from sampling what the opposite sex offered so freely-without love or commitment, of course.
But lately, Conor had tired of the shallow interaction he’d enjoyed in the past. Maybe it was his mood, the indifference he felt for life in general. Hell, the blonde at the end of the bar had been giving him come-hither looks for the past hour and he couldn’t even manage a smile. Though a woman to warm his bed on this blustery fall night was tempting, he was too tired to put out the effort to charm her. Besides, he only had a half hour before he had to report to the station house-not nearly enough time.
“Good evening, sir. I’ve got the car outside when you’re ready to leave.”
Conor glanced to his right to see his partner, Danny Wright, slide onto the bar stool beside him. The rookie detective had been assigned to Conor last month, much to Conor’s dismay. Although Wright was a good detective, the kid reminded him of a great big puppy, wide-eyed and always raring to go.
“You don’t have to call me ‘sir,”’ Conor muttered, taking another sip of his soda. “I’m your partner, Wright.”
Danny frowned. “But the guys in the squad room said you like to be called ‘sir.”’
“The guys are pulling your leg. They like to do that to rookie detectives. Why don’t you have something to drink and relax for a while.”
Anxious to please, Danny ordered a root beer, then grabbed a handful of peanuts and methodically began to shell them. When he’d arranged a neat little pile in front of him, he popped a few into his mouth and slowly munched. “Lieutenant wants us down at the station house by the end of the shift. He says he’s got a special assignment for us.”
Conor chuckled. “Special assignment? Special punishment is more like it.”
Danny sent him a sideways glance. “Lieutenant’s pretty steamed at you,” he murmured. “The guys say you’re a good cop who just has a bit of a temper. Lieutenant says the skell is bringing brutality charges though. Already hired himself a lawyer.”
Conor’s jaw tensed. “That slime bilked an 84-year-old woman out of her life savings. And when she wouldn’t give up her credit cards, he beat her within an inch of her life. I should have knocked his teeth through the back of his head and tied his arms and legs behind him. He got off easy with a split lip.”
“The guys say-”
“What is this, Wright? Don’t you ever speak for yourself?” Conor said. “Let me tell you what the guys are saying. They’re saying this isn’t the first time I’ve gone off on a suspect. They’re saying Conor Quinn is getting a reputation. And that reputation doesn’t help my chances of moving over to homicide. Combine the split lip with my other misadventures and the brass has got me pegged as a rogue cop.”
“I-I didn’t mean to-”
“You don’t have to worry, Wright. It’s not contagious,” Conor muttered.
“I’m not worried about me. You’ve been waiting for an assignment in homicide for two years and there are only two slots open. You’re a good detective, sir. You deserve one of those slots.”
Conor shook his head. “I’m not sure I’m even interested anymore.”
“Why not?”
He’d been mulling over that question for weeks now, but Conor hadn’t been able to come up with an answer, at least one that made sense. “I’ve been trying to make this city safe for more years than I’d care to count. I honestly thought I could make a difference and I haven’t even made a dent. For every hooker and bookie and scam artist I put behind bars, there’s another one right behind. What makes me think I could do better with murderers?”
“Because you will,” Danny reasoned in his own guileless way.
“Hell, I’m sick of playing it safe. It’s time I started living my life. I want to get up in the morning and look forward to the day. Look at my brother Brendan. He chooses what he writes, when he writes, if he writes. He’s living life on his own terms. And Dylan. What he does makes a difference. He saves lives. Real lives.”
“So what are you going to do? You’re a cop. You’ve always been a cop.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. I went from taking care of my family to taking care of this city. I was nineteen when I went into the academy, Wright. I had responsibilities at home, I needed a steady job. Maybe I would have chosen differently. I certainly would have enjoyed going to college rather that taking years of night courses to get a degree.”
Danny gave him a sideways glance. “You’ll feel better when the lieutenant lets you out of the doghouse,” he said. “He can’t stay mad forever.”
“So what kind of scut work does he have for us this evening?” Conor asked. He took a long sip of his soda, then wiped his hand across his mouth.
“Actually, it’s pretty interesting, sir,” Danny said. “We’re protecting a witness in the Red Keenan case. We’ve got to transport the guy out to a safe house on Cape Cod and then keep watch for a few days. Kind of an odd place for a safe house, don’t you think?”
Conor shook his head. “I guess they figure they can monitor everyone coming and going this time of year. One highway, one airport. Easier to spot suspicious characters.”
Conor pushed back from the bar and started toward the door, Wright dogging his heels. He gave Sean a wave, then called out a farewell to his brothers. When he reached the street, he pulled up the collar of his leather jacket and turned his face into the wind. He smelled the ocean on the stiff, damp breeze and he knew a storm was on the way. For a moment, he worried about Brendan, almost two days late on a return trip from the Grand Banks where he’d had a last run with the swordfishermen before they started to work their way south. Why he’d decided to write a book about swordfishing, Conor would never understand.
Hell, swordfishing had been the ruin of their family life, the reason their mother had walked out, the reason their father had left the parenting to Conor. He sighed and cursed softly. Brendan could handle a storm at sea-he’d spent many a summer vacation making runs with their father. And Dylan could handle a fire out of control. It was Conor who was having trouble handling his life of late, making sense of it all.
His head bent to the wind, hands shoved into his pockets, Conor strode down the rain-slicked street toward his car, Danny hard on his heels. He glanced up when he heard footsteps coming his way, his instincts automatically on alert. A slender woman with short, dark hair passed, nearly running into him in the process. Their eyes met for only a moment. He glanced over his shoulder, thinking he recognized her. Bunko artist? Hooker? Undercover cop?
He watched as she slowly stopped in front of Quinn’s, then peered through the plate-glass window. A few seconds later, she started up the steps, then paused and hurried back down, disappearing into the darkness. Conor shook his head. Was he so jaded that he now saw criminal intent in a perfectly innocent stranger? Maybe a few days of solitude on Cape Cod would put everything back in perspective.
The District Four station house was buzzing with activity when Conor and Danny arrived in the unmarked sedan. Conor was used to working the day shift, but days and nights would mean nothing now that he’d been assigned to protect a witness. Just endless hours of boredom, bad takeout, and what amounted to nothing more than baby-sitting.
According to Danny, the witness had been transported earlier that evening from the downtown station house. The lieutenant had been vague on the particulars of the case, preferring to speak to Danny and Conor in person about their new assignment-no doubt to use the meeting as a lesson for an unruly detective.
But when they strode into the squad room, the lieutenant’s office door was closed. Conor checked for messages, grabbed a cup of coffee, then searched the mess on his desk for his pocket pad, the leather bound notepad that each detective carried for witness interviews. He remembered that he’d had it last in the observation room while he watched an interrogation through the one-way window.
He grabbed a pen and backtracked, finding the door to the room open. But his search for the missing notepad was stopped short when he glanced through the one-way window into “the box.” The featureless interrogation room contained a single table with a chair on each side, a light above, and the mirrored window on one end, through which Conor now stared.
The sole occupant of the room was a woman, a slender figure with ash-blond hair, patrician features and an expensive wardrobe. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was certain she wasn’t a call girl or a drug dealer or a con artist. He’d be willing to bet his badge that she hadn’t committed any crime. She lacked the hard edge to her features that most criminals acquired after working the streets. And she looked genuinely out of her element, a butterfly in the habitat of…cockroaches.
He stepped closer to the window and watched her for a long moment, noting the tremor in her delicate hand as she sipped at the paper cup filled with muddy coffee. Suddenly, she turned to look his way and he quickly stepped
