Takedown

Those blue eyes narrowed, silently asking a question. Yes, she was speaking from personal experience, but Mike’s dad didn’t need to know everything about her sordid past.

When she turned away to get her clipboard and wristband of keys, he followed her, letting her pretend she had no shameful secrets to keep. “He’s got that. The love, I mean.”

“Mike knows that, down inside. He may not remember it every day, but he knows you love him. Just the fact that you use your dinner break to bring him here to the clinic and pick him up means something to him.” Jillian slipped the elastic key bracelet around her wrist and tucked the clipboard of treatment logs under her arm. Together, they headed toward the gym exit and the hallway beyond. “Look at Troy, on the other hand. He’s fighting most of his recovery battle on his own. Ever since the shooting, his grandmother refuses to leave his brother, Dexter, alone. Either he’s at school or she locks Troy in the apartment with him to keep an eye on him the evenings she works her second job.”

“It can’t be easy for her.”

“I’m sure it’s not—and I admire her for supporting her grandkids financially, but it’s almost as if she’s given up on saving Troy and is focusing all her energy on Dexter. If Troy wants to come to physical therapy he has to schedule the appointments himself and take the bus to get here. I’ve been giving him a ride home, at least, trying to give him a little extra attention and ease some of the burden.”

“You’re driving him home tonight?” The captain stopped, checked his watch. It wasn’t five o’clock yet, and she’d done it more than a dozen times. No big deal.

She turned at the doorway arch. “As soon as I log in these stats and sign out.”

“Where does he live?”

Jillian named the street and apartment area just west of downtown Kansas City. His mouth thinned as he propped his hands on his hips. “At HQ we call that neighborhood No-Man’s Land. It’s not the safest place to be after dark.”

“Clearly. Otherwise, Troy might not have been shot in the back by that stray bullet.”

“I’m serious, Jillian.”

Did he see her laughing? She knew about the dangers of No-Man’s Land—more personally than Michael Cutler would probably imagine. If she could keep Troy from falling prey to them the way she once had by simply giving the kid a little extra time and offering him a ride, she would. “I don’t take chances I don’t have to. But I’m not going to let Troy shoulder his recovery all by himself, either. Somebody always knows when I leave and where I’m going.”

“And when you get back?”

Jillian groaned. “It’s just a car ride. I can handle it, Captain.”

His low-pitched curse followed her into the hallway as she locked the gym door behind them. “I’m not your commanding officer, so why don’t you call me Michael? That’d be a damn sight friendlier than ‘ugh’ or ‘whatever,’ which seems to be all I’m hearing from Mike these days.”

Jillian relaxed enough to smile, glad his disapproval of her efforts to help Troy had been short-lived. “Captain Ugh. I bet your men would love to call you that.”

“My men wouldn’t dare. Not to my face.” Instead of heading past her door to get Mike from the break room, he followed her into her office. “Can you spare another minute?”

“Sure.” Jillian hugged the clipboard to her chest and turned.

“I wanted to double-check the PT schedule. Mike’s school is having their spring break next week. He’s pretty bummed about making up extra class work while his classmates go on vacation, and since he seems to enjoy his time with you and Troy, I wanted to see if I could still bring him in for his regular sessions—give him a break from history and geometry and…me.”

“I’ll be here,” Jillian promised. “Anything else I can do to help?”

“Yeah. Be careful driving through No-Man’s Land. My son needs you.” He pulled his SWAT cap from his back pocket and pulled it on over his head. The stern police captain had returned. “Keep your doors locked. If you feel threatened in any way, stay in your car and drive straight to the nearest police station. Run red lights if you have to. If you think someone is following you, stay in your car and honk the horn until an officer comes out to assist you.”

“You know, I have a big brother to give me lectures like that. You don’t have to.”

“As long as you listen to one of us. I can give Troy a lift home on the days I’m off duty and don’t have to get back to the precinct.” He adjusted the brim of his cap to shade his eyes. “If riding with a cop wouldn’t cramp his style.”

“That’s nice to offer. I’ll ask him.”

“Be careful. Mike’s counting on you.”

Look who was talking. She dropped her gaze to the sidearm holstered at his thigh. “You be careful.”

“Always.”

After he tipped his hat and left, Jillian watched him stride down the hallway. Yeah. Big-brotherly overprotection aside, fortysomething looked good on the police captain from this view, too.

