Read In Bed With the Badge for Free Online Page B

news while she was alive and able to forge her own path. “Andrea is—was—a very independent woman.” Even though she hadn’t been part of his life for over six years, it was hard to think of the woman in the past tense. “This also explains a lot of things,” he said more to himself than to Riley.
    “Such as?” Riley coaxed, her curiosity jacked up to high.
    For a second, he’d almost forgotten his partner was here.
    “Why she disappeared so abruptly,” he said. “One day she was there and we were talking about clearing outa drawer for her and giving her some space in my closet. The next,” he snapped his fingers, “she was gone.”
    “Despite the enticing offer of a drawer and four hangers?” Riley marveled. “Woman didn’t know when she had it good, huh?”
    He looked at her, annoyed. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”
    “Funny, I always thought it did.” Riley grew serious and asked, “Did you even try to find her after she disappeared?”
    Ordinarily, he might not have. But then, no other woman had just vanished the way Andrea had. “Yes, I tried to find her.”
    “Obviously not hard enough.” She saw that he took offense, so she told him why she felt that way. “You’re a detective, Wyatt. Finding things—like people—is what you do. And yet, in this case, you didn’t.”
    He blew out a frustrated breath. Maybe Riley was right. Maybe, deep down, he didn’t want to find Andrea if she had thought so little of him to leave without a word. He wished now that he had pushed harder.
    “Yeah, well, she moved, changed jobs, changed her phone number. For all I knew, she changed her name.” He shrugged, trying to dismiss the incident. “I figured she got spooked.”
    This man couldn’t have spooked a woman, she thought, dismissing his excuse. He was the kind of man that drew women.
    “That’s what you get for wearing your Godzilla suit when it’s not even Halloween,” she cracked.
    “Spooked by the idea of commitment,” he elaborated. He saw her opening her mouth, ready to argue the point. “You know, it’s not just guys who have trouble wrapping their heads around making a commitment. Women have trouble with the concept, too.”
    Riley relented. She really couldn’t argue with that. Her own sister, Taylor, was part of that group—until love ambushed her and tossed a tall, dark, handsome private investigator in her path. Now, she knew, Taylor couldn’t begin to imagine life without J.C.
    But rather than share this with Wyatt, she merely asked, “So you let her go?”
    “I decided not to come on like a stalker,” he corrected. “It was good while it lasted, but I assumed when she took off like that, whatever we had was over.”
    Riley glanced back at the little girl in the living room. Lisa was still sitting ramrod straight, watching television.
    “Apparently not,” Riley pointed out, then asked. “What’s your next move?”
    That was the sixty-four-million-dollar question. “Hell if I know.”
    Riley held up one finger. “Okay, first move. No more cursing.”
    “I wasn’t cursing,” Sam protested.
    “Not by the standards we’re used to,” she allowed, “but ‘hell’ and ‘damn’ are curses of the venial variety.” He looked unconvinced, so she explained further. “Think of it in the same terms as marijuana leading the user to cocaine. Both are illegal drugs, one just viewed as far more serious than the other. Next,” she continued,now holding up a second finger, “you need to line up someone to stay with Lisa while you’re working.”
    He hadn’t even thought that far ahead yet. It was as if his brain was paralyzed, still trying to deal with this major curve. Now that he did think about it, it didn’t help. There was no one to turn to.
    “Everyone I know is at the precinct.”
    He’d never mentioned any relatives when they had attended the academy. Riley realized that she had no idea what his family dynamics were like. “No family to fall back on?”
    He