Читать книгу: «Tested by Fire», страница 2

Chapter Two

Finn got up early the next morning to go for a run before her shift started. Colin lifted his head and whined.

“I know it’s early, but if I have to stay in shape, so do you.” She turned on her CD player and hummed along with her favorite praise-and-worship band as the music pulsed through the house while she got dressed.

Dew brightened the grass and already the sun was warm with the promise of a beautiful day. She did some quick warm-up exercises on the porch and then broke into an easy run, with Colin loping along beside her.

Her grandparents’ house was quiet, and she glanced up at the window of one of the rooms Anne reserved for company. The shade was still drawn. John Gabriel. Her heart gave a funny dip just at the thought of him and it surprised her so much that she stumbled. Grinning, she saw Colin looking up at her.

“Crack in the sidewalk.” She laughed.

The man was a mystery. He must have been close to her age when the explosion cost him his arm and his career as an officer. Now he worked with the Madison Agency. She had never met anyone affiliated with it before. Its headquarters were in Chicago, where part of the Kelly family had settled in the 1920s. The agency was low-key, the average person wouldn’t even be aware it existed, yet it had a reputation for excellence in cutting-edge investigative techniques. Some said it was a wild card—a maverick agency that walked on the edge of the law to solve crimes. Somehow she sensed that Madison and John Gabriel were a good fit.

As she jogged around the side of the house, Finn saw the man she had just been thinking about, standing on her porch.

“Good morning, John.” She slowed down and walked the few yards that separated them, hooking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. She tried to ignore the strange fluttering in her stomach at the sight of him.

“Finn.” He leaned down and scratched a spot behind Colin’s ear. “Anne sent me over to tell you she baked cinnamon rolls this morning.”

“I have to be at work in an hour but I suppose I can make time for that,” Finn said. Her heart was still pounding, but now she wasn’t sure if it was from her run.

“I’ll tell her,” said John.

Finn disappeared into the house, and John watched Colin rolling in the grass.

“Sit!”

Colin leaped to his feet, then sat down and looked at him questioningly.

John smiled. “So, you haven’t forgotten all of your training, have you, boy.” He knelt beside the dog and glanced toward the house to make sure Finn wasn’t in view. “Well, we’re going to start working together.” He pulled a piece of cinnamon roll out of his pocket and fed it to the shepherd. “Just don’t tell your commanding officer, okay?”

Anne had been bustling around the kitchen, and as soon as John told her that Finn was coming over, she poured another cup of coffee and brought it to the patio.

“Good morning.”

At the sound of the smoky voice, John looked up and almost groaned. Finn was wearing a light-blue uniform, but instead of looking like a figure of authority, she resembled a high school kid dressed up for career day. Her hair was neatly braided and pinned up in the back. She probably thought it looked more professional, but all it did was enhance the delicate planes of her face—the luminous gray eyes and smattering of freckles across her nose. No wonder some of the officers might be having a difficult time accepting her as an equal.

“Good morning.” Seamus smiled at her affectionately. “You got your run in this morning?”

“Most of it.” Finn took a sip of coffee and closed her eyes briefly in appreciation. “Mmm. This hits the spot. I’ve got to watch for Carl. He’s picking me up in about twenty minutes.”

John didn’t think she sounded like someone who dreaded going to work. She seemed relaxed. Maybe the change in mood that Seamus detected was her concern about his health, and nothing related to her job at all.

“Are you free for supper tonight, Finn?” Anne asked.

John felt Finn’s eyes on him. “No, I think I’ll go to the range after work this afternoon. Do you want to come along?” She directed the question at him.

“Finn.” Anne frowned at her, but Finn didn’t acknowledge the warning.

“Were you right-or left-handed before the accident?”

“Right.” He knew his voice sounded tight. What did she think she was doing?

“I’m assuming as a Madison agent that you still shoot.”

“Yes.”

“I’m probably better than you.” Finn grinned mischievously. “Want to find out?”

“Fiona Isobeale Kelly!” Seamus blustered, but John held up his hand.

“It’s all right, Chief. What man can resist a challenge like that?”

