Believing Again: Book 5 in the Second Chances series (Crimson Romance) Read online

  Danny didn’t go all gooey-eyed over a man, no matter how good-looking or sexy he was. She thought women who did that were silly. She made fun of the females she and Sam interviewed who preened for him. Even teased him that no man well into his forties, happily married and the father of three, should put up with that kind of behavior.

  Point of fact, she didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about any of the men she came in contact with every day. First of all, she was too damn busy trying to do her job. Second, she was used to being around a whole hell of a lot of men, which had inured her to most of them.

  Third, and probably most important, it was usually more trouble than it was worth to think about someone because he looked attractive or seemed interesting enough to get involved with. Her hours were long, her job was demanding. And no matter how charming or handsome they were, most of the men she’d met so far didn’t understand how important her job was to her.

  The only men who understood were other cops, and her one foray into that dating pool had been a disaster. With the schedules they had, it had been hard work making the time to see each other and when they broke it off after almost two years of trying, only making detective and moving to Central Precinct had made her comfortable about going back to being merely colleagues again.

  No, it was easier to be businesslike with the men she met. She didn’t really need a man in her life to make her happy anyway. What made her happy was her work.

  Growing up she hadn’t collected pictures of wedding dresses or named the children she planned to have with the as-yet unknown groom. She was more the pretend-to-be-a-snake-eating-Special-Forces-operative kinda kid. Her mother had despaired of her ever wearing a dress or learning to dance or, heaven help her, dating. Her mother had been homecoming queen in both high school and college — where she’d majored in English literature — and wanted her only daughter, her beloved Danita Rebecca Hartmann, to follow in her footsteps as a wife, a mother, and a college professor.

  Instead she’d come within inches of getting Captain or Major or Colonel Danny Hartmann. The military had been where Danny was headed until a college professor piqued her interest in the justice system and police work. So, instead of watching her daughter go off to the Army, her mother saw her obtain a degree in criminal justice, move to Portland with a college friend, join the Portland Police Bureau, and make detective at a younger age than any woman in the history of the Bureau.

  Danny sometimes felt her choices in life had put a strain on her relationship with her mother. It was part of the reason the move to Portland had been easy. Although her mother always said she was proud of her daughter and loved her, Danny was pretty sure she was just as happy living a state away in California where she didn’t have to come face to face with her daughter’s life on a regular basis. And Danny didn’t have to explain it at the family gatherings and holiday dinners she’d avoided like the plague since leaving California. Her colleagues were her family. They understood.

  That kind of determination and focus had gotten her as far as she’d come in her career and usually erased the memory of any guy she met ten minutes after she met him. However, this morning, in spite of everything she told herself about how important her work was and how unlikely it was that Jake Abrams would be interested in someone like her, he had managed to insinuate himself into Danny’s thoughts. There was something about him that wouldn’t leave her consciousness.

  When she returned to Central Precinct, she had the urge to Google him — to find out about the veterans’ clinic, she told herself. But as soon as she typed his name into the search box on the Google homepage she shut it down. This was stupid. She would ask him about his practice and what his deal was with the clinic the next time she saw him.

  As to whether he was married, engaged, or otherwise paired up, that was irrelevant. Wasn’t it?

  Idiot, she chastised herself. Let it go. You have work to do.

  • • •

  Two days later, Danny was on her computer trying to catch up on her reports when she was interrupted by a deep male voice coming from over her shoulder.

  “So, is it true what all those cops on TV shows complain about? You guys spend all your time doing paperwork?”

  She turned to see a grinning Jake Abrams, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, staring down at her with a look she was sure could boil water. It certainly seemed to be moving her blood in that direction.

  With the jeans he wore a cream-colored cable knit sweater over a red turtleneck. The other morning he’d been in dark trousers and a tweed jacket with a white shirt open at the neck and no tie. Very doctor-like. Dressed like this, he looked more relaxed, unruffled.

