Revelations

Revelations
Janice Kay Johnson

Ann Caldwell doesn't know who she is. She doesn't really know what she is, either.Growing up, she wanted just one thing–her father's approval. But she never got it. When she was little she was too much girl and later she wasn't enough woman. She even became a cop to please him. Now he's gone and she realizes how empty her life has become. She'd like to fall in love but doesn't know the first thing about getting a man. Even worse, the one man she wants is her partner, Juan Diaz–who has never looked at her twice.As Ann struggles to find her way, she discovers a bigger task–figuring out who has begun killing cops. She and Diaz must solve the case before anyone else dies. Is on the job the only place they're destined to be together?

“You want to know why I try to

look and act like a man?”

Ann’s tone was hard as she continued. “Well, I’ll tell you. A woman has to be tough to be a cop. Any show of softness hurts her effectiveness and her career. If I want to be soft, I do so out of the public eye.”

Diaz’s voice had the velvet undertone she’d heard him use on other women, but never her. “I’m not the public.”

“You’re one of those people who questions how tough I am every day.”

“What in hell gave you that idea?”

“Do you remember what you said to me after I was assigned to work with you?”

Brown eyes wary, Diaz shook his head.

“‘Here’s hoping you have half your old man’s goods.’” She quavered inside, having spent a lifetime wondering whether she did. “You put me on notice. My father was known for being tough. So what do you think? Do I have his goods?”

His jaw muscles spasmed. “You’re a better cop than he was.”

“What?”

“You use your head. He didn’t always.” He raised an eyebrow. “Close your mouth.”

Revelations

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When not writing or researching her books, Janice Kay Johnson quilts, grows antique roses, spends time with her two daughters, takes care of her cats and dogs (too many to itemize!) and volunteers at a no-kill cat shelter. Revelations tells the story of Ann Caldwell—first introduced to readers in Janice’s previous Superromance book, Mommy Said Goodbye.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

STANDING AT ATTENTION, shoulder to shoulder with her fellow police officers, Ann forced herself to look at the gleaming cobalt blue casket resting on a framework above a dark hole.

A funeral in all its solemnity was the worst of all places and times to become mired in self-pity.

“Comfort us in our sorrows at the death of our brother. Let our faith be our consolation, and eternal life our hope.”

She tried to make her mind a blank. If she let herself think, she either remembered her father’s funeral, so much like this one, and tears threatened, or she felt sorry for herself because she had no idea how to look pretty or flirt or make men feel protective and was therefore achingly lonely.

Spring sunlight didn’t yet bring much warmth to the cemetery grounds, but leaves budded on the maple and sycamore trees and on old lilacs. A bird twittered in the tree behind Ann and the phalanx of other solemn, uniformed police officers who had come to see one of their own laid to rest. Just as they had come to her father’s funeral last August.

“This joy that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord does not make human grief unchristian,” the pastor promised the grieving.

Did anyone truly grieve? Ann wondered. She’d known Leroy Pearce for most of her life—he’d been a crony of her father’s—and she couldn’t honestly say she’d liked the man. He’d been bigoted, crude and sexist. When Ann had transferred to Major Crimes, he’d refused to work with her.

“Sorry, babe,” he’d said with an insincere grin. “Can’t think of you as anything but a little girl.”

Huh. Girl was the relevant word. If she’d been her daddy’s son, he would have been thrilled to show him the ropes. But not her.

Okay, Leroy’s widow and daughter seemed to be genuinely grief-stricken. Ann was trying not to look at them, because her very own partner was hovering over the gently sobbing daughter, a divorcée in her late twenties, Ann’s age. He had one arm around her, while he held her elbow with his other hand. When Ann stole a look, Eva turned her head and cast a tear-drenched look up at Diaz.

It was enough to make Ann want to puke. Or go home and cry, she wasn’t sure which.

Her mind had wandered earlier, too, during the church service. She’d struggled to remember the words to hymns. She wasn’t the churchgoer she should be. When she was young, her mother had taken her, but later her father couldn’t be bothered. Maybe it was because her mother had been the one to take her that now Ann had no interest in sliding into a pew every Sunday morning. Besides, she’d spent too many of those Sundays crouched beside a body assessing blood spatter patterns. She’d quit thinking of Sunday morning and church as connected. Saturday night was too popular for committing murder.

“Sometimes mid scenes of deepest gloom,” had sung the mourners at the church.

Almost everyone here to honor Leroy was a cop, and they’d sure seen scenes of deepest gloom. Ann had had to hustle to get home, shower and change into dress uniform for the funeral. Her morning had been spent in the parking lot of a biker bar, where a regular had been stabbed upwards of a hundred times and left to bleed any remaining life out on the pavement in a bronze slick.