Cavanaugh Hero (3 page)

“Hey, if they’re not tough, they’ve got no business being a detective in Major Crimes,” Declan pointed out. He had no patience with weakness of any kind and a police officer displaying those traits was worse than useless, no matter how charming this partner could be on his own.

“Yeah. Well, go easy on whoever the new partner they send up is. The department’s only got so many detectives to go around.” Hollis put his hand out to Declan. “It’s been an experience, Declan. Keep in touch—and let me know if you ever want to start keeping regular hours. I’m sure the old man can find something for someone like you.”

Declan supposed that was meant to flatter him. It failed, through no fault of his well-intentioned about-to-be-ex-partner. “Not me. I like things to be unstructured,” Declan told him. “Listen, I’ll buy you a drink after hours—provided something else doesn’t come up.”

Hollis nodded. “You’re on.”

The acting lieutenant for Major Crimes stuck his head into Declan’s tiny cubicle. “Hey, Cavanaugh, we got a call just now. Some officer got shot inside his own house.”

“Domestic dispute?” Declan asked, saying the first thing that came to mind. He was already reaching into the drawer for the weapon he’d placed there.

“No details yet, just that another one of our detectives went to check on him and found the body in the living room. Check it out. And when you come back, come see me. We’ve got to look into getting you a new partner now that this one’s making a break for it.” He jerked a thumb in Hollis’s direction.

“Just making plans to live the good life, Lieu, just making plans to live the good life,” Hollis told his superior innocently.

“Yeah, well, come tell me that in six months,” the lieutenant said. He stopped listening to the exchange between the two men the moment he turned away from them and headed back to his office.

“Looks like he’s not going to be throwing you any farewell parties,” Declan quipped. “Guess it’s all up to me—if I can find anyone who knows who the hell you are,” he added with a laugh.

Hollis could only shake his head. But he knew his limitations. Knew, too, that he might have very well invited a viper into his home space. With this in mind, he shook his head and proclaimed, “Nice, Cavanaugh, real nice.”

Declan spread his hands wide, accentuating his innocent shrugs. “Hey, I just tell it the way I see it, man.”

“Give my condolences to your new partner,” Hollis called after him.

Declan nodded, then stopped short of the doorway and made a prediction as he shrugged into his jacket. “You’ll be back.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Cavanaugh,” he chuckled, heading in the opposite direction. “You’ll get old, waiting.”

Declan shook his head. Had to be some kind of an epidemic, he decided. Some kind of a bug that was inducing people he knew—including his own siblings—to abandon their single existence, an existence that was highlighted by freedom and a myriad of choices in all directions—just to be yoked to another person, presumably for life.

And while he had to admit that he really liked and got along with the people that his brothers and sisters chose to become their “other halves,” the very hint of marriage, at least in his case, sounded far too much like a prison sentence, he thought.

And that was definitely not for him.

Chapter 2

T
he sound of raised voices greeted Declan the minute he got out of his car, thanks to the wide-open door leading into the victim’s house. Someone was having an argument, he thought, listening closely as he made his way up the walk.

“Look, Detective, there’s no pulse,” the paramedic with the two days’ growth on his face argued. He gestured in exasperation toward the body on the sofa. “The officer’s dead. There’s nothing we can do for him. You’ve already made us apply the paddles once. There is no jump-starting this guy,” he enunciated. “He’s gone. You don’t need an ambulance for him, you need the coroner’s wagon. He’s
dead.
”

Declan looked from the two frustrated paramedics to the woman they were arguing with. The woman who, with her back to the entrance, was deliberately blocking the paramedics’ exit.

“Try the paddles again,” she ordered.

There was something vaguely familiar about the voice and the woman’s stance, even though she had her back to him. Declan had the feeling that he knew her or, at the very least, that their paths had crossed once.

“He’s gone, Detective,” the other, older paramedic insisted, although his voice was gentler, more understanding than his partner’s.

The woman rested her hand on the hilt of the weapon holstered at her side. The inference was difficult to miss.

“Just one more time,” she told them evenly. “You can’t be in
that
much of a hurry to leave.”

The two paramedics exchanged looks, and then the younger one saw him standing in the doorway behind the detective. A silent appeal went out to Declan.

Declan inclined his head as if to say, “Humor her.” The hope was that she would be easier to deal with if she was humored.

With a sigh, the taller of the two paramedics took out the defibrillator again, set it up to three hundred and held the flat surfaces out so that his partner could apply gel to the paddles. The first paramedic waited for thirty seconds, then cried out, “Clear!” just before applying the paddles to Matt’s chest.

The officer’s lifeless body jolted macabrely, rising an inch or so from the sofa, then fell back again, as devoid of any spark of life now as he had been the first time the paddles had been applied.

Still holding the paddles, the paramedic looked at her. “See?” he asked.

“Satisfied?” the other paramedic asked, more than ready to wrap things up and be on his way.

