Internal Affair

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Your place is with me,” he’d told her.

  She’d known then that her place was anywhere but with him.

  She gave her father a quick hug. “You know you’re the only man for me.”

  He patted her hand affectionately. The day she was born, his partner had expressed his regret that his wife hadn’t given birth to a son. Maggi was worth a hundred sons to him, and he told her so.

  “Not that I’m not flattered, Mag, but I’m not going to live forever.”

  “Sure you are.” She walked over to pick up her service revolver and holster from the bookcase in the family room where she’d left it. “And I don’t need a man to survive. No woman this day and age does.” She spared him a tolerant glance. “Catch up to the times, Dad.”

  He thought of his late wife. Maggi looked just like Annie had at her age. She’d had a way of making him feel that the sun rose and set around him without sacrificing a shred of her own independence. She’d been a rare woman. As was his daughter. He hoped to God that she’d find a man worthy of her someday.

  “’Fraid it’s too late. No new tricks for me. I’m the old-fashioned type, no changing that.”

  “Don’t change a hair for me,” she teased. Glancing at her watch, she knew she had to hit the road or risk getting stuck in ungodly traffic. She strapped on her holster, taking care to position the revolver to minimize the bulge it created. It was wreaking havoc on the linings of her jackets. “I’ve gotta go, Dad. Have a good day.”

  He nodded. It was time he got to work as well. To pass the time while he’d been convalescing, he’d taken to writing down some of his more interesting cases. Now he was at it in earnest, looking to crack the publishing world with a fictionalized novel.

  Matthew rose from the table, walking Maggi to the front door. “Would I be threatening some chain of command if I told you to have the same?”

  Have a good day. That wasn’t possible, she thought. Her new assignment was taking her back undercover. Not to any seedy streets where the enemy was clearly defined the way her old job had been, but into the bowels of the homicide and burglary division of the Aurora force. She felt this was more dangerous. Because there were reputations at stake, and desperate people with a great deal to lose did desperate things when their backs were up against the wall.

  Was Detective Patrick Cavanaugh a desperate man? Was that what had led him to betray the oath he’d taken the day he’d been sworn into the department? Had it been desperation or greed that had made him turn his back on his promise to serve and protect and made him serve only himself, protect only his own back?

  Not your concern, Mag, she told herself. She wasn’t judge and jury, she was only the investigator. Her job was to gather all the information she could and let someone else make the proper determination.

  If that meant putting herself in front of a charging bull, well, she’d known this wasn’t going to be a picnic when she’d signed on to help rid the force of dirty cops.

  She frowned, thinking of what her superior had told her about Cavanaugh. The detective had a list of honors a mile long and he was braver than the day was long, but he was as hard as titanium to crack. And as friendly as a shark coming off a month-long hunger strike. The dark-haired, scowling detective went through partners the way most people went through paper towels. The only one who had managed to survive had been Eduardo Ramirez. Until the day he was shot. Ramirez had managed to last two years with Cavanaugh. According to what she’d read in his file, that was quite a record.

  Detective First Class Patrick Cavanaugh was the product of a long blue line. His late father had been a cop, one of his uncles had been the chief of police and he was the nephew of the current chief of detectives. Not to mention that he had over half a dozen cousins on the force at the present time. Possibly covering his back. In any case, she knew extreme caution was going to have to be exercised. There could be a lot of toes involved.

  She was Daniel, entering the lion’s den, and all the lions were related.

  But then, she’d always loved a challenge.

  Maggi flashed a smile at her father, meant to put him at ease. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  He watched as she slipped on her jacket, watched the weapon disappear beneath the navy blue fabric. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  She winked and kissed his cheek before leaving. “Count on it.”

  He did.

  The call had reached him before he ever made it to the precinct. An overly curious jogger had seen something glistening in the river, catching the first rays of the dull morning sun. It turned out to be the sunroof of a sports car. An all but submerged sports car. He’d called in his find immediately.

  A BMW sports car had gone over the railing and found its final resting place in the dark waters below. Patrick told dispatch he was on it and changed his direction, driving toward the river.

  Even before he’d closed his cell phone, he’d been struck by the similarity of the case. Fifteen years ago, his aunt Rose’s car was discovered nose down in the very same river. All the Cavanaughs had gathered at Uncle Andrew’s house, trying to comfort his uncle and the others—Shaw, Callie, the twins—Clay and Teri—and Rayne. It was the only time he had seen his uncle come close to breaking down. Aunt Rose’s body wasn’t inside the car when it was fished out. Or in the river when they dragged it. Uncle Andrew refused to believe that she was dead, even when his father told him to move on with his life.

  Patrick had been in the room when his father had said that to Andrew. They didn’t realize he was there at first, but he was, just shy of the doorway. There was something there between the two men, something he hadn’t seen before or since, something they never allowed to come out, except for that one time. His uncle came close to striking his father, then held himself in check at the last minute.

  But then, his father had a way of getting under people’s skins and rubbing them raw. It was what held him back. And turned him into a bitter drunk in his off hours. He never showed up for work under the influence, but the minute he was off duty, he went straight for a bottle. It was as if he was trying to drown something inside him that refused to die.

