CHAPTER 1
“I’m going to throw up,” Dawn Kinsley said, rubbing her nervous stomach.
“No, you won’t.” Her friend and colleague Ally just grinned. “Come on, you’re a therapist. You’re used to talking to people.”
“Not to one hundred cops who would rather be elsewhere and who won’t give me the time of day.” Dawn knew what the police officers sitting on the other side of the curtain were thinking. Most of them would view her lecture as a waste of time.
Ally rolled her eyes. “A psychologist with glossophobia. I wonder what the APA would say about that.”
“I’m sure the American Psychological Association would be much more concerned about a psychologist with your lack of compassion,” Dawn answered, now with a grin of her own. Usually, she didn’t have a problem with public speaking. She had held her own in front of gum-chewing high school kids, earnest college students, and renowned psychologists twice her age, but cops were a special audience for her. It was almost as if she was expecting to see her father sitting in one of the rows and was trying to impress him. Oh, come on. This is not the time to start analyzing yourself.
“Touché,” Ally said.
Both of them had to chuckle, and Dawn felt herself relax.
“There are a few techniques that can help in these situations, you know,” Ally said.
“Let me guess—picturing everyone in the audience naked?” Dawn grinned at her friend. “And how would that help with my nervousness?”
Ally shrugged. “Well, maybe it won’t.” She peeked out from behind the curtain, letting her appreciative gaze wander over the men in the first few rows. “But it might be nice nonetheless.”
“Maybe for you, but how would it be nice for me to picture a room full of naked men? Hello?” Dawn gave a little wave. “Did you miss the office memo informing everyone about my sexual orientation?”
“Office memo? Is that what they call it nowadays when spotted kissing your girlfriend in the office parking lot?”
“What?” Dawn sputtered. “I never did that!”
Ally rubbed her forehead and pretended to think about it. “No? Must have been Charlie, then.” She pushed the curtain aside to glance at the audience again. “There are also a few female officers down there. You could look at them.”
“All two of them?” Dawn joked but stepped closer to follow Ally’s gaze. There were more than two female cops in the audience—but not that many more.
“Pick one,” Ally said.
Dawn nudged her with an elbow. “I’m here to give a lecture, not to pick up women, Ally.”
Ally ignored her protests. “Pick one and concentrate on her during your lecture. Ignore the rest of the crowd. It’ll help with the nervousness. So?” She pointed to the seated police officers.
Well, it can’t hurt. Dawn craned her neck and peeked past the taller Ally. Her gaze wandered from woman to woman, never stopping for long until... “Her!” she said, pointing decisively.
In the very last row, between a tall African American man in his forties and a younger man whose posture screamed “rookie,” a female plainclothes detective was just taking her seat. She had short, jet-black hair, and a leather jacket covered what Dawn could see of her tall, athletic frame.
“Ooh!” Ally whistled quietly. “Nice choice! Didn’t know you liked them a little on the butch side, though. Maggie isn’t nearly—”
“Compared to Maggie, even you look butch,” Dawn said.
“Dr. Kinsley?”
Dawn looked away from the detective and turned around. “Yes?”
One of the seminar organizers stepped up to them. “Here are your handouts.” He handed her a stack of paper. “Are you ready to begin?”
Dawn clutched the handouts and swallowed. “Yes.”
“Good luck,” Ally said. Behind the seminar organizer’s back, she mouthed, “Remember to picture her naked.”
How’s that supposed to calm my racing heart? Dawn stepped out from behind the curtain and made her way over to the microphone with a confidence she didn’t really feel.
* * *
Aiden slumped into a seat between her partner and Ruben Cartwright. The chair next to Ruben was suspiciously empty. “Where’s your partner? Terminal back pain again?” If she had to be at this stupid seminar, so did everyone else, even hypochondriacs like Jeff Okada.
Ruben looked up from the paper airplane that had once been his seminar brochure. He shoved a strand of brown hair out of his boyishly handsome face and glanced from Aiden to her partner. “Uh, what?”
Ray leaned over to him with a grin. “There’s one thing you have to know about your new partner, rookie. His back acts up every time a seminar comes along.”
“It acts up whenever I have to sit in one of these seats designed for first graders,” Jeff Okada said as he walked up to them. Gingerly, he eased himself down next to his rookie partner.
Aiden sighed and glanced at her watch. She had a stack of unfinished reports on her desk, and their thirty open cases didn’t get any closer to being solved while she sat here. The seminar also stopped her from spending her lunch hour in the courtroom’s gallery, watching her favorite deputy district attorney at work. Maybe she would have even worked up the courage to ask Kade to lunch today.
Sighing again, she wrestled herself into a standing position and pointed to the back of the conference room. “I’m going for coffee.”
“If you want to live long enough to enjoy your hard-earned pension, I’d advise against that, my friend.” Okada raised his index finger in warning. “In more than twenty-five years on the job, I’ve never been to a law enforcement seminar with even halfway decent coffee.”
