Chapter Four
Scents of fresh marinara sauce, warm cheese, and herbs teased Cassie’s nose as she wrapped up the leftover roasted vegetable lasagna, although it was such a hit there wasn’t much left. The thought made her smile. As it had every day since she’d begun working at the Nest, a feeling of contentment spread like warm butter over her soul. Something she’d never had working for the NYPD.
The antique bell over the Nest’s front door jangled. Cassie stared as the door slowly opened. The man entering wore a ball cap obscuring his face. Her grip on the spatula handle tightened. When he doffed his cap, she easily identified him as a town local and blew out a breath. Surveilling the door every time someone came in was becoming annoying and draining, but what if she was wrong and really had divulged her location to Dom over the bugged phone? With the likelihood there was a dirty cop in the precinct who might have overheard something, it wasn’t a risk worth taking.
The last thing she wanted was to put the townspeople at risk because of her. They’d be totally helpless against Rod Manici and his crew of slimy thugs, let alone a professional assassin. She loved it here in Hopewell Springs, but was she being selfish? Maybe she really should go into protective custody the way Dom and Gray wanted. But the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that she hadn’t shared her exact location over Dom’s desk line. Definitely not.
The front door jangled again. This time the dark blue uniform was easily identifiable, but it was Jimmy, not Mike. She waved to him through the kitchen opening.
“Hey, Cass,” he called out as he gave her his little-boy grin, displaying two of the cutest dimples. No wonder Rose was hot for him. The guy was a doll.
Despite telling herself that she’d only been eyeing the door for contract assassins, she’d been hoping Mike would stop in so she could apologize for her rude behavior yesterday. Yeah, right. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. His dark blue eyes had been the last thing she remembered before falling asleep last night and the first thing she thought of when she woke up this morning.
The TV on the wall of the dining room ended her daydreaming with a story on the upcoming senatorial elections in the fall. Cassie tried to catch what was being said about New Jersey’s frontrunners, Aaron Miller and Joshua Mosely, but couldn’t hear much over the sound of Rose whacking the side of the register again when it refused to open.
From the corner of her eye, she caught Leo deep in conversation with Ginny. It was a ritual with those two before the Nest closed for the day. Leo was smitten, but he hadn’t asked the young waitress out yet.
The bell over the front door jingled. Another uniform came through the door.
Mike.
“See anything you like?” Sue inclined her head to where Mike joined Jimmy at the far end of the counter. She smiled suggestively as she continued refilling salt and pepper shakers.
“Very funny,” Cassie said, then busied herself helping Chuck fill orders. Through the kitchen opening, she alternately maintained a watchful eye on the front door and Mike as he ate a bowl of her chipotle chili. When two tall, swarthy men she didn’t recognize came in the door, she watched them as they passed Mike and Jimmy and headed to a table. Jimmy nodded to both men, clearly knowing them. When Cassie glanced back to Mike, she found herself pinned by his intense blue stare. He slowly shifted his gaze to the two men, then back to her. He raised an eyebrow and frowned.
He knows something’s up, he just doesn’t know what.
Briefly, she considered telling him who she was, but she hardly knew him and this was not the time to start trusting strangers. Mike might even boot her out of town, and she wondered if that wasn’t the wisest course of action. Still, she really ought to earn some brownie points and apologize about her bitch-on-wheels attitude yesterday.
She headed to the counter, pausing when Mike put his arm around a little boy about eight years old. The boy gazed adoringly up at him while his mother, one of the few townspeople Cassie hadn’t met yet, headed to the cash register.
“Great drawing, Joey.” Mike held up the thin newspaper the boy had doodled on.
Intrigued, Cassie inched closer to peer over Mike’s shoulder. Even with all the rich food smells wafting through the air, she could make out the clean fresh scent of his aftershave.
Joey had taken different colored crayons and added beards, mustaches, hair, and glasses to every face on the cover of the Hopewell Springs Gazette. The governor now looked like Groucho Marx, and Cassie loved the goofy way his doodling made the other politicians actually appear more sincere. Like Aaron Miller.
