The Intelligence Unit Series

Tara pulled into a parking spot a block from the Thirty-Third Precinct and grinned at her good luck. Okay, so it was a bazillion degrees out, and yeah, she'd have to walk that block pretty quickly-in three-inch heels, no less-if she was going to make her meeting with Isabella and the Intelligence Unit. But despite working some breakneck hours to manage both her normal caseload and the trial prep for the Sansone case, she'd been able to spend the last four evenings in a row with Xander, hence her inclination to smile both randomly and often.

He'd surprised her by having a sense of humor nearly as dry as her own, along with a love for Renaissance history and the ability to make a killer dirty martini. He hadn't surprised her by being smart or pretty quiet about super personal stuff unless nudged, but Tara wasn't exactly a stranger to guiding conversations. While Xander had remained pretty tight-lipped about some of his past, he'd also told her no less than four dozen stories about his sister, Kennedy, her husband, Gamble, and the rest of the firefighters from Station Seventeen that served as his found family. Although she'd loved listening to Xander go on about his sister and all of their close friends, Tara couldn't deny the odd ache she'd felt in her chest as she'd listened to him talk.

What would it be like to be close with people like that? To trust that they'd always be there for her? That they'd never leave?

The way she was starting to trust Xander, and God, she didn't hate it.

"Oh, stop," Tara chided herself, replacing the smile that had faded from her lips with a newer, if less comfortable, version. Yes, she was enjoying the time she and Xander spent together, and oh yes, she'd definitely enjoyed the steamy goodnight kisses they'd traded over the past week and a half, ever since that first one at his place the night he'd brought Amour dinner. But the thought of belonging with anyone like that? Of being cared for at that level? That deeply?

She might as well be wishing for rainbows and unicorns, with quadruple ******s on top.

Straightening her shoulders beneath her suit jacket, she scooped up her purse and got out of her car. The walk was as short and hell-hot as expected, and by the time she'd made her way through the lobby, then the metal detectors and security check-in that allowed access to the Intelligence Unit's offices, Tara was fully focused on the case at hand.

"Hey! If it isn't my favorite A.D.A.," came Isabella's welcoming voice from the midway point in the large, open-concept main office space. Tara had always marveled at how the Intelligence Unit worked as a true team-no cubicles for this crew. The only private rooms were Sergeant Sinclair's office and the interrogation rooms along the back hallway of the space.

"I bet you say that to all the A.D.A.s," Tara said, her smile hanging in her voice.

Capelli looked up from the bank of monitors spanning half of the far wall of the office, pushing his black-framed glasses up over his nose. "Actually, she doesn't. Most of us really do like you best."

Tara had to laugh at how forthright the guy always was. "Most of you?"

"Well, Garza doesn't seem to have a preference," Capelli mused. "But I wouldn't take that personally. His gruff demeanor dictates that he doesn't really have a preference for anyone."

Isabella's partner, Liam Hollister, let out a thinly disguised laugh-cough from his spot at the desk across from her, as Garza-who was sitting well within earshot of the entire conversation-sent a hard look at Capelli.

"I can hear you, Wikipedia."

Yikes. Tara had seen sweeter expressions from defense attorneys on critical cross-examinations.

Capelli, however? Seemed unfazed. "I'm well aware of your keen sense of hearing, Detective. My commentary on your demeanor was purely observational. No offense intended."

"You've gotta admit, he's not wrong, G," Hollister said, his grin expanding as Garza's expression remained...well, gruff.

"Yeah, yeah," Garza grunted, although the words-and his frown-seemed to have lost their bite. He aimed his dark gaze at Tara. "Anyway, what's the word on Sansone?"

Ugh. "I was hoping you guys could tell me."

Isabella frowned, then nodded at Capelli, who brought the digital case board to life on a large, wall-mounted screen at the back of the office. "Unfortunately, not much. Hollister and Garza and Dade recanvassed Amour's neighborhood and got a whole lot of nothing on her attacker."

"Xander mentioned that when I saw him the other night," Tara said, matching Isabella's frown. She hadn't been expecting much, but... "How about the forensics from the crime scene?"

"We just got the last of the reports back from the lab this morning," Capelli said, motioning to the monitor. Do not look at the photographs of Amour's injury. Do not look-

Tara moved her gaze to focus on the images of Amour's house, staring hard. "Anything there?"

"Unfortunately, no," Capelli said. "No prints that don't belong to Amour or the handful of friends she said visited in the few weeks before the assault. We checked for hair and fiber even though I know I don't have to tell you that finding either isn't exactly definitive without other evidence."

No, he really didn't. Tara couldn't even count how many times she'd heard the story of the forensics investigator who had found a hair at the scene of a double-homicide that detectives had thought would break the case wide open...only to have the DNA match that of the detective's wife. Poor guy had unknowingly brought it into the crime scene on his jacket, and the story had become the stuff of defense attorneys' wildest dreams. "Yes, I'm well aware. I take it we didn't find any, regardless?"

"No." Isabella sighed. "We did get a partial boot print in the dirt outside that's a little promising. We can't be sure it doesn't belong to a meter reader or a delivery person, but we do know the wearer is a big guy." "Size fifteen, to be exact," Hollister put in, and okay, that they could work with.

"So, it could definitely belong to our assailant. Anything specific about the brand?" Tara asked, hope perking in her chest.

It sputtered out a second later. "Second most popular in the U.S.," Capelli said, clicking over to a photograph. "Available on dozens of online sites as well as five hundred fifty-two different stores all over the country." "Shit," Tara muttered.

