he could tell by her tone that she didn’t believe it. “There’s no heavy breathing or anything. Just silence. But I know someone’s there.”
“Have you thought of changing your phone number?”
He saw her unconsciously square her shoulders. That was the Lila he knew, he thought, pleased to see her emerge. “That would be running.”
“And you don’t run.” It wasn’t a question. He knew that from experience.
“No, I don’t.” Lila frowned. “Look, it’s my house. This—this person is invading it and I don’t know why.”
He asked the next logical question. “Have you told your kids about these phone calls?”
Her back was ramrod-straight, like a cadet coming to attention. “No. And you won’t, either.” Realizing that sounded as if she was ordering him around, Lila sighed and leaned back. She gave her own interpretation to his question. “You’re right. I’m making too big a deal out of this. It probably is some pervert. Just because he doesn’t breathe like someone who’s just run across the finish line of the Los Angeles Marathon doesn’t immediately exonerate him from being a weirdo.” She was on her feet again. “Sorry I bothered you.”
This time Brian stood up and moved in front of her, blocking her exit. “Is this a private conversation, or can anyone get in?”
Instead of laughing at the familiar assessment of her rapid-fire way of talking, for the first time since he’d known her, Lila McIntyre seemed flustered.
Chapter 2
“It’s all that emptiness,” Lila finally said after a long pause.
He’d been waiting for a response, but this didn’t seem to connect with anything. Brian resisted the urge to put his arm around her waist and guide her back to the chair she’d just vacated. Lila always balked at being controlled, at least when they had been partnered together.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
Brian probably thought she sounded scattered, she thought. Hell, there were times when she felt scattered. Lila did her best to explain.
“The house is empty. Except for Duchess,” she qualified. But although she loved the animal dearly, it just wasn’t the same as having someone around to talk to, someone’s presence to feel. She missed that, missed it something awful. People always talked about getting their lives back once their children moved out. But it just didn’t seem like a fair trade-off to her. Having her kids around was her life. “The kids are on their own.” She tried to make light of it. “Doesn’t bother me so much during the day, but in the middle of the night…” Her voice trailed off as she shrugged.
She was trying to dismiss it. But he wasn’t buying it. Lila wasn’t the kind of woman to be afraid of things that went bump in the night. “You don’t imagine the phone ringing.”
Her eyes met his. “No,” she replied quietly, “I don’t.”
“Then someone is calling you.” Maybe she’d be more inclined to talk about it away from here, where everything felt so official. “Listen, do you want to get a cup of coffee?”
The question caught her by surprise. Eight years ago she would have merely nodded her head. Back then, grabbing a cup of coffee with Brian was as natural as breathing. But in the last eight years, by her own design, their paths had not crossed with any regularity. She felt a bit awkward just coming to him like this. It was as if she were trying to open up a part of her past that was supposed to have remained closed.
So instead of saying yes, she tried to demur. “You don’t have to go out of your way.”
Brian wasn’t about to take no for an answer. As he’d told her a few minutes ago, there was nothing waiting for him at home and she made him curious. He’d always felt protective toward her, even though he knew there was a time when she would have skinned him alive if he would have voiced that out loud.
“I’m on my feet anyway, might as well walk toward the door.” He did just that as he spoke. Placing his hand on the doorknob, he waited for her to follow. “The coffee shop isn’t that far off.”
Her mouth quirked as fragments of memories swirled through her head. “Neither is O’Malley’s.”
O’Malley’s was where most of the detectives and uniforms at the station went to unwind and wash away some of the stench generated by the things they were forced to deal with. They did it so that they wouldn’t bring the job home with them.
Brian inclined his head and grinned. It had been a while since he’d been to the watering hole. “Even better.”
At that hour of the evening, O’Malley’s was fairly unpopulated. One shift was gone and the next had not gotten off work yet. Only those from the previous shift, who had no one to go home to, could be found nursing a beer or trying to beat the odds at a game of pool. For them, O’Malley’s was like a second home. At times, even better than the first.
Despite the lack of patrons and the dim lighting, Lila felt there was a cheerfulness about O’Malley’s. When she walked through the door, the bar seemed like an old friend who was happy to see her.
It had been a long while since she’d been here. The last time was when some of her friends had held an impromptu party, welcoming her back to the force. Against Ben’s wishes, she’d gone back to work five years ago, when Frank graduated high school. But the focus of their lives, hers and her friends, was different now. She spent her day behind a desk, fighting a paper war while the people she’d known ever since her academy days were still on the streets in one capacity or another, either as uniformed patrol or detectives. They no longer had that much in common. But she’d kept her rank even though the work she did now didn’t require the experience of a seasoned detective. At times she couldn’t help wondering if pity had played any part in her retaining her rank.
“Still looks the same,” Lila observed, more to herself than to the man beside her.
“That’s why Shawn keeps the lights down low.” As with the face of an old friend, Brian was so familiar with the place that, even after long absences, when he walked in, he really didn’t see it. “Table or bar?” he asked, shutting the door behind them.
“Table.”
“Table it is.”
His hand to the small of her back, Brian steered his ex-partner toward a booth near the back of the room. He sensed she wanted privacy. Otherwise, she would have opted for a stool at the bar, the way she used to do when they frequented the place together.
“Beer?” he asked her as she slid into the booth.
Nodding, Lila slipped her purse from her shoulder. “Sounds good.”
He caught himself watching as she took her seat. The woman still had the shapeliest legs he’d ever seen.
“Be right back,” he promised.
She watched Brian as he walked over to the bar and placed their order with the man who methodically passed a cloth over one glass and then another. The glasses were lined up like crystal soldiers before him along the bar. He had a few more pounds on him than
