Cavanaugh's Secret Delivery Read online

  Oren finally released her shoulders. “On the contrary, they make your legs look extremely attractive.” His dark eyes washed over her. “You should always wear high heels.”

  “Um, thank you.” Toni cleared her throat self-consciously. “And thank you for catching me like that. Falling at your feet would have been really embarrassing.”

  Oren looked mildly amused. “It wouldn’t have been the first time that has happened,” he told her with a self-deprecating laugh. “Sorry, that was too much of a straight line to resist,” he confessed. His command of the language, Toni caught herself thinking, was better than she’d thought it would be. “Can I give you a lift somewhere?” he asked her. “My car is right here. Or perhaps we could get something to eat?” he suggested.

  “Oh, no, thank you. I’m meeting my mother in a few minutes,” she explained quickly, as if she was trying not to insult him. “She’s the kind of person who tends to panic if I don’t show up when I said I would. I’m afraid that she’s a little paranoid.” And then she looked at him a bit hopefully. “Perhaps we could do that some other time?” she asked, leaving it up to him to agree.

  “Sure. I’m busy tomorrow, but how is the day after tomorrow?” he asked. “Say around eight o’clock? There’s a café not too far away from here. It serves the best Mexican food around. Carla’s. Do you like Mexican food?” he asked her.

  She had the feeling that he was dissecting her with his eyes.

  “I love Mexican food,” she told him with enthusiasm. “And I know just where that restaurant is,” she assured the tall, darkly handsome man.

  “Good. Then the day after tomorrow,” he repeated. “Does eight o’clock work for you?”

  “Eight o’clock is perfect.” She glanced at her watch and frowned just a little. “But right now I’ve really got to go.”

  “Your mother,” Oren said knowingly, nodding his head.

  Toni flashed him a smile. “My mother,” she confirmed. With that, she hurried off through the mall’s double doors.

  * * *

  Dugan remained standing where he was, watching Oren as he watched the woman he had just met disappear into the mall. After a moment, Oren got into his vehicle and, less than a minute later, pulled out of the parking lot.

  What the hell had just gone down? Dugan thought, shaking his head. He could feel himself growing angry. He sure as hell intended to find out.

  As he started walking toward the mall’s entrance, his cell phone rang. Expecting it to be Everett again, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and fairly barked into it.

  “Cavanaugh!”

  “You need to work on your telephone voice, Cavanaugh,” he heard Toni tell him. “I know who you are.”

  “O’Keefe?” He looked around, expecting her to pop up near him. But he didn’t see her. “Where are you?”

  “I’m still in the mall. Has Oren gone yet?” she asked.

  “Yes, he’s gone,” he told her. “He pulled out a minute ago, smiling like a coyote that’s looking forward to his first bite of a tasty morsel. What the hell was all that?”

  “I’ll tell you everything when I see you,” Toni answered.

  The call terminated. The next moment, he saw her coming out through the large double glass doors again. Wanting to cut the distance and reach her, he made himself remain where he was, waiting for her to come to him, instead.

  When she did, her face was flushed and she looked exceedingly happy with herself.

  That made one of them, Dugan thought darkly.

  “You want to explain what just happened?” he demanded the second she was at his side.

  Toni smiled up at him brightly. “I have a date with Oren.”

  “You WHAT?” he cried, stunned.

  Rather than explain out in the open, Toni got into the detective’s car and waited for him to get in on the driver’s side and join her.

  The moment he did, she started talking. “You said that Oren liked blondes so I thought we could play up to his weakness. And it worked,” she announced happily. “I’m meeting him at Carla’s Café the day after tomorrow at eight o’clock. That’s enough time for you to get your people in place and be ready, right?”

  “Back up, Napoleon. Who said you could do this?” he asked, stunned that she’d taken this independent action on her own.

  Toni looked surprised that he would even bring that up. “There wasn’t enough time to ask for permission, Cavanaugh. Besides, if I did ask you, you would have said no.”

  “Damn straight I would have said no,” he practically shouted. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” he demanded. “This is dangerous and you’re not a professional.”

  “I beg your pardon,” she said icily, disappointed that he was taking this approach. “I’m an investigative journalist,” she pointed out. “And this isn’t my first rodeo.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “I’ve gone undercover before.”

  He didn’t care what she might have done before this, although he had his doubts about any of her story. She was probably making it up as she went along. “Not on my watch you haven’t.”

  “That would have been a little difficult to do, considering that I didn’t even know you a few days ago.” She took a breath, calming herself down and approaching this from another direction. “Look, it’s a simple plan. I’ll show up, Oren and I will have a drink, maybe even dinner, and just as his guard is down, you’ll show up to take him prisoner. If something goes wrong before that, you’ll be there to rescue me. I’m sure that you’ll be watching his every move.”

  He didn’t like the fact that she was so close to the truth. He would do it just this way if she were another police detective, which she wasn’t. “Got it all worked out, don’t you?”

  “Not much to work out, really,” Toni confessed with a quick shrug. “This just all fell into place almost by itself.”

