Cavanaugh In Plain Sight (Cavanaugh Justice Book 42) Page 10

  “Dugan, hang on,” Morgan called after his brother as the latter started to cross the threshold. “What do I owe you?”

  “More than you could ever possibly repay me,” Dugan deadpanned.

  “No, seriously,” Morgan insisted as he took out his wallet and slipped out several bills. “What do I owe you for the pizza?”

  Dugan glanced over at Krys and smiled. “Just keep the lady safe and we’ll call it even. Remember, we’ve got a reputation to maintain. We don’t lose people on our watch.” And then he patted Morgan’s shoulder. “Now I’d better go. I’ve got a warm meal and a hot wife waiting for me and I want to get home before either of them cools off.”

  Dugan went out and closed the door behind him.

  Morgan flipped both locks closed and then tested the door to make sure that it remained secure. It did.

  “How many brothers did you say you had?” she asked, putting out two plates for their dinner.

  “Three brothers,” he told her. “I’ve got three sisters, too,” Morgan added, anticipating Krys’s next question.

  “Did you guys all get along when you were growing up?” she asked, wondering what a full house like that had been like.

  “Define ‘get along,’” Morgan told her. And then, before she could answer, he laughed, getting her off the hook. “I guess you could say that we got along. At least we don’t draw blood—anymore.” An amused smile curved the corners of his generous mouth.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Krys asked him, taking a slice out of the pizza box and putting it on Morgan’s plate, then taking one for herself.

  “Sure, why don’t we say that?” he agreed in a nebulous tone.

  Krys shook her head. Morgan was proving to be rather hard to read. “You’re not fooling me,” she told him.

  Morgan snapped his fingers as if to underscore and lament a lost opportunity.

  “And here I was, hoping to hoodwink you,” he told her. “Another hope dashed.”

  “You know,” Krys told him as she helped herself to a second slice of the extra-large, thin crust, meat supreme pizza, “you seem to be a lot different tonight than you were this morning.”

  He shrugged, waiting to finish eating what he’d bitten into before he answered her. When he did, he said, “I guess I just grow on some people.”

  She was trying to be serious in her assessment and he was being flippant. She tried again.

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” she told Morgan. When he raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to explain what she was trying to say, she complied. “You just seem to be nicer. Is it because you think of me as family?” she asked.

  “Well, there’s that,” he granted, pausing before taking another bite, “but even more than that, I believe you.”

  “Believe me?” she repeated, slightly confused.

  “Yes, that someone’s trying to kill you,” he told her. “You’d be surprised just how many people say something like that just to get attention, or because they have some ulterior motive. Not everyone is honest.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she murmured. “I make my living separating the liars from the people who actually have something to tell the public at large.”

  “How did you happen to get into this line of work anyway?” Morgan asked.

  Krys shrugged, not wanting to get into it right now. But she could see that he was waiting for an answer, so she did her best to give him one. “When I was a kid, I always loved a mystery, getting to the bottom of what was going on. Solving it,” she declared proudly. “Eventually, doing that just seemed to carry over into real life. Nik investigated insurance claims. And I wound up investigating things that had a bigger impact on the general public.” That was just the way things had happened, she thought. She hadn’t set out seeking this way of life.

  Morgan nodded as he took his fourth slice. “Like a man who romances lonely, rich women, sweeps them off their feet and then winds up taking them for everything they’ve got.”

  “You’re forgetting one important, damning point,” she told Morgan. “He kills them so he can continue living his lifestyle, romancing women for profit.”

  And then she sighed, hating the fact that someone like that was still out there, doing these heinous things.

  “I really hope your cousin is as good as you say she is and that she can track this guy down, because more than anyone I’ve ever exposed, he really deserves to be made to pay,” Krys insisted with feeling.

  “For trying to kill you,” he assumed, nodding his head.

  “And for killing those other women. All they wanted was for someone to love them and instead, they wound up dead. That isn’t right on any level.”

  “So I take it that you’re pretty convinced this Bluebeard character is the one trying to get revenge by killing you,” Morgan assumed, polishing off yet another slice of pizza. So far, he had managed to eat six slices to her four.

  Where was she putting all this, he couldn’t help wondering. The woman was exceedingly slender.

  “It does seem likely,” Krys answered. “But convinced?” she questioned and then she shook her head. “No, not completely.” And then she explained why. “If I can find those four drug trial subjects and discover that the reason they disappeared was because of the negative results that came up during those tests, then someone high up in the pecking order wanting to get rid of me would make a lot of sense as well.”

  “If you honestly believe that, then why don’t you just stop looking into the drug trials—at least for the time being?”

  Krys realized that the detective didn’t really understand what drove her.

  “Because someone has to shine a light on the truth,” she told him simply. “If this drug is just some sort of a placebo that doesn’t deliver what it promises, then a lot of people hoping for a miracle are going to be more than just disappointed. They were being lied to,” she insisted with feeling. “This so-called miracle drug isn’t supposed to be a cure, but it ‘promises’ to deliver a way to arrest cancer’s progress. Maybe even long enough until such time as a cure is found.”

