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Kendall climbed out of the cab. The old neighborhood looked the same, but smaller than she remembered it, older. The sidewalks were crumbling, the commercial buildings all in need of fresh paint to cover time's march forward. Maybe she was the one who'd changed. She'd grown up.

Tramping down a wave of panic, she stared at Seth's shop across the street. She hadn't spoken to him in years. Not since Mercy Hospital, the night of Jake's car accident where his emotions had boiled over.

She put her backpack on her shoulder and stepped into the street. It was hard to imagine bringing Brian along on this mission, but ditching him hadn't been easy. Thank goodness Andrew had picked her up after she gave him the slip. They'd had eight hours to catch up on five years' worth of living.

Putting one foot in front of the other, she crossed the street. It was going to be tough to face Seth Parker. Maybe time had cooled his anger.

A number of cars were parked in the front lot. Both the garage doors were down, but an "open" sign sat in the window next to the front door.

She strolled across the parking lot and entered the front office. A blast of air conditioning worked to cool her cheeks, but it couldn't fix the pucker of nervousness in her stomach. She glanced around the familiar office and read the sign that hung over the front counter, OUR CREDIT MANAGER IS HELEN WAIT, SO IF YOU WANT CREDIT, GO TO HELL'N WAIT.

Through the glass in the connecting door she could see a man work his way back and forth between his toolbox and a car with its hood up. Seth Parker.

Kendall took a breath, remembering the nights she'd helped Seth and Jake take a car down in two hours. Cars she'd stolen. Undoing the tangle of emotions tying her in knots, she pushed open the door.

Her legs shook as she moved toward him. She swallowed, rehearsing the words she'd work over, but her mind went blank when he rose and stared at her.

She stopped. Frozen to the floor.

Seth rubbed his greasy hands on a rag hanging out of his coveralls' pocket. "What do you want? I'm busy."

"I can see that." Sweat leached onto her palms. "I'm sorry for what happened to Jake. I had no idea he'd take my dare. I would have stopped him..."

In three steps he was on her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her upper arms. "The hell you would've! You egged him on, you pushed him because he loved you. Jake would have done anything for you, Kendall. You're nothing but a tease." He pushed her.

She stumbled backward from the force, her balance challenged by his shove. She hit something solid. Something human. Brian.

"Hey, man, don't push my girl around."

He held her tight against him. She relaxed, a surge of relief moving inside her coupled with the tingle of tension his closeness sparked.

"Who the hell are you?" Seth asked, his stance loaded with menace. He pushed his sleeves up and prepared for a fight.

Brian tensed against her. The butt of his gun pressed into her side. Concern zipped through her.

"Brian. Brian Thompson. Kendall here says you're the best takedown artist in New Orleans. That true?"

Seth's attitude changed. He put his hands on his hips and stared straight at Brian. Seth had never been one to pass up the opportunity to juice up his bank account. Brian had him pegged.

"Suppose I am. What do you have in mind?"

"I've got a couple of high-end Beamers coming in next week with a guy named Otis. I'd like 'em cut and wrapped in, say...a weekend. Could you handle it?"

Seth's cocky half smile faded like an old Polaroid. "Not interested."

"What difference does five seconds make?" Brian nudged Kendall aside and stepped toward Seth.

Seth shot a glance at her and looked back at Brian.

"He's cool," she insisted. He'd always trusted her in business deals, just not with his baby brother.

"Look." Seth ran the grease rag over a wrench. Not even the constant movement could hide the tremble of his hands. Seth Parker was scared? Kendall focused on his face. She'd never seen him like this. "Otis is tight with some nasty people. I don't want any trouble. I take things down, that's it. Details aren't for me." He laid the polished tool on the radiator of the car. "You should back off. Guys in his circle stop breathing."

"If you know something, spill it. I don't want any trouble. I like air. If I need to ditch my transaction, it's okay."

Seth looked around and swallowed. "Otis is mixed up with some wicked man. Word on the street is, the contact is a cop, or something."

"Are we talking cars?"

"Yeah, but they're special. I don't know what kind of trade they're running, but I like the smell of smuggling."

"Maybe I better end our association. There are lots of other grabs out there and a flashy car on every corner."

"I would. Hey, if you need a takedown from anyone but Otis, let me know." Seth nodded toward Kendall. "You seen Jake lately?"

Kendall internally squirmed underneath the question. Brian was looking at her now, waiting. "A couple of weeks ago."

"I haven't been over to see him. Those places give me the creeps."

"Me, too." She took Brian's hand and gave it a tug in attempt to signal it was time to leave, but he didn't budge.

"Jake? Who's Jake?"

A fever flared inside of her, pushed out by fear. Fear that her secret would be opened like a block, that Brian would be able to read it aloud, condemn her as she condemned herself.

