Hidden Riches

do some legwork forme. Shouldn’t be too hard to find out if our boy has an alibi for the other night.”
    “If he has one, it’s fantasy. This is him.” Jed tossed the file photo onto Brent’s desk. “Maybe I should take a trip to New York.”
    “Maybe you should give our friends in the Big Apple a little time.”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “You look pretty relaxed for a man who’s thinking about kicking ass.”
    Jed’s lips twitched. “Do I?”
    “Yep.” Leaning back, Brent nodded. Mary Pat would have commended him on his romantic radar. “That’s what I thought,” he murmured, and grinned. “Dora’s quite a woman. Nice going, Captain.”
    “Shut up, Chapman,” Jed said mildly on his way out. “Keep me posted, will you?”
    “Sure.” Brent waited until the door closed before he picked up the phone to report to Mary Pat.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
    H e did think about it. Jed knew Dora would be down in the shop, so he went straight up to his own apartment. He stripped down to gym shorts and a T-shirt before settling on the bench press. He’d think better after he’d worked up a sweat.
    He had to decide how much to tell her. She had a right to know it all—but there was a matter of rights, and a matter of what was best for her. If he knew Dora, and he was beginning to think he knew her very well, she’d want to do something about it. One of a cop’s biggest headaches was civilian interference.
    Not that he was a cop, he reminded himself, and kept up a steady rhythm with the weights. But when a man had spent nearly half his life on the force, he couldn’t be considered a civilian either.
    New York could handle it. But they didn’t have a vestedinterest. All Jed had to do was let the image of Dora’s pale, unconscious face swim into his mind to remind him just how vested his interest was.
    A trip to New York, some poking around wouldn’t infringe overmuch on the official investigation. And if he could do something tangible, something real, he might not feel so . . .
    He paused with the barbell fully extended and scowled at the ceiling. Just how did he feel? Puffing out air, he lowered the bar again, lifted, lowered.
    Useless, he realized. Unsettled. Unfinished.
    Nothing in his life had ever really had a closure because nothing had ever really been open to begin with. It had been easier to keep himself shut off, removed. Easier, hell, Jed thought. It had been necessary for survival.
    So why had he joined the force? He supposed he had finally recognized his own need for order, for discipline and, yes, even for family. The job had given him all of that. And more. A sense of purpose, of satisfaction and of pride.
    Donny Speck had cost him that; but this wasn’t about Speck, he reminded himself. It wasn’t about Elaine. This was about protecting the woman across the hall. The woman he’d begun to feel something for.
    That was something else to think about.
    He didn’t stop lifting when he heard the knock, but his lips curved when she called his name.
    “Come on, Skimmerhorn, I know you’re in there. I need to talk to you.”
    “It’s open.”
    “How come you make me lock mine?” she demanded. She walked in looking all business in a hunter-green suit, and smelling of sin. “Oh.” Her eyebrows lifted as she took a long slow scan of his body stretched out on the bench, muscles oiled with sweat and rippling. Her heart did a fast somersault. “Sorry to interrupt your male ritual. Shouldn’t there be drums pounding or some sort of pagan chant in the background?”
    “Did you want something, Conroy?”
    “I want a lot of things. Red suede shoes, a couple of weeks in Jamaica, this Böttger teapot I saw over on Antique Row.” She walked over to kiss his upside down lips, tasted salt. “How soon will you be finished—I might get excited watching you sweat.”
    “Looks like I’m finished now.” Jed rattled the bar back in the brace.
    “You won’t be so cranky after I tell you what I found out.” She paused, dramatic timing. “Terri recognized the picture.”
    “What picture?” Jed slid off the bench, reached for a towel.
    “ The picture. The magic picture we put together on the computer. Jed, he was in the shop on Christmas Eve.” Excitement had her pacing the room, heels clicking on bare wood, her hands gesturing. “His name is—”
    “DiCarlo, Anthony,” Jed interrupted, amused when Dora’s jaw dropped. “Last known address East Eighty-third Street, New