Internal Affairs (4 page)

“Rafe?”

He blinked at her. “Give me some credit, sis, I’m not stupid enough to interfere with a crime scene.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes,” he lied. “Absolutely sure.”

She studied him skeptically. The woman had always had the uncanny ability to read him. Had caught him in a number of lies as they grew up, but had always been merciful enough not to tell their parents.

Kate was a good six years older than Rafe and that gap had given her enough insight to avoid the pettiness of sibling rivalry. She may not have been a nurturer, but she wasn’t a traitor, either. And nobody could ever say that the Franco kids didn’t look out for one another.

Even so, she really annoyed him sometimes.

“I’m going to trust you on that,” she said. “But if any fingerprints show up, you’re on your own.”

“They won’t,” he told her, relieved that he’d had the wherewithal to use his shirttail for protection. “I promise.”

She studied him a moment longer, then nodded and walked away, heading into the garage.

When she was gone, Rafe let out a long breath and tried not to feel too guilty.

Chapter Four

“So is your sister seeing anyone these days?”

The deputy he’d snagged to drive him back to the station was a guy named Phil Harris. Harris was what qualified in the patrol division as an old-timer, although he couldn’t yet be over forty. He’d been with the department since he was Rafe’s age and had never progressed further than a RS-3 pay grade.

Harris was a good cop, but not the most ambitious guy in the department.

“Sorry, Phil, I don’t keep track of her love life. You’d have to ask her.”

Harris wasn’t the first deputy to approach Rafe about Kate. One of the hazards of working in the same department as your sister was that you had to put up with every hot-to-trot single—and sometimes married—guy on the job, looking to get into her pants. Rafe would be the first to admit that Kate was a looker—she
did
have the Franco genes, after all—but the last thing he wanted to think about was who she may or may not be sleeping with.

“I was hoping you’d put in a good word for me,” Harris said. “Let her know I’m interested.”

What was this—high school?

Rafe shook his head. “First, I’ve got zero influence over Kate. And second, you might as well stand in line. You’re about the fifteenth deputy who’s asked me about her in the last month alone—and the competition is stiff.”

“How stiff?”

“Like County Undersheriff stiff.”

Harris’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re telling me she’s been hitting it with Macon?”

“That’s the rumor,” Rafe said. “But, as I told you, I don’t keep track. I’m having a hard enough time with my own love life.”

Harris turned. “I thought you were dating that blonde in dispatch? The one with the big—”

“That’s been over for months,” Rafe said. “In fact, it was over before it really got started. No chemistry. Besides, I don’t have time for romance. I’ve got to think about my career.”

Harris snorted. “You sound like me about twenty years ago. I passed up on a perfectly good relationship—a gal I could have had a life with—all because I thought I didn’t have time for that nonsense. Now look at me. I’m alone and going nowhere. And believe me, it isn’t much fun.”

Rafe found his mind wandering back to last night’s dream and the girl he’d left behind. He shook the thought away.

“Boo-hoo,” he said. “I’m still not going to set you up with my sister.”

Harris grinned. “You saw what I was trying to do there, huh?”

“From a couple hundred yards away.”

* * *

T
HEY WEREN’T TWO MILES
from the station house when Harris’s radio came to life.

“Dispatch to Unit Ten, do you read me?”

Harris snatched up his handset. “This is Ten. What do you got?”

“A possible 273 D in Forest Park. Can you respond?”

Two-seventy-three D
was code for a domestic dispute, every deputy’s least favorite type of call. Too often it was a husband being abusive to his wife, and Rafe had no tolerance for such men. It took everything he had to keep himself from giving the abuser a very painful life lesson.

Harris turned to him. “You in?”

Rafe was already supposed to be off the clock, but despite his reservations, he found that he still had a lot of pent-up energy coursing through his veins.

“Sure,” he said.

Harris clicked the handset. “I’m on it, dispatch. Deputy Franco assisting. Give me the address.”