Savoring the responding skitter of her pulse, Jillian turned to her desk. Her gaze landed on the droopy, fading flower in the glass vase there, and her heart rate kicked up another notch. Would it have killed the sender to include a note? Or even just a name?

Between friendly discussion and heated debates, she’d forgotten for a few minutes that not all men were as straightforward as Michael Cutler. Maybe she was only crushing on the older man because she was 99. 9 percent certain he hadn’t sent her that mysterious rose. As beautiful and blameless as the deep red flower might once have been, she’d lived with too many deceptions in her life already. The whole secret admirer thing had lost its charm long ago.

Dismissing the tiresome joke with a shake of her head, Jillian sat behind her desk, pulling up Mike’s and Troy’s files on her computer to chart the updates. But the rose kept taunting her from the corner of her eye.

It was the sort of apologetic gesture her ex-boyfriend, Blake Rivers, would have made to get himself out of trouble with her. She supposed breaking up with him after an attempt to rekindle a relationship—clean and sober style—had failed qualified as trouble. But she had no proof the flower had come from Blake. No reason to suspect him. She’d left him months ago. He’d moved on to some blond reporter or red-haired heiress, according to the paper’s society page. Jillian was old news.

And she intended to stay that way. As wealthy and handsome and devilishly clever as Blake might be, he had a reckless streak in him that had enabled her own addiction and nearly gotten them both killed. Jillian had promised her family, her therapist Dr. Randolph and herself that she was never going to go down that dangerous, self-destructive path again.

But if not Blake, then who had sent her the flower?

She supposed a phone call to Blake’s office at Caldwell Technologies couldn’t hurt. She didn’t want to send any false signals to her ex, but a few words to put her mind at ease and set him straight on the romance-is-over message was worth the risk. And if the rose wasn’t from Blake…?

Jillian was leaving a message on Blake’s answering machine, reluctantly asking him to return her call, when Dylan Smith, another physical therapist who worked at the hospital’s outpatient therapy clinic with her, knocked on her door. She waved him into the room as she hung up the phone. As usual, Dylan’s dimpled cheeks and mischievous grin demanded she smile in return.

“What’s cookin’, Masterson?” He shoved his fingers through his muss of blond hair and sat down. “Makin’ plans for a hot date?”

“I’m workin’, Smith. Aren’t you?”

“Hell, no. It’s five o’clock, it’s Friday and a bunch of us are going over to the Shamrock to hit happy hour. If you don’t have plans, come with us.”

The Shamrock Bar? Fun with her friends sounded tempting, but her drinking days were over. “Thanks for the invite, but I’ve got things to do at home this weekend.”

“I helped you move into that apartment—up three flights of stairs, I might add—and everything looked neat and pretty and sitting in its place before we all left. Come.”

Jillian grinned at his pitiful, boyish pout. “My bedroom is only half painted, and the dueling colors have been driving me nuts all week. We’re supposed to have rain this weekend, and if I can’t open the windows and work, I’ll have to suffer through Pepto-Bismol pink and ice blue for another whole week. I need to get started on it tonight.”

Dylan leaned forward, reached across the desk and laid his hand over the top of hers where it rested on the blotter. Every muscle in Jillian’s fingers froze at the unexpected touch, though she managed to keep her smile in place.

“Just for an hour or two, Jilly? Please?” Dylan coaxed.

“I can’t.”

“I’ve got a bet with that new occupational therapist that I can eat an entire serving of the Shamrock’s fried habaneros and win free drinks for a year. You can cheer me on.”

“Or bring the stomach pump you’ll need when you’re done.”

“Very funny. Where’s the love?”

There was nothing secret about Dylan’s harmless flirtations. If you were female, he flirted. Still, boyish charm aside, Jillian thought it wise to steer clear of romantic entanglements for now, and gently extricated her hand from his. “Sorry. Ask the O.T. to cheer you on. She’s a hottie and it sounds like she might be interested in you. Share your habanero breath with her.”

“You’ve got to have fun sometime.” Dylan pushed to his feet, his grin firmly locked into place. He placed his hand over his heart and made a slight bow. “And I’m your man whenever you’re ready. Oh, I forgot.”

He reached inside the royal-blue polo shirt that matched her own clinic uniform, pulled out an envelope and set it on her desk.

