A Fine Specimen Read Online Free PDF Page B

crucial week,
during which he was expecting to have to all but camp out at the station house
as they ran Ratso to ground.
    Alex ran a hand down his
face, stalling, but there was no question in his mind what he had to do. If Ray
wanted a pint of blood and a pound of flesh, Alex would gladly, unquestioningly
give it.
    But Jesus, not this.
Somehow, this was worse.
    He looked again at the
girl—no, dammit, woman —standing in front of him. She was looking at him
anxiously out of enormous blue eyes, the same color as her dress. The same
color as the sea at dawn. The same color as the spring sky…
    Alex drew in a sharp
breath, willing his dick to stay down. It had taken enthusiastic note of how
incredibly pretty she was underneath her studenty getup. It didn’t care at all
that she wasn’t Alex’s type, all it wanted was to get into her pants…
    Oh fuck. How was he
going to get any work done with this…this distraction next to him?
    “Um, Lieutenant Cruz?”
    “Alex.” If she was going
to fuck with his head and his week, at least they should be on first-name
terms.
    She nodded. “Okay, Lieu—
Alex. Um, Alex?”
    Damn but she was pretty.
Even her voice was pretty, soft and light. Was that a touch of the South he
heard in her voice?
    She was watching him,
pale blue eyes unblinking.
    Alex sighed. “Yeah?”
    “Um, what’s a Code
Seven?”
    Alex didn’t answer
immediately but instead stared out, jaws clenched, over her head at his men,
sending out the silent signal— showtime’s over .
    His men snapped to.
    In Alex’s mind, even the
women were his men. One look from him and it was like the scene in Sleeping
Beauty where the castle comes to life. Inside of a minute, there was the
usual hustle-bustle. Even the phones starting ringing again.
    Alex gave one long last
look at the squad room. He longed to stay here, with his men. This was where he
belonged.
    Today’s fuckup with
Ratso made him even more anxious to get moving on a report of Lopez’s finances
that had come in from the forensic economists at the FBI. He had a four o’clock
meeting with the shrink who’d carried out the compulsory psych evaluation on
one of his men who’d shot a scumbag last week. The SWAT guys were begging for
new ceramic plates to add to the Kevlar body armor and he was moving heaven and
earth to find the money for them. Today was not a day he wanted to be babysitting,
not even for pretty girls sent to him by Ray. Not even if the pretty girl in
question was waking up his dormant libido.
    “What’s a Code Seven?”
he repeated, taking her arm and moving to the stairs. “Lunch.”

Chapter Three
     
    They were walking down
the big marble staircase Caitlin knew had been built in 1934, at the height of
the Depression, as part of the WPA. She knew everything about the building,
about its history and the role it had played in Baylorville. She’d been looking
forward to working here for the next week.
    Now she had the distinct
feeling that if Lieutenant Cruz—Alex—had any say in the matter, she’d never
walk back up this staircase ever again.
    The meeting had gone
more or less precisely as Ray had said it would. Caitlin had been dead set
against telling the lieutenant she was here to collect on a debt. Didn’t make any
difference what she thought though, because Ray insisted. Ray was another
super-alpha male.
    Caitlin had hated saying
what she’d said. It sounded horribly like blackmail, but Ray had insisted and
he could be very…forceful. Though Ray was short and stout, with bright blue
eyes and a bushy white mane of hair—the physical opposite of the
lieutenant…Alex—they both shared the kind of personality it was hard to say no
to.
    Ray had simply
straightened his shoulders, deepened his voice, sharpened his gaze and had
gotten his way.
    That was probably part
of the psychological profile of a police officer, she mused. A
certain…persuasiveness. It was an interesting point and there was a lot of
literature to back it up,