The Woman Who Wasn't There Read online

  “And just for the record,” Troy called after the woman just as she and the two men began to file out, “what’s your first name?”

  “I think he means you,” Jorge growled. “Want me to take care of it?”

  Delene shook her head, then glanced at the detective. “Something you don’t need to know,” she told him just as she began to walk out the door.

  Troy raised his voice. “I’ll need a full statement.”

  “You’ll get it,” she promised. “After I give it to my boss.” With that, she exited. Jorge and Adrian followed.

  Approaching Troy, Kara made a series of small, undefinable noises that indicated her enjoyment of what had just transpired. “Well, she sure put you in your place, didn’t she?” Kara laughed.

  “Did she?” Troy murmured, getting down to work. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  But he was going to make Agent D’Angelo sit up and take notice. He was never one to walk away from a challenge, and everything about the petite blonde had been a challenge.

  ***

  “Why haven’t you hit on me, Cavanaugh?”

  The question came without any preamble, moments after Troy had once more stuffed himself into his partner’s torture chamber of a car. He was busy counting the seconds until they reached the precinct, trying to ignore the very real pain in his back. Two minutes into the ride and his legs were a lost cause.

  “Right now I’m seriously thinking of just hitting you for letting yourself get talked into buying a car left over from the Spanish Inquisition,” Troy muttered, more to himself than to her.

  And then as her question penetrated, he looked at his partner. She slowed her vehicle to a stop at the first light they reached. Kara Ward was a lively, attractive woman with a pretty face and a sharp mind. But he thought of her as he thought of Janelle. As a sister. They had chemistry, but as partners, not as a man and a woman.

  “Why?” he asked, uttering his words slowly. “Would you like me to hit on you?”

  She lifted a single shoulder in a dismissive shrug. The light turned green and she shifted her foot onto the gas pedal. “I’d like to feel you thought I was worth the effort.”

  Since he loathed getting into any kind of physical altercations, diplomacy had become second nature to him.

  “Kara, you are very much worth the effort,” he assured her with warmth. “But what we have now works, and if I hit on you and somewhere down the line you decide that you don’t want any part of me—” he was careful to make it seem like all the choices were hers “—where would that leave us? Looking for other partners. Partners who might not be as in tune to us as we are to each other. So, for the sake of work relations, I don’t act on any impulses I might have about you.”

  She slanted a glance at him, not quite buying into what he was selling, but playing along for the fun of it. “But you do have impulses about me.”

  He offered her his most solemn expression. “All the time.”

  Kara was no more a fool than Troy was. “Oh, really?”

  “Scout’s honor.” If he could have managed it, he would have raised one hand up in the scout salute, but his hands were tucked against his chest, lodged in by his knees. Early Christian martyrs had been more comfortable than he was.

  After taking a corner, she eyed him again, her mouth curving. “And you just bank them down?”

  “Yup.” He tried to take a deep breath and found that he couldn’t. His knees were keeping his chest from expanding. “Plus, I take a lot of cold showers.”

  She laughed. “Good answer.” With a sweeping turn of the steering wheel, Kara pulled her vehicle into the precinct’s parking lot and guided it to a spot in the second row.

  After getting out, she rounded the all-but-nonexistent hood and came over to his side, opening the door for him. “Need help getting out?”

  Troy ignored the smirk on her face. “Just find me the name of the rental agency the department uses,” he told Kara, then gritted his teeth as he maneuvered out of the death grip the passenger seat had on him.

  ***

  “You think he was good-looking?”

  They’d all pulled into the county’s probation department’s parking lot at the same time and walked into the building together. Jorge had waited until they stepped out of the elevator before asking Delene his question.

  Preoccupied thinking about Clyde and the phone call she was going to have to make to the D.A., Delene didn’t immediately follow Jorge’s line of thinking. “Who?”

  Jorge frowned. “That pretty boy at the motel.”

  Delene looked up at him innocently before entering the general office. “Clyde?”

  “No, not Clyde,” Adrian put in impatiently, backing up Jorge. “That detective. Cavanaugh.”

  “Cavanaugh?” Delene rolled the name over on her tongue. The man hadn’t shown them any credentials. “Was that his name?”

  “Yeah, heard he was the chief of detectives’ son. One of them anyway,” Adrian corrected, frowning. He pushed the door open for Delene. “Cavanaughs move around that precinct as if they owned it.”

  Jorge snorted. “With eleven of them in the department, they might as well own it.”

  “Eleven?” she asked in surprise. The disdainful note in Jorge’s voice was not lost on her. And it did make her wonder. There were twenty-one in Jorge’s family. He was the last person she would have thought to be critical of large families.

  “No, not eleven,” Adrian corrected. “Nine.” There were nine Cavanaugh detectives on the force, three of them female. “Not counting the chief of detectives.”

  Jorge paused, then asked, “What about the old man?”

  Delene glanced from one man to the other. “What old man?”

  “The chief of police,” Jorge told her. “Andrew Cavanaugh.”

  “He’s not there anymore,” Adrian reminded him. “Retired some years back. He doesn’t count.”