“What’s this?”

“Lulu at the front desk was on her way out. She asked me to deliver it to you.”

Please, no. Jillian gingerly picked it up. No return address, and though the envelope had a stamp, it hadn’t been canceled. But the name and clinic address clearly belonged to her. An uneasy feeling soured her lips into a frown. “I thought the mail already came.”

Dylan plunged his hands into his pockets. “It must have dropped behind the counter or something.”

Jillian shrugged off the perplexing mystery and slid her finger beneath the flap to open it. “Thanks.”

He nodded toward the corner of her desk. “By the way, your flower needs some water.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” Enough with the torment. Jillian plucked the dead rose from the vase and dropped it into the trash. “I should have sent it over to the main hospital for a patient who’d take better care of it than I did. My bad.”

His gaze seemed to fix on the fallen flower for a moment before the grin returned. “Not a green thumb, huh? I’ll make a point to remember that next Valentine’s Day.”

“Bye, Dylan. Don’t forget to take a gallon of milk and a fire extinguisher with you. Good luck, you idiot.”

The blond charmer left with a laugh. Once she was alone, Jillian took a deep breath, pulled out the letter and leaned back in her chair to read it.

She slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out.

MICHAEL HAD SEEN THAT LOOK on the faces of parents waiting outside a school building locked down because of an armed intruder or bomb threat. He’d seen that look on a hostage-taker who’d gone off his meds and didn’t understand why he’d been shot by one of Michael’s SWAT team.

He hadn’t expected to see it on Jillian Masterson’s youthful face when he raised his hand to knock on her open office door.

Shock. Helplessness. Fear.

“Are you all right?”

Green eyes darted up to his and she jumped to her feet, sending her chair crashing back into the wall behind her desk. By the time she’d groused and righted the chair and spun around to face him, her cheeks were flushed a rosy color. He’d clearly startled her. Again.

“What…are you doing here?” she stammered.

His negotiator’s instincts kept his voice calm, his movements slow and precise as he stepped into the room. Whatever was wrong here, he didn’t want to aggravate the problem. “I forgot Mike’s cane. The gym’s locked. Are you all right?” he repeated.

Jillian wadded up the letter that was already half crushed in her fist and shot it into the trash can beside her desk. “I’m fine.”

And he was the tooth fairy. “Was that bad news?”

She swept aside a strand of coffee-colored hair that had fallen across her cheek and tucked it into the long, sleek ponytail at her nape. Then she was circling her desk, pulling the keys off her wrist, offering him a smile he didn’t believe. “It’s just one of those chain letters. You know, send it on to so many people and you’ll get a bunch of stuff in return. Annoying, aren’t they?”

He wouldn’t know. But he did recognize a load of BS when he heard it. “Jillian—”

“I need to sign out ASAP so I can get Troy home before dark. I’ll be right back so you don’t have to keep Mike waiting.”

Miles of long legs and the graceful athleticism of her walk quickly carried her down the hallway and around the corner. Conversation over, old man. Take the hint.

For a moment, Michael debated between trusting his instincts about people and minding his own business. But he’d spent too many years as a cop, training his mind and body to pay attention to the warning signs people gave him, to let her behavior go without an explanation. It was always easier to stop trouble before it got started.

Pretty, sassy, make-his-son-smile Jillian Masterson was in trouble.

Making sure he was alone in her office, he plucked the paper wad she’d tossed out of the trash can and unfolded it, smoothing it open against his thigh. He read it quickly. Read it again. Frowned.

A love letter.

One that made a healthy woman go pale, jump at his approach and toss the missive away with a flippant excuse before bolting from the room.

Right. Nothing suspicious about that.

Chapter Two

“Can you get it, Troy?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Jillian closed the passenger-side door of her dark blue SUV, pressed the automatic locks and turned a slow 360 to take note of the traffic, parked cars and local residents up and down both sides of the drab, run-down city block. There were patches of brightness and warmth here and there where hope and promise tried to shine through. A freshly painted window box waited for spring flowers to be planted. A trio of preteen girls sat on the stoop across the street, chattering in laughing voices under the rosy glow of the setting sun. Construction signs promised a condemned building was about to be razed and replaced by something clean and new.