“I’m done at three,” Finn said. “I’m sure you can use Chief’s gun if you didn’t bring yours along. Otherwise I have an extra.” A car horn sounded from outside. “Carl’s here. I’ll see you all later.” She filched another cinnamon roll and slipped out the door.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Anne forced a smile. “I’ve got some laundry to get on the line. Help yourselves to more coffee if you’d like.”

“Seamus, did you get Finn the job here?” John asked bluntly when they were alone.

“She scored highest on the civil service test and passed every requirement they had,” Seamus said.

“That’s not what I asked, but thank you for answering the question anyway.” John stood up and walked to the window. The squad car was pulling away. “She looks about sixteen, Chief. Did you think that securing a job for her at a department that’s got any anti-female sentiment was a good idea?”

“You know as well as I do that being a good cop starts here.” Seamus thumped his chest. “She’s bright and has integrity and compassion.”

“Then she should have joined the Girl Scouts,” John shot back.

“Finn got the job on her own merit,” Seamus insisted. “All I did was talk to Chief Larson when she applied for the job. He said that he’d put in a good word for her with the Police and Fire Commission. There’s been some pressure to start hiring female officers.” Seamus saw the doubt on the younger man’s face. “She can do this, John. Everything seemed fine when she started at the department. Then, about two months ago, things changed. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s just a hunch, but something’s going on. She won’t confide in me or Anne.” He looked like the admission stung.

“So maybe she can do the job—but does she want to?” John asked. “That’s the million-dollar question.”

“There was another fire last night,” Carl Davis told Finn on the way to the department.

“Where was it this time?”

“Just a shed behind the hardware store.” Carl adjusted the rearview mirror. “Someone reported it before it did too much damage.”

Finn shook her head. “That makes two this month. The first one was in a Dumpster. Now it’s a building?”

“School’s out and kids are bored.”

“When I was bored I went swimming or played basketball,” Finn said.

“Yeah, well, you probably had a pool.”

“Just a small one.”

She liked Carl. He was in his early forties, with almost twenty years of experience on patrol. He’d begun as her training officer and still kept a close eye on her. Early on, he had told her she could confide in him if she had any trouble being accepted by the rest of the officers. She had gotten to know his wife, Sherilynn, and had taken them up on several of their dinner invitations since she’d been hired.

They walked into the department and the dispatcher, Gil Patterson, shook his finger at her. “There you are, Kelly!”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? You had court a half an hour ago, that’s what’s wrong.” Gil rolled his eyes.

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“I put the notice in your box last week myself,” Gil said defensively. “It was Lessing. They had to let him go because you weren’t there as the arresting officer to testify.”

Finn felt sick. Lessing. “I didn’t get the notice.”

“Chief wants to see you.” Gil wouldn’t look at her now. “He’s in his office.”

Finn had arrested Jerome Lessing for domestic abuse the week before, after a neighbor called to report sounds of a woman screaming. She had witnessed firsthand the bruises on Bonnie Lessing’s face and arms when she’d arrived at the scene. And now the abuser had walked away without so much as a slap on the wrist.

Chief Larson was sipping coffee when Finn stepped into his office.

“Kelly.” He indicated the chair on the opposite side of the mammoth oak desk. “Have a seat.” He put down his cup. “Lessing’s at Marie’s Café this morning eating their dollar-ninety-nine breakfast special—one egg, scrambled, toast with jelly and home fries. Must not care about his cholesterol level.”

“I didn’t get the notice.”

“I already talked to Gil. He remembers putting it in your box,” Chief Larson said.

“Someone took it out.” There, she’d said it.

Larson stared at her in disbelief. “Someone took it?” he repeated. “You mean deliberately? Are you saying there is some sort of…plot…against you?”

“Not a plot,” Finn said in frustration. “It’s just that little things have been happening lately.”

“It doesn’t wash, Kelly. You started out fine. The other officers have accepted you.” He looked disappointed. “I can’t let you blame your negligence on someone else. Has anyone in this department said they don’t want you here? Discriminated against you?”

“No.”

“You’ve got two months left on your probation,” Larson said gruffly. “Let’s see some focus, Finn.”

“Yes, sir.”

She walked out of the office and found Carl waiting for her.

