Crime and Passion Read Free

didn’t like what she was hearing. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.” She got down to business. “Does anyone know you’ve come here?”
    Ilene shook her head. She’d taken a personal day, telling the office she was going to the doctor. She’d told Alex’s baby-sitter the same thing. Coming here wasn’t something she enjoyed advertising. “No.”
    Janelle tried to read between the lines. “But you did go to your boss about this?”
    Ilene could tell by the other woman’s tone that she thought Ilene had made a tactical mistake. But Janelle Cavanaugh didn’t know John Walken, didn’t know that he was an honorable man.
    “Yes,” her own tone was defensive, “I thought he’d want to fix it, that he didn’t know this was going on. I can’t find out who gave the initial order.”
    Janelle looked at her knowingly. “And Walken said he would get right on it, but you haven’t heard anything so far.”
    Ilene hated the way this all sounded so predictable. There had to be some explanation. Good people didn’t do heinous things.
    But if she truly believed that, why was she here?
    She looked down at her nails, rendering the answer through teeth that were almost closed. “Right.”
    Janelle nodded. “And how long ago was that?”
    “A week.” It sounded like an eternity. “I thought about talking to him again.” Ilene had almost gone in today, wanting to give Walken another chance. She’d changed her mind at the last minute. “But—”
    “Your instincts told you to come here.” Janelle’s blue eyes smiled at the other woman. “Good instincts. Hope your survival ones are just as keen.”
    “Is this police-protection thing really necessary?”
    “It is if I want to sleep at night. Excuse me for a second.” Janelle drew the phone in closer to her.
    Turning her body away from her, Janelle let her fingers quickly tap out the familiar numbers. Her father, Brian, was the current chief of detectives and the younger of the two surviving Cavanaugh brothers. His three sons, her brothers and six of her seven cousins were also with the police force. Only Patience had broken free, following her own destiny to become a veterinarian. But even Patience had continuing contact with the police force. Janelle’s cousin treated the German shepherds that made up the K-9 squad.
    There were times when Janelle thought of the police force as her personal cavalry. This was one of those times.
    Connected to her father’s private line, she lowered her voice as she began to speak. After a few moments of obligatory give and take and a promise to stop by “soon,” Janelle told her father why she was calling. Quickly, she gave him Ilene’s background story and what she’d brought to the table.
    Listening to her father’s answer, Janelle had no way of knowing she was setting into motion something that was going to mushroom out until it touched all of them.

    “You look much too happy for a Monday morning,” Kyle Santini, Clay’s partner of two years grumbled as he slumped down in his own seat. The sudden action all but sent his coffee sloshing over the sides of the chipped, worn mug his five-year-old had made him in camp last year. Carefully, he set the misshapen royal-blue mug on his desk, keeping it away from any important papers. Kyle eyed the man considered by the squad to be the personification of the carefree, happy bachelor. “You still seeing that stripper?”
    “Exotic dancer,” Clay corrected. “And no, I’m not still seeing her. Ginger and I came to a parting of the ways more than a week ago.”
    A knowing look came over Santini’s face. “Let me guess, she wanted to have ‘the talk.”’ Taking a long drag of the mud that passed for coffee in the precinct, Kyle chuckled to himself. “Sooner or later, they all want to have ‘the talk.”’ Kyle shook his head, a man to whom women would always remain a mystery. “What is it about women that makes them want to clip a man’s wings?”
    “I don’t