understood the tactic. And didn’t like the response.
At all.
* * *
AS SOON AS Sam heard Chantel’s car coming up the drive, he started to breathe easier. His associate had promised him that she wouldn’t say anything to Bloom about the cottage being his house. He knew she’d refuse to stay.
And there was no place else safe enough, that he could afford, that was also close to her work. He’d yet to receive financial approval from the department for his plan, but with Freelander’s imminent release, he hadn’t been able to wait for it.
Lucky for him he heard the old Mustang just as Bloom was letting him know that she wouldn’t be in his house long. All he had to do was hold his tongue for thirty seconds or so and be home free.
He told himself that he’d cut out a minute after introductions because Lucy was alone in a one-room...room, and would need to be let out. And added that Chantel and Bloom were better off getting to know each other on their own.
He was happy with both points. Sam’s conscience had learned long ago to leave well enough alone.
He spent the evening with Lucy, walking on the beach. Because Bloom was his responsibility, he chose the stretch directly below his cottage. He’d had to drive through the gate, but had left his vehicle there and then hiked to the side path that led down to the beach. Lucy loved bounding through the trees almost as much as she liked running in the sand, spraying it up behind her. He was glad to see lights flickering through the trees.
Glad, too, to verify that he couldn’t see enough of the window to make out anything, or anyone, inside.
He talked to Chantel just before bed. And again the next morning when she showed up for work after tailing Bloom to her office.
Freelander wasn’t out of prison yet, but word was that he’d specifically stated that he was going to have the pleasure of watching his wife find out that he was in charge as he taught her about proper respect.
Sam and Chantel were setting their routine for the days to come—when Freelander would be out. Taking it through a dry run. They’d put in a request for a guard to be placed with Bloom throughout the day. For round-the-clock protection.
“So far so good,” the unadorned blonde said as, in brown tweed pants, a white shirt and a matching jacket that only partially blocked her holster and gun from view, she slouched down in the chair beside his desk. They weren’t partners. Didn’t even work in the same area. But High Risk Team aside, he’d heard incredible things about her.
She was tough. She didn’t give up.
And she’d risk her life to help someone she believed deserved help. The job aside.
“How’d last night go?” The eagerness with which he awaited her response left him feeling slightly voyeuristic.
“Good. Fine. She worked. I watched TV.”
“What do you think?”
“I like her. She’s nice.”
“I meant about our chances of keeping her safe until we can figure out a way to get the guy to make the mistake that will send him back to jail.”
Chantel’s pause gave him indigestion.
“You get the idea she’s not going to cooperate for long?” He put the concern right out there. He had her in the house. She was cooperating. But keeping her there...
“I get the idea she has a mind of her own and doesn’t plan to let that creep husband of hers hold her hostage.”
Minor discomfort became not so minor. “Meaning?”
Shaking her head, her ponytail swaying, Chantel twisted her mouth and said, “I don’t know, Sam. She’s a hard one to read.”
Not if you knew her well enough.
The thought came unbidden to his head. He held on to it.
“Anyway, I’ve got a thing with Colin tonight and I know you wanted to be with Bloom when Freelander’s officially released, so can you get her from work? Stay with her until I get there?”
He welcomed the chance. “Any idea how late you’re going to be?” he asked, because it seemed like an expected response.
“If that rich and powerful fiancé of mine had his way it would be all night. But I’ve already told him I’ll attend his fund-raiser with him as long as he has me back to my car by eleven.”
Which would put her at the house by eleven-fifteen. Give or take five.
“You going to show up in your finery?” He’d heard talk around the station of the astonishing change she could pull off in very few minutes, but he’d never seen it for himself. From what he’d heard, she’d never seen it either until she’d been forced, while working as an undercover dilettante, to buy some designer clothes and learn how to wear makeup.
“I’m stopping by my place to change,” she said, shrugging. And then grinned. “It drives Colin nuts, and it’s good to keep him on his toes,” she said. “Keeps him from taking me for granted.”
He harrumphed. Had no interest in being privy to any romantic entanglements between...anyone.
“I thought you were living with him.” He only thought about the arrangement because she’d been the talk of the station a few months before. A real Cinderella tale. And he’d had his doubts about how a beat cop tomboy would fit in with the highfalutin lawyer’s fanciness. Eating off fine china every day.
“Him and his sister, at the family estate,” she said. “But I kept my place, too. Colin’s actually started to like slumming with me a night or two a week. Gives us time alone. And gives Julie, his sister, a chance to entertain without us around.”
He’d heard about the girl only enough to know she’d been a victim of date rape. He nodded politely, ready to move on, and noticed his captain coming toward them.
The grim look on the black man’s face didn’t bode well. If it was a case that was going to take him out of commission he’d have to pull some kind of favor and get out of it.
“You’ll be getting the email shortly, but I wanted to tell you personally, you didn’t get the approval for extra coverage,” Captain Salyers said. He didn’t sound happy. “With the new regime, with everyone looking, we can’t pull favors. Most particularly not for the town’s elite.”
The words running through Sam’s mind weren’t for speaking.
Chantel’s booted feet landed on the floor. “How is it a favor to protect a woman whose ex has threatened her life and who’s getting out of jail on a technicality? How is that not a given?”
“That’s just it,” the captain said, looking between the two of them. “The threat against her life hasn’t been substantiated in any official way. And the reversal on the case wasn’t our mistake. The commissioner said to take it up with the prosecutor’s office. Get them to come up with the money for off-duty cops. If the prosecutor’s office does it, it’s fair pay for wrongdoing. If the commissioner allots funds, without wrongdoing on the part of the police department, it’ll look like he’s doing favors.”
And the new commissioner had some heavy footsteps to obliterate.
“Because we don’t have a crime here,” Sam said succinctly. Nodding. He understood. Cops weren’t officially in the business of prevention. Only cleanup. It was messed up.
But nothing he was going to change in time for his purposes.
Salyers made a couple of suggestions regarding requests made to the district attorney’s office, who to contact, what he might want to say. Sam could feel Chantel’s gaze on him as he listened to his superior. He nodded, took down a name and thanked him.
“You think the DA’s office