“How did it go?”

“He gave me a promotion,” Finn said, but the joke fell flat.

“Seriously.”

“Seriously? I’m in serious danger of losing my job if I don’t focus.”

Carl frowned. “I’ll talk to the chief.”

“No, please don’t, Carl. I can do this.”

“Here, you can start with some follow-ups, then.” He grinned and pushed a stack of paperwork into her hands.

The well-kept, petunia-studded city of Miranda Station boasted a population of ten thousand people, but Finn definitely earned her salary during the day. By the time she came off her shift, she was tired. The next officer on duty dropped her off at home and she walked up the sidewalk, looking forward to having a cool shower and a change of clothes. She remembered that she had asked John Gabriel to go to the range with her. Well, maybe asked wasn’t the right word. She had challenged him. And he hadn’t disappointed her.

She peeled off her uniform shirt and bullet-proof vest and immediately felt ten pounds lighter. The shower revived her body but not her spirits. Finn knew she hadn’t gotten a court notice in her box. Was Gil the person who was against her working there? Dispatch handled all the reports, and he had complained several times that hers weren’t accurate when he checked her numbers against the computer.

She had just changed into blue jeans and a T-shirt when she heard a knock. Her hair was still damp from the shower and she fluffed it with her fingers as she went to answer the door.

“Come in.” Finn stepped back as John’s tall frame filled the narrow foyer. “I’ll be right back.”

John felt like he was in a doll’s house. Or a storybook cottage. Everything around him was bright and feminine. Not frilly. Feminine. The love seat and chairs in the living room were covered in a white-and-blue print and a rolltop writing desk stacked with books took up an entire wall. The hardwood floors were scattered with bright rag rugs, and an oval-shaped breakfast nook held a small oak table scattered with more books. Along the top of the cupboards was a variety of ceramic teapots. Even though she had only been home from work for half an hour, a candle was burning on a small table by the window.

He walked over to blow out the candle and saw an open Bible next to it. It obviously wasn’t a decoration. Some of the verses had been highlighted with a fluorescent pen and bookmarks stuck out everywhere.

Finn emerged from a room down the hall and caught him studying it.

“Part of the Kelly family legacy? A badge and a Bible?”

“No.” She held his gaze. “But it will be.”

Chapter Three

“Some people use both of them to hide behind,” John said, watching her expression to gauge her reaction.

“Some people know the difference between finding shelter and hiding. Do you?” Finn tossed something at him and instinctively he reached out and caught it. A key ring. “You can drive.”

They walked in silence to the garage, where two cars were parked side by side. One was a dark-blue import, compact and conservative. The other, a hunter-green Jeep Cherokee. Automatically he walked over to the import—and heard Finn chuckle.

“That’s Chief’s car.”

He raised his eyebrows and regarded her thoughtfully. “My mistake.”

Finn slid into the passenger side of the vehicle and waited. Just as she suspected, John was at home behind the wheel of a car. He turned the key and immediately they were drowned in music as the radio came to life.

Finn nudged the volume button down. “Sorry.”

“A Jeep and loud music,” John muttered. “Are you sure you’re not sixteen?”

She didn’t take offense. “The Jeep was a graduation present from my parents when I got my Criminal Justice degree last year. And the music, well, some things you just never outgrow.”

“Right.” John eased the Jeep out of the driveway. “Where do I go?”

“That way.” Finn pointed left. “The range is about three miles from here.” Finn leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling the tension from the day start to uncurl inside of her.

“Long day?”

She didn’t answer right away. The court notice…

“Well, there was that dog I had to chase for three blocks and the little old lady who wouldn’t let me help her cross the street. Other than that—” Her voice broke off and her eyes snapped open because she heard a strange sound. John Gabriel was laughing. Granted, it sounded a little rusty, but it was laughter.

“The hazards of the job.” He turned a smile on her that transformed his austere features and turned her insides into jelly.

Finn swallowed. “You should do that more often.”

“What?”

“Smile. Laugh. You know—try a variety of facial expressions.”

“Very funny.” John turned his attention back to the road. “Where do we turn?”