Miller, New Jersey’s incumbent, hadn’t done a thing for the state except support higher taxes. Somehow the man had an impressive following, but Cassie never understood his appeal. With his fake smile and overly scripted speeches, he reminded her of one of those phony TV evangelists who eventually got arrested for embezzlement.
Miller’s opponent, Joshua Mosely, would soon be receiving the governor of New York’s endorsement. Mosely was a self-made man, a foster kid who rose from nothing and created a construction empire. He had just the kind of business savvy New Jersey needed to yank it out of the fiscal crisis it was drowning in.
“Is she still watching me?” Mike asked Joey loudly enough for Cassie to hear. He crouched down beside the little boy.
Joey glanced up at Cassie and giggled. “Yup.”
Uh-oh. Caught. Cassie couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
“What’s she doing now?” Mike asked without turning to look at her.
“She’s smiling. She usually looks like she’s mad at you.”
Mike laughed. “You noticed that, too, huh?” Joey nodded, giggling again. Mike stood and dropped his hand to Joey’s head, mussing the boy’s hair. “Keep up the good work.”
“I will, Chief Mike.” Joey skipped down the aisle to catch up to his mother.
Cassie crossed her arms. “Never figured you to be such a softie with kids.”
Mimicking her, Mike, too, crossed his arms. “Never figured you for such a softie with babies.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“The baby you were holding the other day.”
“You saw that?” For a moment Cassie was stunned that he’d been watching her.
“I see everything.” Mike lowered his voice. “Including the fact that you don’t always have a prickly disposition. I think I like this new and improved version of you.”
“I don’t always have a prickly—” Cassie began to object, then stopped, realizing it was true. At least, with him it was. And did he just pay me a compliment? Or was that a roundabout insult?
Mike leaned down to whisper in her ear. His breath was warm and made her neck tingle. “You really don’t like cops, do you?”
Cassie uncrossed her arms. “I never said that.”
“You don’t have to. It’s in your eyes, your words, your tone. Lady, your body language screams cop-hater.”
“It’s not that at all.” Cassie glanced around, grateful they were standing in a fairly empty section of the dining room. “If you must know, I dated one once.”
“I take it things didn’t go so well.”
“No,” she admitted, surprised to find herself confiding in Mike. “They didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“If you must know,” Cassie began.
“I must.” Mike’s smile was wicked handsome. “I’m on the edge of my seat.”
“You’re standing.”
“Figure of speech. Please, go on.”
What the hell?
“As I was saying, if you must know, on our first—and only—date, all he talked about was his job prowess and how any woman he dated better be prepared to jump the second he snapped his chauvinistic fingers. The shame of it was, I left a perfectly good apple martini on the table when I bolted from the restaurant.”
Mike snorted. “Any chance you’re stereotyping all cops because of one jerk?” His lips lifted into a hesitant smile.
“Funny, that’s pretty much what Rose said. Although I think my boss has a soft spot where you’re concerned.”
Mike tipped his head to where Jimmy sat. “Actually, I think she has a soft spot for my deputy.”
“Him, too.” Cassie shook her head. “My boss loves cops.”
“And you don’t.” He moved into her personal space until he was inches from her.
“Nope.” Cassie glared up at him, narrowing her eyes. She refused to be intimidated by his nearness. Or how good he smelled. I will not fall into the cop-trap again. Just because this one was charming and knew how to push all her buttons was no reason to alter her perception.
“You might consider listening to your boss. She’s a wise woman.” Mike winked at her as he headed for the end of the counter where Jimmy sat eyeing them with interest.
As Cassie headed back toward the kitchen, she paused to wipe down the far end of the counter. When the doorbell jangled, she looked up to see Joey and his mother head out the door. Her mind spun with conflicting thoughts.
Mike did have some unexpected checks in the plus column, like his natural way with people, including kids. But he was still a cop, right down to the cellular level. Another plus for the town, just not for her.
