“Why hasn’t she been adopted yet?” She was an adorable, petite biracial little girl with curls that surrounded her face.

  “Amber has some behavioral issues. Attachment disorder. Remy explains it better than me. She was too young to understand why she never saw her parents again, but subconsciously she has some issues stemming from the sudden abandonment. She’ll need therapy and one-on-one attention that makes it a requirement that she needs a specialized home.”

  I was about to ask what he meant by a specialized home when a buzzer blared. “End of the game?”

  “Yep, come on, everyone heads to the cafeteria to meet up and do a roll call.”

  I followed him through the maze of hallways until we reached the massive open space of the cafeteria. Laughter rang off the walls as Bart set up an ice cream bar, and I searched the crowd for Savannah and Simon. They were off to the side, and she was tucked under his arm with Amber seated on Simon’s hip as he smiled and talked to both.

  The difference between Detective Graves and Simon was still so contradictory that it was too hard to accept. On the one hand, I respected Graves as a cop, but Simon drew me like no one before. During our time working together and nights like these where I saw him outside the needs of the case, I’d learned to accept my attraction to him.

  I skirted the edge of the crowd to reach Simon and the two girls. He gave me a smile as he spotted me.

  “I see the seekers lost today,” I said with a smile and winked at Amber as she shyly waved at me.

  “We lose every time. I agree with Boss that the teams conspire so everyone gets the reward.”

  “They’re vicious. This is the first time I got paired for the hunt. Amber can be so quiet.” Savannah held out her arms and Amber practically jumped into them. “We’re getting our reward. Do we have time, Dad?”

  “Plenty of time. Go have fun.” I shooed them away and was left there with Simon. “Is it really that hard to find them?”

  “It really is, which is embarrassing for a detective.” I chuckled at his almost bratty grin. “Any news on our case?”

  “Vega said she might have something for us, but she needs to check a few more things to corroborate the information before passing it on. She’s thorough.”

  “She is. She’s a bit out there, but she knows what she’s doing.” He pushed his fingers through his loose wavy curls, and I hated when he came to work all primped and his hair tamed in a professional style.

  “I think that entire squad of yours is the best of the best.”

  “Thanks. Most of the time, we’re just the ghouls in the basement.”

  “I did my research, and y’all are way more than that.” I turned away so he wouldn’t catch me watching him. I knew he wouldn’t take offense, but I didn’t want him to see my attraction. Wanting someone who didn’t want you back—it was an ego and pride killer.

  “Are we still getting together tomorrow night to work on the case more? Savannah said she was spending the night with a friend after a dance. Is she going with someone? She’s too young to date.”

  I softly chuckled at his belief that she was too young. “She’s going with a group of girls. They’re having some spa-type day. Hair, nails, the friend’s mom is taking them to the salon. You should’ve gone dress shopping with her and saved me the trauma. I’m not ready for all this.”

  “You don’t have a choice, Douglas. It’s inevitable, but she’s a great kid. You’re really lucky to have her.”

  “No kids in your future?”

  “To me, as a single man with a dangerous and demanding job, bringing a child into that would be unfair to them.”

  I didn’t miss the pain and regret in his tone, but I could sympathize with him. Even with Donna, it was still hard to raise a well-adjusted and confident kid. We’d lucked out with Savannah. I still regretted that she didn’t get enough of our undivided attention.

  “I understand that. I’m always worried she doesn’t get enough of my time, but as the kid of active military and law enforcement, she doesn’t know any different. It’s been that way since birth, and all her friends were the same until she moved here. They developed their own little club.”

  “But you have your ex-wife who’s still a big part of your life…your friend. I don’t have that. If I did, I might have thought about adoption. But again, I have to think about what’s best for a child, and I’m not it.”

  I wanted to argue, but I wouldn’t disregard his feelings on the matter. I caught his face brightening, and I followed his gaze to find his attention locked on Savannah and Amber. There was adoration and care. The man deserved so much, but he didn’t think he was worthy. I wanted to know why he had such a low opinion of himself, but we weren’t close enough for a heart-to-heart on that level. I’d make him trust me, and to do that, I knew I had a battle on my hands. If I was good at anything, I excelled at fighting for what I wanted and needed.

  15

  GRAVES

  I dropped the doors that led down to the steam tunnel, and spring had finally taken the chill out of the evening air, but I’d still made sure that Savannah had worn a light jacket. Douglas had called me saying he was stuck in an interrogation for another case, and Savannah didn’t want to hang out with friends or the neighbor lady, so I told him she could run errands with me. We weren’t friends but friendlier, and I loved spending time with his daughter. He’d earned a few points there. She’d started doing some of my volunteer work with me, and he hadn’t argued.

  We both needed a break from the case. I did this, and who knows what Douglas was up to when not pouring over endless confusing details. We hadn’t come across any suspects yet, and every day that passed, we figured the case would be bumped down to the basement any day. There were suspects, but none fit. The pattern had been a body a week, and we hadn’t had a new one in over a month. Part of me thought that Davian almost catching them that they’d wanted the heat to die down. We were at the point where we were just throwing ideas around and going in circles.