Ray smirked. “In twenty-five years on the job, you’ve never been to a law enforcement seminar, period.”
Over the top of his sunglasses, Okada directed a withering glance at Ray before he turned back to Aiden. “The lack of drinkable coffee is obviously a nationwide conspiracy from law enforcement brass to make sure nothing distracts their officers from the lectures. For the same reason, you’ll never encounter donuts or attractive female lecturers at a law enforcement seminar.”
“Or comfortable chairs,” Ray said.
Okada threw up his hands. “Now you’re starting to get it.”
Aiden sank back into her chair. Giving up on her caffeine fix, she pulled the now crushed seminar program out from under her. The wrinkled paper announced the title of the first lecture: Special Needs and Issues of Male and GLBT Survivors of Rape and Sexual Abuse. The speaker was some PhD named D. Kinsley.
“Great,” Aiden murmured. They hadn’t even hired a cop or someone who knew the reality of handling sex crimes to give the lecture. Instead, some antiquated Freudian in a stiff suit would bore them to tears with his academic theories.
A young woman carrying a stack of handouts stepped out from behind a curtain and crossed the podium—probably the Freudian’s assistant or the poor soul who had the questionable honor of introducing the speaker. The woman tapped the microphone to test its volume and nodded. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Dawn Kinsley, your lecturer for the first part of the seminar.”
Aiden’s head jerked up. That was D. Kinsley?
Nothing reminded Aiden of the academic Freudian she had imagined except the glasses on the freckled nose. Instead of a suit and tie, slacks and a tight, sleeveless blouse covered a body that was petite, yet not frail. The strawberry blonde hair wasn’t pulled back into an old-fashioned bun, but cascaded in curls halfway down to softly curved hips.
Seems she’s the PhD, not the assistant. That’s what I get for stereotyping. Of course, looking at her instead of an old man is not exactly a punishment. However boring the lecture might be, at least she would have something captivating to look at.
The lecture began, and to her surprise, Aiden found herself looking away from the pretty speaker to jot down interesting details about dealing with male rape victims. The lecture turned out to be informative, practice-oriented, and witty. She even caught Okada bending his aching back to take notes. The psychologist spoke with passion and sensitivity, never even glancing down at her notes.
Instead, Aiden felt as if the psychologist was looking right at her, focusing on her as if there were no one else in the room. Oh, come on. Stop dreaming. There are a few other people in the room, you know? Aiden listened with rapt attention to the rest of the lecture.
Forty-five minutes passed almost too soon.
“I knew I should have tried the coffee,” Ruben mumbled when they began to file out of the room with the last of the seminar participants. “If there’s an attractive female lecturer, there’s a chance the rest of your seminar conspiracy theory is bull too.”
Okada stretched and shook his head. “I wouldn’t bet your meager paycheck on it, partner. Some government employee obviously failed to check the lecturer’s picture, but there’s no way they would overlook a bill for Blue Hawaiian beans at forty dollars per pound.”
Someone chuckled behind them.
Aiden turned and looked into the twinkling gray-green eyes of Dawn Kinsley, their lecturer. The faint laugh lines at their corners indicated that the psychologist was closer to thirty than to twenty as Aiden had first assumed.
“Sorry,” Aiden said, pointing at Okada and Ruben. “They’re not used to being out and about. We normally keep them chained to their desks.”
Dawn didn’t seem offended. Her full lips curved into an easy smile that dimpled her cheeks and crinkled the skin at the bridge of her slightly upturned nose, which made the freckles dusting the fair skin seem to dance. “Don’t worry, Detective, I’ve been called worse things than attractive.”
Aiden tilted her head. “How do you know I’m a detective?”
“Oh, I don’t know, could it be the fact that we’re at a law enforcement conference?” Okada said.
Dawn smiled at him, but she spoke to Aiden. “The way you stand, walk, and talk pretty much screams ‘cop’ in capital letters. And the way you dress suggests you’re a detective. Sex crimes unit?”
Aiden nodded. “Aiden Carlisle.” She extended her hand.
“Dawn Kinsley, but I guess you already knew that.” The psychologist nodded down at her name tag. Her handshake was as genuine and warm as her smile.
“Hey, Aiden.” Ray, already halfway out the door, waved her over. “We’re gonna make a run for the nearest coffee shop before the next lecture starts. You up for it?”
Forty-five minutes ago, Aiden would have jumped at the chance to leave the seminar room, but now she found herself hesitating. “Um, sure.” She glanced at Dawn. “Would you like to come with us?”
“I don’t drink coffee.” The psychologist laughed at the look on Aiden’s face. “Don’t look so shocked, Detective. I’m a tea drinker, and I’d love to accompany four of Portland’s finest, but regrettably, I’ve got an appointment.”
“Maybe next time, then,” Aiden said, knowing they would likely never see each other again. Not as eager to get a caffeine fix as before, she said good-bye and followed her colleagues out of the conference room.
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