Armed and Devastating. Julie Miller

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      Acknowledgements

      For Ryne Scott Miller. Congratulations on your graduation. You’ve had a stellar career in so many ways, and have a great future ahead of you. You’re funny. You have great friends. And you’re a nice guy, to boot. I’m proud of all your accomplishments in music and science and Scouts and more. But mostly, I’m just proud of the fine man you are. I love you more than you may ever know. Mushy enough for you?

      Mom

      Thanks to Polly Revare and her family for inviting us to stay in their gorgeous remodelled church home.

      Chapter One

      April…

      “And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me…”

      Detective Atticus Kincaid pushed his white handkerchief into his mother’s icy hand and wrapped an arm around her trembling shoulders.

      Susan Kincaid was holding up like a rock through her husband’s funeral service and burial ceremony, but Atticus could sense a brittleness to her stoic composure. And even through the raincoat she wore, he felt a chill that he suspected had as much to do with the shock and emptiness inside as it did with the rain beating down on the green awning over their heads and misting the air around them.

      “Your father loved this song,” she whispered, scarcely loud enough for him to hear. She wrung the handkerchief between her fingers, catching Atticus’s hand and holding on tight. “Holden sounds so much like him when he sings it.”

      “He sure does,” Atticus agreed, sitting ramrod-straight and allowing his mother to take whatever strength she needed from him. Dutifully, he turned his attention back to his younger brother, who stood beside their father’s flag-draped casket, singing Deputy Commissioner John Kincaid’s favorite song.

      “…sleep in peace until you come to me.”

      Damned ironic. His father was a good cop. A great man. The best father any four sons could ask for. There was nothing peaceful about the idea of some unknown perps kidnapping and torturing him, and then shooting him at point-blank range. How could John Kincaid rest in peace when his killer was out there somewhere, not giving a damn about the pain he was causing this family? Maybe even gloating at the huge hole John Kincaid’s death left in the ranks of the Kansas City Police Department?

      Was the motive personal? Professional?

      Why were the clues collected from the crime scene so sketchy? Why were there no suspects in custody? Why the hell didn’t homicide already have a man behind bars for this travesty?

      Atticus’s skin crawled with the need to find answers.

      But for right now, he’d sit here amongst the gathering of family, friends and fellow cops, and pretend he had everything under control—for his mother’s sake.

      Holden finished the song, placed his KCPD hat back on his head and raised a white-gloved hand to salute their father. Atticus pressed his own hand over the Kansas City Police Department badge clipped to the pocket of his dark-blue dress uniform, feeling the black mourning ribbon beneath his palm like the slash of a knife straight through the heart that lay beneath. But a hand over his heart was the only outward sign of grief he allowed himself to show.

      He heard a noisy sniffle behind his right shoulder and glanced up to see his father’s administrative assistant, Brooke Hansford, wiping away the tears beneath her thick, owl-like glasses. Brooke had been his father’s organizational and technological savior at work. And though he’d always figured she was about his age—thirty—she looked young and fragile and completely vulnerable with her pale cheeks and red-tipped nose.

      Lacking a second handkerchief to give her, Atticus waited until her puffy gaze met his and he offered her a wink. Brooke responded with a hasty smile and a loud sniff before ducking her head to dig into her oversize purse—for a tissue, no doubt.

      Yeah. The bastard who’d killed John Kincaid had robbed a lot СКАЧАТЬ