Burnout (NYPD Blue & Gold) Read Online Free PDF Page A

pain.
    The memory of Mike’s large, strong hand gripping his cup of coffee flashed in her head. She’d bet he gave a kick-ass foot massage. Her belly fluttered as she remembered the hot way he’d looked at her. When he’d left the Nest, she assumed she would never see him again, but now…running into each other was a certainty.
    But no matter how happy she was for the moment in Hopewell Springs, letting down her guard would never be an option. She was still an NYPD detective, and nailing whoever was trying to put her six feet under took priority over culinary bliss.
    Cassie pulled her cell phone from the handbag lying beside her and dialed her partner’s number. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell he was pissed.
    “Save me the heartburn and check in on time, will ya?” Dom stated, rather than asked.
    “Okay, sorry. I tried calling you from the road, but there’s a dead zone on most of the Thruway north of Albany.” She hesitated. “Then I was busy, uh, working.”
    A moment of silence. “Working?”
    Cassie twisted a lock of hair around one of her fingers as she told Dom about her new job, intentionally leaving out details about exactly where she was working and staying. The last thing she wanted was for Gray and Dom to hightail it upstate and drag her back into protective custody. Eventually, she’d have to tell them, but for now she wanted to stay lost. Even to them.
    Dom sounded annoyed. “Your only job should be to keep yourself alive.”
    “Look, I don’t know how long I’ll have to hide out, so I might as well make the best of things, and cooking is something I love.”
    She heard a loud, frustrated breath over the phone before Dom continued. “I don’t like it, but if you have to do this, keep your head low.”
    “Of course I will. No one knows I’m in this part of the state, and I’m not using my real name.”
    “Pretty soon, Rod Manici will find out who you are.”
    “I know that.” She tucked a fluffy pillow behind her head and leaned back. “When you turn over copies of the body-wire recordings for discovery, my real name will be all over them.”
    “Yeah, well…” Dom snorted. “Whatever they think your name is, there’s still a hit on you, and naturally Manici’s attorney is denying his client is behind it.”
    “Does he think we’re that stupid? Nobody’s going to buy that story.”
    “’Course not.” Dom paused. “But Manici won’t submit to a polygraph, and you know we can’t force him to take one.”
    Cassie rubbed her forehead, trying to massage away the ache growing behind her skull. “It has to be Manici. He owns the place. Who else connected with La Femme would have a vested interest in seeing me dead?”
    “That’s another thing,” Dom said. “Even if you were dead, the hearsay exception for unavailable witnesses allows any recordings and reports you made to be admitted in court as evidence. So why would Manici risk putting a hit on you?” Squeaking from Dom’s desk chair came to Cassie’s ear. “It wouldn’t change a thing and would only focus the spotlight more on him than it is already. Those tapes alone are enough to put him away. Something’s not right here.”
    “I agree,” Cassie said, visualizing Dom rocking in his chair and shaking his head. “Manici may be a scumbag, but he never struck me as having enough balls to hire a hit man.”
    The squeaking abruptly stopped.
    “You hear that?” Dom’s voice was sharp.
    “Hear what?”
    “Clicking.”
    Cassie closed her eyes and covered her other ear with her hand, straining to pick up on whatever Dom was hearing.
    “Cass, hang up!” Dom shouted. “Do it now!”
    Without asking questions, Cassie punched the button on her cell phone to disconnect the call. Her heart pounded as understanding slammed home.
    The precinct phones were bugged.
    And she’d given up her exact location. Or had she?
    For the next hour she paced the living room floor, waiting for Dom to call back, all the while