Vigilante Mine (8 page)

"Glad I caught you." He puffed out a fogged breath, flicked a glance down the street, then dropped into a whisper. "Look, word is someone saw who hit the station. Long coat, boots, dark leather mask, lots of muscle. Your staff might be 'okay', but they say this guy targeted a snitch on the inside. They say . . . " He leaned closer. "Someone died." His teeth tore into the bacon and he smiled around the strip. "But you don't put much stock in rumor, do you, Detective?"

"A masked man?" Her voice came out tight as a memory twinged her shoulder and caressed her lips.

Greg was already back through Mrs. Byron's front doorway. Amanda checked her cell phone. No missed calls. What were the odds, anyway? Rumors often held a shred of truth, but even on a mandatory day off and even at his most furious Lieutenant Dale wouldn't keep that news quiet. Not if the reason she'd been stuck behind a desk for months was sneaking around leaving bodies. Dale would call.

Wouldn't he?
She chewed on the inside of her cheek, determined to block out the ghost pain in her shoulder.

Her arm dropped to her side and she squeezed the phone in her fist. She could trust her team. Besides, Dale would gut her if she didn't steer clear today.

With a sudden about-face she ran smack into the man who'd unfolded himself from the driver's seat of the car. A hint of woodsy aftershave tickled her hormones to riotous attention and she looked up into mischief personified.

Ryan McLelas cocked a half-grin that made her dismal mood shake loose.

"I should have known." She nodded at the vehicle now straddling the age-faded lines by the curb.

His grin grew wider. "Good morning to you too, Detective."

Oh, so it's back to that, is it?
She raised an eyebrow. "This is twice now you've come around my turf."

"Maybe I like the scenery." He had the audacity to wink.

Was "professional" even in the man's vocabulary?

Both of her eyebrows lifted. "I take it lines like that win over your lady friends downtown."

"I could use a date for lunch."

Right. If he wanted "scenery", he could go flirt with one of his bimbos. Her rampaging hormones slammed to a halt. She had too much respect for herself to let him get away with this asinine playboy act. Yesterday had shown her a different side to the man splashed across the front pages of every paper in town. She liked that Ryan. But this one? No matter how mushy those big brown eyes made her insides, Amanda wouldn't simply cave. He wanted a date, he'd have to earn it.

She gave an inward wince. Okay, so her hormones hadn't retreated to full dormancy. Had she actually considered having lunch with him?

"I am not your lady friend." She beckoned him with an index finger and he obliged, still grinning like he had the upper hand. Amanda donned her best mocking smile. "And you're not my type."

"Oh?" Ryan chuckled. "What kind of man is your 'type'?"

You.

She snuffed that blazing thought. The delicious specimen of extortionist maximus before her needed a reality check, not an ego boost. Her free hand planted on her hip and she leaned in for the kill. "The honest kind."

Ryan's smile dipped. "Ah." He nudged the barely-there corner of his glasses, but he didn't avert his eyes. "So I guess dinner's not an option, either."

"Perceptive of you." Amanda turned away. "It was nice to see you again, Ryan. Drive safe."

The little voice in her head begged her to reconsider as she backtracked along the sidewalk and hopped over a shattered drain pipe. It was just a file. A harmless little collection of paper. It involved his family, anyway. If her mother were to die in a fire, she'd want to know more too. Granted, she could run through proper department channels. Her pace slowed as she considered the dilemma. He'd admitted taking the file had been wrong. Wasn't that first step worth something? He'd protected her during the explosion, gotten her out of the building in one piece. Couldn't she let it drop? Stealing a file didn't make him as bad as the criminals she put behind bars, did it?

Her hand tightened around her work cell phone.
Of course not. The white collar crime division
never
locks people up for stealing files.

Ice-frosted vinyl siding reflected shimmers of exposed sun. Disappointment pinched her chest, but Amanda continued toward home. These benched months had rattled her confidence more than she'd realized if she could consider letting him slide.

Wrong was wrong.

With even her lieutenant caving to the money and power struggles of their city, she couldn't afford to waver on her own morality.

She shook her head as if the movement could eradicate doubt.
What would I tell him, anyway? 'Call me when you return the
—
'

"I'm not giving back the file."

Amanda started. Her heel sideswiped a patch of black ice. She got out half a gasp, and then her cheek was plastered against Ryan's cotton-covered and more-than-acceptably-toned torso. His arms wrapped her in an impromptu embrace. When his breath fanned over the sensitive skin by her ear, heat arrowed between her thighs, her body and her hormones ready and raring to play.

Damn damn damn.

A mortified blush crept up from her neck. There would be no graceful recovery. Not when her thighs were practically wrapped around his leg. Heaven help her if he noticed how hot she burned from his Good Samaritan catch.

"Thanks." It came out muffled against his navy blue silk tie, so Amanda tipped up her chin. "I . . . don't like games, Ryan."

Ryan's grip loosed. "I gathered that."

She glanced up at his hoarse tone. He'd closed his eyes but his stance remained rigid. After seeing him in action in the file room, this stillness made her uneasy. Amanda carefully returned her palm to his chest. "Ryan?"

He flinched. Not on his face
—
he'd resumed a suspicious, blank look over her head
—
but his muscles jerked under her fingertips.

His gaze dropped, scorching into hers.

She swallowed. "Oh."

Yeah, he'd noticed the heat.

Her lungs sought a shallow breath. The whole city would melt under her toes at this rate. Ice and metal alike.

He eased a hand to his ear. "Heard you the first time, Zach."

Ryan's heartbeat rapped against her fingers. Strong. Fast.

"You know I'm not there yet." Dark brown eyes roved down to her toes then blazed back to her face. "I stopped to eat."

