She cleared her throat. “Yes, well, I think they’re pretty good cops, too.”
Andrew smiled at her, as if to indicate that her being a good police detective hadn’t been the focus of the conversations he’d been privy to. But he said nothing further along those lines.
Because she made no effort to come in, he took the lead. “Would you like to come in?” he coaxed.
She flushed. “I guess I’d better, if I want my hand back.”
Andrew chuckled. “Good call.” But she noticed that the former police chief didn’t release her hand until she was across the threshold. Just long enough for Frank to reach them.
To reach her.
“I was beginning to give up hope,” he told her cheerfully.
“Hope is something you never give up,” Andrew told him. “Not while there’s a breath left in your body.” And then he winked. “Remember that.” And then he turned to her again. “I’d better go see to the food. A pleasure finally meeting you, Julianne.”
“Likewise,” she said, still a bit dazed. Suddenly realizing that she was still holding on to the beribboned bottle of wine she’d brought, she held it out to him. “Oh, this is for the Chief and Mrs. Cavanaugh.”
Andrew accepted the bottle. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to let them know you brought it.”
As the former chief melted into the crowd, Julianne turned around to face Frank. “Finally meeting me?” She echoed the word Andrew had used. “I haven’t been in town that long.”
“It’s all relative,” Frank assured her. He subtly maneuvered his body so that she was no longer facing the door—and could escape.
Julianne looked around the large living room—and whatever she could see beyond. More than half the people there were Cavanaughs, the people she’d been introduced to at Rafferty’s the first night.
“Yeah, so I noticed,” she commented. There were more people in this room than on the reservation, when she’d finally left it. “You people could go off and form your own city.”
Frank grinned. Figuratively, they already had. Andrew had five children, all married with families of their own. Brian had four in the same state, not to mention that when the man had married his mother, he’d inherited four more “unofficial” Cavanaughs. And his stepfather’s late brother, Mike, had two offspring that he’d owned up to and three that he hadn’t. That made for quite a full house.
“What makes you think we haven’t?” he teased. Changing the subject as he eased Julianne farther into the room, he asked, “Would you like a drink?”
She didn’t want to stay any longer than she absolutely had to. “What I’d like is that information you promised me.”
She wasn’t thrilled with the enigmatic smile that curved his mouth. “All in good time, Julianne. All in good time. First, let’s go see about that drink.”
Before she could argue with him, or accuse Frank of luring her out on false pretenses, he floored her by taking her hand and leading her over to one of the side tables against the wall. This particular one had a bar set up on it.
His brother Zack was manning the bar, aided and abetted by a pretty dark-haired woman she heard him refer to as Krystle. By the look on both their faces, she gathered that they were more than just casually friendly. The next moment, she noticed the winking diamond on Krystle’s left hand. The ring silently confirmed her suspicions.
“I see he got you to come,” Zack said, offering her the same warm smile she’d seen on Frank’s lips. The family resemblance was hard to miss. The same bone structure, the same black hair and intense blue eyes. “Some shindig, isn’t it?” Zack raised a glass in a silent toast to his step-uncle. “Andrew Cavanaugh really knows how to throw a party.”
“What’s really amazing,” Riley chimed in, coming up behind her and Frank, “is that Uncle Andrew can do this kind of thing at the drop of a hat—and often.” She placed herself between the two couples. “You should have seen our mother’s wedding reception.” And then Riley rethought her words. “Come to think of it, you probably will.” She grinned at her older brother and his fiancée. “I heard that he’s already busy putting together Zack and Krystle’s reception.” There was laughter in her eyes. “Should be some blowout,” Riley predicted.
“Congratulations,” Julianne murmured, addressing her words to the couple behind the makeshift bar.
Frank took the bottle of beer his brother handed him without a word. He saluted his future sister-in-law with it. “My money’s still on Krystle coming to her senses and making a mad dash out of town.”
“No,” Krystle said softly, her eyes shining as she looked at Zack the way a woman might look at her hero, Julian though. “My dashing-out-of-town days are all behind me, thanks to Zack.”
Lost, Julianne looked at Frank for an explanation. “Long story,” he confided, lowering his mouth to her ear. “I promise to tell it to you if you stick around long enough.”
That was just it, she really wasn’t planning to stick around at all. These were very nice people, but she had no real business being here. She didn’t fit in. But she let Frank’s words slide without bothering to correct him. She’d discovered long ago that the less she said, the less she had to be accountable for.
Making a noncommittal noise, she accepted the glass of ginger ale that Zack poured for her and subtly glanced at her watch.
Eight hours later, Frank said to her, “Okay, it’s getting late and I guess it’s time to go.”
Seated on a sofa in the living room, Julianne looked at him in surprise. She had no idea how it had gotten to be so late. The hours seemed to have melted away and she’d been having too much of a good time to notice. That in itself, she realized, was a rarity. If she attended a party at all, she was accustomed to standing on the perimeter, observing.
