Florida Knight (2 page)

Chapter 2

Something remarkably like a sigh drifted through the open door between Kate Knight’s desk and her employer’s office. She lifted he
r head, listening for a repeat.

Nothing but the soft hum of her computer, the faint sound of traffic outside. Since her employer, Barbara Falk, was the most outgoing, perpetually optimistic person Kate had ever known, she must be mistaken. That sound could not possibly have been a heart-felt sigh. Kate glared at her computer. More likely, the noise was in her head, a reflection of her own bleak mood.

Not that she had any excuse for her less-than-buoyant spirts. It might have taken her twenty-four years to break free from her former life, but she’d done it, creating the life she wanted and living it, quite contentedly, for seven years now . She had the world’s best boss, a job she was good at, part-time hours that gave her the opportunity to do the things which were the other half of her life. What more could anyone ask?

“Kate.” Attorney Barbara Falk filled the office doorway. A white silk blouse perked up the black expanse of her moderate-priced pantsuit. A cap of auburn hair, which had never been allowed to show a strand of gray, glowed above a cheerful face as round as the ample curves of her body. At the moment, however, she looked as glum as Kate felt. “Before you leave, I’d like to speak with you.”

Kate went very still. Dear God. That heartfelt sigh took on reality, an ominous tone.

“Of course,” she murmured, “I’m almost finished with Fred Bailey’s Petition to the Court.”

A nod, a slight curve of Attorney Falk’s lips—far less than her usual ebullient smile—and Kate’s boss returned to her desk in the inner office. Another bad sign. Barbara Falk—who had an aversion to gadgets, including interoffice phones—usually just shouted for Kate. That she had hauled herself out of her chair and walked all the way to the door was not good. Not good at all.

Appalled, Kate found the letters on her computer screen wavering, fading in and out. Her mind raced. Barbara was retiring. She could no longer afford an assistant. She needed someone who was willing to work full time. She . . .

Stop.
Think!
Since Kate kept the books—at least enough to turn over to the accountant each month—she knew Barbara Falk’s business was solvent. And, besides, Barbara didn’t really need the money. She’d returned to law after her children were grown. Wills, Trusts, Probate, an occasional divorce. At no time had Kate’s boss shown any ambition to accumulate more business than she already had. Nor any sign she planned to retire from a practice that was less than ten years old. So what was going on? Probably nothing more than Barbara taking a day off, wanting dates for Kate’s vacation . . .

Blast it!
She
needed
this job. Well-paying part-time work was hard to find, even for a skilled paralegal. And she
was
skilled. She took pride in her work. So why this tide of dread that suddenly weighed her down, this feeling that something momentous—and possibly dire—was about to happen?

Nerves. There were those who said Kate Knight didn’t know the meaning of the word, but it just wasn’t so. If they’d known the wimp she once was . . .

Had she had it too easy since she walked away from her previous life? Must contentment inevitably be punished? Was she was about to lose it all?

She was an idiot. A foolish, fanciful creature unworthy of twenty-first century females. Kate scowled at her computer screen, forced her fingers to the keyboard.
On the Petition of FREDERICK G. BAILEY, for Subsequent Administration of the above estate . . .

Twenty minutes later, Kate walked through her boss’s door. Clinically, she noted her raised heart beat as she took a seat in one of the comfortably upholstered chairs in front of Barbara’s desk. She crossed her legs at the knee, noticing a slight shine on her navy crepe slacks. Not to worry, she thought grimly. Suitable office attire was something she wouldn’t have to worry about if she no longer had a job.

“Uh, Kate . . .” Barbara Falk faltered. Idly, she played with a glass paperweight filled with swirls of blue and silver.

Kate’s depression deepened. Her boss was never at a loss for words. Dear God, it must be really bad.

“Kate, I’ve had a most unusual request.” Barbara Falk paused, obviously uncomfortable, before plunging ahead. “You probably know Bill has a lot of friends in law enforcement. Well, one of them asked him to find someone who could–ah–help one of their investigators. Bill thought of you.”

