Undercover Protector. Cassie Miles

      Neither the attack in the parking lot nor the brick through the window were her fault. However, if it made Grandpa feel better to believe she needed his protection, Annie wouldn’t disillusion him. “I guess trouble is my middle name.”

      “Always has been.”

      “By the way,” she said, remembering Michael’s statement that he’d come here to protect her and Lionel from possible retribution from Bateman. “Did you telephone Michael? Or was it the other way around?”

      “Can’t say that I recall.” His expression was too innocent to be believed. “I was a little hazy after the stroke.”

      Hazy like a fox, she thought. Grandpa had his own special reasons for wanting Michael to stay at the house. “I hope you’re not playing matchmaker.”

      “Between you and Michael?” He gave her a lopsided grin. “The idea might have crossed my mind. I’m not getting any younger, Annie. I wouldn’t mind having some youngsters around the neighborhood.”

      “Great-grandchildren.” She didn’t like being manipulated. “Don’t push me, Lionel.”

      “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

      Downstairs she confronted Police Chief Derek Engstrom himself. Though he was out of uniform, his beige trousers were sharply creased. The plaid shirt under his green Bridgeport Badgers windbreaker was starched and ironed. Engstrom was a tidy person in his early forties, and he was in good physical condition. There was only a touch of gray in his thinning brown hair. As far as she knew, he’d been living alone since his mother died. “I’m surprised to see you, Chief Engstrom. I didn’t think you’d be on duty this late.”

      “I had just stopped by the station when your call came through.” He nodded to the uniformed officer. “Bobby, you remember little Annie Callahan.”

      “Annie was never little.” Officer Bobby Janowski smirked as he eyeballed her from toe to head. “She always was the tallest girl at Bridgeport High.”

      And Bobby had always been the most obnoxious bully. It annoyed her that he’d chosen a career in law enforcement. “Hi, Bobby.”

      “Heard you’re a cop in Salem.” He hitched up his uniform trousers and stood straighter, as if trying to match her height. He was only five foot nine. “That’s a tough job for a woman.”

      “I guess I’m big enough to handle the work. Now, I suggest we go outside and have a look around.”

      “Agreed,” Michael said.

      Engstrom squinted in his direction. His upper lip curled in a disdainful smirk. “I remember you, Michael Slade.”

      Michael didn’t need to verbally respond; his body language said it all. His eyes became cold and hooded, his chin hardened, and he thrust out his chest. He was transformed into an archetypal tough guy, a hoodlum.

      “You were a troublemaker in high school,” Engstrom accused. “A real punk, weren’t you? You got picked up for reckless driving and curfew violations, right?”

      Still Michael said nothing.

      As a fellow law-enforcement officer, Annie should have taken Engstrom’s side. But there was a dignity in Michael’s silence. He didn’t deny his past. Nor did he try to defend it.

      “And drinking,” Engstrom continued with the long-ago rap sheet, “underage possession and consumption of alcohol. Or maybe that was your father.”

      “That’s right,” Bobby put in. “Old man Slade was one mean son of a gun when he got drunk.”

      Annie couldn’t stand it any longer. “Chief Engstrom, we have a problem here. An act of vandalism.”

      But Engstrom was on a roll. He put himself right into Michael’s face. “I’m surprised to see Michael Slade in one piece. With the way he started out, I would’ve thought he’d be dead or in jail by the time he was twenty-five.”

      “Disappointed?” Michael asked.

      “You only had one thing going for you, Slade. You were the finest wide receiver who ever played for Bridgeport Badgers. I still remember that game against the Cougars.” Engstrom stepped back to pantomime throwing a football. “Jake Stillwell was quarterback. You caught four touch-down passes. Stillwell to Slade. It was a thing of beauty.”

      This little trot down memory lane annoyed Annie even more than Engstrom’s former hostility. “If you don’t mind, Chief, we should check the yard for—”

      “It’s okay, Annie,” he said condescendingly. “We’re here now, and we’ll protect you. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

      Her muscles tensed with the effort of holding back a frustrated scream. “You can’t imagine how that makes me feel.”

      “Besides, if anyone was outside, they probably left when we pulled up.”

      “There might be clues,” she said. “Like footprints. Or a cigarette butt. Maybe a chewing-gum wrapper. Something.”

      “We won’t find anything in the dark,” Engstrom said. “With the shadows a flashlight casts, we might miss important evidence, might accidentally destroy something.”

      “Hey!” came Lionel’s shout from upstairs. “Is that Derek Engstrom?”

      “Yes, sir,” Engstrom called back. “Come upstairs with me, Bobby. Let’s see how Lionel is doing.”

      “Wait!” Annie pointed to the chunk of brick on the floor. “This is a big fat piece of evidence. Aren’t you going to do anything about it? Take it back to the station and check for fingerprints?”

      “Why don’t you put that brick in a grocery bag for me,” Engstrom said. “We’ll grab it on our way out.”

      Stunned by their complete lack of professionalism, Annie glared at the retreating backsides of the Bridgeport police as they ascended the stairs. To Michael she said, “I don’t believe this. If I treated a crime scene this way, I’d be booted off the force.”

      “We’re in Bridgeport,” he reminded her. “The idiots are running things.”

      Though she wanted to speak up for her hometown, the police chief’s behavior was indefensible. “Why does Engstrom have it in for you?”

      He shrugged. “In his narrow mind, I’ll always be Michael Slade, teenage troublemaker.”

      “And a damn good wide receiver.”

      “My only saving grace,” he said. “I could hang on to Jake Stillwell’s wobbly passes.”

      She stared down at the piece of brick. “I guess I should go to the kitchen and get a bag for this. It’s probably too porous for decent fingerprints, but you never know.”

      “I’ll wait here,” Michael said.

      Facing Engstrom had awakened bad memories of his small-town identity as a bad boy. The bitter ache still lingered. No matter where he went or what he did, when he came here, he was still a punk. He couldn’t change that. He was still the son of an abusive drunk who couldn’t hang on to his job at the lumber mill and then deserted the family for good.

      Even though Michael had grown up only eight miles from here, his world had been far different from Annie’s. She was a Callahan. Her grandpa was a respected man in town, and they lived in a nice house with rose-patterned windows by the door.

      Eleven years ago he’d tried to be worthy of her. He’d backed away from his hoodlum friends, quit smoking and drinking. He even read a book of poetry she’d given him. He tried to be a better person, deserving of Annie’s attention. And he failed.

      She returned from the kitchen with a plastic grocery bag and two foil-wrapped chocolates, which she held out toward him and he declined. “More for me,” she said.

      She