Cold Case Recruit

She faced the SUV to see Brycen had gotten out and headed toward them.

“Who’s that?” Junior asked.

He stepped onto the sidewalk and came to a stop beside Drury. “Brycen Cage.” He held out his hand.

Junior eyed the hand and looked up—way up—at Brycen’s face.

“This is the detective I told you about.” Why had he offered his hand as though Junior were a professional business contact? She stopped a laugh. “This is my son, Noah Jr. I call him Junior.”

“Junior.” Brycen nodded once in acknowledgment, stuffing his hands into his front jean pockets. When Junior didn’t respond, he looked from the boy to the area surrounding the school, and she went to the back door of the SUV to let Junior in.

“Where’s Mac?” Junior asked.

He and the van driver had become fast friends. “Van broke down. We have a different ride today.” She gestured for him to get in the back.

Junior didn’t move as he sized up the big stranger. He’d gotten shy around men she encountered. Mac had taken a while to warm up to him. Drury often wondered what went through his little mind. Did he compare them to his dad? In a blue button-up shirt that matched one she’d gotten Noah, Junior looked a lot like his father.

“Why is he driving us?”

“He met me after work. He’s kindly offered us a ride home.” What was it about Brycen that put off Junior? Yes, Junior was shy around men, but he seemed defensive. What was different? Had he picked up on the man’s awkwardness? Big, imposing stranger who stiffened around kids? Probably.

And what made Brycen so anti-kid? Was it his lack of experience? Or did he dislike them? She couldn’t be sure which or if it was something else entirely, something personal that Kadin had left out.

Junior lowered his head and kicked at the concrete sidewalk.

“Junior?” She noticed he held something in his hand, a piece of folded paper. “What’s that you’ve got?” She went to him and held her hand out.

He looked sullenly up at her and handed her the paper.

She opened it and saw it was his report card. Seeing several unsatisfactory marks and long notes from his teachers, Drury quelled her sinking disappointment. “Junior, what happened here?”

He kicked at the concrete again and shrugged as though he didn’t care. Drury knew he did care.

“How many times do I have to tell you to keep up your grades?”

His head lifted and defiance sprang from his eyes. “I try.”

“Not hard enough. You used to be at the top of your class. Why are you still letting your grades fall so much?” Drury put her hand on Junior’s shoulder. “That’s not the Decoteau way. We give everything our all.”

Junior jerked away. “Then I’ll just stay here! I don’t want to go anywhere with you anyway!” He started marching back up the sidewalk toward the school.

“Noah Jr.!” Drury trotted to catch up to his small strides. She put her hand on his shoulder and stopped him, turning him to face her and bending to his level. He pouted at her.

She took in his adorable face awhile. “You’re going with me and that’s final. Got it?”

His pout plumped up his lower lip some more.

Drury ran her forefinger down the tiny bulge. “Brycen is the detective who’s going to help Mommy. You don’t have to like him, but you do have to get into the SUV.” She straightened, taking his hand. “And you have to get your grades back up.” She walked with him back to the Yukon.

Brycen leaned against the front bumper, ankles crossed and phone to his ear.

As she and Junior returned, she heard him say, “Thanks.” Before putting his phone away and impassively surveying Junior and then her. “Everything okay?”

He seemed like a completely different man than the one she’d met on the tarmac. Distant. All purpose.

“Yes.”

He looked down at Junior with the same detachment.

Junior angled his head as he returned the look with defiance. “Are you going to find my daddy?”

Drury wasn’t sure Junior fully understood his father had been murdered, or what it meant when a person died. He asked when his father was coming back every so often. Even though she said he wasn’t, Junior didn’t seem to compute.

“I’m going to catch the man who hurt him.”

Relieved that he had found a gentle way to answer, Drury saw how Junior wavered over what to think of this stranger.

“You promise?” Junior asked.

Brycen pushed off from the bumper and said, “I promise.”

The absolute certainty in Brycen’s tone made Drury stop from opening the back passenger door. In Junior’s young mind, his father would someday come home. She’d tried to explain Noah would never come home, but she hadn’t been able to say it in adult language, to expose her son to such brutality and darkness. She hadn’t had the heart. Protecting him might preserve his childhood, to allow him to be a kid until he grew up. But that didn’t seem to work. Junior missed his father and he understood enough to know something terrible had happened to him.

