The Right Jack

resulting photographs often revealed more than her subjects intended, to the great delight of her editors.

Sigrid had been too young at the time of her father's death to remember him clearly. She had only unconnected memories of a tall uniformed blond man who'd swung her upon his shoulder, his laughter. She had never been jealous of the men with whom her mother flirted so openly, precisely because Anne was open, her flirting never quite intimate; her quicksilver elusiveness kept men her friends and nothing more.

If there had been truly romantic entanglements since Leif Harald's death, Sigrid was not aware of them.

As she grew into gawky adolescence, Sigrid had watched her mother with despairing envy, wishing over and over that she had inherited some of Anne's graceful Southern poise, something her Grandmother Lattimore kept insisting was Sigrid's natural birthright. 'All the Lattimores have it, honey, and I'm sure you do, too, if you'd just sit back and let it flow.'

Although no longer as tongue-tied as in childhood, Sigrid knew she still seemed stiff and cold in social situations; almost as cold and stiff as Anne's voice was now in this hospital room.

Sigrid struggled to focus on their words as her grogginess lifted. The man's voice was a placating rumble under her mother's ragged tones, but there was something familiar about it. Doctor? Sleep pulled at her, but she resisted.

'She could have been killed,' Anne was saying angrily. 'And she wasn't even on duty.'

'A police officer's never completely off duty, Anne. You know that.'

Startled, Sigrid's eyes flew open. 'Captain McKinnon!' she said hoarsely.

Anne pushed past the big man who stood at the foot of Sigrid's bed and touched her daughter's hair. 'Oh, honey, you had me so scared. Are you okay? How do you feel?'

Captain McKinnon gave her an appraising smile. 'Finally with us, Harald? I was beginning to wonder if they'd knocked you out for good.'

McKinnon had never seen his buttoned-up and normally efficient subordinate looking this vulnerable. Her dark hair had loosened around her thin face and those wide gray eyes held bewilderment and uncertainty. 'How's the arm feel?'

Sigrid looked down at her left arm. It seemed to be tightly taped now from shoulder to elbow. Another sterile bandage was wrapped on her hand, which ached dully and more painfully than her arm. An IV drip was attached to her right arm. There had been a man, she thought, and a knife. Reality wavered, then she remembered that he'd slashed her arm.

'How bad is it?'

'You lost gallons of blood,' said her mother. Anne's words faded and Sigrid struggled to hold on to them. 'I forget how many stitches they said.'

'No permanent damage,' the captain assured her easily. 'I asked the doctor.'

Sigrid's boss was built like an overgrown teddy bear, but his tongue could be sharper than a grizzly's claws when he chewed someone out. In the time that she'd worked under him, Sigrid had come to respect the big rumpled man, yet he made her uneasy and she didn't know why. He was scrupulously fair and treated her like his other officers. Still, he seemed to expect something more of her. An indefinable tension cracked in the air whenever he called her in to discuss a case, more tension than her own prickly nature usually elicited. It wasn't because she was a female officer, she'd decided. There were other women in the department and she hadn't noticed that vague air of expectation when McKinnon dealt with them.

Even more puzzling was her mother's present reaction. Anne had many virtues, but they were certainly not domestic. Her apartments always looked as if they'd just been ransacked by burglars, nothing matched or was color-coordinated, yet here she was straightening Sigrid's sheets, aligning the water carafe with its drinking glass on the nightstand, twitching the curtains. Sigrid almost expected to see her whip out a dustcloth and start polishing the headboard.

First anger and now this fidgeting self-consciousness from a woman who'd learned how to twist men around her little finger before she started kindergarten?

'That was good work tonight,' McKinnon said.

'Is the suspect okay?' Her throat was dry.

'He'll survive. Probably even be break dancing next month. You shot him through the calf.'

'Good.'

'Dear God in heaven!' Anne exploded. 'A crazy man almost cuts your arm off and you worry if you've hurt him?'

McKinnon's attention flickered to the woman and back to Sigrid. 'We're pretty certain he's the perp who's raped at least seven women in the last three months. This one we'll nail so tight no lawyer'll get him off. I'll want your report tomorrow afternoon.'

Sigrid nodded, but Anne blazed up again. 'Tomorrow?'

'Mother, please.'

'No, maybe she's right.' The big man nodded. 'Day after tomorrow will be soon enough. You take it easy tomorrow.'

He hesitated, then spoke again. 'I might as well tell you. Somebody set off a bomb in the Hotel Maintenon tonight.'

At first it didn't register. She looked at Captain McKinnon apprehensively. 'Detective Tildon-?'

McKinnon nodded grimly. 'Two people DOA, two more hanging on by a toenail. Tildon's over at Metro Medical Center. I stopped in on my way here.'

White-faced, Sigrid held her breath until McKinnon added, 'He's still in surgery but they think he'll make it.'

Anne abruptly turned her back on them and went to stare out the window.

McKinnon's face betrayed his exhaustion. 'I'd better get back up to the Maintenon,' he said. Had lieutenant Harald been any other of his officers, the captain would have stooped over and given her a clumsy, reassuring pat. Yet even wounded and sedated, her habitual reserve made his own hand hesitate until the moment passed.

As if sensing his ambivalence, Sigrid detained him with anxious eyes. 'Who's going to handle it, Captain?'

'Me, right now.' He looked down at her. 'You want this one, don't you?'

'Yes.'

There was nothing declamatory or dramatic in her simple affirmative, but the resolution.in her tone was unmistakable. McKinnon glanced at Anne's back uneasily. 'Let's wait and see how quickly you get back on your feet.'

As he moved to go, Anne remained rigid by the window. He paused in the doorway. 'I'm sorry it had to be like this, Anne, but even so, it was good to see you again.'

She turned and faced him coldly. 'Good-bye, Captain.'

In the split second before the door closed behind McKinnon, Sigrid could have sworn she saw his shoulders droop beneath the whiplash finality in her mother's word.

She looked up at Anne curiously. 'I didn't realize you two knew each other.'

'We don't.'

'Oh, stop it, Mother,' Sigrid said wearily. 'I'm a police officer, a trained observer, remember?'

'He and Leif used to be partners.'

Sigrid was stunned. 'And?'

'And nothing. They were partners and your father was killed and this is the first time I've met him since the funeral.'

'But you hate him. Why? Was it something to do with Dad's death?' Abruptly, Sigrid realized she'd never been told many of the actual details. 'What really happened? Was it the captain's fault?'

'I don't know what really happened,' Anne said raggedly. 'I wasn't there.' Sudden tears misted her thick eyelashes. 'All I know is that your father was killed and McKinnon wasn't even wounded.' She ran a tired hand through her curls. 'Honey, I'm bushed. Home to bed for me.'

'What about El Diego?'

'He'll just have to wait. I can't go jetting off with my only child slashed to ribbons.'

'Don't be dramatic, Mother. I'm perfectly capable of managing.'

'Oh Lord, don't I know it!' Anne sighed. How very apt that old tale of a hen's bafflement when she discovered she'd hatched a duckling…

Since infancy, Anne had known how pretty she was. It was a matter of record and not conceit. All the