned to the side and looked up at him. “Promises, promises.”

His laugh was deep and ran over her body like a caress as he leaned in to kiss her. It was a slow, unhurried kiss, and she was glad he wasn’t in a rush to get them to the naked part. She liked this. Liked feeling the connection of being with him after a long day, instead of feeling like they just had to strip and get straight to the sex.

John broke apart from her and set his own glass on the coffee table. “Let’s get you to relax,” he said, putting his good hand to work on her shoulders to rub the knots out of them.

“I think the stress of these robberies is getting to me. Half the time, I think I should close the store so none of our employees are in danger and the other time, I think that’s just ridiculous. They’d lose their livelihoods if I did that. But there’s not a minute in that shop now that I don’t feel on edge.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, and she heard the weight of his statement. He wasn’t just saying he was sorry she had to feel that. He was saying he was sorry for not solving the case yet, as if the way she was feeling was entirely on his shoulders.

She shifted to the side again, turning to look at him. “You get that this isn’t on you, right? I mean, the fact that you haven’t solved this case yet, that’s not completely on your shoulders and yours alone? Please tell me you understand that.”

He didn’t answer.

“John, I know you like to take responsibility for everything and everyone, but there are a whole unit of you guys over there working on this case, right?”

He nodded. “Right.”

She raised a brow. “I can hear a silent ‘but’ at the end of that admission. There isn’t any ‘but’ about this. You aren’t responsible for the actions of these men any more than any of your partners at the precinct.”

“I only have one partner,” he said, and she knew what he was doing. It was an attempt to get her off her soap box with humor.

She wasn’t buying it. “And that partner of yours, do you blame him for not getting these guys off the street yet?”

“No, but he blames himself. We all do. It’s in our natures.”

“Yeah, well, it sucks.” She turned back around and snuggled into his embrace. “You can’t hold yourself to that level anymore John. You might like to think of yourself as some mythical magical super hero, heaven knows, you seem like that some days. Heck, Janna is convinced you’re Thor come to life, but you’re just a man, John. A very good one, but you have to stop blaming yourself for everything bad that happens.”

John wrapped his arms around her and laid his head on her shoulder. “Ava, do you remember when you said you wanted this to be just sex between us?”

Ava stiffened. She’d crossed and line, and he was telling her that. Damn it. She should have known she couldn’t handle this. She’d told herself she could keep this about sex and nothing else, but she’d just played her cards and he was about to call her on it.

She opened her mouth to respond, although she didn’t have a clue what to say. Heat flooded her cheeks. Before she could speak, John spoke again, this time with his mouth against her shoulder, the heat of his breath tickling the bare skin beneath the strap of her camisole.

“What if I don’t want to accept that anymore? What if I want this to be more?”

The flood of emotions hitting Ava was complex and confusing. She felt hope and happiness on a level she hadn’t in a long time. But there was also the fear of knowing he might not realize what he was getting into. She blew out a deep breath and braced herself.

“John,” she started, but her voice was shaky. “I want that. I really do, but you haven’t seen the half of what taking care of my dad and Janna is like. Things with them have been really good lately, but that can change on a dime. And when it gets bad, it gets really bad. I can get called away at all hours to help one of them, and—”

He didn’t let her finish. He sat up, turning her so she faced him. “Listen to me, Ava. There are going to be plenty of times when I’m the one to get called away. Whether it’s for my job or for my dad. He’s getting older. He’ll need me sometimes, the same way your dad and sister need you. You think I won’t understand when you need to put other responsibilities first? That’s just crazy talk right there.”

He seemed to be winding up for a good rant, so she let him talk, all the while feeling that hope and the excitement of something more happening between them grow stronger.

“And I like Janna, a lot. I don’t know her well, but you seem to think it was some burden for me to hang out with her today. It wasn’t. She and I had fun. I don’t know that she got much work done since she spent half the day trying to teach me to melt and bend metal into something that looked like little more than what a cat puked up, but we had a good time doing it. If she needs you, I’ll be there backing you up. The same goes for your dad. I want to have your back, Ava. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do everything yourself and apologize to me while you’re doing it.”

She put a hand to his chest. “Will you do the same? Will you let me back you up when you’re feeling frustrated or upset about your job or a case? Will you share that with me?”

Now he scowled. “Ava,” he said, and there was a heavy weight in his voice, “I see things at work, things I would never want to put into your head. I can’t share that with you. I can’t make you bear what I bear.”

“Then don’t.” She ran a hand over his jaw. “Don’t tell me the details. But talk to me. Tell me how it made you feel. Come home and put your head in my lap and let me hold you and make it better. Or tell me if you need space to deal with it, and come to me when you’re ready to have someone hold you. But don’t shut me out over it, okay? I can see you trying to hold the world on your shoulders, trying to take it all on yourself, and you can’t do that and stay sane. I want you to let me help you hold it all up.”

He nodded, then let a slow smile spread across his face as he ran a hand up her arm. “So, we’re doing this? We’re going to make this real between us? Because I gotta say, I love the sex, but I love this, too.” He gestured around. “Coming home with you. Just being with you and here for you.”

Ava felt her heart squeeze. She hadn’t wanted to tell him that she wasn’t doing a good job keeping her feelings for him from growing. Knowing she didn’t have to made her feel like anything was possible. She believed him when he said they could manage the crazy circumstances of her life and his. She believed in them.

“I was an idiot to let you go when we were in college,” she whispered, leaning into him, running a hand over the muscles in his shoulder.

“Yes, you were.”

He said this so solemnly it made her laugh, but then he was kissing her, and the laughter was captured by his kiss. He turned her humor to passion in a heartbeat as his hands and mouth played over her.

She moaned, wiggling to try to get closer to him. It wasn’t working.

John stood, pulling her up with him and leading her to the bedroom.

