Silent Rescue. Melinda Di Lorenzo

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       Chapter 2

      Brooks took a sip of his espresso—now cold—and told himself he was being ridiculous. That he had an overactive cop imagination waving flags when none were necessary.

      For a second, though, he could’ve sworn the dark-haired woman was staring right at him. Scrutinizing him. Looking for something. Which she definitely didn’t find, judging by how quickly she bolted into the hotel.

      It bothered him, and he had no idea why. What was her deal? Was she actually in trouble? He wished he’d asked her.

      And say what? he wondered. Pardon me, ma’am, but are you looking for someone? Or no? Maybe hiding from someone? Yes, here in the middle of this street. No, no. Don’t call the cops.

      Brooks shook his head and took another icy gulp of coffee. Canadians were friendly—that characterization had turned out to be true—but he somehow doubted that gregariousness extended to a tolerance for on-leave cops from south of the border asking nosy questions.

      Still...

      The sudden buzz of Brooks’s cell phone jarred his attention back to the moment.

      “Small,” he said into the phone, his voice clipped.

      There was a familiar chortle on the other end. “Now, now. Don’t sell yourself short.”

      “Does that never get old for you, Masters?” he asked his longtime partner.

      “Never.”

      “At least one of us is getting a laugh.”

      There was a pause. “Not enjoying your vacation?”

      “It’s hardly a vacation.”

      “Civilian life.”

      “Barely that, either. Isn’t it, like, four in the morning there?”

      Sergeant Masters let out another chuckle. “Almost seven, actually. Finishing up the night shift.”

      “So you thought you’d call me?”

      “Oh, c’mon, Small. I hear the Great White North has plenty to offer.”

      “Like?”

      “Hockey? Canadian bacon? Girls looking for a warm-blooded American to melt their igloos?”

      Brooks rolled his eyes. “You’ve been watching too many movies, my friend.”

      “You’re telling me there isn’t one pretty girl in that entire country?”

      Brooks opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again as he lifted his eyes just in time to see the brunette step out of the hotel doors. The top button of her coat had come undone, exposing her creamy throat, and she appeared oblivious to the cold air.

      Yeah, he conceded silently. At least one pretty girl.

      “You there, man?”

      Brooks forced his attention back to the phone conversation. “What I’m telling you, Masters, is that there isn’t one single igloo here—meltable or otherwise—and quite frankly, I’m a little let down.”

      On the other end, his partner laughed so hard he sounded like he was choking. When his amusement finally subsided, he launched into some story about their captain. But Brooks was already distracted again, the long tale fading into the background.

      A man in a dark trench coat worn over a well-tailored suit was standing behind the woman. A poor-boy cap covered his head, a scarf obscured the bottom half of his face, and a pair of dark sunglasses blocked his eyes.

      A tingle crept up along Brooks’s spine, then settled between his shoulder blades.

      He’d tuned out Masters’s voice completely now, his attention focused entirely on the scene unfolding in front of him. He’d already set down his empty coffee cup. He kept his hands open and relaxed. He didn’t have to work on the pose at all. Years on the job—years of waiting patiently for the right moment while looking like he wasn’t waiting at all—bred a certain kind of readiness into a man. A second nature.

      Brooks’s eyes flicked to the man in the cap. Then to the brunette. Then back.

      The man leaned down and put his face at an even level with her ear. Brooks watched his mouth work silently above the scarf. Though he couldn’t hear a word, the intimacy of the conversation was obvious. Seconds later, the man put out his hand, palm up, and the woman reciprocated by placing her fingers in his.

      A gold wedding band—on the woman’s left hand, but not on the man’s—caught the cold sun and glittered.

      A total misread, Brooks realized.

      It wasn’t a criminal activity. It was an affair.

      He averted his eyes, embarrassed that he’d been so caught up in the brunette’s action that he’d attributed her nervousness to something dangerous, when in fact it was actually caused by something far more cliché.

      You need to get back to work. For real.

      “Masters,” he said loudly, interrupting the unending flow of the other man’s story and not caring in the least. “Did the captain say anything about when I can come home?”

      The silence on the other end was a bad sign. Clearly, something had been said, and whatever it was...the news wasn’t good.

      “C’mon,” his partner replied after a few weighted seconds. “Any of the guys would kill to be in your position. Paid leave in a foreign country? No collars to run down, no worrying about having some two-bit drug dealer shooting you in the—”

      Brooks cut him off. “I’ll take that as a no.”

      There was another pause, then a sigh. “We all know what hell you went through, Small. None of us would wish it on СКАЧАТЬ