Naughty Stranger (Dangerous Love 1)

Hank flipped the file open and looked through the documents for a moment. “Let me make sure I’ve got this all right. We’ve got a young woman found dead in a lingerie shop. The owner of that shop has no connection to the victim. We’ve got a safe broken into and emptied. Have I got that right?”

Asher finished the sip of coffee he’d taken and nodded. “Sounds right.”

Hank closed the file and handed it to Boone. “That’s a start. Keep me updated on this one.” To Asher, he said, “I’ve got something else for you to do this afternoon, if you can get away.” In other words, that meant that the chief had something sensitive. Asher was good with the sensitive matters. His father glanced sideways a

t Boone. “Stay on the sideline, all right? Let Rhett take the lead in case we go to trial.”

Boone nodded, fully aware of the conflict of interest. If it were up to him, the conflict of interest would become even greater soon.

Hank glanced at the victim again, sighed, then looked at Boone. “The newspaper is going to be all over this one. Keep your personal relationship out of it. No mistakes. A nice, clean investigation.”

Bonne accepted the order with a firm nod. Once, he’d allowed his emotions to cloud his judgment, a mistake he’d never let happen again. As his father left the office, Boone’s mind drifted back to the memory he kept close to ensure he never forgot to keep his head on right during an investigation.

The call came in at nine o’clock on Boone’s day off. The chief of police required a meeting immediately. Already on edge, Boone suspected something was up. But when he arrived at the station late in the morning, and no one would look him in the eye, Boone was convinced—trouble was brewing. He followed the chief of police into the interrogation room, locking eyes with the man leaning against the wall, arms folded over his fancy suit.

“Boone Knight?” the man asked.

Boone nodded, looking for any sign in the room of why he got called in. All he found was a file folder resting on the rectangular table screwed into the floor. “That’s right. And you are?”

The man moved forward, resting his hands against the back of the steel chair. “I’m FBI agent Nicolas Lomax. Take a seat.”

Boone glanced at the chief again, and he avoided Boone’s gaze, moving to the other wall, leaning against it, head bowed.

Suddenly the cold room with the gray painted walls and long one-way mirror seemed ever colder. “What’s this all about?” Boone asked, his jaw muscles twitching as he took a seat on the cool metal chair.

The Fed opened a file and placed a paper in front of Boone, pointing to a name. “Do you recognize the name?”

Scott Lovett. “Yeah, Scott’s my brother-in-law.” Boone glanced up, staring into the Fed’s eyes, not liking the way he looked at him like he was some two-bit criminal. “How about we skip the games and you tell me why you’ve brought me in here?” he demanded.

The Fed handed him another document. “You’re here because, interestingly enough, your brother-in-law made a half mill on the stock market yesterday.”

The floor dropped from under Boone, his fingers pressing tight against the table holding him steady as he inspected the financial document before him.

“And more importantly,” the Fed continued, “we’ve got evidence he’s doing insider trading, with information that likely came from you.”

The chief pushed away from the wall then. His gaze was strong on Boone, disappointment shining in his eyes. “There are two ways you’re walking out of here, Knight. One, taking a lie detector test to prove your innocence and explain how the fuck this happened. Two, in handcuffs. Take your pick.”

Boone had chosen option number one. He passed the lie detector test, and he’d returned to his hometown with his tail tucked between his legs, leaving Chelsea back in New York City, with his brother-in-law in jail, his marriage ruined, and all the good he’d done at the NYPD long forgotten. The stain of his brother-in-law’s actions had been all that anyone had seen after that.

For the past two years, he’d crossed every T and dotted every I to prove himself.

With a long sigh, he sidled next to Asher, studying the photograph. Being a detective was mostly instincts, and a little bit of smarts. And his instincts didn’t like how much the victim looked like Peyton. For his peace of mind, he asked Asher, “Did anything Peyton say in the interview make you believe she could possibly be a target here?”

“Not in the least.” Asher finished off his cookie, and as he chewed said, “I’m going to run a deeper search on her and see what lingers in her past.”

“All right.” Boone took a sip of his coffee to give himself a minute to process. First, he didn’t like the tension in his chest about having Peyton’s life dug into. Which made him damn glad his father didn’t make him lead on this case. Emotions clouded things, made the line oh so blurry, and that could mean a major fuck-up on a case. But there was also a tug deep in his chest, telling him to stay close to the case too. The matching appearance to the victim seemed to be a coincidence. Boone hated coincidences. But he’d learned long ago to keep everything filed away, not focus on one thing until all the facts came in. “What else do we know?” he pressed on.

“That I need that damn coffee, and those cookies are mine,” Rhett said, entering the room. He grabbed two cookies and his coffee from the tray, removed the lid, then took a long sip. “Francis’s family are good people.” He took a seat on the edge of the table, doing his thing by getting right to the heart of what he knew. “The father told me that she had been backpacking for the last year in Europe. She’d come home to save up more money to travel again to Germany.”

“What a damn shame,” Boone said, glancing at the photograph. The universe was often a cruel place. People even more so.

Rhett finished off another sip of his coffee, then said, “The father mentioned an ex-boyfriend we might want to take a hard look at.”

“You’ve got that?” Boone asked Rhett.

Rhett nodded. “Yeah.” To Asher, he asked, “You taking the lead here?”

“Nope, that’s you.” Asher turned away from the board. “The chief’s got another case for me. I’ll assist with Boone.”