“Fifteen,” I told him. “There are fifteen kids here, and that’s not counting your three missing.”
I started to lose focus. I didn’t know if it was the shock of seeing all those kids or what, but I was back sitting in my kitchen. Detective Cavanaugh was standing there, staring at me.
“Tell me again,” he demanded.
I told him again.
He ran both his hands through his hair. “You’re playing with me aren’t you?” he said with a maniacal laugh. “This is payback for me acting like a jerk to you yesterday.”
I sat there and just looked at him, not believing what I was hearing. How could he think I would be so cruel as to make something like this up?
“You know, Detective,” I said, leaning forward, “not everything is about you.” I stood up and walked out of the kitchen. “And you weren’t being a jerk yesterday,” I said sweetly. “You were being an asshole.”
With that parting shot, I stormed upstairs into my bedroom. I grabbed jeans, panties, T-shirt, and bra, and headed into the shower. I fumed, standing under the hot spray of water, shampooing my hair. After a rinse and repeat, I shut the water off and drew back the curtain, reaching for my towel. I not only found my towel, but also one Detective Cavanaugh. He was holding my towel and watching me with a hungry gaze as I stood there dumbfounded, dripping wet, and naked as the day I was born. I eeped and grabbed the shower curtain, wrapping it around me. Of course, as the curtain was transparent with small cabbage roses, it did nothing to hide my nudity but in fact actuated the protruding parts by sticking to them like cling wrap. Detective Cavanaugh made a noise low in his throat and thrust the towel at me.
“I need you to come down to the station and look at pictures of missing kids to see if you can match anyone to what you saw.” He turned and stomped out of the bathroom. “Oh, by the way,” he said, “nice tattoo.”
I screeched and gave a little angry dance before peeling the shower curtain off myself. After blasting my hair with a dryer, slapping on some makeup, and dressing, I came downstairs and found Detective Cavanaugh slipping on his boot while talking on his cell.
“We’re on our way,” he said. He closed his phone and slid it back into his pocket. “That was Johnson. He’s waiting for us; we need to haul ass.”
That was it? Not a word about what just happened in the bathroom? It was back to business. Boy, was this guy confusing. I looked out the window and saw the sun shining brightly. Yep, the rains had stopped; time to get back to work. I grabbed my jacket off the tree by the front door and headed into the kitchen for my purse, Detective Cavanaugh right at my heels.
“My truck’s out front,” he said.
“That’s nice,” I replied, digging out my keys.
He stood with his arms crossed, looking at me. “Are you trying to be difficult?” he asked. “Is this because I saw you naked? Am I being punished?”
Sure, now he talks about the shower. I am so past that…not.
“Detective,” I said with a mock sigh, “again, not everything is about you. Yes, you have a nice truck and I’m sure you’ll have a lovely drive to the station. I, however, will be driving my own car.”
“This is about the shower thing, isn’t it,” he said running his hand through his hair. “Look, I’m sorry, I was out of line. I shouldn’t have been in there with you. I thought I could just pop my head in and yell at you to hurry up. I didn’t know your curtain was see-through. If it will make you feel better, I’ll let you see me naked, too.”
I pretended to think about this. Okay, I lied; I really gave this some serious thought. You betcha I wanted to see him naked—preferably when I was naked, too—but didn’t want him to think I was easy or let him off lightly for anything that had happened since I met him. So I pretended to pretend.
“I’ll give that a pass, thanks,” I said casually. “I don’t see why you have to drive; I can just meet you there.”
He raised his eyebrow and gave me a sexy grin. “You’ll like it when I drive. I can take you to places you’ve never been before,” he said in a husky voice.
I rolled my eyes at his innuendo, but in my head I was definitely thinking: Oh yeah baby. Drive me! Drive me!
Enough of this, I told myself firmly. There was a time and place for this, and that wasn’t here and now. There was a small whimper as my inner slut tried to put her two cents in, but I held my ground.
