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  “It’s not an investment, it’s a loan and I’m paying you back,” she insisted.

  She had enough to contend with right now, he didn’t want her facing monetary woes, as well. “You don’t have to.”

  “Yeah,” Charley contradicted, “I do.”

  He shrugged again. She was immovable and he was not about to push it. “Whatever makes you happy,” he told her. “Funeral’s tomorrow?” It was a calculated guess on his part.

  Charley nodded. In having it so soon, she was forgoing the traditional three-day viewing period. But as her last act of protection, she was going to keep prying eyes away from her brother. She knew he would have wanted it that way if he could have been able to have a say in the matter. He was, at bottom, a private person.

  “What time?” Declan asked.

  “Sunset,” she answered. “It was Matt’s favorite time of day. I never knew why. Now I can’t ask him.”

  Declan offered her his thoughts on the matter. “Probably because the day was over and everything was winding down.”

  Sounded as good as any theory, she supposed, but before she could express her thoughts on Declan’s assessment, one of the other three detectives, Bobby Yu, swung around in his chair, away from his desk.

  Terminating the phone call that had just come in on his line, Bobby announced, “Looks like we’re up, boys and girls.” He looked at Declan. “Dispatch said your line’s not working, so she called the closest phone to yours, which for some reason turned out to be mine.” Bobby shrugged, dismissing the subject since that wasn’t the important part. “Homeless guy going through a Dumpster behind a local restaurant found a dead man instead of dinner.”

  “A cop?” Declan asked.

  “Is there any other kind lately?” Bobby answered grimly.

  “And they found him in a Dumpster?” That didn’t sound right, Declan thought, on his feet and checking his service revolver before holstering it. That sounded more like the killer was trying to hide the body after he’d killed him and he had left the others where they could easily be found.

  “Not in the Dumpster,” Bobby corrected. “Next to it. The officer had one shot to the chest, just like all the others.”

  “And a note?” Charley asked grimly. “Was there a note stapled to his chest?”

  “Dispatch didn’t say,” Bobby told her. “Doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.”

  “The Santa Anas have been acting up,” Detective Callaghan reminded them, referring to the winds that blew in from the desert around this time of year. They were usually hot, intolerable and rather strong. “If the note wasn’t really secured, it could have blown away.”

  “As long as we find staple marks on his chest, that should be enough to link him to the same killer,” Declan theorized. “You got the address?” he asked Bobby. Rather than answer, the other detective held up a piece of paper that he had written on. “Great. Okay, let’s roll,” he told his team.

  But as Charley began to get up, he put his hand on her shoulder and physically stopped her. “Why don’t you stay and man the phones, call us if something else comes up.”

  There was no way she was going to sit here, playing nursemaid to a landline. “You can tell the administrative assistant to do that,” Charley said, her tone making it very clear that the only way he could get her to stay behind was if he physically tied her to her chair—and maybe not even then.

  Declan relented. “Yeah, I suppose I can.”

  “And stop trying to shield me,” she ordered him. “You’re not going to succeed.”

  There was succeed, and then there was succeed. The important part was that she understood she wasn’t alone in this, didn’t have to go through it alone.

  “Someone has to try,” he told her matter of factly as they hurried out.

  She didn’t want his answer to matter to her. But it did.

  * * *

  The latest victim was a police officer just coming off duty. As with the other murder victims, there were no apparent signs of struggle. No bruised knuckles, no defensive wounds. The officer, Juan Sierra, hadn’t gone down fighting.

  There was, however, a look of complete surprise frozen on his face.

  “Not horror, just surprise,” Charley noted, studying the man’s expression closely. “Like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.” She glanced up at Declan. “What do you think that means?”

  “That whoever shot him didn’t look threatening until Sierra saw the gun being pointed at him. What was happening probably didn’t even register until after he went down.” Pity and compassion mixed with frustrated anger filtered across his face. “What’s this guy trying to do, eliminate the force, one officer at a time?” There had to be a connection between these men that they were missing. There had to be. “There’s got to be some kind of reason, no matter how screwed up, that he’s doing this.”

  “Yeah, but what?” Charley asked, sharing his frustration. They were almost at the end of their lists of men—and the handful of women—who had either washed out, were turned away because they failed their psych evaluations, or had been terminated because of some sort of “unbecoming conduct” that rendered them unfit for duty in the police department’s eyes.

  “Sooner or later, he’s going to trip up,” Sanchez said hopefully. “He’s got to.”

  “Yeah, but how many more cops are we going to lose before that happens?” Charley asked. Even one more was one too many.

  Declan turned toward one of the members of the CSI unit who had come out to collect evidence. Lisa Sullivan was taking photograph after photograph, the high-end digital camera in her hand making continuous whirling noises as she snapped away.

