Special Assignment

Mike squinted at Tim Grady’s face through his swollen eye. Suspended for losing his gun. Stuck in a damn hospital room overnight for observation. Sorry was the right word. As in Mike Lawson was one sorry-assed son-of-a-bitch. “I suppose a lot of guys are finding this pretty funny.”

“Well…” Tim Grady grinned, exposing the wide gap between his front teeth.

Mike suppressed a chuckle, afraid it would hurt his face, his head, his neck. Even though he’d worked with Grady for nearly three years, that gap in his partner’s smile still cracked him up at the oddest times. It was endearing. Disarming. And it had come in handy more than once when they’d had to play good cop, bad cop with a suspect. Once Grady flashed that grin, he was everybody’s friend. “Did the lieutenant think to ask the Dirty Three if they happened to come across my gun? Say, after they got tired of beating on me and let themselves into my motel room?”

“I don’t know about the LT, but I did a little nosing around. Off the record.”

Mike tried to raise an eyebrow in silent question, but the gesture turned into more of a flinch and groan. “And?”

“They say they didn’t touch your key. That some lowlife must have come across you at bar time, taken the key and let himself into your motel room.”

“And you believe them?”

“Like hell.” Grady canted his head to one side. “Still, I don’t see that taking your Sig buys them much.”

“Makes me look bad.”

“You did a pretty good job of that without their help. Why were you trying to drown yourself last night anyway? And what made you stupid enough to throw the first punch?”

Mike rested his head back on his pillow. “Damn. What the hell am I doing stuck here? All I need is a few stitches and a pack of ice.”

Grady shook his head. “You don’t want to talk about it? Fine with me. Take the time the lieutenant gave you. Get your head straight. God knows the time I took after Janey died sure helped me. Besides, I don’t want some messed-up cop with a death wish watching my back, thank you very much.” Grady smiled, but even that gap couldn’t mitigate the hard ring of his words.

Mike closed his aching eyes. Grady had been through hell with his wife’s illness and subsequent death and yet he’d pulled himself together. So why couldn’t Mike seem to manage it?

Suspended from the job, Mike had nothing but time. Too bad all the time in the world wouldn’t change anything. He’d had twenty years to try to chip away at the guilt that calcified inside him, and if anything it had grown harder, despite his best efforts to always do the right thing. Time might have helped Grady, but for Mike a few weeks of vacation wasn’t going to make a dent.

“Excuse me. Detective Lawson?” A mellow female voice cut through Mike’s thoughts.

He opened his eyes.

An elegant blonde stood in the doorway, her long wavy hair falling over the shoulders of her light gray business suit. She skewered him with a cool blue gaze.

“Mrs. Prescott.” Mike hadn’t seen Evangeline Prescott since he’d last worked as liaison between the Denver PD and her company, Prescott Personal Securities, on a protected-witness case over six months ago. She was a classy woman who ran a classy organization. And although she had suffered the loss of her husband, Robert, in a plane crash two years before, she, too, had managed to pull her life together after tragedy.

“Please, call me Evangeline.” She stepped into the room. Behind her, and five inches shorter, a woman with curly auburn hair that just brushed her shoulders followed. A concerned look flashed across her pretty features as she took in his battered face.

Mike’s adrenaline spiked.

“You remember Cassie Allen, Detective?” Evangeline said.

As if he would forget Cassie. As if he could. He forced his aching face into some semblance of a smile. Raising his hands, he formed his stiff fingers into the shapes that were still second nature to him, even after all these years. Hi, Cassie.

She returned his smile for a split second, then pressed her lips tight and studied the pattern of tile on the floor.

She didn’t look happy to be there, that was for sure. A fact that bothered him more than it should. It wasn’t as if they’d had anything beyond a working relationship on the occasions he’d dealt with Prescott Personal Securities. But still… “Evangeline and Cassie, this is Detective Tim Grady.”

“I’m sorry if we’re interrupting.” Evangeline glanced at Grady.

Grady thrust himself free of the wall. “Nah, I gotta get going. Bad guys wait for no one and all that. Nice meeting the two of you.” With a gap-toothed grin, Grady was gone.

Evangeline focused on Mike. “I don’t want to waste your time or ours, Detective, so I’ll tell you why we’re here. I want you to work for me.”

Surely the pounding in his head had interfered with his hearing. “Work for you?”

“The grapevine has it that you’re on leave from the police department.”

“Bad news sure travels fast.”

“And whenever a door closes, a window opens,” she said, matching his cliché. “I need someone who is honest. Someone I can trust.”

“For what?”

“A very sensitive case. There’s a briefing at our offices tomorrow morning. I’ll give you the details then. If you can’t make it, Cassie will fill you in. You’ll be working with her.” Evangeline watched his expression as though she knew full well how much the prospect of working with Cassie would appeal to him.

He looked past those knowing blue eyes and focused on Cassie’s warm brown ones.

Cassie shook her head with a snap of frustration. No doubt she’d read Evangeline’s lips and had her own thoughts about the assignment. Her hands flew, signing her thoughts behind her boss’s back. She wants you to be my bodyguard. The poor little deaf girl’s babysitter. A babysitter I don’t need. Feel free to turn her down. It’s not a good use of your time.

Mike frowned at Evangeline. It didn’t add up. None of it. Even if Cassie was right, and Evangeline merely wanted someone to look after her cute little computer whiz, that didn’t explain why she would pick him. “You shouldn’t believe all my recent press. I’m no hero.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t believe everything I read.”

“Then why me?” He gestured to his face. “I’m a drunk.”

“One night of drinking doesn’t a drunk make. I know more about you than you think, Detective Lawson.”

“Then you know that half the police department hates me. You know I’m suspended for losing my gun. Surely you can come up with a better bodyguard prospect at PPS.”

“I’m sure I can. But not for this case. I trust you. You’re honest and I know you’ll remain honest…even when it’s inconvenient.”

Inconvenient? If only that was all betraying fellow cops was, an inconvenience.

“But that’s only part of it.”

He waited for her to go on.

“You’ve worked with Cassie before. You’re able to communicate.”

You can talk to the poor little deaf girl. Cassie’s fingers stabbed the air. Really, I don’t need you. I can handle this myself.

“I know some sign language and I can imagine the rest.” Evangeline glanced at Cassie. One side of her lips tilted up in a knowing smile. She turned her focus back to Mike. “What Cassie doesn’t realize is that I would provide a bodyguard for any technician I had working on this particular case. Hearing or not. It just works well that the two of you can communicate. And that you worked well together in the past.”

Working with Cassie wasn’t his concern. That part sounded great. Too good to be true. And that’s what worried him. “I come with a lot of baggage.”

“We can work around that.”

“I don’t think you quite get the picture. The Denver Post might think I’m a hero, but half the police department would like to see me fall on my face.”