“Look,” I told him sternly, drowning out the whimper, “Johnson’s gonna have kittens if we don’t get to the station pronto. I want to take my own car so I’m not stuck there. So do me a favor and flip the bottom lock on the front door on your way out.”
I walked out the kitchen door without a backward look, got into my car, and pulled out of the drive. Detective Cavanaugh pulled away from the curb and rode my ass the whole way to the station. I got the distinct impression that he was used to getting what he wanted from women, whether it was sex or a ride in his truck. Well, it was best he found out now that I didn’t give up control easily.
Chapter 4
I pulled into the parking garage with Detective Cavanaugh still on my tail. I parked in Captain Johnson’s designated spot. He never uses it. I don’t think he even owns his own car. He always drives an unmarked city car and parks it in the loading zone right next to the elevator; I guess being Captain has more perks than I thought.
Detective Cavanaugh parked down the row from me. He walked up, shaking his head, grabbed me by my arm, and led me to the elevators. We got out on the second floor. This was the home of the Fresno Detective Division. Men and women were walking around, sitting at their desks, shuffling papers, and talking on their phones.
I saw Captain Johnson standing in the doorway of an interview room, repeatedly looking at his watch. I rounded a cubicle, and he spotted me.
“Where in the hell have you two been?” he barked.
“Jeez, Johnson, don’t get your panties in a twist,” I told him, patting his big-barreled chest as I walked by. “I had a rough day yesterday and had a hard time getting it in gear this morning. Give me a break, will ya?”
His gaze softened a minute. “You all right, Rommy?” he asked, his voice toned down to a growl to let me know he was concerned. “I should have told Cavanaugh about your problem with rain. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No sweat,” I told him, as I walked into the interview room. I saw boxes and boxes stacked along the walls. “Having storage issues?” I inquired. Detective Cavanaugh pulled out a chair for me to sit.
“These are all the missing kids in the age ranges you saw. We’ll start with the ones in our area and then spread out,” Johnson said.
“Why not wait and just ask the kids, when you retrieve them, who they are,” I said, irritated at the thought of having to go through even one of those boxes.
“Rommy,” he said with a gruff sigh, “you said they were in caves. This isn’t your usual case where you can just back it up and find a house number or street address.”
What he meant by backing it up is that I’m able to pull back from the person I’m looking for and view the surroundings they’re in. I can walk around a house or building that they are being held in. Doing this gives me the exact location of where the person I’m focused on can be found inside. This information is vital for the safety of the officers and the victim. I can even leave the location and travel a very short distance to get cross streets or even landmarks. It’s kind of like walking around and viewing everything through a video camera lens.
“You don’t know that,” I said grumpily. “I haven’t even tried to back it up. They could be just outside of town for all we know.”
I hated it when I was asked to do a case that turned out to be something I’d never done before. I’m sure of my own abilities when everything falls within the realm of “been there, done that,” but I become unsure of myself and my accuracy when I’m asked to do something different. I could tell this was going to be different.
“Let me try to back it up,” I sai
d, shedding my jacket and getting comfortable in the hard-backed chair.
Detective Cavanaugh took the chair across from me and put the envelope containing the pictures of the three missing children in front of me. I reached out for it, but Johnson stopped me.
“No overdoing it, Rommy,” he said with a serious look on his face. “We know the kids are alive, and you have nothing to prove to anyone.” At this he gave Detective Cavanaugh a glare.
I nodded and pulled the envelope to me. I opened it and drew out the pictures, laying them on the table in front of me. Again, I spread them out boy, girl, boy.
“Why did you just do that?” Johnson asked. As usual, his sharp eyes didn’t miss a thing.
“Cavanaugh will tell you,” I said. I could hear Detective Cavanaugh relaying to Johnson my explanation of why I laid the pictures out as I did. I focused inside my head, setting the image of the children, and I found myself back in the caves.
