The attack on Duke’s career could have been as simple as that. Or it could have been based on the faulty assumption that Duke had been one of Larry’s sources. Damned for breaking the code of silence.
Or to put it in the vernacular, don’t be a rat.
Thinking Duke was a rat could have put some officers on a mission to ease him out of the officer corps.
But it could have been something far, far worse. As in someone in uniform had paid those soldiers to kill. Or someone in uniform had sold his soul to a faction. To a warlord or a politician.
He really needed to read Larry’s article in detail, to look for a clue in his brother’s writing that might tell him which it had been. But maybe Larry hadn’t known how far up the tree this sludge went. And maybe someone thought he knew and was preparing to write a book about it. Or maybe that had been exactly what Larry was doing. Maybe he had known.
Too many maybes. Way too many.
He placed his hands on the window frame and leaned forward, feeling the muscles in his back and shoulders stretch. He needed that stretching. The tension there was building into a headache.
His thoughts drifted to Cat. He understood her impatience, even understood why she stuck with a job that often frustrated her. It was the challenge of the chase, the victory when a case was solved.
He was developing a serious admiration for her. She wasn’t a quitter, not in any sense of the word. Imagine her caring for her mother that way. Determination and love, an awesome combination. Her job was difficult and frustrating, but she still did it. She believed in justice, too, just like Larry.
He was sure his presence was increasing the pressure on her. Sure, she wanted to solve the case for her own satisfaction, but now she had to deal with him wanting a solution for personal reasons.
Not that he thought she didn’t care about the collateral victims in a crime of this nature. She’d said enough for him to know she wasn’t a machine, that she did care about a victim’s family and friends. But still, having him in her face every day must be uncomfortable.
He sighed and leaned away from the window a dozen times, stretching even more, modified push-ups.
She was an attractive woman, and this setup wasn’t helping him to ignore it. The urge to explore her, to bury himself in her, was growing. He knew he just wanted to forget for a few hours, and that wasn’t fair to her.
Or maybe the desire was more than that, but he didn’t want to chance it as long as there was a question in his own mind about why he felt it.
Apart from his attraction to her, he liked her. Really liked her. He knew she was handling him, but except for that one minor confrontation in front of the department store, she’d managed him deftly.
Yup. She considered his feelings, fed him what she could to make him feel better about his part in this. She was measured when she could have exploded. She shared that she was frustrated, too, essentially telling him that he wasn’t alone in this madness that had overtaken him.
And it was madness. He wasn’t a man to go off half-cocked with a stupid plan. The fact that he had burst into her life making unreasonable demands, yet she’d treated him with such care...
A remarkable woman, a remarkable law officer. She, and her boss, could have kicked him to the curb and told him to stay in his own lane. He’d have been floundering, no matter how much he had initially tried to believe that he’d find something. Instead, between them, they’d thrown him a lifeline. Even though she clearly hadn’t wanted to be his keeper, she’d shouldered the job.
He pushed away from the window one last time, then dropped to the narrow space between her desk and the bed and began to perform one-armed push-ups.
Exercise. It helped most things, most especially directionless tension. It wasn’t as if he could jog out into the night and solve his brother’s murder.
“Damn it, Larry,” he said into the darkness. “Couldn’t you have confided in just one person?”
But the person he might, just might, have confided in had already turned his back.
The guilt had become insurmountable. Larry couldn’t forgive him now.
Justice. Larry cried out for it. It had been his guiding light.
It had become one for Duke as well.
Morning couldn’t come soon enough.
Chapter Nine
In the morning, Cat found her sleepy way into the kitchen and started coffee. A quick scan of her fridge—which looked awfully familiar after her hunt last evening—revealed enough eggs to scramble for two. A reasonably fresh loaf of rye bread also sat on the counter.
Eggs, toast and jam this morning, she thought as she yawned. Or peanut butter on the toast. She always liked that, and it helped keep her full until lunch.
She was still yawning when Duke appeared. He had dark circles under his eyes, announcing the kind of night he’d had. He rounded the table to get himself some coffee then nearly sagged into his chair.
“Bad night?” she asked before yawning yet again.
“Yeah.” He offered no additional information. Not that she really needed any.
“I was thinking,” he said.
She felt there was more to that. “About what?”
“I’ll talk once I have coherent thoughts.”
Eventually she felt her stomach rumble and rose to make toast for them. “Raspberry jam?” she asked. “Or plain toast or...”
A small laugh escaped him. “Whatever you’re having, if you don’t mind.”
She didn’t mind. Facing another day of reading Larry’s articles didn’t appeal to her. Necessary, but no fun. Larry had been a great writer, but news story after news story wasn’t exactly gripping.
They took a couple of brisk walks during the day to work out the kinks. Running into Edith Jasper, who was walking her harlequin Great Dane, Cat and Duke stopped to talk to her for a few
