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If there was ever a reason for not sleeping with your partner, he thought dryly, Clare Foxx was it.
“I HEARD THE NEWS,” Clare said a little while later, as Tony sat in her office at district headquarters. “Congratulations.”
She was dressed in a black suit with a trim jacket and above-the-knee skirt. As she came around the desk and perched on the edge, Tony caught a flash of thigh.
Damn, he thought, staring in spite of himself. Clare had been working out. Nearly ten years older than Tony, she’d held her age well at forty-one. Hell, she looked good for any age, and she damn well knew it, too.
Smiling, she tucked a wisp of long dark hair behind her ear, revealing a tiny diamond stud in her lobe. She wore a gold chain around her throat, and she played with the necklace as she talked, twisting it around her fingers.
She was a beautiful woman, but her eyes gave away her age and occupation. Dark, piercing, they were a little too hard and cynical, with deep crinkles at the corners that weren’t from laughing.
Clare was a good cop, had been a good partner until she and Tony had gone and made it personal. Until it went bad. Then she’d become like every other woman he’d ever known. She’d wanted a piece of him he wasn’t willing to give. Not anymore. Not since Ashley—
“So,” Clare said, giving him a slow once-over, “now that the review board has exonerated you, what does Dr. Metzer say? You ready for active duty?”
No matter what the rank, it was routine procedure for a cop who had been involved in a shooting to be checked out by a staff psychologist. “Sure. My head’s screwed back on straight. For the time being,” he couldn’t resist adding.
Clare glanced at him sharply. “That’s what I’m afraid of. You’ve been skirting the edge for so long, one of these days you’re going to go native on us. Even Dr. Metzer won’t be able to bring you back.”
“Don’t sell Metzer short. Look what he did for you.”
Her cheeks colored, not from embarrassment but from anger. “I don’t have to take that from you, Tony. I’m your commanding officer, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Not likely to forget that,” he muttered. “So what have you got for me?” Might as well plunge right back in, get his feet wet his first day back.
“It’s not going to be as easy as all that,” she said, heading back around her desk to sit. She picked up a report and studied it for a long, tense moment. Her glasses were lying on the desk but she ignored them. “Things are going to change around here, Tony.”
He stretched his legs in front of him. “Meaning?”
“Just because we were…partners in the past doesn’t mean you’re going to get a free ride.”
“I never thought I would.” He met her gaze.
She seemed momentarily flustered. Glancing back down at the report, she said, “Superintendent Dawson is putting pressure on all the bureaus to clean up their acts, but especially on Investigative Services. No more tune-ups, attitude adjustments, whatever euphemism you guys are calling it on the street these days.”
“You know me better. I’ve never gone in for that.” Although he wouldn’t be human if he hadn’t been tempted a time or two to work over a suspect, especially the ones who murdered children. He remembered the Betts case—then again, he didn’t want to remember the Betts case. He’d been the one to find the child’s body in the Dumpster behind an abandoned apartment building in Chinatown. The little girl’s battered face and staring eyes had haunted him for months, years. But the smirk on her old man’s face when Tony had gone to search his apartment had haunted him even longer.
Yeah, he could easily have done a little attitude adjustment on that psycho, but he hadn’t. He might not always play by the rules, but he knew the dangers in losing control. If he ever came that close again that would be the day he’d hang it up. Walk away. Spend the rest of his life scrubbing toilets or some damn thing if he had to.
Clare’s gaze softened, as if she’d decided to cut him some slack. Or maybe she was remembering little Julie Betts, too. Clare had been the one to pull Tony away from Robert Betts when they’d gone to make the arrest.
“I know you don’t go that far—not even close—but you are something of a Dirty Harry, Tony, you can’t deny that. You should have called for backup the other night, and you know it.”
“I was more concerned with saving two lives. Three, if I could have.” He hadn’t wanted Franco Mancini to die. Tony had tried to persuade the man to throw down his weapon and surrender, but Franco, eyes glazed from whatever drug he’d been popping or snorting, had just kept on shooting.
Tony rubbed his forehead, where a migraine was starting to throb. The light in Clare’s office was suddenly almost blinding.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Clare frowned, and the compassion she might have felt moments earlier vanished. She said coldly, “You’ve got a woman threatening you because of your actions that night.”
He shrugged. It wasn’t the first time, and he doubted it would be the last. Still, if he were honest with himself, he’d have to admit he wasn’t exactly comfortable with Maria Mancini’s vendetta against him. The woman looked pretty edgy herself.
“One of these days,” Clare warned with a hint of maliciousness, “someone is going to make good on their threats against you.”
