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  Her eyes held his for a long moment. "Don't wrap me in a cocoon or I'll smother."

  But he did want to wrap her in a cocoon. Much the way she wanted to protect her children. Another impossibility. "What do your kids think about this?"

  The man didn't play fair, she thought. He'd hit her in her one vulnerable spot.

  "I haven't told them. They've got enough to deal with." Her words caused him to eye her quizzically. "I told Riley about the possibility of Ben being alive today, and then called a family meeting at lunch to tell the others."

  "How did they take it?"

  "Predictably." She raised her voice slightly as the noise level rose. "Zack seemed resigned, Taylor kept her feelings to herself and Frank..." She thought of the expression on her youngest's face as he'd digested the news. "Frank was angry."

  "Angry? At who? You?"

  She shook her head. She doubted very much if Frank would ever be angry with her. Their bond was too strong. "His father. For skipping out on us." She suddenly realized that the noise had abruptly stopped. The power shovel's head hung just above the hole where the casket laid, a dog looking down at the hole it had dug. "Showtime," she murmured, walking over toward the grave site.

  Brian put his hand out, momentarily stopping her. She seemed confused as he motioned for his sons to take over. "Go ahead, get it out and open it."

  Lila pulled her arm away. She wasn't going to have him try to protect her. Her head high, with determined steps, Lila moved forward to the edge of the grave.

  "You're going to have to move out of the way if you don't want the casket to hit you," Troy told her gently.

  With a nod of her head, she stepped back. Lila held her breath as the coffin was placed on the ground beside the gaping hole. Her heart nearly stopped as the mahogany lid was lifted.

  Brian shone a flashlight on the casket's occupant.

  The corpse she looked down on could have been anyone. Evidence of the horrific death he had met still lingered, even after all this time.

  It was no less than she'd expected.

  The mortician she'd engaged for the job could only work so many miracles. Of necessity, the service had been closed casket.

  Oh God, what if this really is Ben?

  What if it isn't?

  Rousing herself, she became aware of Dax. He laid out the long, black bag that the M.E.'s office used to transport bodies to the morgue. His brothers, Troy and Jared, lifted the body and deposited it into the body bag as best they could.

  The sound of the zipper closing as the body was sealed into the black bag echoed hauntingly in her head. She drew in a long breath and released it before she turned toward Brian.

  "Now what?" she asked stoically.

  "Now we take the body to Patience's animal hospital." He'd put his niece on alert after making sure that this was all right with her. "She's waiting for us."

  "Then let's get on with it," Lila murmured. She turned away as Jared and Troy lifted the body bag.

  "This is like a ghoulish nightmare, you know that, right?" she whispered to Brian as they walked back to his car.

  Behind them, Brian's sons were placing the body bag into the back of Dax's SUV.

  He didn't want to dwell on the nightmare portion. It was bad enough he'd been haunted ever since he'd seen the surveillance tape. "With any luck, it'll be over with soon."

  She got in on the passenger seat and shut the door. "How many days in 'soon'?"

  "As few as humanly possible." Brian turned his key in the ignition, starting the engine. "I'm putting a rush on it."

  Under ordinary circumstances, if the lab wasn't overloaded, DNA testing took an average of two weeks. But there were ways around that. Costly ways.

  "That's going to cost extra, isn't it?" she asked. And the city was tight with its allocation of money.

  "It's covered," he told her flatly, pulling away from the curb. This was coming out of his own pocket. Otherwise, there would be forms to fill out and explanations to make. He didn't want to put Lila and her family through that unless absolutely necessary.

  Everything was covered. Except for the emotional turmoil this created for her and for her children.

  * * * * *

  It was a long night.

  After an appropriate sample had been taken in order to conduct a proper DNA test—Lila had found an old comb that still had a few strands of Ben's hair to use as a control—the body was returned to the cemetery and placed back in its casket.

  Lila insisted on being there throughout the ordeal.