  Her voice grew more passionate as she got into the crux of her reasoning. “If people think they’ve found that drug, then perforce researchers will stop looking for it because they feel that it’s been found. That is a horrible, gross lie on every single possible level.”

  Morgan found her passion arousing. Krys seemed nothing short of deadly serious as she made her point. More than that, she made him think of a modern-day crusader.

  A crusader who could very easily lose her life if she was onto something that someone was dead set against her exposing and bringing to the public’s attention.

  Morgan studied her for a moment. He found himself more worried about her than he should have been. His concern went beyond his role as a detective. That was when he realized that he was having feelings for this woman. Even so, he couldn’t make himself back off. “Did you ever consider doing something that’s, oh, I don’t know, a little bit simpler and a hell of a lot less dangerous for a living?”

  Her mouth curved as amusement slipped into her eyes. “You mean like hang gliding over the Grand Canyon?” she asked. “I’ve thought about it. But that’s still pretty dangerous,” she told him.

  “Right,” he agreed sarcastically. “And antagonizing a cold-blooded killer as well as an entire pharmaceutical company isn’t?” Morgan questioned.

  “Well, when you put it that way...” Krys’s voice trailed off—and then, inexplicably, she laughed. “I think that it was Sammy Davis Jr. who used to sing a song entitled ‘I’ve Gotta Be Me,’” Krys told her sister’s cousin-in-law, looking at him intently as she made her point.

  “Granted,” he allowed. “But in order for you to do it ‘your way,’ you’re forgetting one thing. You have to be alive to do it.”

  “Well, that’s where you come in, isn’t
it?” she questioned. “You’re the one who’s supposed to keep me alive, remember?”

  He shook his head. She was a Cavanaugh all right, if only by marriage.

  “It would be a lot easier on me if you weren’t standing on the tips of your toes, balancing on a narrow ledge, waving your arms and acting as if you didn’t realize that you’re calling attention to yourself and behaving like a perfect target,” he told her.

  “Good point. I will definitely try to refrain from waving my arms,” she told him, all the while keeping a straight face.

  He didn’t believe her for a minute. She was going to continue doing what she was doing, but short of tying the woman up, he knew there was nothing he could do about it—except be there for her when the need and the situation arose.

  Chapter 11

  “Well,” Krys said, pushing herself away from the table, “that was great, but I’ve got work to do. Be sure to thank your brother for the less-than-nutritious dinner,” she said with a grin as she closed the lid on the practically empty pizza box.

  Morgan nodded, getting up from the table as well. He picked up her plate, placed it on top of his and took both of them to the sink. “This work isn’t going to take you out of the house, is it?” he asked as he rinsed off the two plates.

  She watched as he took a sponge and applied it to each of the plates. “Not tonight,” she answered, then raised her eyes to his face. “Why?”

  “Because I’d be going with you if that was the case,” he told her. Leaving the plates on the rack, he dried off his hands with the dish towel.

  “Well, you can stay put for now. Tonight I’m going over the notes I took while Peters was pontificating to me and see what, if anything, I can use for my article.”

  “What about the notes I took?” he asked, folding the dish towel into thirds and slipping it over the handle on the oven.

  She didn’t understand. “Your notes?” she asked.

  “Yes, the ones I took,” he reminded her. There was still no sign of comprehension on her face. “I was supposed to be your assistant, remember?”

  “I remember.” But she didn’t act as if she was enlightened. “You really took notes?” Krys asked him, surprised.

  Morgan still didn’t see what the big mystery was. “I thought you wanted me to be believable.”

  “I did,” she agreed, “but I just thought you were writing gibberish on the pad, you know, to sell the part of my assistant.”

  “No, not gibberish,” he said, then explained why he’d written down actual thoughts. “On the slim chance that Peters might be involved in some sort of conspiracy to get you out of the picture, I listened to what he had to say and took notes. That was just in case he wound up accidentally letting something useful slip—although, from the sound of it, it was far more likely that he just enjoyed hearing himself talk.”

  She sorted through what Morgan had just told her and decided that it wouldn’t hurt to go through whatever he felt was important enough to jot down.

  “Now that I think about it, sure,” she told him. “I would be interested in seeing your notes.”

  Morgan looked around the area for the legal pad he had brought in with him. Seeing it lying on the sofa, he crossed over to the light gray piece of furniture, picked it up and brought it over to her.

  “Here,” he said, holding the pad out to Krys.

  Taking it from him, she quickly skimmed over the more than two pages of writing. It did make sense, she realized.

  “Thanks,” she murmured. “I’ll be sure to read it more carefully.” She raised her eyes to his. “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he told her. “I’ve got ways to stay busy.”

  Krys was definitely curious about exactly what he intended to do, but since Morgan didn’t seem like he wanted to elaborate, for now she just kept her questions to herself.

