Cavanaugh in the Rough Read online

  About to say something else to his uncle, Chris could only stare at the young woman who had come in with Sean. Recognition came, riding a thunderbolt, in less than a heartbeat.

  The woman from last night’s party.

  The one he hadn’t been able to get to first base with.

  First base? Hell, he didn’t even get to pick up the bat to begin to play the game. Their entire interaction had consisted of a great many back-and-forth exchanges that had passed as banter, at least to his ear. Looking back, he realized that it might not have necessarily seemed that way to her.

  As a matter of fact, since she had disappeared the way she had, he was sure of it.

  Yet here she was, standing in front of him, looking very different in the light of day—and yet enticingly the same, except that she was wearing jeans and a jacket instead of the clinging cocktail dress she’d worn last night.

  “You,” Chris stated.

  A great deal was inferred in that single word. It spoke of the party she’d attended and the time he’d spent attempting to get to know her. It spoke of his bewilderment when he’d turned away just for a moment, only to find her gone. He’d scanned the area, trying to find her, before he finally gave up and moved on.

  Moving on had ultimately proved more fruitful, which was why he was so tired this morning.

  Tired, but far from satisfied.

  He had to get it into his head that he wasn’t eighteen anymore, Chris told himself, and that any all-nighters he pulled had to be centered around work, not partying.

  “Me,” Suzie replied with a smile, neither her expression nor her voice giving anything away.

  For all Chris knew, it could be just an automatic response. Except that it was her, the woman who had, like a very old song had once said, drawn him from across a crowded room. He was sure of it.

  Sean looked from his nephew to the young woman he felt had all the earmarks of becoming his best investigator, once whatever baggage she was secretly carrying was unpacked and put away. “You two know one another?” he asked, interested. It certainly sounded that way to him.

  Chris was the first to speak up. “Apparently not,” he admitted, thinking of the way last night had gone and the vanishing act she had pulled. He’d waited around before ultimately moving on, but his mystery woman never made a reappearance. He’d just assumed she had left the club. “But not for lack of trying,” he added significantly, still looking at the woman who had come in with his uncle. From the way she was dressed, she was obviously part of the department. Something else that hadn’t come up last night.

  Rather than being annoyed or feeling as if he had been played, Chris found himself intrigued.

  “Then let me introduce you,” Sean proposed, looking from his nephew to the young investigator as he quickly assessed the situation. He’d been exposed to enough younger Cavanaugh males and their robust hormones when it came to dealings with the opposite sex to pick up on what was going on—and what possibly hadn’t, as well.

  “Chris, this is Suzie Quinn, the newest crime scene investigator on my team. She’s a lot sharper than her very youthful appearance might lead you to believe,” he assured his nephew—or maybe it was more like a warning. “Nothing gets by her,” Sean said proudly. “Suzie, this is Detective Christian Cavanaugh O’Bannon, one of my nephews. One of my many nephews,” he added with a laugh.

  She knew there were more than a few Cavanaughs scattered throughout the various departments of the Aurora Police Department, but up until now, she had to admit she hadn’t really paid all that much attention to the fact. It wasn’t something that seemed work-related to her.

  “How many nephews do you have?” she asked, turning her attention to her supervisor rather than the guy who had tried to make points with her on her one and only venture into a social scene in the last three years.

  She’d learned her lesson there.

  Sean’s smile was almost rueful. “To be honest, I no longer know. Every time I turn around there seem to be more of them—nieces and nephews,” he clarified. “We have a very prolific family tree.”

  “Apparently,” Suzie murmured.

  “However,” Sean continued, turning his attention to the young woman whose death had brought them all here, “being prolific is something this poor individual will never get the chance to be.” He looked back at his nephew. “Do we know how she got here?”

  “All we know at the moment is that according to those two kids—” Chris indicated the duo he had standing nearby “—there was something like a wild party here last night. I’m assuming that she attended that event, and somewhere during the evening or early hours, became a casualty.”

  “Did those two boys witness anything?” Sean asked.

  Chris laughed shortly. “According to them, everything and nothing. All I could get out of them was that they fell asleep waiting for the party to be over. When they woke up, everyone was long gone. They went into the building—which they claimed was unlocked—to see if they could find anything of value that the partygoers might have left behind.”

  Sean saw that Suzie had moved closer to the dead woman and crouched down, studying her intently.

  “She looks like she might have been valuable to someone,” she murmured, more to herself than to either of the two men next to her.

  “Why don’t you try to talk to those two boys, Suzie?” Sean suggested when she rose to her feet again. “See if you can get anything more out of them than they told Chris.”

  Although generally mild mannered and easygoing, Chris reacted to what he felt his uncle wasn’t saying aloud, but was inferring: that he had done less than a good job with the teens.

  “I didn’t exactly use a rubber hose on them, Sean,” he protested. “I was my usual charming, persuasive self.”

  “Then it’s a wonder those poor guys aren’t traumatized,” Suzie said wryly as she went to interview the two boys.

  Torn between going with her just to see if she could do better with the duo, and hanging back to ask his uncle a few questions about the woman, Chris decided to go with the latter, but only for a few moments.