All the children that I saw were now in a type of cafeteria. Two long tables were lined up in the middle of the cave. Bare bulbs were strung across the ceiling. The floor was hard rock with a thin layer of loose dirt. Folding tables were set along the far wall of the cave, and tinfoil trays of food sat on stands with cans of Sterno underneath to keep the food hot. I walked between the tables, looking at each of the children. They were eating off orange cafeteria trays, and they were all dressed the same: loose pants and tunics with soft-sole, slip-on shoes. I began to describe, out loud, everything I saw, hoping any little detail would help. At the end of the right table, I saw my kids. They were listless, eating but not really seeing their food. They looked drugged. All the children looked drugged, some more than others. There was one boy who drew my attention. He looked about twelve. His eyes seemed more focused than those of the other children. They darted around the room and then quickly went back to his food. I described this boy to Cavanaugh and Johnson. This boy looked ready to bolt, and he might be my ticket to finding these caves. If I looked at any of the photos in the boxes or if I tried to focus on any other kid than my three, he’d be the one. I also told this to Cavanaugh and Johnson.
“Rommy,” Johnson said, “are there any adults in the room?”
“No,” I said softly, concentrating. “There are three ways out of this area. I’m going to check them out.”
I chose the one to my left and followed a narrow passage. It led me back to the dorm cave. All the beds were made, and there were no extra clothes or any personal items lying about for me to see. I went back to the cafeteria cave and then through the right passage. This passage had many small tunnels leading off of it. I took the first tunnel on my left and followed it to a small cave filled with boxes. There were only a few marked, and one or two were open. The marked boxes were various paper products: toilet paper, paper cups, napkins, and such. The boxes held no markings to identify the store they were purchased at, but I thought it was safe to assume they were bought at a warehouse store where you could buy these things in bulk. I described all that I saw as I moved from passage to passage. Some were small caves holding more supplies. I saw a large cave set up with medical equipment, like a mobile hospital.
The farther I went into what I considered a main passage, the more offshoot tunnels I found. I only checked those tunnels and areas that the trail of lights along the ceiling lit up. I came to another large area that had portable showers and toilets. Describing this room and its contents, I moved off again, exploring more offshoot tunnels with lighting. The tunnels that didn’t have a string of bulbs running through I had no choice but to leave alone. I’d poke my head in, but unless I could make out discernible shapes, I moved on. Too bad the lightning strike didn’t give me night vision. It would have come in handy right now.
I could hear Johnson bitching about something, but I wasn’t really paying attention until he grabbed me by my shoulders and began to shake me. I didn’t want to come back yet. I still had a lot of lighted tunnels to follow and another exit out of the cafeteria to explore. The vision of the caves began to fade and that was when I realized my head was splitting. All of a sudden, I couldn’t focus my eyes. Johnson was a blurry outline.
“Damn it, Rommy!” he yelled.
As my eyes began to clear, I saw his face. He was pale, his eyes frightened. Johnson hated to worry or be frightened; it made him angry.
“Ow!” I said, putting my hands on my head to not only stop what felt like my skull breaking into little bitty pieces, but to also stop my head from wobbling on my neck like I was the world’s biggest bobblehead. Johnson peered into my eyes.
“I told you not to overdo it!” He pushed my hair off my forehead. “Aw crap!” he said as a drop of blood trickled from my right nostril. He let go of me and bellowed out the interview room door for someone to bring a box of tissues.
Cavanaugh, apparently a Boy Scout in his youth, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small knife to cut a strip off the bottom of his T-shirt. He slid his hand underneath my hair and gently cupped the back of my neck. Holding the strip of T-shirt to my nose, carefully he wiped.
“It looks like it stopped,” he said softly. He rubbed his thumb over the creases in my forehead, the physical sign of my headache, trying to smooth them. “How do you feel?”
“I’ve got a whopper of a headache,” I whispered. I was a little uncomfortable having him in my face when I was laid low like this. The only people to ever see me when I was heading to the point of no return were my family, Johnson, and Kelli.