It meant a lot to her to know Brycen had picked up on the boy’s trouble. He might not like kids, but he had a way with them. Interesting.

His gaze moved from Junior to her, communicating without words and heating her up. She didn’t remember feeling this with Noah, these instant sparks so early on. Disturbed by that revelation, she opened the back door. Kadin had sent a top-notch detective. That was all he was to her. She had a mighty thirst to avenge Noah’s death. When his case went cold, she’d gotten angry, not at law enforcement’s failure, at the killer. He could not get away with what he’d done.

Wasn’t that why she’d called Dark Alley?

Certainly not to find love again.

“Hop in, Junior.”

Junior did, head low. Closing the door, she faced Brycen, who’d opened the front passenger door. “What hotel are you staying at? We can start working tomorrow morning if you’re ready. Maybe I could meet you for breakfast after I drop Junior off at school.”

“I canceled my hotel.”

“You...” She hurried to follow his thinking. That was who he must have called when she went after Junior.

“If you don’t mind, I thought I’d sleep on your couch...in case someone does more than leave something on your front porch. Whoever left it didn’t like you digging into the case, and I’m guessing they’ll like me showing up even less.”

She appreciated him leaving out the detail of the dead cat. She hadn’t told Junior and had disposed of the poor animal before he saw anything.

“All right.” She got in and he went around to the other side.

He drove off the tarmac and into the parking area, passing the van.

Drury waved to Mac, who stood talking to the tow truck driver.

As they left the parking area, Drury noticed Brycen looking in the rearview mirrors. Only his eyes moved. She leaned forward just a little to look at the mirror on her side. Two cars trailed them.

“The Subaru Outback,” Brycen said. “It was at the airport.”

There weren’t a ton of cars parked, but enough to make it impossible to remember all of them. “How do you know?”

“It’s got a dreamcatcher hanging from the mirror. I saw it parked in clear view of the shuttle van.”

He had a vigilant eye. Someone didn’t want her investigating her husband’s death. But why risk exposure by tailing her so blatantly? She looked back at Junior, who stared out the window, oblivious in his young innocence. The stalker hadn’t attacked yet, but maybe things would change now that she had her own detective working her husband’s case.

Without driving recklessly to lose the man, Brycen pulled over and parked along the street. The Subaru passed, the driver not looking their way. The hoodie and sunglasses disguised him enough to avoid recognition.

Brycen drove back into traffic, making the stalker the stalked. He trailed behind the Subaru, making no attempt to conceal the fact that he did so.

“What if he’s armed?” They had Junior in the SUV.

“If he was going to shoot at us, he’d have done it by now. I’ll just send him a message.”

Brycen turned a corner when the Subaru did. And another.

When the Subaru reached the two-lane highway that followed the coastline to the south, the driver sped up, and not just to reach the speed limit. He hot-rodded the Subaru, springing into top speed in a matter of seconds.

The driver did not want to be caught. And instead of attacking, he ran. Had he been sent for surveillance only, or did Brycen and Dark Alley Investigations’ reputation scare him off? Either way, the driver would not slow and, more importantly, would not lead them to whomever sent him.

Drury watched as Brycen slowed, confirming her assessment. Patience was one of the ingredients to his success. Let the man run. He couldn’t hide forever. If she was that driver, she would be worried right now.

Delight tickled her insides. She had a great detective sitting across the vehicle from her. Maybe a great something else, too...

As soon as that thought floated giddily into her head, she struggled to squash it. Falling for her detective was not part of the plan.

Chapter 2

Brycen let the blinds close after peering through the crack he’d opened. Nothing stirred in the street. Still, Drury had a stalker before he’d even begun his investigation.

“Junior, what’s it going to be tonight?” Drury called from the kitchen.

“I dunno,” Junior answered absently, hands busy with a video game.

“You want to go play catch for a while before dinner?” She seemed to slip that one in.

Didn’t Junior like to play ball, or play outside? Brycen found that curious.

“No.”

