Suspect Passions Read Online Free Page A

demeanor, swaggering walk, or unconcerned looks. It was still there visible through the windows of her soul.
    This was the kind of woman that intrigued Syd. She liked the challenge of cracking open that hard exterior shell of protection and safety and finding the creamy filling of love, nurture, and trust. So far she’d been disappointed. The women she’d dated either had layer upon layer of shell, or no filling at all, no real substance, just a need to be attached at the hip for identity purposes. Syd had no use for another appendage beyond the occasional lover’s strap-on. She wanted an equal, a real partner, a challenge. Someone who didn’t bore her within a week of their meeting. But she’d had that wish for years and it wasn’t likely to be granted today. Today was about getting back to work, and that in itself was a cause for celebration.
    When she stepped off the elevator on the police-department level, her entire squad descended on her like a “hot now” sign at the donut shop. They kidded and jostled her all the way to the lineup room, where a big cake occupied the center of the sergeant’s table.
    “Let’s eat this thing before it melts,” Sergeant Miller grumbled, but his big smile said he was just as happy to have her back as the rest of the squad. They were like a family, with one new addition, Gil Brady, who stood off to the side.
    Syd motioned for him to join the group as she dug hunks of ice-cream cake into plastic saucers and handed them out. Gil was a shy, thirtyish country boy who had recently returned from a stretch in Iraq and was newly married. Syd couldn’t imagine the reentry problems he was having. Just coming back from that hellhole was enough, but with a new wife in tow, a wife who was also a war veteran, it couldn’t be easy. He’d been assigned to the squad just before the shooting so she hadn’t gotten to know him at all yet. He seemed nice enough. Time would tell.
    After the party and assignments, they all hit the street. As she walked to the patrol car and stowed her gear, Syd was amazed at how unchanged everything seemed: same procedures, same criminals on the wanted list, same job, and same zone partners. These guys really cared about her, and this job meant something in the whole scheme of things. But a nagging sensation in her gut told her that something had definitely shifted. No matter how vital the job, it should never require her to take a life.
    Feeling physically in her element but emotionally disconnected, she started the cruiser and maneuvered into the light morning traffic. As she drove along the block, she wondered if she could ever reconcile killing, “justified” or not, with the person she imagined herself to be. But self-evaluation would have to wait as the radio crackled to life with her first call of the day.

    *

    Regan had barely settled at her desk and calmed her traitorous libido when the phone rang and she was summoned to her boss’s office.
    Terry Blair was a physically fit baby boomer. His sharp blue eyes beamed with penetrating intelligence from beneath a crinkled forehead and a shock of white hair. They’d been working together for a year, and Regan had been honest with him about her reasons for leaving a high-paying, high-profile job for an assistant city attorney’s position. He’d been sympathetic and fair, enthusiastically accepting her into his cadre of lawyers. And as he’d become more comfortable with her abilities, he’d assigned progressively more difficult cases to her.
    She took one of the two sleek leather club chairs in front of his oak desk and waited for him to finish the notes he was scribbling. When he closed the file he rounded the desk to sit beside her in the matching chair.
    “How’s it going?” he asked, rubbing his palms together in a gesture Regan had come to recognize as a nervous tic.
    “Good. So now that the pleasantries are out of the way, what’s the bad news?”
    The surprised look on Terry’s face was