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TONY WAITED FOR EVE outside. He leaned against his car and watched the night people come and go—the drunks, the lovers, a homeless man shuffling down the sidewalk.
He was tired tonight, almost indescribably weary, though he couldn’t say why exactly. Was it the approaching anniversary that was still bothering him?
Eight years was a long time. Was he still in love with Ashley’s memory, or was it the guilt that still haunted him this time of year? The knowledge that, if not for him, she might still be alive?
He closed his eyes, letting the breeze drift over him. Sometimes he had a hard time remembering what Ashley had looked like alive, but he’d never forgotten what she’d looked like in death. Her face pale. Her eyes open and staring. Her beautiful body covered in blood.
He used to see her face in almost every murder victim he saw, but not so much anymore. Not since he’d seen little Julie Betts lying in that Dumpster. Her murder had affected him in a way so profound he couldn’t begin to explain it, and after that case, he’d started working alone. He found he couldn’t deal with a partner after seeing something like that. He couldn’t handle the camaraderie and sometimes sick cop humor that others used to deal with the nightmares. For Tony it wasn’t that easy. He couldn’t forget any of them. Ashley. Julie. They all haunted his sleep, because he hadn’t been able to save them.
“Tony?”
He opened his eyes and saw Eve standing before him.
“You okay?” she asked anxiously.
He drew in a breath. “Just needed to get some fresh air.”
She nodded. “I understand. It was pretty stuffy in there.”
“Not used to bars?” he asked her.
She smiled ironically. “How could you tell?”
“Just a wild guess.” He straightened from the car and stared down at her. Somehow she seemed smaller out here in the darkness. More vulnerable, although he’d seen the way she handled Vic. “Why did you tell Clare I went out on a call this afternoon?”
“Because I didn’t know where you’d gone,” Eve said. “I had to tell her something. She was looking for you.”
“So you covered for me.”
She shrugged.
“Why?” he asked softly. “Why would you do that for me?” After the conversation they’d had earlier, why would she put herself on the line for him like that?
She looked up at him, her gaze earnest. “It’s like you said inside there. What are partners for?”
He ran his hand through his dark, spiky hair. “Look, I appreciate what you did. But I still don’t—”
“You don’t want a partner. I know.”
“I work best alone, that’s all.”
“Maybe you just never had the right partner before. Did you ever think of that?” Her gaze looked faintly challenging.
He stared down at her for a moment, thinking in spite of himself that she just might be right. She might be the one partner, the one woman, who could stick it out with him, but he didn’t think it was a chance he was willing to take. The stakes were too damned high, and he’d gambled and lost too many times in the past. Better just to go it alone.
“I’m not your enemy, Tony,” she said softly.
“I never thought you were.”
“Then why not give me a chance?”
How could he not have remembered her? Tony thought suddenly. She looked so pretty, standing there in the light from the bar. Like a woman who could make him forget—at least for a while. But then, the morning after always came sooner or later. That was the hell of it. “Give me one good reason why I should,” he said almost gruffly.
“Because there may come a time when you’re going to need someone to cover your back,” she told him. “And because I’d like to be that someone, if you’d let me. You can trust me, Tony, whether you believe it or not.”
Maybe he could trust her, Tony thought, his gaze riveted on her face. But maybe he shouldn’t. For both their sakes.
IT WAS ALMOST TEN O’CLOCK when Eve got home that night. Early by most people’s standards, but she was usually in bed by this time, reading a book or watching TV until she got sleepy.
She was turning into something of a recluse at the tender age of twenty-nine. If she wasn’t careful, she’d wind up talking to herself.
“It’s not as bad as all that,” she muttered, picking up the remote control.
Flipping through the channels, she located a news broadcast, then lay back against the pillows, listening but not watching until she heard Tony’s name mentioned. She already knew what had happened at the review board earlier that day, but she shot up in bed anyway.
He’d been caught on camera coming out of Police Headquarters with Fiona and David MacKenzie on either side of him. In a voice-over, the reporter summarized the events that had led to the hearing and Tony’s exoneration.
“In spite of the outcome of today’s hearing, Franco Mancini’s mother still holds Detective Tony Gallagher and the Chicago Police Department responsible for her son’s death. When interviewed later in the day, Maria Mancini, accompanied by her attorney, did not rule out the possibility of a lawsuit.”
The scene switched to a dark-haired woman standing in front of a microphone, flanked on one side by a man in a suit—her attorney, no doubt—and on the other side by a group of angry-looking family members. Maria’s own eyes reflected more than just anger. There was something disturbing simmering in those dark depths. Rage. Hatred. Maybe even a glimmer of madness.
Eve suppressed a shiver as she watched the woman speak. “If we do bring suit, it won’t be for the money,” Maria insisted tearfully. “I want justice for my boy.”
The news flashed to another story, and Eve clicked off the TV, a dark premonition sweeping over her. Maria Mancini was trouble. Eve had no doubt about that. Being named in a lawsuit against the police department was the last thing Tony needed. He was already in hot water with the brass. Hotter than he knew.
