“That maybe we’re approaching this from the wrong angle,” he finally answered.
“And the right angle is...”
Instead of answering her, he asked a question. “Who would benefit from what Rogers came up with?”
“You mean a way to create a false mobile cell tower?” she asked, quoting what Bigelow had claimed. Again, they were going by what the man had told them. How did they know he was telling the truth?
Alex merely nodded in response to her question.
“Bigelow didn’t disagree when I said that the email information was being gathered to find out who was going away on vacation and leaving their homes unattended,” Valri reminded him.
“You’re right.” That was what had been gnawing at him. He thought he was off base, but since she seemed to be agreeing with him, this avenue certainly merited a little more investigating. “Maybe we should find out if there’s been a rash of break-ins and burglaries in some of the more wealthy neighborhoods of Aurora.” He’d read about there being three the day the chief had paired him up with Cavanaugh. Maybe there were even more.
“What about the security systems?” she asked. “Wouldn’t the people going on vacation be arming their security systems before leaving?” she pointed out. It seemed like common sense to her.
Alex waved away her words as easily as one of the thieves they were trying to uncover might have silenced the alarm on the security systems.
“My guess is that disarming those systems is child’s play for the guy or guys we’re looking for.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Alex said, sparing her a glance as they finally began to drive back to the precinct. “All these thieves would need is one person with your kind of aptitude to have computer programs do their bidding and they could most definitely write their own tickets.”
She looked at him, completely confused. “Is that a compliment or an accusation?”
He laughed shortly. “If you have to ask, then I guess it didn’t make the grade as a compliment.”
“Oh, but it did,” she responded, a smile curving her generous mouth. “I just had to home in on what you were actually saying.”
Before he knew what was happening, her smile had melted right into him, taking no prisoners.
Except for him.
He had to stop looking at that mouth of hers, Alex told himself. Not to mention that he had to remember that no matter how attracted he might be to her—and that particular factor kept insisting on growing—Valri Cavanaugh was strictly off-limits.
And he had to keep reminding himself of that permanently—unless the chief of Ds decided to place her elsewhere.
He’d been better off when all he had been dealing with were issues about being partnered with her.
Chapter 11
When they crossed the threshold of the squad room less than half an hour later, Valri saw someone she thought was familiar standing by her desk. It was the woman’s hair that first caught her attention. The mane was as close to flaming red as humanly possible without any chemical help coming from a hair-dye product.
From what she could make out, the woman in question had just dropped something off on her desk and was about to walk away.
Lengthening her stride in order to catch up to the woman, Valri called out her name to get her attention. “Noelle, wait up.”
The latter turned around, surprised and pleased to see her approaching. The next moment, Detective Noelle O’Banyon wrapped her arms around her, giving her a heartfelt hug.
“Hey, I just heard about you making the big leagues,” Noelle said with genuine enthusiasm. “Congratulations!”
Taking a step back from Noelle, Valri slanted a look toward Brody. For once, he didn’t seem annoyed about the reference to their partnership. Maybe the idea was growing on him. She could only hope.
“It’s not permanent yet, but I’ve got my fingers crossed,” Valri confided to the woman who had so effortlessly captured her brother Duncan’s heart.
“You’ll get it,” Noelle told her. “Just keep working your magic. Speaking of which, Uncle Andrew had me bring over the list of people he wants you to notify—I supplied the phone numbers,” she added. “Trust me, it was faster that way.”
Picking up the paper, Valri glanced over the lengthy sheets. There were an awful lot of names. “Is this for your wedding?” she asked the other woman.
They were almost the same height and Noelle’s eyes met hers. “Mine? Oh no, ours is going to be around Christmas.” Her smile turned into a very wide, very pleased grin, the kind people wore when they suddenly realized that they were the proud guardian of a sensational secret. “Didn’t the chief tell you?”
“No. To be honest, I think he forgot,” Valri confided.
But Noelle shook her head. “That man doesn’t forget anything,” Noelle assured her. “Now that I think about it, I think that he wanted me to be the one to tell you—I get such a huge kick out of it, even though I haven’t completely gotten used to the idea. But then,” she added with a good-natured shrug, “I’ve only known for less than a day.”
She paused for a moment to bring more attention to her announcement. “My live wire of a grandmother, Lucy, is marrying the Cavanaugh family’s patriarch.”
Valri blinked. She was still getting used to who was whom and their positions in the very overwhelming branch of the family that had been uncovered.
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that. Which one is considered the patriarch?” she asked her future sister-in-law.
“The oldest one,” Alex very calmly put in.
Both women turned to look at him, as if they had completely forgotten he was there.
After they’d walked in and the two women began interacting, he realized that they had a bit of history. Alex sensed that this would take a bit of time. Rather than say anything, he’d just sat down at his desk to wait it out.
