Her Cop Protector. Sharon Hartley

it matter anyway? Nothing she remembered from her idyllic childhood had been real.

       CHAPTER TWO

      DEAN RUBBED EYES strained from watching grainy surveillance video and leaned back in his chair. He’d played the bird-shop security video four times since returning to the station. It backed up June Latham’s version of events.

      She and the mystery man hadn’t entered the premises together. He’d released the birds while the owner confronted June. She never spoke to the guy before he rabbited out of the store.

      Dean lifted his mug from the table and swigged cold coffee. Why the hell did the guy open those cages? Maybe he got religion from the sight of Ms. Latham and decided to help her cause. Dean snorted. That was as likely a reason as any. Who knew why citizens did anything anymore?

      And why did he give a fig about June and her smuggled birds? He’d told his rookie the review was good training. Yeah, right.

      “I don’t see a crime to investigate,” Sanchez said beside him.

      “Not by the woman,” Dean said.

      “Glover won’t be happy.”

      Dean nodded, remembering the shop owner’s sputtering outrage when June walked free. Hell, even if he tracked down this bird liberator, what would be the charge? A misdemeanor—malicious mischief or some such nonsense. Hardly worth the police’s time. “He’ll get over it.”

      “Do you think Glover’s birds are illegal?”

      “Who knows?” Dean shrugged. What he really meant was Who cares? “Not our jurisdiction. But I told the woman I’d send my report to Fish and Wildlife.”

      A grinning Detective Lloyd Miller entered the viewing room with a steaming mug and glanced at the scene frozen on the monitor. Dean knew what Miller saw. Escaped parrots covering the floor and shelves of the North Beach Pet Shop.

      “Whoa, Hawk. So the rumor is true. You got yourself a serious situation here. Birds on the lam, huh?”

      “Haven’t you got somewhere else to be, Miller?”

      “And here I come with a sincere effort to help your new case,” Miller said with an injured air. “My seven-year-old daughter has a little green parakeet named Birdie Bird. I’m offering her expert assistance with this bird caper.”

      Sanchez snickered.

      Dean gave Miller the finger. He should be used to the mocking. The entire station had been riding him since the lieutenant busted him back to patrol. Didn’t matter what case he caught, his fellow officers loved to remind him how low he had sunk.

      Miller sat down and raised his mug toward the viewing screen. “I say blast those felonious birds from the air with your rifle. Tough shot, I know, but you’re just the man for the job.”

      “Are you really as good a shot as they say?” Sanchez asked.

      “Oh, he’s good,” Miller replied. “State champion. And very quick on the trigger, right, Hawk?”

      Dean squeezed his mug, staring at his trigger finger. Best not to react. The less he said in response to this schoolhouse shit, the quicker the shit would end.

      “It’s why we call him Hawk,” Miller added.

      “I’ve never taken a shot that wasn’t righteous,” Dean told Sanchez.

      “Not even the Wilcox kid?” Sanchez asked.

      Dean leveled a look at the rookie. Damn rumors. “The Wilcox ‘kid’ was eighteen going on thirty-five with a rap sheet three miles long. He threatened his two young hostages with a semiautomatic.”

      “And you took him down?”

      “Something like that,” Dean said, shoved paperwork on the bird-shop case into a file. He’d been right to take that shot. He didn’t regret a damn thing he’d done that day—only Lieutenant Marshall’s decision to punish him for acting before the captain’s go-ahead. But his lieutenant hadn’t been on scene. Marshall didn’t see what Dean saw through his scope.

      Had he been too quick? No frigging way. The way he saw it, only the bad guy died that day. He should have gotten a commendation, not reassignment.

      Lieutenant Marshall entered the viewing room carrying a slip of paper. Dean sat up, glad he hadn’t made his thoughts verbal.

      “Your lucky day, Hammer.” Marshall handed Dean the assignment sheet. “We got a body in the Sea Wave Hotel on Ocean Terrace, and I got nobody else to send. Take Sanchez. And don’t shoot anyone.”

      * * *

      DEAN TURNED ONTO Ocean Terrace and drove past a boarded-up art deco hotel on North Beach. If you asked him—and of course no one ever would—he considered its design as good as anything on South Beach. Not for the first time, he wondered why the beautiful people flocked to Ocean Drive seven miles south but avoided Ocean Terrace. Same beach, same architecture. But a homeless population wandered here instead of gorgeous European models.

      A sleek twenty-five-story high-rise towered over the smaller historic gems, its shadow momentarily blocking the relentless August sun. Someone had tried to turn the neighborhood before the great economic bust. It’d happen eventually. Someday this area would become a gold mine for a brilliant developer with good timing.

      But right now the only thing open was a half-assed surf shop instead of a celebrity-owned gourmet restaurant.

      Across the street, Dean noted a large woman, hair covered with a bright yellow turban, sitting on a wheeled walker facing the dunes. Huge tortoiseshell sunglasses hid most of her face. Her head swiveled as she followed the police cruiser.

      He also spotted a cart decorated with wooden and beaded jewelry on the wide sidewalk close to the dunes. Where was the owner? He or she would have to be found and interviewed.

      “There it is,” Sanchez said, pointing to a three-story structure with faded pink and aqua paint. The roof featured a stair-step roofline, leading to a spire at the apex. Neon signage announced they’d arrived at the Sea Wave Hotel.

      “I see it,” Dean said. Maybe five or six onlookers stood behind the crime-scene tape that blocked entrance to the hotel’s lobby. Filthy clothing, backpacks and a couple of shopping carts told Dean these were street people.

      He continued his assessment as he braked to a stop in front of the Sea Wave. Not many people around. Pitiful few tourists—but of course South Florida was in the middle of the mean season.

      The heat enveloped him like a wet sponge when he exited the air-conditioned cruiser. Not even 11:00 a.m. and already sweltering. He smelled the ocean—and damn if he couldn’t actually hear the crash of waves. You didn’t get that on Ocean Drive.

      “Jeez, it’s hot,” Sanchez said.

      “That’s why we live here, genius,” Dean said, still evaluating the scene. The subject hotel sat in the shadow of two larger properties, the one to the right part of a well-known hotel chain and better maintained.

      Dean stared at the dirty glass block and one oversize porthole window in the hotel’s facade. A series of streamlined balconies wrapped around the sides of the structure. Satisfied he understood the setting, he stepped onto the hotel’s wide, covered porch, where he was met by a young male uniformed officer whose badge read Robert Kinney. Dean had seen him around but didn’t know him.

      “You first on the scene?” Dean asked.

      “Right,” Kinney said with a nod.

      “What have we got?”

      “Body on a balcony on the second floor. Gunshot wound to the head.”

      “Who called it in?”

      “Multiple 911 calls. A single shot was