Cavanaugh's Surrender

by Marie Ferrarella

  “That only takes about two hours out of my day.”

  If he looked at his pay and divided it by the number of hours he put in overall, he was getting paid a pittance. But he wasn’t in it for the money, or even because it was the family business. He believed in his work. Believed in making a difference. But that wasn’t anything he wanted to advertise. It clashed with his devil-may-care image.

  Nodding toward what his father was testing, he asked, “You find anything new?”

  “Nothing we haven’t already surmised. Paula Richardson had enough sleeping pills in her system to put a school of sharks to sleep. The slashed wrists were just overkill. Too bad. She looked like a lovely girl.”

  “A lovely girl somebody really wanted dead,” Logan commented. “How’s your chief assistant holding up?”

  Sean smiled, noting how hard Logan was trying to appear as if he was completely detached in his view of the case and Destiny’s connection to it. If Logan had really been detached, Sean mused, he wouldn’t have felt the need to have that point driven home.

  “On the surface, she’s behaving very professionally. But I won’t pretend that I’m not concerned about her, Logan. She’s keeping everything bottled up inside, and that kind of thing can only be sustained for so long before the inner pressure gets to be too much. Keep an eye out on her for me, will you?”

  Logan was surprised by the request. “Dad, I’m going to be working the case, remember?”

  “Yeah, well, so will she, no matter what anyone says to the contrary.” He smiled to himself. “She’s stubborn enough to be one of us,” he told his son. “By the way, she went by the pharmacy where the prescription was issued.”

  Logan was about to protest that he had kept the prescription container in his possession, dropping it off at the lab last night, but that obviously hadn’t made a difference.

  “And?”

  “And it turns out that they never issued the prescription to our victim. They have a file on her and the number came out of their pharmacy, but years ago and not for sleeping pills but for some cough medicine for a little girl. Backs up Destiny’s theory that her sister was murdered. By the way,” he added mildly, “her desk is at the other end of the floor—in case you want to swing by sometime and, you know, exchange theories,” he concluded euphemistically.

  Logan merely shook his head. “You know, Dad, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you had something up your sleeve.”

  Sean innocently raised one hand into the air, demonstrating. “Just my arm, boy. Just my arm.”

  It was a well-known fact, especially around his family, that people in love tended to want to pair up everyone else in the firm belief that everyone should be as happy as they were.

  Standing in the doorway, Logan took a good look at his father, seeing him in a completely different light since when he had first entered.

  “Dad?”

  Sean was already refocused on his task. His “Yes?” was more than a little distracted.

  The thought of his father in a romantic relationship had never really crossed his mind before. He wasn’t certain how to react, really. But he and his siblings had always been cautioned about leaping to conclusions, so he decided to ask first before trying to get used to the idea.

  “You’re not in love or anything, are you?”

  “Define ‘or anything,’” Sean countered, amused by the question. When his son seemed at a loss for words, Sean told him. “You’ll be the second to know when and if I am,” he promised.

  “Who’ll be the first?” Logan asked suspiciously. He fully expected his father to say “Sabrina.”

  But again, his father surprised him. “Me,” Sean replied simply.

  Logan left the lab, feeling more than a little bewildered even if he didn’t show it. His world had been turned upside down. First they had discovered that his father had been accidentally switched at birth with another male infant and that he, and thus they, were actually part of the Cavanaugh family. If that wasn’t enough, now it looked as if after years of being content to be their sole parent, his father was dating.

  Seriously dating, from the sound of it.

  At twenty-eight, Logan felt he was too old to be entertaining the idea of getting a stepmother. Wasn’t that something children acquired?

  You’re not the one who matters here.

  That was just plain weird, he thought. He could almost hear Bridget’s voice in his head. Bridget, the one who always put him in his place.

  The main thing to remember, he told himself, was that his father seemed happy, and heaven only knew his father deserved to be happy.

  Arriving at the closed elevator door, he was about to press the button on the wall beside it when a light pooling along the floor down the hall caught his eye, and then his attention. He’d come in early to catch his father alone so that he could feel him out about the woman he was seeing—he’d run into Kendra and Matt on his way out of the precinct last night and they had mentioned the change in his father’s evening schedule. Logan knew his father was always in early and always alone, which made it a good time to talk to him.

  Was he wrong? Did his father have a kindred spirit amid the CSI unit?

  Curious, Logan moved away from the elevator bank and made his way down the hallway.

  He had a hunch the light was coming from Destiny’s office even before he actually got to the doorway and looked in. Given the current case the unit and he had just caught, her being here early didn’t exactly come as a great shock to him.

  But it did surprise him that Destiny appeared to be wearing the same clothes she’d had on yesterday.

  “Didn’t you go home last night?” he asked.

  Completely absorbed by what she was doing, Destiny jumped at the sound of Logan’s deep voice intruding into her world. She pressed her lips together just in time to suppress the yelp of surprise that automatically rose to her tongue.

  Taking in a shaky breath as she tried to calm her nerves, Destiny turned her chair halfway toward the doorway to confirm what she already knew. That Logan was standing there.