She had a feeling he was about to show her just how stupid and idiotic she’d been back then. And she was going to enjoy every minute of that lesson.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

John took his time removing Ava’s clothes. He knew he was lucky as hell to get a second shot with Ava. Looking at her as she stood in front of the bed, bared to him, he let himself feel all the things he’d been burying for a long time.

She was so much more than he deserved.

He ran a hand over her cheek, threading his hand into her hair and lifting her gaze to meet his. “You’re so damned beautiful, Ava. So damned gorgeous.”

He saw her cheeks flush and she glanced down like she might argue with him. To hell with that.

He growled and closed his mouth over hers, swallowing her objection. He laid her back on the bed, settling beside her to run a hand down the length of her body. Her skin was silken under his touch, the curve of her hip and thigh feeling so right, like she’d been made for him.

“So fucking beautiful,” he said again, this time punctuating his statement with a kiss to one breast, her nipple pebbling under his tongue.

She let out a small moan and shifted her legs. He smiled at the motion. She did that when she was turned on. He didn’t think she knew it, but she rubbed her legs together like she might be able to relieve the ache there.

He wanted to be the only man to give her that ache and the only way to satisfy that need.

He moved to the other breast, using his mouth to tease the nipple to a taut peak as his hand found the warm mound between her legs. She was wet and slick, his fingers sliding into her heat with ease.

“John,” she groaned, making him smile. He loved the catch in her voice.

Hearing the way her breath quickened and seeing her wriggle with need beneath him had him so turned on, he couldn’t see straight. But there was no way he was rushing this. He’d force himself to wait so he could wring every bit of pleasure from her body before taking his own.

He wanted to listen to her voice go throaty and needy as he made her come with his mouth and his hands, before he sank into her and felt her come around his cock.

He lowered himself, running his tongue over her stomach, detouring to her hip bone to tease her as she writhed.

He returned to her stomach to trail his tongue in a circle around her belly button.

“Please, John,” she gasped, grinding her hips up.

“Something I can help you with, Av?” He kept his voice light as he kissed the soft spot where her thigh met her hip, moving everywhere but the spot he knew she needed him most.

Her response was half growl, half plea and John laughed as he gave in, his mouth covering her center. The taste of her filled his senses, so sweet she overwhelmed his sanity and threatened his control.

He thought he might come right then, putting a damper on their night, but he forced himself to resist the urge to enter her. He feasted on her, loving every whimper and moan. He loved the way she tightened around his fingers when he slid them inside her. Loved losing himself in her.

When he was with Ava like this, nothing else mattered. He could forget the job, the case, the world. All of his responsibilities. She was his everything in that moment.

Ava cried out, his name slipping from her lips as she came, making his heart clench at the sound of it. And then she was tugging at his shoulders, pulling him up to her.

“John,” she whispered, when he settled on top of her, after taking a minute to find a condom and put it on. “I want you inside me.”

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said. It was true.

When he slid into her, he stopped, holding perfectly still for a minute, wanting to hold onto that feeling for as long as he could. The feeling of coming home. The feeling of connecting with Ava. Of being at peace. Of having everything and everyone he needed in his world. She gave him that and more.

When he began to move, she wrapped her legs and arms around him and he lost himself. Lost control. Lost all rational thought. There was nothing but the feel of her in his arms, the sound of their love making in the quiet room, the connection of two people who took too damned long to come together again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

There weren’t many people at the funeral. John looked around. Nate and Zaragoza had texted to let him know they didn’t plan to attend. There was nothing in the case so far to suggest it was more than a mugging of a random victim in an alley. Their time was better spent talking to possible witnesses in the area and working the angles around the scene instead of casing the funeral to see if the suspect made an appearance there.

So far, he and Ava and a couple of the other merchants from the Brewery area had come. There were the families of the victim and a few friends who looked to be around the victim’s age. Two of them stood apart. John recognized one of them from the day he’d come to the store.

He leaned his head closer to Ava as they waited for the service to begin in the small church. “Are those the two friends he owned his business with?”

The two men looked like hell, gaunt and pale with dark circles that said they weren’t sleeping. He’d seen people grieving before, and this was it. He wondered how long they’d known each other.

The one who’d come into the store was arguing with the other guy, but that guy just kept shaking his head, mouth clamped in a flat unmoving line like he wasn’t having any of it.

“Yes,” Ava said, watching the men with worry in her eyes. “Two of them, anyway.” She turned in her seat and looked around. “I don’t see the other.”

“There are four of them?” John asked, something scratching at the back of his mind. Why did that fact seem significant to him?

He looked at the two men, sure he hadn’t seen them before, other than the time he saw the shorter of the two in Ava’s shop. There was something familiar about them.

But why would he know four accountants? It’s not like he hired someone to do his taxes. He used one of those automated software programs.

John’s thoughts halted when the minister walked to the front of the church and began speaking. John watched as the family members cried and the victim’s sister stood and spoke about him.

He hated funerals when he was attending them in anything other than a work capacity. When it was for work, he could focus on the job, ignoring the human pain he saw in front of him in favor of working the case.

Now, he couldn’t escape the pain. Ava wanted to be there for them. Still, John heard her sniffle and looked over to see her brushing at her eyes with a tissue. He put his arm around her and pulled her to him, hating to see her cry.

It wasn’t until they were standing in front of the grave site and the coffin was being lowered into the ground that it hit John. Accountants were as far from punk looking jewelry store robbers as you could get.

Maybe, purposely so.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

John slipped away to quietly text Nate and ask him to look into the location of the missing accountant. It was probably nothing more than a coincidence, but there were four of them and from what Ava said, they were desperate for money. One was missing-in-action like he’d fallen out with the others, the same way their jewelry store robbers had. And John had just watched the remaining two argue through a large portion of their friend’s funeral service.

It was a stretch, but it couldn’t hurt for Nate and Zaragoza to look into the whereabouts of the other partner in the accounting company.