“Oh, I forgot to introduce you,” Valri said, embarrassed. “Sorry.” The word was addressed to both of them. “Brody, this is Detective Noelle O’Banyon. She’s in the vice squad and she’s going to be my very lucky brother Duncan’s wife. Noelle, this is Detective Alex Brody.” She looked at him and flashed an appreciative smile. “Brody’s teaching me the ropes.”
“Struggling not to tie her up in them at times,” Alex added, leaning over his desk to shake Noelle’s hand.
“I think Duncan expressed a similar sentiment when we first started working together,” Noelle told the duo as she returned Alex’s firm handshake.
“So who exactly is getting married?” Valri asked, wanting to get this completely clear. As far as she knew, Andrew, Brian and Sean, the older generation’s three brothers, were all married.
“Shamus.” Noelle inclined her head toward Alex, giving him a further explanation. “He’s the chief’s father.”
The man was also the older brother of Valri’s late grandfather. “I was really surprised, though, when I found out that Lucy and Shamus wanted to have the ceremony this Saturday. I tried to talk her into going a little slower, taking the time to do it up right. I told her that there wasn’t that much of a hurry. Lucy just stared at me with the knowing look of hers, waiting for me to finish. When I did, she said, ‘Just wait until you leave the comfort of your fifties and sixties. Every second that goes by is one more second you don’t have anymore.’” Realizing that she was getting a little misty, Noelle cleared her throat and pulled herself together. “Anyway, I’m glad she’s happy.” She nodded at the papers she’d dropped off. “Thanks for handling this for her.”
Valri was more than happy that she’d been asked to help. “Hey, what’s family for if not to help out?” she asked with a warm smile.
“I’m beginning to find that out,” Noelle answered—
and she was. “See you at the wedding.”
“Count on it,” Valri promised happily. She found herself growing excited at the very prospect of attending the wedding.
When Noelle left, Alex sat up a little straighter, managing to catch a glimpse of the list the other woman had dropped off, albeit the glimpse was upside down.
He let out a low whistle, which in turn caught Valri’s attention. “Those are a lot of names,” he commented. “That’s going to take you forever.”
She’d already gotten a head start on this, reviewing mentally what needed to be done. She scrutinized the list now. “Actually, it isn’t. I worked up a program for that.”
“Of course you did,” he quipped. The woman was unbelievable. Beauty and an abundance of brains were one hell of a combination. “Tell me, Cavanaugh, if you got left out in the rain, would you rust?”
“You don’t have to be a machine to come up with programs,” she pointed out, letting his comment roll off her back.
Picking up the papers, she went down the extensive list quickly, focusing on the surnames that were not identical to hers. When she reached the one she was looking for, she grinned. Andrew Cavanaugh was uncanny. He really was up on everything that was currently happening.
Looking up again, her eyes met Alex’s. “I wouldn’t make any plans for Saturday, either, if I were you.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Why?”
“Because you’re invited,” she informed him gleefully.
“I don’t even know the ‘happy couple,’” he protested.
She was beginning to get a handle on the way Andrew Cavanaugh and the others operated. “It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t. You know me and from what I’ve learned about these blowout parties, that’s all it takes. This makes you officially a ‘friend’ of the family, not to mention that you’re also a cop—two reasons for you to be included.”
She paused for a second, studying the names on the list. She could reach them all using Twitter, but that took for granted that everyone checked their smartphones several times a day.
“This might actually be simpler if I also post a notice in the break room on every floor.” She rolled the thought over in her mind, then decided, “I’ll do it. I’ll do both.” She grinned as she glanced back at Alex. “Better to wear suspenders and a belt than to risk having your pants fall down.”
Alex stared at her. “Is that some kind of a Cavanaugh proverb?”
“No, it’s just something that my mother used to say,” she told him, adding, “She was a very protective lady.”
“Protective, huh?” All he could think of was that if the woman was protective, then life had to be a living hell for Valri’s mother. “She must have had a fit when all of you dutifully marched off to become part of the police department.”
“My mother passed away before any of that happened,” Valri told him quietly.
“Oh.” Alex quickly went into damage-control mode, first removing the size-eleven foot from his mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Why should you?” she asked, absolving him of all guilt. “Don’t apologize. It’s okay. I don’t mind talking about her. In a way, talking about her kind of keeps my mother alive for me.”
She looked at Brody for a moment. He was coming around, she realized. That chip he’d had on his shoulder when they first met in the chief’s office was mercifully becoming nonexistent.
“How about you?” she asked. “Are your parents alive?”
He appeared a little uncomfortable, and she wondered why.
The next moment, the questions that were being raised in her head had to be put on the back burner. Latimore had emerged from his office and he was heading straight for their desks.
“You might have just caught another one,” the lieutenant said, handing Alex a sheet of paper with hastily jotted-down information, including an address, on it.
“Another dead gamer?” Alex asked before he took note of the address where the body was discovered.