  Hot.

  It unnerved her to have him towering over her the way he was. He’d moved in so close she didn’t see how she could stand up without bumping against him.

  She tried to laugh off her uneasiness. “Yeah, our job consists of hours of paperwork, frequent stretches of painstaking legwork nailing down boring details, and the occasional moment of sheer terror. Although the sheer terror moments have decreased significantly since I made detective and stopped busting down drug house doors or pulling over strange cars weaving back and forth on the freeway. How about your job?”

  Her attempt at humor managed to take the heat in his eyes down to a more manageable level, thank God.

  “There are some similarities,” he said. “The long hours. The paperwork. Boring administrative details, although not so much the legwork. And my sheer terror isn’t worrying about what someone might do to me but what I might do to them when I have them on an operating table in front of me.”

  The heat reappeared in his eyes and an image flashed through her mind. She was spread out in front of him, not in surgery surrounded by a crew of operating techs dressed in scrubs but in a bed. Neither one of them was dressed. She could feel the mattress move as he lowered himself onto the sweet smelling sheets, saw his hand reach for her …

  Shit. This had to stop. She felt flustered and said the first thing she could think of. “What’s your specialty?” Dammit. Next thing I’ll ask is, “What’s your sign?” “I didn’t think to ask the other day.”

  “Thoracic surgery. Didn’t you Google me?” The smug smile was back. “I sure as hell Googled you.”

  Not sure if she was more embarrassed that he somehow knew what she’d been tempted to do or that he had done it himself, she said, “I doubt you found anything of interest.”

  “You play basketball for a city league team, you volunteer with the Sunshine Division at Christmas, you earned a commendation for outstanding service. No mention of a Facebook, LinkedIn, or blog presence, no pictures of a social life, a boyfriend, husband, or lover. Did I miss anything?”

  She cleared her throat and squirmed in her chair. “So, a thoracic surgeon. A lot of call for that at the vets’ clinic?”

  Cocking his head, he smiled, as if to say, “I’ll let you get away with not answering for now.” Then he responded to her question. “I did graduate from medical school before I went on to cracking open chests. I can still treat ordinary ailments with the best Doc-in-a-Box clinic.”

  “But you must do a lot of trauma work in your regular practice. Is that how you ended up in the Guard?”

  The flirty twinkle disappeared and a cool expression took over his eyes. He was deathly serious, his mouth a thin line. “That and a misguided sense of patriotism.”

  “What’s misguided about serving in the military?”

  “I learned pretty quickly that killing for your country isn’t as patriotic as I had thought it was. However, I learned even more quickly that caring for the men around me was.”

  She was glad after the seriousness of his response that she hadn’t made a smart remark about his dressing in the colors of the American flag. Instead she said, “I can tell your commitment to the troops stayed with you when you came home. And I bet that’s why you’re here. But I’ve been diverting you from telling us.” She emphasized the us, trying to g
et the focus back on the professional, rather than the personal. “What can we do for you?”

  “I stopped by to see if I could talk you into coming with me to one of the transient camps. I heard that a woman who was in the camp the night Jim Branson was killed slipped away before we got there. One of my patients thinks she might be able to help figure out what happened. I know her and I’m pretty sure she won’t open up to me. I thought maybe she might talk to another woman.”

  Danny picked up a zippered leather case the size of a file folder, shoved a pen and notebook inside, and said, “Let me tell Sam where I’m going.” In what she thought was a smooth move, she scooted her chair away from him so she could stand without being too close. Unfortunately he seemed to understand why she’d moved and grinned knowingly.

  • • •

  Having offered to drive them to the camp, Jake led Danny two blocks away from Central Precinct, stopping beside a sleek black SUV.

  “A BMW X5? Wow,” Danny said, as she ran her hand along the side of the car. “These babies get great reviews. And it’s an X5M, isn’t it? I read they have killer acceleration.”