More potent than bourbon. Her cell phone hit the sidewalk with a crack. She tensed her fingers on his chest, but didn't stoop to retrieve the bit of plastic. Not when his intense gaze captured her with such sensual promise.

What was it about him that drew her like an addict when she'd yet to take a taste?

The mischievous smile returned to his lips. This time, he wasn't playing. He closed in and her breath froze in her throat.

A scant centimeter away, Ryan stopped. Despite the frustration that burrowed her fingers tighter in his shirt, Amanda fought against closing the gap.

With a grunt, he ripped his heated attentions away from her to look down the street. "Keep looking. I'll call you when I arrive."

Whatever he'd heard, he didn't like. Amanda's curiosity fought the volcano of arousal when Ryan dropped his hand from his ear to rest on the arm of her coat. She cocked her head to the side and let her brain prevail. "Is he gone?"

The corners of his eyes crinkled. "He's never 'gone'."

"Perk of the bodyguard?"

"Hazard of the brother."

She chuckled and stepped back from him, unrequited passion at a healthy simmer. Chill gusts of wind curving down the street caught her off-guard. She tugged on her scarf and hugged her arms around her middle. "All the money in the world, and you hire your brother?"

His expression sobered. "You can't buy trust."

"True." The sentiment applied to his treatment of their precinct and the so-called benefit dinner too. "Why are you out here, Ryan?"

He nodded over his shoulder, toward his parking space. "I needed to lay some memories to rest."

"Old Town, then."

A thin smile.

His former home lay several neglected miles of road and a bridge away. Cutting through the North End was a longer trip than the interstate, but the route was a straight shot. Maybe it helped to delay the inevitable.

He ran a hand through his hair and nodded at the ground by her boots. "Working?"

"That'd be nice. I report back in tomorrow." The reminder killed the pleasant buzz in her core. She somehow kept her shoulders from slumping. Ah, reality. "Someone could have died yesterday, Ryan. I want to catch whoever's responsible."

Ryan tugged on his jacket and squatted to retrieve her cell phone. Dwarfed in his hands, the device looked miraculously intact. "Lieutenant Dale didn't catch him yesterday? Shouldn't it be 'all hands on deck' after that phone call, then?"

"Unrelated incident. Prank call from a repeat offender. Dale dumped it on the guy's probation officer." She lifted her hand to claim her phone but paused at Ryan's troubled expression. "What?"

His eyebrows drew low. "Didn't sound like a prank. It sounded like someone claiming the attack."

"You misheard. The caller threatened Dale's wife, Theresa. But I talked to her myself last night. She was fine, if a little shaken to see their house surrounded by a whole squad of uniforms. No one had been in their home." Amanda shrugged. "Sometimes it's just a delinquent who isn't making much of his second chance."

"And sometimes it's just a maniac on the loose."

She waited for a smile, but his face remained as grim as her intuition. Just because her lieutenant had provided an explanation didn't mean she had to like its convenience.

"Maniac or not, my lieutenant was quite clear on what 'off-duty' meant." She tipped a defeated look toward Ryan. "It's been a long morning."

"Then maybe this day off will do you some good." He slipped her cell phone into his suit pants pocket before she could stop him and his fingers jangled a set of keys in its place. "I'm headed into Old Town to think. Come walk with me."

A huff of exasperation escaped. "What, you're holding my phone hostage now?"

"Whatever it takes."

"Ruthless."

An unrepentant grin spread over his face. "That's me, Detective. Ruthless."

After a few backward steps, he pivoted around the corner. He knew she'd follow. How could she walk away when he'd confiscated yet another piece of state property? Not to mention her primary point of contact for the investigation results . . . Amanda shook her head as she followed at a slower pace, keeping a lookout for more ice patches. A morning with the hopeless flirt was a terrible, horrible, ridiculously appealing idea. She should just take him down, retrieve her phone by force, and call it a day. Her lips worked up a belligerent smile.

He'd won after all.

Ryan's head popped around the townhouse, those twinkling brown eyes drawing her like a beacon. "Coming?"

"Fine, but we're not going out to lunch."

And naked wrestling was also off the agenda.

For now.

Tattered banners, once
bright and inviting, marked the eaves of former storefronts with tribal glyphs Ryan no longer understood. The multi-story buildings remained hollow, charred remnants of furniture encroaching on the sidewalk, the glass from doors and windows still strewn on the ground where they'd fallen a decade ago. Weeds, though brown with winter chill, peeked through cracks in the sidewalk. He sucked in a lungful of winter air and smelled . . . nothing.

No flowering herbs, no smoke or food cooking in kitchens, no sun-brewed tea
—
nothing.

Sound eluded him too. His ears picked up a light breeze whistling through the ruins, but no one laughed, played, sang, or told stories here anymore. A pang of anger tinged with grief curled his fingers into fists. His mother, their neighbors
—
their memory deserved better than a memorial of ashes.

Ten years and there'd been no effort to rebuild. Instead, Old Town had been abandoned. Forgotten. Even the graffiti had aged and weathered.

No one to impress in a ghost town.

Amanda shifted beside him, her arms crossed where she leaned on the door of his Mustang. The piercing blue paint seemed ostentatious in the face of his childhood memories.

"I should have brought something low-key." He rapped his knuckles on the hood scoop.

"Nothing about you is low-key, Ryan." She tipped him a sidelong look and a warm smile. "I doubt the people who lived here would want you to be something you're not."

His chest tightened at the observation and he turned to drop both of his palms flat on the now-cooled hood of his car.

"My father was the businessman. He lived uptown, visited my brothers and me on weekends. We lived right there. With Mom." He pointed across the street to a building that leaned on its neighbor and pushed off the car with his fingers. "The fire that took out this block killed her
—
our
—
tribe. My past, my brothers' past, gone with no answers."