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I sighed. “Robert? The man who wants to see me swallowed by a crack in the floor? Who just happened to ask formespecifically to be on this case? Jim, come on!”
I only called the chief by his first name in the most desperate of situations. He knew it as well as I did.
“I know what I’m asking here, but Robert is one of us, and I’d trust him with my life. He’d never endanger one of his own.” The chief looked at me, then at the file. “Not even one that slept with his baby girl and then dumped her.”
“Jesus Christ. I didn’t dump her. We were never together, and the whole station saw her drag me home when I was drunk. A mistake I never made before and never will again.”
For a moment, there was silence in the room. The chief used it to shuffle around some papers on his desk; I used it to look at that picture of the woman again—Mila. Saving kittens from dumpsters.
“What’s her deal anyway?” I asked, nodding at the picture. “She’s dumpster-diving for pets on weekends as a hobby next to her usual nine-to-five at the grocery store?”
By no means was that an insult. I was lower-to-middle class myself, raised by a waitress mother and plumber father. My hobby on my rare days off had long ago shifted from fooling around with hot women to growing vegetables at a community garden. As ridiculous as it looked when a six-foot-one, muscular man bent down in the dirt with gardening gloves and an old baseball cap, it brought me peace, and I loved it. Not as much as the feel of a woman’s soft lips on my body, but after the whole Annabel thing, I realized that short-term fun could have long-term consequences that simply weren’t worth it. Some would call this realization growing up, becoming a real man, I guess. Of course I was still a man with needs...but I now limited it to the few women I met online who wanted the same things I did: work and fuck with no commitments.
The chief glanced at the file in my hand, then leaned back in his chair. “No nine-to-five. She’s a vet student here at the local university and doing a residency at a small, shitty vet clinic.”
“Ah. So what would my undercover profile be? I’m thirty-six. Way too old for the vet-student type. I hope you don’t wanna make me a vet and endanger all those cute puppies with my lack of medical training?”
“Don’t be stupid. I love dogs. We thought something more like animal control officer.”
Animal control officer?“Answer calls from hysteric city people about one-legged pigeons and sewer rats in the train station?”
The chief shrugged. “Who cares? We’ll have a fake city program established between the city and her vet clinic. Bring in sick animals that the city pays to have cared for. Everybody knows that the vets at animal control shelters are overworked and can’t keep up. It’s a good cover for you. And as soon as you get damaging information on Eagle from his sister, we’ll hand the case off to the FBI to finish the job.”
“For a price, I assume?”
“Damn right. They’ve tried to find Eagle for years but have more rats than the Boston sewer system. The FBI chief would offer his family in return for this man.”
I tilted my head, still looking at the captivating picture of Mila and her breathtaking smile.
“Animal control officer,” I mumbled to myself. That actually sounded like a nice job, to be honest. I loved animals, almost more than people. This undercover gig could be fun. Except for the part the chief had not spilled yet, left out intentionally for untilafterI was hooked. I was supposed to befriend this woman to get to her brother. Lie to her to gain her trust. Something I hated about undercover work with all my heart and soul, no matter how much I tried to tell myself that it was all for the good of others. Which it was considering how many lives we had saved in the past. But still…
“And as animal control officer Miller or whatever my identity will be, I’ll establish a friendship with the target’s sister and get as much information as possible? Something to nail him on or, even better, learn his patterns and catch him with evidence? So, basicallyusingher to get to her brother?”
Leaning forward again, the chief nodded. “Nobody has ever had this much on Eagle or was even close to meeting him in person. This is a big deal for many important people out there. And the not-so-important ones like us. We’ll get the money we need to save this station from deteriorating and establish some much-needed programs.”
I wasn’t convinced—about using the girl. A feeling that struck me as odd considering how many times I had worked undercovers before.
The chief sighed. “We’re notusinganybody. It’s not like I’m asking you to marry her and have babies. Just build trust and a friendship. She isn’t much yet, but she might be the key to Eagle with the right efforts.”
For some reason, it bothered me that he used the words “isn’t much” when talking about her. But he was right about one thing. This was the best chance anybody had ever had to catch Eagle. And whoever did nail him would receive promotions and funding to the moon and back. Congress hated Eagle. He had killed some of their own, and so far, not even their power and money had been able to bring him down. The rewards for my station would be endless.
I grabbed the file and rose. “I’ll do it.”
The chief stood with me. “I knew you would. You care about this station. And catching Eagle will bring the funding we need to make this town a better place.”
I knew what he was referring to. Along with the obvious new equipment we could afford, my station could also establish a mental health unit to save the souls that didn’t belong in cells but in the care of mental health professionals. Many of our officers had begged for such a unit for years. Especially me. My own mother suffered from schizophrenia, which had shaped the years of my childhood like a knife cutting soft clay. She was the sweetest person on this planet...as long as she took her antipsychotics. I remember having to watch her being taken into a police car in handcuffs—where a sweet soul like her absolutely didn’t belong.
For a moment, I waited to see if my chief had anything else to say, especially given the fact that I, as a single man, was going to be making friends with a young woman.
Suddenly, he looked up at me, surprised, angry. He seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “Do you really think I’d assume you’d act unprofessionally on the job? You’ve never caused me any sort of grief or reason to distrust you. I know you’re a good cop. One of my best.” He scratched his chin. “Even if you are an idiot of a man.”
I was relieved to hear him say it. The whole thing with the lieutenant’s daughter had created a certain image that was following me around. Worst of all, I didn’t even know who she was at the time. Annabel had lied to me, said she was at the party with a girlfriend who was a cop.
File in hand, I was ready to leave when my chief’s last words ran through my head again.
Idiot of a man.
“Idiot of a man?” I frowned at him. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
The chief dropped his gaze on a pile of papers in front of him and started signing them.
“Noah, my boy, I mean this with all the love in my heart, but any man at your age who has your looks, courage, heart, intelligence, and devotion, and is still not married, or at the very least divorced, is an idiot.”
He stopped signing papers, pen still in hand as if he was thinking about how strange it really was that I was still single. “Truly an idiot,” he mumbled to himself as he continued signing away.
Straightening my muddy Hawaiian shirt, I threw him a curt nod. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now go get your new ID taken care of and read up on animal control procedures. Any other cop would kill to be in your shoes now. If you fuck this up, I’ll personally make sure that Croatia will put a public ban on your pretty b-movie face for the rest of your life.”
I grinned. “I won’t fuck this up, Chief. I promise.”
