It was Guin’s first time seeing the omitted pictures and she studied them for several long seconds. The shots were of her standing next to what appeared to be her dead partner.

“Is this someone’s idea of a joke?” Guin answered at last. Her eyes flitted back to Sloan’s. “They’ve obviously been Photoshopped.”

“No Photoshop,” Sloan calmly answered, refusing to release her from her gaze.

Guin finally broke away from her stare and looked at the pictures again. She remembered that day, the odd, welcome feeling of warmth around her. Involuntarily she touched her shirt pocket that still contained her partner’s stripes. Yes, this much time later. Habit already. She quickly dropped her hand to her lap, looked at Sloan.

“Any other thoughts, Officer?”

Guin shrugged, tried her hand at being nonchalant. “Camera…film malfunction?”

“On a digital camera.”

“Especially a digital camera. You know how computers are.”

But Guin knew Lieutenant Sloan knew better than that. She’d never felt anything so strongly in her life. What was she going to say now? Yes, she could see her dead partner? Had regular postmortem conversations with her spirit? No way was she going to give this woman anything more than she’d already given Briggs. She’d stunned him with her ability to recall a description of a killer she’d never seen. But she’d had no choice, she told herself. She’d had to help them find Cheryl’s killer. It was only right. But now? Tell Lieutenant Sloan anything to further incriminate herself? No way.

Jace Sloan was well versed in the legal improprieties of leading the witness. But Guin wasn’t a witness or a suspect. She was a police officer, a woman, a colleague, sitting before her, trying to answer impossible questions. She knew the woman was holding out on her. Sloan offered no bone, got no bite. “Very well.”

Guin leaned forward in her seat to indicate that she had someplace to be. She clasped her hands, tried to be casual. “Anything else?”

Jace Sloan wasn’t one for sweeping things under a rug. She wondered about her motivation to get to the bottom of this situation. Was it for the good of the department? For Guin’s benefit? Or perhaps it was simply her own curiosity…?

“Marcus, I know that you and Sergeant Jones were close.”

There was a certain warning in her voice, and Guin felt it all the way to the pit of her stomach. She made eye contact, waited for whatever came next.

“We were pretty close.” She gave her that much, no more.

“I know a lot of things.” Sloan stared right through her, unblinking.

“Okay.”

Each stared at the other as if any moment, somebody would give in, blurt out, break down—anything. Nobody blinked nor budged.

“Fair enough.” Sloan clapped her hands together, and the meeting was over. She couldn’t harvest the deeply buried secret. But at some point, she realized, it would surface. She promised herself to stand down only for the moment. But it was fascinating, really. “Then have yourself a good evening.”

“You too, Lieutenant.”

Inside two hours, Guin had gone from having her meddling superior officer on her back to having her sexy partner, undressed, and sitting squarely on her lap. They kissed deeply, quickly escalating their actions right there on the kitchen chair, all thoughts of food be damned.

“Mmm, Guin, give me a minute, hon. I need some air,” April said in her heavier than usual Aussie accent.

“Too much?” Guin asked with a smile. “Maybe we should take this into the next room and get you into bed.”

“In due time.” April snagged her hastily discarded T-shirt with her toe, dragged it toward the chair until she could reach it with her fingertips. She pulled the thin garment over her head, restoring an air of seriousness that had been deferred by their initial harried hello-groping. “First, tell me what happened with Lieutenant Sloan.”

“Oh…I’d rather not discuss work. I mean it’s not fair. We can’t do this—” She dove in and suckled April’s breast demonstratively right through her shirt, then drew back, shot her a flirtatious look “—on department time. Why let work talk infringe on our playtime?”

“It’s been driving me batty—I have to know before I can properly relax.” April was purely no-nonsense.

“I’ll properly relax you.” Guin sighed, she could see April meant business and they would have to talk about this before they could get to better things. “There was some confusion about some pictures Burnette took at the meth lab and she wanted my input.”

“Confusion?”

“No worries, April. Looks like that bonehead Burnette had some problems with his camera and Sloan wanted to know if I knew what could have caused it.”

April looked suddenly and thoroughly confused. “Why on earth would you know anything about that? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Another crossroads. She promised herself she’d tell April about her handicap. Talent. Ability…?

“It sort of does, but it’s a little hard to explain.”

She seemed frustrated. “I don’t like double-talk.”

“Then let me be more direct,” Guin told her before diving back to April’s neck. She pulled April close, but felt her struggle to get loose. She gave up, released her. “What now?”