“You’re not doing homework.” She’d slipped that in, too.

“Don’t have any.”

Drury frowned as though not believing him but didn’t press as she flipped a grilled cheese sandwich in the pan. “Then come in here and sit at the table. Dinner’s ready.”

Junior grumbled but got up and came into the kitchen. She deposited a plate of grilled cheese in front of him. A glass of chocolate milk came next.

Brycen hadn’t had a grilled cheese sandwich since he was about Junior’s age and wasn’t sure he wanted to break the drought. He was a cute kid, but Brycen would rather not have any kids around while he investigated a murder. And not because they disrupted the peace and quiet.

Going into the kitchen, he sat before the plate she’d set out for him, a glass of chocolate milk tapping down afterward. He saw her silky black hair float down from one shoulder, dark lashes covering what he knew to be striking blue eyes. She sat down with another glass of chocolate milk, oblivious of the fact that not everyone would consider this meal ordinary.

Junior drank his milk and set the glass down, looking at Brycen, or more like dissecting him. When Brycen didn’t look away, Junior twirled a superhero figure over his plate and then flew him toward Brycen, going back and forth in front of his face, leaning over the table to get as close as he could, which only reached halfway across the table.

Putting the superhero down and wearing a smug scowl only a kid could pull off and still be cute, he took a few big gulps of the chocolate milk. When he put the glass down, a chocolaty rim covered his upper lip. Then he dug into the basket of crispy french fries, all the while making sure Brycen still watched. Showing up the adult.

“So, Brycen. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?” Drury asked with a peculiar glance at Junior. “Since you’re going to be staying on our couch, we should get to know you.”

He supposed he forfeited his right to keep things professional when he invited himself to stay in her house. “What would you like to know?”

“Why’d you leave Alaska?”

She would have to start with that question. “I applied for a job in Chicago.” And that was about all he’d say. Kadin had earned more of his respect having not said anything about what he’d uncovered.

She stopped chewing a fry. “You just applied for it?”

“I got a call from an old friend. The climate is pretty close to Anchorage. Days are longer here in summer.” He watched Junior fly the superhero over his plate and out across the table toward Brycen, probably imagining clipping his nose.

“The climate is what made you move?” Drury asked, clearly accustomed to her son’s play tactics.

Junior shoved french fries into his mouth, eyes on Brycen, seeing if he’d get a rise out of him.

“No, the job made me move,” Brycen said to Drury.

“Do you like Chicago?”

“I like the big city. It’s a nice change.”

“No family? Wife? Kids?”

“No.”

“Pets?” She smiled.

“I’m gone too much. Crimes don’t happen on a regular work schedule.”

Junior stuffed a giant portion of his grilled cheese sandwich into his mouth and chewed with his mouth open. When he finally regained control of the mass, grease oozed out from the corners of his mouth.

“Noah Jr., use your napkin.” Drury picked up the crumpled cloth napkin and handed it to him. “You’re getting grease on that superhero.”

Putting down the figure, Junior laughed as he wiped his mouth and looked at Brycen. Besting him. Gaining attention through what he perceived as funny but shocking behavior. He didn’t know nothing shocked Brycen anymore.

“It laughs,” Drury said, smiling.

Junior made a face and then resumed stuffing more fries into his mouth.

“If you had a job in Chicago, why did you start your crime show?”

She sure asked a lot of pointed questions. “The opportunity arose.”

Lifting her sandwich, she paused with his short, uninformative answer. “Were you born in Alaska?”

She must have gotten the hint that he didn’t welcome talk about his reasons for leaving Alaska or what had sent him into show business. “No. Colorado. Moved to Anchorage after college when I started working law enforcement.” There. That ought to be enough to tide her over.

Taking a bite of her sandwich, she studied his face while whatever thoughts she had about him danced in her mind.

“Have you ever thought about getting out of Alaska?” he asked.

The blink and lowering of her eyes revealed that she’d considered it and maybe the issue caused her some trouble.

“No. My family is here. Junior’s grandparents...” She got a faraway look, turning her head and abandoning her sandwich. “It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t alone. I mean, I’m not alone, just...I miss the companionship.”