When he made it back to the group milling at the burial site, Ava was just approaching the two men, who had stopped arguing but still looked like hell.

John joined her, standing with one hand on her lower back.

“How are you guys holding up?” she asked.

They mumbled replies.

Ava looked to John. “John, this is Tom and Corey. This is John.”

She didn’t offer any explanation as to who John was, and he was glad for it. He didn’t want them closing up around him. If they weren’t in custody, and he wasn’t here as an officer, he could talk to them all he wanted without any Miranda rights.

“I’m sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances,” John said, offering his hand. “Ava tells me you and another friend had an accounting business with—” he almost said the deceased, but stopped himself and substituted the victim’s name instead. “With Josh.”

The two men nodded as they shook his hand in turns.

“Where’s your other partner?” John said, making a show of looking around in mild curiosity. The victim’s mother was watching as her son’s coffin was being covered with soil, her quiet sobs shaking her shoulders. Her husband looked hopeless as he patted her back. John knew that kind of hopelessness.

“Uh, he um, wasn’t up to being here,” the one named Corey offered. Tommy only looked at his shoe as he scuffed the ground, swinging his foot back and forth.

“He’s taking it really hard?” Ava asked, her voice all concern. John hadn’t told her his wild theory. Chances were, this was nothing, and he was seeing connections that weren’t really here.

“Adam knew Josh a lot longer than us. They were friends when they were kids,” Corey said.

John almost said something about longtime friends usually wanting to pay their respects, but the parents walked up just then.

“We’re going to go back to the house so Sheila can lay down,” the man said to Tommy and Corey.

Ava and John stepped back to let them talk. John stood nearby to see what he could overhear of their conversation, but they didn’t say more before walking away. He needed to drop Ava off at her house and get to the precinct.

He hadn’t been cleared by the doctor to go to work for two more days, but he could tell the captain he was stopping by to get something out of his locker.

If he happened to swing into the war room and look over the videos from the robberies to see if the build of the men he’d just talked to matched their suspects, his captain could hardly complain about a little thing like that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

All credit to his partner and the rest of the unit, they didn’t laugh when he told them his theory. And as soon as he checked the videos of the robberies in action, he was sure it was more than a theory. One of the robbers had a very distinctive way of clenching and unclenching his left hand all the time, like it was falling asleep and he was trying to fend off pins and needles. That movement matched what he’d seen of Corey Hamilton at the funeral earlier in the day.

Eric and Mason entered the room, mid-conversation. “Oh yeah? Was she hot?” Mason was asking.

John shook his head at his partner.

Eric raised his hands at John’s look. “What? I already told him I’m not sharing details. I don’t kiss and tell.” He grinned. “Okay, but yeah, she was hot. Just moved to town and doesn’t know anyone.”

John did a double take. “You mean you got more than her name? You almost sound like you might want to see her again.”

Eric never saw a woman more than once or twice, and it was strictly for sex, never a date. He was up front about what he could and couldn’t offer, and the women went away happy and content. In fact, John was often struck by the way women in bars could see Eric and have nothing but good feelings and happy memories where it came to Eric. It was rare to see a woman upset with him. Probably because he managed their expectations so well and never lied to get them into bed. Eric valued honesty above all else.

Eric shrugged in a we’ll see sort of way but didn’t say more as Rhys walked into the room.

“You might be right about these guys, John,” Rhys said, looking at a tablet in his hands. “No prior history on most of them, but one of the guys has a sealed juvenile record and an arrest for marijuana possession before it was legal.”

The guys in the unit all had mixed feelings about the legalization of marijuana in their state, but they all took the same approach. They didn’t make the laws. They only enforced them.

Rhys continued. “Erica is working on some specifics, but going by rough estimates, I’d say these guys fit the height and build of our perps.”

He held up the tablet to show the website of the accounting company the men had started together. There was a photo of all four of them in suits, posing in front of the office building John recognized from the Brewery retail center where Ava’s shop was.

The satisfaction John felt was short lived when Captain Scanlon entered the room. She gave him the look that she’d mastered. The one where you didn’t have to wonder what she was thinking. You knew she was thinking about ten different ways to punish you for disobeying her, and none of them were pretty.

“Captain,” he said, hoping he could talk his way out of whatever she had in mind.

“Shut it, Sevier. The only reason I’m going to let you go home and pretend you didn’t walk back into work without bringing me a doctor’s note is because Nate told me about the break in the case you provided.”

John reached in his pocket. “I have a doctor’s note.”

She shot a pointed look at the paper in his hand. “And it’s dated for today?”

“Uh,” John hedged. He wouldn’t flat out lie to his captain. He wasn’t that stupid.

She took the paper and read it. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sevier. Not a minute before then.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Eric walked John out, speaking as soon as they were back in the bullpen. “I’ll get you updates when I can.”

John gave a single nod of his head. “It’s the missing guy. Haul the other two in. I saw them at the funeral. They’re fighting and looked like they hadn’t slept in days. Get them in here and they’ll talk.”

John couldn’t help but clench his fist. His hand and wrist felt fine, which pissed him off to no end. The doctor had refused to sign his letter for anything earlier than Friday. John would be the last person to put his team in danger. If he thought he wasn’t capable of doing the job, he wouldn’t want to be out there hunting down this asshole with them.

The doors to the unit opened, and Gabe Calder and Delaney Harrison, called “Harry” by most of the people there, entered. John grinned despite his foul mood as all of the men and women in the room broke into applause.

“Please tell me you guys are back for good,” John said, clapping Gabe on the back and jerking his chin in greeting to Harry. “Being short-handed for two months has sucked.”

The pair had been loaned out to the Vice unit for a series of undercover sting operations targeting prostitution on the east side of the city.

Harry visibly cringed. “God, I hope so. If I ever have to wear that much makeup again …” Harry was gorgeous, but she wasn’t one for makeup and dressy clothes.