He wondered if she was talking about Maria Mancini or herself. If memory served, Clare had made a few ugly promises of her own the night Tony had split. The scene had been nasty and brutal, not something he wanted to replay even in his head.
As if she were recalling that night herself, she lifted her chin, glaring at him. “You’ve pretty much been allowed to go your own way around here because, frankly, none of the other detectives want to be assigned with you. But like I said, things are changing. As of today, you’ve got yourself a new partner.”
Alarmed, Tony straightened in his chair. “I thought we had an agreement. I work best alone.”
She smiled. “That agreement was with your old lieutenant. Any promises you and I made to each other have long since become null and void. Isn’t that right?”
Her tone and her gaze challenged him, and Tony said, “You’re getting off on this, aren’t you? You like making me suffer.”
“You’re such an easy target. You and all your pent-up angst.”
He groaned. “Spare me Metzer’s psychobabble. Who are you putting me with? Davis? Sanchez?” He’d give either of them a week at the most.
“She’s new. Transferred from the North Side a couple of weeks ago.”
She? Oh, hell… “The North Side? That’s your old stomping ground, isn’t it? You two pals or something?”
Clare hesitated. “I may have seen her around a few times. She worked vice.”
“What happened? She get tired of wearing spike heels and leather hot pants?”
“It wore a little thin after a while,” a soft voice said from the doorway behind him. “I didn’t mind it on Saturday nights, but every night of the week got to be a real drag. Maybe you should try it sometime.”
Tony glanced around as his new partner walked into the office. Clare gave him a derisive smile. “Tony, I’d like you to meet Eve Barrett. Detective Eve Barrett. I’m sure Detective Gallagher’s reputation precedes him,” she said dryly.
Eve held out her hand, and Tony grudgingly stood. “You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly. “Stand, I mean.”
“So it’s that way, is it?” he muttered, almost under his breath.
She shrugged. “I don’t want to have to stand every time you come into a room.”
He gave Clare a withering look, as if to say what the hell did I do to deserve this?
“Not that I don’t appreciate the thought,” Eve continued. “But we’re going to be working together as equals. I’d like for you to treat me as you would any other partner.”
He could almost see Clare smirking, but Tony wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of glancing her way. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, checking Eve Barrett out in spite of himself. She wore a conservative business suit, not unlike Clare’s, but the skirt was just a little shorter, showing legs that were a little younger and firmer but, to Tony’s mind, no more shapely. They both had great legs. Hell, he’d hit the leg jackpot in here, he thought with perverse appreciation.
Eve Barrett was thin, toned, an all-American girl with her shiny, shoulder-length brown hair and scrubbed complexion. In spite of the shield she wore clipped to the waistband of her skirt, and the faint bulge where her shoulder holster rested beneath her jacket, she looked all of twenty years old. Tony wondered how she’d ever ended up in vice. He couldn’t imagine anyone looking less like a hooker.
Except, of course, for those legs…
He had a sudden vision of her in the aforementioned hot pants and spike heels, and something unwelcome stirred inside him.
As if she were reading his mind, her hazel eyes narrowed on him. “You don’t have a problem working with a female partner, do you, Detective?”
He shrugged. “No. I just don’t want a partner period.”
Something flashed in her eyes. Anger, he hoped, but it sure as hell looked like hurt. Jeez…
She gave him a cool smile. “Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we…Tony?”
The way she said his name…her voice…
For a moment, recognition teased at the fringes of his mind. Had they met before? She looked a little familiar, but surely he would have remembered that body. Those incredible legs.
“Why don’t you wait outside, Eve? I’d like to have a word with Tony before you two hook up.”
“Sure.”
Eve gave Tony a tentative smile before she turned and left the room. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he caught a whiff of her perfume as she walked by him. The fragrance was light, flowery—not at all like the heavy musk Clare had always been partial to. The floral scent was more like the perfume Ashley had worn.
Ashley…
Yes, something about Eve Barrett reminded him of Ashley, but he couldn’t say what, exactly. It wasn’t their looks. Ashley had been tall, willowy, blond. Drop-dead gorgeous. Eve was shorter, thin but more athletic looking. Attractive but not beautiful. Not even close.
Still, there was something about her that had momentarily taken Tony’s mind off his headache. Looking back at Clare, however, the pain hit him right between the eyes.
She gave him a slow smile. “So, what do you think? Can you work with her without driving her crazy?”
Was that really what Clare wanted to know? “I’d say she has potential.”
The smile disappeared from Clare’s red lips. “Consider this a trial. A probation of sorts. If you screw up…”
His brows rose. “Yeah?”
“Not even the Gallagher name will save you this time.”
