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  “Wouldn’t dream of doing anything else,” Valri responded.

  He looked to see if she was putting him on, but she appeared serious enough.

  “Yeah, well...” His voice trailed off for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure if he should challenge the veracity of her statement, but then he let it go. “Then what did make you want to become a cop?” he asked, really curious now. “Was it because you wanted to ‘belong’?”

  “Belong?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Belong,” he repeated. What was so hard about the word? It seemed simple enough to him. “Everyone else in this huge family of yours is a cop, so you want to be one, too. That way you can have that in common with the others.”

  Valri shook her head, shooting down his theory. “Being a Cavanaugh is having something in common with the others,” she reminded him. She could see that he was waiting for her to say something a little more substantial than the obvious. “And I thought I could do some good.” That sounded hopelessly syrupy to her own ear, even though it was the truth. “Knowing that you’re helping other people is just the best feeling in the whole world. Besides,” she added, “I love solving puzzles. Where else can I do that and make an actual difference in people’s lives but as a law enforcement agent?”

  Easing his foot onto the brake as a light turned to red, Alex looked at her as if to confirm that she was indeed a flesh-and-blood female. “You can’t possibly be that altruistic,” he told her.

  “Sure I can,” she told him, not taking offense at the negativity behind his response. “And I am.” With that, she changed topics. “What about your family?”

  He was on his guard instantly, even though he doubted that she knew the first thing about his less than ordinary family. He’d done a good job burying their connection to him.

  “What about them?” he asked guardedly.

  “Are you following in anyone’s footsteps?” she asked innocently.

  Alex almost laughed at that. The thought that she knew about his family ceased being a concern. The innocent question told him that she didn’t have a clue about what his family business was all about—or what they were really like. If he had “followed” in their footsteps, it was for an entirely different reason than the one he had suggested to her. With him it would’ve been a matter of being hot on one of his sibling’s or his father’s trail. He had been careful not to have that happen.

  “They’re not in law enforcement,” he told her, trying to sound casual.

  “What are they in?” she asked.

  It sounded like an innocent enough question, but Alex wasn’t 100 percent certain about that. She could very well be pretending to be innocent and actually feeling him out. His family’s world was one of deceptions and illusions.

  “Entrepreneurs,” he responded. “They’re entrepreneurs.”

  “That sounds like it could be really interesting,” she commented. “Why didn’t you join them?”

  “Not interested,” he told her. What he really wasn’t interested in was staying two jumps ahead of the law. Granted there’d been a time—a very short period—when he’d found that exhilarating, but that was long in the past. Before he’d been labeled the official black sheep of the family.

  “How many are there in your family?”

  The questioning bothered him more than the silence had and he wished he had never disturbed it. At the very least, Alex didn’t want to discuss his family dynamics—or anything else about them—so he turned the tables on his inquisitive partner and asked, “How many in yours?”

  “Immediate or extended?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a vague shrug. “Start with immediate.”

  “I’ve got six brothers and sisters—four brothers, two sisters,” she explained.

  That was bigger than his by threefold, he thought. “And extended?”

  She laughed. “Oh God, I’m still counting. Ever since the day that Brennan saved the former chief of police from becoming that bloodthirsty serial killer’s next statistic, it feels that the number just keeps growing.”

  “That was your brother?” he asked, surprised.

  Alex was aware of the incident that she was referring to. Who lived in Aurora and hadn’t been aware of the killing spree that had appeared to be mounted by a serial killer?

  The latter had turned out to be the wife of a former police officer who had killed himself after he was fired from the police force. Blinded by grief, she decided to get even with everyone she felt had been involved in her husband’s taking of his own life. But at the time, no one knew if the killer was deliberately targeting law enforcement agents or if the murders were random and the victims had just accidentally been members of the law enforcement community.

  “That was Brennan all right,” she confirmed. “He had to blow his cover in order to save the chief, but that’s what the job’s all about, right? Making judgment calls and saving people. Funny how things just seem to link up.”

  Where was she going with this? “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, if Brennan hadn’t come to Uncle Andrew’s rescue, none of us would have found out about this entire branch of the family that had gone missing.” She grinned as she replayed her own words in her mind. “Of course, in their opinion, we were the ones who had gone missing all this time, but that’s just splitting hairs.”

  “Gone missing?” he asked. She had picked up speed as she talked, and at this point her train had jumped the rails and she had completely lost him. He remembered hearing something, but since it didn’t affect either him or his work directly, he’d just ignored the rest of the details as they came out.

  He was beginning to realize that he shouldn’t have.

  His partner obligingly filled in the gaps in his education. “It seems that my late grandfather was the former chief of police’s younger brother. Their parents split up when Grandpa was about eight. His mother took him while his father had custody of Shamus—Uncle Andrew’s father,” she threw in to help Alex keep things straight. “She apparently took off for parts unknown with Grandpa. Time passed and Shamus lost track of the family.

