The elevator arrived and she turned her back on him as she entered, silently cursing Joe for having left her to undertake a life revolving around fly-fishing.
Chapter 2
When Abilene got off behind her, Kendra turned around to look at her new—and hopefully very temporary—partner. Why was he following her?
“Shouldn’t you be going up to your floor to get your things?” she asked him.
Just for a moment, he’d allowed himself to watch her walk, appreciatively taking in the way her hips swayed ever so slightly. Her question pulled him back to reality. He nodded toward the squad room just behind her. “I thought I’d see where my desk is first.”
“And what?” she asked. “If it doesn’t meet with your standards, you’ll stay where you are?”
Abilene grinned, amused. “Is that a hopeful note in your voice I hear?” He studied her for a moment, looking beyond her high cheekbones and her fascinating eyes. “You don’t do change very well, do you?”
The last thing she wanted to put up with was being analyzed. Kendra’s eyes blazed as she tossed her head. “What I do or don’t do is none of your business,” she informed him.
The way he saw it, that wasn’t quite true. “Some of it will be. And I want to see where my desk is so I don’t have to wander around aimlessly when I come down with an armload of my stuff.” He looked at her with eyes that seemed earnest. “Does that meet with your approval?”
Rather than answer him, she merely sighed and beckoned him to follow her through the door. Crossing the floor, she stopped at what seemed to be the center of the room.
“This is yours,” she told him, gesturing toward the cleared expanse of desk that butted up against hers.
A greater contrast between the two areas would have been difficult to find. One desk was the picture of virgin territory without so much as a scrap of paper on it, while the other desk bore silent testimony to a very cluttered style. There was a computer off to one side, its keyboard stretched out before it rather than neatly tucked out of sight. The rest of the desk was buried beneath files and a snowstorm of scattered, interweaving papers. Not so much as a square inch of desktop was visible.
Matt made no verbal comment, but the way his mouth curved seemed to say it all. At least, she read a great deal into it.
Kendra took umbrage at what she perceived as criticism from her new, God-help-her, partner. Periodically, she went through everything on her desk and cleared spaces, trying her best to organize the raft of papers into some sort of a system, but inevitably, the stacks would bleed into one another again, merging and creating a chaotic pile.
“I’ve got a system,” she retorted defensively in response to the amusement in Abilene’s liquid-green eyes.
“I’m sure you do.” To the untrained ear, Abilene’s mild tone sounded completely agreeable. Why, then, did it make her want to scratch his eyes out or at least challenge him to a weapons proficiency contest on the gun range?
Absently, Matt opened the center drawer of his new desk, then checked, one by one, a few of the other drawers. Like the surface of the desk, they were all pristinely clean.
He shut the last drawer. “Your old partner did a thorough job cleaning things out. He didn’t leave anything behind.”
“Not even any hope,” Kendra murmured under her breath. The amused sound coming from her new partner told her that her voice hadn’t been quite as low as she’d thought.
Great, Pretty Boy has hearing like a bat.
Stepping back, Abilene pushed his chair into his desk. “I’ll go get my stuff now.”
“I can hardly wait,” Kendra deadpanned, pasting a pained smile on her lips.
Matt paused for a moment, his eyes slowly sliding down the length of this sharp-tongued woman. Thanks to his chaotic upbringing, he was basically nomadic in his lifestyle and his relationships. It gave him the ability to take whatever came down the road because, good or bad, he knew it was only temporary and would eventually change.
“You know,” he told her, “I’m really not such a bad guy to work with. Not as good as some, but better than most. You might want to put the pitchfork down, Good, and reserve judgment for a while.”
The fact that Abilene wasn’t heaping endless laurels on himself surprised her. Someone like him, who exuded sensuality with his every movement, ordinarily had the inside track on vanity, possessing an ego that made passage through narrow doorways an ongoing challenge.
She supposed she could be wrong about Abilene, but she didn’t care to debate it with herself right now, one way or the other. She wasn’t feeling all that magnanimous or friendly.
“The jury’s still out on that one,” Kendra informed him.
Matt supposed that was the best he would get for now. And maybe that was good because he could see himself being attracted to her, but that might complicate matters. And all he was interested in for now was a truce while he got his bearings. Later might prove to be another story, he mused, but right now, he just wanted to settle in.
He flashed an easy smile. “Sounds fair enough,” he replied.
Turning on his heel, he was about to leave. All his things could be packed up and transported in one trip. Unlike his new partner, once he closed a case, he didn’t hang on to the papers that went with it. Instead, he placed everything onto a flash drive and preserved the information that way. It took up a great deal less space. And it made for a neater desk. He worked better that way.
Matt got exactly three steps toward the squad room door when he heard his name being called.
“Hey, Abilene!”
When he turned around again, Matt found himself looking down at an older man with thick silver hair and a far thicker waistline. Rather than hiding the latter behind the all-forgiving folds of a jacket, the older man had left his jacket in his office and was wearing just his shirt. The sleeves of his slightly rumpled shirt were rolled up and his tie appeared to have been hastily loosened, as if leaving it in its initial position would have eventually wound up choking him.
“Abilene?” the older man repeated, this time turning the last name into a question.
From the looks of the man, this had to be his new boss, Matt thought. He doubled back in long, loping strides.
“Yes, sir,” he responded easily, extending his hand to the other man, who stood only slightly shorter than he did. However, his slumped shoulders gave the impression that he was shorter than he was.
After a beat, the older man took Abilene’s offered hand. The handshake was surprisingly hearty. “I’m Lt. Holmes,” Isaac Holmes told his newest detective. “You’re just in time.”
Abilene cocked his head, the very gesture a query. “For?”
“You and Cavelli—you’re still Cavelli, right?” Holmes asked Kendra, sparing her a quick glance, then turning away before she had a chance to answer. “Just caught a case,” he concluded.
Matt jerked his thumb in the general direction of the hall—and the elevator. “I was just about to bring down my stuff,” Matt told him.
“Your stuff can wait. It’s not going anywhere. But you are.” Tearing off the top page from his pad where he’d written down the incoming information, the lieutenant pressed the paper into Kendra’s hand. “Super found a dead body. Not the one he expected to.” Glancing over toward Abilene, he added, “Welcome to Homicide.”
Kendra glanced at the paper Holmes had handed her, then tucked it into her pocket. “The Super expected to find a body?” she questioned.
“Not