Bill was William A. Falk, Barbara’s husband and, at one time, a prosecuting attorney in the DA’s office. Through the ensuing years of a private practice which had become the largest, most prestigious law
firm
in Golden Beach, he had kept his police contacts—city, county and state. His wife’s determined independence was their sole bone of contention, which Bill Falk handled by a public display of amused tolerance.

Kate could not, however, imagine any way in which her world could intersect with an investigator. Then again, helping a detective—whatever he wanted—was better than losing her job.

“I–um–knew you probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea.” Barbara was still focusing on the paperweight, unable to meet Kate’s eyes. “But the matter seemed important, so I–ah–I invited the investigator here to meet you.” Attorney Falk glanced at her watch. Something close to relief showed on her pleasant, rounded features. “Oh, my, he’s due here any minute.” Kate’s boss straightened a stack of papers, reached in a desk drawer for her purse. “I’ll just introduce the two of you, then dash off so you can have a bit of privacy. Don’t bite his head off, Kate,” Barbara added more briskly. “Listen to the man. Please!”

“
Barbara!
”

The outer door swung open. Footsteps approached the inner office. At the look on her employer’s face, Kate swallowed what she was going to say, but stubbornly refused to turn and look. She had been set up, and she didn’t like it.

“Oh, my!” Barbara breathed.

Okay, so it was rude not to look. She wanted to keep her job, didn’t she? Kate turned her head.

Oh my
and Wow
!
When she’d suspected something momentous was about to happen, this was definitely not on her list of possibilities. Somehow Kate was on her feet, even as all the ridges of her brain, and places south, seemed to be curling at the edges, threatening to go up in smoke.

“Lieutenant Turco, Kate Knight.” Barbara’s voice was a distant buzz, the name sailing straight over Kate’s head. Her lips curved into a semblance of a smile as her hand was swallowed in a grip as strong as it was brief.

Attorney Falk, having satisfied the minimum dictates of
courtesy, made good her escape.

Kate never noticed her boss’s rapid retreat. When a woman towers ten inches over five feet, it takes a lot of man to look down on her. Lieutenant . . . Whatsit almost made her feel delicate. Tall, dark and lean, his was not a face one wanted to meet on a dark night. A prankster’s caricature of hardline features snatched from Willem Dafoe or Jack Palance. All angles and planes, with deep-set black eyes surrounded by a maze of frown lines, lips that looked like they never smiled, topped by a
cap
of short straight black hair. The scowl he turned on Kate could only be described as ferocious. Clearly, the lieutenant was not pleased to be here.

“Kate Knight. That your real name?” he challenged.

Kate’s tongue seemed to swell until it filled her mouth.
He couldn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know.
She had to say something. She would not let him do this to her. She was stronger, far stronger than the woman she used to be. “Of course,” she snapped, green eyes challenging black.

A curt nod, he waved her to a seat. Her own. Instead of sitting on the rose leather sofa designed for client comfort, he perched himself on Kate’s desk, even though she’d been certain his ramrod stiff back would never bend. He was close enough she could smell his aftershave. Something sharp, tangy, and oh-so-macho. He’d dressed for the occasion, Kate noticed. Blue jacket over light gray pleated pants. Sparkling white shirt, discreet navy tie. The overall effect was intimidating. Kate’s pulse pounded its way up another few notches toward massive stroke.

He slapped a wallet-style badge down in front of her. “Michael Turco, Lieutenant, FHP.”

Obviously, he expected her to be impressed. And she was. City cops, county cops were a dime a dozen. A state cop—a state
investigator
—was something else again.

“Did they tell you why I’m here?” Michael Turco asked.

“Just that I might be able to help in some way.”

As he tucked his badge back inside his jacket, Kate thought she caught the bulge of a shoulder holster. It was the closest she’d ever been to a gun. Which was, of course, why a shiver was scooting up her spine. Couldn’t be any other reason, right?

