Secret Admirer. Amanda Stevens

      Chapter One

      “Murderer!” the woman screamed at Tony Gallagher. “Look at him, you people! Take a good, long look! Ever stare into the eyes of a killer?”

      In her mid-forties, with long black hair flapping about her face and shoulders and gold bangles dangling from both wrists as she gestured wildly, the distraught woman reminded Tony of a gypsy. He suspected she could be just as beguiling. Her shrieks attracted more than a fair amount of attention from people passing by on the street.

      Traffic was heavy for early afternoon, and the skyscrapers lining State Street trapped exhaust fumes in the man-made canyons, adding to the thick, charged atmosphere outside Police Headquarters in Chicago.

      Pointing a finger at Tony, the woman yelled to anyone who would listen, “See that man? That cop! He killed my baby! My Franco! Shot him in cold blood!”

      Tony fished in his pocket for his sunglasses. All things considered, he would rather have been sailing on Lake Michigan this June afternoon, or stretched out on a beach somewhere. Facing a review board—and then a crazy woman—was not his idea of a great time, but he supposed the spectacle she created provided a certain amount of entertainment to some of the onlookers.

      Flanked on one side by his best friend and attorney, David MacKenzie, and on the other side by his sister, Fiona, Tony started down the steps. The wind off the lake whipped Fiona’s red hair into a frenzy. She peeled the fiery strands from her face as she matched her steps to Tony’s and David’s. Shifting her briefcase to her other hand, she squeezed Tony’s arm encouragingly.

      “Don’t let her get to you,” she murmured.

      “We should have gone out the other way,” David said tightly.

      “Why?” Tony demanded. He yanked at his tie, letting it drape around his neck like an untied noose. “I don’t have anything to hide. I was cleared in there, remember?”

      “By the review board,” David said. “Not by public opinion.”

      “Franco Mancini wounded two officers, one of them now permanently disabled. What was I supposed to do? Let him shoot me, too?”

      David sighed, slipping on his own sunglasses—expensive ones, to complement his Italian-cut suit and gold watch. “No, of course not. You did the right thing. But with your record…” His words trailed off as they reached the bottom of the steps.

      The woman suddenly lunged forward, and David slung up his briefcase to shield her from Tony. Two uniforms came rushing over to restrain her, but they couldn’t shut her up.

      “You’ll pay for what you did to my Franco! So help me, you will!”

      A murmur rippled through the crowd on the street, and Tony shuddered inwardly. This wasn’t the first time Maria Mancini had accosted him. Her son had been fatally wounded a few weeks ago in a shootout after a robbery attempt had gone bad. Tony had been off duty and had just happened by the convenience store when the shooting erupted. Not taking the time to call for backup, he’d drawn the gunman’s fire while one of the wounded officers pulled the other to safety. Then Tony had taken out the shooter.

      Franco Mancini had been transported to the same trauma unit at University Hospital as the two fallen officers, but by the time Franco’s mother had arrived, it was too late. He’d died in surgery.

      Somehow Maria had found out that Tony was the one who had shot her son. She’d come at him in the hospital like a dark-haired wraith, and it had taken four cops that night to pull her off.

      Tony winced, remembering the sting of her scarlet nails on his face. The bite of her words. The fierceness of her anger and grief, which hadn’t abated during the three weeks he’d been suspended pending an investigation by the Internal Affairs Division.

      Fiona’s grip tightened on his arm as they headed down the street toward her car. The sun reflected blindingly off a nearby office building. “You did do the right thing that night, Tony. You saved those officers’ lives. Ask their wives and kids if they think you’re a murderer.”

      Fiona always wanted to put things right. She hated unfairness of any kind, but now that she was a practicing attorney, she was likely to get a dose of real life. Tony knew better than anyone how rampant injustice was in this world. Why else had Ashley died so young?

      He frowned, not wanting to think about Ashley at all, but lately he couldn’t seem to help it. The anniversary of her murder was coming up, and that date always brought out the worst in him.

      It was hitting him even harder this year, probably because the suspension had given him too much time for brooding. He’d been drinking too much, hadn’t been sleeping. Hell, he thought, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the car window, no wonder the people on the street had bought Maria Mancini’s accusations.

      David went around and opened the door for Fiona, then rested his arm on the top of her new Audi. “Why don’t I meet you two at Nellie’s? We can have a beer to celebrate.”

      Tony shrugged. “I’m back on active duty, remember? Gotta go check in.”

      “So how’s the new lieutenant working out?”

      Another sore subject. Rather than going to bat for him with IAD, Clare Foxx had rolled over, agreeing to Tony’s suspension without so much as a lifted eyebrow.

      “Think of it as a paid vacation,” she’d told him, but they both knew what a suspension, whether warranted or not, could do to a cop’s reputation. What little reputation Tony had left.

      He suspected the sadistic part of Clare had enjoyed watching him being raked over the coals in the media, and he couldn’t help wondering what new torture she had in mind for him today.

      There’d been a time when Tony had felt closer to Clare Foxx than anyone alive. She’d been his first partner after he’d made detective, and for a while, he’d thought she might actually be able to help him exorcise the ghosts that had haunted him since Ashley’s death.

      But their relationship—both professional and otherwise—had ended badly. While time and promotions had passed Tony over, Clare had learned to play the game extremely well. She’d caught herself an angel somewhere along the way, and now she was his superior—literally had control over his destiny. A position she relished, Tony figured.

      If there was ever a reason for not sleeping with your partner, he thought dryly, Clare Foxx was it.

      “I HEARD THE NEWS,” Clare said a little while later, as Tony sat in her office at district headquarters. “Congratulations.”

      She was dressed in a black suit with a trim jacket and above-the-knee skirt. As she came around the desk and perched on the edge, Tony caught a flash of thigh.

      Damn, he thought, staring in spite of himself. Clare had been working out. Nearly ten years older than Tony, she’d held her age well at forty-one. Hell, she looked good for any age, and she damn well knew it, too.

      Smiling, she tucked a wisp of long dark hair behind her ear, revealing a tiny diamond stud in her lobe. She wore a gold chain around her throat, and she played with the necklace as she talked, twisting it around her fingers.

      She was a beautiful woman, but her eyes gave away her age and occupation. Dark, piercing, they were a little too hard and cynical, with