Page 29 of Home Town Knight

“Wait, acop?”

“Owen, my friend, this isn’t the super-secret hacker part of the presentation. I’m still on the publicly available info. You could’ve learned this part for yourself.”

I bit back a sharp retort, because he was right. Gen had said the same exact thing. It was like I’d had a mental block where she was concerned. As if learning personal details aboutthat reporterwould make her more real. And even more impossible to ignore.

But I’d started learning about her in the Alpine bar, before I’d known she was Genevieve Blake. Everything I’d learned, I’d liked.

“Read the article,” River said. “Just forwarded you the link.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Let me know if anything else comes up.”

“Sure thing.”

My phone chimed with River’s incoming message. I hit the link. It was an article by Genevieve Blake published to theDenver Dailya couple of years ago. Long-form, written in detailed, expressive prose.

For Detective Harry Blake, justice came too late.

I’d meant to skim, but the story pulled me in, and I found myself reading the whole thing. It was fifteen minutes out ofmy day. Not much in the scheme of things, even with how busy I was. Yet those fifteen minutes transformed my image of Genevieve.

I rested my forehead in my hand, remembering what Gen had said last night. That the anniversary of her dad’s death was this month. Once again, I felt like an asshole.

Her dad had been a cop, and he’d been betrayed by his fellow officers. Then he’d died before Genevieve fought his department, fought the entire system, to clear him of wrongdoing.

It had been her first big story. Something personal and heartbreaking. And she’d put it out there in the public, braving the scorn that came with it, judging by the comments. Looked like some people still insisted her dad was crooked and accused her of being a traitor to the blue.

In my woefully scant research on her, that was all I’d seen. The fact that some cops online accused her of bias against law enforcement. I’d failed to learn the real context, and that was on me. Especially unforgivable when I knew what it was like to have your colleagues stab you in the back. Last year, some of my employees had been actively working against our department, and they could’ve gotten a lot of people killed if Aiden and Trace hadn’t helped me discover them.

I wished I could start over with Genevieve. Go back to the Alpine bar and ask for her life story, minus all the assumptions I’d made. And I wished she would do the same for me. Was it too late for that? Could we push reset on all the animosity that had developed, for possibly no reason, between us?

I closed the window with her article on her dad, then googled her name and hit the images tab. Some of the pictures looked official, like headshots. A few showed her holding a microphone at a press conference, surrounded by other journalists.

None of these photos conveyed the glimmer in her eyes when she was excited. Or angry. Or desperate for me to kiss her.

I hadn’t felt that kind of spark with anyone in a while. We had chemistry. The explosive kind, but still. Last night in the bar, I’d enjoyed spending time with her. I’d also appreciated her insights in my office earlier. She had a quick mind, and I admired that.

I was human. Sometimes I messed up, and I could admit I’d been too hasty when forming my opinion of Genevieve Blake. But if anything happened to her on my watch, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself.

Grabbing my work phone, I shot off a text to Keira. A couple minutes later, she appeared in my doorway. “What’s up, boss?”

I waved her in and asked her to shut the door. “Have you circulated the sketch of the suspect that Genevieve helped with?”

“Yep, sent it out high and low. Should be appearing on local news media. The guy’s face is pretty generic, though.”

That was true, but it was better than nothing. I’d sent the sketch to the Protectors as well. For what it was worth.

“And the warrant for the victim’s cell location data?”

“Signed and sent off to the carrier.”

“Good.” River could’ve gotten that info for me if I’d asked him, but I had to do this by the book. “I want to be extra careful with the files on the Tucker murder. Especially anything related to Genevieve. For now, no one can have access except you and me.” Out of everyone in my office, Keira was the single person I trusted the most. She was tight with Trace and Scarlett, and she knew a bit about Last Refuge’s true mission.

“Not even the undersheriff?”

I had no desire to create divisions in my department, butthis was an exceptional circumstance. “Nobody else. Not until we’ve got a suspect under arrest and I’m confident that Genevieve is safe.”

“I’ll make sure the Tucker file is under restricted access to the two of us.”

“Good. And if anyone has questions or issues, send them to me.” She nodded and reached for the door to leave, but I stopped her. “One more thing. The murder victim’s friends were here today to answer questions. One is a guy named Josh Ellis. He got into a fight with Tucker last night at the bar.”

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