From Father to Son. Janice Johnson Kay

He’d like to think so.

       She had family who would mourn, he guessed. He didn’t know them, had been careful to avoid any introductions, but he’d seen a young woman with two little kids come and go. She’d mowed the lawn this spring and summer. Niall had kept his distance, but had paused a couple of times to admire her. She was a small, curvy package with fabulous legs. She was also, however, a mother and likely a wife. He suspected she would be Enid’s heir, too.

       Which made Enid’s decision to kick the bucket very bad news for him. He was a selfish son of a bitch to be thinking about himself right now, but he had time to kill while he waited for the appropriate authority to take over. Beyond tugging down the hem of Enid’s nightgown so that her birdlike, liver-spotted legs were decently covered, there wasn’t anything he could do for her.

       He’d signed a new one-year lease not six weeks ago. This would be his second year living in the tiny cottage tucked on the back of the large lot, behind Enid’s 1940s-era bungalow. Living here had worked out fine for him. Enid ignored him and didn’t mind that he ignored her. She was deaf as a post and didn’t like to be bothered with her hearing aid, which she said whined. Niall played the bagpipe. Your average landlord or landlady did not consider him an ideal tenant. Enid and he were a match made in heaven. He didn’t like to think what was going to happen now.

       A uniformed officer arrived and Niall explained that he’d come to check on Enid because the kitchen light wasn’t on. This time of the morning, she would have long since had breakfast and tea. Enid tended to linger over her tea. He’d knocked on the back door, gotten no response and felt enough alarm he’d gone back to his cottage to get the key she had given him in case of emergency.

       “I’d hate to die and not be found for so long I shrivelled up like a mummy,” she’d told him. “I don’t much like that idea. So if you don’t see me around, feel free to check.”

       He could do that. She’d asked little enough of him. Rental payment once a month—which he deposited directly into her bank account as getting out was hard for her—and the understanding that he’d keep an eye on her from a distance.

       Enid had been dead for a few hours, but the mortician would get his hands on her before she began serious decomposition. Niall hadn’t told her that in the incessantly damp climate of the Pacific Northwest, corpses didn’t dry up leatherlike. He didn’t tell her that what did happen to them was a whole lot more unpleasant than mummification.

       He hoped that if she was opposed to being embalmed she’d have discussed it with her family.

       It was with relief that he escaped after a silent goodbye.

       As luck would have it, the first person he saw when he arrived at the public safety building that housed the police department was his brother Duncan. Captain Duncan MacLachlan, only one rung below the police chief who was currently under fire for publicly making a racist remark and who was at risk for being fired. Even though Duncan was a hard-ass, he backed his officers and was known for being fair, smart and the soul of integrity. The general hope was that the city council would give the job to him, rather than hiring from outside the department.

       Niall had very mixed feelings for his brother.

       They were a hell of a lot closer than they’d been even a year ago, though. Duncan had mellowed when he’d fallen in love. Niall had watched the process with bemusement.

       Duncan had pushed through the doors on his way out, and the two of them stepped aside so they weren’t in the way of traffic. Although barely midmorning, it had to be eighty degrees already. A humid eighty degrees.

       “You just getting here?”

       “I found my landlady dead.”

       Duncan nodded without apparent surprise. “What’ll that do to your lease?”

       Niall grinned. Trust his big brother to hold no sentimental feelings whatsoever. Except where Jane was concerned, of course. Niall shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out.”

       Rather than offering another brisk nod and continuing on his way, Duncan kept standing there. He was wearing one of the suits that made him appear more like a politician than a cop, and he had to be looking forward to the air-conditioning in that big SUV he drove. But instead of heading for it, he shifted his weight, hemmed and hawed.

       “I was going to call you today,” he finally said.

       Niall was entertained by the unexpected and unnatural sight of Captain MacLachlan looking irresolute.

       “Yeah?”

       “Jane wants you to come to dinner. Tonight or tomorrow?”

       “Is there an occasion?”

       Expression strangely vulnerable, Duncan met his eyes. “Jane’s pregnant.”

       Niall found himself momentarily speechless. “This a surprise?” he asked at last.

       Duncan shook his head. “No. I’m thirty-seven, Jane’s thirty-two. We didn’t want to wait too long.”

       “My brother, a daddy.” Niall smiled broadly. “Congratulations.”

       “Thanks.”

       “How far along is she?”

       “Three months. She wanted to wait until she was past the danger point before we let people know. You’re, uh, the first.”

       Niall nodded, feeling honored even though—face it—there wasn’t a whole lot of competition here. Jane was alienated entirely from her family, and Niall was the only member of Duncan’s who had a relationship with him. Mom had made no effort to stay in touch with any of them, and Duncan had rebuffed Dad’s one attempt to reconnect. Conall hadn’t spoken to Duncan in close to ten years. That left—ta da!—Niall.

       “I’ll be an uncle,” he said, disconcerted by the idea.

       His brother shared one of his rare grins. “Yeah, you will.”

       “Huh.”

       Still smiling, Duncan clapped him on the back. “Dinner?”

       “Tomorrow night.”

       “I’ll tell Jane.” With long strides, he headed across the parking lot.

       Niall stood where he was, watching him go. Well, damn, he thought, and felt a funny ache inside. He might have labeled it as jealousy, except he didn’t want any of what Duncan had.

       Still, a baby MacLachlan. Who’d have thunk?

      HOMICIDE AND MAJOR CRIMES detectives almost never fired a gun outside of the range, where they were required to keep their skills sharp. The telephone and the internet were their tools. They spent a lot of time on hold. They talked. They listened. They pretended to understand and sympathize with scumbags.

       Which was probably why Niall was a little slower than he should have been reaching for his Glock.

       During a belated lunch break, he had pulled into the bank parking lot with the intention of going in to deposit a check. Before he could get out of the car, his attention was caught by the sight of a guy hustling out of the bank gripping the arm of a woman who was walking really, really close to him. The incongruous part was that with both hands she clutched a black plastic trash bag, stuffed full. And—oh, hell—she looked scared out of her skull.

       At the exact same moment Niall’s brain clicked into gear, the guy looked at Niall’s car which, while unmarked, shouted cop car. Plain maroon, but a big, powerful sedan. Grille behind the driver’s seat. Serious radio antenna. Then his eyes met Niall’s and he lifted a handgun.

       Niall flung open the door and dove out at the exact moment the passenger window exploded.

       He snatched his Glock from the holster and groped for his radio. “Shots being fired. Bank robbery in progress,” he managed to spit out before stealing a peek over the trunk.

       Another shot rang