"My brother...Jake's my brother." Seth cast a hard look at her, turned back to the car and ducked his head under the hood. "If you want details, ask her."

She was thankful for the slim measure of honor Seth had shown. No one wanted to hear stories about their girlfriend from someone else.

Brian was on the move. He took her hand as they left the shop. By the time he got her to his car, his grip had tightened until her fingers stung.

He pinned her against the driver's side door with his body. "What's wrong with you, McKinley? You think you can ditch me and go this one alone?"

"How'd you find me?"

"Good investigative skills and ears like a wolf. I heard you ask Andrew about Seth."

"I'll have to whisper next time." She tried to relax with the full frontal feel of his body against hers, but it was impossible. He was too close, too intense. She looked away from his hot sapphire stare, but he pulled her chin back into alignment with his fingers.

"You heard what he said. Whittley's mixed up with some bad people. We've already had a taste of what they like to dish out. Do you think they'd mind killing you?"

She sucked in a deep breath and tried to avoid giving in to the surge of heat working its way through her body. "I have a history with Seth. I didn't want to talk to him with you breathing down my neck. It's not a crime. I'm not your prisoner."

His expression hardened. He looked at her in a strange way. Somewhere between focused and fuzzy. Her words seemed to bounce off him, as he stared at her lips then back into her eyes.

Kendall heard the front door of the shop slam shut and saw Seth pause outside to watch them from across the street.

"Keep your voice down." Brian gave him a sideways glance and lowered his mouth to hers. "It's showtime."

Realization hit her at the same time their lips met. Lust burned into her and heated her body to white-hot. She put her arms aorund his neck and arched against him, eliciting a soft rumble of a moan from deep in his throat. She tried to control her breathing but she was out of control.

Brian pulled back too soon and she felt him shudder. His eyes glowed with surprise. She watched him swallow and run his hand over his head. Over his right shoulder, she saw Seth go back inside, heard the decisive slam of the door.

"Damn, Kendall. You make me crazy." He stepped back from her as if distance would somehow help him regain his composure. "I hope he bought it, because in my line of work, phony will get you dead. Is that what you want?"

She didn't want him dead. Not when Brian had just made her realize how alive she was. "I want to get these guys. I want to go and pick up my son and I want the world to forget that I'm a McKinley...I want you to forget."

Like a cloud passing across the sun, his face darkened. "It's not that simple. You have no idea what your family took from me."

Anger squeezed her insides and the words spilled out. "Then why don't you tell me, Officer Littrell, you tough cop. What have you got against me, besides a junkyard full of car parts? I've never done anything to you. Nothing."

The outburst jolted him, but his expression remained fixed. "What do you know about an accident on the north end May 10, 2000...a hit-and-run that killed a woman and a little girl?"

"Is this some sort of interrogation?" She swallowed.

"Just answer the question." His face went pale. He looked suddenly older, painfully tired and she resisted the need to touch him, then the force of his question slammed into her, head-on. Mentally she repeated the date seared into her mind, forever. Her hand went to her mouth to cover the horror she felt leak from her bones.

Brian's hands were on her forearms. She could feel him tremble, feel a flood of emotion rack his body, but his face was placid, flat. "You do know something." He shook her slightly. "Don't deny it, Kendall. Tell me."

"That's why you won't leave me alone. You think I had something to do with your wife and daughter's deaths? That's what this is about? You suspect me?" She searched his face for clues, a glimmer of recognition. Did he know she'd been there that night?

His eyes turned slate grey and darkened, as if going over the memory required a dive into deeper water. "Word hit the street right after it happened. The rumble incriminated the McKinleys in a boost that night. I've been after them ever since." He blinked several times and released her.

"They're ghosts, phantoms, smoke. Then I found you in the storage unit and I knew for the first time I had someone who could lead me to the person who ran them down. You don't know what it's like to spend your life in a fight for justice. Wanting it so bad you wear it like skin. I finally had a flesh-and-blood McKinley."

His confession jabbed into her heart and left it to bleed. She wanted to run, run as far away as she could. Run from the pain he exuded, pain that mirrored her own. Guilt was tying them together, carefully laced knots that trapped them both in threads of the past.

She reached for him, hesitantly, not sure if he would come, but he did. His arms went around her and he buried his face in her hair.

Her throat tightened with emotion and she closed her eyes against the flow of tears. She comforted him, as she would Kaden. An injured boy in a man's body. Battered by loss, changed by life. She had to help him. She had to prove him wrong. Could someone in her family drive over two people and live with themselves?

"I'll help you, Brian. I'll do whatever you want me to."

Brian pulled back and searched her face for the truth. His heart was rubbed raw by the honesty he read in her expression, the slight crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the glow of moisture in them. His heart zig-zagged and settled back into a calm rhythm.