His file lay on her nightstand, and Eve picked it up, thumbing through the reports and complaints, although she’d already studied them at length. But even before this assignment, she’d known that he’d been hit with an assault charge four years ago, just after he’d made detective. He’d struck a suspect, but to Eve’s mind, the circumstances had been extenuating.
If Eve had been the cop who had found the evidence underneath Robert Betts’s bed, she wasn’t sure how she would have reacted. But she certainly didn’t blame Tony for losing control. He’d been the one who had found the little girl’s body, and before that, he’d scoured the streets and neighborhoods night and day, searching for the missing child, hoping and praying he wouldn’t be too late, but knowing all the while that he was.
The Betts case had come early in Tony’s career. Twenty-seven was young to have made detective, let alone to be working homicide, but his phenomenal instincts—not to mention the Gallagher name—had catapulted him to prominence. He’d soon developed into one of the division’s hottest and most watched detectives, but even so, Eve doubted he would have been assigned to work such a high-profile investigation if it hadn’t been for his partner. Clare Foxx had been a well-known and respected detective at the time, but it had been Tony who had finally broken the case.
Eve had still been working vice at that time, but she and the rest of the department, along with the entire city, had followed the investigation, hoping and praying just like the cops who searched for the child that little Julie Betts would somehow turn up alive. The team of detectives had spent hundreds of hours on the case, combing every square inch around the victim’s home and school, following up on one flimsy lead after another. Tony had taken it upon himself to widen the search, using his off-duty time to scour gutters and trash bins. And then he’d found her.
Eve closed her eyes, knowing the words in the report by heart, but picturing in her mind how it all must have gone down that day.
It had been twilight when Tony had found the child, thrown away like yesterday’s useless garbage. She’d had on a pink dress, and her hair was in pigtails tied with pink ribbons. One of the ribbons was missing, and Tony had felt certain it had been taken by the killer as a souvenir or a trophy.
When the bloodstained ribbon had later been found in a shoe box stuffed under Robert Betts’s bed, Tony had gone after the man’s throat. Clare had managed to pull him away, but not before Robert Betts claimed his rights had been violated. He’d filed assault charges against Tony, even though he hadn’t had a prayer of getting off once the DNA found on the ribbon had been matched to his seven-year-old daughter’s.
In a way, the Julie Betts case was what had brought Tony back into Eve’s life. After Ashley’s funeral, when she’d seen how grief stricken Tony was, Eve had told herself that it was time to get over her schoolgirl crush and get on with her life. And she had. She’d graduated from college, gone to the academy and then concentrated on her career. She’d even had a serious relationship or two over the years.
But then the prominence of the Betts case, the manhunt and subsequent notoriety Tony received after the arrest, had made Eve think about him more and more. She had almost gone to see him back then, to tell him that she understood why he had done what he had. After weeks of searching, it must have killed him to find that little girl’s body. Eve had a feeling he’d never gotten over it.
To most people in the department, Tony Gallagher was a rogue, a loner who didn’t play by the rules. But Eve knew he was much more than that. He was a cop who cared too much. A cop—and a man—worth saving.
But the question was, did he believe that about himself?
Chapter Three
The telephone awakened Eve from a deep sleep. She thought it was the alarm clock at first and reached out blindly to slap at the button. When the ringing persisted, she rolled over and grabbed the receiver.
“This is Barrett,” she said groggily.
“Eve? This is Clare. Foxx.”
Eve sat up, glancing at the bedside clock. Just after four in the morning. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“We’ve got a situation, I’m afraid.”
Something in her voice sent a thrill of alarm racing up Eve’s spine. “What is it?”
“Bill Stringer’s daughter was found murdered in her apartment just under an hour ago.”
“Oh, no.” Bill Stringer was Vic D’Angelo’s partner. Eve didn’t know the detective well, but her mind instantly flashed to the picture of the young woman he kept on his desk. “Her name’s Lucy,” he’d told Eve proudly one day when she’d inquired about the photo. Eve remembered Bill picking up the picture and staring down at it. “Her mother and I call her Lulu. She hates it, of course, now that she’s all grown-up.”
Eve cradled the portable phone between her chin and ear as she began grabbing clothes from her closet.
“I want you and Tony to catch this one,” Clare told her.
Eve frowned into the phone. “Are you sure? I mean…it’s likely to get some attention.”
“I want a woman on this,” Clare said firmly. “And I want the best. I owe that much to Bill.”
Eve had no delusions. She fit only half of that criteria. Which meant Clare considered Tony Gallagher the best.
So why was she trying to get rid of him?
“What’s the address?” Eve threw her clothes on the bed as she picked up a pen and started scribbling.
“One other thing,” Clare said, after they’d talked for a few more minutes. Her voice held a strange edge. “Is Tony with you?”
The question shocked Eve. “No, of course not. Why would he be?”
“I called him a few minutes ago and didn’t get an answer.” Still that odd tone. “Maybe you’d better go by and see if you can rouse him. I want both of you on the scene as soon as possible.”
