A Cavanaugh Christmas Read online

  “Something like that,” he agreed delicately. There was no point in elaborating or in saying that he and Matt had more than their share of cruising and hookups when they had first gone to college. “Your room’s upstairs,” he told her as he headed toward the stairs himself. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

  Taking the stairs up quickly, Tom paused to wait for her to catch up, then led the way to the second door on his left.

  “Mine’s right here.” He jerked his thumb at the first bedroom on the left. “In case you need anything,” he qualified.

  Kait took in a breath. God, but she hadn’t realized just how tired she was. “I won’t,” she quickly assured him.

  Tom merely nodded, but the grin didn’t fade. He gestured toward her room, as if to usher her into it. “All right, then I’ll say good-night and just let you get some sleep.”

  Stepping back from the doorway, he slipped into the bedroom that his friend used during those short durations when he was actually home. For the most part, he’d seen hotel rooms that had had more of a lived-in look to them than Matt’s bedroom did. But then, his friend had always been superneat. Even in college. Which made him the perfect roommate. Matt always kept the area clean.

  The house had been closed up all day, keeping in what heat there’d been. Despite the myths about California, Northern California could get really cold at night. There was only a thin comforter on the bed right now, which meant, Tom judged, that his houseguest was probably going to need a blanket beside the comforter.

  He remembered seeing a couple of extra blankets stacked at the top of the closet in the master bedroom he was using. Pushing the sliding door to one side, he found what he was looking for. There were actually three blankets, all in varying shades of blue. Matt’s favorite color, Tom recalled.

  Taking the one on top, a royal-blue blanket made out of fleece, Tom pulled it down and went to offer his prize to Kait.

  Coming out of his room, he was surprised to see that she hadn’t closed her door yet. Had she gone downstairs to get something from her car?

  But when he peered into the second bedroom, he saw that not only was the detective from New Mexico in the bedroom, she was lying on the bed, on top of the comforter, out like the proverbial light. He could only guess that she must have either been more tired than she’d been willing to admit, or that she’d decided to test out the quality of the mattress and had fallen asleep during the process.

  Approaching the bed, he looked at his guest more closely. She didn’t seem nearly as tough asleep as she did awake. But the reason for the transformation was because, asleep, her face was relaxed rather than pensively frowning.

  He was about to quietly retrace his steps and leave the room but then he hesitated, debating. The temperature would still fall lower tonight, and Two Feathers was lying on top of the bedding.

  Moving into the room even more slowly, he was as silent as a shadow. As silent as she probably was capable of moving. Very carefully, Tom unfolded the blanket he had and then spread it out over her.

  Kait stirred unexpectedly just then, but her eyes continued to be shut. Tom slowly let out the breath that had gotten caught in his throat the moment she began to move. More than likely, she was just getting herself into a better position on the bed. She was still asleep, he concluded, relieved.

  “You don’t look so tough now, Detective Two Feathers,” he whispered softly.

  Two Feathers. If it was the last thing he did, he would get her to explain that name to him. He’d bet a year’s salary that this woman was a genuine redhead. Her hair was that reddish/strawberry blond shade that only true redheads tended to have, and as far as he knew there were no redheads in any of the Native American tribes.

  So was she pulling his leg, or was her surname actually Two Feathers? He was fairly convinced that the police department would have uncovered any aliases before this.

  Satisfied that she would stay warm enough, Tom went back to his own room. He took off his shoes and stripped off his shirt. His pajamas of choice were a pair of jeans that were all but worn out.

  He was bone weary himself now that he thought of it. Tom got into bed and turned off the lamp on the nightstand.

  It was the last thought that crossed his mind. He was out the second his head hit the pillow.

  The noise woke him before he could place it or decide whether it originated in his dream, or was coming from somewhere outside the house.

  A second after he sat up, listening, Tom realized that it was neither. The whimpering cry hadn’t been a vivid part of his dream nor was it coming from somewhere outside the house.

  It was coming from somewhere inside the house.

  He cocked his head, trying to place where the sound was coming from. Brimming with sadness, it had almost a keening quality to it.

  Even as the sound teased his brain, Tom was on his feet, making his way to his closed door in bare feet. Once he opened his bedroom door, he could hear the sound more clearly.

  He also placed it instantly.

  It was coming from the next room. From Kait’s room. It sounded like a cross between a whimper and a cry. His first thought was that someone had broken in, but that wasn’t possible. The alarms would have gone off. He’d armed the system himself.

  He’d left Kait’s door opened when he’d slipped out earlier so there was no need to stand on ceremony, debating whether or not he should go in.

  He went in.

  And found that she was still sound asleep. But she was definitely the one making that soul-wrenching noise. Something within the nightmare she was so obviously having frightened her. Badly.

  “Two Feathers, wake up. It’s okay.” His urgent words had absolutely no effect. She was still asleep, still suffering.

  He’d once heard that it wasn’t good to wake a sleepwalker, but the woman wasn’t moving, just crying out, and her cries got louder, along with the level of her distress.

  Tom tried waking her up by shaking her shoulder. His first attempt was gentle, but when that had no effect, he shook her harder.