She trailed off as Gabe laughed, taking out his phone.

“I got pictures, guys.”

Harry wasn’t gentle when she relieved Gabe of his phone. “Asshole. I thought we talked about this.”

Gabe’s grin was unrepentant as she started deleting the images.

“I saved them to the cloud,” he said to the others. “I’ll show you later.”

John didn’t want to know what Harry would do to Gabe if she caught him. From the look on her face, it wouldn’t be pretty.

Captain Scanlon walked into the room, a smile crossing her face as well at the sight of her returning detectives. “Just got word from the brass. They filled the openings in Vice. You guys shouldn’t have to go back anytime soon.”

Being short two detectives over the last two months had meant all of them carrying extra cases. It would be good to move some of those off their desks.

The captain turned to John. “You waiting for an escort from the building, Sevier?”

Shit. There was an edge to her tone that told John it was well past time to go. If he couldn’t be in on the takedown of this asshole at work, he’d do the next best thing. He’d go see Ava and make sure she and Janna were safe until his team got this guy off the street.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The jewelry store was busy when the guard at the front of the shop opened the door for John. Kirsten, he remembered her name was.

Ava had said she was former military and from what John had seen, she was perfect for the store. She was good at what she did, scanning the store with an eye that told him she was aware of all that was happening inside and out, but doing it in a way that didn’t make any of the clientele feel like they were being stalked.

John had a feeling he wouldn’t be as tactful if it were his job.

It was close to five on a Thursday, but the day was unseasonably warm, and shoppers were walking the Brewery mall or sitting and enjoying the green. He guessed that was good news for any of the shops in the area.

Ava’s smile when her eyes fell on him was genuine. It kicked him in the gut to see that response. He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted this to go deeper between them until their talk the other night. He just hoped like hell he didn’t screw this up. Because he was happier lately than he’d been in a very long time, even with his frustrations with his job and the case.

He winked and tilted his head toward the back, heading that way when she gave him a slight nod.

Janna had her head down at her workbench, focused on an intricate setting for a brilliant green stone. John opened the office door, adjusting the monitors of the security system before going and sitting quietly by Janna. He pulled out the snacks and water bottle he’d brought for her before opening a bottle for himself and settling in to watch the cameras.

He could tell she hadn’t noticed he was in the room yet. He could see why Ava worried about Janna. There were times when she was hyper-vigilant, and her anxiety was through the roof. Other times, she was utterly unaware of her surroundings. Anyone could sneak up on her, and she wouldn’t know it until it was much too late for her to do anything about it.

Half an hour passed before Ava came into the back room. John had watched the front room empty out and knew she was headed this way.

As soon as she came through the doorway, he tugged her onto his lap and kissed her. Was it the most professional thing to do in her place of business? No. Could he help himself? Hell no.

Janna looked up at the sounds of affection, seeming to startle at their presence. “Is it dinner time?” She smiled and waved to John as she spotted the chips and granola bar he’d set next to her.

“I was thinking I’d hang out until closing again, and we could pick up some take-out on the way home.” He turned to Ava, lowering his voice. “Maybe dinner in bed?”

Ava blushed.

“You’ll get crumbs in the bed,” Janna said.

John only grinned at her. “Worth it.”

Ava swatted at him. “You don’t have to wait here the whole night again with us. We’ll be fine if you just want to come back close to closing.”

John looked at his watch. Two hours ’til closing. “I’m good. Janna and I will work on my masterpiece again.”

He shot Janna a look when she unsuccessfully smothered a laugh.

“You said I was doing good the other day.”

She only laughed harder.

Ava headed back out to the front showroom while John reached for his water bottle.

He made the unfortunate decision to drink just as Janna spoke next. “Dad says we have to give you and Ava privacy out in her apartment, but I think if he knew you were putting crumbs in the beds, he might have a thing or two to say about that.”

John choked on the water.

Janna grinned at him, the light in her eyes telling him she was playing with him. And she was having fun doing it. He gave her a mock scowl, and she laughed harder.

For two hours, John watched the monitors, resisted the urge to text Eric every two minutes for a sit-rep on the jewelry store robbers, and let Janna laugh at his efforts to mold metal into something presentable. The sales clerk covering the floor with Ava had left a half hour earlier, and the last stragglers on the green didn’t seem to have any interest in shopping for jewelry. The store had been empty for the better part of an hour.

It was nearly closing time when he got a text message from Eric.

Eric: Picked up two of the biz partners but leader is in the wind. Claim they don’t know where he is. Trying to get these guys to flip on him on shooting Hall, but no go so far.

John typed a quick thanks and got up to stretch his legs. He could see Ava going through the motions of closing up. She had already replaced the displays in the front windows with paste jewels and was removing several of the trays from the glass cabinets. He’d seen her close up shop before. The guard stood in front of the locked front door while Ava stacked the trays of the more expensive pieces into the large safe they had beneath one of the display cabinets.

She would carry other trays into the back to secure in the safe in her office. He wondered what the total value of the store’s inventory was and decided the figure might set him on edge. It might be better he didn’t know.

Movement near the front door caught his attention. Kirsten, the guard on duty, was talking through the glass to someone. Her gestures were exaggerated, and John could see she was telling the man they were closed.

The short, balding man raised a fist and banged on the glass, shouting, despite Kirsten’s explanation that they were closed. John couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he was angry. Everything in his body language and expression said so, and John didn’t at all like that anger directed at Ava and Kirsten.

They were all anxious enough as it was with the robberies happening.

“Stay here, Janna,” he said, heading toward the showroom.

“Oh!” He heard Janna and smiled. She was probably looking up and realizing it was closing time.

The look on Ava’s face when he got up front told him she was frightened. He didn’t blame her. She didn’t know that this guy didn’t match the physical profile of the jewelry store robbers. She had no idea that short and paunchy wasn’t the man responsible for beating and killing other shop owners.

