Love by Association

Deciding that if she would be, she was going to change right then and there, Chantel Harris gave him a small smile. “I liked her, too. A lot.”

He nodded and knocked his knuckles on the table. “She’s the one who opened the door,” he said, his gaze meeting hers in the candlelight. Intimately. “Julie is a bit of a recluse...”

Was he trying to tell her Julie was agoraphobic? She tried to imagine that...

His struggle—what to say, what not to say, talking about his sister at all—touched her. She couldn’t help it. So she jumped in to help. “She seemed fine today...until the end there.” Maybe Julie was only mildly agoraphobic. Maybe with help...

“She is fine, more than fine, pretty much all the time. My sister’s a strong, independent woman who not only knows her own mind, but has little problem expressing it. She’s also generous almost to a fault and loves helping people.”

Relief flooded her. And she didn’t really even know these people. Nor was she going to be a real or significant part of their lives.

He topped off her wine. Drawing an imaginary line on the glass, marking how much he added, she knew she had to leave that much. One glass and that was it.

Not because the captain, or the job, said so. Undercovers did all kinds of things—joined in where they had to in order to not blow their cover. It had just been her own rule, laid down strictly to herself earlier that evening while she’d been donning the attire for the job.

She wished she had more cheese. Might even have been tempted to run her finger along the edges of the pot—to hell with the burn—if it had still been there. They’d removed it, returning with a different kind of pot filled with oil, which was presumably heating to a temperature that would sear meat.

Distraction was what she needed. Not more of those sincerely heart-stopping blue eyes giving her their full attention. She wasn’t as great as that look was making her feel.

“Julie sits on a couple of charitable boards and some committees. She attends meetings. It’s not that she has a problem with going out. She has a problem with who she might run into.”

Chantel sat up straight.

“Like Patricia Reynolds?”

Tilting his head for a second, he shrugged. “That was a new one.”

“So she has...like...hallucinations?” That wasn’t good. Probably worse than agoraphobia.

“No!” He gave her a twisted smile, then shook his head. “I’m trying so hard to be careful here, to protect her privacy, and instead I’m making it sound worse than it is.”

There were times when a cop needed to help her subject give her the information she needed.

And she needed to know about Julie now. She just did. Running the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip, she lifted her glass and at the last minute remembered to soften her voice. “So why not just tell me what’s going on? As you said, she opened the door...”

He nodded. Appraised her. If he gave her a genuine precious-metal test, she’d fail. And be miserable. Lifting her chin, she looked him straight in the eye. Intending to keep her silent promise to protect whatever he told her. To protect his sister. At all cost.

That was her job. To protect others.

“Ten years ago Julie was brutally raped.”

The quick intake of breath, the gasp, Chantel let loose was not ladylike. A passing waitress looked over at her.

She knew she was in over her head.

She also knew she had to learn fast how to swim. There was no other choice.

CHAPTER TEN

EVERY NERVE IN Chantel’s body stood up.

Leslie Morrison, probable victim of abuse, was friends with Julie.

Julie was certain the commissioner’s wife had been sent to watch over her because of a correlation being drawn between something that had happened to her and the recent revelation regarding Ryder and Leslie Morrison.

Whether that last was true or not, Chantel drew a correlation. Because Julie, who knew facts of both situations, had drawn her own.

Would finding out more about Julie lead her to the evidence she needed to save Leslie and Ryder Morrison from further harm?

It should. If she was connecting her dots right...

And what about sweet Julie? Colin’s baby sister?

Having some idea of what a girl felt like after she’d been morally and physically abused, Chantel wanted to cry for the woman she’d just met but cared about already.

“I don’t know what to say.” The words, Chantel Harris speaking for Chantel Johnson, were completely authentic. As was the pain in her voice.

Colin swallowed, appearing to do so with difficulty. The tightness in his jaw told the rest of the story.

“Did they catch the guy?” Could she have given them enough determiners? Did they get a good enough composite sketch? Was he convicted?