“Tell me what really happened. Why would she ask you that?”

Guin considered it, approached the subject carefully. “Look, this isn’t new business between me and Sloan. We’ve had a few chats—” She hooked air quotes. “Always throws me off kilter for a little while afterward.”

“Chats?” April shook her head. “This is the first I’m hearing of it. How often does this happen?”

“Often enough.” She rolled her eyes, her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “And you and me need to keep this a little discreet, if you know what I’m saying.”

“What? Did she ask about us?” April drew back to gauge Guin’s expression. “How would she know?”

“No, no. She didn’t ask. But she’s…sort of been in my face about this kind of thing before.”

April’s weight shifted. Guin could feel her leaving before she even got up.

“This kind of thing? On the job lover stuff?”

Guin blinked, dreaded the conversation. It’s not like April wouldn’t have found out about her and Cheryl sooner or later, anyway. Her partner was no dummy. She bit the bullet, let it rip. “Cheryl and I were lovers.”

April promptly stood up, just as Guin knew she would. She took a step back, gaping, an intensity of astonishment in her eyes that Guin could actually feel.

“Cheryl Jones, your partner? Your married partner?” She sounded completely shocked. “Guin!”

“Relax. It’s obviously over,” Guin remarked carelessly. But even Cheryl’s death didn’t seem to alleviate the steep tension in the room. “Come on, April. What can I do about it?”

April folded her arms, shifted her weight to one leg, causing her long, slender leg muscles to sexily reproportion.

“Christ—is this standard practice for you? Fucking your partners?”

“It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Do I?” April gasped. “How would I know that? I barely know you—and you’re so cryptic, it’s hard to get a straight goddamn answer out of you about anything.”

Guin also stood up, raised her hands defensively to stop the train wreck happening in the tiny kitchen. “Look, I only told you because Sloan mentioned it to me and I don’t want her nosing around our business. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” April echoed, hurt in her voice.

“Because I like you, April, and I want to be honest with you.”

“So tell me this, if Sloan hadn’t confronted you about this affair of yours and…Cheryl’s,” she practically spat the name, “would you have even bothered telling me? Or would you let me look like a fool to everyone who already knows you were fucking your former partner, too?”

“Nobody else knew.”

“Sloan knows. And she’s new.” April scampered around the kitchen retrieving her clothes. She snagged her jeans off the kitchen floor, shimmied into them. “Who else knows? Burnette? I saw the strange looks you guys were giving each other when we were moving.” She was growing more furious by the second. And more hurt, which was the part that killed Guin. “You think this is funny for me? A good joke?”

“No, no I don’t think that at all,” Guin stammered, trying to gain some sense of control.

“Well, you might have mentioned it before we slept together.”

The sudden quiet was overwhelming. The women stared at each other.

The truth that came from Guin’s lips sounded hollow. “I didn’t plan for us to…be together.”

April was angry and hurt. “You planned to be with Cheryl?”

“I didn’t plan for that either.” Guin stared at the floor.

April shook her head. “You just take whatever twat presents itself to you?”

Guin felt like she’d been slapped. “That’s unfair.”

“You fucked your old partner and you fucked me.” April stormed around the kitchen. She flicked the stove off and removed a pan of water from the burner, effectively calling dinner off.

“Look, I didn’t even want a female partner, okay?” Guin was forced to swing into action and actively defend herself. “I asked Briggs to get me a guy—it’s not my fault that I got you. I never intended for it to be that way.”

“Are you just trying to dig deeper?” April laughed. “You can’t control your hormones, so you asked for a partner you wouldn’t be tempted to fuck?”

“April…”

“And then you got me?”

“April.”

“And then you fucked me.” April folded her arms, nodded, smiled even. “Well, fuck you, Guin.”

“I don’t want to do this.”

“You did it already.” April took a step back as Guin tried to approach her. “Stop.”

“Look, if I didn’t want to be with you, I’d have taken off long before now. I would have taken off at the first hint of confrontation, because that’s who I am. I’m not proud of it.” She paused. “I’m still here.”

April seemed to know she was telling the truth. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away. “I can’t do this right now, Guin. I just need a little time.”

Guin stood there a moment longer, finally nodded. “One thing.”

She took two steps across the kitchen, approached April while keeping her hands in a raised surrender position. She leaned over and delicately kissed her partner on her newly tear-slicked cheek.

“I like you, April,” she said softly. “I really, really do.”

Before April could think to breathe, Guin was gone.