  They entered the large bull pen that comprised their office. Cubicles divided up the area as far as the eye could see.

  “Try telling that to one of his relatives,” Jorge interjected.

  The conversation went on, doing very well without any input from her. But something Jorge had just said made her think. And wonder wistfully, if just for the moment, what it had to be like to be part of a large family, instead of alone and on the run.

  It wasn’t something she figured she’d ever find out firsthand.

  Burying her thoughts, she went to her cubicle to make that call she was dreading. The one to the D.A.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  Clyde Petrie’s body had long been officially pronounced dead, tagged and removed. All that was left to mark the passage of his life was a chalk outline on the rug, a dried pool of blood that had gone outside the lines and several piles of greasy fast-food wrappers.

  The room was quiet, even if the surrounding area was not. Muffled voices came from the next unit. Whether they were coming from people or a television set, Troy wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. He blocked out the sound.

  Wearing pale plastic gloves, Troy switched on the light. Rather than illuminate, it added to the overall sense of darkness and gloom within the room.

  He was grateful he’d had the good fortune to be born into the life that he presently enjoyed.

  Squatting down beside the pile closest to the door, Troy began poking through the crumbled papers, crushed paper cups and greasy bags. He was searching for that certain “something” they might have overlooked when they’d first gone through this room hours ago. The “something” that just possibly might be able to lead them to the penny-ante dealer’s killer when all the obvious trails led nowhere.

  All it took was one thing. That serial killer in New York back in the seventies had been caught because of unpaid parking tickets, Troy mused, working his way to the floor. Anything was possible.

  Besides, he did some of his best work when it was quiet. When he could think. He and Kara had conducted a canvas of the area and
now she and her clown car were back at the squad room, following up on information given by the woman who lived across the parking lot. After an intense two hours, Sam, the crime scene investigator, had retreated to his lab with his odd collection of fibers, cigarette butts and whatever to examine, tag and match.

  Troy glanced at the watch his father had given him when he’d graduated from the academy. Right about now the M.E. was taking the victim apart. Literally.

  Troy rose, absently dusting off one gloved hand against another as he scanned the room. More than sifting through the dead dealer’s possessions, he was trying to fit into the man’s emaciated skin. To think the way Clyde might have thought in the last few hours of his life. And maybe, just maybe, he was also trying to prove to the world at large that he wasn’t just chief of detectives Brian Cavanaugh’s youngest, indulged son.

  He was proud of who he was, who he belonged to. The Cavanaugh name stood for something in Aurora, but there was no denying that it also carried a significant weight with it. You couldn’t really slack off if you were a Cavanaugh. At least, not for very long. People expected you to behave as if you were a little larger than life. Of course, some were waiting to see if you fell on your face.

  He had no intention of falling. He had brothers and cousins to compete against, he always had had.

  Troy walked over to the closet and opened the door. It creaked. More fast-food wrappers were inside, as if Clyde had actually made a halfhearted attempt at cleaning his living quarters before giving up.

  “Would have been easier to throw it all away, Clyde,” he said under his breath. He began to move around the wrappers, one by one.

  Granted, the competition between him and the other members of his family was a friendly one, but he still had to prove himself. He was the youngest of the Cavanaugh men. Only his sister and Rayne, Uncle Andrew’s daughter, were younger, and not by all that much. There was a stigma attached to being the youngest. Family didn’t really expect you to measure up.

  Though he never said it out loud, sometimes didn’t even admit it to himself, he wanted to make his father proud. Wanted the whole family to be proud of him. The only way that happened—to his satisfaction—was to be the best damn cop, the best damn detective he knew how.

  He knew that his family would love him, would stick by him no matter what he did. But he had seen that look of pride rise up in his father’s eyes when he’d told him that he was going into “the family business” and becoming a cop, the way the rest of them had. The way his father, Uncle Andrew and Uncle Mike had, following in their father’s footsteps. It was a look he wanted to see over and over again.

  The sudden, small noise behind him had Troy whirling around, his gun instantly drawn. Aimed.

  The next moment, blowing out a breath, he raised the gun’s barrel up toward the ceiling, putting the safety back on.

  Though her expression never gave her away, Delene could feel her racing heart slowly sliding down from her throat.

  “How many hours of practice did it take you to get that fast?” She lowered the hands that she’d automatically raised the second he’d pointed the gun at her. Leaving the doorway, she crossed into the room.

  Saying something unintelligible under his breath, Troy holstered his weapon, then readjusted his Windbreaker over it.

  “Enough,” he replied, then asked a question of his own. “What are you doing here?” She’d left here hours ago and had no authority to be in the motel room. It was still a crime scene. “Forget something?”

  For a second, Delene debated retracing her steps and leaving. She could always come back later tonight. She knew how to bypass locks. One of the fringe benefits of her earlier life. But to leave now would mean that she’d allowed someone to chase her off, and that just wasn’t going to happen. That, too, belonged to her past.

  She slowly shook her head. “No, I’m looking for something.”