“I’m on my way.”
THE BANGING INSIDE Tony’s head matched the banging outside his apartment. For a moment, he lay drifting on the fringes of sleep, not wanting to open his eyes, but the pounding, both within and without, tortured him awake. He turned over and squinted at the clock. A little after four. Who the hell was knocking on his door at this time of morning?
“It damn well better be good,” he muttered, rolling out of bed. He reached for his clothes, then realized he was still wearing the pants and shirt he’d had on the night before. The shirt was unbuttoned, and somewhere along the way he’d lost his shoes and socks.
He struggled to recall the events of last evening. He’d gone to the pub, had a few drinks. Nick had been there. David. Fiona. Eve. That asshole, D’Angelo. Clare.
He’d waited outside for Eve, Tony seemed to recall, except…he couldn’t actually remember when she’d left. He couldn’t remember driving home, getting into bed.
This was bad, he thought. Real bad.
Reaching for his gun on the nightstand, he stumbled through the cluttered living room to the front door. The banging started again, and he yelled, “I’m coming, dammit.”
He started to unlock the door but found the bolt hadn’t been turned. Any cluckhead off the street could have come in and slit his throat for the few bucks in his wallet.
Drawing back the door a crack, he glanced into the hallway. Eve stood there, looking as fresh as a daisy in a white blouse and gray pants.
“What the hell—”
She pushed against the door, shoving it open and walking past him. “Where’ve you been? Clare’s been trying to reach you.”
“Clare…” He felt as if he were lagging at least two laps behind, trying to catch up. “What’s going on?”
He saw then that Eve wasn’t quite as pulled together as he’d first thought. Her hazel eyes were a little too bright, and her hair looked as if she’d combed it with her fingers. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, either, and her face was pale, blanched.
“Bill Stringer’s daughter was found dead in her apartment about an hour ago. She was murdered.”
The pounding in Tony’s ears suddenly grew louder, the pain in his head excruciating. He wiped a hand across his mouth, feeling the prickle of his whiskers. “Man,” he said. “Oh, man.”
“We’re catching this one.”
That didn’t sound right to Tony. What was Clare up to? “Why us?”
“She said she wanted a woman on the case, and she wanted the best. The latter wasn’t referring to me, I’m willing to bet,” Eve said without rancor. “We need to get over there.”
“Yeah. Sure. Just give me a minute.” Tony walked out of the room, feeling as if fireworks were exploding inside his head. This isn’t good. This isn’t good, his mind kept screaming.
He unscrewed the cap off a bottle of aspirin and downed a couple without water. Stripping, he gave himself two minutes under an icy shower, standing with his hands propped against the tile wall as the water pummeled him back to semiconsciousness.
Lucy Stringer had been murdered tonight. Tony closed his eyes, shuddering. He could see her pretty face, hear her voice complaining to him that her father still treated her like a kid. “He still thinks I’m about ten years old,” she’d grumbled at a Christmas party a couple years back. She’d pouted like a ten-year-old, but the look she’d slanted Tony was anything but childish. Lucy had liked to flirt, especially with cops, but everyone knew she was off-limits. Besides, she was a good kid. Never into any trouble that Tony was aware of.
He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her. At that Christmas party? No, more recently than that.
She sometimes came to the pub. She’d been there a few nights ago, hadn’t she? Or was it last night?
Tony struggled to remember, catching glimpses of her in his mind at the pool table, at the bar, in the corner talking to someone…but who?
Or was all this his imagination, induced by a killer hangover?
Bad word choice, he realized with a grimace, climbing out of the shower. He dried off, pulled on a pair of jeans, then picked up his shirt, shoes, gun and wallet, and carried them all out to the living room.
Eve glanced at him in surprise.
“You’re driving,” he said, and walked past her out the door.
TONY FINISHED DRESSING while Eve drove them to the address Clare had given to her earlier. Eve knew the area fairly well, but she was still surprised to find that Lucy Stringer’s apartment was only a few blocks from Tony’s.
She glanced at him as she turned down the street. He looked like death warmed over, she thought, and grimaced at her word choice. He’d taken a quick shower, but he hadn’t bothered to shave, and the stubble on his lower face was dark and thick, the shadows under his eyes almost purplish. He wore jeans and a faded CPD T-shirt, as usual not exactly the image a detective should cultivate, but then, Eve suspected his manner of dress was yet another way Tony tried to keep people at a distance.
Lucy had rented a garage apartment in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. The street was lined with police cars, and a Crime Scene Unit was pulled to the curb in front of the walkway. Eve maneuvered into a space, and she and Tony got out. As they walked across the damp grass, she could hear the faint sounds of traffic a few blocks over on the freeway, almost drowned out by the static transmission of a patrol unit radio.
She clipped her shield to her waistband as they walked by the two young patrolmen manning the yellow-ribboned perimeter. At the top of the stairs, she and Tony paused and gazed around. A mail slot had been cut in the front door, and the metal plate had already been dusted for prints.