  “Thanks, Simon.” Savannah tucked herself under my arm as we walked back to my car after delivering meals and some non-perishable items to the underground homeless community.

  “You’re welcome but thank your dad for letting me take you with me.” I glanced over my shoulder as I heard footsteps, not the typical soft-soled shoes that were usually worn down there or the click of high heels. I kept a normal pace, and just as we broke the mouth of the alley, shots rang out.

  Automatically, I grabbed Savannah up and hugged her to my chest. I had my off-duty weapon but didn’t bother wearing my vest. I’d left it in the cargo area of my vehicle. I cursed myself for not wearing it so that I could protect her.

  My brain mapped the area, and I was on the move to a warehouse a few minutes away. I knew this place as well as I did my own neighborhood on the other side of the city.

  “Honey, I need you to be really quiet.” I kicked the door and rushed inside. The steps behind me quickened, and whoever was back there was breathing heavy. Out of shape or lack of cardio, either way, that worked in my favor. I had to come up with a plan. I needed her safe.

  I softened my steps as I crouched down to sneak around the large crates until I found one in the packing area with the top off. I lifted her slight weight and put her inside. As long as she listened and kept her head down, I could get them to follow me and lead them as far from her as I could get.

  “Honey, I want you to tuck down really tight, okay? Don’t make a sound.” She’d left her phone plugged into the charger in my car. “Do you know how to use this?” I removed my gun, and she nodded. “Okay, I don’t care who comes at you. You see them, you shoot. I’m going to make a run for it.”

  “Simon, no.” As she reached for me, I caught her arms and urged her back into the box.

  “Honey, I know you’re scared, but I can’t protect us both at a full run. So you wait here, and when you hear someone say butterfly, that’s our code word, you do not come out until then. Promise me.”

  “Promise.”

  “It’s gonna be cramped, and it’s gonna be dark, but you’ll be safe. Just be quiet.” I handed her my weapon and flipped off the safety. I put the lid on the crate and stood up. Then I yelled, “Police,” to identify myself and to draw attention.

  I searched for the nearest exit making as much noise as possible. This was going to hurt. I slammed my shoulder into the door and pulled out my phone as I escaped into the night with my unknown pursuers behind me.

  “Honey, what’s up?”

  I quickly cut in his greeting because I had a few seconds at most. “Carmine, I need you and a team at a warehouse on fourth.” I gave him the exact address. “I need you to pick up a package for me. The package will only respond to butterfly. Repeat it for me.”

  “Butterfly.”

  “Make sure the package doesn’t have a mark on it. I’m unarmed with two, maybe three men behind me. I’m not going to be able to outrun them, but you make sure the package gets where it needs to go.”

  “On it. You better stay alive, Simon.”

  “I’m not making any promises.” I barely got my phone back into my pocket as I kept up a pace that wouldn’t outrun them, but they damn sure wouldn’t catch me right away. I avoided public areas to save on casualties and drew them as far from the warehouse as I could get.

  The shots were hitting walls so close to me I could feel the way the air displaced. I needed to start running in the mornings again. My lungs ached, and my chest tightened as I reached a fence. I scaled it and fell on the other side. I scrambled to my feet and pushed hard to make up the lead I’d lost.

  The fence exploded behind me as another gunshot told me they blew the lock. I was near the docks. If I could just make it, there was plenty of cover. I ducked down as I slipped between two shipping containers and listened for footsteps over the sound of blood rushing in my ears and my own labored breathing. We were miles away. Carmine would get to Savannah, and everything would be okay.

  “Come out, Detective Graves. Where’s Douglas’s brat?”

  Someone demanded, and I hit the side of the container on purpose as I headed for the cover between two more. The place was several miles worth of freighters and containers. If I was hit, they wouldn’t find me for days, and I’d made the choice I wouldn’t leave the shipyard that night.

  “It’s just me and y’all. I got nothing for you.” Maybe both of us were the target. It was dark enough, and I’d kept ahead of them so they probably didn’t see I’d stashed Savannah. At least I hoped so, but if not, please let her stay hidden like I told her.

  “You and that detective are ruining all of our plans. If we can’t have her, maybe you’ll be enough of a warning.”

  Shit, the speaker’s voice was closer. The sound of footsteps in different directions informed me they’d separated. I started to back out of the space only to jump forward when a bullet connected only a few feet above my head. I bit back a shout as it ricocheted and hit just above my right shoulder blade. I spun in the dirt and pressed my back to the cold steel. Shadows blocked my escape, I was trapped on both sides by four men, and I wasn’t making it out of this shipyard.

  I pretended to reach for my weapon, and a cheap, leather shoe stomped down on my hand. In the event I did survive, I cataloged everything from body size, if the voices were deep or nasally, what they wore, and every detail I could.

  “Gonna add cop killer to your list?” I was defiant. Make them mad, keep the focus on me, I repeated in my head.

  “Where is she?”

  “I’m not giving her to you, might as well shoot me now.”

  “We’re not gonna make it that easy.” The leader motioned to one of the men on my left, and they knelt beside me.

  With a jerk, they broke my little finger, and I refused to yell.

  “Where is she?”

  “I said kill me now.”

