Baby Jane Doe. Julie Miller

she was already moving, the sinking certainty slowed her reaction time. When Shauna lifted her head to locate the dead man’s weapon, she looked up into the glint of fluorescent light reflecting off the shooter’s sunglasses. She didn’t need to see the eyes behind the lenses. They were focused on her.

      Just like his gun.

      Nanoseconds ticked off like eons.

      He smiled.

      Shauna dove for the floor.

      He squeezed the trigger.

      A gust of steel-tipped wind rushed past her ear.

      But the bullet never hit her.

      “KCPD!” With the clean precision of a surgical blade, Eli Masterson put a bullet center-mass in the shooter’s chest, knocking him off balance. The shooter stumbled backward but didn’t fall. “Drop your weapon!”

      But the man ignored the order and swung his gun toward the unexpected attack.

      “Cease fire!” Staying low to the floor, Shauna picked up her cell phone and threw herself against the counter, keeping her back to the only protection the lobby offered her. “Dammit, Masterson, we’ve got hostages. Cease fire!”

      “Negative!”

      She redialed her 911 call and snagged her purse to retrieve her service weapon. From the low angle of the fire, Detective Masterson was down. Was he hit or had he taken cover?

      “Masterson? Report!”

      Shauna crawled to the end of the counter for a visual. The gunman lunged toward the elevator doors, chased by a hail of bullets, unable to return fire. Two more rounds hit the back of his trench coat. The man jerked, but stayed on his feet. The elevator doors opened. He jumped inside. Swung around. Raised his gun and grinned in triumph. “You’re out of ammo.”

      Idiot!

      She could kick herself for forgetting. “He’s wearing a Kevlar!”

      Before she could get her own gun aimed, Masterson rolled. As the doors drifted shut, he snatched up the dead thief’s discarded Smith & Wesson and put a bullet in the killer’s knee, taking him down.

      The man in the elevator screamed in agony as Shauna and Masterson scrambled to their feet and approached, guns drawn.

      “KCPD,” Shauna announced in a clear, firm voice. “Drop your weapon and come out.”

      “Like I could, you bitch.” Several more obscenities tainted the air, condemning KCPD and her own parentage, as well as promised retribution against the man who’d crippled him.

      “Shut up.” Detective Masterson’s big brown shoe blocked the doors before they could close. With his gun trained on the wounded man, he pushed the doors open and picked up the rifle. He handed it to Shauna before stepping inside to lock the doors open and drag the man out into the lobby. “The lady said to move.”

      With the man’s curses abruptly silenced by something whispered in his ear, Detective Masterson pinned him to the floor, patted him down for other weapons and cuffed him. “He’s got no ID on him.” He tossed aside the sunglasses and jerked the perp’s chin up toward Shauna. “You recognize him?”

      Icy gray eyes like that she would remember. “No. But we’ll run his prints if he doesn’t cooperate.”

      “Like I’m gonna—”

      Masterson ground the man’s face into the carpet, silencing him.

      By the time the detective was on his feet again and holstering his gun, Shauna had retrieved the briefcase and given the dispatcher instructions for police and paramedics to move in.

      Maintaining his protective stance over the perp, Detective Masterson glanced down over the jut of his shoulder at her. “You all right?”

      Other than some bruises and rug burns she wouldn’t complain about, Shauna was in one piece. She nodded. “You?”

      “He had you in his sights.”

      Shauna pretended his deep-pitched admonition didn’t send an ominous chill through her veins. “I’m fine.”

      She took note of the two-inch cut oozing blood along the edge of his short, coffee-colored hair. But, for the moment, she ignored his forehead and watched the piercing intensity of his dark eyes cool to golden brown detachment. More than his 20/20 aim with the gun, they hadn’t missed a detail of all that had transpired here. Not even the personal threat to her life.

      Which Shauna refused to comment on. It was all part of the job, right?

      She tucked her phone and the gun in the waistband of her tweed skirt and stuck out her hand for an official introduction. “I’m Shauna Cartwright.”

      “I know.”

      She waited until he took her hand. His grip was as strong and firm as the rest of him had proved to be. And though an often-ignored part of her wished she was meeting such a seasoned, attractive man under different circumstances, she knew succumbing to her feminine longings was out of the question.

      “Eli, was it?” He nodded. “May I see your badge, Detective?”

      A scoffing sound marred his smile as he let her hand go to reach inside his jacket. “I heard you were a tough one for rules and regs. Are this morning’s events going into my file?”

      Shauna ignored the taunt and quickly read the ID beside his badge. Eli Masterson. Thirty-six years old. Fourteen years on the force, the majority of them having filled a necessary but difficult role.

      “Internal Affairs?” She glanced down at the man moaning at their feet. “And you made that shot?” She indicated the small gold star on his ID before handing it back. “Why would an I.A. detective maintain his sharpshooter’s badge? You planning to transfer to S.W.A.T.?”

      “No, ma’am.”

      “Does Captain Chang,” she referred to the chief of the I.A. division, “have this much trouble getting you to cooperate with your fellow officers?”

      “Yes, ma’am, he does.”

      She almost laughed at his dry delivery of the truth, and though she appreciated a man with a smart wit, she never allowed the humor to soften the taut curve of her own lips. “Well…, thank you for saving my life, Eli. You saved all our lives today.”

      He seemed hesitant to accept her praise. “No problem.”

      Leaning in, she caught him off guard as she nabbed his handkerchief from the pocket where he’d stuffed his wallet. She surprised him further by pressing the cotton to the wound on his forehead. “Make sure one of the medics clears you before you leave. I can’t tell if that’s a shrapnel cut or a bullet graze, but it looks like you could use a stitch or two.”

      It felt almost intimate, like a woman caring for her man, to stand there in the midst of the bustling recovery team, gently tending Eli’s wound. She felt herself warming beneath the scrutiny of his gaze as he tried to figure out whether her kindness was genuine or a ploy he should guard against. His fingers brushed against hers as he took over staunching the wound and retreated a step. “I’ll do that, ma’am.”

      “Good.” Wouldn’t it be nice to skip the ma’am’s for once and just be a woman with a man? But she was more than that. And the suspicion in Eli Masterson’s eyes said he knew it, too. So she pulled rank. The way he expected. The way she was supposed to. “You got away with playing cowboy today, Masterson. But when I tell you to do something, I expect it to happen. The chain of command needs to be followed, no matter what the situation is.”

      “I’ll remember that next time.”

      “Please do.”

      “Is that all?”

      “I’ll expect a report from you tomorrow.”

      “Yes, ma’am.”