The Protector

She was economical in her movements, yet possessed a curious lanky grace that would make her look good in things she’d never wear—feather boas draping across her bare back, floor-length black sheaths slit to her thigh, necklines cut down to her naval, tempting a man to glide a hand inside and push away fabric. Something timeless in her features made it impossible to guess her age. Twenty-five? Thirty? Suddenly, Sully had to know, not that he figured he ever would.

Realizing she was long gone, he mustered a long-suffering sigh, then shrugged out of the oppressive jacket he’d put on for her benefit. Loosening his tie, he muttered, “Can this day get any worse?”

“Probably, Cap.” His right-hand man, Nat McFee, stopped in front of him. “While Lips was here, we got a homicide on Bank Street, a three-car pile-up on Seventh Avenue, and Tim Nudel hauled in a suspect from that news kiosk holdup last week. You want to talk to him?”

Sully shook his head as he backed inside his office. “Nudel can question him. I need a minute.” Maybe longer. He needed time to get Judith out of his system, and to mull over the string of bad luck hitting his family lately. “I haven’t had a chance to breathe since I heard Pop disappeared.”

“Why not take a walk?” McFee suggested. Before shutting the door behind him, he added, “Why don’t you duck in someplace where the air-conditioning works?”

Maybe he would. Sully draped his jacket around the chair back, sat down at the desk and thoughtfully unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeves. Pop’s disappeared. Sully could barely believe it. And he meant what he’d told Judith: he was sure his father had stumbled onto wrongdoing. Wherever he was, he’d return with the money as soon as he could.

Lately, Sully reminded himself, the Steeles had had some good luck, too. As if to reassure himself, he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a letter he’d written about a month ago.

“Only a month ago?” he murmured.

An eternity had passed since the day Sheila Steele had announced she’d won fifteen million dollars in the New York Lottery. That day, she’d made the even more astonishing announcement that she wasn’t telling her husband, Augustus, about the winnings. Unless their sons married within the next three months, she’d sworn, she was going to donate the money to preserve natural habitats for wildlife in the Galapagos Islands. Furthermore, she’d stipulated that Sully, Rex and Truman couldn’t tell their prospective mates about the money while wooing them.

“The Galapagos Islands?” Sully had muttered in disbelief when he and his brothers had retired to his childhood bedroom to discuss the matter.

“Don’t get me wrong,” his youngest brother, Truman, had said. “I’ve got nothing against sea turtles.”

Sully had laughed. “Me, neither. It’s the marine iguanas that get on my nerves.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” their middle brother, Rex, had joked, “penguins are such a pain.”

Marriage had seemed so unlikely for all of them, and it really did seem as though wild animals might benefit from the win. But now their little brother had proposed to Trudy Busey, a reporter from the New York News. Even more amazing, Truman, the brother most anxious to get the money, had vowed to give his share to the Galapagos Islands, anyway, so Trudy wouldn’t think he was marrying her for anything other than love.

Sully sighed. Of course, all the brothers had to marry in three months or the deal was off, which meant the Galapagos animals would be the recipients. With Augustus’s disappearance, everything had changed. Rex, who had no girlfriend, was heading to Seduction Island, and Sully…

He glanced at the letter in his hand. He’d written it the day he’d heard his mother had won, and while he was usually more cynical, the letter was like the ships he used to build in bottles—uncharacteristically romantic. It began: “Dear Lady of my Dreams…”

Sully’s eyes dropped to the text.

Who are you? Where do you live? Why haven’t I met you yet? If only I knew where to find you, sweet lady—which city blocks to wander, which cafés to visit. If only I knew what your face looks like…a face I’ll hold between my palms and see resting on a pillow if you really turn out to be the lady of my dreams.

Are you out there? Maybe I’m too confused about what I want. Maybe I’ve passed you a thousand times without recognizing you. If I saw you, would I even know you? My last relationship lasted a long time, and she was in a helping profession, as I am. We had so much in common; we wanted stability and a reasonable lifestyle, to share our tight-knit families and have kids of our own.

