Forbidden Lover. Amanda Stevens

      Chapter Three

      You do your job, Dr. Casey, and I’ll do mine.

      Erin couldn’t say she appreciated his attitude, but she wasn’t surprised by it. She’d worked with police officers before who grudgingly enlisted her help and were all too quick to draw the line between her duties and theirs. Homicide detectives were an especially turfconscious breed.

      Changing quickly into jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, Erin packed a small overnight bag, put out plenty of food and water for her cat, Macavity, and then locked up her apartment. Detective Gallagher was leaning against his car waiting for her as she ran down the stairs. He opened his trunk and stored her bag, then they both climbed back into the car.

      For a long, tense moment, neither of them said anything. His earlier rejoinder seemed to have dampened whatever camaraderie might have been forming between them. Erin saw him drum his fingertips impatiently on the steering wheel, and then hesitantly he turned to her. “Look, I’m sorry about before. What I said earlier.”

      She shrugged. “No problem.”

      “No, I was out of line and I apologize. It’s just that…” He trailed off, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. “I’m under some pressure right now.”

      “I understand, Detective Gallagher.” Actually, she was impressed that he was even willing to apologize. It had been her experience that most police officers, especially detectives, weren’t.

      He flashed her another look. “Call me Nick.”

      “Then please call me Erin.”

      He gave her a quick smile that almost stopped her heart. “Nice Irish name. My grandmother would approve.”

      “You’re Irish, too,” she said needlessly, but his smile had addled her a bit. She’d never been so aware of a man’s presence before. She didn’t quite know how to handle it.

      Nick didn’t seem to have the same problem. He said easily, “My father’s parents were both born in Dublin. You should hear my grandmother. Sometimes her brogue is still so thick you can barely understand her, especially when she gets mad. The fact that none of her grandchildren went to Notre Dame has been a sore spot with her for years now.”

      Erin smiled, but didn’t comment. According to her mother, her paternal grandfather had also immigrated to America from Ireland, over seventy years ago, where he had almost immediately set about to build himself an empire. He had been a bootlegger to start, an Irish Al Capone, and then after the repeal of prohibition, the family import-export business had diversified into other illegal activities, including arms trading.

      His sons—one of them being Erin’s father—had followed in his footsteps, which was why Erin’s mother had struck the bargain with him that she had. If she couldn’t save both her children from his evil influence, she could at least save one. So she took Erin—the child her father had agreed to give up—and fled Chicago, while Erin’s brother remained behind.

      In all these years, Erin had never heard a word from her father. When she was younger and her mother had told her about their past, she’d been too frightened to want any contact. Then, in high school, when she’d gone through a brief period of rebellion, she’d convinced herself that her father’s complete absence from her life was because he didn’t know where she and her mother had gone off to, nor did he know their new names. If she could just talk to him, let him know where she was, why then, of course he’d welcome her back into his life with open arms.

      Her mother had figured out what Erin was up to and had warned her that any connection with her father whatsoever could be dangerous to both of them. Something in her mother’s tone, the fear in her eyes had made a believer out of Erin. She hadn’t been so much worried for herself as she had been for her mother. What if her father did decide he wanted Erin back? What would he do to her mother?

      Erin had never tried to get in touch with him again, and as far as she knew, neither had her mother, although there had been times when Erin had wondered. Her mother had grown so sad during the years before she died. Melancholy and guilt-ridden, she would cry softly in her room late at night, when she thought Erin was asleep, but when Erin had tried to talk to her about it, her mother would grow very remote.

      And now she was gone, and Erin would never know the deep, dark secret that had troubled her mother’s last years.

      She sensed Nick watching her, and she turned, meeting his eyes in the dim light. His gaze was dark, intense, curious. He was wondering about her. Speculating about what made her tick. Erin had the same curiosity about him.

      “You’re wondering why someone would decide to become a bone detective,” she said.

      His brows lifted slightly before he returned his gaze to the road. “I think I get why you’re so good at what you do. You have ESP.”

      In truth, he wasn’t far off the mark. Erin’s ability to read bones did at times border on the uncanny, but she’d always been good at putting together puzzles. One of her strongest virtues was patience, another diligence. She would labor over remains long after everyone else was either satisfied with the conclusions or had given up.

      “I love what I do. There’s nothing supernatural about it,” she told him.

      He glanced at her again. “Which brings me back to my original question. Why did you become a forensic anthropologist?”

      “The short answer?” Erin shrugged. “I’d always been interested in archaeology, and after the Indiana Jones movies came out, I decided, like a few thousand other students, that was what I wanted to do. Travel the world looking for rare, priceless artifacts that could either save or destroy mankind.”

      The look he gave her was surprised. “You don’t strike me as the romantic type.”

      “Some people might take that as an insult,” she said dryly. “But since it’s the truth, I won’t allow myself to be too offended.”

      He grinned suddenly, the smile igniting a spark in his eyes that was very, very attractive. “You’re not at all what I expected.”

      “No?” Her tone remained light, in spite of her racing pulse. “Let me guess. You were expecting a cross between Quincy and Jessica Fletcher. Am I right?”

      “You’re perceptive,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”

      “You don’t exactly fit my image of a homicide detective, either,” she told him. “Where’s your rumpled trench coat?”

      The amusement faded from his expression. “Unfortunately, in real life, we’re not like Columbo. We don’t always get our man. Some of them tend to slip through the legal cracks. Even cold-blooded murderers.”

      Something in his voice, an edge of suppressed rage, made Erin shiver. She stared at his profile for a moment, wondering why the remains discovered yesterday were so important to him. He could pretend all he wanted that he was doing a favor for a friend by enlisting her help, but Erin knew better. There was a lot more to this case than Nick Gallagher was willing to tell her, and she wondered uneasily if she was getting into something