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thirty-year military career that had won his father, Chase Trayhern, nearly every conceivable medal. “You said you emulated Pete.”
    “Not quite.” Kit’s voice turned harsh with agony. “Pete had a family—a lovely wife and two kids. He had me as his backup and partner. He had everything, Noah, but he threw it all away.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “His wife divorced him the second year I was with him because he took too many chances. We were always mixing it up with the Mob collars, and there were a lot of shots fired. Finally Valerie couldn’t stand his John Wayne tactics, and she took the children back to California. She couldn’t live in the constant fear of him dying.” Kit rubbed her aching brow. “I tried to tell Pete he should have cared more for them, for his wife and kids. But he just kept taking chances….”
    Grimly Noah looked at her. “He was taking constant chances with your life, too,” he suggested softly.
    “Yeah…I guess he was….” She closed her eyes. “But I was too naive to know that at the time. I was so caught up in the image he presented that I was like his shadow. And I was too inexperienced to see that he was a heavy drug user himself.”
    Noah frowned, his grip tightening on her shoulder. “Hard drugs?”
    “Yeah.” Kit laughed hollowly. “I was so intent upon cleaning up the streets of Miami that I failed to see Pete and his problem! God, how could I have been so blind?”
    “We’re all blind at some point in our lives. So when did you discover his habit?”
    “It was just a few months before he died. Pete’s bravado and risk taking were sort of a death wish. The thing he hated most in the world had control over his life. When I put two and two together, I tried to talk to him about it.”
    “And?”
    Kit shook her head, giving Noah a grief-stricken look. “When I confronted him with it, he denied it.”
    “Typical of a junkie.”
    Kit valiantly tried to stem the rising tide of anguish that threatened to shut off her breathing. “Typical,” she croaked.
    “You’re doing fine. What happened next?”
    Her shoulders dropped, and her eyes remained fixed on him. “Those months were hell,” she rasped. “Once Pete knew I was aware of his drug problem, he didn’t care what he did. He just kept taking stupid chances.”
    “Were you emotionally involved with him?”
    “If you’re asking if we were lovers, the answer is no. I was emotionally involved from the standpoint that he was my partner. He’d been like a hero to me, and we’d spent too many years together not to have feelings of intense loyalty.”
    Noah studied her tortured features. At a gut level he sensed that Kit had been in love with Pete Collins. Had she been naive about love before meeting the larger-than-life supercop? If so, then Pete Collins could have had an almost mesmerizing effect on Kit and her young, untutored emotions.
    “Was he like a father to you?” Noah asked, trying to put their relationship into some kind of focus.
    “More like a big brother.” She managed a sad smile. “He was wonderful, Noah. So proud, brave and strong. And then he became just like the filth we were busting.”
    Noah’s stomach knotted. “Did he become violent with you?”
    “Not physically. But brutality comes in many forms, Noah. You know that and so do I. Pete beat me down emotionally and mentally until I began losing it.”
    “So narc duty and your home life became one and the same?”
    “I never had a home life. Narc was my life. I—I never could talk to Dad about this. I’m sure he’d have expected me to turn Pete in. I felt guilty about not being able to talk Pete into getting help. I was walking a tightrope with Pete in the middle of the Garcia undercover operation. I posed as a Colombian, and Pete was my older brother who handled things stateside.”
    “I remember reading in the paper how Emilio Dante was collared. You were responsible for that, weren’t you?”
    A shudder worked up her