Authors: Janice Kay Johnson
Maternal Instinct
Contents
:
© 2002
Chapter 1
S
houlders back
, head high, braced for the worst, Hugh McLean waited for the dreaded assignment.
Damn Riley, he thought bitterly. His partner was on leave with back pain doctors told him might keep him flat in bed for months. Had he hurt himself tackling a bad guy? In a crash during a car chase? Hell, no. He'd tripped over his kid's plastic blocks and tumbled down the stairs in his own house.
A bulldog in his fifties with a gray
crewcut
, Police Captain Fisher looked up from Hugh's open personnel file. "You know
Granstrom
? She's been partnered with
Wensson
. He's moving to
Scottsdale
,
wifey
should have kept blowing her nose. "I'm putting you with
Granstrom
for now."
Hugh groaned and his shoulders slumped. "Not
Granstrom
! Anybody but
Granstrom
."
Behind the desk, his captain gazed at him coldly, without favor. "What's wrong with her?"
She was a damn woman, that was what. Hugh liked women; they were even okay on the police force. He'd worked with ones who didn't
think
like a woman, and he got along just fine with them. Nell
Granstrom
was not one of those.
"Our styles clash," he said from between clenched teeth.
Captain Fisher grunted. "Funny, she doesn't like you any better."
That jolted. "What?"
"She's not enthusiastic. I can't help either of you." He slapped Hugh's file closed. "You're the only two at loose ends right now. I'm not going to break up established partnerships to accommodate your personality clash."
Desperate, Hugh lied, "It's not that. I swear. We just work differently."
"Yeah, yeah. Your styles." The captain's gaze was unsympathetic. "Here's my advice—mesh 'em." He looked over Hugh's shoulder. "Ah. Here's your new partner now."
Hugh didn't turn when the door with the glass inset opened. He knew well enough what Nell
Granstrom
looked like, all five foot ten of her. She had a model's build: leggy, skinny, fine-boned despite her height, and a face memorable principally for warm brown eyes and a rosebud mouth. Her hair … hell, he didn't know what color it was. He almost turned around to remind himself.
"Captain," said
Granstrom
, voice expressionless.
"I won't ask for 'I do' from either of you." Captain Fisher's grin was
sharklike
. "Let's consider this a shotgun wedding. You've got each other to have and to hold from this day forward, until Riley gets his ass out of bed. You got problems with each other," he finished briskly, "I don't want to hear them."
A rap vibrated the glass hard enough to bring even Hugh's head around. "Captain!" Framed in the doorway, the normally imperturbable Lieutenant
Nyland
looked shaken. "We've got reports of shooting at the
The captain was on his feet. "Confirmation?"
"Multiple 911 calls from offices on the floors below."
"Units on the way?"
The lieutenant nodded. "Sir."
"Call out the SWAT team." The captain brushed by Hugh and opened his locker. "Gentlemen—and ladies—let's get suited up and moving."
Hugh was able to avoid looking at Nell
Granstrom
as he raced toward the locker rooms. "I'll drive," he snapped over his shoulder.
Start as you mean to go on.
Both wore black jackets over bulletproof vests when they met at his squad car, she on the passenger side, he on the driver's. She'd apparently chosen not to argue. Over the car roof, their eyes met for a fleeting second of mutual antipathy and disbelief before both leaped into the car.
Her hair was not quite blond, not quite brown.
Behind the wheel, Hugh joined a caravan of emergency vehicles tearing out of the parking garage, all flashing lights and sounding sirens.
Under his breath, he muttered an obscenity. "We'll probably find out some jackass let off firecrackers."
Nonetheless, his hands were tight enough on the wheel for his knuckles to show white. If this was a legitimate call, it would give his mother nightmares.
Beside him, Nell
Granstrom
said in an odd voice, "I hear the dispatcher claims the woman was … 'mewling in fear.' Her words. She was under her desk, whispering. Dispatch could hear bang, bang and yells."
He shot her a disquieted glance. "Where'd you get this?"
Her shoulders moved. "Another dispatcher in the women's locker room."
Hugh swore again and forced his attention back to the road. Adrenaline surged, taking him to that hyper state any cop knew well. "Do we know how many shooters?" he asked.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head. She was looking tense, craning her neck to see ahead where a cordon was already being set up. Hugh wondered if she was scared. He hadn't heard rumors about her cracking under pressure, but any time a guy had to hook up with a new partner, he wondered. Especially when that new partner was a woman who liked to understand the psychology of the scumbags she arrested, who had sympathy because of their tough beginnings.
She and Connor would get along fine, he thought. His brother had abandoned police work for graduate school at the
Hugh figured people more interested in the complex inner life of victims or
perps
than in justice probably belonged out of uniform. Connor had been a good cop, but he'd always had worrisome leanings. The way he'd met his wife had toppled him right over. It was just as well he was off the force.
The convoy had slowed to a crawl, using the middle lane to bypass the blocked civilian traffic that clogged the streets. Downtown had turned into a circus of honking horns, yelling commuters, blaring sirens and flashing lights.
One of the officers on the scene waved Hugh to a place inside the cordon. He and
Granstrom
got out and crouched behind the back bumper, weapons drawn. They weren't alone. Forty cops or more, all heavily armed, were ready to go in.
If some idiot had set off firecrackers, he was going to be damn sorry.
The
Becoming impatient, tension building to an unbearable pitch, he rose to a bent-over position. "I'll go find out the word," he said, relieved to have an excuse to leave his new partner.
She nodded, her frowning gaze trained on the
He hadn't gone two steps before orders came down the line that SWAT team members were moving in, and other officers were to play backup. Dispatch said the woman on the phone thought the gunman had left or killed himself. She hadn't heard shots for the past four or five minutes. She'd been advised to stay under the desk and keep quiet.
Going back to crouch again behind his car, Hugh said tersely, "We get the side door to the north. Let's move."
Two teams of ten cleared the first two floors, checking empty offices, evacuating the silent, dark, locked rooms where terrified secretaries and computer entry clerks huddled. They were sent scuttling down the halls and out the exit doors to run sobbing for the police cordon.
The two teams formed again at the north and south staircases that led up to the third floor, where The Greater Northwest Insurance Office's reception area was. Hugh led one group, which moved silently up the north staircase, pausing at the steel door painted with a large numeral three.
At his nod,
Granstrom
yanked it open and he went in, weapon at the ready. The long hallway was eerily silent. Four doors down, a body lay sprawled halfway out. It was a woman in a white blouse soaked with blood, her eyes wide and staring.
Nobody said a word, but Hugh felt the wave of shock. His father had died like this, some crazy opening fire and taking out a bunch of people at the bank. Hugh remembered his mother's grief and impotent anger at a failed police investigation better than he did his father. Yellowed newspaper articles collected in a scrapbook had been his childhood bible.
