Internal Affairs. Alana Matthews

With just the right amount of condescension. Rafe had the urge to tell her where to stuff it, but remained professional.

      “So are we good?” Kate asked.

      “We’re good,” Rafe said.

      She turned away and was about to start toward the garage when she stopped. “Just one last question.”

      “Which is?”

      “You didn’t touch the car, right? Didn’t try to do a little investigating of your own?”

      Rafe felt his heart kick up and thought about the gas receipt that was still in his pocket. He’d meant to give it to her, but now he wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. Surely they’d be able to identify the bodies through fingerprint analysis, and his breach of protocol would never have to come to light.

      If worse came to worst, he could give it to her later, claim he’d found it on the garage floor and in the excitement that followed had forgotten about it. But handing it over now would be a mistake. Especially after she had just treated him like a redheaded stepchild.

      “Rafe?”

      He blinked at her. “Give me some credit, sis, I’m not stupid enough to interfere with a crime scene.”

      “You’re sure about that?”

      “Yes,” he lied. “Absolutely sure.”

      She studied him skeptically. The woman had always had the uncanny ability to read him. Had caught him in a number of lies as they grew up, but had always been merciful enough not to tell their parents.

      Kate was a good six years older than Rafe and that gap had given her enough insight to avoid the pettiness of sibling rivalry. She may not have been a nurturer, but she wasn’t a traitor, either. And nobody could ever say that the Franco kids didn’t look out for one another.

      Even so, she really annoyed him sometimes.

      “I’m going to trust you on that,” she said. “But if any fingerprints show up, you’re on your own.”

      “They won’t,” he told her, relieved that he’d had the wherewithal to use his shirttail for protection. “I promise.”

      She studied him a moment longer, then nodded and walked away, heading into the garage.

      When she was gone, Rafe let out a long breath and tried not to feel too guilty.

       Chapter Four

      “So is your sister seeing anyone these days?”

      The deputy he’d snagged to drive him back to the station was a guy named Phil Harris. Harris was what qualified in the patrol division as an old-timer, although he couldn’t yet be over forty. He’d been with the department since he was Rafe’s age and had never progressed further than a RS-3 pay grade.

      Harris was a good cop, but not the most ambitious guy in the department.

      “Sorry, Phil, I don’t keep track of her love life. You’d have to ask her.”

      Harris wasn’t the first deputy to approach Rafe about Kate. One of the hazards of working in the same department as your sister was that you had to put up with every hot-to-trot single—and sometimes married—guy on the job, looking to get into her pants. Rafe would be the first to admit that Kate was a looker—she did have the Franco genes, after all—but the last thing he wanted to think about was who she may or may not be sleeping with.

      “I was hoping you’d put in a good word for me,” Harris said. “Let her know I’m interested.”

      What was this—high school?

      Rafe shook his head. “First, I’ve got zero influence over Kate. And second, you might as well stand in line. You’re about the fifteenth deputy who’s asked me about her in the last month alone—and the competition is stiff.”

      “How stiff?”

      “Like County Undersheriff stiff.”

      Harris’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re telling me she’s been hitting it with Macon?”

      “That’s the rumor,” Rafe said. “But, as I told you, I don’t keep track. I’m having a hard enough time with my own love life.”

      Harris turned. “I thought you were dating that blonde in dispatch? The one with the big—”

      “That’s been over for months,” Rafe said. “In fact, it was over before it really got started. No chemistry. Besides, I don’t have time for romance. I’ve got to think about my career.”

      Harris snorted. “You sound like me about twenty years ago. I passed up on a perfectly good relationship—a gal I could have had a life with—all because I thought I didn’t have time for that nonsense. Now look at me. I’m alone and going nowhere. And believe me, it isn’t much fun.”

      Rafe found his mind wandering back to last night’s dream and the girl he’d left behind. He shook the thought away.

      “Boo-hoo,” he said. “I’m still not going to set you up with my sister.”

      Harris grinned. “You saw what I was trying to do there, huh?”

      “From a couple hundred yards away.”

      THEY WEREN’T TWO MILES from the station house when Harris’s radio came to life.

      “Dispatch to Unit Ten, do you read me?”

      Harris snatched up his handset. “This is Ten. What do you got?”

      “A possible 273 D in Forest Park. Can you respond?”

      Two-seventy-three D was code for a domestic dispute, every deputy’s least favorite type of call. Too often it was a husband being abusive to his wife, and Rafe had no tolerance for such men. It took everything he had to keep himself from giving the abuser a very painful life lesson.

      Harris turned to him. “You in?”

      Rafe was already supposed to be off the clock, but despite his reservations, he found that he still had a lot of pent-up energy coursing through his veins.

      “Sure,” he said.

      Harris clicked the handset. “I’m on it, dispatch. Deputy Franco assisting. Give me the address.”

      Ten minutes later they pulled into Forest Park, an affluent section of St. Louis, not far from the Hill, where Rafe lived. The neighborhood featured a mix of 2-million and 3-million-dollar homes. Tudors. Dutch colonials. A couple of Cape Cods thrown in for good measure. It was the kind of place that made deputies like Rafe and Harris feel as if they were little more than servants to the rich and powerful.

      Rafe had to fight against this feeling as they pulled up to the house in question, a two-story colonial. The front door was nearly the size of his entire apartment.

      They got out and he waited as Harris knocked.

      A voice on the intercom came to life. “Yes?”

      “Sheriff’s department,” Harris said. “You called us about a domestic dispute?”

      A moment later, the door opened and an elderly woman who was built like a bull terrier, ushered them inside.

      “Come in, come in,” she said. “The no-good creep is gone, but we want to file a formal complaint against him.”

      “Against whom?” Rafe asked as they followed her into a large foyer.

      “The former man of the house. He broke in through the back door and raised quite a fuss.”

      “Is anyone hurt?”

      “No, but it got pretty dodgy there for a minute.”

      Rafe nodded. “So who is this guy? Your husband?”

      The old woman