“Back there about a quarter of a mile.” She realized that they had passed the road. It was his fault for laughing and causing her to forget her navigational responsibilities.

He turned the Jeep around and headed back. “Do you come here a lot?”

“Two or three times a week,” Finn said absently.

“Is that required by your department?”

“No. We come out as a department about every six months. Dad says I should practice more than that. Most officers never fire their weapons, but you need to be accurate if you ever have to.”

The range was an open field with oak trees bordering the perimeter like silent sentinels. No one was there, and Finn was glad. Now that she had bullied John Gabriel into this, she was having doubts.

“Okay, Annie Oakley.” His voice was so near it startled her. “You first.”

He set up the targets while Finn pushed the clip into her handgun and put on ear protection to muffle the sound.

John watched as Finn stepped up to the line. Everything about her stance and posture was correct. Correct but wooden. For someone who came to the range two or three times a week, she seemed almost uncomfortable with a gun in her hand. The first few shots were close to the center. Then, something happened. Her concentration dissolved. The next few shots were way off. When she finished, her hand fell to her side and her head dipped slightly.

“Hey, where did you go?” he asked sharply, watching as Finn’s head snapped up again and she smiled sheepishly.

“Daydreaming, I guess.”

“Daydreaming?” He repeated the word in disbelief. “If that target decided to shoot back, I’d be picking you up off the grass.”

“Your turn.” Finn stepped back and looked away from him. She couldn’t explain what had just happened, other than the fact that Jerome Lessing’s face had suddenly loomed in her thoughts. He was free and it was her fault. Or was it?

Gunfire brought her back to reality, and she watched as John pounded six bullets directly into the center of the target.

John glanced at her, expecting to see amazement or disbelief or any of the other expressions that people had when a one-armed man actually achieved something. Instead, she was looking at him proudly. Knowingly. The admiration on her face shook him to the core, momentarily shattering the wall he had so painstakingly built over the years. Then he knew. When she had invited him to come to the range—when she had casually tossed her car keys to him—she was telling him she saw a man. Not a one-armed man. Not a man with a scar that disfigured part of his face, and had, as some people assumed, seared his brain in the process. But a man.

No one had given him a gift like that in years. No one except his colleagues at the Madison Agency, who had stopped treating him with kid gloves just a few months after he started working there. It hadn’t taken Finn that long. They had known each other less than twenty-four hours.

He wondered why he found the discovery so unsettling.

“Do you mind living so close to your grandparents?” John asked later as they headed back to the city limits. Now she was behind the wheel, which gave John a chance to study her. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was some emotion still lingering in her eyes that he’d noticed when they’d been at the range.

“No.” Finn shook her head. “When I got hired here, they wanted me to live with them, but I talked Gran into letting me fix up the stone house. I lived with my folks the whole time I went to college and I wanted a little space. They understood, and I don’t mind living in their backyard. Especially now that Chief is having some health problems.”

“I was surprised to see they had such a huge house to take care of.” John remembered his first glimpse of the sprawling two-story brick home as the taxi delivered him the night he arrived.

“When Chief retired, he and Gran handpicked Miranda Station. They were tired of city living and wanted a place that everyone could come home to. It’s still close enough to Chicago for impromptu family get-togethers. That’s why he had the pool put in, too, for all my relatives to enjoy when they come for a visit. I don’t think Chief has ever put his big toe in the water.”

The stately brick home they were discussing came into view and Finn eased the car into the garage. There was a vacant spot where the other car had been parked earlier.

“Looks like they went out,” Finn said.

“Your powers of observation are amazing, Officer Kelly,” John murmured.

She looked at him in mock surprise. “A sense of humor, Agent Gabriel? Be careful, I may think you are human.”

A strange expression suddenly came over his face, igniting some unidentified emotion in his eyes.

“Oh, I’m human, Finn,” he said quietly.

Finn tried to smile but found she couldn’t. A shiver of awareness rippled through her. She could hear Colin barking in the background, but everything else around her had gotten fuzzy. What’s happening here, Lord? Is John someone You’ve brought into my life for a reason…or am I supposed to run as fast as I can in the other direction?

