“Trey,” she whispered and buried her head against his chest.

  He wrapped his arm around her, leaned his head toward hers, and whispered, “I’m so, so sorry, Linda.”

  She nodded and snared his gaze, her eyes red-rimmed from crying and shimmering with fresh tears. “Promise me you’ll get whoever did this.”

  “I promise,” he whispered and tightened his hold on her.

  A gentle touch came at his arm, and he met his father’s troubled gaze.

  “It’s time, mi’jo,” he said, and Trey peered toward the entrance to the church. Beyond the doors, a cadre of fellow officers waited beside the coffin draped with an American flag. Behind them, hundreds of police officers were lined up, hoping to enter the church and pay their last respects.

  With a nod and his father’s support, he tottered to the pew packed with Gonzalez family members and took a seat, his body shaky from his physical exertions; his emotions raw as the funeral procession began.

  How had this happened? As he’d lain in the hospital bed the last four days, counting the tiles in the ceiling, he’d asked himself that multiple times. Asked himself how they hadn’t seen the danger that night. Although his body sat in the church for the funeral, his mind drifted back to the night of the shooting, trying to make sense of all that had happened. Doug’s weirdness and inexplicable charge toward the armed man. The phone call from Eddie that had set the whole night in motion.

  Eddie who had yet to respond to any of the calls he’d made in the two days since waking up after his surgery.

  Had something happened to Eddie as well?

  He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t realize Mass was over until the others in his pew rose as the coffin started its trip down the aisle. Slowly he stood, leaning heavily on the cane and the top edge of the pew. Sweat ran down the back of his neck and his legs trembled, but he stayed upright until the coffin and Doug’s family left the church.

  Only then did he plop onto the pew and wipe sweat from his forehead. Gathering his strength, he waited as the crowds exited the building. He was about to rise when two men came to stand before his pew. They were dressed in dark wrinkled suits and as he looked up, he recognized them immediately. Anger erupted, but he tamed it, telling himself that the IAD detectives were only there to pay their last respects.

  “Detective Gonzalez. Our condolences on the loss of your partner,” the older man said, hands clasped before him in a familiar cop pose. But there was something in his gaze that Trey didn’t like.

  “Gracias, Detective Ramirez. Is that the only reason you’re here?” Trey said, and his father laid a hand on his shoulder in warning.

  “We understand it’s a bad time,” said the other man.

  “That’s an understatement, Detective Anderson,” Trey replied, disgust coloring his words despite the very real compassion in the second detective’s voice.

  “When you’re up to it, please give us a call.” Detective Ramirez reached into his pocket and extracted a business card. Trey took it without hesitation because he had nothing to fear from the two internal affairs officers.

  Despite that, Trey challenged them. “But don’t wait too long, verdad?”

  “The sooner the better, Gonzalez. We want to find out what happened to your partner as much as you do,” Ramirez responded, and before Trey could say anything else, the two men walked out, following the last of the mourners from the church. As they did so, the mournful sounds of bagpipes filtered in.

  As Trey rose, Roni slipped from her pew and stood in front of him. He met her gaze and it hit him. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

  Roni tilted her chin up at a defiant angle. “There were rumors around the precinct about an IAD investigation, but no one thinks you’re dirty.”

  It was also impossible to miss what she wasn’t saying—“But not Doug.”

  With a shrug, she said, “I’m not sure, but if you’re willing, I’m here to help.”

  He dipped his head and skipped his gaze over her beautiful features. As his gaze locked with hers, he detected a maelstrom of emotions beneath her calm exterior. “Why, Roni?”

  With another shrug, she said, “You’re familia, Trey. Family helps family.”

  She didn’t wait for his reply before turning on her heel and heading down the aisle of the church. As he watched her go, his father squeezed his shoulder and leaned into him, saying, “It’s going to be okay, mi’jo. We’ll help you get to the bottom of this.”

  Trey normally got defensive when his father offered his helpful and sometimes unwanted advice, but this was one time he wasn’t going to argue with him or refuse his help. He’d do anything to find out the truth behind his partner’s death. “Gracias, papi.”

  Trey leaned heavily on the cane as he slowly walked down the aisle and to their car for the long, sad trip to the cemetery. His mind bounced from one thing to another as he thought about the visit from Internal Affairs, his own doubts about his partner’s actions that night and Roni. So many unknowns to deal with and he hoped he’d be up to the challenge both physically and emotionally.

  * * *

  A FEW DAYS later Roni was at her desk when the wave of whispers rushing across the station like a tsunami warned her something was up. She glanced toward the entrance to find Trey walking in slowly. His color was better than it had been at the funeral, his tanned skin free of the unhealthy hospital pallor. His full lips were locked tight, and as a lock of his almost black hair tumbled onto his forehead, he brushed it back in obvious irritation.

  Her stomach did a little jump as he shot her an abrupt look. But then he was moving away into one of the interrogation rooms, and seconds later the two internal affairs detectives followed him in.