But it wasn’t enough. There was no passion. I don’t mean sex, if that’s what you’re thinking. I mean…passion. There’s no other word. I want my heart to race, my palms to sweat, my knees to weaken. Being able to remember love like that gets you through the hard times, and life being what it is, there are always hard times.

I’m a man who needs sparks and fire. Desire that compels. A person complicated enough to hold my attention. Are you out there, lady?

It was signed simply, “Yours.”

The letter had been in the drawer for a while, but now, on closer inspection, Sully realized what he should do with it. At the bottom, he wrote, “I can be reached here,” and left the address of an untraceable post office box, one he used in police work and for confidential personal correspondence. It was the address he’d given the lottery board, and just yesterday, they’d sent a questionnaire for him to fill out, apprising him of tax matters. Apparently, they were assuming Sheila Steele was going to turn her winnings over to her sons. The lottery board had no idea what Sheila Steele was up to—or had been before her husband disappeared.

Well, he was right to use the P.O. box, Sully decided. He was a realist and too suspicious to offer his home address. If he really sent this, it was hard to predict who might get hold of it and respond.

But he was going to send it. With a faint curl of a smile, he stood, circled the desk, went to a bookshelf and lifted an intriguing bottle he’d found in a junk shop during one of his lunchtime strolls through Greenwich Village.

“A genie bottle,” Sully had pronounced, taking in the pale amber glass, round design and squat neck. He’d been thinking, as he often did, that he should start building ships again, and that this bottle would be perfect.

“Old,” the shopkeeper had said, stopping to talk. “But not as uncommon as you might be guessing. I usually have one or two around the shop.”

When he blew off a layer of dust, Sully imagined a trail of smoke rising from the bottle, as it might from a genie’s lamp. Chuckling softly, he imagined the dust materializing into a woman. “Maybe it will,” he murmured.

Rolling the letter, he inserted it and tightly stoppered the bottle with its cork. Returning to the desk, he lifted his jacket from the chair back, then headed for the door.

“McFee,” he said to Nat as he passed the desk right outside his door, “I’m going for that walk you suggested.”

“Anyplace special?”

Sully shrugged. He was the central player in this busy, West Village precinct, and it was rare he took time for himself when he was on the job. Still, no one needed to know he was strolling toward the banks of the Hudson. Already, he saw himself jogging toward the end of the Perry Street pier, drawing back his arm and swinging it in a wide arc. He saw the bottle fly from his hand, sail through the air and splash down into the choppy, brackish water. It would float a moment, then slowly sink, and once swallowed by the dark water, it would be caught in strong tidal currents and swept out to sea. Maybe a foreign woman would find it, someone as far away as Australia or China. Someone destiny would choose….

Before returning his mind to more pressing matters, namely his father, Sully tilted his head and considered. Wouldn’t it be strange, he thought, if a woman really did find his message in a bottle and write him back?

2

The Present…

SITTING IN the underground parking garage, not wanting to leave her city-issue car for the sweltering August heat, Judith glanced at the blue suit jacket she’d folded beside her on the passenger seat, then stared murderously toward a glassed-in attendant’s booth and a fire door leading from the garage into Sullivan Steele’s workplace.

“The Great Protector,” she muttered, turning off the ignition. “Yeah, right.”

If Sullivan Steele had any urges to protect his fellow man, it was probably because he anticipated having those people cover for him if he ever got into trouble himself. Not that the Steeles didn’t have stellar reputations. Around New York precincts, the men were legendary. The father had been in law enforcement for years, and all the sons were cops. Nevertheless, Judith had noted that good reputations often put a glossy finish on far less savory realities.

It was amazing what people got away with. Stable-looking homes with white picket fences often hid a world of trouble. That was the case, Judith supposed, with the Steeles. Sullivan had risen up through the ranks—with suspicious ease, in her opinion—to become the youngest precinct captain in Manhattan, so swiftly that it was rumored he was going to wind up in city government, maybe even mayor.

Oh, he was good at his job, but it was Judith’s responsibility to make sure he hadn’t greased any palms on his relentless climb. And while she had to admit he’d earned his position on merit, the family connections had to have helped. Somebody probably owed somebody a favor….