  “It does. But I won’t show off what it can do while we’re in the city, unless you swear you won’t give me a ticket.” He opened the passenger side door for her. “You a car freak? Sam told me you rebuilt a VW Beetle.”

  “Yeah, my father taught me to love German cars. And this one’s a beauty.”

  “Yes. It. Is.” He said each word with pride.

  “Must be good to be you.”

  “Not always. But right this minute it is very good to be me.” His smile was white-tooth dazzling, worthy of a model on the cover of a magazine or in an ad for some expensive men’s cologne. “It’s been a long time since the passenger in my vehicle has been prettier than the car.”

  “The woman in your life wouldn’t be happy about that comment.”

  “My mother and Hailey wouldn’t object to what I said, I’m sure. Wouldn’t even disagree.”

  “Your mother? And who?”

  “My niece. She’s three. She and my mother are the two women in my life — well, two females. Hailey is hardly a woman. And I thought police officers were trained to be subtle about getting information out of people. You might as well have asked the question outright.” Before she could respond, he said, “There’s no wife, girlfriend, fiancée, or significant other.”

  Several emotions swirled around in her head. She was happy he wasn’t attached, flattered at the compliment, and horribly embarrassed by the clumsiness of her inquiry. That made her both uncomfortable and smugly happy, a combination of reactions she didn’t remember having together before.

  For the ten minutes it took to get to the camp under the Burnside Bridge, they talked cars. Danny was only too happy to keep the conversation on a topic she loved, so she could forget her inept remark and keep herself from thinking too much about enjoying being with him.

  Knowing how expensive his vehicle was, she was surprised that he drove right up to the camp. She wasn’t sure she would be that trusting. But then, the men she’d talked to at the other camp had so much respect for Jake, it was probably the same here. And that respect would undoubtedly extend to keeping hands off his car.

  “How many people are here, do you think?” Danny asked as they walked through the camp.

  “About twenty.”

  “How many camps are there in town?”

  “Now? Two of some size outdoors in the city proper, that I know of. You’ve seen them both. But that doesn’t count the smaller places where a couple guys bed down or the vacant buildings where a half dozen or so people squat until they’re rousted. Then there are individuals scattered around under overpasses and camped out in doorways. We try to get people into shelters when the weather turns but there aren’t enough beds for those who want them and there are some people who don’t want to come indoors.”

  “Do you keep track of all of them? The people who live here, I mean.”

  “We try to but it’s impossible. They move around. Move to someplace else.” He walked up to one huge box, some sort of large shipping crate from the look of it, the kind you only saw at the port full of other, smaller boxes. A door was cut into the front and heavy blankets insulated the top and sides against the weather. Through the open door, Danny saw a dim light and a blanket-covered floor. She thought she could see the outline of a person in the faint light.

  Jake stopped a few feet back from the door and called, “Kaylea, it’s Jake Abrams. Are you there?”

  A small, compactly built woman holding a flashlight crawled out through the opening. She was dressed in jeans and a heavy sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Given that she lived rough, she looked surprisingly neat and clean. It was hard to tell her age — her eyes looked like she’d seen a century of problems but her hands and neck looked young. Danny guessed she could be about her own age, around thirty. Her expression was wary, her mouth set in a hard line.

  “Yeah, I’m here. Whaddya want?” she asked as she flicked off the light.

  “I heard you were in the other camp with Jim Branson a few days ago. You know the police are trying to find out who shot him. This is Danny Hartmann.” He put his hand at the small of Danny’s back as he introduced her. “She’s one of the detectives working on the case. I was coming here to check on a couple of your neighbors so I brought her with me. I thought maybe you’d talk to her since you knew him. Detective Hartmann, this is Kaylea Garwood.”

  Before Danny could say anything, the woman looked around nervously and said, “I don’t know anything about what happened to him.” She pulled the hood on her sweatshirt up over her head and started back into her shelter. “You’re wasting your time.”

  Jake shot Danny a look that said “good luck” and took off for the center of the camp.