John murmured to Ava as he entered. “Why don’t you go in the back with Janna?” He didn’t think Janna had even heard the commotion up front, she’d been so absorbed in her work, but still. If she did realize something was going on, it would help to have Ava back there with her.

He crossed to the front of the store where Kirsten had taken up a protective stance in front of the glass door. John pulled his badge out of his pocket, flipped the leather case and held it against the glass.

“Beat it! Now.” The command was more growl that words.

Short and stocky went pale, but turned and walked away.

John watched till the man was across the green, then turned to Kirsten, opening his mouth to speak, but a scream stopped him in his tracks.

Ava’s scream.

The sound of it turned the blood in John’s veins to ice. He’d heard a lot of screams in his lifetime. Pain, fear, agony, mourning. They all had a different sound to them.

Ava’s was terror.

“Call for backup,” John said as he bolted for the back, drawing his weapon. He was counting on Kirsten to follow that order, because there was no way in hell he was stopping to do it. Every bone in his body screamed at him to get to Ava. To make her safe.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Ava cried out for John as he ran in the back, but her scream broke off. As he came around the corner, he saw a tall man in a mask he recognized from watching videos of it all week. The man smashed his fist into Janna’s face, sending Ava’s sister flying.

The other hand grabbed Ava by the hair and pulled her against him. John saw red. He wanted nothing more than to race at the man and tear him apart with his bare hands. The drive to do it was almost primitive in nature.

And it took all of John’s training and control to stop, to think before he acted.

He prayed Kirsten had called the police or hit the silent alarm, because he needed backup, fast.

He raised his weapon. He wanted to tell the fucker what he would do to him if Ava had so much as a scrape at the end of this. He wanted to describe in brutal, unmistakable detail the ways in which he would mete out punishment to this asshole if any harm came to her.

What he said instead was, “Police. Show me your hands.”

Christ, it took all he had not to shoot.

He would have, but Ava was there in his line of fire. The asshole had pulled her to him and was clinging to her now, using her as a protective shield.

Wild eyes met John’s, and there was no doubt in John’s mind, this guy was cranked up on something. Meth, coke—he didn’t know what, but something.

John looked at Ava. The man had her hair wrapped around his fist, a gun pressed to her cheek. John looked only into her eyes. He tried to tell her he had this, that he would get her out of there alive. He didn’t put it in words. He put it into his eyes and willed her to trust in him, to believe it. To know it.

Janna was on the floor, sobbing. The side of her face was red and swelling, and she looked stricken at the scene before her.

John knew what she was doing. She was blaming herself for this. He could guess what had happened. The assailant and Ava were standing by the back door, a bag of trash at their feet. Janna had likely started her nighttime routine, taking the trash out to the back, forgetting they couldn’t do that right now. But that was on him, not her.

He was an idiot. He’d gone out to the front of the store to chase off the irate customer who’d been pissed they closed before he got there. John had done that without reminding Janna that she couldn’t go out the back. He’d seen how absorbed she was in what she was doing all day. He had left without so much as a thought to her because he had wanted to be Ava’s knight in shining armor, making the creep up front go away by waving his badge around.

And now they were all paying for his fuck up.

“Janna,” he said calmly. “Get behind me.”

When she didn’t move, he put a little bite in his tone. “Janna, now.”

She moved then, still down on the ground, still sobbing, but she moved.

Then he spoke to the asshole whose life was about to end if he didn’t let Ava go.

John knew he had to handle this carefully. This guy was on drugs. On drugs and off the rails, nothing left to lose.

“Adam,” John said, making a conscious decision to let the guy know the police knew who he was. He wanted to convince him he needed to let Ava go and run. “The guard out front has called for backup. I’ve got backup on the way.”

Lord, he hoped that was true. Eric had said they were doing regular drive-throughs in all the areas they knew Adam might be, and this was one of them.

“You’ve got seconds to get away from here. Minutes if you’re lucky. Let her go and run now. This is only slowing you down, letting them corner you.”

John heard Kristin come in behind him, letting him know it was her with a murmured word to him, quietly backing him up.

John knew there was a good chance the guy would choose to strap in for the ride, using Ava and the rest of them as bargaining chips. Or, he could come at them, trying to kill them all because he didn’t have a whole hell of a lot left to lose at this point. John had to be ready for any of those scenarios.

“You don’t want to add to the body count, Adam. Get out and run while you can.”

In the distance, sirens sounded, and John saw the flash of panic in Adam’s eyes. He saw the split second the man made a decision. John’s response was automatic. His finger moved from the slide of his gun to the trigger.

Adam moved, shoving Ava at John and raising the gun to aim at John.

Suicide-by-Cop.

John saw Ava clear the space in front of him, and he fired. Once, twice. He paused, fired once, twice again. He processed that Adam had fired his weapon in there. He processed pain in his arm. But there wasn’t time for him to think about any of that. The back door opened, and he saw unformed officers enter.

In the chaos, John shouted to them, identifying himself as an officer. Thankfully, they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later, but they did shout at him to drop his weapon.

He did. He could see the life had drained from Adam’s eyes.

Ava was safe, cradling a screaming Janna behind him.

Within minutes, his partner was there, telling the uniforms to stand down. Then Eric looked at him and his words sent cold through John.

“You’re hit. John, fuck, you’re hit.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

“Don’t,” was all Eric said, when John tried to get up.

John growled at him. They’d had him sitting on the back bumper of an ambulance for the better part of an hour now for nothing more than a graze of his arm.

“It’s been an hour and it’s a flesh wound.”

“It’s been five minutes,” Eric countered. “And that’s more than a flesh wound.”

John turned to the EMT. “Did it hit bone?”

“Uh.” The EMT turned to Eric. “No?”

“Ligaments?” John asked.