"My feelings exactly." Garza folded his arms over his chest, his shoulder holster hugging a set of muscles that made him almost as menacing as his dark stare. "I'd love nothing more than to nail this a*****e and get him and Sansone off the streets." "How about the tattoo?" Tara asked, but Capelli shook his head.

"There are tens of thousands of tattoos in our database, and those are just the ones we have record of. The hash mark detail does narrow it down a bit, but it's still a popular design, and she didn't recognize it, which means it's likely her attacker doesn't work at the club."

Damn it. "So, we can't narrow it down."

"No." Hollister shook his head. "Sansone has a few guys on his club payroll who are big enough to fit the size description, but they're either not white or not inked that we can tell."

Tara bit back her frustration. "Which means all we really have to go on is this tattoo."

Capelli nodded, although he looked far from happy about the affirmative. "Statistically speaking, the odds of finding the man who assaulted Amour on a partial of a tattoo that she only got a glimpse of one time under duress are exceedingly improbable." "And even if we do, we'll still have to tie him to Sansone," Hollister said, running a hand through his red-brown hair. "Guys like that don't exactly get chatty. Not when they know what douchebags like Sansone are capable of."

"I take it he's been a Boy Scout this week." Tara didn't even bother trying to keep her disdain from seeping into her tone.

Capelli turned away from the case board. "Maxwell and Hale are doing surveillance on his club as we speak. Nothing much there, though. He's only come in a few times since the assault. He stays for a few hours, then heads for home."

"He's lying low, just like we thought he would," Isabella said. "But he's clearly desperate not to go to trial, otherwise he never would've risked threatening Amour in the first place, and he knows by now that his threat didn't work."

"He should," Tara agreed. Her only spark of hope right now was that Sansone would get desperate at the realization and slip up. "The trial date is set, and Amour is still on the witness list." She'd be protected, of course, since she was acting as an informant, and her testimony would be given via closed-circuit video, with her face and voice disguised. "His attorney is a sleazebag, but he's not stupid. He knows that Amour is my key witness. He also knows that if she was refusing to testify, I'd have reached out to try to cut a deal." Isabella nodded, one hand absently rubbing her belly. "And she's doing okay?"

"She's as well as she can be, under the circumstances." In truth, Xander was the only person who could get her anywhere close to a smile, and even that was hit or miss.

"I've got some possibles from the tattoo database for her to look at," Capelli said. "I'm not sure they'll amount to anything, but one of the detectives can bring them out to review them with her."

"I can go this afternoon," Isabella volunteered.

"Great," Tara said, mentally going over her schedule for the rest of the day. "Let me know when you're going? I'd like to be there with her when she looks over them, as long as that's okay with you?"

"Of course. Why don't I walk you downstairs and we can work out the details?"

After a handful of goodbyes to the rest of the Intelligence Unit, Tara shouldered her bag and fell into step beside Isabella.

"I hate that I can't be on the protection detail for this one," Isabella grumbled, but Tara shook her head.

"All the case work is important. It's probably how we're going to catch whoever hurt Amour and I'll need an airtight case to bring the guy in, so you're helping plenty. Plus"-she smiled-"you're already kind of on protection detail with this little..." "Guy." Isabella beamed.

"Oh, a boy! That's really exciting."

They rounded the corner to the precinct lobby, and if Isabella answered her, Tara couldn't have said. Because Xander stood at the sergeant's desk, his light green stare intent as he listened to something his partner was telling him, his patrol uniform outlining all of his lean muscles and the hard angles of his body just enough to suggest what they'd feel like if he pulled her close, and holy hell, how was it suddenly a million degrees in here?

"Oh, but that's more exciting," Isabella murmured, calling Tara out with her grin.

"I, uh." Eloquent. Real smooth. Oh, screw this. "Yeah. It might be kind of exciting? But it's not affecting the case at all," Tara added, worry crowding her chest. "I assure you, keeping Amour safe is our first priority."

"What you do on your own time is entirely your business." Isabella lifted her hands. "I know you're a good lawyer, just like I know Xander's a good cop. You're not breaking any rules, and neither one of you would ever jeopardize a case."

As if he'd heard his name across the noisy lobby, Xander looked up, his gaze catching Tara's and his mouth tugging up into a smile that moved all the way through her. Her cheeks heated in the best possible way, and she lifted a hand in a small wave. Tilting her head, Isabella surprised Tara by asking, "Can I give you a word of advice, friend to friend?"

"Oh." A pang hit her belly at the word friend. "I, ah. Sure?"

"Xander is a great guy, but he's not without ghosts. Do yourself a favor." Isabella's smile grew kind. "If you like him as much as your face says you do, don't let him hide from you. Because if he likes you as much as his face says he does, he's going to try." Tara blinked. Granted, less than three weeks had passed since he'd calmed her in that hospital lobby, but they'd been filled with a fast sort of closeness, an unspoken certainty that felt to Tara an awful lot like trust. "You think he's going to hide from me?" "I think he might not know how not to hide some things," Isabella said. "He had a rough life before he became a cop. Sometimes the past dies hard."

Well, shit. She'd already sensed Xander holding back a part of himself, and she was pretty well acquainted with how that worked, now wasn't she? Speaking of which...

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience." Hearing the directness of the impulsive thought she'd put to words, Tara's cheeks prickled. "I apologize. That was-"

"Accurate," Isabella finished. Her smile didn't budge; if anything, it strengthened. "Which is exactly why I'm giving you this advice. I've been there before, too. I'm not suggesting you push him-if he's not ready to talk, he won't. But I have a feeling he wants to trust you. He might just need you to show him that he can."

Looking across the lobby at Xander, Tara realized two things. One was that she did like him as much as Isabella had noticed. Maybe more.

The other was that she wanted him to trust her with his ghosts. No matter how scary they might be.