  His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “I don’t like it.”

  “And I don’t like eating broccoli. But it’s supposed to do a lot of good for me in the long run,” she retorted just as Dugan finally started up his vehicle.

  He almost stopped the car at that point. Dugan shot her a dark, annoyed look. The woman was really messing up his thought process—along with other things. “What the hell is that supposed to even mean?” he demanded.

  “Anything you want it to,” she retorted. And then, taking a breath, she calmed down and offered him a smile. “Look, as long as Oren shows up, one way or another, you can get him.”

  “I’m not comfortable with you taking chances like that.”

  For the briefest of moments, she couldn’t help wondering if he was worried about her. Most likely, he was just worried about Oren getting away. If anything, she’d just be collateral damage.

  “You didn’t force me to do this,” she reminded him. “It’s my own choice.

  “Look, O’Keefe,” he said, his voice softening, “you have a new baby at home. You don’t want to be taking these kinds of chances with your life.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Toni insisted. “It’s because of my baby that I want to. Who knows how this will play out? Maybe what I wind up doing the day after tomorrow will somehow cut back the threat of drugs by just the smallest increment, which just might, in turn, keep Heather safe.”

  Dugan shook his head, at a loss as to how to get her to change her mind, or even how to reason with what she had just said.

  Sighing, he said, “Well, I’m not going to argue with you anymore.”

  “But?” Toni asked. When he didn’t say anything immediately, she explained, “There’s a ‘but’ in your voice.”

  He laughed. “Maybe you are good at this kind of thing,” he told her. “I’m not going to argue with you anymore, but I am going to run it by the chain of command. If they sign off on this thing of yours, we’ll play it your way.”


  “Chain of command?” she echoed, surprised. She hadn’t expected this much opposition to a spur-of-the-moment idea. “You’re not going to let a perfectly good plan go because you’re trying to keep me safe and it wasn’t okayed by your people, are you?”

  He rolled her words over in his mind. The truth of it was, if she were a police detective, he would have no problem going along with the plan, no questions asked. Maybe she did know what she was doing.

  “All right,” he said grudgingly. “This is against my better judgment but we’ll do it your way. We’ll wire you up—”

  Her reaction was immediate. Putting her hand on his arm, she cautioned, “No wires.” She saw that her protest didn’t sit well with him and she was quick to explain her thinking. “Are you kidding me? Oren detects a wire, I’m dead where I stand.”

  “We’ve advanced,” Dugan assured her. “The wire will be in your ring or your necklace. Maybe in your earrings. Nothing obvious. Besides, if you’re not wired, you don’t go. It’s as simple as that,” he told her flatly.

  She looked at Dugan skeptically. “Are you sure this wire’s undetectable?”

  “Completely,” Dugan promised. “We’ve got tech specialists whose sole job is to create listening devices that could catch the heartbeat of a hummingbird fifty yards away—without the hummingbird suspecting he’s being listened to.”

  She looked at him doubtfully. He had to be putting her on. “How much of a market is there for that sort of thing?”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Dugan assured her. “More than you could ever guess.”

  * * *

  “The chief of detectives would like to see you,” Dugan told Toni.

  He’d disappeared the moment they returned to the precinct, only to return about ten minutes later to tell her that her presence was requested.

  “The chief of detectives?” Toni repeated, surprised as well as suspicious. She didn’t get up immediately. “Why?”

  “Protocol,” Dugan answered. Then, because she continued looking at him with those clear-water blue eyes of hers, those eyes that were getting right to him, he said, “The chief doesn’t bite.”

  “I wasn’t worried about that,” she answered, following Dugan to the elevator. “I was just wondering what you said to him.”

  “The truth,” Dugan answered. He pressed for the elevator. “He wanted to know how you were doing. The chief likes to keep his finger on the pulse of every operation that’s going on.”

  She couldn’t see how that was possible. Dugan had to be exaggerating.

  “That must keep the man very busy,” Toni commented drolly.

  “He can handle it,” Dugan said. The ride was quick. Quicker than she was happy about. And then they were getting out on the chief’s floor. Dugan waited for her to join him. “You ready?”

  “Lead the way—unless you’re not included in this meeting you’ve arranged for me,” Toni added.

  His smile was wide—too wide, in her opinion. “Oh, I’m included.”

  She merely sighed as she continued walking to the chief of Ds’ office. “I had a feeling you would be.”

  * * *

  Chief of Detectives Brian Cavanaugh wasn’t what she expected, and it must have shown in her face when she walked into his office and met him.

  “Something wrong, Ms. O’Keefe?” he asked as he shook her hand, then gestured for her and Dugan to take the two chairs that were on the other side of his desk.

  “No,” she answered a bit too quickly. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you looked rather surprised when you came in just now,” Brian answered. His warm gaze swift assessed the young woman. “Didn’t Detective Cavanaugh tell you that I wanted to see you?”

  “Yes, sir, he did,” Toni answered, wondering how much, or how little, the man knew about her.

  “Then...?” He left the rest of his statement up in the air, waiting for her to make a comment that would enlighten him.