That sort of thing wasn’t allowed at one of Andrew Cavanaugh’s gatherings. Everyone was drawn in, from the youngest to the oldest. No excuses were accepted. By anyone. Cavanaughs-by-marriage were just as apt to reel people in as the core family members—and quite possibly were even more intense about it. In the last eight hours, she’d gotten completely absorbed by the Cavanaughs, there was no other word for it.
During the course of the evening, it seemed to Julianne that every single person at the party came by at least once to talk to her. Frank’s mother, Lila Cavanaugh, had spent nearly an hour with her, talking to her the way she might have talked to a daughter. There were no barriers, no awkward pauses. Everything was straightforward and friendly.
They looked very good together, Julianne observed. Lila and Brian seemed perfectly matched, as if they’d been created as a set. Julianne could easily see why they—and their children—were so happy about the union.
Happy, that was the word for them. They were all happy.
Another foreign concept, Julianne thought, trying to remember when she’d last been in that state. Nothing came to mind.
That was when Frank told her that they were leaving.
She glanced at him, wondering if she’d misheard. There was no they. She and Frank had come in separate cars. And she was quick to point out that fact right after they’d said their goodbyes and Frank mentioned something about dropping her off at her hotel.
“In case you’ve forgotten,” she told him patiently, “I came in my own car, McIntyre.”
Frank seemed utterly unfazed. “Okay, then you can drop me off at my place,” he countered without missing a beat.
“What about your car?”
His attention fully focused on her, he dismissed the question with a careless shrug. “I can always have Riley pick me up in the morning and bring me back here to pick it up.”
“Why go through all that trouble?” she asked.
That was when the look in his eyes almost undid her. “Because a little extra time with you would be well worth it.”
Something tightened in her stomach. She was reacting to him again. With effort, she held it in. “Are you supposed to be talking to me like that? I’m mean, you
are technically my temporary boss.”
“Not here I’m not.” As far as he was concerned, they were equals away from the precinct. “Here I’m just Frank McIntyre, hoping to snag a few minutes alone with a beautiful woman.”
Smooth, very smooth, she thought. How many women had this man sweet-talked? “That just glides off your tongue, doesn’t it?”
The expression on his face was innocence personified. “Never had trouble with the truth.”
Julianne rolled her eyes. He was good, very good. He sounded as if he meant what he said. But she was very aware of his reputation.
“Okay, I’ll take you home,” she told him, then gave him her conditions. “But only if you promise to tell me whether or not you actually have that information about where Mary lived.”
Shouting a general goodbye to the room as he headed out the front door, Frank took her hand as easily as if he’d always been doing it. She did her best to ignore the warm feeling that came over her.
“I do,” Frank said, answering her question.
Julianne stopped walking. Hunk or no hunk, she wasn’t going to let him yank her around anymore. “I’m not taking another step until you tell me where her apartment is—or was,” she corrected. God, but it was hard thinking of Mary in the past tense. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to it.
He looked at her for a long moment, as if debating whether or not she meant it. He obviously decided that she did because the next words out of his mouth were, “All right, you lived up to your part of the bargain I’ll live up to mine. I’ll tell you where she was staying when she was murdered.”
The mere mention of the word wounded her. She forced herself to focus on what he was saying.
“I want to go there,” Julianne insisted as a surge of adrenaline appeared out of nowhere and found her. She felt her blood rushing in her veins, excitement skipping through her.
The look on his face was incredulous. He checked his watch. It was past eleven. “Now?”
“Now,” Julianne declared firmly. There was no room for argument.
Frank sincerely had his doubts about the wisdom of going to that part of Aurora at this hour. “Why don’t we wait until morning?” he suggested. “It’s a really seedy part of the city.” And it would only look more so with the absence of light.
But she refused to be talked out of it. This was where Mary lived. Possibly where she died. She had to see it.
“I’m not afraid,” she told him crisply, then tried her best to smile as she added, “I have the chief of detectives’ stepson with me.”
Frank set his mouth grimly. “Okay.”
He agreed, but it was against his better judgment. Not because the area wasn’t safe, but because viewing the squalid living quarters at night would make them appear even more depressing than they already were. She didn’t need that, he thought.
When they reached her car, she got in on the driver’s side. “Why don’t you let me drive?” he suggested. “I know where it is.”
But she shook her head. She was too wired to sit quietly in the passenger seat. “You can guide me,” she told him.
Resigned, Frank got in on the passenger side. Like a live version of a global positioning satellite, he doled out the directions in a modular voice as they came to each turn.
As she drove, she became increasingly aware of the changes that came over the scenery. For the most part, Aurora was upper middle class with all that entailed. But here, in the older part of the city, the moon didn’t cast as bright a light. It somehow seemed darker along the more narrow streets with their aged buildings. Darker and sullenly hopeless.
Parking in the street before a graffiti-laden building that had, for the last ten months, been condemned by the city—Mary’s building—Julianne tried to brace herself.
“You sure you want to do this?” Frank asked, opening the heavy iron door that marked the entrance to the building and holding it ajar.
Julianne squared her shoulders and looked straight ahead. “I’m sure.”
