Protecting Her Son. Joan Kilby

as a businessman. He was rich, handsome, charming, sophisticated and intelligent. He liked women. Of course he was pressuring her.

      Paula shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

      The detective sergeant leaned forward, his brown eyes glittering. “I hear he’s hot stuff. An Italian stallion.”

      Paula met Hudson’s leer with a steady gaze. “Nick’s a criminal. Like you say, a slimeball.”

      “You’re sure you’re not losing your objectivity? Horowitz is transcribing the tapes. He reckons you’re flirting with Moresco. And liking it.”

      “I’m doing my job. And Horowitz wouldn’t know whether a woman was liking it if she held up an Olympic score card.” Paula picked a fleck of lint off her mini skirt. But yeah, flirting with Nick was disturbingly easy. The man had charisma.

      Hudson leaned back, flicking a pencil between his fingers. “I think we should pull you off the case.”

      Paula’s hand tightened on her purse strap. “This op has been going for nearly a year now. Nick’s close to making a major deal on meth production. If I suddenly quit his therapy, it’ll look suspicious. He’s always asking me questions as it is, testing me.”

      “As long as you remember you’re a cop. There are lines you don’t cross.”

      “Jeez, boss. What do you think I am? Nothing is going to stop me from the satisfaction of hearing those handcuffs click into place when we arrest the bastard.”

      Hudson was silent for a long ten seconds, studying her. “All right. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

      Present day

      “JAMIE, ARE YOU DRESSED for school? You don’t want to be late on your first day.” Paula paused the hair dryer to listen for a reply. Across the hall in his bedroom her six-year-old son was playing with his cars.

      “Vrooom! Smash! Ka-blam!”

      Paula put down the dryer and went to look. Jamie was sprawled on his stomach in the middle of the carpeted floor, creating a fifteen Matchbox car pileup. He had on the school navy polo shirt, superhero underpants and one navy sock. His school shorts and the other sock were still on the bed where Paula had laid them out half an hour ago. Young for his age and easily distracted, Jamie could be a challenge.

      “Look, Mum.” Jamie’s curly dark hair bounced as he made a giant plastic T. rex stomp over the wreckage.

      “Right you go, mate.” She hauled him up by his armpits with him clinging to the T. rex, grabbed the shorts and helped his knobby-kneed legs into them. “You’re a great big boy in grade one. You shouldn’t need your mum to dress you.”

      Jamie clamped the T. rex’s jaws around his own forearm. Through the gap where his right front tooth had been, spit sprayed as he made sound effects. “Chomp, chomp, chomp.”

      “Get your other sock on,” Paula said. “And come eat breakfast.”

      In the kitchen, the phone rang.

      Great, another distraction. Jamie wasn’t the only one who couldn’t be late this morning. Today was her first day on the job at Summerside Police Station. She hurried down the hall, tucking her blue uniform shirt into pressed navy pants. Her hair, still only half dried, swung around her shoulders.

      Paula leaned across the counter and grabbed the receiver on the fifth ring. “Hello?”

      The phone went dead.

      Odd. She slotted the receiver into the wall mount. Then set out a bowl of cereal and glass of milk for Jamie and dropped a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster for herself.

      Back she went to the bathroom, passing Jamie in the hall carrying a plastic brontosaurus. She ruffled his hair. “Your cereal bowl is not a prehistoric swamp.”

      She tied her hair back tightly and turned her head to check in the mirror for stray wisps. First impressions were important and hers had to be stellar. Busted back to uniform, she’d been transferred twice since Nick’s arrest and both times she’d copped flack from the other cops. She was tough—she could have dealt with the animosity. But the commanding officer at each station eventually moved her on, like a vagrant they wanted off their clean streets.

      Well, screw them all. She was fed up with being jacked around, tired of dragging her son from town to town. It was bad enough that she was raising him on her own without a father. Now that Jamie was starting school she couldn’t be moving every couple of years.

      This time things would work out. She would survive long enough at Summerside to make detective again. She jammed in a last hairpin and looked herself hard in the eye. Third time lucky.

      “Mummy, your toast popped,” Jamie called, his speech garbled by a mouth full of Weetabix.

      The phone rang again as she entered the kitchen. If this was one of those automated marketing programs dialing her number repeatedly…

      Tucking the receiver between her ear and shoulder, she put the hot toast onto a plate, grabbed a knife and started buttering. “Hello?”

      Silence.

      The fine blonde hairs on Paula’s arms stood up, her fair skin pimpled. Like most cops, her number was unlisted.

      “Hello,” she repeated sharply. “Who’s there?”

      “Mio amore,” a silky male voice said in her ear.

      Nick Moresco. The butter knife clattered from her hand onto the counter. “What do you want?” she whispered, her throat suddenly dry.

      “Just to know that you are there.”

      The phone went dead.

      Paula fumbled the receiver onto the hook. Her gaze shot to the wall calendar. February 1. Which meant Nick had been out of jail for a month. In all the confusion of moving house, Jamie starting school and her starting a new job she’d completely forgotten.

      Her stomach churning, Paula tossed her uneaten toast into the garbage. “Are you finished, Jamie? We have to go. Quickly brush your teeth.”

      Jamie took one more mouthful, grabbed his brontosaurus and ran down the hall. Paula swiftly put the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, dismayed to see her hands trembling.

      Get a grip! Think. How had Nick gotten her phone number? Only a handful of people knew it—her mother, a couple of friends, Senior Sergeant John Forster at the Summerside Police Department and Jamie’s school. None of them would have given her number to a stranger.

      She ran her hands over her chilled arms. Nick had ways and means that were beyond those available to ordinary folk. He had a vast network of employees, spies and bodyguards. Plus an enormous extended Italian family who were loyal to every member.

      Paula spent the next ten minutes going around the small one-story house making sure every window and door was locked. She’d meant to have a deadbolt installed on the exterior door in the laundry room door but she’d had so many other things to take care of she’d put it off. Wincing, she pressed the flimsy button lock in. First chance she had…

      “Ready, Mum.” Jamie stood before her, baring his gap-toothed grin to show her he’d cleaned his teeth.

      Her heart melted. His freckled face was scrubbed shiny. His small shoulders were squared to bear the weight of his backpack. His Toy Story lunch box, which she’d packed the night before, was clutched tightly in his hand. He was still in his sock feet, one navy, one black, but there was no time for him to change.

      “Bring me your shoes. I’ll help you with the laces.”

      “I can do them myself.” Off he ran again, his lunch box banging against his side.

      If Nick had found out her phone number, he could find out her address.

      Paula pulled back the drapes and glanced around the quiet court. Across the street her neighbor was backing