How to Seduce a Cavanaugh Page 10

  She saw no reason for the side trip. “I thought we were interviewing the people who work with Mitchum at the bank.”

  “You’re still doing that,” he told her. “But I need my car. I’ve got something to do first. I need to take a couple of hours of personal time.”

  She’d almost gotten convinced that he didn’t have a personal life. This shed an entirely different light on the man.

  “You’re sure I can’t help in any way?” she asked again.

  “All the help I need is to be dropped off at my car.” It took an effort not to suck in his breath as she narrowly avoided colliding with another vehicle at the intersection. “Provided you don’t kill us before we get to the precinct.”

  Several comebacks sprang to her lips, but she decided to keep them to herself, “I’ll do my best not to.”

  * * *

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Kane told her when she dropped him off beside his sedan in the precinct parking lot ten minutes later.

  She didn’t get a chance to respond. Kane had slid behind the steering wheel of his car and sped off, going as fast, if not faster, than he had accused her of going just minutes ago.

  Something was wrong, Kelly thought again. He wasn’t a man who was agitated easily, yet he clearly had been when he’d taken off just now.

  She intended to find out what had set him off if it was the last thing she did, she promised herself.

  * * *

  The interviews proved to be another dead end. Everyone she spoke to had polite words about Mitchum, but it was as if all interviewees had been reading from the same script.

  Reading between the lines, she got the impression no one really cared for the bank president. Even so, she couldn’t see any of the employees exacting revenge by breaking into Mitchum’s home and terrorizing him as well as his wife before making off with electronics and jewelry.

  Why electronics? Why not just jewelry or something more valuable? Granted the items that had been taken weren’t cheap, but they wouldn’t have fetched top dollar from a fence, either. Taking them was done for the purpose of embarrassing Mitchum, nothing more.

  Since interviewing the people who worked at Mitchum’s bank had proved to be unproductive, Kelly decided to talk to his neighbors. If she was lucky, one of them might have noticed something suspicious the evening of the home invasion.

  It was a long shot at best, but for now, she was out of options.

  * * *

  Kelly was just about to begin questioning a third neighbor when Kane caught up to her.

  The first thing she noticed was that he looked even more somber than usual. Somber and pale.

  “Everything all right?” she asked. Judging by both his demeanor and his pallor, it wasn’t. She fervently hoped the question could open up a dialogue between them.

  He didn’t answer her question.

  Instead, he went right to the topic of the investigation. No surprise there. When it came to significant revelations Kane behaved as if he was the sphinx’s direct descendant.

  “Where did you get with the bank employees?” Kane asked.

  “Far enough to know that the expression Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil is alive and well in some corners of this country—as well as at the Aurora First National Savings and Loan Bank.”

  Kane’s eyes held hers for a long moment. “So you got nothing,” he concluded.

  It sounded so barren and final when he said it, she thought. But it was also true.

  “I got nothing,” Kelly confirmed. “I was just interviewing some of his neighbors, hoping that if maybe someone was fighting insomnia last night, they might have looked out their window and accidentally seen something that was out of place.”

  “Tall order,” Kane commented.

  She was well aware of that. But she also was aware that sometimes long shots paid off.

  Her response was a tad defensive, but she wasn’t about to make any apologies for it.

  “Hey, if you get nothing by trolling, you start thinking of climbing out on a limb and hopefully, getting lucky.”

  “And this is you, out on a limb?” he asked.

  She couldn’t tell if he was asking a legitimate question or being sarcastic. In any event, she only had one answer for him. “Metaphorically speaking.”

  “Okay, let’s see if we can ‘get lucky.’” He paused before adding, “Metaphorically.”

  She was more than happy to oblige.

  * * *

  The same general feeling that had surfaced when she had questioned the bank employees was echoed by Mitchum’s neighbors. It was also obvious, once the politely worded rhetoric had been scrubbed and set aside, that none of the neighbors really knew either the bank president or his wife. The couple kept to themselves.

  The last neighbor they spoke with, a divorcée named Arlene Richards, found the Mitchums lacking in several areas. She wasn’t shy about listing what she viewed as shortcomings, either.

  “And they never participate in anything that the association plans.”

  “The association?” Kelly asked, exchanging looks with Kane.

  “The Home Owners Association,” Arlene Richards explained. “We’ve held block parties as well as fund-raisers for the local animal shelter. Couldn’t get either of them to donate their time or part with a dime.” She frowned, a note of disgust evident in her voice. “I guess Mr. Mitchum has found a way to take it with him. Please don’t tell him I said so,” she suddenly requested when she realized what she had said.

  “Your secret’s safe with us,” Kane assured the woman.

  Aside from wearing a dress that could have doubled as a full body tourniquet, Arlene was doing her best to flirt with Durant. He, on the other hand, seemed totally oblivious to the woman’s attempts, as well as her very obvious “charms.”

