Ice flashed through her, followed immediately by angry heat. The last time he’d pulled this particular stunt, she’d lost the baby. No. No way was he getting away with this a second time.
No, she wanted to snap at them, I’m not falling for that again. But if these were real cops, that would be about the worst thing she could say. She took a slow breath and tried to focus on something concrete. Pierce County, Olsen had said. Ned was in Pierce County? They were a long way from home. Which was probably why they’d brought the local uniform with them.
Gemma wanted to ask if they were sure it was Ned—people always did. But of course they were sure, or they wouldn’t have come all this way and involved a second jurisdiction.
“No. No. He can’t be. Not really.” She stood, unmoving. Her voice clogged in her throat, but she forced herself to speak. “What happened? Was anyone else hurt?” Ned always did think he was a better driver than he really is. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Ned Carrow was found dead this morning at the summer home of Dr. Robert Mendelson. He was murdered, Ms. Cavanagh. I’m very sorry.”
Chapter Two
Brady rose from the desk and stepped softly out into the hall, straining to hear. He recognized the tone of cop voices just about the time he felt the atmosphere in the house change.
“Murdered? Ned?” Gemma’s words floated up through the stairwell.
The air whooshed out of his lungs as if he’d taken a punch to the solar plexus. Jesus! What the hell...? From his vantage point near the head of the stairs, he could just see a little of Gemma’s head. He couldn’t see the detectives at all. Should he go downstairs? Would it make things easier, or more complicated? Was there any way he could help? He moved his hand to the railing and realized he was still holding the Pegasus. As he strained to listen to the conversation below, he set the paperweight on the newel post and leaned slightly forward.
“Is there anyone we can call for you?” one of the detectives asked. “A neighbor, a relative?”
“My brother.” Gemma’s voice sounded far away now, and diminished, nothing like her spunky style when she was giving him what for. “His office is in Seattle.” Her breath hitched audibly and she looked up. One of the cops must be tall. “My brother,” she said again. She let go of the doorknob and led them into the living room.
Brady shifted along the banister to a spot where he could keep an eye on the detectives’ reactions. The two men looked around, taking in the stacks of half-filled boxes, piles of blank newsprint, the heap of colorful fabric art on a bentwood chair, and empty rods on the walls. He didn’t need to see their eyes flatten and cool to know they’d gone into full professional mode.
That settled it. Brady started to move, and realized with a jolt the figurine was gone. No time for more than a quick look around, but he didn’t see it on the floor as he started down, letting his footsteps be heard on the stairs.
Gemma looked up, startled, when he walked into the room. As if she’d forgotten he was in the house. Well, that certainly put him in his place. Then he saw some of the tension in her shoulders begin to ease. Here goes nothing. He stopped five feet from the detectives.
The older man broke the silence. “You are—?”
“Braden McGrath,” Brady said. “Computer and internet security.”
Gemma made the introductions.
Olsen turned a measuring gaze on him. Brady returned it, equally hard-eyed, and the two men shared a moment of recognition that precipitated a subtle shift of focus.
The tall one still looked suspicious and uneasy. “You have any ID, Mr. Mc—?”
“McGrath.” Brady turned a fraction to the right, just enough to put his left rear pocket into full view. He reached back, his movement deliberate but not markedly slow, and pulled out his wallet with two fingers.
Abernathy’s eyes narrowed.
Brady opened the wallet and handed Olsen a business card. “My contact information,” he said. “Ms. Cavanagh’s brother is one of my clients.”
“And you’re here today because...?” A note of belligerence slipped into Abernathy’s voice.
“Because Mike Cavanagh asked me to check his sister’s cyber-security.” Brady handed him a card as well.
Abernathy reached for the card, nodded, and turned back to Gemma. As he did, his fingers brushed Brady’s.
The vision hit without warning. Usually when Brady’s psychic batteries were running on empty, his touch drained away, too. But the visions came sometimes, when the situation was tense, the other person was seriously churned up about something, and Brady’s touch was running too low to keep his shields up. This one hit with sight, sound and smells, in living Technicolor. The light changed, and he was somewhere else, watching with Abernathy’s eyes.
The sunshine fell golden soft through the morning. The breeze carried the scent of cedars and salt water and just enough moisture to make its touch a caress as it brushed by. A small lake glinted in the sunlight, and birch trees rustled softly at the edges of a clearing near a stone-and-cedar cabin with lots of expensive options, a chimney of imported rock, a trim dock running out to a gently bobbing day sailor. He couldn’t hear traffic or the noise of the city, only the sounds of birds, lapping water, the hum of a turquoise dragonfly as it settled against the jade green of the grass, and the helpless retching of the young deputy who leaned white-faced over the hand-split cedar railing.
Suddenly Brady knew why the cops were so on edge. He sent a protective glance in Gemma’s direction. How far could he go to draw their attention away from her without making her situation even worse? She stood her ground, her face white and tense, and then she squared her shoulders. At that quiet gesture of courage, something warm began to break open in his gut. She didn’t deserve what was coming.
Before he could say anything, the dog came to life and placed herself four-square between the police and Gemma, ears forward, tail erect.
“Nikki, it’s okay,” Gemma said. The malamute, openly unimpressed with Gemma’s judgment of character, lifted her lip and growled deep in her throat at the intruders and began to stomp her front feet in warning.
“Please sit down.” Gemma waved the detectives to the couch and took a white-knuckled grip on Nikki’s collar.
Brady took a seat off to one side and tried to look harmless.
