Secret Admirer. Amanda Stevens

day back.

      “It’s not going to be as easy as all that,” she said, heading back around her desk to sit. She picked up a report and studied it for a long, tense moment. Her glasses were lying on the desk but she ignored them. “Things are going to change around here, Tony.”

      He stretched his legs in front of him. “Meaning?”

      “Just because we were…partners in the past doesn’t mean you’re going to get a free ride.”

      “I never thought I would.” He met her gaze.

      She seemed momentarily flustered. Glancing back down at the report, she said, “Superintendent Dawson is putting pressure on all the bureaus to clean up their acts, but especially on Investigative Services. No more tune-ups, attitude adjustments, whatever euphemism you guys are calling it on the street these days.”

      “You know me better. I’ve never gone in for that.” Although he wouldn’t be human if he hadn’t been tempted a time or two to work over a suspect, especially the ones who murdered children. He remembered the Betts case—then again, he didn’t want to remember the Betts case. He’d been the one to find the child’s body in the Dumpster behind an abandoned apartment building in Chinatown. The little girl’s battered face and staring eyes had haunted him for months, years. But the smirk on her old man’s face when Tony had gone to search his apartment had haunted him even longer.

      Yeah, he could easily have done a little attitude adjustment on that psycho, but he hadn’t. He might not always play by the rules, but he knew the dangers in losing control. If he ever came that close again that would be the day he’d hang it up. Walk away. Spend the rest of his life scrubbing toilets or some damn thing if he had to.

      Clare’s gaze softened, as if she’d decided to cut him some slack. Or maybe she was remembering little Julie Betts, too. Clare had been the one to pull Tony away from Robert Betts when they’d gone to make the arrest.

      “I know you don’t go that far—not even close—but you are something of a Dirty Harry, Tony, you can’t deny that. You should have called for backup the other night, and you know it.”

      “I was more concerned with saving two lives. Three, if I could have.” He hadn’t wanted Franco Mancini to die. Tony had tried to persuade the man to throw down his weapon and surrender, but Franco, eyes glazed from whatever drug he’d been popping or snorting, had just kept on shooting.

      Tony rubbed his forehead, where a migraine was starting to throb. The light in Clare’s office was suddenly almost blinding.

      “Hey, you okay?”

      “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

      Clare frowned, and the compassion she might have felt moments earlier vanished. She said coldly, “You’ve got a woman threatening you because of your actions that night.”

      He shrugged. It wasn’t the first time, and he doubted it would be the last. Still, if he were honest with himself, he’d have to admit he wasn’t exactly comfortable with Maria Mancini’s vendetta against him. The woman looked pretty edgy herself.

      “One of these days,” Clare warned with a hint of maliciousness, “someone is going to make good on their threats against you.”

      He wondered if she was talking about Maria Mancini or herself. If memory served, Clare had made a few ugly promises of her own the night Tony had split. The scene had been nasty and brutal, not something he wanted to replay even in his head.

      As if she were recalling that night herself, she lifted her chin, glaring at him. “You’ve pretty much been allowed to go your own way around here because, frankly, none of the other detectives want to be assigned with you. But like I said, things are changing. As of today, you’ve got yourself a new partner.”

      Alarmed, Tony straightened in his chair. “I thought we had an agreement. I work best alone.”

      She smiled. “That agreement was with your old lieutenant. Any promises you and I made to each other have long since become null and void. Isn’t that right?”

      Her tone and her gaze challenged him, and Tony said, “You’re getting off on this, aren’t you? You like making me suffer.”

      “You’re such an easy target. You and all your pent-up angst.”

      He groaned. “Spare me Metzer’s psychobabble. Who are you putting me with? Davis? Sanchez?” He’d give either of them a week at the most.

      “She’s new. Transferred from the North Side a couple of weeks ago.”

      She? Oh, hell… “The North Side? That’s your old stomping ground, isn’t it? You two pals or something?”

      Clare hesitated. “I may have seen her around a few times. She worked vice.”

      “What happened? She get tired of wearing spike heels and leather hot pants?”

      “It wore a little thin after a while,” a soft voice said from the doorway behind him. “I didn’t mind it on Saturday nights, but every night of the week got to be a real drag. Maybe you should try it sometime.”

      Tony glanced around as his new partner walked into the office. Clare gave him a derisive smile. “Tony, I’d like you to meet Eve Barrett. Detective Eve Barrett. I’m sure Detective Gallagher’s reputation precedes him,” she said dryly.

      Eve held out her hand, and Tony grudgingly stood. “You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly. “Stand, I mean.”

      “So it’s that way, is it?” he muttered, almost under his breath.

      She shrugged. “I don’t want to have to stand every time you come into a room.”

      He gave Clare a withering look, as if to say what the hell did I do to deserve this?

      “Not that I don’t appreciate the thought,” Eve continued. “But we’re going to be working together as equals. I’d like for you to treat me as you would any other partner.”

      He could almost see Clare smirking, but Tony wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of glancing her way. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, checking Eve Barrett out in spite of himself. She wore a conservative business suit, not unlike Clare’s, but the skirt was just a little shorter, showing legs that were a little younger and firmer but, to Tony’s mind, no more shapely. They both had great legs. Hell, he’d hit the leg jackpot in here, he thought with perverse appreciation.

      Eve Barrett was thin, toned, an all-American girl with her shiny, shoulder-length brown hair and scrubbed complexion. In spite of the shield she wore clipped to the waistband of her skirt, and the faint bulge where her shoulder holster rested beneath her jacket, she looked all of twenty years old. Tony wondered how she’d ever ended up in vice. He couldn’t imagine anyone looking less like a hooker.

      Except, of course, for those legs…

      He had a sudden vision of her in the aforementioned hot pants and spike heels, and something unwelcome stirred inside him.

      As if she were reading his mind, her hazel eyes narrowed on him. “You don’t have a problem working with a female partner, do you, Detective?”

      He shrugged. “No. I just don’t want a partner period.”

      Something flashed in her eyes. Anger, he hoped, but it sure as hell looked like hurt. Jeez…

      She gave him a cool smile. “Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we…Tony?”

      The way she said his name…her voice…

      For a moment, recognition teased at the fringes of his mind. Had they met before? She looked a little familiar, but surely he would have remembered that body. Those incredible legs.

      “Why don’t you wait outside, Eve? I’d like to have a word with Tony before you two hook up.”

      “Sure.”