  The first chance she got, Kelly promised herself she was going to call Valri and see how far her sister had gotten with putting together a bio on Durant. Ordinarily, she would have conducted her own investigation, but she knew without asking that getting firsthand information out of Durant would be next to impossible. And if she made any calculated guesses, she had a feeling Durant would just deny everything or clam up, neither of which would be remotely satisfying.

  Kelly noticed that this time around her partner did not hand the older woman his card and urge her to call if she thought of anything pertinent to the case.

  “Did you forget to give her your card?” she asked innocently once they’d left the woman’s estate.

  “I didn’t forget,” Kane answered in a dismissive tone.

  “Smart move,” Kelly told him.

  Kane grunted something unintelligible in response. Kelly wisely kept a straight face.

  Temporarily at an impasse, they decided to go back to the precinct to review what they knew about the two cases. Kelly was hoping something would occur to them that had been overlooked, although she wasn’t holding out too much hope at the moment.

  When the facts were listed beneath each pair of home invasion victims, the only similarity found was that the couples both resided in the more affluent part of the city. Beyond that, their paths didn’t appear to cross. They didn’t frequent the same restaurants, didn’t belong to the same organizations and they didn’t donate to the same charities. They didn’t even bring their vehicles to the same mechanic to be serviced.

  “Maybe whoever’s doing this just hates rich people,” Kelly suggested.

  “You said something earlier about seeing if there were any other recent home invasions either here or in one of the neighboring cities. Have you done that yet?” Kane asked.

  “Not yet,” she answered. Her fingers were already on the keyboard. “But I’ll get right on it.”

  “Might as well since we don’t exactly have a
hot trail to follow,” he commented. Kane was about to say something further to her on the subject, but his cell began to chime. “I’ve got to take this,” he told her without bothering to look at the caller ID. He stepped out into the hall.

  Her curiosity instantly activated, Kelly was sorely tempted to follow him into the hall and eavesdrop. Granted that wouldn’t be a way to build up trust, but it could give her some answers.

  With her search engine going through the database she had tapped into, Kelly took the opportunity to call her sister.

  The second she heard Valri pick up on the other end and say “Hello?” Kelly immediately lowered her voice and asked, “Did you find out anything about Durant yet?”

  “Kelly?”

  “Of course it’s me.” Kelly lowered her voice even further. “Did anyone else ask you to look Durant up?” she asked Valri.

  “Point taken. Sorry,” Valri apologized. “It’s been one of those days from hell. To be honest, I’ve just now managed to pull up the information you asked about.”

  Kelly was instantly alert. “What did you find out?” she asked eagerly.

  Valri paused as if she was reading something. “Well, he’s gone through a large number of partners.”

  Kelly struggled to contain her impatience. “I already know that, Val,” she told her sister. “Is there anything else?”

  “Hold it. I see something noted down here.” There was another pause, far shorter than the first one. “Oh my God.”

  “What?” Kelly cried. It was obvious that whatever Valri was reading had caught her off guard. “Talk to me. What did you find?”

  Valri let out a shaky breath. “There was a lot of domestic abuse when Durant was growing up.”

  It wasn’t all that uncommon. There had to be something more to it if it had disturbed Valri to this extent.

  “How bad?” Kelly asked.

  “Bad. Really bad,” Valri emphasized. “His father shot his mother right in front of him when he was ten years old.”

  That explained a lot of things, Kelly thought, especially Kane’s distant attitude. “Did he kill her?”

  “Yes,” Valri answered grimly. “But that’s not all. It says here in the report that Kane tried to protect his mother, so his father shot him, too, and then he killed himself.”

  “Murder-suicide,” Kelly stated grimly.

  “That’s what it looks like,” Valri agreed. There was a hitch in her throat. “Doctors said it was a miracle that Kane survived.”

  “With that in his background, no wonder he’s not exactly bright and cheery. Given the circumstances, someone else might have turned around and become a serial killer,” Kelly said, shaking her head. “Was Durant placed into foster care after they released him from the hospital?”

  “No. It says here that his uncle took him in.” There was another pause as Valri continued reading. “His uncle was a cop until he retired from the force.”

  “Anything else?” Kelly asked, praying there wasn’t. Durant’s life sounded positively Dickensian. No wonder he was so grim most of the time. Hard to smile with that kind of thing in his background.

  “Not that I can see. I’ll do a little more digging when I get a chance,” Valri promised. “But I’ve got to go now.”

  “Thanks, Val, I appreciate it,” Kelly said, terminating the call.

  She had just put away her cell phone when she saw Kane entering the squad room. He was dragging his hand through his dark blond hair and he looked agitated.

  She waited for him to return to his desk and asked, “Is everything okay?”

  “You keeping tabs on me, Cavanaugh?” Kane snapped, a storm gathering in his intense blue eyes as he sat down.

  The last thing he would accept was pity. She knew that, so she proceeded accordingly. “Just being concerned,” she answered, tossing her head. “No need to take my head off.”

  He leaned back in his chair, dragged a hand through his hair. “Sorry, it’s been kind of a rough morning and I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  Kelly thought of what her sister had just told her. Despite her promise to herself about keeping her distance and not invading his space, her heart just went out to him. He looked as if he was in pain and her inclination was to try to lessen that pain.

