reacting to anything Yours Truly had said, she reminded herself. There was a skewed logic about Donnell Gibbs’s arrest that just didn’t make sense to either the cop or the mother in her. She had to make Eli understand that. “Statistics say that the majority of sexual predators know their victims. They have some kind of contact prior to the attack. Gibbs claims she was a random abduction from the park.”
“How does a one-year-old get to the park without…?” Eli paused, realizing he’d just slipped toward her side of the argument by stating another unresolved question in the case.
“Without anyone reporting her missing?” Zing. She’d scored a point in their verbal debate. “And how do you account for the signs of previous physical abuse? Gibbs claims he was only with her for forty-eight hours. That girl had a tragic life before Donnell Gibbs ever met her. If he really did.”
“So there are holes in his story,” Eli conceded, following her back to the kitchenette. “He has a couple of drug arrests on his record, too. Maybe the murder is related to that and not his predatory history. The task force report says his DNA was on the sheet the girl’s body was wrapped in. That puts him at the murder.”
“That puts him with the sheet. His DNA wasn’t on the body.”
Shauna set the mugs in the sink and shivered when Eli’s sleeve brushed past hers. Damn. She was a grown woman with grown children. She had an entire police force under her command. She should be past this volatile-chemical-reaction-to-a-man phase in her life. So why were goose bumps prickling along her arms again?
Eli leaned his hip against the counter and faced her. “Are you trying to stir up a hornets’ nest?”
Though his face was closer to her level, she still had to look up to make eye contact. “I’m trying to make sure we have the right man on trial. I don’t want to give anyone in Kansas City a false sense of security.”
Pulling back the front of his jacket, Eli propped his hands at his waist, unintentionally showcasing the chest that had shielded her from flying bullets and explosive debris. That chest was also radiating more heat than any other spot in her office. But he was regrouping to make a new argument, not issuing an invitation.
“That baby’s unsolved murder was front-page news for over a year. Once Gibbs was arrested, people started letting their children play outside again. The men and women on that task force were handpicked by you. They got commendations. Hell, they could get the key to the city if they wanted.” He hunched his shoulders, drawing his wounded face even closer. “You’re going to raise a huge stink if you reopen this case and try to prove those ten men and women were wrong.”
Shauna walked away, shaking off the inappropriate urge to gravitate toward Eli’s abundant warmth. She felt cold again, but that was merely a by-product of the strain she’d been under. A hot bath and a good night’s sleep would boost her flagging energy. Trusting the gut that had been honed by twenty-five years on the force and summoning the strength that had gotten her out of a debilitating marriage would bolster her courage.
“I can deal with criticism, Eli. It’s part of the job description.” Shauna stopped in the middle of the room and turned to meet the challenge in his eyes. “What I can’t live with is the guilt.”
“You’re that certain the task force arrested the wrong man?”
“After two years of nothing but panic and guilt and broken hearts guiding us, I worry that we were too eager to make this arrest stick. If the wrong man’s on trial, I want to know. An honest mistake I can forgive—I will explain it to the press and public—and I will back those officers one hundred percent.” She pulled back from her soapbox with a deep, steadying breath. “But if any man or woman on that task force skirted the facts or forced Gibbs to confess, I need to know. I need to find out who can tell me that little girl’s name.”
Eli nodded toward the stack of notes from Yours Truly. “Personally, I think you should be more worried about vigilantes than in getting Gibbs off.”
“I will not put an innocent man in prison or sentence him to death just to make the controversy go away.”
Shauna held her breath, watching the pros and cons and consideration of facts play across Eli’s face. He had to be evaluating how difficult such an investigation would be, and deciding if the grief he’d get from his fellow officers would be worth it. Damn, the man was thorough. “What if I say no to this assignment?”
“It’s not a request.”
“I see.” Eli strolled off the distance between them. “So you asked Chang who the biggest hard-ass in I.A. was, and he came up with my name for this job.”
“I asked Chang who his best investigator was. I could figure out the hard-ass part on my own.”
His mouth quirked at the corner, as if her assessment of his character amused him. “You think I can take on the task force, the pride of KCPD and the sentiment of an entire city by myself?”
“I’ll be working on the investigation as well.”
Casting amusement aside, he dismissed that idea. “You’re an administrator.”
She’d never liked being dismissed. Pulling a ring of keys from her belt, Shauna picked up the file and opened her desk to lock the papers inside. “I’ve been a cop for a long time. I think I know my way around the job.”
“Not this job, Shauna.” He followed her, propping his fists on the opposite side of the desk and leaning over it. “You don’t know what an I.A. investigation is like. You’ll make enemies. You run the whole show. You need your people to stay loyal to you.”
“I have enemies. Political ones,” she amended, as soon as she realized she might have revealed more than she should. Shauna fisted her hands and countered Eli’s stance. “Look, I can cut through red tape more easily than anyone on the force. I can get you any files you need, any transcripts—I can put you in contact with the D.A.’s office as well as Gibbs’s attorney. But, like you said, I have to balance the department’s reputation with the needs of the investigation. I can’t go to my people and ask a lot of questions. Not that they’d share their secrets with the boss, anyway. That’s why I need a front man to take the heat while I work behind the scenes.”
“Someone who has a problem keeping partners and wouldn’t automatically be linked to you?”
“Exactly.”
She wasn’t ashamed to reveal why she’d chosen him. It was the only tactical move that made sense without plunging the entire force into chaos. She needed a super-tough, super-smart SOB who could keep his head under the controversy that raising the ghost of Baby Jane Doe would surely generate. But as they stood there, almost nose-to-nose, her pulse racing and her breath coming in deep, uneven gasps, Shauna felt something inside her soften. Yearn. Need.
The air of warmth and strength that encompassed Eli reached out and touched her. Supplanted her own strength. Made her feel a lot more sheltered and a lot less alone in her quest for the truth.
“Please.” Shauna shrugged off her unsettling emotions and reached deep inside to find the cool detachment and superior tone she was famous for. “Help me do this.”
Eli released a huff that stirred a fringe of hair out of place across his forehead. “Do I have a choice?”
Her fingers itched to smooth the dangling lock away from his injury. But what she saw as an intimate caress he might see as mothering. She couldn’t have one, and she didn’t want the other.
“No. You’re on my team now.” Shauna had to step away to keep those traitorous feminine urges from upsetting the code of honor and decorum the job forced her to live by. A knock on her office door intruded, scattering both desires and resolutions.
“Shauna?” Michael Garner rattled the doorknob before his clipped voice grew more urgent. “The door’s locked. Betty’s gone home for the day. I know you’re in there. Is everything all right?”
Glancing