  “About a year ago, Shamus decided to find out what happened to his brother before any more time had gone by. Uncle Andrew did some digging—”

  “And out you popped,” Alex deadpanned.

  If she thought he was being sarcastic, she didn’t show it.

  “Not exactly, but close enough,” she allowed.

  Valri knew when someone wanted to draw a subject to a close and she was aware of the fact that there were people who claimed to be overdosing on Cavanaughs. She, on the other hand, was thrilled to submerge herself in the family’s history, learning all she could about the various members.

  But it was all still very fresh and new to her, despite the fact that she had never lacked for family in any manner, shape or form in the first place. She and her siblings numbered seven and there was nearly a triple-pack of cousins, thanks to her two uncles and one aunt, so family gatherings had already become practically standing-room-only affairs. With the influx of this heretofore “hidden” branch, the current number of family members was all but overwhelming.

  And Valri got a tremendous kick out of that, out of there being, according to one observer, “Cavanaughs as far as the eye can see.”

  “How many in your family?” she asked Alex.

  He thought he’d put her off that trail by asking for details about hers. How had this come full circle back to him?

  “Not nearly as many as yours,” he replied, adding a silent “thank God” at the end of his sentence.

  The “thank God” wasn’t in reference to the fact that he found the number overwhelming, but to the fact that even though there were only three members doing something illegal at any one time, he couldn’t allow his mind to even imagine more people working his fam
ily’s business. Even three were too many in his opinion.

  Yet it was the only way of life his family had ever known.

  “So what is that?” Alex was asking. “Five? Ten? More?” She continued looking at him, waiting for his answer.

  Damn, but she was like a pit bull, clamping down on something and refusing to let go. And he wasn’t comfortable discussing his family even in the vaguest of terms.

  Determined to steer her clear of this sensitive topic, Alex tried to divert her again. “Are we almost there?” he asked. After all, she was the one who professed to know the man.

  Valri glanced up, focusing on the street sign they were just approaching. “Waverly,” she read out loud, then pointed to the residential community’s entrance. Bird of paradise plants flanked both sides like colorful, welcoming guardsmen. “You turn in at the end of the block.”

  He’d already assumed that, but pretended that this was news to him. “Thanks.”

  Valri studied his profile for a moment. His jaw, she noticed, was all but rigid.

  “But you already knew that, didn’t you?” she said. When he glanced in her direction, trying to look puzzled, Valri started to explain her thought process. “You’re the native, right?”

  “If you mean California, yes,” he qualified. “But I’ve only lived in Aurora for the last ten years.” He’d gone to college here and then just decided to stay. Aurora seemed to be as good a place as any to begin a new life. A life where he wasn’t related to con artists and art thieves.

  “What made you become a cop?” she asked him, feeling that turnabout was only fair play.

  Alex smiled to himself. For him, becoming a police officer had been a matter of atonement. He’d started out to make up for the rest of his family’s sins. At the time, he hadn’t thought that he would like the work as much as he did, or get such a feeling of satisfaction out of it. That was a bonus.

  “Same as you. I wanted to do something that mattered,” he told her, thinking that would be the end of it.

  But after a few minutes, it seemed like only the beginning.

  “Why homicide?” she asked. It seemed to her that having to deal with seeing people on the worst day of their lives would be hard on a person, certainly not something that someone would volunteer for. Yet Brody obviously had.

  “I think your twenty questions are up,” he told her. “And just in time,” he realized. “That Wills’s place?” he asked, pointing out the rather quaint-looking single-story slightly weather-beaten house to his left.

  She leaned toward his side of the vehicle, looking at the house he’d pointed out. It had been a while since she’d moved in those circles, but she recognized the house.

  “That’s it,” she told Alex.

  Alex slowed his car, taking a closer look. The house appeared to be in good condition, although the front yard had been neglected. The building itself resembled a hacienda and there appeared to be a fresh coat of light gray paint on the stucco.

  “Pretty nice,” Alex commented. “Wills must be doing well.”

  She debated letting him think that, but there was no point in it. “It’s his mother’s house. She left it to him in her will so he wouldn’t wind up living in a cardboard box under some bridge after she was gone.”

  He took another long look at the residence. Closer examination had him picking up on the chipped paint at the corners, and there appeared to be a couple of tiles missing from the roof.

  “You’re telling me that he’s not doing so well, then.”

  “What I’m saying is that Wills had a tendency to come in third or fourth in the competitions that did have a payoff. He lives for the game and the glory.” Her mouth curved in an ironic smile. “Money is something that he borrows, not earns.”

  That sounded like a philosophy that was dog-eared for extermination. “That could get old fast,” Alex commented. “Didn’t he run out of ‘friends’ to tap?”

  “He did,” she told him. “That’s why he liked hanging around Rogers. He got the spotlight that he craved by being in Rogers’s sphere and Rogers liked being the big man and tossing Wills a scrap or two, something he never did quietly.”

