The Taken

find fault would do so for those reasons alone.

For Kit, Marin’s info-hoarding meant only two things. First, she wasn’t the one who had to buy everyone lunch. And second, she had access to a treasure trove of information in the family archives that went all the way back to the paper’s inception in 1932.

“It’ll take time, but a cop isn’t squeaky-clean one day and then running flesh the next,” Kit said. “Not in an operation of this size. I bet there were rumors. There had to be other lists his name popped on first.”

Marin considered it. “My sources at Metro have been a little tight lately, but they were flush ten years ago, about the time Schmidt hit the force.”

“So anything from then ’til now,” Kit said, then remained hunched over the computer as she peered up at Grif. “Meanwhile, since I’m operating in shades of gray, you might as well gimme one of your names.”

Grif backed up a step. “What, now?”

Marin honed in on his reticence like a circling hawk. “What names?”

“He’s working on a cold case,” Kit said quickly, defending Grif though she didn’t know why. “He needs our help.”

Marin’s gaze narrowed. “Why can’t he go to the cops?”

Kit pointed to the obvious, Detective Schmidt’s face on the screen. “He. Saved. My. Life.” She turned to Grif. “Name?”

Looking down, he shifted his weight, hands shoved deep into his pockets. After a moment, he lifted his eyes and stared at Marin.

Marin huffed and rolled her shoulders. “I’m going to Starbucks. Text me if Mr. Shaw here happens to save your life again while I’m gone. Or if anything pops on Schmidt.”

She walked out without looking back.

Grif shifted his eyes. “Breath of fresh air.”

“Minty,” Kit agreed, settling herself in Marin’s still-warm chair. “Name?”

“Evelyn,” he said at last. “Evelyn Shaw.”

Kit typed it in, aware that he’d grown unnaturally still after moving to stand behind her. Shaw, just like him. Was it a sister? Or a wife? Kit wondered as she scrolled through the search results. She’d caught the way his eyes tightened at the corners, which had her automatically leaning toward the latter, and which meant she’d have to put even brief thoughts of his full bottom lip out of her mind.

Yet there was only one hit, and it was from fifty years earlier. Brows raised, she leaned back. “You weren’t kidding when you said it’s an old case.”

Evelyn Shaw, age twenty-four, had died in a casino robbery. The Marquis, one of the oldest, had also been the ritziest in its time. It’d since been demolished, of course. Newer was better, or so the thought went… all the way up until it wasn’t. Las Vegas had lost much of the glitter and kitsch that’d made it shine, and the unfinished, unfunded white elephant that now stood in The Marquis’ stead was proof enough of that.

The article Kit pulled up was just an old police blotter, there had to be more, but the caption alone had her riveted. “Starlet Dies in Botched Bungalow Robbery.” And linked to it was a photo. “Wow. She was beautiful.”

Slim in a way Kit could only dream of, Evelyn Shaw was also bright-faced and beaming, unaware at the time the photo was taken that her life would be short. And her end was brutal. An attack in one of the hotel’s courtyard bungalows that had been so fashionable back then. No witnesses, no leads.

God, Kit thought, looking at the poor woman’s dainty features, had someone killed this man’s beloved grandmother?

Grif’s silence and unnerving stillness prevented Kit from asking, but she wanted to know more-and yes, to help him, too. She did so in the only way she could. Fingers flying over the keys, she said, “Let me go deeper.”

But a ping sounded, a flash from Marin’s search, and Grif let out a long exhale behind her. Later then, she thought, sensing his relief. Right now, Schmidt…

“Ah, so you’ve had your hand slapped before,” she said, as Schmidt’s face lit the screen again, less jarring this time. It wasn’t solid intelligence, which is why Marin hadn’t found it in the official search, just some hearsay by a reporter who’d befriended some runaways and, Kit noted, who transferred to a newspaper in the Midwest shortly after. “Schmidt was forced into paid leave when he was on patrol. A motorist filed a civil suit against him.”

“For what?”

“Misconduct of a public officer, coercion using physical force, and oppression under color of office.”

“Let me guess. The motorist was female.”

Good guess. “Charges were dropped, his patrol term was up, and he requested transfer to the sexual crimes unit.”

“Where he used his position to coerce and oppress women who make their living off the streets… at least until you and your girlfriend decided to play Nancy Drew.”

Kit couldn’t even work up ire at the jab. Schmidt’s idea of coercion was alive in the bruises on her flesh. “And now he’s after me.”

Grif jerked his chin at the computer. “Cross-reference the names. See if there’s a connection between Schmidt and any of the others.”

“Good idea.”

“I know,” he said drily.

“Marin will do it,” Kit decided, and set about writing her aunt a quick note.

“Why not you?”

“Because I need to do some creative thinking.”

Grif shook his head. “Which means?”

It meant her little story on prostitutes, johns, and the motivations of each had evolved into an editorial on a prostitution ring and a crooked cop. There was murder, attempted murder, and a list of politicians powerful enough to destroy a small principality.

And don’t forget the sexy stranger who’d assigned himself as your protector, she thought, with a glance Grif’s way. One clearly harboring secrets of his own.

“What do you mean?” Grif asked again, impatiently.

Blowing the bangs from her forehead, Kit tossed the pen and finally looked up. “It means, Mr. Shaw, that I need to get my hair pinned.”

Chapter Nine

It was a relief to get out of the office, and not only because of Kit’s aunt, the haranguer who seemed to know there was more to Grif than met her eagle-eye. Maybe she recognized him in a way Kit couldn’t. She’d lived through more decades, after all-the Age of Aquarius, the end of the Cold War. She’d probably dined as an adult at Windows on the World.

And she was sick, he could see it. Her outline didn’t spark with plasma like those being chased by death, but phosphor was burned around her in a permanent etheric sear, a static etching of how close she’d come to death.

But it was the computers beeping, the printers running, the phones constantly ringing-even in every damned pocket of the people walking by-that was really getting to him. It was nearly more overwhelming than the sensations that accompanied being wrapped in flesh.

What was it about this generation that they needed to be so connected? Wasn’t there something to be said for autonomy? For holding court in your own head? For putting your heel to the sidewalk and lone-wolfing it until you reached your own damned destination?

And now the word-hound he’d somehow found himself yoked to wanted to put the investigation- his destination-on pause so she could put rollers in her hair. God help him, she’d said it helped her think!

At least Marin was going to keep working on a connection between the listed men. Grif had also suggested getting a file going on any of the women Schmidt had busted, going back a couple of years. One of those might be willing to lure a nosy young reporter to her room in return for clemency.