But she was just as aware of the weary posture of the shopkeepers locking their doors and pulling down protective cages, the curious glances and quick dismissals from workers climbing off the bus at the corner and hurrying toward their respective homes before any kind of trouble found them. And she couldn’t miss the homeless man, dragging a filthy backpack behind him as he turned into an alley and disappeared.

Thankfully, though, there were no pimps, no gang-bangers, no visible dealers she recognized from those lost days a decade ago when the dark corners and hidden secrets of this Kansas City neighborhood had offered her a false escape from the sorrows and stress of her teenage life. Of course, night hadn’t fallen yet. Shadows and moonlight were usually the only invitation the cockroaches needed to come out of their holes.

A shiver of remembered nightmares rippled across her skin, leaving a sea of goose bumps in its wake.

You’ve moved beyond this place, she reminded herself with a mental nod, shaking off the sudden chill. She was older, wiser and ten years clean without a fix of coke. To her dying day, she’d atone for that wasted part of her life by helping youths like Troy Anthony move beyond the sucking trap of No-Man’s Land the way she finally had. So do it, already.

“Wait up.” Zipping the front of her sweatshirt jacket, Jillian hurried to catch up to Troy as he maneuvered his chair over the curb onto the sidewalk. She grabbed the handles and steered him up the concrete ramp that zigzagged beside the stairs leading to the apartment building’s double doors. “I promised front door service, and that means apartment 517.”

Troy turned his key in the lock of the inner lobby door. “Ain’t nothing wrong with these magic hands. I can get up to the fifth floor by myself. You’d better head on home before dark.”

“Is everybody my big brother today? This’ll take like, what, five minutes max?” Jillian rolled him across the cracked tiles of the lobby floor, and waited while he pushed the elevator’s call button. The numbers over the elevator doors didn’t light up, but she could tell from the grinding of gears and cables that the car was descending inside the shaft. “I don’t want your grandmother to worry about you getting home safely. She’s got enough on her plate.”

“You’re sure you’re not coming upstairs to snitch one of her chocolate chip cookies?”

“Hey, if somebody offers me homemade cookies and there’s chocolate involved…” Jillian waved her arms out in a dramatic gesture. “Ahh!”

Their shared laughter ended abruptly when the light beside the super’s door clicked on. Jillian clutched her fists back to her chest and she masked the catch in her throat with a cough. Great. Since when had she gotten so skittish?

Stupid letter. Stupid flower.

She smoothed her hair into her ponytail and tried to ease her paranoia by taking stock of her surroundings inside the lobby. She and Troy were alone. The super’s light must be rigged with some kind of motion sensor that she had inadvertently set off, because no one else had entered the building behind them or come out of the apartment. She should be relieved the light had snapped on because it dispelled the evening gloom gathering in the lobby, although the corridor beyond the super’s apartment remained in shadows. She was relieved. For a moment. Deliberately focusing her senses also gave her a whiff of a pungent odor that was decidedly less pleasant than the aroma of freshly baked cookies she imagined coming from Troy’s apartment.

Jillian wrinkled up her nose. “What is that smell?”

“Probably Mrs. Chambers’s cats in 102. She can’t say no to a stray. You all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think somebody needs to change the litter box.”

“You sure? You seem a little rattled.”

“Just tired. It’s been a long day.” A final ding of the elevator gave her the perfect excuse to brush aside Troy’s concerns. As the steel doors parted, she grabbed the handles on Troy’s wheelchair. “The Jillian Masterson chauffeur service is ready to—”

“There you are. Where have you been? You’re late. Way late.” A sharp voice from inside the elevator greeted them before the tall, stout black woman braced the doors open with her thick, gnarled fingers.

“Grandma—”

“Don’t you Grandma me.”

Jillian pulled the chair back as LaKeytah Anthony stormed out. The older woman with the purplish-dyed hair reached out to her grandson to give him a tweak on his chin and a light cuff on his ear in one smooth motion. “Dex is upstairs by himself, doin’ his homework. You were supposed to have him here forty minutes ago. Now I’ll be late gettin’ to my shift at the Winthrop Building.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Anthony. I got held up at the office for a few minutes. Troy called.”

“An hour ago!”

“It’s rush hour,” Troy defended. “Jillian drove as quick as she could. You know there’s construction and stuff.”