  The tension between his father and his uncle that day had been so thick they might have come to blows if Uncle Andrew hadn’t seen him standing there just then. The next minute, Uncle Andrew left, saying he wanted to go to the river to see what he could do to help find her. Uncle Brian went with him.

  Eventually, everyone stopped believing that she was still alive, but he knew that Uncle Andrew never gave up hope. His uncle still believed his wife was alive, even to this day.

  Hope was a strange thing, Patrick mused as he turned down the winding highway that fed on to the road by the river. It kept some people going, against all odds. He thought of his mother. Hope tortured others needlessly. His mother had stayed with his father until the day he died, hoping he would change. His father never had.

  Patrick blocked the thoughts from his mind. This wasn’t getting him anywhere. It was time for him to be a detective.

  When he arrived at the site, there were ten or so curious passersby milling around the area, craning their necks for a view. They were held back by three patrolman who had been summoned to the scene. A bright yellow tape stretched across the area close to the retrieved vehicle, proclaiming it a crime scene.

  He was really getting to hate the color yellow.

  Exiting his car, Patrick nodded absently at the patrolmen and strode toward the recently fished out sports car. Except for a smashed left front light, the car seemed none the worse for wear. The driver’s side door was hanging open, allowing him a view of the young woman inside. She was stretched out across her seat, her body tilted toward the passenger side. She was twenty, maybe twenty-one and had been very pretty before the water had stolen her last breath and filled her lungs, sealing the look of panic on her face.

  He judged the woman in the trim navy suit bending over her to be a little older, though he wasn’t sure by just how much
. He didn’t recognize her. Someone new in the coroner’s office, he imagined. She looked a little young to be a doctor.

  Or maybe he was just feeling old.

  Patrick took a step back, partially turning toward the nearest patrolman. “Who’s that?”

  The officer glanced over his shoulder. “Detective McKenna. Says she’s with you.”

  Irritation was close to the surface this morning. Okay, who the hell was playing games and why? “Nobody’s with me,” Patrick retorted tersely.

  He thought he heard the patrolman mutter, “You said it, I didn’t,” but his attention was focused on the blonde kneeling beside the vehicle.

  Crossing to her quickly, he wasted no time with preambles and niceties. He didn’t like having his crime scene interfered with. “I thought I was assigned to this case.”

  Maggi raised her eyes from what she was doing. The male voice was stern, definitely territorial. From what she’d been told, she’d expected nothing less. From her vantage point, six-three looked even taller than it ordinarily might have.

  Patrick Cavanaugh.

  Show time.

  He was more formidable looking than his photograph, she thought. Also better looking. But that was neither here nor there. She was interested in beauty of the soul, not face or body. If she was, Maggi noted absently, someone might have said she’d hit the jackpot.

  They’d said that Lucifer had been the most beautiful of the archangels.

  “You are,” Maggi replied mildly.

  Because she didn’t like the psychological advantage her position gave him, she rose to her feet, patently ignoring the extended hand he offered her. Ground rules had to be established immediately. She was her own person.

  “Then what are you doing here?” Patrick demanded.

  With the ease of someone slipping on a glove, she slid into the role she’d been assigned. Once upon a time, before the lure of the badge had gotten her, she’d entertained the idea of becoming an actress. Working undercover allowed her to combine both her loves.

  “I guess they didn’t tell you.”

  He had a crime scene to take charge of, he didn’t have time for guessing games initiated by fluffy blondes compromising his crime scene. “Tell me what?”

  “That I’m your new partner.”

  Chapter 2

  “The hell you are.”

  Patrick glared at this woman who looked as if she would be more at home on some runway in Paris, modeling the latest in impractical lingerie than standing beside a waterlogged corpse, pretending to look for clues.

  “Yes,” Maggi replied with a smile. “The hell I am.”

  No one had notified him. He hated having things sprung on him without warning. In his experience, most surprises turned out bad.

  “Since when?”

  “Since this morning. Last night, actually,” she corrected, “but it was too late to get started then.”

  He couldn’t believe that someone actually believed that he and this woman could work together. He found working with another man difficult enough; working with a woman with all her accompanying quirks and baggage was out of the question.

  “By whose authority?” he demanded.

  “Captain Reynolds.” She gave him the name of his direct superior, although the pairing had not originated with Reynolds. The order had come from John Halliday, the man in charge of Internal Affairs. A fair, honest man, if not the easiest to work with, Halliday had found a subtle way of getting her in so that not even Reynolds knew the true purpose behind her becoming Cavanaugh’s new partner. “He said you wouldn’t be thrilled.”

  Patrick’s frown deepened. He knew why Reynolds hadn’t said anything. It was because the captain didn’t care for confrontations from within. Well, he couldn’t just slide this blonde under his door and expect things to go well from there.

  “Captain Reynolds has a gift for understatement.” His voice was brittle. “I haven’t seen you around.”

  His icy blue eyes seemed to go right through her. She could see why others might find him intimidating. “I’ve been there. Around,” she clarified when he continued to stare at her. She shrugged casually. “I can’t help it if you haven’t noticed me.”