  Taking her laptop over to the corner desk that she had set up as her work area, Krys started writing. Within moments, she was completely immersed in her work. She carefully waded through this latest interview and compared it to the content within her other interviews.

  What she was looking for was not a narrative but to see if what the various researchers had said wound up contradicting one another or confirming the details.

  For the most part, Krys was focused on her work, but she did find it difficult to concentrate because her mind kept insisting on returning to the striking, handsome man who had set himself up at the kitchen counter with a tall glass of sparkling water. Whenever she slanted a glance in his direction, he appeared to be sitting at ease and nonchalantly taking everything in.

  C’mon, Krys, stop letting your mind drift. This damn thing isn’t going to write itself and you’re not getting paid for procrastinating like this. Eyes on the prize, Kowalski, she silently lectured herself.

  * * *

  Finally, it had somehow gotten to be three hours later. Her bright blue eyes were a little less bright. They were also burning and threatening to shut at any moment. With a weary sigh, she saved her work and then shut down her laptop.

  “Problem?”

  Krys nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t realized that he was standing right over her.

  “You sighed,” he explained when she looked at him as if he were some sort of a ghost, hovering over her.

  Taking a breath, she willed her heart to calm down. “I feel like I’m missing something,” she explained, nodding at the closed laptop. “Something that’s right out there in plain sight, mocking me.”

  In his opinion, she was pushing herself too hard. “Could be that you just wore yourself out and you’re exhausted.”

  “Could be,” she agreed, but she wasn’t really convinced that was the case as she added, “But it’s probably not likely.”

  Now that her laptop was shut down for the night, she put her hands on the desk and pushed herself up into a standing position. “I guess I’ll call it a night.” Her eyes swept over him. “Some of us don’t run on batteries.”

  He smiled, playing along with her comment. “Not even rechargeable ones?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “Not even those.” Krys glanced toward the end of the corridor, where the bedrooms were located. “Sure I can’t interest you in a bed?”

  The second she asked the question, she immediately realized how that had to sound to a man, especially one as good-looking as Morgan Cavanaugh. Her complexion immediately turned a bright red.

  “I mean to sleep in. By yourself.” The more she attempted to correct the impression she had inadvertently created, the worse her words sounded to her ears.

  Morgan laughed. Taking pity on her, he came to her rescue. “I know what you mean and I’m sure,” he told her. “I’ll be fine right here,” he said, nodding down at the chair he’d been sitting in.

  “The recliner?” Krys asked in disbelief, clearly skeptical about the choice he had made. “That can’t be a very comfortable way to spend the rest of the night,” she observed.

  “Hey,” he protested, attempting to sound as if he was challenging her dismissive tone, “some of my best sleep has been gotten standing up.” She would have believed him except for the way his eyes seemed to twinkle as he said it. “But I don’t intend to do any real sleeping.”

  She cast a disapproving glance at the recliner. “Doesn’t look all that comfortable for fake sleeping, either.”

  His smile came easily, and he got the definite impression that she was predisposed to argue with him about everything.

  “Like I said, don’t worry about it,” he told her.

  Surrendering for the moment, Krys shrugged. If the man was determined not to sleep, that was his choice. “Suit yourself. But all I know is that it’ll reflect rather badly on me as a brand-new member of the family if I wind up wearing out one of the Cavanaughs less than a week after I
turn up.”

  He laughed at the image she had wound up projecting. “Don’t worry about it. We’re a hardy breed,” Morgan assured her. “We don’t wear out that easy.”

  “Good to know,” Krys replied. Morgan got the feeling that she wasn’t all that convinced.

  “Don’t forget to lock your bedroom door,” he called after her as she left the room and walked toward the rear of the house.

  Krys stopped and turned around. “Why, are you planning on breaking in?”

  Instead of answering her, Morgan grinned in response. “I make it a rule never to mix business with pleasure.”

  What is that supposed to mean? she wondered. Krys also had a strong urge to ask him just which category she ultimately fell into, business or pleasure? But she already had enough trouble swirling around her without openly inviting more, and even though he was supposed to be her protector, this man was definitely trouble with a capital T.

  “Good night, Cavanaugh,” she said as she resumed walking down the hallway.

  “Good night, Kowalski,” he called after her.

  Smiling to himself, Morgan settled in on the recliner, prepared to keep watch for the night.

  * * *

  Krys spent a restless night trying to sleep.

  Rather than being comforted by the knowledge that Morgan was out there, keeping vigil over her, she found that it agitated her. Although the thought didn’t keep her awake, it did keep waking her every forty-five minutes to an hour or so with a fair amount of regularity.

  The fifth time she opened her eyes, fully alert, Krys gave up trying to stitch together a decent night’s sleep. This was even worse than the time she had been overseas, researching a story on the doings of a reluctant hero who had captured the public’s attention—at least for that month. She had relentlessly pursued him until he had surrendered his entire story to her. She remembered being very proud of her work at the time. And also exhausted.

  This wasn’t quite as bad as that, she reminded herself. But it was definitely close.