LaKeytah wouldn’t hear it. “I thought the whole idea of you drivin’ him was to get him home early. You know what I’m fearin’ when I don’t know where my boys are.”

The idea was to get Troy to therapy, period. Saving the Anthonys time, money and concern was supposed to be the bonus. “It wasn’t my intent to worry you.”

“I can’t get to work if he isn’t here.”

“Dex is fourteen,” Troy argued. “He can be by himself for half an hour.”

“How old were you when you got shot?”

“Mrs. Anthony!”

The older woman’s fatigue was evident as she finally paused to catch her breath. “Maybe if I’d been here to walk you home that night…”

“Then maybe you’d have got shot, too.”

Dismissing the sad logic of Troy’s words, LaKeytah straightened and pointed a stern finger at him. “Dinner’s in the microwave. Make sure Dex finishes his algebra.” The accusatory finger swung toward Jillian. “I’m gonna be late to clean my offices now, thanks to you. If you want to help Troy, you get him home on time.” With a grunt and a glare, LaKeytah stormed outside, letting the lobby’s double doors slam shut behind her.

A beat of shocked silence passed before Troy leaned forward to open the elevator doors again. “Sorry about that.”

Still feeling a sting of guilt, Jillian summoned a wry smile. LaKeytah Anthony worked two jobs, raised two teenagers and had plenty of reason to worry about her family in this neighborhood. Though she didn’t appreciate being anyone’s whipping post, Jillian thought she could understand the other woman’s anger. “Your grandmother’s stressed out about work, and like she said, she’s concerned about you.”

“She’s concerned about Dexter.” He rolled his eyes to punctuate his mocking acceptance that he was the grandson LaKeytah had already given up on. “She just wants me home so I can babysit.”

“Troy.” Jillian squeezed his shoulder. “It’s more than that.”

He shrugged off her offer of comfort. “She’s got no cause to jump your case like that.”

“Forget it.” She wheeled him inside and let him position his chair while she pushed button number 5.

“I can get upstairs on my own.”

“I know you can. But I promised to see you home, okay? Home’s the fifth floor.” The doors drifted shut. Let him be all tough and hide the hurt he must be feeling—Jillian was still going to care. “Besides, if anything happens to you between here and there, I don’t want your grandmother chewing me another new one.”

“I hear that.” Troy grinned.

Jillian relaxed. He was going to be okay.

HE SILENTLY PULLED THE DOOR SHUT behind him and crept out of the shadowed hallway into the lobby, his senses finely tuned to the sweet scent of Jillian Masterson, despite the ammonia odor of soured kitty litter that left his eyes watering.

A terrible sense of right and wrong burned through his belly. What he’d just overheard had been wrong. All wrong.

He needed to make it right.

The old woman in apartment 102 had generously opened her door to give him directions to Troy Anthony’s place. It had probably been more foolish than generous for the old cat freak to unlock her door to a stranger—but not as foolish as the woman who’d just reamed Jillian up one side and down the other for no good reason. Grandma Anthony’s harsh words had upset Jillian, he could tell. She was worried about the boy, too.

She smiled and tried to apologize, even joked with the kid afterward, but he could tell.

Nobody upset his sweet Jillian.

And got away with it.

JILLIAN SWALLOWED THE LAST BITE of the rich chocolate chip cookie and laughed as the two Anthony brothers dutifully closed the cookie jar and reached for their dinner plates to cut up their chicken. Dessert first had lightened Troy’s mood, the sun was setting and it was time for Jillian to say her goodbyes and go home.

She plucked a stray cookie crumb from the sleeve of her jacket and popped it into her mouth before pushing her chair away from the kitchen table. “Don’t forget to study for your GED, Troy.” She winked at his younger brother. “You’ll have to have Dex help you with the math.”

Dexter laughed. “I will if you teach me how to dunk.”

Troy rolled his eyes and put his big hand over Dexter’s face, pushing the grin aside in a timeless gesture of brotherly annoyance.

Good. LaKeytah’s lecture, the resulting guilt and the challenges of coping with his disability had all receded to manageable levels for Troy, and his attitude seemed fixed firmly back in the positive position. Jillian had trouble masking her own smile at his resiliency. Everything in Troy’s apartment seemed clean, relatively clear of obstacles to his wheelchair and safe. He would be okay. “Call me if you need something. Otherwise, I’ll see you Monday at the clinic.”