  Troy’s dark eyebrows drew together over his nose in a puzzled, wavy line. Talking wasn’t this woman’s strong suit, he decided. Considering what he was accustomed to from the women in his family, reticence was a pleasant change. But not when he wanted information. “Mind telling me what?”

  Yes, she minded, Delene thought. She minded having to explain herself to anyone. It brought back too many bad memories. She was trying to forget about endless months of explaining herself, of justifying every move she made, every second she was away from the house.

  But Detective Cavanaugh wasn’t asking out of personal curiosity. This was all part of his job.

  “You did see the yellow tape, didn’t you?” Troy prompted when she didn’t immediately respond.

  Delene could feel that old familiar flash of temper coming on. “Vision’s twenty-twenty the last time I had my eyes checked.”

  The flippant answer was as mechanical as breathing for her. Being flippant was the defense mechanism Delene employed to keep people from asking her too many probing questions. She banked down a lot of other words, as well. After all, the man was just doing his job.

  And what you’re doing is going above and beyond the call of duty. But she knew she had to at least try, she thought.

  There was more to the woman’s eyes than twenty-twenty vision, Troy caught himself observing. Her eyes were a deep, dark shade of green. So green, he felt as if he’d fallen into the center of an emerald mine. So green that they could very easily mesmerize him and dissolve his thoughts if he allowed it.

  Troy cleared his throat. “Nice to know. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

  Her mouth rose in an amused smile that took him prisoner. “I thought you gave me a choice.”

  He didn’t follow. “A choice?”

  “Yes.” She raised her head to look up at him. “You said, ‘Mind telling me what?’ That would indicate if I do mind, I don’t have to answer you.”

  Troy moved in a little closer, although he wasn’t completely aware that he had taken a step. She liked to argue. Maybe she wasn’t all that different from the women in his family.

  “Which automatically puts you on my list of people to look at more closely.”

  The way he said it, Delene got the distinct feeling the detective wasn’t just talking about the murder. That he meant something more intimate than that.

  For just the barest instant a wave of heat passed over her, spreading out all through her body. That same funny, silly, overwhelming sensation experienced by teenagers during the “did-he-notice-me-or-didn’t-he?” ritual from years gone by.

  Get a grip, Dee. You’re not sixteen anymore.

  She told herself she was just hallucinating, that what she felt was merely a by-product of countless nights with too little sleep because of the damned nightmares.

  It had been years since she’d reacted to a man. Any man. And she intended to keep it that way.

  “Then you’d be wasting your time,” she told him softly.

  Her voice, low, sexy and intoxicating, got under his skin. He was having some very unprofessional thoughts right now. “My time to waste.”

  She drew back, shifting gears. That had been a dangerous road she’d just touched on. Dangerous for her. “Not when the department is paying you. Daddy wouldn’t like it.”

  She had the pleasure of watching the handsome detective stiffen. Obviously she’d stumbled across a button she could press if needed. She wondered if there was friction between the older and younger Cavanaughs.

  The grin on Troy’s lips hardened ever so slightly. “Are we going to play this game all evening or are you going to tell me what made you come back to the motel room where Petrie was killed? As far as I understand the duties of a probation officer, your business here is over.”

  He was putting her in her place. She didn’t like that. Delene took the upper hand. “Relax, Cavanaugh, this isn’t an old-fashioned melodrama. The killer isn’t coming back to the scene of the crime.” Shoving her hands into her back pockets, she shifted slightly on the balls of her feet. It was a habit she had when
she was searching for a way to calm down. “Clyde has a daughter.”

  “All right.” Troy drew the words out, waiting for the woman to follow up the statement with more concrete information. “So he has a daughter. What’s that got to do with you?”

  Nothing. Everything. Because I was cursed with a conscience.

  She ignored his question. “Her name was tattooed on his forearm.”

  He’d noticed the tattoo when he was examining the body. “Rachel” in common ink. “Not exactly top grade,” he commented.

  “He was probably stoned out of his mind when he got it. That doesn’t promote the best judgment as to where to get one,” she said. “He was lucky he didn’t get blood poisoning from a dirty needle.”

  “Whatever luck he might have had ran out today,” Troy said.

  “Yeah, it did.” She sighed, glancing around the room. Anywhere but at the chalked outline. “I figure his daughter has a right to know that he’s dead and didn’t just take off and leave her.”

  There was something in the way she said the last part that had him looking at Delene. And wondering.

  “Is that the way it happened?” he asked softly. He knew he was intruding, but she’d been the one who had inadvertently thrown it out there.

  Delene pulled back her shoulders, as if unconsciously bracing for a blow. “What?”

  “To you,” he said, taking the same tone with her that his cousin Patience took with the wounded animals she cared for in her capacity as veterinarian. “Did your father leave your mother. And you?”

  Her expression hardened. All traces of friendliness vanished. “Don’t try to analyze me, Cavanaugh. You’re out of your league. I just felt sorry for the poor slob. And for the little girl he brought into the world. End of story.” All totaled, she’d worked with Clyde Petrie for almost three months, inheriting his file when another officer had retired. She’d made it a point to learn his background, to know what she was up against. “I know he tried to clean up twice, always saying that a daughter deserved to be proud of her father.”