Cassie didn’t doubt Mike’s professional abilities for a second, and she admired that. From a professional perspective, that was. Simmering beneath that charming surface was an experienced street cop. It was the way he took in everything around him, even when he looked you straight in the eye. His demeanor and physical stance were relaxed, but he was in a constant state of readiness and poised for action. She pitied anyone who got on Mike’s bad side.
“That’s Joey and his mom, Abby Johnson,” Rose said from behind her. “Joey’s father is serving in the Middle East and hasn’t been home in six months. Mike watches out for the boy, helps Abby around the house. She’s six months pregnant and can use all the help she can get, poor thing.”
Cassie watched Abby through the window as she helped Joey into the backseat then waddled slightly as she rounded the car and hauled herself into the driver’s seat. An unexpected warm feeling came over her. What would it be like to be pregnant? To have someone like Mike doting on her, massaging her aching feet, running out at midnight to get pickles and pistachio ice cream to satisfy her hormonal cravings? She couldn’t help but look at the subject of her thoughts as he checked out a menu.
Keep things in perspective. You so don’t need this right now.
“Don’t you have to get back into the kitchen?” Rose prodded. “Still a few customers left to feed.”
“What?” Cassie was barely paying attention, her thoughts solely on Mike.
“The kitchen. You know, that little room in the back where the cooking is done?” Her tone was teasing as she looked from Cassie to Mike, who was speaking into the microphone on his lapel.
A moment later, he and Jimmy rushed out the door, leaving Cassie wondering what kind of call they were on. A traffic accident? A domestic? Could be any one of a number of things that used to get her heart racing but didn’t now. She continued watching Mike as he hustled to his truck, then sped away, red and blue strobes flashing.
“Cassie?” Rose grinned at her.
“Yeah?” She cleared her throat and felt heat rise to her face at the realization she’d been caught staring at Mike. Again. To get away from Rose’s deep, throaty laugh, she quickly sought out the peaceful solitude of the kitchen.
“You know,” Sue said as she stacked plates onto a shelf, “Mike could have any woman he sets his sights on, but if you don’t give him something to work with, he’ll find someone else.”
Cassie grabbed the last two order slips clipped to the wheel and began to fill them.
“I couldn’t care less if he finds someone else. And I couldn’t care less if the chief of police is a real ladies’ man, either.” It would figure if he was. All women—except her—loved a man in uniform, especially one with muscles bulging all over the place.
“He is,” Sue continued as she cleared dirty plates from the counter. “But not in the way you think. Women throw themselves at his feet all the time, but he’s never brought one date to the Nest. Says he doesn’t have time to date.”
“Maybe not, but he certainly has a lot of spare time during the day to stop in for lunch.” Cassie ladled some of the remaining white bean and bacon soup into a plastic container and set it in the commercial refrigerator.
“Now he does, but it wasn’t always like that.” Sue grabbed a stack of napkins. “Before Mike got here, there was a lot of dope-dealing riff-raff in town. Mike, Jimmy, and the other cops got into a lot of scrapes back then, always having to get stitched up at the hospital.”
Cassie paused in the middle of ladling a second container of soup. “Is that how he got that scar on his forehead?”
“No, that one he had when he got here, and he refuses to talk about it. Must have gotten it when he worked for the NYPD.”
Cassie nearly dropped the soup container onto the floor. “Mike was a cop in the city?”
“Sure was. Rumor has it there’s a box chock full of commendations and medals from his old job stored in the basement of the police station. Anyway, all I’m saying is that Mike’s a catch, and if you don’t go fishing, someone else will reel that man in before you get your hook in the water.” Sue took the soup from Cassie’s hand, winking as she headed for the refrigerator. Ignoring Sue’s suggestive hint, Cassie pondered whether Gray or Dom would know Mike. Then again, the NYPD had nearly forty thousand officers.
