Chosen

I blow out a breath, run my hands through my hair, tug at the bottom of my sweater and peek into the office.

David is at the desk. He doesn’t notice me at the door. He doesn’t notice me because he’s focused on the woman sitting in my chair opposite him. He doesn’t notice me because he’s thrown his head back and is laughing.

Laughing.

It pisses me off. He’s supposed to be brooding. He’s supposed to be concerned. He’s supposed to be on the telephone trying to reach me again.

He is not supposed to be laughing.

I shove through the door, startling him. He recovers and beams a smile at me. The woman turns, smiling, too.

“Hey, A

Partner?

My back stiffens. What the fuck does that mean?

I can’t think of anything to say to that startling revelation. So I stare—at them both.

She’s gotten to her feet. She’s wearing jeans and a white cotton shirt tucked and cinched with a broad leather belt. She’s taller than me—probably five-nine or so—and sinewy thin. She has auburn hair drawn straight back from her face in a ponytail. She’s one of the lucky females who can pull that off. Probably because of those big green eyes and a full-lipped smile that show off a set of too-perfect teeth. She has come away from the chair to stand in front of me, hand outstretched.

“Hi, A

I take her hand, give it a perfunctory shake. Let it drop. She’s wearing perfume—too much of it—something woodsy with undertones of burned sugar and bitter almonds. It makes my nose twitch.

Tracey glances back at David. “Well, I’m sure you two have things to discuss. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll check with you tomorrow morning?”

David nods, and she brushes past me. He watches her as she leaves, then turns his gaze on me. “Well? Aren’t you going to yell at me? Ask me what the fuck I was thinking? Tell me I had no right to take on a new partner without your okay?”

He’s glaring, muscles tense, jaw tight, ready to launch a counterattack.

“No.”

The answer startles me as much as it does David. I ignore the comically puzzled expression on his face and sink into my chair. “Where did you find her?”

He looks at me out of the corners of his eyes, as if he can’t trust my reaction, and takes his own seat across from me. “Remember the kickboxing classes we used to take?”

His emphasis is on the “we used to take.” I don’t comment, just nod.

“She’s the new instructor at the gym now. Ex-cop, wounded in the line of duty. Took an early retirement and has been looking for something to occupy her time besides teaching. We went for coffee after a class last week, I told her what we do. She said she’d be interested in filling in if we needed it. Yesterday, I needed it. You weren’t around. I called her. She came. We made the collar.”

He says it matter-of-factly, no subtle undertones, no recrimination, no opening for rebuttal.

Makes me feel guiltier.

“What business arrangement have you made with her?”

“Fifty-fifty split if it’s just her and me. If the three of us work a job, she gets twenty-five percent, you and I split the rest. She ponies up twenty percent of the monthly office expenses regardless of the number of jobs she works. We cover her insurance, reimburse car expenses.”

“You got that in writing?”

He picks up a contract from the middle of his desk. “Just needs your signature.”

He holds it out, still looking as if he expects me to start ranting. No one is more surprised than me that I’m not. I pick up a pen, take the paper from his hand and sign my name on the dotted line.

David slips the signed contract into a folder on his desk. “So. Do you want to tell me where you were yesterday?”

Battling monsters.

“Lance and I went to Palm Springs for the weekend. He got—sick. I stayed to take care of him. I am sorry. Really.”

“You lost your cell phone?”

I wince, smile deprecatingly. “Battery went dead. I forgot to pack the charger.”

He’s weighing my words, assessing my expression, calculating the sincerity of my apology. I don’t blame him. He’s heard the same story more than once. Only the circumstances of why I let him down ever change.

I expect him to respond the way I would—with something snarky. I knew we had a job on Monday so where were we that I couldn’t get to a phone? The dark side of the moon?

Instead, he surprises me by asking, “Is Lance all right?”

“Yeah. Thanks for asking.”

He pushes away from the desk, folder in hand, and crosses the room to a filing cabinet against the far wall. He places the folder in a drawer and closes it. When he comes back to the desk, he slips a jacket off the back of his chair and drapes it over his arm.

“Well, we don’t have anything on the docket for the next few days. Think you can cover the office? I’m going to San Francisco to look at some property with Miranda.”

Miranda is a real estate developer who has become more than an investment advisor to David. They are lovers. The lover he sometimes cheats on with that booking clerk at the jail. Which leads me to think it’s not a serious relationship, not that he’s shared any details with me. I don’t have such a good track record with his girlfriends.

“Sure,” I respond quickly. “It will give me a chance to get to know our new partner.”

He shakes his head. His expression says he’s still suspicious, still skeptical of how easily I accepted Tracey into our fold. “You aren’t going to scare her off while I’m gone are you?”

I hope my laugh doesn’t sound as forced as it feels. “Of course not. Have fun in San Francisco.”

He looks not at all reassured by my words. But he does leave.

Which is good.

As soon as he’s gone, I put in a call to Warren Williams.

I know he said he’d be in touch with me, but I want to get the ball rolling. Show him I’m serious about our agreement.

The phone rings five times, then goes to voice mail.

Voice mail? Where is he? He’s supposed to be sitting by the phone waiting for my call.

Abruptly, I click off.

Damn it. The expression “revenge is a dish best served cold” has never been a favorite of mine. I don’t want to wait for the rage to cool. What he and Underwood did to Lance—did to me—is unforgivable, and I want to strike while my blood still boils.

CHAPTER 22

Waiting has never been easy for me.

Waiting makes me peckish.

Waiting reduces me to finding ways to distract myself, reduces me to tackling distasteful chores.

So, when I’ve caught up on email, balanced my checkbook, filed an accumulation of piled-up shit (mea culpa to David), read through the stack of law enforcement bulletins on top of the filing cabinet and drained the last bottle of beer in the fridge and Williams still hasn’t called, I’m irritated and antsy enough to bite the head off a chicken.

Tossing the last empty bottle into the trash, I trudge on out to the deck that borders the back of our office. It’s a still, clear and quiet afternoon, the skyline mirror-imaged on the water. I watch sailboats play motor tag on the bay while they wait for the wind. When I was human, it was the kind of afternoon David and I would spend at the Green Flash, a bar down the street from my cottage, drinking beer and eating nachos and watching humanity parade past on the boardwalk.

Nostalgia sweeps over me. I took those days for granted. It’s a stupid human flaw—not appreciating the simple pleasures because they are simple and routine and will always be a part of your life.

Or so you believe.

I plop down in a deck chair and tip it back, hoisting my feet to rest on the railing. So much has happened in the last year. So much has changed. You hear the cliché “not the person she once was” all the time. In my case, it’s not an exaggeration. Last July my biggest concern was when I’d next see my DEA boyfriend, Max. I wasn’t in love with him, but the sex was great and our casual relationship suited us.