Tunnel Vision by Brenda Adcock Read Free Book Online Page A

doubt the older woman would be less than thrilled to have her as a trainee, possibly even hostile, considering the angry words that had passed between them the last time they had been together. Brodie’s feet seemed to be glued to the floor as she watched Maggie make her way across the squad room toward her. Each time she blinked another slide from her memory bank flashed behind her eyes. The defiance in Maggie’s eyes the first time she saw her. The teasing half smile at the corners of her mouth that promised so much. Her musical laughter. Her surprisingly aggressive passion mixed with innocent tenderness. The memory of everything Brodie had found irresistible.
    “Lieutenant Brodie. It’s good to see you again,”
    Maggie said as she extended her hand.
    Brodie hesitated before taking Maggie’s hand, forcing herself to look at her former lover. She should have been drawn to the expressive hazel eyes, but the faded scar on Maggie’s forehead was the first thing she saw. Dropping her eyes to avoid seeing the reminder of their volatile last meeting, she accepted Maggie’s hand. The firmness of her trainee’s grasp brought her back to the present, shutting down memories of what had been. Clearing her throat she said, “I guess Nicholls has shown you everything there is to see around here.”
    “Yes, Curtis has been very helpful,” Maggie said with a smile at Nicholls.
    “Curtis?” Brodie repeated, looking at him.
    “You two already know each other?” he asked, ignoring Brodie’s question.
    “Lieutenant Brodie was with the Austin PD when I was a rookie,” Maggie answered, relieving Brodie of thinking up a quick response.
    “Ever work together before?”
    Maggie glanced briefly at her before answering,
    “No, we never worked together.”
    Brodie pushed herself away from her desk and looked around the squad room.
    “Help me move a desk over here for Weston.”
    They managed to wrestle an old wooden desk against the sides of their desks, placing Maggie between them. Brodie picked up the phone from her desk and set it in front of Maggie with a thud.
    “One of your duties will be answering the phone,”
    she said, clearing her throat again, working hard to achieve a middle ground between blatant hostility and don’t-give-a-shit.
    “RB hates phones,” Nicholls explained as he returned to his paperwork.
    He no sooner finished his explanation than the telephone rang and Maggie looked at Brodie.
    “Just pick it up and say Cedar Springs Police Department, Detective Weston speaking,” Brodie instructed as she sat in the old wooden rolling chair behind her desk.
    Maggie did as she was told and listened to the voice on the other end carefully. Brodie picked up a stack of stolen vehicle reports from her desk and began the boring and tedious task of thumbing through them looking for a Mercedes-Benz. Suddenly Maggie’s hand reached in front of her as she grabbed a notepad and a pen and began writing. Brodie caught a faint but familiar scent of vanilla wafting from her trainee and inhaled it deeply.
    “Which building? Secure the area and don’t touch anything. We’ll be there in fifteen,” Brodie heard her say before she hung up the phone.
    “Well?” she asked.
    “There’s been a homicide at the university,”
    Maggie answered without looking at her.
    “How do they know it was a homicide?” Nicholls asked.
    “They only found the victim’s head. The
    responding officers seemed pretty certain it didn’t part with the rest of the body voluntarily,” she responded.
    The two veteran detectives were on their feet before their trainee could finish her sentence.
    “Uniforms already there?” Brodie asked over her shoulder as she and Nicholls walked briskly toward the front door.
    “Yes,” Maggie replied as she trotted to keep up.
    “They have the biology lab cordoned off.”
    THE DRIVE TO the campus of the University of the Southwest was short and, as far as Brodie was concerned, blessedly devoid of needless,