Ten minutes later they pulled into Forest Park, an affluent section of St. Louis, not far from the Hill, where Rafe lived. The neighborhood featured a mix of 2-million and 3-million-dollar homes. Tudors. Dutch colonials. A couple of Cape Cods thrown in for good measure. It was the kind of place that made deputies like Rafe and Harris feel as if they were little more than servants to the rich and powerful.

Rafe had to fight against this feeling as they pulled up to the house in question, a two-story colonial. The front door was nearly the size of his entire apartment.

They got out and he waited as Harris knocked.

A voice on the intercom came to life. “Yes?”

“Sheriff’s department,” Harris said. “You called us about a domestic dispute?”

A moment later, the door opened and an elderly woman who was built like a bull terrier, ushered them inside.

“Come in, come in,” she said. “The no-good creep is gone, but we want to file a formal complaint against him.”

“Against whom?” Rafe asked as they followed her into a large foyer.

“The former man of the house. He broke in through the back door and raised quite a fuss.”

“Is anyone hurt?”

“No, but it got pretty dodgy there for a minute.”

Rafe nodded. “So who is this guy? Your husband?”

The old woman laughed. “Me? No. I’m just the hired help. But I had to scare him off with my scattergun. Couldn’t have him treating Lisa like that.”

“Lisa?”

“The lady of the house.”

Just as she said this, they stepped into an expansive, tastefully furnished living room and Rafe’s heart momentarily seized up as his gaze shifted to the woman sitting on a large white sofa in the center of the room.

The name
Lisa
was not uncommon, but the face that went with it was all too familiar. One that Rafe knew quite well but hadn’t seen in over three years.

Except in his dream last night.

Call it fate or luck or serendipity, but the woman sitting on that sofa—the woman holding a sleeping child in her lap—was none other than Lisa Tobin.

His college sweetheart.

Chapter Five

Lisa thought she must be dreaming.

Or simply mistaken.

But one of the deputies Beatrice had just escorted into the living room looked a lot like...

She swallowed, felt her pulse quicken. “Rafe? Rafe Franco?”

He stopped at the edge of the foyer, nearly frozen in place. He looked a little older—especially in that uniform—no longer the boy she had known in college, but a man. A man who had filled out with muscle and angular edges and broader shoulders. A man who had obviously spent the past few years working out and had the body to prove it.

But it was him, all right. It was Rafe.

A new and improved Rafe.

His eyes went wide at the sight of her, his voice tinged with disbelief. “Lisa?”

Lisa’s mind suddenly flooded with images from the past—the pain, the heartbreak she’d felt in those days following their breakup. The sense of loss and confusion and, most of all, fear. Especially when she found out she was...

She stopped short, pulling herself back to the present. She carefully laid Chloe on the sofa and got to her feet, moving to Rafe, who now looked like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.

She felt pretty much the same way.

“My God,” she said, overcome by a kind of surreal numbness. They met in the middle of the room, Rafe pulling her into a hug as Bea and the other deputy looked on in surprise.

Lisa could feel Rafe’s taught muscles pressing against her, and it gave her a small thrill to be back in his arms after all this time. It felt different, yet much the same.

His smell hadn’t changed. The smell of his hair and his skin and the faint remnants of aftershave...

She reluctantly pulled away from him now, holding him at arm’s length, trying to process this unexpected turn of events.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “How...?”

“I’ve been living here for a few years now.”

“I know your family’s from St. Louis, but I thought you went to California after college. All that talk about beaches and surfing and...”

“That lasted about two months before I realized I really don’t like sand. So I decided to go into the family business.” He gestured. “I tried to get ahold of you when I came back. I even called your mother, but she had no idea where you’d gone.”

Not surprising, Lisa thought. She and her mother had never gotten along.

She nodded. “It’s a long story. And not worth repeating.”

“When did you move to St. Louis?”

“About a year ago. I moved here with...” She hesitated, not wanting to talk about her marriage and divorce. As if talk of Oliver would spoil this moment. “As I said, it’s a long story.”

Now Rafe’s gaze shifted to the sofa, to Chloe, his eyes clouding with confusion. “She can’t be yours.”

“I’m afraid so,” Lisa said, her heart kicking up a notch. “All thirty pounds of her.”

“How old is she?”