  When the IAD detectives had first reached out to her she had been hard-pressed to believe what they’d told her about Trey’s partner. Plus, it worried her that Trey had possibly missed what was going on with Adams. He had been involved in law enforcement for too long to miss something like that.

  As the third Gonzalez to serve in the Miami Beach PD, he was like law enforcement royalty. In the Cuban American community, the Gonzalez family and the private security and investigative agency they ran, South Beach Security, were local legends.

  In the days since that first meeting with IAD, she’d been unable to find out anything else about Doug’s activities and had reported that to the two detectives. But she couldn’t deny that there had been something off with Trey’s partner when she’d spotted him in the back room of the club that night. Doug had seemed pretty spooked that she’d seen him. She intended to discuss it with Trey once he was done with IAD. She had actually wanted to mention it to him earlier, but with his recovery and the funeral she had decided it was best to wait for a better time.

  Turning her attention to her current case, she reviewed the details of where the two students had gone missing and compared that to the testimony of the women who had been held captive in the shipping containers that Trey and Doug had discovered just barely a week earlier. She also compared it to the story that their sole earlier witness had provided. Their stories were similar, but not the same. The two Terminal Island women, both sex workers who generally covered the Ocean Drive area, had gone to one of the local clubs and met an interesting man who had invited them to a private party at one of the high-end South Beach hotels. The party had started out fine, but neither woman was able to remember how their night had ended, only that they had woken up blindfolded and tied up at another location. There they had been sexually assaulted over the course of the next few days before losing consciousness and waking in the shipping containers. Both women’s recollections of the man who had taken them to the party had been hazy but fit a general description of the man she had briefly seen with Doug.

  Their sole earlier witness had likewise assisted in creating a sketch that matched that of the two sex workers and she had also been invited to a party. But in her case, she recalled going to a fancy private home where she thought she’d been roofied. Somehow, she’d managed to stumble out of that home, run off and hide before being able to call a friend in the morning to come to get her. Unfortunately, neither she nor the friend had been able to pinpoint the location of that home.

  But the suspect in both cases seemed to be the same man. That made her wonder at the connection between Doug and the man and whether that had had anything to do with Doug’s murder.

  The rough slam of a door and rattle of glass in the frame made her peer in the direction of the interrogation room.

  Trey stormed out, limping slightly as he sped away, his features set in fierce lines, tension radiating from every line in his body. Seconds later, the two internal affairs detectives walked out, looking not much happier than Trey. Ramirez tapped a file against his thigh while Anderson glared at Trey’s retreating back.

  When Ramirez noticed her looking their way, he called out, “What are you eyeballing, Lopez?”

  She wanted to say, “Two idiotas,” but let her silence speak for itself. It had been agreed that no one would be aware that she was helping IAD so she had a role to play to keep that secret.

  She dragged her attention back to her case file, but before she could get into her analysis too deeply, her cell phone chirped with a text message.

  Trey. Still want to help?

  She peeked around to see who might be watching. It was clear, so she texted, I’m yours. Then she winced at how flirty that sounded. There was just too much going on for her to be thinking of him in that way. She had to focus on finding out what had really happened with his partner and her missing college students.

  But that didn’t make it any easier to control her attraction to the sexy detective.

  After a bit of a delay, which had her wondering what he was thinking about her response, Trey texted, Barnacle Bill’s. Way in the back behind the pool tables.

  Barnacle Bill’s was a favorite hangout for local law enforcement and rumored to have been around since the wild heyday of the Magic City when Julia Tuttle had convinced Flagler to bring his Florida East Coast Railway to the area.

  With another quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, she texted back, On my way.

  She unlocked her drawer, grabbed her service pistol and tucked it into her shoulder holster. Slipping on a lightweight blazer to hide her weapon, she told her partner, “Taking a break, Heath. I’ll be at Barnacle Bill’s if you need me.”

  “You got it, Roni,” her partner replied with a mock salute.

  She hurried out of the station, through the small plaza in front of the building and across the street to Barnacle Bill’s.

  At the door, she ran her hand over the well-worn belly of a wooden pelican by the entrance, a good luck ritual that had developed over the decades. The pelican’s belly had been worn smooth to a golden hue from the many touches. Grabbing hold of the brass handles shaped like rope, she yanked open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the dark interior of the bar.

  The decor inside matched the kitschy exterior with lots of dark wood and ropes, seashells and nautical paintings as well as sport-fishing trophies on various walls. The mustiness from Miami humidity lingered, mixed with the yeasty aroma of beer and sweet fried onions.

  She jerked her head in greeting at the bartender wiping down the bar and pushed through the eating area and past the pool tables to the more secluded booths in the back. She spotted Trey immediately. He rose to greet her as she neared, dropped a quick, very fraternal peck on her cheek and motioned to one of the waitresses to come over.

  “What can I get you, sweetie?” the older woman said as she pulled out a pad and pen. A helmet of pure white hair wreathed a face free of wrinkles for someone her age.

  “Seltzer with lemon, please,” she said and eased into the booth opposite Trey.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said and shifted his own glass back and forth across the surface of the table.