  "I don't know what to hope for," she said to Brian as they drove away from the cemetery for the second time that night. "Whether to hope that Ben's dead or that he's still alive." She didn't know if she could make Brian understand what she was feeling, or even if it made any sense at all. "He's the father of my children. I should be happy that there's a chance he's still alive— and yet, I don't want him to be. I want this behind me." She looked at Brian's profile as they drove through the darkened streets back to her house. "I'd moved on. I want my life back." There was pain in her voice. "Does that make me a terrible person?"

  "That makes you a normal person," Brian told her. He felt for her and wished he could say something to make her feel better. "Whether Ben's alive or not, that doesn't change anything between us."

  "How can you say that?" she cried, doing her best to even out her tone. "If Ben is still alive, then that means I'm a married woman."

  "In name only," Brian insisted. He didn't want to lose her, especially not to someone who'd long since stopped being worthy of her. "From what you told me, he stopped being your husband long before he was killed—or thought to be killed." The light turned red and Brian eased his foot onto the brake before turning to look at her. He needed to snap her out of this. "I was serious about that party," he said out of the blue.

  "Party?" she echoed, drawing a blank. Her brain was spinning around and around, trapped in a hamster wheel.

  "Andrew's party this Saturday," he reminded her. "You and your family are invited and nobody is accepting excuses." He smiled, but his voice was firm.

  She knew he meant well, but even though it was two days away, she wasn't up to a party. "I don't know if I can face people."

  "Sure you can," he assured her. "You put on a brave front. There's an interesting thing about putting on a brave front. You do it long enough, you start to believe it's real. You stop pretending because it's become real." The light turned green and he shifted back to the gas pedal. "Personally, I think we all need a little bit of mindless fun. Besides, I already told Andrew you were all coming." He grinned. "Andrew does not take no for an answer. You don't come and I can guarantee he'll show up on your doorstep to personally bring you to the party."

  She laughed softly, shaking her head. "You Cava-naughs are a pushy lot."

  He spared her a quick look that spoke volumes. "You don't know the half of it."

  * * *

  Chapter 13

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  The dark-haired woman looked at the man standing across from her in the tiny, claustrophobic, run-down hotel room. The air was thick with a stale smell, dust and her impatience.

  "What the hell is taking you so long?" she demanded. "We should be gone by now."

  The dark eyes were malevolent as he turned from the window with its view of a Dumpster. He'd made it clear that the unexpected delay was not to his liking, either. But that wasn't why he was angry, she thought. Something more was at work here, something that had gotten under his skin and made him surly.

  "It'll take as long as it takes," he snapped at her. There was a finality to his tone.

  She already knew he didn't like being challenged. Well, too bad. She didn't like what she saw going on. "Know what I think? I think you like all this. I think you like being here." She tossed her long, straight black hair over her shoulder. Did he think she was blind? "I think you still love her."

  The look in his eyes warned her to stop right there. She was too angry to list
en. "You don't know what you're talking about."

  The lower lip on her full mouth jutted out petulantly. She'd risked heaven and earth for this man, abandoned everything she knew in order to help him. To nurse him back to health. To be with him.

  God damn him, he owed her. She wasn't about to watch him slip through her fingers.

  Hands on her hips, she thrust her ample chest forward, a portrait of defiance. "All right, if I'm wrong, why don't you just get rid of her and get what you came for so we can finally get the hell out of here before our luck runs out?"

  Steely anger, born of the sharp sting of betrayal, bubbled within his veins, threatening to spill over. He struggled to keep from hitting the small woman. He wasn't the man he used to be, but one swipe of the back of his hand could still send her flying across the room. Breaking her neck would be easier than opening up a brand-new, vacuum-packed jar of peanut butter.

  "Get off my back, woman," he growled. "I do things my way and no two-bit slut is going to tell me what I should or should do."