Lisa hesitated. “She was three last month.”

She half expected him to start doing the math, but the significance of the timing seemed to be lost on him.

“I guess you were busy while I was pretending to be a beach bum,” he said. “I’m happy for you, Leese. She’s beautiful.”

Because she looks like you,
Lisa thought, suddenly overwhelmed by an intense, gut-wrenching guilt.

But this wasn’t the proper time and place for confessionals. She wasn’t sure if there
was
a proper time and place. Not over three years and another life later. Not when part of her past had been sprung on her without warning or preparation. This was a delicate situation that needed to be dealt with in private—with tact and sensitivity.

Lisa couldn’t count the number of times she had wanted to pick up the phone and call Rafe. Tell him that long story in detail. But it was too much to handle right now, too much to process.

So she merely nodded in response and said, “Her name is Chloe.”

She saw confusion in Rafe’s eyes, and maybe a hint of disappointment, too. Not because of Chloe, but because she had somehow managed to move on with her life in a much bigger way than either of them could have expected back in college. A life that, despite the circumstances, hadn’t included Rafe.

But before he could speak again, his partner said, “I hate to interrupt this happy reunion, folks, but we
are
here for a reason.” He looked at Lisa. “Do you have a complaint to make?”

Lisa pulled herself from her thoughts and shook her head. “Calling you was Bea’s idea. I don’t really want to stir up any trouble.”

“Oh, for God sakes,” Bea said. “The creep broke into your house and started manhandling you.”

“What creep?” Rafe asked, looking concerned. “The so-called former man of the house?”

Lisa nodded. “My ex. But it really wasn’t that big of a deal. He has a few boundary issues, is all.”

Rafe frowned. “Tell me about the manhandling part. Did he hurt you?”

Lisa hesitated. “He...he pawed me a little.”

“Pawed you?” Bea cried, turning to Rafe. “He had her up against the wall and was slobbering over her like a Saturday-night sex fiend. And if I’m not mistaken, he had her by the throat at one point. As I told you, if I hadn’t turned my scattergun on him, he’d probably still be here.”

Now Rafe’s partner stepped toward them. The name above his badge read Harris. “Ma’am, we can’t force you to file a complaint, but it sounds to me as if things got pretty nasty here.”

Lisa nodded reluctantly. “Maybe.”

“And if I know anything about human nature,” Harris continued, “this isn’t the last you’ll see of this creep. Especially if there’s a child involved.”

Lisa caught herself glancing at Rafe, but said nothing. Rafe, however, took this as a cue to say, “Has he ever hurt you before?”

“No. That’s why I’m so hesitant to press charges. He can be violent, but he’s never been violent with me. Or Chloe.”

“So what changed?”

Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know. He was drunk, maybe a little stoned. We’ve been separated for nearly a year and the divorce became final three months ago. But I was the one who filed and he still hasn’t accepted it.”

Rafe’s brows furrowed. “You couldn’t have been together very long.”

“Long enough for me to realize what I’d gotten myself into.”

“Meaning what?”

“As I said, it’s a long story.”

Rafe nodded. “You also said he can be violent. What did you mean by that?”

“The people he sometimes associates with are not exactly the nicest people in the world. I told him I didn’t want them around the house, but he ignored me.”

“That still doesn’t explain the violent part.”

Lisa hesitated again, not sure how much she should say. But she knew that if
she
didn’t tell them, Beatrice would, so she might as well put it out there.

She slunk to the sofa. “He had a girlfriend while we were together. I only found out about her when she wound up in the hospital. A friend of mine works at County and saw him when they brought her in.”

“For what?”

“A broken jaw. She had to have it wired shut.”

Rafe’s brows went up now. “And you think he did that to her?”

“I know he did. He told me as much when I confronted him. Said she was a loudmouthed little witch who didn’t know when to shut up.” Lisa sighed. “That was the last straw. I filed for divorce less than a week later.”

She remembered the look in Oliver’s eyes when he’d confessed to her. A look that she could only describe as pride. He had been proud of what he’d done to that poor girl. As if he were the king ape who had punished a disobedient subject.