  “They say sharing makes the burden lessen,” Kelly told him.

  “And where is it that they say these things? How do you make sense out of something that just defies logic?” he demanded.

  When Kane saw that several sets of eyes had turned toward them, his frown only deepened and he turned his chair away from their line of vision.

  Kelly pulled her own chair all the way in and leaned forward, keeping her voice low. “Okay, I think it’s time you told me what’s bothering you.”

  His emotional state felt raw and vulnerable. Kane snapped at her. “And I think it’s time for you to back off, unless you want to find yourself being partnered up with someone else by the end of the day.

  “In fact, why don’t you start filling out those papers you have to file to get a new partner? This just isn’t working,” he told her.

  Oh, no. You don’t get rid of me that easily.

  “No,” she said, surprising him. “I don’t want another partner. I can’t just abandon you when you’re obviously dealing with something, even if you are a giant pain in the butt. Someone has to stick by you. It might as well be me.”

  Rather than answer her, Kane got up from his chair and strode out of the squad room.

  Chapter 10

  Less than half a minute later Kelly was on her feet, hurrying to catch up to her noncommunicative partner. She overtook her quarry, who was heading down the hallway, in a matter of seconds.

  “Where are you going?” she asked once she’d caught up to Kane.

  “I don’t know,” he retorted. “Anywhere that you’re not.”

  The blunt answer did not cause her to retreat. On the contrary, she dug in. “I’m not the problem,” she informed Kane.

  “Wanna bet?” the detective challenged.

  She blew out a breath. “Okay, you don’t want me asking questions, I won’t ask questions. Let’s just focus on the home invasions,” she proposed.

  He gave her a dark look.

  Durant appeared as if he could shoot lightning bolts at her if he wanted to, she thought.

  “Trying to lull me into a false sense of security, is that it?”

  “I’m trying to earn my pay,” Kelly told him flatly. “Now stop going all Harry Callahan on me and come back to the squad room. I’ve got something to show you.” She began to walk back to the room they had just vacated.

  Kane didn’t. He remained exactly where he was. “Harry who?” he asked, sounding both bewildered and suspicious.

  “Callahan,” she repeated. She couldn’t believe her partner wasn’t aware of the cult classic movie. “The police detective Clint Eastwood played in Dirty Harry. The guy who single-handedly cleaned up the streets of San Francisco.” With each added piece of information about the movie, she kept looking at Kane to see if she’d gotten him to remember. The expression on the other detective’s face told her she’d struck out. “Well, at any rate, he wasn’t exactly the easiest guy to be around, either,” Kelly concluded.

  Because he was on the clock and the case remained opened, Kane had no choice in the matter. He began to walk back to the squad room.

  “Did this Harry guy have a partner like you?” he asked.

  “No, he wasn’t that lucky,” Kelly said.

  Her answer was met with a laugh. “That’s not the word I’d use,” Kane told her. “So what is it you want to show me?” he asked.

  Kelly pointed to her desk. Specifically to the computer monitor.

  “Following up on our discussion, I found two prior home in
vasions. One took place a little more than two weeks ago in Sacramento. The other one occurred last week in Merced.” Sitting down at her desk, she pointed to each home invasion on the monitor. “The MO is identical to the robberies that took place here in Aurora.”

  “Instead of a week between invasions, these last two robberies were just a day apart,” Kane pointed out, more to himself than to her. “Looks like our thief has stepped up his program. Wonder why.”

  “Could be as simple as the proximity,” Kelly guessed. “The first two were spread out. The last two were in the same city. Hell, they were practically in the same neighborhood.”

  Kane nodded. And then he looked at her. “Want to go interview the first two victims?” It was more of a suggestion than a question.

  He was rewarded with a wide grin. The grin transformed an already very pretty face into an utterly compelling one.

  The fact that he noticed it at all bothered Kane. He wasn’t supposed to think of his pain-of-a-partner as anything but a fellow detective. Seeing her as a female detective was bad enough. Seeing her as an attractive female detective was far worse.

  Moreover, for some reason that awareness infiltrated his subconscious and sorely interfered with his ability to concentrate, much less be able to cleanly process a thought.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Kelly responded to his suggestion.

  It struck him as a little too enthusiastic. Yet, just as he found her, he found her go-get-’em trait exceedingly attractive.

  Kane upbraided himself. He usually maintained better control over his thoughts than this. This was really beginning to concern him.

  He needed to work. To keep busy and not think about anything other than the case. Not just because of the very obvious reason that had come up, but because of his general reaction to this woman, as well. She was starting to occupy more and more of his mind, not just when he was with her, but when they weren’t together.

  That had to come to an end immediately.

  “Take down their addresses and let’s go,” he told Kelly gruffly.

  When they walked out to the parking lot behind the building, he saw Kelly walk purposely toward the left lot. That wasn’t where the woman had last parked, he remembered.