  Kait screamed outright, her eyes still shut and she remained asleep.

  At that point, Tom went with his gut instincts. He sat down on the edge of the bed and did his best to take her into his arms as he called her name over and over again.

  Still asleep, Kait started swinging, trying to break free of the hold he had on her. She was as frightened and as angry as he could ever remember seeing.

  Doggedly, he continued holding on to her. “Kait, Kait, it’s all right. You’re safe. You’re here and you’re safe. For God’s sake, wake up. It’s just a nightmare. Nothing more than a nightmare, you hear me?” He kept repeating the words over and over again in a firm, soothing voice.

  Finally, he got through to her.

  Her eyes flew open. For a fleeting moment, she seemed to slump against him, clinging to him as if he was her life preserver. But then her body became rigid as she pulled back.

  She looked disoriented and still very, very frightened.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded angrily, yanking against him.

  She tried to break free of his hold and found to her horror that his grip was much too strong for her to break.

  Just like his had been.

  The second she thought that, Kait broke out in a cold sweat. She could feel it, feel fear trickling down her spine, pooling at her waist.

  Snap out of it! You’re not ten years old anymore. You’re not that defenseless little girl. You’re a cop now, a detective. There’s a gun in the nightstand drawer. Your gun.

  All she had to do was reach it.

  “I’m trying to keep you from knocking all my teeth out,” Tom told her. Holding on to her was like trying to hang on to a bucking mustang. Any second now, she would break free. He had to let go before that, otherwise who knew what she would think? “Okay, I’m letting go,” he announced, raising his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. “Take a deep breath, Detective. You’re safe. It was just a n
ightmare. One hell of a nightmare,” he added, shaking his head. “But still just a dream.”

  Taking a deep, ragged breath, Kait dragged a hand through her hair as she looked around the room. The lamp wasn’t on, but light streamed in from the hallway.

  Slowly, she exhaled and struggled to relax as she realized that she’d been dreaming. And then she looked at the man still sitting on the edge of the bed.

  Her eyes narrowed a little. “What are you doing in here?” she asked, but the anger, the fear was all but gone from her voice. All that remained was a leery woman who wanted explanations.

  “I heard you crying. You were so loud, you woke me up,” he told her truthfully. There was concern in his voice as he asked, “What were you dreaming about?”

  Kait stifled a shiver. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about the dream, talk about her past. It had taken a great deal for her to put her own head right. To struggle and manage to put her demons to rest all on her own without enlisting anyone’s help. Even so, she had a feeling that Ronald had known. She had a hunch that was why he’d stepped up the adoption process, started the day he’d gotten married. He had been determined to pull her out of the system before it ate her alive. Luckily, he’d married an understanding woman.

  Luck, she’d often thought, actually didn’t have anything to do with it. Though he loved her, he would have never married Winona if she hadn’t agreed to starting a family by taking in a twelve-year-old, emotionally scarred child.

  Because Tom was still looking at her, waiting for an answer, she shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You almost took my head off,” he pointed out mildly, and then grew more serious as he added, “and you were really terrified. I know the difference, and I think it does matter.”

  She struggled to curb her impatience. “Look, thank you for waking me up, but it’s nothing. Really,” she insisted with feeling. “It was just a bunch of random things—I can’t even remember what I was dreaming about anymore,” she said matter-of-factly. With another half shrug she told him, “Dreams fade once you’re awake. You know that.”

  He’d be willing to bet a year’s salary that hers hadn’t. They were still very much a part of her.

  “You ever shake a bottle of soda?” he asked without preamble.

  Kait stiffened. “No, I haven’t,” she answered pointedly, her tone telling him to back off.

  She should have known better. He might look laid-back, but it was obvious that Tom-with-the-two-last-names was as dogged as she was.

  “Well, when you shake a bottle of soda,” he continued, his voice still deceptively mild, “the pressure inside starts to build. Sometimes, even if you don’t take off the top yourself, the built-up pressure gets so bad that what’s inside the bottle explodes anyway, sending the bottle cap flying off through the air like some kind of a missile, even shattering the bottle in the process. All that could have been avoided—”

  Her eyes met his, daring him to contradict her. “If you never shook the bottle in the first place.”

  He wasn’t about to get bested that easily. “Or, barring that,” he continued amiably, “if you released the pressure slowly by lifting the bottle cap just a crack at a time.”

  Her eyes narrowed again, this time pinning him to where he sat. “If you’re thinking of lifting my top, the answer’s no,” she informed him, enunciating each word carefully.

  The so-called warning inadvertently brought a smile to his lips. He hadn’t meant the word “top” in the way she indicated, and he had more than a passing hunch that she knew that. Maybe she wanted to create a mental diversion, and for a second he had to admit that she’d succeeded. The words conjured up an image in his mind that had nothing to do with nightmares and everything to do with the woman sitting up in bed beside him.

  Her hair was a wild red storm about her face and Kait was still breathing heavily, her chest reverberating with every breath she drew in and released.

  Creating wild fantasies in his head that had no business being there.

  Nonetheless, there they were.