At that moment he knew he could trust her, with his life if he had to. But nothing was free. He'd have to earn her trust in return. He'd have to level with her, no secrets.

"Why don't we start with that list of yours? I'd like to see the homes where you repoed the other cars. You never know what memory might be jarred if you return to the scene."

"Brian."

He looked at her upturned face. She managed to stir his emotions and climb under his skin. "Yeah?"

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Thanks."

"I'm going to ask Andrew to check into it. I can't promise he'll turn anything up, but it's worth a try."

Tension built between his shoulder blades. "I don't want to know anything about how or where he gets the information. I'm sworn to uphold the law."

She squeezed his arm. "Fair enough."

He couldn't shake the feeling there was more she'd wanted to say. Her reaction to the date had been instantaneous. Given time, would she tell him what she knew about that night? "Let's get out of here."

***


"Is this the place?" Brian craned his neck and stared through the windshield at the big house in the middle of the Garden District.

"This is where I snagged Romaro's Mercedes."

"Let's have a look." He climbed out of the car and made the sidewalk before Kendall even opened the door.

She watched him move up the steps and felt a wave of spontaneous heat generate inside of her. He moved like a cat, like an exotic beast. Beautiful, primed and lethal, but for all his fight, it was his tender heart that made her own twist in her chest.

"Looks empty." He stood on the front porch and peered into a window. "Not a stick of furniture. Just like my first apartment."

Kendall put her runaway thoughts back on track and joined him on the porch. "The car was in the driveway." She pointed to the spot where the shiny red Mercedes convertible had sat, like a maraschino cherry on top of a banana split.

"Do you know who owns this place?" she asked as she moved down the stairs and worked her way around to the back of the house.

"Don't know, but I'm going to find out. I'd like to tie all the repo sites to one person. He'll have a lot of explaining to do."

She tried the back door and was surprised when the knob turned in her hand.

"You've got a thing for unlocked doors, don't you?"

"I do what works."

They entered the rear of the house. A short hallway lined with storage cupboards opened into a large kitchen. The place was spotless. Too clean.

"Look at this." She spotted a business card on the counter near the sink. "It's a management company. Do you suppose they handle this property?"

"We'll see." He took the card and dialed the number on his cell phone. "Hi, I was wondering if you manage a property?" He rattled off the address and paused, casting a long slow look at her. "Great. Who does? I see...thanks."

He ended the call and closed the phone. "She wasn't at liberty to disclose the information. We'll get a subpoena for the records. We'll look around, but I doubt there's any evidence of Romaro left in here. It's been secured, probably rented since he used it."

They walked through the rest of the house, room by room. "I need his cleaning lady's number."

"You do okay."

"Thanks." He shot her a smile that showed a flash of white teeth and her emotions rocketed again.

"Let's go downtown. I've got to talk to Schneider. See what he's come up with."

"Do you think there's a link between Romaro and Otis, besides me?"

"One's dead, one's missing, presumed dead, and just to make it more interesting another deadbeat was caught in Michigan making a run for the Canadian border driving a two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollar Maserati, holding a suitcase full of cash."

"You're kidding..."

"Would I kid you?" He smiled in a wicked fashion. "Orlando Durant is fighting extradition back here for grand theft auto. What do you know about him?"

"Nothing really, but that's a name you don't forget." She scanned the list to refresh her memory. "It was a Jag. I think it was maroon. I took it in broad daylight over on Vivian."

"Do you remember anything unusual about him, the car or the house?"

"Have you ever seen a maroon car with pink seats?"

"Not exactly stock, huh?"

"Far from it. The rest of the interior was maroon leather, just the seats were different. They'd been replaced."

Brian looked at her for an instant and she saw the spin of his cop-wheeled brain. "That's it, Kendall. Smuggling, like Seth said, but what was in those cars?"

"Drugs maybe? I don't know. All of the cars were imports."

"Did all the cars go to the same lender?"

"Yeah, Dallas Savings and Loan."

"What was the payoff on those repos, how much?"

"Five thousand, on delivery."

A small tic worked his jaw. "You never thought that was excessive?"

The angle of his question was sharp. Worse yet was the shame that hatched in her mind. "It occurred to me, but the paperwork was legit. How was I supposed to pass on that kind of money? I have Jake to take..." Her tangent had betrayed her, gotten the better of her ability to keep him secret, keep him tucked away, out of sight, out of mind.

"His name has come up a lot. Who is he?" She couldn't escape Brian's searching gaze, couldn't run.

She swallowed the first words of denial that tried to get up her throat. "Kaden's father. Seth's brother. Jacob Parker."

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it? The only thing I can't understand is why you talk about him like he lives on the moon."

"He may as well." She fanned a heat wave of guilt. "He's in a nursing home. He's twenty-eight. A quadriplegic."