It was how these things worked. Still, she grudgingly had to admit that his men seemed to trust him. Why? she wondered, when it was so obvious he was protecting his father. She shook her head angrily. It took so little to make New York cops turn and look the other way. In fact, most people could be coerced to overlook wrongdoing.

No one wanted to snitch. The public moral code was to mind your own business. She sighed. At least the media wasn’t making much of Augustus’s theft—yet.

Vaguely, she wondered if Sullivan was right about her being too cold. But if she was suspicious, she had good reasons.

And she had called Sullivan practically every day during her stay on Seduction Island, as well as visited him during her overnights in Manhattan, hadn’t she? Despite her show of goodwill, he hadn’t been the least appreciative. As far as she could tell, it never had occurred to Sullivan that she’d phone him instead of using her scant free time to explore the peaceful idyllic island. But she shook her head. Given how close a clan the Steeles were, Judith wouldn’t be surprised if he never talked. Whatever had happened, she was fairly sure he believed in his father’s innocence. That, or Sullivan Steele was an accomplished liar, which, of course, some men were.

She cursed softly under her breath. Every time she thought of Sullivan, she felt tied up in knots. She wanted to believe he knew nothing about his father’s disappearance, but she also knew she was on a case and couldn’t trust him….

The middle brother, Rex, hadn’t been any help, either. Her first day on Seduction Island, she’d threatened to prosecute if he continued interfering with the investigation. Then she hadn’t seen him again until yesterday, when she was preparing to come back to Manhattan. Even though he’d pretended otherwise, she was sure Rex had remained on the island, searching for his father. Had Augustus been there? Had Rex found him? At some point, had the missing money been hidden on the island, as Judith now suspected?

She shot a rueful smile through the windshield, as if it were a crystal ball. Well, even if the money had been on the island, it no longer was. She hadn’t told anyone, not even her boss, Joe Gregory, but she’d finally found it.

Her best guess was that Sullivan’s father had withdrawn the money, then hidden it on Seduction Island. After a few weeks, Augustus had gotten paranoid, as criminals always did. Fearing the money would be discovered, he’d retrieved it and returned it to Manhattan. Judith had found it tucked away in a Manhattan savings and loan—in Augustus’s wife’s name, no less. Possibly, Augustus had blown up the Destiny himself, so people would think he was dead. That way, no one would look for him.

Complicated, yes. But like any knotted thing, the trail could be untangled. Over the past few weeks, Judith had slowly, painstakingly been working at the slippery strands. Now she was beginning to think Augustus Steele really was dead—not that she’d tell Sullivan that. But Augustus had been aboard a boat that exploded, after all, and then he’d simply vanished. What if he’d meant to fake his death, but had actually died in the process?

“Unbelievable,” she whispered now. Her head was starting to ache from thinking too much. Apparently Augustus had stolen far more than seven million, since the account in Sheila Steele’s name had recently swollen to more than double the sum missing from the Citizens Action Committee fund.

“Fifteen million dollars,” Judith whispered.

Who knew how long Augustus had been skimming public money off the top? “A hundred grand here, a hundred grand there,” she murmured. All nicely invested over the years—until Augustus’s retirement neared and he decided to make a final heist and grab seven big ones—and more.

All this time, Judith’s boss, Joe Gregory, had been suggesting she explore more intricate ways Augustus might have hidden the money. The idea that he’d simply rebanked it in his wife’s name had never been considered. No law enforcement officer would do something so stupid.

Which was why it had worked.

It had taken Judith a month to figure it out. “The Steeles sure live dangerously,” she whispered. Especially Sullivan. At least he looked like the type. Her gut tightened as she thought of his imposing frame. Square-jawed, tall and broad-shouldered, he looked like a rich frat boy, except for his eyes. Too probing and intelligent, they set him apart from the macho cops who’d taken the job for their ego, because they liked carrying guns.

Sullivan was another breed. He reeked tenacity and competency, and yet Judith knew she’d be a fool to trust him. He aroused her curiosity, though, and even she could admit that the interest wasn’t entirely case-related. Sometimes, in his office, she’d catch her eyes drifting over him, taking in the tapering V of his upper body, the flat belly beneath his shirt, and how the drape of his trousers accentuated long, well-muscled legs. A sudden shudder would ripple through her.