Charley closed her eyes, struggling to keep the hot tears back. She wasn’t going to cry over Matt until she was alone, away from any prying eyes. She owed her brother that much, to conduct herself with dignity in public. Matt hated scenes.

“No,” she said in what amounted to a strangled whisper. She wasn’t satisfied at all. “But you can go.”

The voice finally registered, setting off a chain reaction in Declan’s head. He knew who she was now.

“Charlotte?” Declan asked, coming around to look at the detective’s face. “Charlotte Randolph?” he asked for good measure, although he was fairly certain that he’d guessed correctly, identifying the powerhouse of a detective as the rookie he’d met while attending the academy. She’d been a go-getter back then, too—and married as he recalled. She was the one unattainable goddess all the male rookies fantasized about.

Charley looked up, climbing out of the temporary mental haze she’d descended into as the two paramedics made their way out of her brother’s house, pushing the empty gurney before them. It took her a second to clear the fog from her brain.

Once she did, she immediately recognized the man who’d said her name. Declan Cavelli. Tall, gorgeous, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped Declan Cavelli. Best-looking would-be rookie cop at the academy. She vividly remembered wondering what it would have felt like, slipping her fingers through his thick, midnight-black hair, touching the silky straight strands. There probably wasn’t a woman who crossed his path who didn’t have fantasies about the man. And she was no exception.

Because routine was all she had now, she nodded her acknowledgment of his presence. “Cavelli.”

Declan grinned. Thanks to his father, Sean, Declan and his siblings had discovered that due to a mix-up at the hospital where his father was born, they were actually Cavanaughs and not Cavellis as they had previously thought. It took some getting used to, but he was fine with it now. They all were.

“It’s Cavanaugh now.”

“You get married?” she deadpanned, doing her best to divorce herself from the very real body that was still on the sofa, waiting for proper documentation before the final fateful pickup conducted by the coroner’s office.

“Long story,” Declan quipped. “I’ll tell you sometime—over drinks,” he added. “Unless that jealous husband of yours still objects.”

Even as he said it, he looked down at Charley’s left hand. He was surprised to discover that it was as devoid of any jewelry as her right.

Did that mean she was divorced, or just trying to preserve her wedding ring?

Charley saw where the detective was looking and knew what he had to be wondering. “Long story,” she said, echoing his words back to him.

Except that her story wasn’t long. It was nonexistent.

She’d never been married to begin with, but the class of rookies she had attended the academy with were a particularly aggressive group with testosterone all but swirling to overflowing—and Declan had been the biggest offender, as she recalled. It was a great deal easier just saying she was married than coming up with excuses and perpetually fending off the class of would-be Romeos. She attended the academy to learn everything there was about police work. Going out with any one of a number of the rookies—especially Declan—would have only served to blur her focus.

So she opted to pretend she was already off the market and married. Only a handful had tried to change her mind about remaining faithful to her vows and they soon gave up when she showed no signs of coming around to their way of thinking.

“I like long stories,” he told her. “We’ll trade them.” Then, turning his attention to the reason he’d been called out to begin with, he nodded at the dead man. He would have had to have been deaf and blind to miss the distress in her voice and on her face and he was neither. “He a friend of yours?”

“We knew each other,” Charley answered, keeping her reply deliberately vague. If she admitted to Declan that Matt was her half brother, she knew that there wouldn’t be a chance in hell she would be allowed to work on his murder. And right now that was the most important thing in the world to her.

Declan took her answer in stride. “How did you happen to be here?” he asked.

Charley looked up sharply, recognizing the tone Declan was using. It was deliberately laid-back, conversational—and moving in for the kill because, as the person who called in the murder, she was suspect number one.

She told him the truth—as far as she was willing to take it.

“I heard Holt hadn’t shown up for his shift in the last couple of days and his lieutenant said he hadn’t called in, either. That wasn’t like Holt. I knew he was having a hard time because of a breakup he was going through, so I decided to stop by to check on him. It was on my way.” It hadn’t been, but Cavelli—or Cavanaugh—didn’t need to know that part, Charley thought.

“A breakup?” Declan echoed, looking at her thoughtfully. “With you?”

The question was so unexpected, it made her laugh. The laugh was devoid of any humor.

“Hardly. Her name was Melissa. They didn’t quite have the same goals and expectations. When Holt looked at her, he heard wedding bells ringing. When she looked at him, she heard the sound of a cash register going off.”

“Not a match made in heaven,” Declan agreed. He looked down at the man thoughtfully. “You think he killed himself?”

“He wasn’t the type.” He wouldn’t have done that to her, no matter how badly he’d been hurting. He wouldn’t have taken himself out of her life like that.

“Then you knew him pretty well,” Declan concluded.

She didn’t want Declan to go veering onto that path, but rather than deny it, she gave him another answer. “There was a note,” she began.

Declan eyed her, his interest escalated. “A suicide note?”