  They asked repeatedly until each finger, and the thumb on my left hand were bent at odd angles, the pain radiating upward into my arm.

  “We do the other hand next.”

  I only had one chance, and I wasn’t going to be able to take down all four, but if they were going to kill me, I wanted it over with. With my vision dimming at the edges from pain and the wound to my back, I lunged forward, grabbing the leader around his waist.

  With my uninjured dominant hand, I went for the kidneys, punching as they battered at my back until I couldn’t hold up under the assault of four men. They were determined to kick me to death when I was hoping for a quicker one. My ears rang as a stomp connected with my head, and I went limp. I inhaled and held it as I pretended to be dead. Hopefully, they were too stupid to check.

  “The boss isn’t going to be happy.”

  “Doesn’t matter. He’s dead.” The speaker’s voice preceded a shot, and fire moved across the side of my head, and it took everything in me to stay silent.

  Footsteps retreated, and I laid on the ground that turned wet under my head as pain and nausea warred with my attempts to stay conscious. I dug out my phone with shaking hands and swiped the emergency call option. The operator picked up as I called in my approximate location with the officer down code. That was as far as I got as my eyelids got heavy, but I fought it until there was nothing left but the beating of my heart and blackness.

  16

  DOUGLAS

  “What the fuck happened?” I yelled at Captain Tyson as I tried to get information on Simon and my daughter.

  “We don’t know. An hour ago, an officer down code was called through nine-one-one. We immediately triangulated the call with the approximate location Graves gave us in the shipyard. When we arrived, paramedics went to work on him. He was shot twice, shallow wound to the right shoulder blade and another graze to the left side of his head. All the fingers and thumb on his left hand were broken.”

  “Captain, my daughter was with him.” I saw the professional face crumble as soon as I said my daughter could be a victim. “Was there any sign of her?” I demanded.

  “Detective Douglas, we have a package for you and a vicious one she is.” I spun at the sound of Bianchi’s voice, and he stepped to the side to expose my crying daughter with a protective wall of muscle behind her. “Simon called in a favor.”

  I barely caught my daughter as she threw herself at me. “God, are you okay?” Relief nearly took me out at the knees, but we still didn’t have any information on Simon.

  She nodded. “Simon put me in a crate and told me not to come out until someone said butterfly. Then he made a lot of noise.”

  “Detective, if you’d like to secure Simon’s weapon, it’s in the rear of one of our vehicles. He left it with the sharpshooter in training. One of my men is being tended to for an injured shoulder.” He seemed amused as he looked at my daughter.

  “He drew fire without being armed?” I hugged Savannah to my stomach as my heart sank.

  “He told me to point and shoot.”

  “It’s fine, honey.”

  “Is he…” Her voice broke, and she sounded so much younger. Like the little girl who’d told me about the first monster hiding under her bed.

  “He’s fine. They’re just checking him over.” I looked at Bianchi. “Where did you pick her up at?”

  “Warehouse on fourth, it was recently reopened. Two exits were broken. It appears he found a crate in the packing section still open and hid her inside with his off-duty weapon.”

  “Savannah, I know you’re scared, but just focus a little longer. I need you to tell me what happened?” I knelt in front of her. “Did you see anyone? Hear something?”

  “No. We’d just left the camp where we’d dropped off a hot dinner and some other stuff. He was leading me back to the car, and he was going to take me home.” She sobbed, and I rubbed the tears away as fast as they fell. “As we stepped out of the alley, someone shot at us. He grabbed me and put me in front of him and just took off running.”

  “Carmine, did he tell you anything?”

  “Just told me that there was a package I needed to pick up. Only referred to her as it. I think he was trying to keep anyone from hearing.”

  “He was found miles away from where he left her, but he kept to deserted parts of the city on his route,” Tyson commented from behind me.

  “He didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. He said he wasn’t going to outrun them, but to take care of her and get her where she needed to be.”

  “Dad, can I see him?”

  “Honey, that’s—”

  “Please, just really quick.”

  “I’ll clear it with the doctor.” Tyson disappeared, and I checked Savannah over.

  “Are you hurt anywhere?”

  “No, he kept me in front of him as he ran and then just put me in the crate.”

  “Detective, if you need me to, I can take her home with me. She’ll have her own security detail. Sylvia will keep her company.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Let her see Simon, and afterward, you can make a choice. We’ll wait here, but you have my numbers if you need to call me. She can stay with us for a few days until you figure out what happened.”

  “Douglas, he’s stable. She can go back and see him. They’re going to move him to a room soon.”

  “Come on, honey, let’s see Simon.” I stood and wrapped my arm around her, and she held tight to my hand with hers as they shook.

  I didn’t know what we’d see, but she wanted to check on him, and I couldn’t deny her that. When a nurse led us into a room past the curtain draped in front of the door, for the second time, my legs threatened to collapse. He’d taken a beating. His head was wrapped. The beeping of the heart monitor was too loud in the quiet. Simon was never silent or still, and he’d put his life on the line for my kid. I know he would’ve done it for anyone, but it was Savannah, and he’d called in a favor to give her an entire security detail. He’d drawn fire without thought of a weapon or vest.