Strength Under Fire. Dana Nussio

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

       CHAPTER NINETEEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY

       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

       EPILOGUE

       Extract

       Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

      “THERE’S OUR HERO.”

      Ben Peterson froze in the squad room doorway as a collage of smiling faces and uniform sleeves reached out to haul him in by the shirt collar. The cheers, the thuds of applause—a wolf whistle thrown into the mix—squeezed the cramped space even tighter. Insides pleading for retreat, Ben crossed the room as if he didn’t mind being right there at center stage. Even a goldfish had no choice but to keep on swimming when its bowl turned cloudy.

      “No, Lieutenant Peterson is my hero,” Vincent Leonetti called out in a flawless falsetto, a grin splitting his already ugly mug.

      Once a class clown, always a class clown. Even if Bozo had been promoted to sergeant.

      “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” Ben gestured downward with his hands, wishing he had a mute button. “Knock it off, Vinnie.”

      “Admit it. You done good.”

      Ben shook his head, but finally he shrugged as he faced the dozen afternoon-shift troopers spaced around the room’s perimeter and huddled on the desks at its center. They were already in their navy uniforms, silver ties knotted, heavy jackets at the ready for their trips out into the frostbitten southeast Michigan January. These were the men and women of the Brighton Post. His teammates. His friends.

      Maybe it had been too much to expect that they would leave him alone to do his job today, but that hadn’t stopped him from hoping. Didn’t they see that yesterday’s events still felt more like fiction to him than any facts reported on News 3 Breaking Live? And didn’t they know by now that he preferred to stay in the background? He was good at it. Until he’d stepped inside that bank and shot the delicate balance of his professional life to hell and then some. The chances of getting back to his safe little norm appeared to be slim to forget it, buddy.

      Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he crammed his sweaty hands into his pockets. “Thanks, everyone, but—”

      Lieutenant Scott Campbell stepped close and rested a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

      “We all know that this guy enjoys being singled out about as much as getting a root canal, but moments of heroism like his deserve recognition.” Scott gestured toward him. “So on behalf of the Michigan State Police Brighton Post, I would like to congratulate Lieutenant Ben Peterson on a job well done.”

      Ben opened his mouth to try again, but the other lieutenant raised a hand to stop him.

      “Even on his day off, Lieutenant Peterson single-handedly took down two suspects in a bank robbery attempt, and at the same time he—” Scott paused, winking “—made a deposit into his interest-bearing checking account.”

      “Are you kidding? Interest-bearing?” Vinnie’s eyes were as wide as his grin.

      “Thanks for protecting the greenbacks,” someone called from the back of the room.

      “Can you get me a preferred rate on a sixty-month CD?” another chimed.

      As the punch lines continued pinging around the room, Ben finally let go of the breath he’d been holding. Compared to the awkward accolades his coworkers might have given him for those thirty terrifying minutes at Brighton Bank & Trust, this gentle ribbing was a gift.

      When the laughter filtered down to chuckles, he jumped in. “Thanks again. But I was only doing my job. Just as any of you would have done.”

      “But would we?”

      Scott’s words cut him off and ended the other conversations in the room. “We want to believe we’ll be ready if called upon to act, even when off duty. And Lieutenant Peterson was ready. Good to know, especially for those of us who drive desks more often than patrol cars.”

      He gestured toward Ben to indicate whom else he included in that sedentary us.

      “Glad you remembered to show off your good side on Channel 3,” Vinnie started again.

      “Thanks.” Ben winced at the memory of last night’s interview and the others he would have to endure for the benefit of the post. The media attention hit too close to a home he never planned to visit again by choice. Not that he’d chosen it the first time, either.

      “You’re one lucky asshole,” Trooper Grant Maxwell called out.

      “That coming from a guy who narrowly escaped a bullet last spring,” Vinnie quipped. “Now there’s some luck.”

      “Just another day on the job,” Grant said with a smug grin. “Anyway, I’m not the one who’s gonna get his own comic-book character. He leaped right into hero mode without breaking a sweat.”

      “I’m no hero.” Ben’s words were automatic. A reflex. He cleared his throat. “I mean, I just did what I had to do.”

      The sense that he was being watched was so strong that the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Of course someone was watching. They all were. But he had no doubt that one individual would be studying this scene more carefully than the others. Sure enough, a petite brunette stood at the edge of the activity, always as an observer, but never quite a participant.

      Trooper Delia Morgan couldn’t have looked more uncomfortable, her posture as stiff as the unforgiving bun she always wore in her hair. Though a competent, by-the-book new recruit and a skilled, left-handed sharpshooter, from the start she hadn’t fit in well with the Brighton Post team, and she’d made no effort to change that.

      Deep blue eyes, heavily lashed and so huge that they seemed to see everything and more, caught Ben’s gaze and gripped tight. Of course Trooper Morgan would be suspicious of him now. For months, he’d preached teamwork to her like a televangelist, and here he was basking in the spotlight of individual praise.

      “Congratulations, Lieutenant,” she said after what must have been the most pregnant pause known to mankind.

      “Uh. Thanks.”

      Strange, she’d been obliged to say something nice, and yet she’d almost sounded sincere. That couldn’t be right. She was the last person he’d expect to get caught up in this hero nonsense. Did Delia see him differently now? Would he enjoy it if she did? As Ben pushed away those disconcerting thoughts, Delia tilted her head and a tress of shiny hair escaped its clip, falling across her jawline. It came to rest along the fair skin of her neck.

      The impulse to test the feel of those silky-looking strands struck him so fast that his hand reached out before he had time to get his thinking straight. He stuffed his hands back in his pockets, blinking several times, his mouth suddenly dry. What was that? Never mind that the woman was clear across the room, nor that this particular woman would have slugged him for getting too close. Thankfully, she must have missed his idiotic move because she reached up and shoved her hair out of the way herself.

      He swallowed. What was he doing focusing on Delia like that anyway? Make that Trooper Morgan. Even if the overly independent officer had been an enigma to him since she’d been assigned to the Brighton Post nearly a year before, now wasn’t the best time for him to try to figure her out. He had no business thinking of her in any way other than as a fellow officer, either. Especially not as an attractive woman.

      “Well,