“No.” The address belonged to a very exclusive residential area where guesthouses came with a million-dollar price tag and main residences were affordable only to approximately one percent of the population. “But it looks like this case might ultimately be connected to our dead hacker.”
Alex looked at the address. “What, he came back from the dead and killed someone with blue blood?”
The lieutenant frowned at Alex’s irreverent attitude. “This might tie in with that theory you were spinning earlier, the one about the mobile cell tower picking up intel about which houses would be empty because the residents were gone on vacation.”
Latimore quickly gave them a thumbnail sketch of the events. “A vacationing couple got into a knockdown, drag-out fight and came back early, ready to call separate divorce lawyers. When they walked in, they surprised the burglar who was lifting a Monet off their wall. From the sketchy details, I gather there was a physical fight. Somehow the husband got hold of the burglar’s gun and shot him.”
“How bad?” Alex asked.
“As bad as it gets,” Latimore answered. “The burglar’s dead, the husband’s in shock and yelling his head off and the wife is hysterical. It’s a noise-fest. Get over there and see if you can get us some kind of answers,” the lieutenant ordered.
Alex blew out a breath, then sat up. “Sounds like a perfect way to end the day.” He looked over at Valri as Latimore went back to his office. “Listen, you’ve got that thing to do for your uncle. Why don’t you go do it? I can handle this alone.”
“I’m sure you can,” she agreed. “But I’m coming with you. And since you’ll be the one driving, I can get started on Andrew’s list while you bring us to the crime scene. I multitask, remember?”
Alex shook his head, but it was because he was amused, not annoyed. “How could I forget? I’ve got you to remind me.”
Valri flashed him a cheerful smile.
He was having less and less luck blocking that out, he thought.
* * *
Quail Hill Community prided itself on the high caliber of residents the development attracted. To have something like a burglary/murder—even one in self-defense—happen here was unheard of. Like a true train wreck, it had drawn out almost all of the nearby residents. They gathered, dressed in their designer clothes and overpriced sunglasses, on the outer perimeters of the yellow tape, eager for details while doing their best not to appear that way.
Considering that the crime scene investigation unit, as well as a detective from Robbery, was already on the scene, finding somewhere to park nearby was a feat that was beginning to look next to impossible.
Eventually Alex found a space by the curb that was exactly the length of his vehicle and not an inch more. It was a definite test of his parallel parking skills.
Valri was about to suggest trying farther up the block, but her partner looked determined to get into the small space. She held her tongue as well as her breath.
To her utter amazement, Alex managed to get his car in between two parked SUVs. It took him only one try and he managed to get his vehicle in between the other two without so much as touching either of them.
When he finally released the steering wheel, Valri let out a low, appreciative whistle. Alex looked at her quizzically, half expecting a wisecrack to come out of her mouth.
Instead, she said, “I’m impressed. I couldn’t do that,” she told him honestly.
He would have been better off if she’d made some sort of sarcastic remark. This softer, gentler version of her was making life very difficult for him. There was nothing there to be annoyed with, nothing to help him remember to keep her at arm’s length—especially when he wanted to do something entirely different with his arms.
“You’re a Cavanaugh,” he told her gruffly as he got out on his side. “You can
do anything.”
“You know, you’re going to have to stop that if we’re going to be working together.”
“Oh, but I have such few things to look forward to,” he quipped melodramatically.
“You have the wedding on Saturday to look forward to,” she reminded him crisply, raising the yellow crime scene tape that was stretched before the front of the house, which looked as if it deserved the title “mansion” rather than “house.” Impressive in its sleek, clean lines, it still looked exceedingly uninviting to her. She couldn’t imagine children playing in a house like this.
“I’m not going,” Alex told her. It was a lot safer that way. The last thing he needed was to see this woman in civilian clothing, especially if it hugged her curves—and he had a feeling that it would.
“You not going would insult a lot of people,” she warned matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t do it if I were you.”
He waved a dismissive hand at her words. “With the crowd that’ll be coming, those people you think I’ll be insulting won’t even know that I’m not there.”
“Trust me, Andrew will know—and so will Brian. They just have this knack,” she assured him, repeating what she’d heard. “They’re good people.” That much she knew firsthand. “You don’t want to be insulting them. Think about it,” she coaxed. “The music’s always good, the food’s even better. It’ll be a cop-fest as well as a wedding. There’s no reason not to go—unless you want to be ornery,” she said, her eyes holding his to see if she’d gotten through to him. “I wouldn’t recommend being ornery if I were you. It’s really counterproductive and it’s not projecting the kind of image you want to cast.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’m a student of human nature as well as a gamer and a cop.”
“Detective,” he corrected her. “Not cop. There’s a difference.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she promised. “Now, about you coming to the wedding...” She allowed her voice to trail off, waiting for an answer.
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