He shot her a look, and Kate felt photographed, X-rayed, cataloged, and tucked into storage for instant recall at any moment in the next fifty years. How far beneath her tall skinny figure did he see? Beneath the silver blond hair ruthlessly confined in a French braid above a narrow face almost as strong and angular as his own? Except that her worry lines, her badges of age and experience, weren’t nearly as deep. And, with an inward sigh, Kate had to admit her chest bulged only slightly more than his.

If he was disturbed that so little had been done to prepare his way, Lieutenant Turco didn’t show it. “Okay, here’s the story,” he declared. “You’re a member of this LALOC group, right?”

From the tone of his voice he might as well have been asking if she was a member of Al Qaeda. Ridiculous! In the history of the world there had been few less harmless groups than the Lords and Ladies of Chivalry. Kate gritted her teeth and nodded.

Suddenly, he was on his feet, pacing the short distance between the outer door and Barbara’s office. Lieutenant Turco ran a hand through his buzz cut, betraying the first sign of uncertainty Kate had seen in his hard-as-nails façade. “I have a case—somewhat personal,” he admitted. “It’s high priority only to me, but I’ve been given permission to pursue it in my spare time.” He took a deep breath which sounded perilously like a groan. “To do that, I need your help.”

And it was killing him, Kate realized. This was a man who hated to ask for assistance of any kind. “So this isn’t official?” she ventured, fighting to stay calm, think rationally, even as she felt bolts of tension shooting from his taut panther-like body like a shower of sparks from a welding torch. Lieutenant Michael Turco was more than the confined space of her office could accommodate. Either the office, the lieutenant, or she, was likely to go up in flames at any moment. Maybe all three.

“Dammit, of course it’s official,” Michael growled. “It’s just not top priority. Do you think we went to all this trouble to find an insider so I can play at sword-fighting?” His palm slammed against the heavy wood of the door into the corridor. The pacing stopped. After a frozen moment, he turned to face her. “Okay, okay, none of this makes sense, does it? My fault. Investigators are cool, ruthless types. We drink hard, never crack a smile, don’t give a damn about our families. Robots without emotion, that’s us.”

“So this
is
personal.”

“Very.”

Kate scooted her chair back a few inches as, once again, the cop from the Florida Highway Patrol sank onto her desk. He was by far the most overwhelming man she’d ever met.

Another of those sharp, assessing looks. “Mrs. Falk really didn’t tell you what this is all about?”

“No.” Kate was a fighter. She looked straight into the depths of those fathomless black eyes and waited.

“There was a so-called accident at The Medieval Fair in
Manatee
Bay
a month ago . . .”

“I was there,” Kate interjected. “As a vendor. I was at my booth and didn’t see it, of course, but everyone was shocked. Things like that just aren’t supposed to happen.”

“Damn right they’re not.” Michael Turco’s dark eyes drifted away into his own personal hell. He didn’t care what the Bible said about vengeance being the Lord’s. This was his own personal crusade, and he’d do damn near anything to bring it off.

He turned the full intensity of his gaze back to the woman in front of him. She wasn’t young, only a few years less than his own thirty-six. And she was a lot stronger and tougher than he’d expected. About as far from a classic Fair Maiden as a girl could get. He’d pictured a sweet young thing, a malleable creature who’d do whatever he told her. Kate Knight was a surprise. Not a good one. She raised all his hackles, red-flagging the instincts that had kept him alive for so long. And at the moment those big green eyes were demanding,
Get on with it! Tell me what’s going on.

“The kid who was hurt at the tournament is my brother. Ten days in a coma. He’ll be in rehab for months. Learning to speak, walk, read. We’re still not sure if he’s going to make a full recovery.” Ignoring her words of sympathy which, he had to concede, seemed genuine, Michael plowed ahead. “So, yes, it’s personal. But when I started to check the immediate source of the problem, I turned up a whole can of worms. It would seem the Age of Chivalry has acquired something rotten, its own Wicked Sorcerer you might say.”