Bending the Rules by Susan Andersen Read Free Book Online Page A

baby taggers was going to be your only job, did you? Hell, no. But, hey, our Man in Office is all over sweetening the deal. While you might have to fit this in around your regular work, the mayor authorized up to—wait for it—twenty whole overtime hours.”
    “Oh, well, then. As long as I can die a rich man.” Maintaining a neutral expression, he discussed what few particulars his lieutenant knew for a while longer. But by the time he left Greer’s office, he was steaming. The second he reached his desk he flipped back to the November notes in his tattered notebook, located the Babe’s phone number, then headed straight for a reverse directory.
     
    I T WASN’T LIKE he was bending—never mind breaking—any rules here, he assured himself as he pulled up to an apartment house in the Fremont district a short while later. Miz Calloway thought she had a pet cop on a leash? Well, he was a paid public servant for the populace at large, not just her and her wealthy friends, and he was merely stopping by to let her know what she could expect from their upcoming association.
    Hey, it was in her own best interest.
    He frowned up at the old brick building as he climbed out of his car and locked up. This wasn’t exactly where he would have pictured little Miss Ritz living. He’d pegged her more as the renowned Epi Apartment type, with its views of the ship canal and artsy stainless steel curlicues wrapping the south tower. But what the hell did he know? Maybe this was one of those…what had he once heard Hohn’s wife call a piece of furniture that Jase had just thought needed a good coat of paint? Oh, yeah—shabby chic. Maybe it was one of those places.
    But the joint had an elevator the size of a British telephone booth and that had an out-of-order sign on it. His brows drew together as he hiked up to the third floor, unable to visualize Calloway here. They cinched tighter yet when he saw the flimsy lock on her door. Maybe that was the reason he pounded a bit harder on it than he’d intended. But what the hell was the woman doing in a place with nonexistent security?
    When his commanding knocks didn’t garner an immediate response, he rapped his knuckles against the panel with even more force. At least it was made from a nice solid piece of first-growth Seattle fir.
    “Hold your horses, for God’s sake,” he heard her say from the other side of the door. “I’m coming.” A second later the door whipped open.
    And he was face-to-face with her.
    “Oh,” she said flatly. “It’s you.”
    He merely stood there staring at her, feeling the way he did every damn time he’d seen her—which, okay, counting this evening had only been three. It seemed like more, maybe because it was always accompanied by this hot spear of lightning ripping up his spine and electrifying neurons along the farthest reaches of every nerve path winding through his body.
    He scowled down at her. “You don’t even look out your peephole before you open the door?” he demanded. “And why don’t you have a chain on this?” Not that chains weren’t a joke in the face of a determined burglar, but since they only allowed the door to be opened so far they did offer the possibility of slowing things down for that important nanosecond the home owner could take to slam it shut again.
    Her chin angling skyward, she narrowed her eyes at him. But in the next instant she flashed him a smile of such singular sweetness he knew to brace for trouble.
    And he got it in spades when she chided, “Oh, Daddy!” and, moving faster than a cat, looped her slender arms around his neck to give him a brief, fierce hug. “You are so sweet, always worrying about me.” Gazing up at him, she touched her fingertips to his jaw and for a warm, moist second they breathed the same air. “The designer stubble is new. You give up shaving, Papa?”
    “Very funny,” he said, even as he stood still as a statue while another of those lightning arcs flashed through him. He