The Protector by Jule McBride

Author:Jule McBride
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

6

“STEELE?” Judith murmured in surprise the next day when he knocked on her office door. Her chin abruptly lifted from a stack of papers on her desk, and she stared at him over the rims of rectangular-framed black reading glasses he’d never seen her wear before. Her eyes narrowed, and he could tell she was trying not to react. “Steele,” she said again. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t come to my office. What brings you downtown?”

“Nice to see you, too.”

“It’s not nice to see you,” she retorted. “We could get in trouble for this.”

As Sully swept inside, tossing a navy sport coat to a chair and shutting the door, he could see Judith truly wasn’t happy about his visit. Well, he hadn’t expected her to be. Just as he hadn’t expected to be told she’d requested paperwork allowing her to dig into his personal bank account.

He stared at her a long, murderous moment, barely registering the view through the slats of a window blind behind her: a courtyard separating the countless brick buildings comprising Police Plaza, a glimpse of the white stone mayor’s office and a sliver of the Brooklyn Bridge. He glanced around her office, taking in the neatly arranged shelves of leather-bound legal books and file cabinets.

Just as in Judith’s apartment, there was nothing extraneous in the office, nothing too telling. Sure, the apartment was luxurious, but it was also empty. No knickknacks, no frills. Judith was the only person Sully had ever met who had nothing but a bed in her bedroom. No, this wasn’t the first time he’d begun to think she was hiding something. Nat was still digging into her past, of course, and it was he who’d taken the call from Sully’s buddy, Dave Durant, in the warrants department. Dave was better known as Brave Dave, due to the fact that a few years ago, while working the beat as a street cop in Sully’s precinct, he’d had a bullet clip his forehead during a bust. The incident had prompted Brave Dave to take a desk job downtown.

“You want me to hold the paperwork, Steele?” Brave Dave had asked when he’d called. “Or let it go through?”

Figuring he had nothing to hide, Sully said, “Let it go through.”

“What’s she digging into your account for? Somehow, I don’t think this has to do with your old man.” Brave Dave had chuckled. “Sorry, but rumors fly fast. “Eddie—you know, the redheaded guy down in the criminal records department? He said he saw you and Lips last night, dressed to the nines and going into Jen Pang’s in Chinatown for dinner. I said that’s crazy. Sully and Lips have been like oil and water ever since she first hit Manhattan. But now…well, I’ve heard of women hiring P.I.’s to check out the finances of prospective husbands. I guess this is what happens when a man dates a prosecutor from Internal Affairs, right?”

“Long story,” Sully had replied, hardly in the mood to kiss and tell. “Maybe another time, Dave.

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