A murderer had torn her family apart and still held her hostage. She didn’t have the heart to move Noah Jr. away from his paternal grandparents. He was their only living link to their son.

“Would you move if you could?”

She took some time to think on that. “No, I don’t think so. It’s like I said. Sometimes I feel so alone.”

He could relate to that. He just would not engage in a discussion over why. “Do you have a big family?” They didn’t need to talk about death.

“Not so big. My parents live here and I have a sister. She moved away. California. She’s a lawyer.”

“A lawyer and a bush pilot.” Interesting combination. He chuckled. “I bet you have proud parents.”

“They could have done worse. What about you?”

“My parents still live in southern Colorado. They’re divorced.” After almost thirty years, they finally decided they weren’t good for each other. “I’m an only child.” Probably the only time they’d had sex was when he was conceived.

Junior began making grunting, singing sounds as he ate, swinging his feet and bobbing his head while he flew his superhero. “Uh, uh, uh-uh-uh-uh...”

“What’s it like not having any brothers or sisters?” Drury asked with a glance at her son and slight elevation of her eyebrows.

“What’s it like having them?” he countered.

She laughed. “Active. My dad flew. Not professionally, though. He runs a local hardware store, one of the oldest in the city. My mother inherited it when her parents died. My dad worked there, so he ran it from then on. Some of the old-timers still call it a sporting goods store. He sells a lot of that still, to this day.” She kept smiling with the good memories that must bring. “He took us many places. Haven’t been to Europe, though. That’s one place I’d like to visit someday.”

Brycen had never thought about where he’d like to travel before his end came. Travel wasn’t important to him. He liked to read or watch documentaries about the world. He used to love the mountains, but that all changed when he left Alaska. If he had to pick somewhere he’d like to go, he’d choose a beach, he supposed. He’d taken a woman to the Caribbean once. That had been okay. Women loved beaches.

“They like to stay active. They’re older now, but they still hike and camp and go on trips to fun places.”

“How did they meet? You said your mother was from New York.”

“She went on a cruise. She always wanted to see Alaska, so when she was in college, her parents helped her scrounge up enough money. The ship docked in Anchorage and she went in my dad’s store. They stayed in touch after that. When my mother graduated, she moved here and the rest, as they say, is history.”

He smiled, wondering if her parents’ relationship was as storybook as she made it seem.

“We all joke that New York must have made her the active spitfire she is, or was. She was a white tornado when I was a kid. I think that’s what my dad loved about her. He worked hard, but on his time off he liked to pick up and go, usually somewhere remote.”

“Is that what drew you into piloting?” Her dad had been a pilot. That must have influenced her.

Junior had stopped his grunt-singing and chewed on a fry, eyeing his superhero. Apparently he’d given up trying to shock Brycen.

“I wanted an education, and at the time, I didn’t consider bush piloting very professional. Air force had a nicer ring to it, and serving the country had a certain... I don’t know...” She lifted her face in thought. “Noble appeal.”

“What do you like most about flying?” He never understood why anyone would want to fly a big metal tube through the air.

“The freedom,” she said, looking upward dreamily. “Soaring through the sky. Everything looks so different from up there. You can see so much more of the land than your own little patch of it in everyday life.”

“Freedom?” Did she mean nothing but air could stop her? No train tracks, no other cars...?

“Yeah. The freedom to go wherever I want, to not follow any roads. To see more of the world. It’s hard to explain. Maybe what I really love is the thrill.” She laughed a little.

“Like the air force would have been?”

“Yeah. I dreamed of flying a fighter jet when I was in high school.” She lifted her eyes in mock wonder.

Maybe he could see her as a fighter pilot. More likely she’d thought doing so would be cool as a teenager.

“And then reality stepped in?” he asked.

She breathed a short laugh. “It’s a far cry from solving crimes.” She sipped her chocolate milk. “Is that what made you decide to start a crime show? The reality? It had to be more than a good opportunity.”

She had a quick mind. Sneaky. “Yes.” But then, it wouldn’t take much to figure that out. Detectives were human. Murder wasn’t cheerful.

