Hope.
What a fool’s game.
K9 officer Dante Mancuso stood in the doorway of the small apartment, wondering why on earth he felt the slightest twinge of hope that this time it might be different, this time they might actually find something. Anything. Trying to link the Teflon Twins, Evan and Noel Larson, to their multitude of crimes had so far been like trying to break Flash of sniffing.
As if the big dog had heard the thought, he looked up, leaned his head against Dante’s leg and gave him that mournful look out of the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. His heart and gut reacted for a moment before his brain kicked in to remind him he was being played.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Dante muttered to the bloodhound.
With a long, pained sigh that matched the expression on his wrinkled face, the dog plopped down on the floor.
“You’ll get your turn when they’re done,” Dante told him. The black-and-tan dog gave him what in a person would be a distinct side-eye look. “What? You don’t like Mondays or you can’t sort out a few extra smells?”
With a distinct huff, the dog settled his head onto his front paws.
A man in uniform stepped through the door, pulling off his shoe covers and latex gloves. Al Collins was fairly new, a lateral transfer from down in Custer, still in training here, and Dante didn’t quite have his measure yet.
“I swear, Mancuso, you talk to that dog more than I talk to my human partner.”
“Human?” Dante shot a grinning glance at Collins’s training officer, Duke Carnahan, a large, muscled man with a forehead and brow line that looked a bit simian, and often served to fool people into thinking him stupid, when in fact he was one of the sharpest cops around. He was also one of Dante’s closest friends in the department.
“Keep it up, pretty boy, and I’ll have to rip your arm off,” Duke shot back.
Dante knew the man was joking, but Duke also looked quite capable of carrying out the threat. “Flash might not like that.”
The cop’s gaze shifted to the dog, who now looked half-asleep. “You trying to tell me that lazybones would actually bite me?”
“That lazybones could run you into the ground over any kind of terrain. But when he caught you, he’d just lick you to death. Maybe drown you in slobber.”
Duke grimaced. “Ugh. Drown in dog drool? No, thanks. You can keep the arm.”
They both laughed.
“Don’t see you down here much, Mancuso,” Collins said. “Don’t like us?”
“Some of the neighbors and I don’t get along,” Dante answered, his voice carefully neutral.
Collins frowned, but Duke got it quickly. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about your brother.”
I wish I could.
* * *
Gemma Colton paced the floor of her condo in the building owned by her father, for once taking little pleasure in the sweeping view or the expensive furnishings. She was focused on one thing and one thing only. But it was her entire future.
“Something go wrong at the fund-raiser?”
She turned to look at Devlin. “What?”
“You seem...edgy.”
And so, she realized, did he.
Devlin Harrington was the biggest puzzle she had ever encountered in her admittedly pampered life. To be honest, that was half the reason he intrigued her so—her social life wasn’t usually so complicated. She was the youngest daughter of Fenwick Colton, and men were usually falling all over themselves for the chance to take her out. But not Dev. She’d never had to chase a man before, but the combination of his good looks, elegant manners, sharp dressing and confident air were irresistible to her.
And so she’d set herself to the task, telling herself it was in part because he was the son of wealthy Hamlin Harrington—who himself was involved with her half