  “Meaning?” Alex asked, wanting to have everything as clear as possible before going in.

  He pulled up in the driveway.

  “Meaning that Rogers would make a big deal out of whatever so-called good deed he did so that everyone knew that he was being ‘magnanimous’ and keeping Wills afloat.”

  Well, that certainly went along with what he was thinking. “Not much of a stretch envisioning Wills killing Rogers for revenge and whatever pocket money the other had.”

  But Valri wasn’t buying it. She shook her head. “Don’t think so. Wills loved being in Rogers’s spotlight. I think he hoped some of Rogers’s skills, as well as his luck, would rub off on him. But I could be wrong,” she allowed. This was just another theory she was formulating.

  “Well, no time like the present to find out.”

  Alex pressed the doorbell, but heard nothing in return. He tried again with the same results. Doubling up his fist, he pounded on the door.

  “Randolph Wills, this is the Aurora Police Department. Open up!”

  When there was still no response, Valri nudged him out of the way and knocked rather than pounded on the door. “Hey, Randy,” she called out through the door, “it’s Wren295. I’ve got to talk to you about The King.”

  Alex stared at her as if she had suddenly slipped through the rabbit hole right before his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Before she had a chance to answer him, the front door opened.

  Chapter 5

  Randolph Wills was a rather nondescript thin man anyone could have passed on the street without noticing at all. Everything about the thirty-ish gamer was painfully average—except for his eyes. A deep brown and constantly alert, his eyes moved around with the speed of two balls in play in a pinball machine. Wills took in all of his surroundings, processing everything, retaining it for future use.

  As he kept the door only partially open, his eyes passed over the woman he knew by her former gamer handle and then slid over the man standing next to her. A frown twisted his thin lips.

  “You’re not alone,” he accused. The next moment, he started to swing his front door closed again.

  He wasn’t fast enough. Valri had anticipated his reaction and had her foot positioned so that it acted like a doorstop.

  “He’s a friend,” she told the gamer.

  “He ain’t my friend,” Wills retorted.

  While he eagerly mingled with everyone at video game conventions, anyone outside that world was held suspect. Verging on being upset, Wills attempted to kick Valri’s foot out of the way.

  At this point, Alex blocked the door with his shoulder, preventing the far weaker gamer from budging it. “We’ll make ‘nice’ later,” Alex told the gamer. “Right now, we’ve got some questions to ask you about Hunter Rogers.”

  At the mention of the slain gamer, Wills’s expression changed. He looked furtively from the woman he knew to the man he didn’t. Bravado gave way to nerves.

  His breathing grew audible as he asked, “He send you here?”

  Valri exchanged glances with her partner. “Why would he send us?” she asked Wills gently.

  “’Cause he said he wanted—” Wills stopped abruptly, and while the fear he had displayed didn’t entirely vanish, it did lessen. A note of suspicion entered the man’s demeanor. “If he didn’t send you, why are you here?” he asked.

  “We need to ask you a few questions, Randy.” She nodded toward the darkened living room behind him. “May we come in?”

  Wills shrugged, his almost pointy shoulders rising and then falling in a vague, careless movement. “Yeah, I guess so. You don’t touch anyt
hing,” he warned Alex gruffly, then went on to tell Valri, “You can if you want to. I’ve got a spare controller if you want to join in. It’s a beauty. Gold,” he said almost reverently about the gaming device.

  Pushing the front door open all the way, Wills led the pair into his living room.

  The entire front of the house had been converted to an open game pit with a giant screen displaying the current game—one involving zombie troops fighting a battalion of marines for control of Earth. The light coming from the monitor was the only illumination in the room.

  The aura was rather gloomy, Alex thought. He was surprised to hear his new partner comment to the other man, “Nice. But we’re not here to play.”

  Wills had already dropped onto the giant sofa facing the monitor. His entire being focused on the screen, he picked up his controller. As if it were a talisman, holding it made the gamer sit up a little straighter, appear a little more confident.

  “I think better after a game. Helps clear my head. You play me—and win—” he smirked as he said the word, clearly thinking that was an impossibility “—and I’ll answer anything you want.”

  Valri regarded the gamer, weighing his offer against standard procedure. “Truthfully? I have your word?”

  “You’ve got my word,” Wills answered cavalierly.

  “Okay,” Valri agreed. “You’re on.” Sitting down on the sofa, Valri picked up the controller Wills had gushed about.

  This was not the way he conducted interviews, Alex thought impatiently. Served him right for agreeing to being partnered with this rookie.

  “Cavanaugh,” he began, a clear warning note in his voice.

  She flashed him a wide smile. “This’ll just take a few minutes, Brody,” she promised.

  “Ha! You wish,” Wills crowed as one of his characters decimated one of hers.

  “We can haul him into the precinct for questioning,” Alex told her. “There’s no need to descend to his level and feed his ego first.”

  “You’re a cop?” Wills asked accusingly, his voice rising several octaves.