The EMT shook his head.

“Muscle,” Eric said with a look at the EMT.

“Uh, yeah,” said the EMT. “It definitely entered the muscle.”

“I’m fine,” John bit out. He knew damned well it was highly likely he was going to need some physical therapy on that arm. You didn’t walk away from a bullet wound like that without some kind of damage, but he wanted to see Ava.

She’d been in with the detectives from his unit answering questions for too damned long. Those guys might be like his brothers, but right now, he wouldn’t even trust his brothers with Ava. He needed eyes on her.

John moved to stand again, glaring at Eric when his partner moved toward him like he’d hold him down. That’s what it would take at this point.

Then Ava was there, walking with her arm around Janna and Rhys beside them. If Rhys didn’t escort her straight to John, he was going to tear the guy a new asshole.

John scanned her, looking at her face as she moved toward him. She was stressed, he could see that, and there was some bruising on her neck that made him see red, but she looked like that was the extent of her injuries.

His hands itched to roam over her, to check every inch of her to be sure she was okay.

Janna was holding ice to the side of her face where she’d been hit, but other than that, she looked uninjured.

“John,” Ava said, sinking down next to him. “You’re hurt,” she said, her large eyes going to his bandage.

“Flesh wound,” he said, in unison with the EMT and Eric.

John flashed a smile. “I’m fine. But, listen, Ava, we have to talk.”

She raised a hand up, palm out, as her eyes flashed. “Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to do this, John Sevier. You don’t get to take this all on yourself. You don’t get to blame yourself and tell me I’m better off without you. That your job puts me in jeopardy and that my life will be better without you in it. You don’t get to do that to me.”

She looked him up and down. “I have news for you. You’re not a god. You don’t control my life, and you aren’t responsible for everything that happens in it. That had nothing to do with you being in my life. That guy would have come into my world trying to hurt me with or without you. So you can shut your mouth and save the speech. I’m not letting you leave me now that I finally have you back in my life. I won’t let you play the martyr here.”

John raised a brow as she finished, looking at her flashing eyes and flushed cheeks. God, he loved this woman. “You about done?”

She grunted a response that said she could probably say more but was willing to give him a turn.

John could see Eric’s amusement in the background. He couldn’t wait for his partner to be the one who was blindsided by his feelings for a woman. When Eric was the one who would let that woman rail at him day and night, so long as she was with him. So long as she was safe and in his arms.

John kept his focus on Ava. Eric’s turn would come someday, and John would be there to laugh his ass off at him.

“I was going to say,” he said, using his good arm to pull her closer, running a hand over her cheek before brushing his thumb over her mouth. “I was going to say that I don’t want to waste another minute without you in my life, Ava McNair. I want you with me. I want to be with you. I want to share everything, good and bad, with you.”

He didn’t give a shit that half his damned department was there to witness it. John leaned in and kissed her shocked face, putting everything he was and had into that kiss. Because he meant it. Going forward, he wanted her in his world. He wanted to be with her and know she wanted to be with him.

He held his breath until he felt her sink into him and kiss him back.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

John, Eric, and Rhys all stood beside Captain Scanlon and the officer from public affairs who had showed up on scene shortly after the captain. It was typical for them to hold a short press conference with the captain reading a statement and fielding questions.

It made John itch to be on show like that, but this was one time he was glad to watch the show. They were announcing the arrest of two of the suspects. It would be better if all three had been apprehended instead of one suspect being shot and killed, but at least it was over. John had no qualms about having shot Adam Carr.

It would haunt him. Taking a life always did, but he wouldn’t doubt the decision to shoot. Adam had been dangerous to John, to Ava and her sister, to all of Dark Falls. They had watched the man unravel over the course of the last few weeks, and there was no doubt in John’s mind, he had taken a dangerous killer off the streets that night.

The Captain finished reading her statement and opened up to questions.

John didn’t recognize the small redhead who spoke first, but he saw Eric stiffen noticeably when the woman introduced herself.

“Merritt McKenna, Dark Falls Daily. Can you tell us if anyone else was injured in today’s takedown?”

There was nothing wrong with the question. No reason Eric should have stiffened. John tried to catch his eye, but his partner was staring dead ahead, unseeing, into the group of reporters.

Strike that, Eric was very carefully not looking at Merritt McKenna, whoever she was. They all knew most of the regular journalists who covered Major Crimes in Dark Falls. She was new.

“I expect the story later,” John said under his breath.

Eric’s jaw tightened.

“That’ll be all,” the captain was saying. The press tried calling out a few other questions, but when Captain Scanlon said she was finished, she was finished.

John needed to go back to the station to give his statement about the shooting. He’d be put on paid administrative leave and the Use of Force Task Force would call in someone from a neighboring agency to investigate the shooting and make sure it was righteous.

He was okay with that. They’d already heard from Nate and Zaragoza. The two other friends had confessed to the robberies. They saw Adam shoot Josh in that alley and took off, afraid he’d turn on them next. They’d been arguing about whether to go to the police ever since.

So, yeah, John was ready for a break. He would be spending that break with Ava, and that was fine by him. More than fine.

Two days later, John stood at his ex-wife’s wedding, of all things. He was holding his ex-and-now-current girlfriend’s hand and watching his ex-wife get remarried with a dopy smile on his face. A smile he couldn’t have hidden for all the world.

Ava squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. The last two days had been stressful in a lot of ways. Janna was understandably stressed and anxious after what she’d been through. She was having a hard time leaving the house and hadn’t even wanted to go to the jewelry store to work.

It would take time to get her past it. John planned to be right there with Ava as she got her sister through this.

Ava’s dad seemed okay with that, shaking John’s hand and thanking him for saving his girls when John came to the house after processing out at the police station after the shooting.

Right now, they were spending quiet days and evenings at Ava’s house, playing games with her dad and Janna and watching movies all together at night. It was sedate and boring and sheer heaven.

