we could get it. I suspect a newspaper article would do as well, though.”
“She has clippings.” Lucy was quiet for a moment. He pictured her face with its soft, round chin and a mouth that had struck him as feminine rather than sultry. For some reason, he imagined her biting her lower lip. “She put them in her photo album after the last picture she has of her and her mother together.”
Well, damn. He didn’t like to think of the girl sitting alone in her bedroom—in a foster home, no less—flipping through that album. He wondered if she did often. Every night? Gazing at her mother’s face, desperate to be sure she never forgot it. Turning the last, stiff page to the black-and-white newspaper clippings. Had the paper printed a picture of Sierra’s mother?
“How did she die?” he asked.
“Drunk driver. Middle of the afternoon, not even nighttime. He pulled out to pass someone who was daring to go the speed limit and hit Sierra’s mom’s car head-on.”
“Hell.”
“He wasn’t even badly hurt.” Outrage was evident in her voice.
“Too often, drunk drivers aren’t.” He hesitated. “What was her name?”
“Rebecca Lind. She went by Becky.”
Jon vaguely recalled the accident. County deputies had responded and arrested the other driver. He was engulfed again by the stunning feeling of unreality. What if he’d known at the time that Becky Lind might be the mother of his child? A woman he’d never met. He shook his head. He’d made…what? Two hundred bucks over the course of his several donations? A pittance. Not worth it.
But then, Sierra wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t. Or she wouldn’t be Sierra—she’d be someone else, with a different father. And he suspected she was a remarkable girl. So maybe it wasn’t so bad, what he’d done. He felt weirdly…protective. As if he hadn’t liked the notion that he could have been responsible for her failing to be born. Jon heard himself make a sound that might have been a laugh, but came closer to the sharp exhalation of air a man made after a fist to the gut.
“Sierra has a birth certificate?” he said finally.
“Yes, of course. She had to produce it to get a driver’s permit.”
“She’s driving?” He didn’t know why that shocked him.
“With me. She didn’t get into driver’s ed last semester, so she’s taking it this fall. That’s the only reason she doesn’t have a license.”
“How’s she doing behind the wheel?”
Lucy’s chuckle tripped down his backbone like dancing fingers. It was closer to a giggle—young, yet just husky enough to remind him she was a woman. “Not well. She scares me to death. She’s, um, not as coordinated as she could be. She always looks down when she moves her foot to the brake or the gas. I can’t seem to break her of it.”
He grinned, even though he was wincing, too. “You’re a brave woman.”
“Not brave enough to let her out on the highway yet.” There was a tiny silence, and her laughter was gone. “Especially after what happened to her mom.”
After a moment he said, “She’s brave, too, to be willing to drive so soon after her mom was killed behind the wheel.”
“That’s probably part of the reason she’s so stiff driving. She wants the independence, but…”
But. He got that. Warring impulses. Sierra Lind, he thought, was indeed courageous. He was more than a little surprised to realize a part of him half hoped she was his child.
“Poor kid,” he said softly.
“Yes.” Stoutly Lucy said, “I can drive Sierra to Seattle tomorrow afternoon. She can show her ID and the newspaper clippings. It would be awkward if the two of you went together, especially if it turns out you’re not her father.”
He supposed it would, but found that he was a little disappointed. He would have liked to see both woman and girl again.
Jon frowned when it crossed his mind that Lucy might be married. But wouldn’t she or Sierra have referred to the husband if there was one? There wasn’t a live-in boyfriend, or she couldn’t have gotten licensed as a foster parent. Did she have other foster kids, or had she known Sierra and gotten licensed specifically to take her? He wanted to ask his questions, but knew the timing wasn’t right. If Sierra was his daughter, he’d be getting to know Lucy, too. If she wasn’t…
Determination firmed in him. He would find out whether Lucy was single, and if she was, he’d ask her out.
He was both thoughtful and irritatingly aroused when he said good-night and ended the call.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN HIS CELL PHONE RANG, Jon was in the middle of a conference with two commanding officers of the SWAT team, who were requesting new-and-improved weaponry and body armor. After glancing at the screen on his phone, he said, “I need to take this,” and stood, walking to the window to answer the call. “Brenner.”
“This is Lucy Malone. I just wanted to let you know that Sierra and I have done our part.”
“Good,” he said. “Did you have to take the day off work?”
“I got someone to cover for me.”
He realized he didn’t know what she did for a living. If he hadn’t had two men waiting right behind him, he might have asked. “All right. I’ll be in touch.”
Ending the call, he walked to the table. “Let me look at the budget. I don’t know if I can okay your whole shopping list, but I’ll do what I can. Now I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me.”
Lieutenant Stevens looked faintly surprised at the abrupt dismissal, but said only “Good enough.”
Stevens, Jon thought, was an ambitious man, but also fair with his officers, smart and diplomatic. He was Jon’s choice to take over his own current position if he won the election. He was less sure he believed Sergeant Clem Hansen had what it took to be in charge of the team as Stevens’s replacement.
Jon was still mulling over the problem ten minutes later when he drove out of the multilevel county parking garage. SWAT members had to make tough decisions. He wanted someone with a cool head and a good sense of public perception to be leading them. The men respected Hansen, but he made Jon uneasy. For one thing, he seemed to enjoy being deliberately crude in front of female officers. Stevens had called him on it, and he’d excused himself by saying they should be treated the same as the men. If they weren’t tough enough, they didn’t belong on the job. Plainly, he didn’t think they did. There were no women on the team; the sheer physicality of the requirements had so far kept the few women who’d applied from qualifying. But if Hansen felt contempt for women in general, it would affect his decisions as commanding officer.
Thinking about Clem Hansen led Jon into consideration of some of the other personnel shifts he had in mind. He’d passed Boeing Field on I-5 before he let himself think about why he was taking a couple of hours in the middle of the day to drive into Seattle. His fingers flexed on the steering wheel and he realized he had
