But since this morning, and coming head-to-head with Portia, he’d—
“Officer Avery? Portia DiNapoli is here to give a statement and she wants to talk to you.” The receptionist stood at Josh’s desk. “Should I bring her back here or tell her to wait?”
Josh looked at Kyle. “You okay with her seeing you here?”
Kyle wanted to see Portia, know she was okay. It was an unreasonable level of concern for someone he wasn’t personally acquainted with. Best stop it before it began.
You’re already done for.
“Naw, I’ll take off before you talk to her.”
“Can you have her wait a few, and I’ll come get her?” Josh said to the receptionist.
“Sure thing.”
After she was out of earshot, Josh looked at Kyle. “I know you’re undercover for TH, but Portia doesn’t have to know that. She could think you’re a contractor or other LEA, working with SVPD on the ROC case, in general. It’s no secret that we’ve got ROC problems in Silver Valley.”
“I know. It’s the details that are classified, not the big picture.” Kyle’s gut clenched. It’d be too easy to let Portia know what he did, that he was someone she could trust, as he’d told her. “But unless she absolutely has to know—”
“I hear you. And I’d do the same.” Josh confirmed the conservative approach all undercover agents employed. It was always better to stick to the tightest parameters of operational security possible. Then you could loosen up as needed. But once the cat was out of the bag, i.e., a civilian such as Portia DiNapoli found out you were doing something classified or law enforcement related, you couldn’t put it back.
Kyle stood. “I’ll check in after my stint at the shelter tonight. Tomorrow morning work for you, unless something important happens?”
“Sure thing. By the way, Kyle? You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
Josh didn’t say anything for a moment while he grinned at him. Kyle braced himself for what he knew was coming, and it wasn’t unwarranted.
“One word, Kyle. One woman. P-o-r-t-i-a.”
Fuuuuuudge.
It took most of the morning for Portia to be cleared by the medical staff at Silver Valley Hospital, so she wasn’t sure if Josh would be in when she showed up to file a report at SVPD at lunchtime. Annie was engaged to Josh and Portia knew that they enjoyed lunches together during the workweek. She suspected the “lunches” were sexy liaisons, but never pressed her friend on it. Not too much, anyway.
Holding her driver’s license up to the security camera, she pushed the button outside the station entrance. She’d had tours of the police department with the library’s murder mystery book club and remembered the protocol for civilians.
“Come on in, Ms. DiNapoli.” The receptionist’s quick acknowledgment didn’t surprise her. Portia had been instructed to go straight to the station after she left the hospital, to file her report.
“Hi. Thanks for letting me in so quickly—it’s still pretty cold out there.” She began to unbutton her coat in the warm entryway. The receptionist nodded.
“You’re here to see Detective Avery?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where his office is?” Portia noticed that the entryway had a lot of people coming and going.
“I do.”
“Great. Just pass your bag through the scanner and step through the metal detector.”
Portia turned to the security guard who led her through the procedure, clearing her to enter the main building.
Portia walked back to Josh’s desk once the receptionist cleared her. She didn’t have a lot of business at SVPD, except to ask Josh, a high school classmate, if he’d read to the elementary school students when she’d been working at Silver Valley Elementary. And even then, she called or emailed him, didn’t pay the police department a visit. The bustle and sense of many different officers and detectives in constant motion hit her. It matched what she’d read: Silver Valley was in the midst of a crime wave unlike any ever seen before.
A tall man at the end of one of the long corridors made her stomach flip in ridiculous anticipation. Walking away from her, toward the back exit, he could have been anyone. But her body sensed it was the man from the tracks. He was tall, with an angular build that only hinted at his sheer strength—the kind of power that enabled him to knock her out from an oncoming train. Short, military-style hair, a sandy blond. Her gaze travelled down his length. He carried a parka in one arm, the same color as the man who’d saved her wore. Without the extra goose down padding his frame seemed all the more impressive. His butt was all muscle in worn jeans, and his stride in his boots bespoke of stealth. It might not be him, but then he threw her a quick look over his shoulder. His eyes—silver like a wolf she’d seen once, visiting a wildlife preserve. He gave her a curt nod. As if he knew she’d been there all along. Her stomach leaped and she increased her pace, but he disappeared around the corner before she reached him. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk to her. She paused right before she got to Josh’s office. She’d been through a lot today, and she might be seeing things, seeing someone wherever she looked. What were the odds it was the same man who’d saved her from the tracks? The man who’d held her, made her feel safer than she had in a long, long time?
“Hey, Portia. Come on in.” Josh Avery’s smile was as genuine as his quick, warm hug. He kept a hand on her upper arm after he pulled back and peered into her eyes. “You okay? Really?”
Realization struck her yet again that the morning’s events hadn’t been a dream, or an almost-nightmare. She’d indeed missed being flattened by a locomotive, with no more than a second or two to spare.
“I’m good.” She raked a shaky hand through her curls, not caring what she looked like. “I have some bruises that are going to be pretty ugly, but the man that knocked me off the tracks also protected me from the brunt of the fall, and the hard ground.”
Josh motioned for her to sit in one of the seats in front of his desk and sank into his chair. “Did our receptionist get you any coffee or something else to drink?”
Portia waved her hand in dismissal. “No, I’m okay, really. I’m so wired from the adrenaline rush that I’m sure any more caffeine would launch me to the moon.”
“Okay.” Josh tapped on his keyboard and she watched as his eyes tracked the information on the screen.
“Thanks for making time to take my statement. I know the other police officers are just as able to, but I’d feel better talking to you.” And she wouldn’t have to explain her hunches—Josh had known her since they were kids and had never patronized her.
“Are you kidding? Annie would have my hide if I didn’t take care of this. Besides, it’s part of an ongoing investigation I’m working on.”
“Really? You mean figuring out who’s stealing our library laptops, or something bigger?”
“We’ll never figure out who took all of your laptops, Portia. I’m afraid we don’t have enough man-hours. But if you can find evidence on your security footage, you know to bring it in.”
And she did, but their tapes had been wiped. “Um, speaking of that.” Heat rode up her neck, over her face. “The recordings were erased. My staff and I tried to replay the last several weeks’ worth, only to discover there was nothing there.”
Josh’s brows slammed together. “What do you mean ‘nothing there’?”
“There’s a file on the drive that only I have access to, and I open it up for the staff to watch regularly. We fast-forward through it, pause when we see something suspicious. So far we haven’t had any luck figuring