Brown, Sandra-Friction

He saw no reason not to. “Charging after that gunman has almost certainly scotched my chances of
getting Georgia back. At the next hearing, my father-in-law is going to remind the judge of my
reckless disregard for my own safety. What judge is going to entrust a little girl’s future to Dirty
Harry?”
Especially a judge who’s been slam-bam-thank-you-ma’amed by him.
Thinking back on those moments in her kitchen, he wondered if maybe he had read Holly Spencer
all wrong. When she raised her head from his chest and looked up into his face, what if her wateryeyed,
parted-lips expression wasn’t evidence of lust but revulsion?
Hell, maybe she hadn’t been telegraphing Take me and take me now. Instead, that look might have
been a warning that if he didn’t remove his grubby paw from her ass, she was going to scream the
house down.
But she hadn’t.
He’d acted on the signals as he’d read them. When he’d crushed her against him and lifted her off
her feet, she hadn’t protested. When he’d lowered her onto the living room sofa and she’d raised her
hands toward him, it wasn’t to stave him off, but to fight with him for ownership of his belt buckle to
see who could get it undone faster.
But in the glaring spotlight of retrospection, he doubted that she would remember it quite like that.
He hadn’t had the crying jag, she had. He wasn’t the one who’d been in desperate need of a
comforting hug, she was. If he’d stopped it there, he might have been okay.
But…so much for that.
The best thing he could do now was to stay the hell away from her and leave the unanswered
questions about Rodriguez for someone else to answer. He didn’t need to get in any deeper.
Irritably, he wiped away the sweat trickling down his torso, a byproduct of his memories of their
tussle on her small sofa. Grumbling, he said, “I’ll call your chief and square it, but even he can see
how this creates a conflict of interest for me. If I want my kid, it’s best I sit this one out. You know
your way to the door.” He turned to the sink and tossed the dregs of his coffee down the drain.
“So that’s a no?”
“Between you and me, that’s a fuck no.”
“Then how should I rephrase it to Mrs. Barker?”
Crawford came around. “Who?”
“Chet’s widow.” Neal reached into the breast pocket of his sport jacket and took out a letter
envelope. “This was hand-delivered to the department this morning by one of her relatives. It’s
addressed to you, but sent in care of the chief, who took the liberty of reading it before asking me to
pass it along.”
He extended the envelope toward Crawford, who actually recoiled from it. Neal laid the envelope
on the dining table. “Basically it says how highly Chet thought of you. He felt you were unfairly
criticized over…Well, you know.” Neal’s expression turned sour.
“She goes on and on for several paragraphs, reiterating how highly Chet praised you. Your skills.
Courage. Blah, blah. You get the idea. Anyway, she appeals to you to get to the bottom of the
courtroom shooting and provide her with an explanation for her husband’s death…which came about
here only a few months away from of his retirement.”
Crawford looked down at the pastel blue envelope. His name was written on it in a fine script. He
closed his eyes and mumbled a chorus of swear words.