“I think this is the night Chief and Gran play Scrabble with the Silvermans. I was thinking about grilling some burgers.” She offered the invitation as quickly as it popped into her mind. “Are you hungry?”

John hesitated. He reminded himself that he didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to get involved with Finn Kelly on any level, but he had made a promise to Seamus.

“Never mind.” She quickly picked up on his reluctance. “I just thought…”

The evening sun filtered through the trees and caught the fire in her hair as she pushed it away from her face in the unconscious gesture he was becoming familiar with. Remembering her lack of concentration at the range, he decided to push a little deeper to see if he could discover what was bothering her. Most likely she had been thinking about a boyfriend. Still, the way she seemed to disappear for a few minutes there worried him. A cop couldn’t afford to do that on duty. The stakes were too high.

“Sure. A burger sounds great.”

Her easy smile surfaced again, with no sign that she was aware of the tension that had just crackled around them minutes before. He didn’t even want to go there. The connection he felt with her was undeniable and unexpected. And unwelcome. In the first place, he was ten years older than Finn in age and one hundred years older than her in experience. Keep telling yourself that, Gabriel. He followed her into the house.

“What do you want to do?” she asked him.

“Let’s say I’m better at the outdoor range than at the indoor kind,” he admitted.

Finn studied him thoughtfully. “I’ll bet it’s hard to butter bread.”

Was she always this refreshingly honest? “I eat out a lot.”

“You can flip the burgers, then.”

“Can’t I just watch television while you make supper?”

“Very funny.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Am I laughing?”

“No, I think you fulfilled your quota of laughter already. Once a day?”

He had to actually try not to smile. She handed him a metal spatula, rummaged into the refrigerator for the pre-shaped hamburger patties and tucked a canister of seasoning salt under her elbow. “The grill is out the back door.”

The back of Finn’s house was a surprise. A flagstone patio fanned out in a V-shape, bordered by tall, colorful flowers and terra-cotta pots lined up on an old, weathered bench. The pots were home to a variety of vegetable plants. A faded quilt was folded neatly on a wicker chair and a grapevine wreath decorated an antique light pole.

Within minutes, she had the grill started.

“I’ll be right back.” Finn disappeared into the house and returned a few moments later with two glasses of iced tea.

“Thanks.” He started to take a drink and paused. “There’s something floating in it.”

“It’s a violet.” She inspected the coals and frowned.

“You want me to drink a flower?”

“Not necessarily. But it won’t hurt you if you do. Violets are edible,” she explained patiently. “I put them in the tea because they’re…”

“Go on. This is fascinating.”

He had that detached, intimidating look on his face again, and Finn suddenly balked at telling him why she had dropped two violets into his iced tea. It had been done out of habit and now she was backed into a corner, having to explain.

“Pretty.” She busied herself by salting the meat.

“Pretty.” He repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before.

“Yes, pretty.” She straightened and suddenly wished she hadn’t done it in the first place. “Because they look pretty in the iced tea. Don’t you think so?”

He studied the glass again, and she finally clucked her tongue.

“John, it’s not a piece of evidence, it’s a glass of iced tea. Just drink it.”

He did, so cautiously that she had to chuckle, her initial defensiveness melting away.

John glanced at her and was relieved. If she was angry with him, it would be more difficult to find out if anything was going on at the Miranda Station P.D. He figured the sooner he found out what was wrong, the quicker he could get back to the Madison Agency and bury himself in the latest investigation he was working on. Seamus had been right about his not taking vacation time. He didn’t want time to relax or be idle. That gave him too much time to think about things better left alone.

Finn set plates on the small bistro-style table by the grill and put the food out. “Do you mind if I pray?”

John shook his head and waited to see if he recognized the table prayer, so he could stumble along.

“Lord, thank You for this day. For the things You’ve allowed in our lives—the challenges and the joys. Thank You for John and his willingness to take time from his busy schedule to spend some time with Chief…and thank You for the food you’ve provided. Amen.”

For a split second, he was frozen in place as her prayer sunk in. For the things You’ve allowed in our lives.

There’d been more challenges than joy in his life and he’d never stopped to consider that maybe God was there during both. Well, if He had been there, He’d been standing on the sidelines watching. Distant and unavailable.