Dangerous. Diana Palmer

mother left us.”

      “Did you have any contact with your uncle?” he asked.

      She gaped at him. “How do you know about him?”

      He didn’t want to confess what he knew about the man. He shrugged. “Someone mentioned his name.”

      “We don’t have any contact at all. We didn’t,” she corrected. “He died a month ago. Or so we were told.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      Her dark eyes were cold. “I’m not. He and my mother ran away together and left my father with three kids to raise. Well, two kids actually. Boone was in the military by then. I look like my mother. Dad hated that. He hated me.” She bit her tongue. She hadn’t meant to say as much.

      But he read that in her expression. “We all have pivotal times in our lives, when a decision leads to a different future.” He smiled. “In the sixteenth century, Henry VIII fell in love with a young girl and decided that his Catholic wife, Catherine of Aragon, was too old to give him a son anyway, so he spent years finding a way to divorce her and marry the young girl, whom he was certain could produce a male heir. In the end, he destroyed the Catholic Church in England to accomplish it. He married Ann Boleyn, a protestant who had been one of Catherine’s ladies, and from that start the Anglican Church was born. The child of that union was not a son, but Elizabeth, who became queen of England after her brother and half sister. All that, for love of a woman.” He pursed his lips and his eyes twinkled. “As it turned out, he couldn’t get a son from Ann Boleyn either, so he found a way to frame her for adultery and cut off her head. Ten days later, he married a woman who could give him a son.”

      “The wretch!” she exclaimed, outraged.

      “That’s why we have elected officials instead of kings with absolute power,” he told her.

      She shook her head. “How do you know all that?”

      He leaned down. “You mustn’t mention it, but I have a degree in history.”

      “Well!”

      “But I specialized in Scottish history, not English. I’m one of a handful of people who think James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, got a raw deal from history for marrying Mary, Queen of Scots. But don’t mention that out loud.”

      She laughed. “Okay.”

      He opened her car door for her. Before she got in, he drew a long strand of her blond hair over his big hand, studying its softness and beautiful pale color.

      Her eyes slid over his face. “Your brother wears his hair long, in a ponytail. You keep yours short.”

      “Is that a question?”

      She nodded.

      “Jon is particularly heavy on the Native American side of his ancestry.”

      “And you aren’t?”

      His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know, Winnie,” he said quietly, making her name sound foreign and sweet and different. “Maybe I’m hiding from it.”

      “Not you,” she said with conviction. “I can’t see you hiding from anything.”

      That soft pride in her tone made him feel taller. He let go of her hair. “Drive carefully,” he said.

      “I will. See you.”

      He didn’t say anything else. But he did nod.

      With her heart flying up in her throat, she got in and drove away. It wasn’t until she got home that she realized, she still didn’t know his first name.

      4

      Winnie was back at work the next morning almost walking on air. Kilraven had kissed her. Not only that, he seemed to really like her. Maybe San Antonio wasn’t so far away. He might visit. He might take her out on a date. Anything was possible.

      She put her purse in her locker and went to her station. It was in the shape of a semicircle, and contained a bank of computers. Directly in front of her was a keyboard; behind it was a computer screen. This was the radio from which she could contact any police, fire or EMS department, although her job was police dispatch. There were separate stations for fire, police and EMS. Fire had one dispatcher, EMS had two. She, along with Shirley at a separate console, handled law enforcement traffic on her shift for all of Jacobs County. Beside her was a screen for the NCIC, the National Crime Information Center. Behind the computer screen, on a shelf, sat three other computer screens. One, an incident screen, noted the location of the units and their current status. The middle was CAD, or computer aided dispatch, which featured a form into which information such as activity code and location were placed; typing in the location brought up such data as prior calls at the residence, the nearest fire hydrant in case of fire, the name and address of a key holder and even a box to fax the incident to the police department. It also had screens for names and numbers of law enforcement personnel, including cell phone and pager numbers. There was a mobile data terminal from which dispatch could send messages to law enforcement on their laptops in their cars. The third computer screen was the phone itself, the heart and soul of the operation, through which desperation and fear and panic were heard daily and gently handled.

      This information came through two call takers. Their job was to take the calls as they came in, put them into the computer and send them to the appropriate desk: fire, police or EMS. Once the location and situation were input, the computer decided which was the appropriate agency or agencies to be dispatched. For a domestic incident with injuries, police were sent first to secure the scene, and an ambulance would stage in the area until it was deemed safe for the EMS personnel to enter the house to assist the injured. Often the perpetrator was still inside and dangerous to anyone who attempted to help the victim. More police officers died responding to domestic disputes than almost any other job-related duty.

      Winnie had just dispatched a police officer to the scene of a motor vehicle accident, along with fire and rescue, and was waiting for further information.

      In between the calls, Shirley leaned over while the supervisor was talking to a visitor. “Did you hear about the break in the murder case?”

      “What break?”

      “They found Kilraven’s cell phone number clenched in the victim’s hand.”

      “Oh, that. Yes, Kilraven told me.”

      Shirley’s eyes twinkled. “Did he now? Might one ask what else he told you, all alone at his house?”

      “How do you know we went to his house?” Winnie asked, blushing.

      “A few people told us. There was a sheriff’s deputy, Chief Grier, a fireman, a funeral director …”

      Winnie laughed. “I should have known.”

      “They did all just mention that you and Kilraven were drinking coffee at a picnic table, outside in the freezing cold,” Shirley added.

      “Well, Kilraven felt that we shouldn’t start gossip.”

      “As if.” Shirley chuckled. “What were you talking about?” she added slyly.

      “The murder case,” Winnie said with a grin. “No, really, we were,” she added when she saw her coworker’s expression. “You remember Senator Fowler’s kitchen help died mysteriously after she gave some information to Alice Jones, the coroner’s investigator from San Antonio, about the victim? Now there’s gossip the murder might be linked to other murders in San Antonio.” It was safe to tell her that. No way was she going to add that Kilraven’s family might be involved.

      “Wow,” Shirley exclaimed softly.

      “Heads up,” Winnie whispered, grinning and turned away before Maddie Sims came toward them. The older woman never jumped on them about talking because they only passed