The Partner

They paused long enough to look up at her then they resumed their drunken, ineffectual swings, missing their mark more often than not. Bending over with a curse, Risa jerked the nearest one to his feet and twisted his arm behind him. That’s when she realized the one on the floor was the second guy from the car. They’d come together to the club and now they were fighting. She rolled her eyes, then kicked at the boot of the one who was still down. “I’m Officer Taylor, HPD. Get up,” she commanded. “We’re taking this outside.”

To her surprise—and relief—he staggered upright. Yelling at the crowd to disperse, she pushed both men ahead of her. When they reached the door and tumbled outside, Risa wasn’t sure which was sweeter—the comparative silence of the nearby traffic or the muggy air she’d cussed before. After the bar, both offered a cleansing change.

Immediately the men went at each other again, wrestling and rolling around the steaming pavement like a couple of schoolboys, finally disappearing behind a nearby parked car. Risa considered leaving them to beat each other silly, then she changed her mind. She’d make Luke handle them. She yanked out her phone and dialed again. “Get over here, Luke!” she said angrily. “I need some help, dammit!”

He muttered something that sounded like assent and she hung up the phone, turning back to the two drunks.

One of them was gone.

The other one, now standing, held a gun.

Pointed straight at her.

Risa’s breath caught in her chest and she froze, her mind spinning. A thousand thoughts came and went in the space of a single second, but only one stood out: she held the highest rating the shooting range awarded but there was no way she would get to her .44 before he could fire. For the moment, she was stuck. She licked her lips and held up her hands, palms out.

“Look, buddy, this isn’t the time to do something stupid, okay? Drop the weapon and kick it away. My partner’s on his way.” Just to be sure, she repeated herself in Spanish. Her accent wasn’t perfect, but the message was clear.

He said something she didn’t catch, this time in English, then from the corner of her eye, Risa saw the other man rise from the pavement and start forward. She cursed under her breath—she thought he’d run off. Edging to her left, she stepped closer to the nearest car and away from the club’s door. She didn’t need any civilians getting popped, too. The one with the gun kept her in his sight, moving with her and spewing another rapid-fire burst of Spanish. She caught only bits and pieces, but it was enough to make her realize he wasn’t drunk. He was stone-cold sober and his hand was steady.

“Put the gun down,” she said evenly. “We don’t have to make this any harder that it already is.”

His face was slick in the neon light of the bar’s sign. He said nothing.

“I’ve called for backup,” she warned. “There’s going to be a hundred cops here any second and they’re not as patient as I am. They’re men. They like to shoot.”

His eyes widened, but he still didn’t answer. By this time, they’d almost traded places. She wondered for a second why he’d let her manipulate him, then she realized he’d wanted to get where he was—the car she’d been standing by was the low-rider.

Later that night, and for weeks afterward, Risa replayed the scene over and over inside her head. There had to have been something else she could have done, she agonized, some other path to take, but at the time her choice seemed like the only one.

Speaking in Spanish once more, the driver jerked his head at his friend, who suddenly appeared by his elbow. He now had a weapon, as well, Risa realized with growing panic.

As she debated her chances of trying to fire regardless, the men exchanged a glance, and that split second was all she needed. Ripping her weapon from the holster beneath her arm, she aimed and screamed. “Drop your guns! Drop them now!”

A second later, Luke rounded the corner.

The men hesitated, then they pivoted in unison toward Luke, shooting blindly as they turned.

CHAPTER TWO

RISA SHOT BACK.

When she stopped, three men lay on the sidewalk.

Down the street, sirens filled the silence, their wails growing louder as the police cars neared. With the part of her brain that wasn’t operating on automatic, Risa realized Luke had to have called for backup before he’d gotten out of the car.

The door of the club flew open and she swung her weapon toward it. Whoever was behind the door thought better of their actions and it instantly shut again, slamming against the frame so hard a piece of wood popped off.

The taste of fear filling her mouth, Risa approached the men with her gun extended. They weren’t moving, but Risa was a woman who didn’t take chances. She kicked their weapons under a nearby car, then bent down to the first man. He was slumped against the edge of the building and he sat in a spreading pool of blood.

He was dead.

The second one had a pulse but it was thready.

She reached Luke’s side, her pistol still pointed at the other two as she dropped to her knees on the dirty pavement. Pressing a finger against his neck, she searched for a rhythm. Her own heart was beating so fast all she could feel was the rush of blood inside her veins. She took a deep breath then held it, pushing her finger deeper into the side of his throat.

His eyelids fluttered open and she nearly passed out with relief.

“Hang on,” she said breathlessly. “Help’s coming, Luke. Hang on, okay?”

He smiled sweetly and said, “Okay.” Then his eyes rolled back and he went completely still.

GRADY WILSON HATED when the phone woke him up at four in the morning. The news was never good, he thought, fumbling for his glasses with one hand and for the lamp with his other. No one called that early in the morning to tell you you’d won a trip to Tahiti or that something had come up and your in-laws were not going to visit after all. Life didn’t work that way.

He picked up the receiver and answered. “Wilson here.”

“We’ve got trouble.” Stan Richards, Grady’s boss, sounded somewhat more awake than Grady but just barely.

“Imagine that.” Grady tested his theory. “I thought you might be calling to give me a raise.”

“You don’t need a raise,” Stan said sourly. “You’ve already got more money than God and you’re probably going to quit next week anyway.”

Grady ignored the money comment—he taught two night courses at the University of Houston on the side, so everyone thought he was rich. They had no idea college professors were as badly paid as cops. “You might be right about the quitting part,” he said instead. “I’ll decide after I hear about this trouble.”

Richards’s voice became serious. “It’s bad. In fact, it doesn’t get much worse. We’ve got an officer down over on the Strip.”

“Dead?”

“Not yet, but it doesn’t look good.”

“Damn.” Grady swung his legs to the side of the bed. “Who was it? Anyone we know?”

“Guy by the name of Luke Rowling. SCD.”

“Sex Crimes? What’d he do? Wander into a bust or something?”

“We don’t know right now. Chief Tanner got called so I got called so you got called. Go find out. I’m supposed to report directly to her personal assistant.”

“Directly?”

“Did I stutter?”

“Well, no, but—”

“The guy’s partner is Risa Taylor. You do know her, don’t you?”

“‘The Body’ Taylor?”

“The one and only. You’re a lucky man.”