He returned a moment later with the comforter from her bed and draped it over her. "Is your head clear enough for you to answer some questions?" he asked. "The coffee is going to be a few minutes."

She nodded, knowing it was silly to think she could delay talking about what had happened. She was a cop. She was going to have to face the fact that someone had tried to kill her. Then she was going to have to do something about it.

"I need to know everything." He dropped into the love seat across from her and looked at her expectantly. "Details. Descriptions. Possible motives."

Erin told him about the black Lincoln, the passenger with the shotgun, and how her cruiser had been run off the road. Nick listened intently, making an occasional notation in his notepad, his dark eyes watchful and razor sharp.

When she finished, he went to the kitchen for their coffee, then took his place across from her again. "That's not the kind of crime we normally see here in Logan Falls."

"I know."

"That's happened twice since you've been in town. First, the dark sedan tries to run you down at the school crossing, and now this. Both of them had Illinois plates. What do you make of it?"

"I'm not sure," she said, bringing the cup to her lips and sipping. "Seems a little coincidental, doesn't it?"

"Makes me wonder why someone is trying to kill you."

The words jolted her, even though they'd been expected. "I was a police officer for nine years. I worked narcotics for a year. Maybe I ticked someone off. Maybe someone I put away got out of prison. I don't know."

Nick didn't look happy about the scenario. Rising, he strode to the kitchen and snatched up the phone. She watched him as he called in a description of the vehicle and put out an all points bulletin with the highway patrol.

Erin couldn't quite believe this man had so many facets. One moment he was hard and uncompromising, the next exquisitely gentle. The same man who chewed her out on a regular basis could also kiss her senseless, and take her self-control apart bit by bit with those long, magical fingers of his.

He still wore his uniform, and she found her eyes drawn to the wide span of his shoulders, his muscular forearms, the way his torso tapered to narrow hips and runner's legs. The top button of his shirt was open, revealing a layer of fine, black hair. She wondered what it would be like to part that shirt and run her fingers along that pelt of hair to the hard muscles of his abdomen. She wondered if he would resist her. If he would pull her into his arms and kiss her until she was intoxicated with pleasure. She stared, fascinated, appalled that she was openly fantasizing about a man she could never have a relationship with.

Hanging up the phone, he walked back to the living room and took the love seat across from her. "Is there anything you haven't told me?" he asked. "A convict recently released from prison? A personal vendetta? Anything like that?"

"Not that I know of."

"What about the shooting you were involved in six months ago?"

She should have anticipated the question, but it jarred her with unexpected force. The warehouse. Danny. The mistake she would never live down. Oh, how she wanted to put all that behind her. "I've already considered the possibility of a connection," she said. "It doesn't pan out. What happened that night doesn't warrant any kind of… vendetta."

"Most shootings don't make a lot of sense, when it comes right down to it." Leaning forward, Nick set his cup on the coffee table between them and hit her with a narrowed look. "I need to know exactly what happened that night, Erin."

She gripped her mug and concentrated on the warmth radiating into her icy fingers. "Like I told you before, I botched a bust and got myself shot. Danny got hit. I hit one of the perps-"

"Who?"

"We never identified him. He was gone by the time backup arrived."

"How do you know for sure you hit him?"

"There was quite a bit of blood at the scene, but no suspect and no body."

Interest flared in his expression. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I know what you're thinking, Nick, but none of what happened that night is relevant to what happened today. It happened months ago, in another city, and we have nothing that ties the two incidents together."

"No ties we can see. You know as well as I do that we can't rule out a connection." His jaw flexed. "Is there anything else you haven't told me?"

Erin knew she'd made him angry for not being up front from the beginning, but she didn't like dredging up what had happened that night. She wanted to put it to rest, wanted to put it behind her so badly she could barely bring herself to think about it, let alone discuss it.

"Tell me the whole story. Now. No holds barred."

She flinched at the steel in his voice. "I've already told you what happened."

"You left out a few crucial details, McNeal. Now spill the rest of it."

"It's… complicated."

"I've got all night."

She'd thought she was prepared. But the swirl of shame in the pit of her stomach told her how much it was going to hurt to see the condemnation in Nick's eyes when she told him the truth. She didn't want to believe his opinion had become so important to her. But it had. And she knew then what the truth would cost her. His respect, she realized. The tentative friendship they'd formed. Whatever it was that had been burgeoning between them since the moment she'd walked in the door of the police department and he'd leveled her with those dark, dangerous eyes of his. Until now, she hadn't even realized how precious those things had become-and the realization thoroughly stunned her.

"Danny and I got an anonymous tip that there was going to be a drug buy in a warehouse down on the South Side. A few pounds of black tar heroin. Some cash. It was routine stuff. We were both pretty sure of ourselves back then. Cocky. A little too fond of the rush." The laugh that squeezed from her throat held no humor. "We went in alone. No Drug Enforcement Agency. No backup. We wanted all the credit."

The memory crystallized. The anticipation. The exhilaration. Then the crushing blow of disaster. "Danny went in first-two, maybe three minutes before me. I waited until the last minute, then radioed for backup. I went in through the rear. We should have waited. We should have…" Her words trailed off as the weight of their mistakes pressed down on her. "Things went awry from the start. By the time I got inside, two men already had Danny down on the floor. They were well dressed. Armed to the hilt. Calm." Her voice sounded strangely foreign in the dead silence of her apartment. "They were going to kill him," she said. "Execution style. A cop, for God's sake. Just like that."

A shiver swept the length of her, and she realized with some surprise that her teeth were chattering. She hadn't expected the retelling of that night to be quite so difficult. Not after all this time. But it took every ounce of strength she possessed to continue.

"I couldn't let them kill my partner." Her eyes met Nick's. For the life of her, she couldn't guess what was going on in the depths of that cool, emotionless gaze. In light of what she was about to tell him, she wasn't sure she wanted to know. "I was outnumbered. Outgunned. But I wanted that bust. I didn't care about the risks. I didn't consider the possibility that someone might get hurt." In her mind's eye, she saw clearly the terror on Danny's face. She recalled her own terror with such stark clarity that she could feel her heart beating out of control, her breath coming shallow and fast, the oxygen stalling in her lungs. "I drew my weapon and ordered the men to drop their guns and get on the ground."

Nick stared at her, his expression intense. "What happened next?"

"There were only supposed to be two of them. That's what Danny's snitch had told him. He'd been reliable in the past. I didn't see the man on the catwalk until it was too late." The horror of that moment crept over her like an avalanche, cold and smothering. "He came out of nowhere. I looked up at the catwalk, and… like I told you before, he was just a kid. Sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. He smiled at me. That freaked me out." Leaning forward, Erin put her face in her hands, trying to shut out the images, the blood, the guilt. "He had a gun, Nick. I should have stopped him, but I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to shoot that kid. All my training-none of it mattered because I didn't have the courage to stop him. I just stood there like a stupid rookie while he raised his pistol and shot me down."