Had it ever? Both his brothers were cops, just as his father had been before he’d disappeared almost eight years ago while investigating Ashley’s murder. Tony’s family had a long tradition in Chicago law enforcement, but he wasn’t so sure that history had ever helped him out of a jam. In fact, maybe the pressure of trying to live up to the name—and not succeeding—had been his downfall.
Or maybe he was just a screwup, Tony conceded with an inward shrug. The black sheep of the family. At least Fiona still had hope for him.
“So how old is she, anyway?” Tony nodded toward the door. “She looks like a kid. How long was she in vice?”
“A while,” Clare said evasively. “She graduated from the academy a year after you did. Top of her class, I might add. You didn’t graduate top of your class, did you, Tony?”
No, but damn close. Clare might be surprised. Then again, he doubted there was much about him that would surprise her. She’d once made it her business to find out everything she could about him—and now he knew why.
Payback was hell.
“She’s a good detective, so cut her some slack, will you? None of your usual male chauvinist bull.”
“How many times do I have to tell you—I don’t have a chauvinistic bone in my body. I just don’t have much use for people in general.”
“Except when it suits your purposes.” Clare gave him an enigmatic glance. “One of these days you’re going to fall and fall hard, Tony. I just hope I’m lucky enough to be around to stomp on the pieces.”
EVE WAS AT HER DESK in the cubicle she would be sharing with Tony when she saw him come out of Clare’s office. He looked thinner than she remembered, but then, the last time she’d seen him had been, what? Nearly eight years ago?
At Ashley’s funeral.
He’d been so torn up with grief that day he hadn’t even noticed Eve. But then, he never had.
Well, no, that wasn’t exactly true. He’d noticed her before Ashley had come into their lives. They’d even shared a mild summer flirtation the year before Tony graduated from high school. But then Ashley had moved into the neighborhood and there’d been no room in his life for anyone else.
He’d been completely consumed by Ashley Dallas—and why not? She was everything a man could want in a woman. Beautiful, blond, smart. She was even nice, for God’s sake. Eve hadn’t been able to hate her, although there had been times when she’d wanted to. But Ashley had been flawless in every way. The quintessential woman. Eve hadn’t been able to compete with such perfection, and she suspected Ashley’s memory would be even more daunting.
The fact that Tony hadn’t even remembered her told Eve how truly pointless such a competition would be.
Their two desks were shoved up against each other, and when Tony sat down, he and Eve were face-to-face. He gazed at her across the expanse. “Look. What I said in there—it’s nothing personal. I just like working alone, that’s all.”
“I understand. Some people are like that. I’ve worked alone before, too,” she told him.
“Yeah? How’d you like it?”
She shrugged. “I guess I’m more of a people person. I like working with a partner.”
“That’s fine.” He stood, placing his hands on his desk and leaning slightly toward her. “So long as we understand each other. You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours. None of that bonding crap—”
“I get the message,” she interrupted. “Loud and clear. If I want someone to watch my back, I shouldn’t count on you. Right, Tony?”
He frowned. “I didn’t mean—”
“Then what did you mean?” She got up and stood facing him. “If you can’t trust your partner not to bail on you, you’re as good as dead out there. If that’s the way it’s going to be, let’s get it straight right here and now.”
Jeez, Tony thought. She was a lot tougher than she looked. Still, she was right. They might as well get a few things straight right from the start, even though he didn’t expect her to last.
“I’ve never bailed on a partner. You can ask any of the detectives in this division if they’d worry about me covering their backs. You’d get the same answer from all of them. They may not like me. They may not want to have to deal with me and my bullsh—my ways,” he amended with a begrudging shrug. “But they know, to a man—and woman—they can count on me when the going gets tough. And it will,” he added ominously.
She smiled faintly. “I’m hardly a rookie, you know. I’ve been on the force almost as long as you have.”
“How do you know how long I’ve been on the force?”
“Like the lieutenant said, your reputation precedes you.”
He studied her for a moment, his gaze hooded and steely. She’d forgotten how blue his eyes were. Blue and almost breathtakingly intense.
Awareness tingled down her backbone. They’d been kids the last time he’d looked at her so intently, just before he’d kissed her. She’d been sixteen that summer and had never been kissed the way Tony Gallagher had kissed her, his mouth fusing to hers, his tongue entwining with hers.
Eve’s mother had died when she was thirteen, and her father, an insurance adjuster, had become overprotective, resisting the reality of his little girl growing up before his eyes. She hadn’t been allowed to date, but that hadn’t stopped Tony. He’d come over before her father got home from work, and they’d sit on the stoop together. Sometimes they’d even go inside.
How easily he’d forgotten her, Eve thought with a measure of regret, when all these years she’d thought about him a lot. He’d been her first infatuation, and she hadn’t gotten over him for a very long time.