  “Very simply,” Toni admitted, “You’re not what I expected.”

  An amused smile slipped over Brian’s lips. “And just what was it that you expected?” the chief asked, curious.

  She’d researched the principal people involved before she came to the precinct, but she hadn’t included the chief of detectives. Toni was clearly surprised by what she saw.

  “I was expecting someone craggy and old, I suppose. A man who was going to tell me that he wasn’t about to put up with grandstanding or showboating.”

  “All good points,” Brian agreed. “I don’t usually have to say that, though, because none of my people feel inclined to participate in either behavior.” His eyes were kind as they met hers. “They know better.”

  “I do, too,” Toni informed the older, still quite vital man, refraining from slanting a glance toward Dugan.

  Brian nodded. “Good to hear. But just to satisfy my curiosity, why did you feel you had to go off on your own to make contact with Oren? Why not wait for Detective Cavanaugh to set things in motion?”

  “Well, sir,” she began slowly, feeling her way around, “Detective Cavanaugh said that Oren liked blondes,” Toni explained.

  Brian smiled, nodding his head. “And you’re a blonde.”

  “Yes, sir, I am,” she said a little too quickly, and she was aware of it the second she said it. However, it was too late to backtrack, so she just forged ahead. “I just felt it gave me an in and I acted on it.”

  Brian nodded. “I appreciate initiative as much as the next man. More, possibly. But it is customary to check with the people you’re working with before you go off to do something independently,” Brian pointed out. “First and foremost, Ms. O’Keefe, we are police officers, not cowboys.”

  “You’re benching me,” Toni guessed, disappointed. He was doing it politely, but he was obviously going to teach her that acting independently had consequences.

  Brian exchanged glances with his nephew before answering her. Toni could feel her stomach beginning to sink.

  “Why would I do that?”

  Toni blinked. “Excuse me? You’re not benching me?”

  “We’ve been trying to get Michael Oren or Manuel Hernandez, his superior, alone for several months now. They’re the cartel’s number two and number one men who are stateside at the moment,” he interjected. “And you seem to have managed to corral Oren on your own in just two days. All qualifying ramifications aside, that’s quite commendable.”

  She was still trying to make sure she understood what the chief was saying to her. “Then you’re not telling me I can’t go?”

  “I’m encouraging it,” Brian told her. “But the next time you get an idea in your head to go all Lone Ranger on us...”

  She cut in before he could finish his sentence. “Don’t,” she guessed.

  “No, but I want you to check with us first. At the very least,” he pointed out, “you might have been stepping on the toes of another operation that was already in place.”

  That had never occurred to her. She looked at the chief now, wide-eyed. “I didn’t do that, did I, sir?”

  “Fortunately, no. But you might have,” Brian repeated. “That’s why, while you’re here, I want you to run things by Detective Cavanaugh before doing anything. He might have an annoying trait or two,” Brian allowed with a tolerant smile. “But he is quite good at what he does. And, more importantly, he’ll make sure that you live to tell about this—or at least write about it—once it’s all over.

  “Now, all that being said, if you should wake up tomorrow morning and find that you’ve changed your mind about going through with this—”

  “I won’t,” she told him firmly.

  “—the option will be yours,” he concluded. “All right, you two, that’s it for now. But feel free to come back to see me if you have any questions or any doubts,” he underscored. “Un
derstood?”

  “Understood,” Toni promised.

  With that, Toni left the chief’s office. Dugan was right beside her.

  Chapter 10

  The rest of the day was filled with following up on other possible leads regarding the buying and selling of drugs, most of which could be considered as small-time.

  For the most part, the day was a blur to Toni as the full import of what she had set in motion began to sink in.

  On the one hand, she felt that she’d done something good and possibly brought the capture of one of the leading drug dealers a little closer to fruition. On the other hand, she felt that she might have started something that just might have dire consequences for her at the end of the game.

  When she’d started all this, she had told Dugan the truth. She had gone undercover before, but that was just taking on a role in order to be able to get a story. The fact was that she had never been in any actual danger before, not the sort of danger she could be in in this situation. Michael Oren spoke softly, but one look into his eyes told her that there was a cold-blooded man beneath that soft voice.

  Maybe she had bitten off more than she could safely chew.

  * * *

  “You’re worried, aren’t you?” Dugan asked as the day wound down to a close and they were packing up, calling it a day.

  Preoccupied, Toni had to replay what he’d just said to her before she could answer him.

  “What? No. Why should I be worried?” Toni asked a bit too defensively, bracing herself for another verbal altercation.

  She knew exactly what he was saying, Dugan thought, but he went over it anyway. “Because you’re starting to realize that Oren isn’t the kind of man you can just set up and then go home to your quiet little life.”

  She didn’t like what he was saying. This wasn’t a game to her, even if she wasn’t on the front lines, dodging bullets. Besides, her life had had its share of turmoil.

  “Who says my life is quiet?” she asked him, her back up. “I’m an investigative reporter. There’s something going on in my life all the time.”