Well, today, no matter how his imposing physicality and challenging attitude tempted her, she wasn’t going to tell him she’d found fifteen million dollars in his mother’s account. No, Judith would patiently await the court order she’d filed, since it might allow her to delve more deeply, connecting the money in Sheila’s account to that stolen from the Citizens Action Committee fund.

And presto, she thought. Her case would be solved.

Unfortunately, as her hand curled over the door handle, she felt a stab of unwanted guilt as she thought of the amber fire burning in Sullivan Steele’s eyes. At times, she was utterly convinced he thought his father was innocent. If so, she was going to have to shatter his trust in a man he loved. She swallowed hard, since she knew better than anyone what shattered trust could do.

“Let’s do it,” she said grimly. The sooner she started, the sooner this would be over. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her jacket, groaning as she shrugged into it. Leave it to Sullivan to force her to wear a jacket in this heat. But she simply couldn’t go into his office without it. After all, he always wore one, even in public buildings, which were kept at temperatures approaching the boiling point.

As she lifted her shoulder bag, she realized it was unclasped, and a soft smile curled her lips as she impulsively plucked out an envelope. Suddenly, her heart missed a beat, skipping with excitement as she thought back to the day she’d found the bottle.

She’d been on the Perry Street pier, where she’d taken a walk after a predictably rocky encounter with Sullivan, when she’d first noticed the pale amber bottle caught in an eddy against the Hudson shore, kept in place by rocks and driftwood. Seeing paper rolled inside, Judith had gingerly made her way down the hilly embankment, despite the high heels she’d been wearing, and had lifted the bottle from the water.

She would never forget the magical rush of elation she’d felt when she read the letter inside. “Dear Lady of my Dreams,” were the opening words, and the sender was like no man she’d ever known. He sounded sensitive, kind and passionate. Before writing him, Judith had put a trace on his P.O. box, of course, but she’d come up empty-handed, something she’d decided was good. Of course, if she really had to, she could flash her badge at the post office and get the information. She was just glad that, like her, the sender was cautious and self-protective, which meant he was a realist. She, too, had an untraceable box, though she didn’t usually use it for love letters, but so that officers could report confidential information about their precincts.

This letter had been in her box today. Her eyes trailed over the words.

Lady, can we meet? When I tossed the bottle into the Hudson, I imagined it being found years from now, by a woman in another country. I never guessed it might simply wash up on shore, and be answered by someone in New York, or that we’d start corresponding. Of course, we haven’t gotten specific about the details of our lives—what we do professionally, or where we live….

Judith had intentionally withheld those details, and she suspected her pen pal had done so also, since details would make it easy to figure out their identities. Neither of them, it seemed, were very inclined to take risks.

Was she ready to do so now?

Her heart ached. After all these years, was a man about to come into her life? She’d never have sought that out; she’d been running too long from a background she wanted to keep buried in the past. But now…

No. Judith shook her head. She didn’t dare agree to meet him. Pushing the envelope into her bag, she fastened the clasp, slung the strap over her shoulder, then stepped into the stifling heat. “I’m here to see Captain Steele,” she announced when she reached the attendant’s booth and pressed her badge against the glass window.

As he picked up a telephone, the attendant said, “I’ll let him know you’re here, Ms. Hunt.” And then he buzzed her inside.

SULLY BARELY MANAGED to shrug into his jacket before Judith swept into his office, and having to put it on solely for her benefit was seriously worsening his already dark mood, if that was possible.

“You look cheerful,” Judith remarked without preliminaries, her eyes traveling over the blue jacket he’d put on, as if noting it was the exact color as hers. Difference was, Sully thought, that the blue, while doing little for him, brought out the intense color of her eyes.

Telling himself not to notice, he said dryly, “Do I?”

“Just like one of those smiley faces,” Judith assured him. “In fact, if they ever do a smiley face movie, Steele, you could be a body double.”

“I’ll have McFee issue a filming permit immediately.”

“Really,” she continued, “you don’t look so hot.”

“Quite the opposite.”