  She shrugged in vague dismissal. “I lost track of time.”

  There was something extremely attractive about the rumpled way she looked, he thought. He found himself wishing that they weren’t involved professionally so he’d be free to get involved another way. “Then let me clue you in—it’s tomorrow.”

  She frowned. Why was he even here at this hour? “Just what everyone needs, a talking desk calendar. Thank you, your work here is done,” she said, hoping he would leave so she could concentrate.

  “And so will you be if you don’t go home and get some rest.”

  Her frown deepened. Was that a note of concern she heard in his voice?

  No, she was just tired, that’s all. And then she remembered his offer of coffee and to listen if she just wanted to talk. Maybe he really was being nice and she was being too hard on him because her temper had shortened by half. Lack of sleep tended to do that to her, to make her irritable and impatient.

  “I’ll rest when we catch the bastard who did this,” she told him.

  “Your sister wouldn’t want you running yourself into the ground like this,” he pointed out.

  Now that was just empty talk. He didn’t even know her sister—and now he never would, she thought with a pang before she could tamp down the pain. With effort, she firmly put her emotions under lock and key. Anything she couldn’t use to help her catch Paula’s killer would just need to wait.

  “My sister didn’t want me doing a lot of things,” she pointed out briskly. “She wasn’t the easiest person to get along with.”

  Logan had a feeling his father’s chief assistant was using anger to keep herself from falling apart. Whatever worked. With a smile, he made an observation. “She probably said the same thing about you.”

  “Yeah, she did.” Logan had expected her to admit as much. The half smile that accompanied the words, though, was a surprise.

  It was the
first time he’d seen her really smile. It was a nice smile and not one of those smirky, snarky smiles that had a person bracing for some sort of witty, biting put-down. Hers was a sunrise-type smile that brought warmth with it. Definitely lit up the recipient, he realized, charmed.

  “You know, you’re really not supposed to be working on this,” he reminded her tactfully.

  He was aware that his father wouldn’t take her to task for this. He’d already demonstrated as much. But the homicide lieutenant who had put him on this case, he was a different story. He liked things by the book. So had he, Logan thought—when he was twelve. Now, solving cases was more of an improvisational theater at work. He made things up as he went along, and when it worked it was fantastic.

  Destiny pointed to the square silver clock on the opposite wall. “I start work at nine. This is still before my workday.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him and dug in. She really couldn’t seem to concentrate with him here. It was as if he was eating up her oxygen and making the room very, very warm. “Anything else?”

  He remembered what his father had just mentioned. “Yeah. Did you find anything else besides the fact that the prescription with her name on it didn’t really belong to your sister?” he asked. Then, because his question had caught her off guard, he added, “I stopped to talk to my father this morning. He filled me in.”

  She just naturally assumed that meant that Logan had stopped by the lab to check on the progress being made on the case. Why else would he be here? She had to admit that the detective’s thoroughness took her by surprise. Cavanaugh or not, she wouldn’t have thought that Logan was that dedicated to his job. He hadn’t given her that kind of an impression when she’d spoken with him yesterday.

  For once it was nice to discover she was wrong.

  “Yes, actually, I did find out something.” And then she raised her eyes to his and qualified, “I think.”

  “That sleeping with your head on your desk will give you a pretty bad crick in your neck?” he guessed.

  “Besides that,” she told him. She turned her monitor so that he had a better view of the screen. “I think I found a pattern,” she said excitedly.

  Actually, there was no “think” about it. Destiny knew she had. The cases, all appearing to be singular in nature, were far too similar to one another for this to be some unhappy coincidence occurring again and again—especially since there had been five other cases in as many years.

  “What kind of a pattern?” Logan asked, looking at her rather than at the screen.

  “The kind of pattern that involves apparent “suicides” of attractive young women ranging between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five who, according to the police files, killed themselves after breaking up with—or being dumped by—a mysterious boyfriend whom their family and friends not only didn’t get to meet, but didn’t even know by name.” Finished, she looked at him again. “Sound familiar?”

  Sounded identical, he thought, but he was never one to get ahead of himself on a case. “If they were called suicides, why were there police reports filed?” he asked.

  That was a good point—and she had an equally good answer. She’d known the only way to sell this was to stay one step ahead of Logan. “Because in all the cases, someone in the family didn’t think that it was suicide, that the so-called mysterious boyfriend did it.” She stopped for a second, straightening and pulling her shoulders back so that a minor cracking noise was heard, like the salute of old-fashioned cap pistols going off one at a time.

  “They’re all open cases,” she informed him, sitting back now. “In each case there was not enough evidence to lead them to a suspect.” And then she frowned slightly as she leaned back in her chair and rocked. “I didn’t think so in the beginning, but it looks like we might have a serial killer on our hands. Or at the very least, a killer with an agenda.”

  Logan studied the last screen she’d pulled up. The details there were very close to matching the ones that had come up last night. Very slowly, he nodded.

  “It looks like you might have something there.” And then he smiled at her. “Nice work, Richardson. I’ll take it from here.”