  "Two-bit slut?" Her chest heaved as she repeated the insult that had cut her to the bone. Rage slid through her veins. "Maybe I'll just go to the police, tell them what really happened three years ago. I still know some guys there. I'm sure they'd be real interested in knowing where you've been all these years." Her eyes blazed as she continued talking. "The statute of limitations hasn't run out yet. There's probably still a big reward out for any information. I don't need you for the money."

  She needed him for other things, things she knew she could get from another man but only wanted from him.

  "Yeah," she said slowly, hoping to goad him either into action or into abandoning his plans, at least for now, "maybe I'll do just that. Maybe I'll go to the police."

  He was too fast for her.

  One second he was across the room, glaring at her, the next, he was right there, beside her, his large hand beneath her throat, slamming her up against the wall with such force, it jarred her teeth.

  Her breath caught and stood still in her lungs. Fear danced through her as she found herself staring up into the face of evil.

  "Are you threatening me?" he demanded darkly.

  She whimpered. His powerful hand had all but squeezed all the air out of her throat. Panic began to take over. Struggling for breath, she could only form the word "no" with her lips. No sound came out.

  The next moment, as he carelessly opened his hand, she slid down to the floor, unconscious.

  "Bitch," he uttered, walking away. Hating the fact that she was right.

  * * * * *

  "Lila Mclntyre," Andrew Cavanaugh declared with obvious pleasure. He took her hands into both of his own, the very gesture making her feel welcomed. "It's about time."

  On his way back to the kitchen when he'd heard the doorbell, he'd gone to answer it himself rather that call over someone else to do it for him. Behind him, the house was packed to the rafters with people enjoying themselves and trying to talk above one another. It made for a pleasant, albeit a loud, din.

  Music played somewhere, a faint ribbon of a tune, but it was all but drowned out in the wake of the raised voices weaving through one another, forming an oddly pleasing, cacophonous whole.

  "Yes," Lila agreed, "it is."

  She'd always liked Andrew, even when he was her superior. There'd always been something genuine about him. He had the air of a natural-born leader and his men had been loyal to a fault.

  Nothing had really changed. Even as she stood here on the threshold, Brian beside her, she could feel the warmth emanating from within the house. Not the physical warmth generated from so many bodies in the same space but the emotional kind. Here were people who all genuinely liked one another. Loved one another. Even to stand on the perimeter was to feel it.

  She'd tried to create that sort of atmosphere, that sort of feeling, within her own home when her children had been young. She'd been forced to pull double duty in a never ending effort to dispel the negative energy every time Ben's mood turned sour. Which had become more and more frequent as time went on.

  Cocking her head, Lila looked past Andrew's broad shoulder at the gathering. The last time she'd been here, as Brian's partner, Andrew had been the struggling single father of five and the oldest had been in his teens.

  "Your family's doubled," she noted.

  'Tripled," he corrected with no small touch of pride. "All the kids are married now—" and by all, he meant his two nieces and four nephews, as well "—every last one of them, with kids of their own." Just then, a petite blond woman with a classically pretty face came up to join him. Andrew casually slipped his arm about her waist. "And my Rose is back." There was no missing the love that existed between the two. Lila felt herself becoming almost envious. "Just as I always knew she would be."

  "How about this man?" Rose asked with a radiant smile as she rested a hand against his shoulder as if to cover his heart. "Never giving up when everyone else told him I was dead."

  "You have to admit, all the evidence everyone found pointed to your having drowned in the river," Brian reminded his sister-in-law gently. That same evidence had very nearly been Andrew's undoing until he'd come around, clinging to hope that over the years was stretched thinner than a violin string. Stretched, but never broken.

  Andrew nodded. It almost seemed like a bad dream now, all those years of searching.

  "All the physical evidence, yes. But there's such a thing as faith of the heart. And my heart refused to believe what my brain—and everyone else—was trying to tell it."

  "Don't go spreading that around," Brian advised, his expression purposely devoid of humor. "You'll give police procedure a bad name."

  "Not me," Andrew laughed. Then he looked at the two people on his doorstep. They looked like a couple, he thought. Like they belonged together. He wondered if either one of them realized that. "Well, you two just going to stand there, posing for statues, or are you going to come in?"