"What happened?"

"It was an accident, a rollover in a stolen car." A car she'd dared him to take. "He was ejected, suffered a broken neck and brain damage. He's on a respirator, unable to move. Messed up. It's the least I can do to pay the bills. That's why I need the money. I want him to have the best."

Brian felt a zing of jealousy zap him, then disappear. Kendall was good; Jake was a lucky man to have her watching out for him. Loving him? Did she still?

"That's noble stuff." He moved down the steps, but he had the feeling there was more to her admission. The state could be picking up the tab. Why did she need to do it?

He opened the car door for her. "Let's roll past the rest of those addresses." They climbed into the car and Brian fired the engine. She was quiet sitting in the passenger seat. Revealing emotional baggage could take it out of you and he planned to give her lots of space. He couldn't get too close without getting involved.

"Why don't you work some of that McKinley magic and see if you can find anything out about those pink seats?" He cast a sideways glance at her and pulled into traffic. "It's not exactly a desirable color unless you like Barbie and a greasy takedown artist wouldn't forget that anytime soon."

"You're right. I'll call Andrew. He still has friends in the business who might remember."

"Still?"

"Yeah. I don't know if your fancy computers spit that piece of information out, but my brother is clean. He got his law degree six years ago. Well over the statue of limitations on grand theft auto."

Brian braked at an intersection and glanced in his rearview mirror. Several car lengths behind them trailed a black car with dark tinted windows.

The light changed, he stepped on the gas pedal and switched lanes just past the intersection. The black car followed.

"Sorry, Kendall. I can't stop being a cop because you want me to."

"I don't want you to. I just want you to stop judging my family."

"Fair enough."

"Next stop, 4060 Lindstrom. Nathan Morris."

He turned right onto Beaux. The black car took the turn, but kept its distance.

"What make was that car you saw across from your house...the one with the tinted windows..."

"Honda. Why?"

"Flip down the vanity mirror."

She pulled down the visor and adjusted it so she cuold see out of the rear window. "That's it! That's the car."

Brian sped up and changed lanes again, tracking the car on their tail in the rearview mirror. Kendall was tense. He could see the stiffness in her shoulders. He reached out and touched her. "It'll be okay. We'll drag him around for a bit."

Working his way through town, he moved closer to the freeway and out of the neighborhoods. There was no way to tell how aggressive the driver would get, or what he was willing to do to keep up.

Brian hammered the gas pedal and zinged onto I-10. The traffic was sparse and he pushed the V-6.

"I don't like this, Brian."

"I don't like it, either." He watched the little black car struggle to keep up. "Dispatch, 557."

"577, go ahead."

"I'm in need of a black-and-white. I'm being tailed by a late model, Honda Accord. Black. I'll try to get a plate number."

"Copy 557, unit 34 is southbound headed your way."

"Copy. Advise him to stay back."

"Affirmative."

Brian let off the gas pedal. "Hang on, Kendall, I'm going to reel him in, see if I can get a look at his plates."

She nibbled her lip and gave him a sideways glance. On the opposite side of the freeway a police car with its lights flashing pulled onto the median and accelerated in behind the Honda.

Every passing second her heart rate climbed. What did the driver want? She glanced at the speedometer and held her breath. Brian was slowing down. Drawing the driver in.

"Here he comes."

In a split second the black car was on them. "Dispatch, 7638D as in..."

Brian's words ended abruptly. The rapid shift in gravity threw her forward. Metal on metal ground into her mind.

The tires squealed on the pavement. The impact of the forced collision jerked her body hard to the left.

"Hang on!"

Fear infused her; her pulse pounded in her ears. She fought to control the terror that jetted through her like lightning.

In slow motion, she looked over at Brian as the car spun and ground onto the shoulder. Dirt and gravel peeled over the windshield.

Brian's expression was intense as he tried to control the car to keep it from rolling.

In a flash it was over.

He didn't look at her until they'd come to a stop in a cloud of dust. "You okay?"

She sat up. "Yes..."

The black-and-white sped by, siren blaring.

"You got the plate number?"

"Yeah."

A sob built in her throat, but she blinked back the tears.

"Dispatch, 557. Advise unit 34 to stand down. We got his plate number."

"Copy, 557."

She undid her seat belt and slid toward him. She wanted to feel safe. Wanted his arms around her.

He accepted her and pulled her against him, smoothed her hair away from her face with his fingers and whispered against her ear. "Someone wants to hurt you and I won't let it happen. I promise."

The jingle of his cell phone dispelled the moment and she found the courage to pull away.

"Littrell..." There was a long pause before he spoke again. "When?" He continued to watch her as she settled into her seat and fastened her seat belt.

"I'll be right there." He closed his phone and put the car in gear. "They found Otis."