She wasn’t prepared for this.
Coming from a reservation where poverty was the general a way of life, Julianne discovered that she was still unprepared for the levels of poverty, of hopelessness that she found within the condemned building.
The smell was appalling and she came close to gagging. The acrid odor that pervaded the dank, dark hallway, was made up of many components: urine, dead rats, garbage left out to rot and other things that were better left unidentified.
Because there was no electricity, they used the flashlight that she kept in her glove compartment to illuminate their way inside the building. The lone beam intensified the poverty.
“It’s right here,” Frank said, pointing to the apartment to the left of the stairwell.
Walking ahead of her, he pushed open the door that no longer had a lock on it. Frank crossed the threshold and waited for her. He shouldn’t have told her. But then, she would have found out anyway. The discovery had to be made part of the report and she would have held it against him once she found out that he knew and hadn’t told her.
“And she lived here?” Julianne whispered in disbelieving horror. In comparison, the home Mary had run away from had been a palace.
Complete with its own monster, Julianne thought cynically.
She could hardly bring herself to move out of the doorway. The single barren space, once advertised as a studio apartment, almost screamed of despair. It was completely devoid of furniture. Beyond the dirt, there was only one thing in the apartment.
An old, worn-out blanket spread out on the cracked wooden floor.
Mary’s bed.
Finally moving forward, Julianne crossed to the blanket and crouched down to examine it. But even as she did so, her heart felt as if it was constricting in her chest.
“I gave this to her,” Julianne said hoarsely, only vaguely addressing her words to Frank. “Years ago. It was our grandmother’s. Oh, God.” Her voice nearly cracked. She felt hands on her shoulders, felt Frank raising her to her feet. She turned to him. Angry, confused. Hurting. “How could she have lived like this? How could anyone have lived like this?” she demanded, struggling not to cry.
“There were people she could have gone to,” Frank told her. “Missions. Homeless shelters. Organizations.” All the places they were presently checking out for any spare information about the victims. “She chose not to. Pride?” he guessed.
Julianne shook her head. She had a better answer. “Fear. Mary was afraid of everyone,” she told him. Her uncle had done that to Mary. Made her afraid to trust anyone. If you couldn’t trust your own father, who could you trust?
A sob racking her lungs, she squeezed her eyes tight, trying to push back the tears. They managed to seep through her dark lashes anyway.
Seeing her this way got to him. He knew it was a bad idea, telling her. “C’mon,” he coaxed. “You don’t belong here.”
“Neither did Mary,” she insisted, raising her voice angrily.
“No,” Frank agreed gently, guiding her out the door and down the hall to the front entrance. “Neither did Mary.”
The air outside the building smelled almost sweet in comparison. She took in several deep gulps, trying to regain control over herself. He waited, then brought her over to the car.
“I’ll drive,” he told her.
She would have taken it as a challenge, had she any energy left to her. But she suddenly felt too wiped out, too numb to argue with him. Very quietly she surrendered her keys.
He drove her vehicle to his apartment.
Becoming aware of her location, Julianne eyed him quizzically. After what she’d just been through, she’d assumed that he’d bring her to her hotel.
“I thought you might want to talk for a while,” he explained.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “What’s there to talk about?”
“We’ll find something,” he promised, getting out. Rounding the hood, he came over to her side and opened the d
oor for her. He took it as a bad sign that she made no cryptic remark about her capabilities regarding opening her own door. “At any rate, you shouldn’t be alone right now.”
She wanted to argue with him. To lash out at McIntyre. At anyone. But instead, she merely nodded and allowed him to help her out of the car.
Unlocking the door to his ground-floor apartment, Frank brought her inside. “I can put on some coffee,” he volunteered.
She was finally beginning to understand why her father crawled away from life and into the bottom of a bottle. The pain ripping her heart apart was almost too much to bear. She ignored his offer for coffee. “Do you have any whiskey?”
He thought of the bottle left over from celebrating his mother’s marriage. It was on the kitchen counter, next to the canister of sugar. “Yes.”
She took a deep breath, nodding. “Whiskey, then.”
“No.”
Julianne looked at him in surprise, wondering if she’d heard right. “What?”
“No,” he repeated. He could guess at what was on her mind and he wasn’t about to let her make that kind of a mistake. “That won’t help you. It’ll just give you a headache. Tomorrow the same feelings will be there and you’ll have one hell of a killer hangover.”
What kind of a man was he anyway? She stared at him, stunned. “I thought men liked getting women drunk. Hoping to get lucky.”
“I don’t want to ‘get lucky,’” he deliberately enunciated the phrase. “I want you to be okay.”
She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. “Well, that’s not going to happen. I don’t think I’m ever going to be okay again.” Her voice broke in the middle of her words and she covered her mouth with her hands, trying to pull herself together and still the sobs that threatened to break out. “Oh God, Frank. Oh God,” she repeated, unable to finish.
Because she was crying, he took her into his arms, trying to quiet her, trying to offer her what comfort he could.
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