  “Just trying to help, that’s all,” he managed to offer up in his own defense.

  She knew he was, but in order for him to help, she’d have to let him in. Have to allow him access to the world of unspeakable pain she had endured while in the system, being passed around from one family to another.

  She was supposed to be over that by now, and most of the time she was. But when she ran into cases like the one she was presently handling, the nightmares came back, and then suddenly she was reliving those awful days. In the blink of an eye, she was ten years old again. Having things happen to her that no ten-year-old should ever have to endure.

  “It was just a stupid dream,” she assured him again. “Thanks again for waking me up.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said with a shrug. He’d interviewed more than his share of people to know that he wasn’t going to get anything more out of her tonight. He might as well just get back to sleep.

  Tom began to rise, then changed his mind. He glanced at the woman who had aroused his sympathy even though he knew if he mentioned it, she’d most likely force-feed that sympathy back to him, not necessarily through his mouth.

  “Want me to stick around until you fall asleep?” he suggested.

  “Now why would I want that?” There was a heavy dose of sarcasm in her voice.

  “When my younger sister used to have nightmares, she’d have trouble getting back to sleep unless I stayed with her until she dropped off. She said it made her feel better. Nothing wrong with wanting to feel better. We all want that.”

  Kait shrugged. “It’s up to you. You want to stick around, playing Prince Charming to my Sleeping Princess, it’s up to you. But like I said, I’m fine,” she informed him firmly.

  He noticed she’d said “Sleeping Princess” instead of the standard term, “Sleeping Beauty,” and wondered if it had been deliberate or just an error because she was tired.

  “Never said you weren’t,” he answered.

  Nonetheless, he stayed where he was until she finally dropped off to sleep. And then he lingered a little while longer. Just in case the nightmare returned.

  Chapter 7

  “Who was holding on to you?”

  It was the next morning and he and Kait had just arrived in the precinct’s parking lot. As he had anticipated, Kait had driven in her own vehicle.

  Since having the car easily accessible seemed to mean so much to the woman and obviously represented independence to her, he hadn’t tried to talk her into leaving it in his driveway. After the incident in her room last night, he knew that despite her bravado, a fragile woman lived beneath the tightly wrapped layers.

  He also suspected that she would continue to keep that fragile side buried rather than try to find a way to heal.

  It was early, earlier than he was accustomed to coming in. But Kait was chomping at the bit to begin viewing the tapes and capture a better close-up of the man who had rented the van used in the abduction. Since the chief of Ds had unofficially made the visiting detective his responsibility, Tom knew that he couldn’t just let her come back to the precinct without him. No matter how much he wanted to get some extra shut-eye to make up for what he’d lost playing her human nightlight last night.

  Beauty sleep would just have to wait.

  About to walk up the back steps into the building, Kait abruptly stopped dead and looked at him quizzically. Her guard was up as she asked, “What?”

  “When you were having that nightmare last night, you were begging someone to let you go,” he said. “Who was it that you thought was holding on to you?”

  He watched her stiffen, as if she was bracing for a physical blow.

  “The devil.”

  The answer was flippant, but in this case, it actually fit the situation, she thought. Because the foster parent so vividly conjured in her nightmare had been more devil than human when she’d had to live with the man and his wife. The moment she became
a policewoman, she’d gone back to the house where she had spent a hellish five months. She’d been prepared to do whatever it took to arrest the man as well as his wife and bring them up on charges of child endangerment and molestation.

  At the time, it was too late to bring her own case to light. The statute of limitations had run out on that. But she was positive that hers hadn’t been an isolated incident. There had to have been more little girls who had suffered at Elliot Caulfield’s hands.

  But life had cheated her again. Her former foster parents were both dead thanks to a murder/suicide that had taken place in their house less than a year earlier.

  Coming away from the neighborhood, she’d felt both vindicated and disappointed at the same time. She’d been struggling to put the memory behind her and had thought she’d succeeded.

  But this case had brought it all back to her. Just her luck, the Aurora detective had been a witness to her unintentional meltdown.

  “I already told you, I don’t remember,” she insisted, then went on the offensive. “Didn’t you ever have dreams that faded the second you were awake?”

  “Yeah.” His tone of voice told her that whether or not he’d had those kind of dreams was beside the point. In this case, he didn’t believe her. She knew that what he believed or didn’t believe shouldn’t bother her. But it did.

  You’ve got something more important to focus on, remember? Kait upbraided herself. Megan needs you.

  “Let’s go watch those surveillance tapes and see if we can get a better shot of the man who rented that van,” she urged.

  Turning her back on Tom, she raced up the stairs.

  Finding their quarry on the rental-agency tapes turned out to be a great deal more difficult than they’d originally thought. Whether due to a power failure or plain neglect and incompetence, the clock on the recording camera hadn’t been set correctly so the time stamp on the tapes was off, not by hours but by days.

  Consequently, finding the man they searched for wasn’t just a matter of queueing up the tape to the approximate time he had rented the vehicle. They were left to painstakingly go through all the tapes they’d collected to identify the man who had driven off with the white van. At the very least, with both of them diligently working, it would take at least hours if not the whole day.