7:15 a.m.
LORNA SINKE LOVED to get to city hall before anyone else. She lived in the older section of town, close enough to city hall that she walked to work. She liked the fresh air, the exercise and the quiet. There were few people on the streets and traffic was light this time of the morning.
She was a creature of habit, leaving her house every weekday morning at the same time. This morning was no different. Only today, she carried more than her usual lunch and thermos of coffee. Today, she had the cookies in the airtight container in her bag. They made a thumping sound as she walked, reminding her of what she planned to do before the day was over.
City hall came into view, the white-stone, three-story building shimmering in the bright blue morning. Lorna always experienced a sense of pride when she saw it. She loved the inside even more, with its ornate moldings and high ceilings.
Some people thought the old city hall building was cold and a waste of space, too much like a tomb, but Lorna loved it. A few years ago there was talk of tearing city hall down and building something modern. Over her dead body, Lorna had declared. After all the years she’d worked here, she felt as if it were her building. Fortunately the historical society had saved it. Lorna had led the charge—and made a few enemies along the way, including Councilwoman Gwendolyn Clark.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to her problems with the councilwoman. Gwendolyn Clark was on a mission to get Lorna fired, saying it was time that Lorna retired and the council got some “new blood” in the position. Over Lorna’s dead body.
Crossing Washington Avenue, she walked down Robbin Street around to the employee entrance at the rear of city hall. Kitty-corner across the intersection of Bright and 12th streets, she caught a glimpse of the police department. She’d been taken there for questioning after her parents’ deaths. The building was new and impersonal, nothing like city hall. She was glad the city had put up a tall oleander hedge along the back of city hall that hid the newer buildings. Especially the police station. The sight of it only brought back bad memories and Lorna Sinke wasn’t one to dwell in the past.
As she walked through a narrow entrance in the oleander hedge, she stopped to pick up a candy wrapper someone had irresponsibly dropped. Muttering to herself, she stuffed the candy wrapper into her bag and pulled out the key she kept on her kitten key ring.
Her mind was on the day ahead and the outcome. She felt a ripple of excitement. If this day ended the way she’d planned it, she would be free of Gwendolyn Clark.
As Lorna inserted the key into the lock, she sensed someone approaching from behind but didn’t bother to turn around. Blast the woman to hell. Gwendolyn Clark had taken it upon herself to come in at the same time as Lorna every morning for the past two weeks. The councilwoman was spying on her. Gwendolyn said she was working on a special project. Lorna knew she was that special project. The woman was trying to dig up some dirt, something she could use to get rid of Lorna.
It was all she could do not to turn around and hit the woman with the heavy bag. Of course she wouldn’t do that. She did her best not to let Gwendolyn see how she felt about her. That alone had become a full-time job and one of the reasons Lorna had decided today she’d do something about the councilwoman.
Lorna turned the key in the lock, planning to say hello to Gwendolyn, pretending, as she had been for weeks, that she didn’t suspect what the woman was up to. Today she would be especially nice to her. It would make it easier later this afternoon when Lorna offered her one of her special cookies. If there was one thing Gwendolyn Clark couldn’t pass up, it was sweets.
As the door swung open, Lorna plastered a smile on her face and turned, expecting to see Gwendolyn Clark’s round, pinched face and disapproving gaze.
To Lorna’s surprise, it wasn’t Gwendolyn behind her but an elderly police officer, gray-haired, slim, wearing wire-rimmed glasses. He looked familiar. He was hunched over, as if in pain.
“Can you help me?” he said, his voice barely audible.
“Are you sick? Injured?” She fished for her cell phone and had just found it when a thirty-something man appeared from the edge of the oleander hedge along the street. Like the first, he, too, was dressed in a police uniform. But his hair was long and stringy, he’d done a poor job of shaving that morning, and part of his uniform shirt wasn’t tucked in. Her gaze caught on his shoes. He wore a pair of worn-out sneakers.
Lorna felt her first real sense of fear. This man, she thought as he ran toward her, was not a policeman. Before she could react, the first man straightened a little, reached out and grabbed her wrist.
She swung her bag with her lunch, the pint-size thermos and the container of cookies in it, catching the older of the two on the side of his head. He yelped and stumbled back, bumping into the disheveled-looking man. Lorna had stepped backward into the building with the swing of her bag. Now she fought to close the door, but the younger man was faster and stronger.
He drove the door back. She turned and ran deeper into the building, her cell phone still in her hand, her fingers punching out 91—
The younger man was on her before she could get out the last number.
7:18 a.m.
ANNA FELT ALL the breath knocked out of her as she looked past Max and saw Flint. She was shocked at how little he had changed. For a moment it was as if the last five years hadn’t happened and at any moment he would smile and she would step into his strong arms.
But then she saw his expression, a mixture of anger, bitterness and hurt, assuring her the years had been real, just like her reason for leaving.
His gaze turned colder than even she had expected. But it was her own reaction that surprised her. She had wondered what it would be like to see him again. She’d told herself she was over Flint Mauro. That there were no feelings left. For the past five years, she’d worked hard to forget him and get on with her life. She thought she’d done just that.
But she’d never expected it would hurt this much just seeing him.
“Anna,” Max said warmly. “Flint, Anna is our new SWAT team paramedic. Anna, Flint is our SWAT team commander.”
Anna could only stare in disbelief. Flint had always said he was going to be a detective and work his way to chief of police. He wanted to be one of those cops who used his brain instead of brawn, who didn’t have a job where he was always in the line of fire.
“I want to be able to come home to my wife and kids at night,” he had said. “I don’t want to be out there risking my life any more than I have to.”
Now he wore SWAT fatigues and a T-shirt with Do Whatever It Takes printed across the chest. What had happened in the last five years to change his mind?
“Please come in and sit down,” Max said to her, cutting through her painful memories.
Behind him, Flint was shaking his head. “What the hell? Max, you can’t be serious. This isn’t going to work.”
Max acted as if he hadn’t heard him. “Anna, are you all settled in?”
She nodded, afraid she couldn’t find her voice to speak.
Flint had turned away, anger in every line of his body. “I can’t believe you kept this from me.”
“Both of you—sit down,” Max ordered.
“Max, I had no idea that Flint was the SWAT commander,” Anna finally managed to say.
“Sit.”
They sat in the two chairs in front of his desk, neither looking at the other. But Anna couldn’t have been more aware of Flint. This close she could smell the light scent of his aftershave, the same kind he’d used when they’d been together. He exuded an energy that seemed to hum in the air around him, that buzzed through her, reminding