  He had to admit that he was still feeling his way around in this brand-new family hierarchy. There were some people within the department who were less charitable. They referred to the Cavanaughs as a dynasty—and not in a kind way.

  To Chris, the fact that he had so many relatives in the police department just made it the family business. A great many family members followed one another into a line of work. For his, that involved all different walks of law enforcement. That there were so many of them didn’t change the fact that they were still, at heart, a family. And as such, they shared things. Like information.

  The information he required was of a very specific nature.

  “How long has Suzie been working for you?” Chris asked as he followed his uncle.

  Sean began to process the crime scene. Bogart had finally entered and was setting up the equipment he’d carried in.

  “Nine months,” Sean replied.

  That seemed like a short amount of time. Chris couldn’t help wondering where she’d worked before that, and asked.

  “She wasn’t working for me.” Sean glanced up at him and smiled. “Arizona. Same field,” he added, before his nephew could ask. Obviously there was something about Suzie that Chris found intriguing. It wasn’t hard to see why. Sean had noticed that Dirk had been dancing around her, showing off like an eager puppy. To her credit, Suzie appeared to be oblivious to all of this. “Anything else?”

  He might as well go for broke. “Is she married?” Chris asked bluntly.

  Sean paused and looked at his nephew for a long moment. He didn’t want to see either of them getting hurt. “Don’t go getting ideas about this one, Chris.”

  Chris came to the only conclusion he could. “Then she’s married.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  He circled around to get in front of his uncle. “What are you saying?” he asked.

/>   Sean thought of the impression he’d gotten more than once when he’d talked with Suzie. “That some people need to work things out before they can come out and play.”

  Chris wasn’t sure he understood. “What kind of things?”

  “Things they don’t broadcast.” Suzie’s issues were her own. Sean wasn’t about to intrude or second-guess what was going on in the young woman’s head. “She’s very good at her job, Chris. I don’t want to lose her.”

  “Don’t worry,” he replied, flashing a confident grin. “I have no intention of making her go away, Uncle Sean.” Chris reverted to the more familiar form of address, since they were alone. “In fact,” he said, walking off to see how Suzie’s interview with the teens was going, “it’s the exact opposite.”

  “Just remember that I have your mother on speed dial,” Sean called after him.

  Blowing out a breath, Sean shook his head. He supposed, if he thought long enough, he could remember being that young and feeling that invincible once. But right now, it seemed an eternity ago.

  Maybe two eternities.

  Sean roused himself. He had a crime scene to get back to and assess. And a young woman to avenge. Everything else had to take second place.

  “Ah, Dirk,” he said, beckoning Bogart forward. “Just in time.”

  He pretended not to notice the disappointment on the investigator’s face as he kept the young man from joining Suzie.

  Chapter 3

  It was totally unexpected. Striding across the former department store toward Suzie, Chris was just in time to see it.

  To see her smile.

  She turned around just as he reached her, and the smile on her lips was nothing short of dazzling. It actually seemed to light up the area.

  “Wait right there, boys,” Suzie said as she left the two teens and joined him. “Detective O’Bannon will probably want to talk to you before he lets you leave.”

  Reaching the crime scene investigator, Chris turned his back to the teenagers so that they weren’t able to overhear his conversation with her. He couldn’t help noticing that she seemed exceptionally pleased with herself. It piqued his curiosity.

  “You’ve made yourself at home with my witnesses,” he noted.

  “Crime scene witnesses,” Suzie corrected. “And I think I’ve got everything that you might want.”

  He couldn’t contain the grin that curved his lips. “No question about that.”

  Suzie’s eyes narrowed, telling him she didn’t find him witty, nor was she flattered. “I was talking about the crime scene.”

  “Okay, we’ll go with that for now,” Chris agreed. “And what is it you’ve got that I wasn’t able to get?” he challenged gamely.

  Suzie deliberately started small. “I have their names and addresses—”

  He waved dismissively. “Already got that,” he told her.

  She hated being cut off like this. He could have the decency to hear her out. “I wasn’t finished,” she informed him.

  Chris inclined his head as if to tender an apology. “Sorry, go ahead.”

  “I have their names and addresses,” she repeated, “so that we can send them their cell phones once our computer technician takes a look at them.”

  He thought of the mind-numbing selfies that were probably on both cell phones. “And she’d want to do that because?”

  Obviously, she was going to have to spell this all out for him, Suzie thought. The preening homicide detective wasn’t quite as brilliant as he thought himself to be. “Because our teen voyeurs and would-be enterprising thieves might not have gotten into the party while it was going on, but they were tenacious enough to find a window that wasn’t covered, and they took videos of the people attending. It might amount to nothing,” she said, “but then again...”

  “It might be something,” Chris agreed, instantly hopping on her bandwagon. He looked over her shoulder at the teens waiting to be released, and frowned. “They didn’t tell me they took videos of the party attendees with their phones.”

  The look on Suzie’s face said he should have figured that part out for himself because it was so obvious. “They’re teenagers with smart phones. They take videos of everything at this age.”