The heat wave had turned his precinct into a madhouse, tempers all over the city were burning out of control, and he’d been putting out fires all day—quite literally, due to an arson case. It had been the wrong moment to hear that Judith was about to float through the squad room on those endless legs. Since he’d received a heads-up call from the parking lot, Sully had at least been somewhat prepared—as prepared as he ever could be for Judith Hunt—so had taken his time in studying her easy, unencumbered stroll across the squad room. By the time she breezed into his office, he felt like a member of the angry mob outside, not an officer trained to subdue them.

He shot her a sweet smile. “Well, Ms. Hunt, we can’t all be blessed with your chipper demeanor, you know.”

“Ah,” she replied, her smile just as saccharine, the awareness sparking in her eyes making him wonder if she wasn’t secretly enjoying the repartee, “wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone had my sunny disposition?”

That would be the day. At least she knew she was a control freak. What other kind of person would wear a jacket when the mercury shot over a hundred? “Have a nice time on your desert island?” He hadn’t bothered to rise from his seat behind his desk—secretly, Sully was thinking he might faint from heatstroke if he did—and now he nodded toward a chair. “Care for a seat?”

“Thanks,” she said, but didn’t take it. “It wasn’t exactly a vacation, Steele.”

No, she’d been down there looking for his father. “Well,” Sully conceded, “it didn’t exactly turn out to be the most productive month for you, either.” His brother Rex had fared better on Seduction Island, finding out their father was definitely alive. But Sully figured he’d keep that to himself.

Her chin reset defensively. “Excuse me?”

“You haven’t found my father,” he returned, wishing she’d sit. Every second she remained standing, insisting on towering over him, he was tempted to rise, and since he was sweltering, he’d much prefer to stay seated. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a seat?” he prompted again. “Believe me, I suggest it solely for my own benefit. If I have to keep staring up at you, Judith, I might get whiplash.”

She almost smiled at that. Even worse, he almost instinctively smiled back. “So sue me.”

“Maybe I will. Can I retire on a whiplash settlement?”

“How would I know?”

“You’re a lawyer. I thought you all took that class in school—Whiplash 101.” She still looked as though she was fighting a smile, and he was surprised to discover he liked the idea of that—Judith Hunt smiling. Had it ever happened?

“Bad hair day?” she finally guessed.

“Something like that,” he said, rifling his fingers through the sweat-dampened strands.

She clucked her tongue, and for a second, his eyes were mesmerized by the crimson mouth. Even in this heat, her lip liner hadn’t melted. “Poor baby,” she commiserated, her mouth quirking. “Now that you mention it, Steele, I can actually see the gray.”

“Better than a receding hairline,” he retorted a bit defensively.

“You’ve got a point there.”

He sighed, getting down to business. “I hear you gave Rex a hard time on the island.”

Now that they were back on topic, she gaped at him, her bottom lip edging over the top, where sweat was starting to bead. It was Sully’s only consolation. Apparently, in her ridiculously dressy jacket, she was as miserable as he. “Your brother was interfering in my investigation. I warned you before I left that if he—”

“He was looking for our father,” Sully interjected. “Somebody had to do it.”

“I was doing it,” she shot back. “And if your brother found out anything, he didn’t share the information.”

“Information moves on a two-way street.” It wasn’t the first time Sully had said it.

“I called you. And I’m standing in your office right now. How much more goodwill do you want?” She blew out a short breath. “What have you found out since we last spoke?”

“Not a thing,” he replied lightly, though he knew his father was alive. Sully wanted a chance to speak with him before he was found by Internal Affairs. “You?”

Looking as if the heat wasn’t doing wonders for her disposition, either, she crossed her arms over her chest. “So, that’s the way you’re going to play today?”

“I’m not playing.” Suddenly rising to his feet, he circled the desk, moving lithely for a man of his size, and then leaned against it. “You want the truth, Judith?”

Her eyes turned hungry. “Yes.”

She thought he was going to divulge information about his father. Instead, Sully said, “The truth is, it’s been a helluva week. I’m hot and tired, and while it wouldn’t be apparent to anyone on Seduction Island, the wheels of justice in Manhattan have ground to a halt because everybody’s on summer vacation. I can’t get warrants, and I’m battling a heat wave that’s doubling the number of complaint calls.”