John knew he’d be itching to go back to work soon, but that feeling hadn’t come yet.

He returned Ava’s smile with a wink, then watched as Lucia and Carlos were pronounced husband and wife. Carlos rested one hand on Lucia’s pregnant belly as he leaned in to kiss her. They were well past the point where Lucia had lost their babies, and John prayed they would make it through to term.

He wasn’t ready to hope for that himself yet. He wasn’t sure he could get up the nerve to put Ava through what he’d put Lucia through trying for a baby, but he was trying to get there. And for now, he was just happy getting to know Ava again, getting to be with her every day. Getting to be there for her and be part of her life.

They watched as a grinning Lucia and Carlos walked hand-in-hand up the aisle. Lucia caught John’s eye and waved, giving him a thumbs up with a pointed look at Ava. He didn’t know if Lucia recognized Ava from college or realized who she was. He had a feeling she wouldn’t care either way. They’d moved past the point where there were any bitter feelings between them.

Ava laughed and waved at Lucia before turning to John. “They’ll be taking pictures and things for a bit before they head to the reception.”

John turned, pulling her into his arms, ignoring the crowd in the church around them. “Mm-hmm. Did you have something in mind to help us kill the time?”

She shrugged a shoulder with feigned innocence. “We haven’t had a whole lot of time to ourselves lately.”

It was true. They’d been with her dad and sister almost constantly since the shooting. Ava seemed to need that as much as Janna and her dad had, and John didn’t blame any of them.

Still, he liked where she was headed with this.

Ava glanced around. People were emptying out of the pews and heading toward the entrance to the church.

She ran her hands up his chest to his shoulders. It was stupid how fast his body responded to her. Church or no church, he pulled her closer.

“I just thought,” she said, playfully trailing her fingers up the back of his neck, “that we could maybe park somewhere.”

John laughed. “You want to park and make out with me?”

“I do,” she said.

John stilled, her words striking at his heart in a way he couldn’t escape, didn’t want to escape. He cupped her face with his hands. “I love you. I know it’s probably too damned soon to say it, and maybe that will scare you off, but I love you, and I don’t want to let another day go by without telling you that.”

Her eyes went soft, and he could hear a small intake of breath. “It won’t scare me off at all. I love you too much to be scared off.”

John lowered his mouth to her ear. “Let’s skip the reception and sneak back to my place for the night. You have your cell if Janna or your dad needs you. And if they don’t—”

“If they don’t, we’ll have the whole night together,” she finished, wrapping her arms around his neck.

John caught her gaze and held it. “We have more than a night together Ava.”

She stood on tiptoes and kissed him. “We do. And I don’t want to miss a minute of it.”

The End

The Dark Falls series continues with books from some of your favorite authors! Keep reading for a sample of Dark Secrets from Savannah Kade and Dark Legacy from Trish McCallan!

An excerpt from Dark Secrets by Savannah Kade:

Grace didn’t usually spray luminol and pull out her black light when she entered a motel room. But today she held the light up and frowned at the blood revealed by the generously applied chemiluminescent.

Old blood was everywhere. Small spots peeked out from under the edge of the bed where the old polyester blanket touched the carpeting. It looked to Grace as though something had happened in that spot and the bed had simply been moved. In one corner, another streak of luminol glowed cautiously, the remnant of a merely passable scrubbing. Some of the luminescent spots revealed that her suspicions had been correct about the old carpeting, about this motel room, and about the stains.

Crap. This was the last thing she needed.

She’d requested this room specifically. She didn’t always spray Luminol and pull out her black light when she rented a room. Then again, she couldn’t recall ever renting a room this awful in her life. She could imagine Jimmy here, though. If he was on one of his serious benders this would be nothing. Unfortunately, that meant there was nothing obvious here that supported her theory about her brother. She’d have to wait for lab results.

“Oh, Jimmy,” she lamented out loud to the dark room. “What did you get yourself into?”

The way her heart clenched couldn’t be stopped. No matter what the room looked like, no matter what she might be able to prove, none of it would change the facts. Jimmy was dead. Gone, after a life that had been a struggle from the beginning and continued to be one well into adulthood. Grace blinked back the tears that threatened.

Many people didn’t know what it was like having an addict in their lives. They were lucky. Addicts stole, they lied, they betrayed. And they often left you with only one option—completely cutting yourself off.

She hadn’t been able to do it. Neither had her parents. So they’d all suffered alongside her little brother.

But, dammit, she’d really thought these last five years had seen a turnaround. He’d been clean and four months shy of his five-year chip. But the Dark Falls Police Department had written of Jimmy’s death as just another junkie overdose. Case closed.

Grace wasn’t buying it. Jimmy wasn’t using again. She knew it. She’d spoken to him just a few days before he died.

No one would believe her. No one did. Even her parents were skeptical, but she believed. She’d lived with Jimmy, and watched him turn to alcohol at age ten, then cocaine at thirteen, she’d gotten good at spotting the signs. Lots of siblings did. Sometimes parents tried to deny it. They turned their kids away, or they made up excuses and always believed the best. But siblings of addicts had a radar for it. Their investment was entirely different from a parental bond.

Grace knew. She’d talked about it in Al-Anon meetings. She’d gone steadily for almost two years, then off and on for another handful. The siblings of addicts all had similar stories. They knew. They could tell when their brothers or sisters were using again. Grace couldn’t count the number of times someone had showed up at a meeting with a suspicion, then even several months later said, “I was right.”

She’d had that feeling about Jimmy before. It happened the first time he’d gotten clean. He’d stayed clean for six months before relapsing. The second time—after their parents had paid to put him through an expensive rehab program—he’d stayed clean a year and a half. But Grace knew that his eighteen-month chip was an excuse to celebrate, to think he’d been cured only to have him slide back. But she didn’t have that feeling. Not this time. The third time seemed to have stuck.