  Rather than appearing annoyed the way she’d expected him to, there was admiration in the detective’s eyes. It took her aback.

  “You’re good,” he told her.

  He expected her to preen a little, because it was her due, given the circumstances. But she wound up surprising him by merely shrugging her shoulders. “Just doing my job.”

  In his opinion, what she’d just done could make his job a whole lot easier. “If we didn’t have an audience, I’d kiss you,” he declared, looking at the two cell phones she produced. She was holding them gingerly with a handkerchief.

  “Then lucky for you we have an audience, because otherwise I’d be forced to deck you,” Suzie responded, offering him a spasmodic smile at the end of her statement.

  The corners of her mouth went down again as she became serious. Sealing each phone, one at a time, into an evidence bag, Suzie carefully wrote down the time, date and which youth it belonged to.

  Finished, she held the transparent bags out to Chris. “Drop these off with the lab tech after you take these boys to their school.”

  Rather than grow irritated that the woman he had tried and failed to pick up last night was issuing orders to him, Chris took it all in stride. “You do have a take-charge personality, don’t you?”

  Suzie waited for him to challenge her. When he didn’t, she said simply, “Again, just doing what needs to be done.”

  Chris was about to say something further to her but she turned away, shifting her attention to the next thing on the list: taking close-ups of the dead woman, as well as the area around her. The victim might not have been killed in this exact place, but there could be some sort of clue accidentally left behind that would lead them to identify where the woman had been murdered.

  Chris knew when he was being dismissed. For now, because he wanted to get the cell phones logged into evidence and then to the computer lab as soon as possible, he let it go.

  “C’mon, guys. Teacher’s issuing you a hall pass,” he told the two teenagers. “Looks like you’ll be going to school, after all.”

  Allen and his friend exchanged glances as they were being herded out of the former department store. Bill nodded in response to Allen’s unspoken question. Two minds with a single thought: ditching school.

  “Hey, if it’s all the same to you, can you just drop us off at the Golden Gate Plaza?” Allen asked, referring to the largest shopping mall in Aurora.

  “During school hours?” Chris asked, dramatically putting his hand to his chest. “Now what kind of an officer of the law would I be if I aided and abetted your hooky playing?” he asked. “You’re going to school, boys,” he told them cheerfully. “And I’m taking you there.”

  The duo grumbled quietly—until they reached Chris’s car, a Lincoln Continental from a by-gone era when fins still meant something. The car was large, and provided the protection of a tank.

  “Hey, is this yours?” Bill asked, as he and Allen stopped next to the vehicle Chris had brought them to.

  Chris looked at the duo as if he was dealing with a pair of living brain donors. “No, when I saw you two running, I stole someone else’s ride so I could cut you off in an impressive car. Of course this is mine,” he said in irritation as he unlocked the doors.

  Neither teenager seemed to be insulted by the sarcastic response. Allen ran his hand along the panel closest to him. “I guess I didn’t notice what an outstanding piece of craftsmanship this was.”

  Chris noted that the teen was all but drooling on his car. He anticipated the next question that either boy was going to ask and headed it off. “I got the car by saving up every spare dime and working really, really hard. I think that the two of you should stop fixating on my ride and start figuring out what you’re going to tell your parents.” />
  Bill looked at him as if he had just begun speaking in a foreign language that the teenager couldn’t quite grasp. “Our parents?”

  Digging deep, Chris searched for even simpler words to use as he explained. “Well, yeah, because after I drop you off, I’m going to make it a point to pay a visit to your parents. I think they’re entitled to know how you’re spending your school nights.”

  “Yesterday wasn’t a school night,” Bill protested. “It was a Sunday.”

  The teen wasn’t following him, Chris thought. Definitely not the shiniest apple on the tree. “But today’s a school day, isn’t it?”

  Bill still didn’t look as if he understood where this was going. “Huh?”

  Chris shook his head as he turned into the high school parking lot. “See, if you studied more and lurked less, you’d understand what I’m talking about. Look sharp, guys,” he told them, pointing to the building on the right. “School’s up ahead.”

  It grew very quiet in his car as he pulled into a parking space that had a time limit of twenty minutes printed right above it.

  *

  “Can you put a rush on it?” Chris asked the slender, pretty computer technician less than half an hour after depositing the teenagers at the school.

  Valri Cavanaugh frowned ever so slightly as she looked down at the two bagged cell phones that had just been placed on her desk. Raising her eyes to her cousin’s, she said, “You do realize that just because your middle name is Cavanaugh doesn’t mean you automatically go to the head of the line, right?”

  “Right,” he agreed, then went on to enumerate the reasons he felt he could ask his cousin to put a rush on lifting videos from the two phones. “This goes to the head of the line because it might show us who killed a perfectly innocent young woman who looked enough like you to be your sister. Because the teenaged boys who own these devices are even now having withdrawal symptoms, enduring traumatic separations from their cell phones, and we all know they would have rather given up a kidney. And last but not least, because I’m trying to impress this really cute crime scene investigator with my crime solving powers.” Finished, he took in a deep breath, then said, “For all the above reasons, I need you and your really clever expertise to lift and enhance the videos on these phones”