Johnson set a box of tissues down on the table, along with a cold can of cola. He shook out two of my prescription migraine pills that he must have retrieved from my purse and handed them to me. Cavanaugh popped the top of the cola and pushed my hand holding the pills up to my mouth.
“I can’t take these yet,” I told him. “They’ll knock me out. I have to go home first.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Rommy,” Johnson said. “We’ve got bunks in the back where you can sleep off the pills.” He pushed the cola to me. “If you didn’t let it get out of control like a rookie, I would have allowed Cavanaugh to take you home,” he admonished.
I was a little pissed that he was lecturing me right now. I didn’t make a mistake and ignore the warning signs; there weren’t any warning signs with this vision, and I told him so.
“It must be the distance,” he said, pulling a map pinned to a rolling white board closer to him. “The closest caves are up in Oakhurst and Coarsegold, but there’s also a few in the national forests and parks, too.”
“There’s thousands of acres of forests that have caves. Without getting a specific area or triangulation, it would be next to impossible to find the caves you saw,” Cavanaugh said in frustration.
“I’ll try again later,” I told him. “I just need to get rid of my headache.”
“Take your pills,” Johnson said, his voice gruff.
I wanted to be stubborn and insist on going home, but I knew if I didn’t take the pills in the next five minutes, my headache would get worse and I would begin to get nauseated. I really didn’t want to toss my cookies in front of Cavanaugh, so I relented and took the pills, washing them down with the cold can of soda. I slid the cold can across my forehead, hoping it would help with the pain. I usually can time exactly when the pills start to kick in, but I’d never taken them on an empty stomach before. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they kicked in before I finished the can of cola.
“You’d better show me where I can lay down,” I said in what seemed like a faraway voice. I stood up and wobbled. Cavanaugh grabbed me by my arm to steady me. I tried to move away from the table, but my feet and legs weren’t working properly and caused me to do a type of shuffling two-step. I took a step back to keep my balance and just kept stumbling backward until my butt hit the wall. My legs began to melt—at least that’s what it felt like—and I started to slide down the wall.
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Rommy,” Johnson said. “Did the damn doctors change your pills or som
ething? What’s wrong with you?”
“Nope, same pills,” I said, waving my hand. My fingers created pretty trails of sparkly blues, oranges, and greens in the air. I giggled and waved my hand again. Cool! “Look, I sparkle!”
Johnson shook his head in disgust. Cavanaugh smiled, his eyes twinkling at me.
“Could be because she didn’t eat anything yet today,” he told Johnson as he watched me flutter both hands through the air.
“Get her to the bunks,” Johnson sighed. “She’s your responsibility, Cavanaugh, and do I need to remind you that she’s family to me?”
“No, sir,” Cavanaugh said, taking the Captain’s warning in stride. “Come on, Tinkerbelle.” He scooped me up into his arms and carried me out into the squad room. I marveled at how effortless it seemed for him to tote me around, as though I weighed nothing more than a feather. I slipped my arms around his neck and just stared at the rugged beauty of his face. His lashes were dark and obscenely thick, framing his eyes. He had a small scar on the outside corner of his right eye. I wondered how he got it and then thought about how much it must have hurt. I cooed over the scar and gave it a gentle kiss to make it feel better.
Detective Cavanaugh looked at me, his eyes crinkled in amusement. “You getting frisky with me, Tinkerbelle?” he asked with a grin.
I rubbed my knuckles over his whiskery chin. “You have an owie,” I told him sadly.
He chuckled as he shifted me so he could open a door at the end of a hallway off the squad room.
“So you thought you’d kiss it and make it better?” he asked as he laid me on a cot on the far side of the room. I knew the detectives used this room to rest when they were on cases such as kidnappings that kept them running days at a time. I nodded solemnly and lay back with a sigh. He took a fluffy blue blanket from one of the lockers and spread it over me. The blanket was warm, but not as warm as being held by Detective Cavanaugh.
“Detective,” I said as he flipped the bottom of the blanket back and began to remove my shoes.
Lightning Strikes Page 4