Jimmy had moved to Dark Falls, something their mother had protested with every fiber of her being. He should be close to home. Part Vietnamese, part Chinese, and gay as the day was long, Jimmy wanted to get out of the South. Grace understood. She’d supported him. They texted daily, and she talked to him just a few days before he died. She did not believe he was using again.

She’d even demanded a full autopsy. She checked off her mental list as she looked around the room at the various splotches her quick test had revealed. She’d want samples of them all. Jimmy’s death was listed as an overdose. Had there been fresh blood, the police wouldn’t have been able to write it off so easily.

Grace had only pulled out the Luminol on a whim when she’d seen the dark patches in the carpeting. It could have been wine or cheap beer, but her senses told her to test it. Shit. She looked around behind her, holding the light up. A lot of it was faint, old, but she needed to know what it was.

She had her work cut out for her.

After gathering samples from at least five spots around the room—samples that she highly suspected would be all different—she turned off her black light and clicked the regular light back on.

Surveying the horrible room she didn’t want to be in, she pulled out her phone and called her oftentimes partner, Brad, back home. “Brad, I was right.”

Click to keep reading Dark Secrets!

An excerpt from Dark Legacy by Trish McCallan:

Rhys suspected the victim had been murdered. His instincts had been humming since he’d gotten the call an hour earlier. The location and markings were too damn suspicious for anything else. Unless…unless some malicious prick had found a dead drifter and decided to play a nasty prank on the town.

He crunched his way across the first perimeter, his skin and chest tightening beneath the constant furtive glances that followed him. Sevier was waiting at the second perimeter tape—red this time.

“You’re late.” There was no accusation in the comment, instead concern narrowed the light brown eyes studying him. “You okay?”

The question stopped Rhys in his tracks and tensed the muscles of his back. Fuck…he’d expected the concern…the questions…those little sidewise looks everyone was giving him. He just hadn’t expected them to dig under his skin like slivers of ice.

“I’m fine.” He kept his voice neutral, his face blank and ducked beneath the tape to join Sevier. “When did you start buying into Cantu’s theory of over sharing?”

Eric Cantu was Sevier’s partner. He was also the Major Crime units company comic and pop psychologist. Christ, it was bad enough having Cantu mothering the hell out of them, encouraging everyone to express their feelings. Having two dithering hens in the unit, would be two too many.

Sevier simply shrugged. “The boss fill you in?”

“About the carvings? Yeah.” Rhys buried his immediate visceral reaction. But remnants of the nightmare slipped through.

A white face frozen in terror…glazed blue eyes…icy blonde hair stuck to the snow…a dark red X-9 carved into a bleach-white forehead…

He locked down the corresponding surge of rage and horror. Even now, so many years later—those early, raw emotions dug their claws into him sometimes, catching him unprepared. He’d spent the past forty-five minutes drinking coffee and girding himself to make sure they didn’t latch onto him here…now.

“Whoever did this…the perp? He’s a mimic. A fucking copycat.” Sevier scowled and blew out a deep breath that hung in the air like a frosty question mark.

Rhys grimaced. No shit.

While he’d been a clueless kid when Kenneth Hamilton had been carving up young women and dumping their bodies in this section of the Colorado State forest, he knew many of the detectives who’d been instrumental in catching the bastard.

Hell, Gerald Osborn and Craig Patel had been the lead detectives on the case back then. They were sharp as needles, methodical, and unbiased. They didn’t jump to conclusions, they followed the evidence. There was no fucking way Hamilton would have been arrested and convicted without a sea of evidence supporting the case.

The bastard had been guilty. There was no question of that in Rhys’s mind. Regardless of how vehemently Ariel had insisted that her father wasn’t the killer…couldn’t possibly be the killer—

Rhys swiped a hand down his face. Christ, he needed to get his mind under control. These damn memories were not helping.

He sighed and pinched the flesh between his eyebrows. This new victim with her blonde hair and blue eyes and the X-10 carved in her forehead had just muddied the Hamilton case significantly.

Someone was out to fuck with them.

Click to keep reading Dark Legacy!

ALSO BY LORI RYAN

The Sutton Capital Series

Legal Ease

Penalty Clause

The Baker’s Bodyguard (A Sutton Capital Series Novella)

Negotiation Tactics

The Billionaire’s Suite Dreams

The Baker, the Bodyguard, and the Wedding Bell Blues (A Sutton Capital Series Novella)

Her SEALed Fate

The Sutton Capital Series Boxed Set (Books One Through Four)

The Sutton Capital Series Boxed Set (Books Five Through Seven)

Sutton Capital Intrigue

Cutthroat

Cut and Run

Cut to the Chase

Sutton Capital On the Line Series

Pure Vengeance

Latent Danger

Wicked Justice

Heroes of Evers, Texas Series

Love and Protect

Promise and Protect

Honor and Protect (An Evers, TX Novella)

Serve and Protect

Desire and Protect

Cherish and Protect

Triple Play Curse Series

Game Changer

Game Maker

Game Clincher

The Triple Play Curse Boxed Set

Standalone Books

Stealing Home (writing in Melanie Shawn’s Hope Falls Series)

Any Witch Way (writing in Robyn Peterman’s Magic and Mayhem Series)

All In (writing in the Sleeper SEALs Series)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lori Ryan is a NY Times and USA Today bestselling author who writes romantic suspense, contemporary romance, and sports romance. She lives with an extremely understanding husband, three wonderful children, and two mostly-behaved dogs in Austin, Texas. It’s a bit of a zoo, but she wouldn’t change a thing.

Lori published her first novel in April of 2013 and hasn’t looked back since then. She loves to connect with her readers.

For new release info and bonus content, join her newsletter at http://loriryanromance.com/lets-keep-touch/

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Contents

Dark Falls

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Also by Lori Ryan

About the Author