  The nascent smile vanished. “No, you won’t,” she countered with feeling.

  “Look, I don’t want any of the credit, but you know you’re not supposed to be involved in this. It’s a conflict of interest.”

  The hell it was. “I don’t have any ‘interest’ to conflict,” she shot back. “All I want is to help find Paula’s killer—and apparently the killer of a lot of other innocent women, as well,” she added, pointing to the monitor. “I don’t have anyone to ‘pin’ this on, so it’s not like I have an agenda or anything. The only agenda I have is to solve this.”

  He wasn’t going to leave her office without agreeing to let her work the case. She didn’t care if she had to bodily restrain him. The thought brought an unexpected flash of heat with it that she quickly dismissed.

  “Look,” she argued, “I’ve already been a help. I found out that the prescription wasn’t filled under my sister’s name despite what the label said and I found all these other so-called suicides that match Paula’s killer’s M.O. Who knows what else I can find out if I go on working this?” she pushed.

  “You don’t have to convince me,” he told her.

  It was the brass she would be going up against, not him. After talking to her, after seeing her at work, he wasn’t about to be a stickler about rules and regulations. He fully sympathized with what she was going through right now. In his opinion, finding her sister like that was an absolute living nightmare. Solving the case might actually give her sweet dreams. At the very least, it would give her the night back.

  Besides, the woman was damn easy on the eyes, and she did keep him up on his toes. It would definitely be simpler to join forces than have to fight her.

  “Well, then my working the case is a go, because you’re the only one I care about right now.” When she saw the grin slip over his lips, she knew she hadn’t worded her answer to him correctly. A bright pink hue took her cheeks prisoner. Just in time for him to see.

  “Wait,” she cried, determined to straighten this out. “That didn’t come out right.”

  “Came out fine from where I’m standing,” Logan told her. And then he sighed. He wasn’t going to even pretend to stand in her way. He didn’t belong with the establishment, only the rebels. “Okay, keep at it. I know my dad’s not about to come down on you. He completely understands the idea of family loyalty—”

  “Do you?” she heard herself asking, realizing that she wanted to hear a positive answer out of him.

  He watched her for a long moment, green eyes meeting blue. And, for the briefest of seconds, soul touching soul. “Yeah,” he heard himself saying quietly, “I do.”

  “Good,” she said so softly he read the words on her lips more than heard them. “Then I’ll just get back to work and touch base with you later.”

  “Later,” he echoed as he walked away.

  Part of him had an uneasy feeling that he was getting in over his head here, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  The other part was damn well looking forward to it.

  Chapter 6

  “Damn it!” Lieutenant Bailey’s disgruntled voice greeted Logan even before he crossed the threshold into the squad room.

  This, Logan thought, did not sound good.

  Usually it took a few hours before the day began to look as if it was going to hell. Having it begin in hell guaranteed a slow, unmerciful torture for him. When Lieutenant Bailey wasn’t happy, no one in his squad was happy.

  Walking in, Logan saw the reason why the lieutenant’s voice had carried so well. The man was not in his office. Right now, he was standing near the doorway, talking on his cell. Or rather, the older, disgruntled-looking man was cursing into his phone.

  “Problem, Lieutenant?” he asked mildly as the other man abruptly disconnected the call that was apparently creating his less than jovia
l mood.

  “Only if you call working with half a squad a problem. That was Wakefield, calling in sick. This is worse than when we had the blue flu,” he grumbled, referring to an incident several years back. At that time, an inordinate number of the uniformed officers called in sick in protest over what they felt was a wrongful disciplinary action of one of their own. Now that he recalled, Brian Cavanaugh had looked into the matter, found the charges to be false and had all actions dropped.

  “Nearly half of my men are out sick,” the lieutenant bit off in frustration. “I just hope the crazies don’t start coming out of the woodwork.” He looked at Logan as if seeing him for the first time. “You close that suicide case that came in last night?”

  “Funny thing about that, Lieutenant.”

  Bailey’s dark eyes grew even darker as he glared at him over his hawklike, patrician nose. “You’re not going to tell me that wasn’t a suicide, are you?”

  Logan ignored the warning note in the lieutenant’s voice. He didn’t believe in hiding information. The man needed to be kept in the loop, at least to some extent. “Well, yeah, actually I am,” Logan told him, then quickly added, “But there’s more,” before Bailey could unleash his mercurial temper.

  “More?” The lieutenant stared at him in disbelief. “What kind of ‘more’?” he asked.

  Logan knew what he was about to say wouldn’t be welcome, but in this case, he found himself agreeing with Destiny. “It looks like this might be the work of a serial killer.”

  Bailey sank down in Sullivan’s chair. “Aw, hell, no.”

  Taking a seat behind his own desk, Logan nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  It took less than a minute for Bailey to rally. He was back in fighting form and ready to issue a challenge. “Who the hell says it’s a serial killer?” he demanded angrily.

  Logan was about to say that it was the victim’s sister, but then decided it sounded better if he fell back on Destiny’s title at the crime lab instead. If nothing else, it carried some weight.