Chapter One

      “And I think she’s—”

      “Excuse me, miss.” The bland-faced young police officer behind the counter picked up an incessantly ringing phone. “A brawl? At where? Sorry, I can’t hear you. Yes. Yes...”

      Rachel Rockford listened, and bit back a sigh of frustration. There was boredom and impatience in his voice. How could she possibly make him understand that this was important? Urgent?

      “McAllistar’s Pub? On Fourth, is it?”

      She tucked a stray strand of her shoulder-length auburn hair behind an ear, and looked over his broad, uniformed shoulder at the police office. She found it a depressing place. The lights were too harsh, the walls too white, the desk and chairs old and scarred. Stacks of paper leaned in drunken piles off the desk. A big bulletin board behind that desk featured posters of wanted men and missing children. Incongruously, a colorful ad, featuring two people dipping in silhouette, heralded the upcoming Policeman’s Ball.

      No wonder the young police officer seemed so indifferent to what she was trying to tell him. He lived in a world she probably didn’t even want to think about.

      “He said that? Well, it’s little wonder a fight started then.”

      Rachel turned from the counter, gathering her thoughts. Absently she tightened the belt of her navy blue trench coat, chosen, along with a mid-length full white skirt, to make her appear respectable, someone to be taken seriously. It didn’t appear to have worked. So that left her with words. She rehearsed them in her mind, putting together the sentences that would make him understand.

      This outer room of the precinct was every bit as bleak as what was behind the counter. Vinyl chairs, the color of pea soup, had been repaired with electrical tape. The tile floors were scuffed, the pattern long since faded. The walls were badly in need of fresh paint.

      Her eyes rested on a man, in worn work clothes, slumped in one of the chairs. He was studying the grooves of his palms as if he could see his future written there and what he saw was not good. He looked as though whatever his complaint was, he had not received any satisfaction.

      Rachel had a panicky sensation of wanting out of here. She did not want to be relegated to one of those chairs. She took a deep and steadying breath, prayed for patience. She must make a report about Victoria.

      The constable hung up the phone. Just as she turned back to him, it began to ring again.

      “Friday night,” he explained, somewhat unapologetically. He picked up the phone.

      She actually had to turn away again and swallow a scream of utter frustration. The last thing she wanted was to appear hysterical. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, and when she opened her eyes a man was coming up the wide outer precinct steps. A man who did not belong here.

      She had dressed to be respected, to be heard, and though he had done no such thing, would not have even given such a matter a thought, she knew this man would be given what she had come here for.

      Full attention. Respect. Yes, even deference.

      There was something in the way he carried himself that would command all that. Something that went far beyond the obvious expense of the knee-length black overcoat, the white silk scarf draped carelessly under the collar, the gloved hands.

      It was something more than his substantial height, the breadth of his shoulders, and impeccably groomed brown hair that shone like silk under the harsh precinct lights.

      It was in the cut of his features, whatever that “something” was. He was not handsome in the traditional sense of the word. His features were too strong for that. His cheekbones, in particular, were high and prominent. His nose straight, his chin jutting.

      If it was arrogance she saw in him, she might have resented the fact