“No,” Charley snapped, the edge of her temper growing frayed at an increasingly faster pace. She knew she wasn’t being fair to Declan. It wasn’t his fault that Matt was dead.

It bothered her greatly that there were no defensive wounds on the body. That meant that Matt hadn’t fought back. Most likely, he’d been passed out when the killer had struck.

She hadn’t had time to do anything with the note except carefully remove it so that it wouldn’t get damaged when the paramedics worked over her brother. Taking her handkerchief out, she picked up the edge of the paper she’d placed out of the way and held it up for Declan to read.

“Just the beginning,” Declan repeated, and raised his eyes to her face. “You think it’s a budding serial killer making an announcement?”

“Could be,” she allowed, then told him the last detail. “It was stapled to his chest.”

That didn’t sound right. Was she getting muddled because the discovery of the body had hit her hard? “You mean to his shirt.”

“No,” she said, taking out her cell phone and selecting the photos app. “To his chest.”

She flipped through the photographs to the one she’d made herself take of Matt, knowing it was an important detail that just might help them solve Matt’s murder.

Finding the one she was looking for, she held it up for Declan. “There. See?”

“Wow.” The word just slipped out of its own volition. He took the smart phone from her—or tried to. “I won’t damage it,” he promised her.

She was really going to have to get a better grip on herself or she wasn’t going to be of any use to Matt, she upbraided herself.

“Sorry,” Charley responded, releasing her hold on the phone.

“That’s okay,” Declan said. And then he took a closer look at the photograph that she had queued up for his perusal. “You’re right, the note
was
stapled to his chest. Who does that kind of thing?” he marveled, more to himself than to her.

That was an easy one to answer. It was all the other questions that were going to be difficult. “Someone who’s crazy.”

“Any more? Photos?” he asked rather than just arbitrarily flip through her array of photographs. In what he saw as her present, rather fragile state, he wanted to make sure he avoided doing anything that might upset her any further than she already was.

“Not of the crime scene,” she told him. There were other photographs of Matt, both with her and without her, but those she didn’t want this detective to see. If the matter came up, she wouldn’t deny her connection to Matt, but until then, she wasn’t about to advertise the fact that he was her brother, either.

Declan leaned over the officer’s body, taking in all he could without actually touching the man or rolling him over. The bullet seemed to have entered in the region of his heart. He had no way of knowing if there was an exit wound until after the crime-scene investigator released the body. He wondered if his father had been called in for this one. Seeing as how it was a police officer who had been shot—possibly executed—he rather thought it was likely that his father would be on the scene since he was head of the day lab unit.

“Think he means it?” Declan asked, straightening up again.

The detective had asked the question completely out of the blue. She stared at him, unclear what he was referring to. “Who?”

“The killer,” Declan told her patiently. “Do you think there’ll be more? That he really intends to kill other people?”

Charley shrugged, at a loss to form any real opinion. “That’s what his note says,” she replied, her voice eerily removed.

Declan nodded as he conducted a perimeter examination of the area where the body had been discovered. “Well, thanks for the input,” he told her. “I’ll keep you in the loop if I can.”

Charley didn’t budge as she gave him a glare that would have made Medusa shiver. “‘In the loop’?” she echoed incredulously. “I’m not going to be in any ‘loop,’ Cavelli or Cavanaugh or whatever name you want to go by,” she informed him. “I’m going to work this case.”

“What department are you with?” he asked her patiently.

She knew where he was going with this. “Narcotics. It doesn’t matter,” Charley insisted, immediately vetoing any objections he might have been inclined to raise. “I was the first on the scene and I’m...” she paused to search for just the right words to use in this argument she intended to win “...familiar with his...with the victim’s background. That is definitely going to prove handy.”

“This is a homicide,” Declan began.

There were a variety of reasons why she couldn’t work the case, objections he was rather certain his lieutenant would raise—unless Declan went to bat for her. He rolled the thought over in his head. He was officially minus a partner and this was not a one-man investigation—especially if it turned out that this killer had more bodies on his agenda.

Thinking it over, he decided that that would most likely prove to be the best argument to use when he spoke to his lieutenant.

“I
know
what it is,” Charley retorted, grinding out the words. “Look, I need to be included in this investigation—actively included,” she underscored before he found some cute little phrase to insultingly refer to her participation in this investigation.

She took a breath, knowing what she was about to do was going to make her vulnerable, but she had no option left to her. She owed it to Matt to find his killer—to avenge his death. “Look, I’ll be in your debt if you talk to your captain—”

“Lieutenant,” Declan corrected.

“Whatever.” Charley shrugged impatiently. Her eyes held his, waiting for a decision from him.

“In my debt,” Declan repeated thoughtfully. He
did
like the sound of that.

“In your debt,” she confirmed, her voice as devoid of emotion as she could make it. Later she’d figure out how to get around this deal with the devil she was making, but right now, she had to secure her position on the investigation.