  “Like I said before, familia.” Liar, the little voice in her head screamed, but she strangled it back.

  He narrowed his gaze, examined her and seemingly satisfied by her lie, he said, “Gracias. I wish those two IAD idiots treated their fellow officers like family instead of criminals. They think Doug was dirty. That he was going to warn the men in the containers when he was shot.”

  “Do you think that?” she asked and watched his features for any telltale signs.

  Trey hesitated, maybe a moment too long, and before he could answer, the waitress brought over her drink.

  “Thanks,” she said and when the woman had left, she pressed Trey. “Well?”

  Trey wagged his head and batted the glass back and forth again on a surface made slick from the sweat off the glass. “I’ve replayed those moments over and over. I don’t know why Doug rushed ahead. A woman had screamed. We heard a slap like she was being beaten. Maybe that’s why. Maybe he thought she was in immediate danger.”

  She stared at him over the rim of her glass before taking a sip. “But maybe it was for some other reason.”

  Another awkward hesitation came before Trey finally said, “I’d rather not think that about a man who was a friend and saved my ass more than once. A man whose home was like my home and whose kids call me Uncle Trey.”

  Roni understood his upset because it not only meant his partner was dirty, it also meant Trey had possibly been a very poor judge of character. “Why does IAD think Doug is dirty?” she asked, even though she knew. She had to keep up the ruse so he wouldn’t know she was working with them. That she was betraying him.

  He hesitated and that infinitesimally small pause kindled worry in her gut that he didn’t trust her.

  “They have copies of Doug’s bank accounts. Someone put money there.”

  His admission to that fact quickly smothered her spark of concern.

  “If you don’t believe it—”

  “I don’t,” he said with a shake of his head, his voice rising. A lock of dark hair fell forward and he brushed it back, irritated, and plowed on. “I know who can help us find out.”

  “Sophie and Rob,” she said without hesitation. His Whitaker cousins were computer experts and ethical hackers who often worked on cases with the family’s business, South Beach Security. That he would think to use his family’s resources showed how worried he was about the IAD accusations. For as long as she could remember, Trey had wanted distance from his family’s business and resisted familial pressure to join the agency.

  “Sí, Sophie and Rob,” he said, then picked up his glass and took a long chug of the liquid, possibly upset with having to use SBS resources.

  While she didn’t want to add to his worry, it was as good a time as any to tell him about what she had seen. “Doug was with someone at the club that night.”

  Trey nodded, not surprised. “He went to see a CI.”

  Roni shook her head. “It didn’t seem like that kind of talk. And there was something...weird about Doug. He was really antsy, especially when he realized I’d seen him. He broke it off then and hurried away. So did the other man.”

  Trey leaned back and sucked in a rough breath. “Did you recognize the man?”

  With a lift of her shoulders, she said, “Maybe. I’m working on a missing persons case. Two college students who never returned to their hotel. We have a witness to an earlier attempted kidnapping, and she helped with a police sketch. The man Doug met looked like that sketch.”

  She reached out and laid a hand over his as he held his glass. “The two women you found were sex workers who had similar experiences. They were pretty sure that my suspect was the man who took them to private parties where they were roofied. There’s just too much coincidence for all these cases not to be connected.”

  “I agree that the cases are probably related. And my CI Eddie, who tipped us off that night, is missing. I haven’t heard from him in a week,” Trey admitted with worry.

  “I can issue a BOLO for him if you want since I assume you’re on leave for now.”

  “I am on medical leave for at least another week and desk duty after that, but I’m not going to wait to investigate.”

  “I get it. I’ll get a BOLO out for Eddie. He’s obviously important to the investigation.”

  She sipped her seltzer again as Trey narrowed his gaze and said, “Are you sure about what you saw, Roni? About the connections and the suspect in all three cases?”

  Roni nodded. “I am. I was undercover at the club that night because it was one of the locations where my witness had been before her attempted kidnapping. And all the women seem to have the same general impression of the man.”

  With a quick dip of his head, Trey said, “I’d appreciate that BOLO, Roni. And anything else you can help with.” He rose, tossed some bills on the table and held his hand out for her. She hesitated, but then slipped her hand into his and tried to ignore the heat that shot up her arm and ignited a blush along her cheeks.

  “Anytime, Trey,” she said and dragged her hand from his, earning a knowing smile from Trey that said he might be aware of what his touch had done to her.

  They walked out of the bar together but parted on the sidewalk. Trey’s Camaro SS was a few cars down from the entrance and she was headed back to the police station. She stepped into the street and tires burning rubber squealed angrily. The sound snared her attention as a car barreled toward her, but she froze at the sight of the driver behind the wheel.

  The man from the club?

  Strong hands jerked her back to safety and against a rock-hard chest as the car flew by and into the intersection, narrowly avoiding a collision with two other cars before speeding away.

  Trey’s powerful arms wrapped around her and held her steady in the protective gap between two parked cars. Her body trembled as adrenaline poured through her, igniting her nerve endings.