Killer Season. Lara Lacombe

to Fiona. “I can drop you back here when we’re done, so you can get your car.”

      A faint smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “I’d appreciate that.”

      As Nate watched her walk away with Steve, he was forced to admit his motives weren’t entirely altruistic. She needed a ride back to her car, to be sure, but it was the perfect excuse to spend time with her.

      And he intended to make the most of it.

      * * *

      Fiona wrapped her hands around the plastic coffee cup, trying to soak up the weak heat leaching through the sides. She couldn’t stop shivering, despite the warm mugginess of the room. Houston winters weren’t terribly cold, but the heater in this aging municipal building seemed to have only one setting—thermonuclear. It was enough to make the place feel like a muggy swamp. Under normal circumstances, she’d feel bad for the officers forced to work in this humidor. Now, though, she was grateful for the warmth and the coffee, even if it did taste like stale pencil shavings.

      On a certain level, she’d always known that working the night shift at a convenience store was a dangerous job. Despite the fact that she spent most of her shift alone, studying at the counter, the clientele who did frequent the store weren’t exactly the most upstanding citizens. To be fair, she saw quite a few shift workers, honest people who stopped in on their way to or from work. Generally speaking, though, those who came around were dancing on the thin edge of trouble.

      To her mother’s way of thinking, it had never been a question of if she’d ever get robbed, but when. Christine Sanders had been furious and terrified when Fiona had told her about the job. “I won’t let you work there,” she’d said, drawing herself up in the hospital bed with shaking, painfully thin arms. “I forbid it.”

      “I’ll be fine, Mom,” Fiona replied, returning to the bedside with a damp washcloth. She gently laid the cloth across her mother’s forehead, and the lines of pain etched into Christine’s face softened a bit. “It won’t be that busy—hardly anyone needs gas at two in the morning. Besides, I need this job for my research. You don’t need to worry.”

      “I do worry.” Her mother’s eyes were bright blue, burning with fever and fear. “Those places get robbed all the time, and they’re going to see you, a pretty young woman working alone. You make an easy target, Fi.”

      “Gee, thanks,” she said, smoothing back the thin, wispy strands of hair that hadn’t succumbed to the chemo treatments. “Are you saying you don’t think I can be intimidating?” She narrowed her eyes in a fierce scowl, but her mother only smiled sadly.

      “You should pick a different research topic. One that doesn’t have you working in the middle of the night.”

      It was a familiar refrain, one her mother had said countless times before. As always, Fiona was at a loss for how to respond. She’d tried several times to explain her research project—studying the effects of shift work on employee mental health—but her mom wasn’t able to look past her job.

      “Can’t you just interview people during the day? Or find what you need online?”

      Fiona swallowed a sigh. “I am doing that, but this job gives me an opportunity to observe people without them knowing about it. They’re less likely to be on guard, or to tell me what they think I want to hear.”

      Christine only frowned. “I’m not going to stop worrying about you. But I am glad you’ve found something that will keep you occupied after I’m gone.”

      Fiona rubbed her chest, the memory of her mom’s words aggravating the now-permanent ache behind her breastbone.

      A late-in-life “miracle baby,” Fiona was an only child. Her father, a police officer, had been killed when she was ten. He was shot while responding to a domestic disturbance call, and while the Houston police department had rallied to support Fiona and her mother, they couldn’t fill the void left by her dad.

      The loss of her father made Fiona feel even closer to her mother. “It’s you and me, kid,” Christine liked to say. “Together, we can get through anything.”

      And for thirteen years, they had. Until that unusually cold March afternoon, when Christine’s doctor had called to tell her there was an abnormality with her latest mammogram.

      Fiona had been twenty-three when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. What she hadn’t known—what the doctors hadn’t been able to predict—was that it would take her mother five long, agonizing years to die. Fiona had worked a string of part-time jobs while acting as a caregiver, an exhausting schedule that brought home just enough money to pay her tuition and stay afloat. Being a clerk at the convenience store was the best-paying job she’d had yet, which was why she’d decided to stay on after her mother died. She could go to school in the afternoons and work at night, and with the notes she’d compiled so far, she was getting ever closer to finishing her master’s degree.

      While she wouldn’t trade the time she’d spent with her mother for anything, she did feel a sense of longing when she saw couples out together, laughing and having fun, or pushing a baby stroller. She hadn’t dated since college and, given her schedule now, there wasn’t a lot of room for a man. That was okay, though. She needed to focus on finishing school, and starting a relationship would only delay that.

      Despite her self-imposed single status, Fiona could still appreciate a handsome man. Like Nate. She let her thoughts drift, pulling up the image of his face. She liked knowing his name now, though she’d have to get used to calling him Nate instead of Hot Guy. She’d been attracted to him before tonight, of course. Her fingers tightened on the coffee cup as she imagined him in his dress uniform. His golden skin would look amazing against a black starched shirt, and she was willing to bet he had a lot of shiny medals to pin against his broad chest.

      Medals probably earned for stupidly brave actions that could have gotten him killed, her practical side pointed out. She remembered her dad and his friends—adrenaline junkies, all of them. And their exploits weren’t limited to the job. Her father had had a string of affairs, no-strings-attached flings with the women who liked to hang around the precinct, looking to date a cop. “Badge bunnies,” her mother had called them.

      The thought darkened her mood a bit, pulling her back into reality. There was a reason she didn’t try to date cops, no matter how sexy they were.

      But, her libido responded, he’d been deliciously solid on top of her, and she wished the circumstances had been different so she could have actually enjoyed lying underneath him. It had been a long time—too long—since she’d felt the weight of a man, and unless she decided to throw her plans out the window, she wasn’t likely to feel it again anytime soon. And even though she was hesitant to date a cop, maybe they could have a little fun before they went their separate ways? Nate was going to drive her back to the store, so maybe she could trip and pull him down with her...

      She shook her head at the wild fantasy as Officer Rodriguez—she just couldn’t call him Steve after such short acquaintance—walked back into the room. He caught her gesture and gave her a concerned look. “Everything okay?”

      Fiona felt her face heat. “Um, yeah,” she stammered, grasping for something to tell him. She settled for holding up the coffee cup. “I was debating taking another sip, but decided I was better off just holding it for the warmth.”

      He gave her a sympathetic wince. “Sorry about that. We drink so much of the stuff around here, you’d think we could make it better, but no one ever seems to have the time.”

      “Don’t worry about it,” she said with a smile. “Bad coffee and police stations are supposed to go together. I’m pretty sure there’s a rule about it somewhere, kind of like peanut butter and jelly.”

      Officer Rodriguez laughed. “I suppose you’re right.” He sat across from her and tapped the pages he’d been carrying into order. “I just have a few things for you to sign, and then you’re free to go.” He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table.

      “First