street, plowing through a dip filled with dirty slush as they continued their daily patrol through the aging neighborhood. With houses and duplexes so close together that a person could barely walk between them, vehicles parked bumper-to-bumper against the curb and junk piling on porches and spilling into yards, this was a part of the city she knew far too well. Add in the branches of tall, denuded maple trees heavy with three months’ worth of snow arching over the yards and narrow streets, and Gina felt claustrophobic. As much as she loved Kansas City and her job as a police officer, she secretly wondered if she was the reincarnation of some Central American ancestor and was meant for living on the high, arid plains of her people with plenty of blue sky and wide-open space, without a single snowflake in sight.
Setting aside her own restless need to escape, Gina turned toward the passenger door to find some privacy for this personal conversation. “Did you call Sylvie?” she asked her great-aunt, once the older woman’s need to vent had subsided.
“She don’t answer.”
“What about Javi?” Her brother, Javier, was twenty-one, although that didn’t necessarily mean he was making better choices than Sylvie. She kept hoping for the day when he would step up as the man of the family and allow their great-uncle to truly enjoy his retirement. “Can he drive you?”
“He’s already gone. He’s picking up some extra hours at work.”
Well, that was one plus in the ongoing drama that was Gina’s life. Maybe so long as Javi was intent on saving up to buy a truck, he would focus on this job and avoid the influence of his former friends who’d made some less productive choices with their lives, like stealing cars, selling drugs and running with gangs. “Good.”
“Papi says he can drive,” Lupe Molina offered in a hushed, uncertain tone.
Gina sat up as straight as her seat belt and protective vest allowed. “No. Absolutely not. The whole reason he’s going for these checkups is because he passed out the last time his blood pressure spiked. He can’t be behind the wheel.”
“What do I do?” Lupe asked quietly.
As much as she loved her great-aunt and -uncle who’d taken in the three Galvan siblings and raised them after their mother had died, Lupe and Rollo Molina were now both close to eighty and didn’t need the hassle of dealing with an attention-craving teenager. Especially not with Rollo’s health issues. “I’ll call Sylvie. See if I can get her home to help like she promised. If you don’t hear from her or me in ten minutes, call the doctor’s office and reschedule the appointment for tomorrow. I’ll be off except for practicing for my next SWAT test on the shooting range. I’ll make sure you get there.”
“All right. I can do that. You see? This is where having a young man to help you would be a good thing.”
Gina rolled her eyes at the not-so-subtle hint. There was more than one path to success besides getting married and making babies. “I love you, Tia Mami. Adios.”
“Te amo, Gina. You’re always my good girl.”
By the time she disconnected the call, Derek had pulled the black-and-white into the coffee shop’s tiny parking lot but was making no effort to get out and let her deal with her family on her own. Instead, he rested the long black sleeve of his uniform on the steering wheel and grinned at her. “Sylvie off on another one of her escapades?”
Gina might as well fill in the blanks for him. “She’s supposed to be driving my uncle to the doctor. Instead, she’s cruising around the city with a young man who’s too old for her.”
Derek shook his head. “She does look older than seventeen when she puts on all her makeup.” He dropped his green-eyed gaze to her black laced-up work boots. “She’s got the family legs, too.”
Ignoring the gibe at her five-foot-three-inch height, Gina punched in Sylvie’s number. Then she punched Derek’s shoulder, giving back the teasing camaraderie they shared. “You’re eyeballing my little sister?”
“Hey, when you decorate the Christmas tree, you’re supposed to celebrate it.”
“Well, you don’t get to hang any ornaments on my sister, understand? She’s seventeen. You could get into all kinds of trouble with the department. And me.”
Derek raised his hands in surrender. “Forget the department. You’re the one who scares me. You’re about to become one of SWAT’s finest. I’m not messing with anyone in your family.”
The call went straight to Sylvie’s voice mail. “Damn it.” Gina tucked her phone back into her vest and held her hand out for Derek’s. “Could I borrow yours? Maybe if she doesn’t recognize the number, she’ll pick up.”
“That means I’ll have her number in my phone, you know. And Sylvie is a hottie.”
“Seven. Teen.” Gina repeated the warning with a smile and typed in her wayward sister’s number.
She’d barely been a teenager herself when her mother had passed away and their long-absent father had willingly signed away his parental rights, leaving the three Galvans orphans in No-Man’s Land, one of the toughest neighborhoods in downtown Kansas City. They’d moved out of their cramped apartment into a slightly less cramped house. Instead of prostitutes, drug dealers and gangbangers doing business beneath Gina’s bedroom window, they’d graduated to the vicinity of a meth lab, which KCPD had eventually closed down, at the end of the block. Naturalized citizens who were proud to call themselves Americans, her great-aunt and -uncle had stressed the values of education and hard work, and they’d grown up proud but poor. With her diminutive stature, Gina had quickly learned how to handle herself in a fight and project an attitude so that no one would mess with her family or take advantage of her. That hardwired drive to protect her loved ones had morphed into a desire to protect any innocent who needed her help, including this neighborhood and her entire city. But she couldn’t forget which side of the tracks the Galvans and Molinas had come from—and just how far she had to go to secure something better for them.
“Hey, don’t jinx the SWAT thing for me, okay?” A little bit of her great-aunt and -uncle’s superstitious nature buzzed through her thoughts like an annoying gnat she thought she’d gotten rid of. If she made Special Weapons and Tactics, the rise in status with the department and subsequent raise in pay would finally allow her to move her whole family into a house with a real yard in a safer suburb. She wasn’t afraid of setting goals and working hard to achieve them, but it was rare that she allowed anything so personal as wanting some open space to plant a proper garden or get a dog or owning a bathroom she didn’t have to share with four other people to motivate her. “I’m not the only recruit on Captain Cutler’s list of candidates for the new SWAT team he’s forming. There are ten people on a list for five spots. Including you.”
“Yeah, but you’re the toughest.”
“Jinxing, remember?” Gina crossed her fingers and kissed her knuckles before touching them to her heart, a throwback from her childhood to cootie shots and negating bad karma. “We all have our talents.”
“I’m just repeating what Cutler said at the last training meeting. McBride scored the highest at the shooting range. And you, my kickass little partner, are the one he said he’d least like to face one-on-one in a fight. Take the compliment.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to remind Derek that she wasn’t his little anything, but she was dealing with enough conflict already today. “You’re doing well, too, or you’d have been eliminated already. Captain
