Read Online Burnout (NYPD Blue & Gold) by Tee O'Fallon - Free Book Online Page B

while. Be careful and stay lost. And above all else, don’t tell anyone who you are, including the locals. Some cops can’t keep their mouths shut and wouldn’t know a real crime if it hit ’em in the ass. Promise me, Cass.”
    “Okay, I promise.” But she could already envision how angry Chief Michael Flannery would be if he only knew. The man didn’t strike her as someone who would take well to being deceived, even by another cop and even under these circumstances.
    Cassie ended her call. Two seconds later, an explosion blasted the Trail Blazer.

Chapter Five
    The kid was bad news. Timothy Harding’s driver’s license said he was from Albany. When Mike asked what he was doing this far north tooling around Hopewell Springs, Harding said he was sightseeing.
    Bullshit.
    As Mike wrote up a speeding ticket, he maintained a wary eye on the neon blue Honda and its driver. The kid was about eighteen and skinny as a rail. Restless, but no track marks up his arms. If he’d been smoking dope, Mike would have smelled it and seen it in the kid’s eyes. No slurred speech, either, and he’d responded to questions with lucid answers. No wants or warrants for Harding, but Mike’s gut told him something was off.
    Prescription drug abuse was a growing problem among teenagers. Just yesterday, the town’s drug store had reported a teenager loitering out front for hours. Problem was the description of the kid fit half the boys in town.
    With no reason to detain Harding, Mike scribbled his badge number and last name at the bottom of the summons and tore it off the ticket pad. He approached the car and handed the ticket through the open window.
    “Thanks for nothing,” Harding said with a sarcastic edge as he pulled slowly away from the curb.
    Ignoring the bad attitude, Mike watched the car until it disappeared on the main road headed out of town. He had a feeling he hadn’t seen the last of Tim Harding, or Tim’s neon blue Honda. He’d have to keep an eye out for the kid. The last thing he wanted was to get caught with his guard down.
    As Mike wiped the sweat from his brow, his fingertips grazed the long, raised ridge of the scar on his forehead. It had been more than six years, but his head still ached occasionally from the injury that had laid him up in a hospital, comatose for nearly a month.
    Never again.
    This town depended on him to keep its citizens safe. He’d failed once before, in a different city and another lifetime. He vowed not to repeat history.
    Back in the comfort of the air-conditioned Explorer, he turned off the red and blue strobe lights and cruised toward the outskirts of town. He waved as he passed a couple of kids walking a yapping beagle. Speaking of dogs, he’d heard that Cassie had some kind of black watchdog. Even without the dog, her tough-as-nails attitude would be enough to repel any man with half a brain. Any sane man, particularly one like him who knew better, would be wise to stay far away from that little witch and her bubbling cauldron. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?
    Because she intrigued the hell out of him.
    Behind her beautiful face lay intelligence and a razor-sharp wit that contrasted with an inner softness she tried to hide. And the way she filled out a pair of jeans wasn’t bad, either.
    Just your libido talking.
    That, and he hadn’t had sex in ages. Not good sex, anyway. Elaine Bitters had destroyed something inside him, the part of a man that allowed him to get close to a woman. The very thing that made the difference between sex and making love. Yeah, cynical cop that he was, even he knew the difference.
    Sometimes he still couldn’t believe Elaine had been undercover with Internal Affairs. IA sent her to investigate him on a bogus tip he was on the take, and she’d taken her job seriously. She’d broken every rule in the book and slept with him. She was the perfect girlfriend, and he should have seen her for exactly what she was—a conniving, driven woman who