it wasn’t exactly the smooth start Joe wanted for this particular investigation. While undercover, he’d been made quite easily—by his subordinate, no less. And then that subordinate had frisked him.
He was sorry to say the frisking had been more enjoyable than it should have been.
Far more.
“The chief assigned you this case?” Katelyn O’Malley asked, following him.
Since he’d already made that perfectly clear, and since he detected some resentment in her voice, he surmised that she’d heard him correctly but wasn’t in agreement with the chief’s decision.
Joe stopped at the edge of the narthex and pressed the transmitter of the communication device hidden in his jacket. “Did anyone come in the church in the past three minutes?” he asked the backup officer who was positioned in an office building directly across the street.
“No.”
So they’d been lucky. Katelyn O’Malley’s stunt hadn’t allowed the sniper to walk in unchallenged. Of course, if the killer followed the method of operation of the last shooting, he or she wouldn’t burst into the church until the I do’s had been said. There’d be a frenzied battery of gunfire from a ski-mask-wearing shooter who wouldn’t actually enter the sanctuary but would stay in the narthex and then make an easy getaway. Just the way it’d happened to the victims, Gail Prescott and Raul Hernandez.
Joe clicked off the transmitter and glanced back at Detective O’Malley.
She was staring at him as if he were a member of the fungus family.
Too bad he couldn’t say the same for her.
She was attractive. Damn attractive. Not like a beauty queen either, but in a strong, athletic, kick-butt sort of way. The girl-next-door meets Buffy type.
The type he found attractive.
And no amount of denial would make his body think otherwise. Fortunately, the parts of his body that noticed her attractive looks didn’t have any say in the decisions he made.
“There’s been some kind of mistake.” She jammed her gun back into her holster. “After the initial investigator dropped out because of family illness, I requested this case, and I was told my request was under consideration.”
“It was,” Joe calmly assured her. “But the considering part is finished now, and I’m the lead investigator. End of discussion.”
There was nothing calm about her response. He saw some fire dance through ultraclear, cool green eyes. He’d obviously stepped on her toes, toes encased very nicely in a pair of sex-against-the-wall stilettos.
Something else about her that he truly wished he hadn’t noticed.
Joe quickly pushed that, her physical attributes and the remnants of the frisking aside. What the devil was wrong with him anyway? Even if he’d been looking to spice up his love life, he darn sure wouldn’t have been looking in Katelyn O’Malley’s direction.
“I knew the woman who was killed last week,” she added.
As if that would help her cause.
“Gail Prescott,” Joe supplied. “You went to high school with her and you’ve maintained occasional contact with her and her family. You probably would have attended her wedding even if you hadn’t been on a stakeout. Your relationship with the victim, however, doesn’t give you priority in this investigation. In fact, it does just the opposite. I don’t care to work with an officer who comes into a case with a personal chip on his or her shoulder.”
She unclenched her teeth before she could speak. “There’s no personal chip, Sergeant. Just my desire to bring a killer to justice.”
“Good. Then, we’re in agreement. I have that same desire, but that doesn’t mean I’ll allow you to be part of this case.” But the moment the words left his mouth, Joe remembered a vital point that had come to mind. “By the way, why’d you stake out this particular church?”
The fire in those baby greens dwindled a fraction. She pulled back her shoulders as if preparing to defend herself and met him eye-to-eye. In those heels, she could almost manage it, even though he was just over six feet tall.
“Because the bride and groom met through the Perfect Match Agency, the same matchmaking service that Gail and her fiancé used,” she explained. “They both also had the same florist. I thought there might be a connection so I contacted the minister here at the church—”
“You told him about this possible connection?”
“No. Of course not. There’s only been one shooting, and I have no proof that there’ll be another one. I didn’t want the couple to bring a possible lawsuit against the department for disrupting their wedding, so I simply reminded the minister of some recent robberies in the area and offered my services as a temporary security guard. He agreed, and we came up with the idea of using the guest registry as my cover.”
So she’d done her homework. He liked that. But this wasn’t a time when Brownie points counted. “The florist and Perfect Match could be a coincidence. There are other possible angles.”
“Yes. Gail’s fiancé was Hispanic, so the shooting could have been racially motivated. Or maybe their deaths are linked to some other aspect of their personal lives.” She paused. “But I don’t believe that, and apparently neither do you, or you wouldn’t have come here today.”
Touché.
Joe fought back an urge to smile. Under different circumstances, he might have enjoyed this verbal sparring, but these weren’t different circumstances. Katelyn O’Malley would be in his way, because despite her denial, this case was personal for her. In his experience, when it got personal, people made mistakes.
That wasn’t going to happen on his watch.
“I came here to follow up on one particular theory. One theory of several,” he assured her.
Joe checked the entryway. No new guests, and the others had already moved into the church. He could hear the organ start to play, an indication that the bride and groom were about to make their entrance.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be their last.
Katelyn huffed. “I know those theories as well as you—”
“Caucasian male is approaching the church,” the backup officer said through Joe’s communicator.
That, and the sound of hurried footsteps, interrupted whatever else she was about to say. Frantic footsteps that sent them both reaching for their guns. In the same motion, she stepped into the hallway beside him. However, the threat for which they’d braced themselves didn’t materialize.
Judging from the strong family resemblance, the man who came into sight was Sergeant Garrett O’Malley. His gun was already drawn, but he held it discreetly by his side so it wouldn’t easily be seen.
“Katelyn, what’s going on?” her brother demanded.
Because Joe was standing arm-to-arm with her, he felt her muscles relax.
“False