The sudden urge to blow off a little steam had her glancing out the door at the billowing summer clouds.
Cassie retrieved her keys from her locker and pointed the key fob out the kitchen’s rear door in the direction of her Trail Blazer. She’d left the air conditioning setting cranked high, so when she hit the remote start it would pre-cool the SUV before she got into it. If she hurried, she and Raven might have enough time to get in a run on one of those trails she’d glimpsed just outside of town.
The perfect remedy for getting a girl’s troubles off her mind. Like a seriously hot guy.
And a hired killer.
“Hey, Cass. How’s Mayberry?”
“Very funny, bro.”
Cassie held her cell phone to her ear as she maneuvered the Trail Blazer from the deserted parking lot back onto the road. She and Raven had run a breezy four miles along a dirt path in the woods outside of town. Behind her on the rear seat, Raven panted loudly but happily.
“Any news on who planted the bugs?” She swiped at a bead of sweat trickling down her temple.
“Negative.” The sound of a police radio chirping in the background told Cassie that Gray was in his Crown Vic. “But I won’t stop looking until I find out who it was. IA’s working on it, and I’m running a few checks of my own. You can bet whoever did this received substantial payment for their services, and money like that is too big to hide.”
Cassie didn’t doubt for a second Gray would get his man, her big brother always did. He was tenacious to a fault. “Anything useful from Manici?” she asked hopefully.
“Nothing good. The little prick’s still denying everything, no shock there. We started going through his secret stash of videotapes, but that’s gonna take a while. Aside from the original tip about the hit and its connection to the bust at La Femme, we’ve got nothing.”
“So what’s next?” Cassie braked as deer darted across the road in front of the Trail Blazer. “I can’t hide forever.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Gray replied. “We’re putting enough informant money on the street to buy a small country. Something should turn up. I also went to your house to check on things. The place looks fine. All I did was turn off a light upstairs and—”
A light?
“Gray,” she interrupted, gripping the phone tighter. “I didn’t leave any lights on.”
There was a moment of silence. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
“Shit.” She heard a stream of more curses before Gray added more calmly, “I’ll get a team over there to dust for prints, but there was no sign of forced entry. If someone broke in, they knew what they were doing and probably didn’t leave any. I’ll check for security cameras on your street.”
“There aren’t any,” Cassie said, frowning. “The neighborhood’s residents voted against installing them. They thought it was too Big Brother is watching you.”
“Damn,” Gray said. “A camera might have picked this guy up.”
As she sped along the deserted road, deadly reality punched her in the gut.
Someone is really trying to find me. To kill me!
“We haven’t turned over copies of the recordings you made at La Femme yet,” Gray said, “but there aren’t that many female detectives working out of this precinct, so I’m sure it wasn’t hard to figure out your real name and, with a little digging, where you live.”
“I know.” Cassie clenched her jaw. The idea of someone breaking into her home, riffling through her things, filled her with so much anger she wanted to hit something. “I still can’t figure out why someone would come after me when the recordings would still be admissible whether I’m alive or dead.”
“I don’t get it, either.” Gray sounded as frustrated as she felt. “Dom and I agree, Manici would be stupid to try this when he’s about to be indicted. Makes him look guiltier and doesn’t really accomplish a thing for him. Unless there’s something you’re not telling us, none of this makes sense.”
“There’s nothing I haven’t told you, I swear it.”
The police radio chirped again, and she heard Gray respond into the microphone. “Gotta go, but, Cass?” There was no mistaking the worry in his voice. “This could take a while. Be careful and stay lost. And above all else, don’t tell anyone who you are, including the locals. Some cops can’t keep their mouths shut and wouldn’t know a real crime if it hit ’em in the ass. Promise me, Cass.”
“Okay, I promise.” But she could already envision how angry Chief Michael Flannery would be if he only knew. The man didn’t strike her as someone who would take well to being deceived, even by another cop and even under these circumstances.
Cassie ended her call. Two seconds later, an explosion blasted the Trail Blazer.