  Oh, he would have noticed her, Patrick thought. A woman who looked the way she did was hard to miss. She was the kind that made heads turn and married men stop to rethink their choice in a life partner. He wasn’t given to socializing, but he would have noticed her.

  Something didn’t feel right, though. “How long have you been a detective?” Patrick asked.

  “Three months.”

  Three months. A novice. What the hell was the captain thinking? Even a man as photo-op oriented as Reynolds had to know this was a bad idea. This woman needed training, aging, and that just wasn’t his line.

  Patrick waved her away. “Tell Captain Reynolds I don’t do baby-sitting.”

  “I don’t think that’ll matter to him,” she told him crisply. “He doesn’t have any school-aged children.” She indicated the vehicle next to her. “Now, why don’t we just make the best of this and get back to work?”

  Patrick looked at her sharply, about to make his rejection plainer since she seemed to have trouble assimilating it, when her words echoed in his brain. “We?”

  “We,” she repeated. There was more than ten inches difference between them in height. Maggi drew herself up as far as she could, refusing to appear cowed. “You’ve got to know that working with you isn’t exactly my idea of being on a picnic.”

  His eyes were flat as he regarded her. “Then why do it?”

  Halliday had told her to blend in, to stay quiet and gather as much information as possible about Cavanaugh and his dealings. The less attention drawn to herself, the better. But from what she’d managed to piece together about him, a man like Cavanaugh didn’t respect sheep. He sheared them and went on. What he respected was someone who’d stand up to him, who’d go toe-to-toe without flinching. That kind of a person stood a chance of finding out something useful. Someone who blended in didn’t.

  Maggi had her battle plan laid out. “Because I go where they send me and I always follow orders.”

  His eyes pinned her to the spot. “Always?”

  She met his stare head-on, his blue eyes against her own green. “Always.”

  Well, knowing Reynolds, that didn’t exactly surprise him. He wondered if she was someone’s daughter, someone’s niece. Someone Reynolds owed a favor to. You never knew when you had to call a favor in, especially when you had your eye on the political arena, the way Reynolds did.

  “Terrific.” He looked at her without attempting to hide his disgust. “A by-the-book, wet-behind-the-ears rookie.”

  She was far from a rookie, but this wasn’t the time to get into that. For now, she left him with his assumptions. “Guess that’s just your cross to bear,” she quipped, turning her attention back to the victim.

  He was accustomed to people withdrawing from him, to avoiding him whenever possible. This was something a little different. He wondered if stupidity guided her, or if she had some kind of different agenda. “You’ve got a smart mouth.”

  “Goes with my smart brain.” Deciding that the corpse wasn’t going anywhere, Maggi looked at the man whose soul she was going to have to crawl into. “I graduated top of my class from the academy.”

  If that was meant to impress him, she’d fallen short of her mark, he thought. He couldn’t stomach newly minted detectives, spouting rhetoric and theories they’d picked up out of the safe pages of some textbook. “There’s a whole world of difference between a classroom and what you find outside of it.”

  “I know.” It was going to be slow going, finding his good side. From what she’d gleaned, he might not even have one. But she felt he’d be less antagonistic if he felt she had some sort of experience. “I was in Vice in San Francisco.”

  His eyes slid over her, taking full measure, seeing beneath the jacket and matching trousers. It took more than fabric to disguise
her shape. She’d probably made one hell of a decoy. “Stopping it or starting it?”

  Her grin was quick, lethal. “Now who’s got the smart mouth?”

  He looked away. “Difference being, I don’t shoot mine off.”

  The wind kept insisting on playing with her hair. She pushed it away from her face, only to have it revisit less than a beat later. “I’ll remember that. See? Learning already.”

  Annoyed, Patrick knew there was nothing he could do about the situation right now. If he ordered her away, he had a feeling she wouldn’t retreat. He didn’t want to go into a power struggle in front of the patrolmen. No one had to tell him that behind the sexy, engaging smile was a woman who’d gotten her way most of her life. You only had to look at her to know that.

  He could wait. All that mattered was the end result. He didn’t want a partner. He wanted to work alone. It required less effort, less coordination. And less would go wrong that way.

  Patrick sighed. “Well, I need to learn something about you.”

  His eyes were intense, a light shade of blue that seemed almost liquid. She wondered if they could be warm on occasion, or if they always looked as if they were dissecting you. “Fire away.”

  “Your name. What is it?”

  She realized that she’d skipped that small detail. She put her hand out now. “Margaret McKenna. My friends call me Maggi.”

  He made no effort to take her hand and she dropped it at her side. “What do people who aren’t your friends call you?”

  “The repeatable ones are McKenna, or 3M.”

  Despite himself, he was drawn in. “3M? Like the tape?”

  Her gaze was unwavering. “No, because my full name is Mary Margaret McKenna.”

  He could see that the revelation pained her. She didn’t like her name. That was fair enough—it didn’t suit her. She didn’t look like a Mary Margaret. Mary Margarets were subdued, given to shy smiles. Unless he missed his guess, the last time this woman had been subdued had probably been shortly before birth.

  He laughed, his expression remaining unaffected. “Sounds like you should be starring in an off-Broadway revival of Finian’s Rainbow.”