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partner was bonking his ex-wife.
    “Am I as good as your ex?” he asked and could have kicked his own ass for letting his insecurity show.
    Usually Chad was confident. Some said overconfident. And about most things he was. After all, why shouldn’t he be? He was highly intelligent, good-looking, the ladies loved him and he was moving up fast in the department. But ever since he’d been paired with Jim Norton, he’d had a few moments of self-doubt. Without consciously doing anything to cause the effect, Jim intimidated the hell out of other guys. Even Chad. And why that was, he didn’t know for sure. After all, Norton was nothing more than an ex-jock who’d nearly ruined his life and his career before Chad had graduated from college.
    Mary Lee curled herself around Chad like a purring kitten and laughed as she ran her fingernails up and down his chest. “Comparing you to Jim is like comparing apples to oranges, sugar.”
    He grabbed her by the nape of her neck, trapping a few strands of her short black hair between his fingers. “Are you screwing him, too? Everybody knows that he’s still got a thing for you.”
    “So I’ve been told, but you can’t prove it by me.” She stared right at Chad. “I’ve made the offer more than once since our divorce, but he hasn’t accepted.”
    “He must be nuts to turn you down.”
    “Jim’s unforgiving,” she said. “I’m warning you, if you ever do anything to get on his shit list, you’ll be on it for life. He doesn’t forgive and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”
    “So, what’d you do that was so unforgivable?”
    Mary Lee pulled away from him, reached over on the nightstand and picked up a pack of cigarettes. He watched her as she lit the cigarette and took a couple of draws off it.After blowing out a puff of smoke, she grinned at him. “I got tired of being ignored, of him working all the time. I looked elsewhere.”
    “And Jim found out.”
    “Jim caught us in the act. He came home unexpectedly and found our son’s T-ball coach scoring a home run with me.”
    “What’d he do? Beat the hell out of the T-ball coach?”
    “You’d think that’s what a rough and rugged guy like Jim would do, wouldn’t you?” She shook her head, then puffed on the cigarette. “He just stood there in the doorway for a couple of minutes. Didn’t say a word. Then he turned around and walked away, right out of the house, and got back into his car and drove off.”
    “I’d never peg Jim for—”
    She put her index finger over his lips to silence him. “You don’t know the man at all, do you? He left so he wouldn’t kill us. He wanted me dead just as much as the guy I’d been fucking. And I figure there was about a minute there when our lives hung by a thread. But Jim has incredible self-control. That’s why he could walk away.”
    “Hmm…”
    “Surely you’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you? Jim Norton believes in the old adage about revenge being a dish best served cold.”
    A shiver zinged up Chad’s spine. Yeah, he’d heard the rumors. And if he believed them, like others in the department did, then he knew what Norton was capable of doing. He sensed that Mary Lee admired her ex-husband, maybe still even cared about him. And he also sensed that if she were totally honest about which man was the best—at sex or anything else—she’d choose Lieutenant James Norton over him or any other guy.
    Needing to erase such thoughts from his mind and bring back the casual mood, Chad jumped out of bed and headed for the bathroom, keeping his hand over the sagging condomclinging to his penis. He paused in the doorway and glanced back at his partner’s ex-wife. “I’ve got to shower and shave, then get downtown and meet Jim. We’re questioning a murder suspect this morning and I don’t want to be late.”
    “Go ahead.” She waved him off as she got out of bed. “Want me to put on a pot of coffee?”
    Standing there in his bedroom, naked, tousled and sated, Mary