  "The very minute you step back, out of the way, brother," Brian replied amicably. "The very minute you step back."

  "Always had a smart mouth on him," Andrew commented to Lila. He left his arm casually tucked around Rose's waist as he did as his younger brother asked. "By the way," he addressed Lila, "your kids are already here. A fine bunch—and top-notch officers, all of them. You should be very proud of them."

  "I am," Lila assured the former police chief.

  For a moment her gaze swept over the crowd as she searched for the familiar faces of her own brood, wondering if any of them had brought dates. Probably not, she judged. None of them was in a serious relationship. Taylor had been, but that had abruptly ended and so far, her older daughter wasn't talking about it.

  The vast number of people she saw all but overwhelmed Lila. It looked as if there were close to fifty— if not more—in the immediate vicinity.

  "Are all of these actually relatives of yours?" she asked in disbelief.

  "Hey, Dad," Rayne, Andrew's youngest daughter, popped her head out of the entrance to the kitchen and called out his name. "I just walked by the oven and something dinged at me." When he made no immediate response, she cupped her mouth and repeated her statement, this time a decibel louder.

  Andrew waved his hand to indicate that he'd heard her. "I'll be right there," he all but shouted. Turning his head back to Brian and Lila, he grinned. "I'm surprised she even recognizes an oven," he confided to Lila, then pretended to sigh. "Can hardly work a can opener. The girl doesn't take after me at all."

  "I don't know about that," Rose countered. "I hear Rayne's a great detective." She beamed at her husband. "That makes her just like you."

  "Better than him," Brian interjected.

  "I don't recall anyone asking for your opinion," Andrew said to his brother.

  Rose rolled her eyes and then glanced toward Lila. "They never grow up." And then she waved her husband toward the kitchen. "Shoo. Go rescue whatever's calling to you."

  "Yes, ma'am," Andrew replied me
ekly, pretending to salute her.

  Turning toward her brother-in-law and the woman he'd brought with him, Rose smiled. "Can I get either of you two anything?"

  "Don't stand on formality," Andrew called back, overhearing. "They can get their own 'anything.' Brian knows where everything is. God knows he's made himself at home often enough." Though worded like a veiled criticism, it wasn't anything of the kind. Andrew liked nothing better than to have his clan gather together at his house—with or without an occasion.

  "You heard the man." Rose gestured toward the buffet table that had been set up against one wall. It ran from one wall to the other and its entire length was covered with different servings of meat, vegetables and desserts that could make anyone watching their weight weep with frustration. "Help yourselves."

  "Rose!" Andrew's disembodied voice summoned her to join him in the kitchen.

  "Coming, master."

  With a grin, Rose winked at her two newest guests and then turned on her heel. Elbowing her way through the throng, she went toward the kitchen and disappeared.

  "Why don't we do what the lady suggested?" Brian urged. "As I recall, the one time you were here, it wasn't for a meal." Lila nodded. "Well, I'd never say this in front of him, but you're in for a treat. Andrew was a great cop. He's an even better chef."

  "It smells wonderful," she agreed as Brian took hold of her arm and began to guide her toward the food-laden table.

  Although people stepped out of their way, it was still tough going. Every time she made eye contact, the other person would nod, as if they already knew her. Andrew had been interrupted before he had a chance to answer her question.

  She asked it again, this time of Brian. "Are all these people really related to you or was Andrew just pulling my leg?"

  "No leg pulling," Brian assured her as they reached journey's end. He picked up a large, laminated paper plate and began filling it with servings from different dishes and pans. "Every last one of these people is a Cavanaugh, or married to a Cavanaugh. Except, of course," he qualified, "for your kids."

  "Even the children?" There were several managing to play what looked like a game of tag just beyond the table. No less than five more, slightly older, crowded around an entertainment center. On the screen was a chubby mouse trying to educate a thin, hungry-looking alley cat. And the cat looked interested in eating his teacher.