  He moved into her line of vision, causing her to stop snapping and look up. Only then did Declan say, “I want a copy of every photo you’ve taken from Sergeant Holt through this one—Officer Sierra. Send them to my computer,” he instructed.

  “I’ll send them as soon as I get back to the lab,” the woman promised, then, curious, asked, “Think we missed something that’s out in plain sight?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” Declan told her honestly as he turned back to his own part in the investigation.

  * * *

  For the next hour, he and Charley questioned the restaurant employees, but as with all the other crime scenes, no one recalled hearing or seeing anything out of the ordinary.

  Unlike the other three murders, this murder had taken place with two security cameras in close proximity, although neither was placed to face the alley.

  Hoping that one of the cameras might have caught something, Declan commandeered the surveillance tapes for that day, promising to return them once they were finished reviewing them.

  * * *

  “What are you hoping to see?” Charley asked once they were back in the squad room.

  “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Something that might just lead us down the right trail for a change.” It was a case of knowing it once he saw it, not before.

  She supposed, in a desperate way, that made sense. She took a closer glance at Declan. “You look as beat as I feel,” she told him. “Maybe you should knock it off for the night.”

  Declan laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. How had the tables turned? “Now you’re mothering me?”

  “Was that what you were doing the other night in the parking lot?” she asked, amusement entering her eyes. “Mothering me?”

  “That wasn’t the first word that came to mind,” he admitted.

  Everything about that small interlude had lingered on his mind, like the lyrics of a song that was stuck in his head and refused to fade away.

  She smiled at him then. Beyond tired and every bit as frustrated as she knew he was, Charley still managed to laugh—or maybe she laughed because she was beyond tired and her defenses at th
is point were pretty close to nonexistent.

  “Me neither,” she agreed.

  “Make you a deal,” he said, glancing toward the door and the hallway just beyond. “I’ll go home if you do.”

  She looked at the disk in her hand that she was getting ready to watch. Most likely, in her present state, she was fairly certain that it would put her right to sleep within a quarter of an hour if not sooner.

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Fresh eyes might be better at that. I’ll go through the security tapes tomorrow.”

  * * *

  But the next day was the funeral, an event she had managed to temporarily block from her mind until she woke up that morning.

  As much as she wanted to be able to finally find something that would help lead her to Matt’s killer, she needed to be at his funeral more. Needed to say one final goodbye.

  Getting ready for the church service was harder than she thought.

  Accustomed to rushing around at home when she was getting ready to go to work, she found this time that someone had drained the blood from her veins and substituted molasses. No matter how Charley tried, her sense of urgency just refused to kick in.

  She knew it was because she really didn’t want to go to the ceremony, didn’t want to hear the priest say words over the coffin that was to be her brother’s final resting place. Didn’t want to see that “resting place” lowered into the ground.

  Didn’t really want to say goodbye, even though it was just a formality. Her brother was already gone.

  Fighting off tears, she didn’t hear the doorbell at first. At what point the ringing actually registered with her brain, she didn’t know, but her first reaction to the sound was to ignore it.

  She wasn’t expecting anyone.

  And then she remembered that she was.

  Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the front door and opened it.

  Declan was standing there, wearing a dark suit and looking far more subdued than she remembered ever seeing him.

  He looked good in a suit, she thought absently, then felt bad having a thought like that on the day she was burying Matt.

  “You really don’t have to come,” she told Declan. Charley hated that he felt somehow obligated to prop her up, even if it was the very blackest time in her life.

  She looked fragile, he noted. Like a porcelain doll that gave the impression it would crack if the slightest pressure was applied to it. He caught himself wanting to scoop her up into his arms and keep her safe. No one should have to go through what she was going through.

  He wasn’t about to go anywhere but with her. Whether she was willing to admit it or not, she needed him.

  “Want me to pull rank?” he asked.

  The question coaxed a smile out of her. Leave it to him to ask that. “No,” she answered.

  “Good, then let’s go.”

  Rather than just walk out beside her, Declan presented his arm to her. It was a precautionary step because she gave the impression that she just might sink to the ground at any moment.

  “Just so you know, I’m driving,” he informed her. His tone left no room for dissent or argument. Nor did she offer any.

  Charley suddenly felt completely, utterly drained. Though she would have never admitted it out loud, she was silently grateful that Declan had taken it upon himself to take charge.

  * * *

  Charley really wasn’t expecting anyone to attend the funeral. Matt got along well with the people he worked with, but he’d always kept his professional life and his private life separated. He didn’t get together with his friends from work once he walked out of the precinct at night.

  Moreover, because of this killer, there were a number of other funerals to go to. That was why she was surprised when the church not only filled up with people coming to pay their last respects, but by the time the ceremony started, there was standing room only.

