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How could one man feel so safe?
Her breathing calmed, her pulse no longer thundered in her ears. But she wasn’t budging. For the first time in two days, Brooke felt normal again. She wasn’t afraid. She was just…a woman.
He was hard in the places she was soft – muscled through the chest and arms, growing leaner down to his waist.
Then Atticus leaned back, easing some space between them. He stroked her jaw with the backs of his fingers. “Better?”
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Atticus Kincaid – A by-the-book cop obsessed with finding the truth about his father’s murder. But after Brooke Hansford is targeted by a sicko secret admirer, Atticus throws the rule book out the window – and starts protecting more than just his investigation.
Brooke Hansford – A shy plain-Jane who may hold the key to several murders. If only she knew what that key was and where it was hidden. As events in her life grow stranger and more dangerous, will she transform herself into an assertive, confident she-warrior who can meet the threats head on?
Penny and Louise Hansford – The aunts who raised Brooke.
Tony Fierro – The handyman.
Mirza Patel – A friend from assertiveness training class.
Kevin Grove – Homicide detective.
William Caldwell – A Kincaid family friend who may be next on a mysterious hit list.
Leo Hansford – The father Brooke never knew. He gave his life and his heart for his country.
Deputy Commissioner John Kincaid – His unsolved murder haunts his four sons.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Ms Miller believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.
Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at PO Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162, USA.
Armed and Devastating
JULIE MILLER
Acknowledgements
For Ryne Scott Miller. Congratulations on your graduation. You’ve had a stellar career in so many ways, and have a great future ahead of you. You’re funny. You have great friends. And you’re a nice guy, to boot. I’m proud of all your accomplishments in music and science and Scouts and more. But mostly, I’m just proud of the fine man you are. I love you more than you may ever know. Mushy enough for you?
Mom
Thanks to Polly Revare and her family for inviting us to stay in their gorgeous remodelled church home.
Chapter One
April…
“And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me…”
Detective Atticus Kincaid pushed his white handkerchief into his mother’s icy hand and wrapped an arm around her trembling shoulders.
Susan Kincaid was holding up like a rock through her husband’s funeral service and burial ceremony, but Atticus could sense a brittleness to her stoic composure. And even through the raincoat she wore, he felt a chill that he suspected had as much to do with the shock and emptiness inside as it did with the rain beating down on the green awning over their heads and misting the air around them.
“Your father loved this song,” she whispered, scarcely loud enough for him to hear. She wrung the handkerchief between her fingers, catching Atticus’s hand and holding on tight. “Holden sounds so much like him when he sings it.”
“He sure does,” Atticus agreed, sitting ramrod-straight and allowing his mother to take whatever strength she needed from him. Dutifully, he turned his attention back to his younger brother, who stood beside their father’s flag-draped casket, singing Deputy Commissioner John Kincaid’s favorite song.
“…sleep in peace until you come to me.”
Damned ironic. His father was a good cop. A great man. The best father any four sons could ask for. There was nothing peaceful about the idea of some unknown perps kidnapping and torturing him, and then shooting him at point-blank range. How could John Kincaid rest in peace when his killer was out there somewhere, not giving a damn about the pain he was causing this family? Maybe even gloating at the huge hole John Kincaid’s death left in the ranks of the Kansas City Police Department?
Was the motive personal? Professional?
Why were the clues collected from the crime scene so sketchy? Why were there no suspects in custody? Why the hell didn’t homicide already have a man behind bars for this travesty?
Atticus’s skin crawled with the need to find answers.
But for right now, he’d sit here amongst the gathering of family, friends and fellow cops, and pretend he had everything under control—for his mother’s sake.
Holden finished the song, placed his KCPD hat back on his head and raised a white-gloved hand to salute their father. Atticus pressed his own hand over the Kansas City Police Department badge clipped to the pocket of his dark-blue dress uniform, feeling the black mourning ribbon beneath his palm like the slash of a knife straight through the heart that lay beneath. But a hand over his heart was the only outward sign of grief he allowed himself to show.
He heard a noisy sniffle behind his right shoulder and glanced up to see his father’s administrative assistant, Brooke Hansford, wiping away the tears beneath her thick, owl-like glasses. Brooke had been his father’s organizational and technological savior at work. And though he’d always figured she was about his age—thirty—she looked young and fragile and completely vulnerable with her pale cheeks and red-tipped nose.
Lacking a second handkerchief to give her, Atticus waited until her puffy gaze met his and he offered her a wink. Brooke responded with a hasty smile and a loud sniff before ducking her head to dig into her oversize purse—for a tissue, no doubt.
Yeah. The bastard who’d killed John Kincaid had robbed a lot of good people of someone they loved.
The minister was saying a last few words, but checking on Brooke had already diverted Atticus’s attention to the other mourners surrounding them. He spotted his older brother, Sawyer, standing hatless in the rain, his anger and grief evident in the grim expression on a face that was normally creased with a smile. He was shifting from foot to foot, restlessly scanning the crowd as he listened to the graying man standing beside him. Though a black umbrella obscured part of his face, William Caldwell, one of their father’s oldest friends, was easily recognized by the expensive tailoring of his suit and coat and the gold fraternity ring that matched the one his father had been buried with.
A lot of people were hurting today.
Atticus absorbed each flinch of his mother’s hand as the honor guard sounded off their twenty-one-gun