  Danny knew she had to keep Kaylea from going back inside where she couldn’t reach her. “I’m not here to ask about what happened at the other camp. I want to try and get a picture of what Jim was like. Sometimes that helps us figure everything out. Jake — Doctor Abrams — said he was your friend. I hoped you’d tell me about him. That you’d want to help us find who did this to him.”

  Kaylea hesitated, her back still to Danny. After a long moment, she said softly, “Yeah, he was my friend.”

  Looking around at the few curious men watching them, Danny said, “You know, I haven’t had enough coffee this morning. There’s a coffee cart in the next block. They have really good coffee. Want to walk there with me?”

  The other woman turned, surprise written on her face. “You know about that place? The woman who owns it is nice. Never chases us away or anything. She even lets us have some of her day old stuff for practically nothing.”

  Danny grinned. “Of course I know about Jumping Joe Java. I know where every coffee cart is for twenty blocks in either direction from the river. Bouncing from one to another is how I keep going some days. Come on. My treat.”

  Chapter Three

  The two women walked in silence for a block and a half. When they got to the coffee cart, the owner greeted both of them by name, fixed them cups of coffee larger than the size Danny paid for, and threw in two doughnuts the detective gave to her companion, claiming she was dieting. Kaylea wolfed the pastries down and inhaled the coffee while Danny sipped at hers and observed the other woman.

  When Kaylea was finished eating, Danny said, “Tell me about your friend Jim.”

  Kaylea didn’t say anything for a long moment. When she began to speak, it was in a quiet voice. She didn’t look at Danny “We hung out together for maybe the past four months. He liked my shelter. Said it was cozier than his old tent so he stayed with me sometimes. He was kinda my protector because I’d told him what happened in Iraq. He wanted to make sure I was safe where I was living. Told everyone that if I got messed with, he’d mess with whoever did it.” She wiped her sleeve across her face.

  Danny waited while Kaylea took a couple deep breaths and
composed herself.

  “Most everybody was afraid of him. I wasn’t. Maybe because I understand.” After another long silence and another wipe of her sleeve across her face, she continued, “He had PTSD. From the wars. And then he’d been hurt — something was wrong with his hip — that’s why he got out of the Army. But no matter what they did for him, he was still in pain. The two things together made him mean sometimes, especially when he drank. Which he did a lot, assuming he’d gotten his government check or had panhandled some. Got in a lot of fights. Last time he got sliced up with a knife.” She stopped.

  Danny prompted her. “Is that how he got to know Doctor Abrams? He went to the clinic to get patched up?”

  “I’m not sure if it was that or from going there for the PTSD. But he wasn’t going in any more. This last time, when he got cut up, he wouldn’t go to the clinic. Wouldn’t let me go there either. I had to find Doctor Abrams when he came around to check on guys.”

  “Do you know why he was avoiding the clinic?”

  “All he’d say was there was something — no, someone — there he didn’t trust.”

  “Was it Jake Abrams?”

  “Hell, no. He’s like some kind of god to all the guys around the camps.”

  “But not to you?”

  Kaylea stared at Danny with a spark of life in her eyes for the first time in their conversation. She slowly smiled. “Wondered if I’d get that past you. No, not to me.”

  “Mind telling me why?” When Kaylea hesitated, Danny quickly added, “It’s okay if you don’t want to. It’s not official. I’m curious.”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll put it this way. It’s not because of anything he’s done. He does good work. And he’s always been straight with me and everyone else, for that matter. But I’ve lost the capacity for hero worship.”

  “Fair enough. I think I know what you mean. I sometimes feel the same way. Comes from seeing too many of the wrong kind of people in my job, I imagine.”

  The expression on Kaylea’s face changed again, and softened into acceptance, if not trust. “I bet you do. See the wrong kind of people, I mean. Must not be very enjoyable.” She finished her coffee and began to gather up their cups and napkins.