  A number of people, including the chief of detectives, all came up to the pulpit to share a few words, in some cases a few stories about the deceased, with the mourners.

  Charley found herself fighting tears throughout the ceremony and then again at the cemetery. A lot of the faces she recognized as people she’d met at Andrew Cavanaugh’s house when she’d gone with Declan for breakfast.

  She was at a loss for words.

  When the service at the grave site was over, she became aware of the fact that Declan was watching over her.

  When had he put his arm protectively around her? She couldn’t remember.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She knew what he was asking. If she was ready to leave. He gave her the impression that he was prepared to stay as long as she needed him to.

  Charley nodded her head. “Ready.” He began to usher her toward his car. She looked around her at all the people who had turned out for her brother. Her heart felt close to bursting.

  “I should have prepared something,” she said with regret. “I should have put together a reception. I just didn’t think there’d be so many people coming to the service.”

  Declan smiled at her. “It’s all taken care of,” he said.

  She didn’t understand. “What’s all taken care of?” she asked him.

  “Uncle Andrew invited everyone who attended the service to come over to his house. He’s having the reception there.”

  She was utterly stunned. The man didn’t know her, except for that one time. Why had he taken it upon himself to go out of his way like this? Somehow or another, this had to be Declan’s doing, she realized.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she told him.

  “Say you’ll come.”

  Startled, Charley turned around to see who had said that. She found herself looking up at the kind, crystal-blue eyes of the man who everyone regarded as the family patriarch despite Shamus’s return from Florida and his defunct retirement.

  She realized that the former chief of police was waiting for an answer.

  “I’ll come,” Charley replied.

  Andrew smiled at her, nodding his approval. He knew how hard this was for her. He’d lost a brother in the line of duty and thought he’d lost a wife—though he never gave up looking for her.

  “Good girl,” he said. “I’ll see you at the house.” Picking up his pace, he got into a long black sedan driven by his brother Sean.

  A little shell-shocked, Charley shook her head in complete amazement. “You Cavanaughs do take over,” she said to Declan.

  “Sometimes that turns out to be a good thing,” he said gently. He slipped his arm through hers as he brought her over to his vehicle.

  “Yes,” she replied, thinking how much she appreciated the genuine warmth she’d just seen demonstrated by Declan’s uncle Andrew. “I know.”

  Chapter 15

  The moment Charley walked into Andrew’s house, the rest of the Cavanaughs embraced her as if she were one of them.

  And, technically, she was.

  She was a police detective, which, to the members of the law-enforcement family, easily made her one of their own. She was one of the people who laid her life on the line every day and that sort of thing brought with it a sense of kinship that superseded everything else. That meant that Matt had been one of them as well and they were honoring him as such.

  And comforting her.

  There could have been no better way to get past any normal barriers that Charley might have had. Barriers that kept her safe, but at the same time, served to isolate her.

  If they were aware of the barrier, Andrew and the others gave no indication. Instead, they reached out to her with compassion and sympathy as if there was nothing in the way, nothing to stop them.

  They wouldn’t allow it.

  It was like that from the first moment they had gathered a
round her at the church until the end of the evening, when Andrew finally walked her and Declan to the door of his home, sending them on their way with good wishes and instructions to return the next weekend for a large family gathering he had planned.

  Charley left Andrew’s house a little overwhelmed—and smiling. Being around the family had helped her deal with her pain and she was grateful to them. And to Declan for his part in all this.

  In sharp contrast to the constant din of voices dovetailing into one another, there was silence as they walked to his car.

  That same silence accompanied them for part of the ride back to her house. Declan felt she might need a little quiet time to process everything, so he waited until she felt like talking.

  “You’re lucky,” she said softly after several minutes had passed.

  “How’s that?” he asked. Her remark could have been taken in half a dozen different ways and he waited for her to elaborate before making any kind of a comment.

  “Having a family like that,” she said. “You’re never alone.”

  He inclined his head, knowing she was right. There was always someone to back him up, someone to rely on. Someone to turn to if he needed guidance in some undertaking.

  “To be honest, there have been times when I would have given anything to be left alone, to have some peace and quiet,” he said.

  “It’s highly overrated,” she told him.

  He slanted a look in her direction. She was putting on a tough exterior, but she still made him think of a wounded bird. “You know, you don’t have to come in tomorrow,” he pointed out. “You’re entitled to some bereavement time. Why don’t you take a few days off?”

  That was the last thing she wanted.

  “And do what?” she asked. “Knock around my house—or Matt’s—and think?” Matt had left his house to her, but it was going to be a while before she could bring herself to go through it. “I’ll go crazy before the day’s over. No, I need to keep busy, to be doing something to find and catch that sick bastard who did this. I’m coming in,” she decided.

  He nodded as he turned down her street. He had to make the offer, but to be honest, he expected her to say that.