Junior had finished eating and had taken to staring at Brycen. He had his head on his palm, elbow on the table, idly twirling his superhero. Brycen didn’t look away and Junior showed no sign of backing down. He decided to have a little fun with the kid.

“Do I have something in my teeth?” Brycen asked, baring his pearly whites. “A piece of spinach?”

“No,” Junior said. “We didn’t have spinach.”

“Something in my hair?” He fingered his hair. “Horns?”

Junior laughed. “No.”

“Oh, good. You had me worried there for a second.”

“You’re weird.” Junior got off his chair and asked his mother, “Can I go play my game now?”

“What about your homework?”

His head dropped to one side in annoyed frustration. “I don’t have any.”

“Noah Jr...?”

“I don’t,” he whined. “I did it at school. I don’t have any, Mom.”

“All right. Go ahead, then.” She watched him go to the floor in front of the TV. Crossing his legs, he picked up the controller and began playing.

Then she turned to him. “You were pretty good with him just now.”

“Asking if I had horns in my hair? What else can you do when kids stare?”

“I didn’t expect it, that’s all.”

Why hadn’t she? He didn’t want to know. That might lead down a path he’d rather not take.

“His grades are slipping?” Brycen said, not really a question.

Drury sighed, her full, sexy lips pinched a little, forming a dimple on her right side. Then those blue eyes pierced him with a confessing look. “They have been for a while now. I might have to hold him back a year.”

He didn’t have to state the obvious. The poor kid missed his father and didn’t understand why he was gone.

“He used to get top grades. He used to play catch with his daddy almost every day. Sounds so corny, but it’s true. He did homework and played Little League. Now...he isn’t interested anymore.”

Losing a dad would do that to a kid. Not unusual as far as Brycen was concerned. But he wondered if Drury felt left out because her son didn’t want to play catch with her the way he had with his father.

“I wish there was something I could do to help him deal,” she said. “I’ve taken him to counseling, but that didn’t seem to help. He just misses his dad so much. They were very close.”

Brycen would be close to his son if he had one. What father wouldn’t? “Maybe you should try doing things differently instead of trying to keep everything the same.”

Drury leaned back against the chair, drawing his attention unwittingly to her breasts pushing the material of her shirt tighter. “Like what?”

He had to regain his aplomb. “Like not playing catch.”

“How would not playing catch help his lack of enthusiasm?” She continued to scrutinize him.

“You’re not his dad. That’s something he did with his dad, not you.”

Her mouth opened and whatever she’d have said she didn’t. “Are you saying I should start baking brownies with him?”

He grinned. “Why not?”

“Wait a minute. Are you criticizing me?”

Analytical by nature, he didn’t include criticism in the talent. “No.” He wasn’t sure why he’d spoken his thoughts. Normally he engaged as little as possible with children or their mothers. “You don’t seem like the type who likes to bake brownies.”

She smiled. “No?”

“No. More like...bush pilot who makes grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries for dinner.”

“You don’t like grilled cheese?”

“I do. It’s just a kid meal, especially with the chocolate milk.”

“It’s too much work to make something different for me. Sorry. I should have asked what you wanted.”

“You like kid meals, just admit it.”

She sipped more of her chocolate milk, watching him with light in her eyes, telling him she responded to him as a man. Their banter had warmed the kitchen.

“Would you have taken this case if you knew I had a son?” she asked.

He should have seen that coming. She could see he had an issue with kids, one she didn’t understand and one he wouldn’t explain. “Your son, or any other child, had nothing to do with my decision.”

Flattening her hands on the table, she rubbed the surface, unaware she’d done it. She must be contemplating how to ask him something. “Why did you agree to come here and help me?”

“Your husband was an Alaska State Trooper. Law enforcement.”

She propped her chin on her hand, elbow on the table. “So it was a sense of duty?”

Why did his reason matter? “Duty. Anger. If I could stop them all from killing cops, I would. But I have to settle for one case at a time.”

What had led him into show business differed from what had driven him from Alaska. He’d gone into law enforcement because he wanted to make a difference. He’d only made a mess of his personal life in Alaska. That old, haunting darkness threatened to surface. Brycen wouldn’t let it. He’d put that part behind him long ago.