The three police officers remained standing. Abernathy looked toward his partner, then turned back to Gemma. “May we have your full name, please, Ms. Cavanagh?”
“Grace Elizabeth Maire Cavanagh.” She spelled it for them. “I go by Gemma.”
“Do you mind telling us where you were yesterday morning, Ms. Cavanagh?”
Enough was enough. Gemma’s nostrils flared. “I’d like to call my brother, now. He’s also my attorney.”
She jerked her phone from her shirt pocket, but before she could thumb the phone on, it rang. She saw the two detectives exchange a look as she turned to take the call. Her brother’s voice came at a distance. She heard the hiss of traffic in the background. He must be on his car phone, she thought.
“Gemma. What’s wrong?”
“Mike, there are two detectives and a uniform here from Pierce County. They said Ned has been murdered. They want to ask some questions.”
Mike’s voice took on a deeper timbre. “I’m westbound on the 520 bridge right now. As soon as I find a place to hang a U-ie without getting caught, I’ll head back your direction.”
“Nikki is upset about them, Mike. I don’t know if it’s their guns or their attitude.” At the edge of her vision, she saw Abernathy shift his weight.
“All the more reason to keep them on the porch until I get there.”
“Too late.”
“You let them in? Geez, Gemma. Didn’t Dad teach you anything? Okay. Since they’re already inside, you may as well have them ta
ke a seat. I’m looking at about twelve to fifteen minutes. Brady still there?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Don’t let him leave. Keep him close, Gemma, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, glad she could look away from Brady as she felt the heat spread up her throat and into her face. Again.
“He’ll be here in twenty minutes,” she said as she ended the call.
“Ms. Cavanagh,” Abernathy began with a shy smile, “do you think I could have a glass of water before we get started?”
That had to be the oldest ploy in their manual. Did they think she was a complete idiot? “Sure. You may as well go ahead and look around, Detective. You’re already inside.”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “You read a lot of mystery novels?”
“My dad was a Navy cop.”
“Huh. Your dad was a fed?”
“Twenty-three years.”
“That must have been different.”
“I guess. He went down in the line while I was in college. I miss him.” Where had that come from? Stop babbling, Gemma. It’s not going to help. “What happened? To Ned?”
“We’re not sure, just yet. I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry at all.
Gemma felt sure it was going to be a really long twenty minutes. She stared at a square of sunlight on the floor, and wondered why she couldn’t cry.
She’d cried for months when her dad was killed in a drug bust gone bad. And when her fiancé died in Bosnia, she thought her tears would leave permanent runnels from her eyes to her chin. She had finally managed to stuff her grief for them deep into hallowed chambers of her heart, just by sheer imposition of will. Otherwise, she could never have gone on.
But she couldn’t even summon a single tear for Ned. Maybe that would come later.
She looked up as the Kirkland officer took a seat in a bentwood rocking chair. Gemma noted the spot allowed Officer Teng to watch Gemma, Brady and Nikki without being obvious.
When the doorbell chimed again, Gemma was so relieved she nearly sprinted to the foyer. She stood back as Mike strode in—tall, solid, red-haired, with his green eyes flashing a challenge that made him look less like an attorney than one of the Viking raiders who had plundered the Irish coasts a thousand years before. All he needed was a big axe, she decided, and one of those helmets with the nose-piece thing.
“Gentlemen?” Mike began, pulling her back into the moment.
Concentrate, Gemma. Keep it together.
“I’m Michael Cavanagh, Ms. Cavanagh’s attorney. You’ve met my associate,” he added with a nod toward Brady, and began passing out business cards.
Mike sat on a leather loveseat facing the couch, and Gemma joined him. Brady sat quietly, his expression on the polite side of neutral, and the detectives took a seat on the couch. The uniform rose and stood stolidly behind them, her face a careful mask as both detectives gave Mike their names and ID numbers.
“Ms. Cavanagh—” Abernathy began.
Mike put down his briefcase, took out a tablet, and took his time writing down the information they had given him.
Abernathy shifted, making embarrassing squeaking noises on the leather couch.
“Can you tell us where you were last Friday and over the weekend, Ms. Cavanagh?” Olsen asked.
Gemma glanced at Mike before answering. He nodded. “Friday, I was here, working,” she said.
“All day?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Just me and Nikki.” She looked over at the dog, who had relaxed when Mike arrived, and now lay with eyes closed, her nose on her forepaws.
“Can anyone verify that?”
“There should be records on my phone and computer. I had a conference call with a client at seven-thirty a.m. that lasted an hour or so, and was in fax and Skype mode with another client the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon.”
“The clients’ names?”
“Seattle Tech in the morning, and then Lubbock State College the rest of the day.”
“That was Friday.”
“Yes. Saturday and Sunday, the whole family went to an Irish Immersion Weekend in Lake City Way. We got back fairly late last night, so I stayed at my brother’s until about nine this morning. I got home around ten, and haven’t left since then.”
“Irish immersion,” Abernathy said. “That’s like, what, baptism?”
Gemma and Mike swiveled their heads toward him with identical expressions of surprise. “Language classes, detective,” Mike said.
Abernathy scowled. “Classes for Irish? It’s just English with an accent, right?”
Mike opened his mouth but Gemma interrupted. “Even Microsoft recognizes Irish Gaelic as a separate language.” She held her voice steady with an effort against a wild impulse to giggle. Great. Hysterics were just what nobody needed.
Olsen glanced at his red-faced partner and cleared his throat. “What sort of work do you do, Ms. Cavanagh?”
All at once, the whole thing became real. Her stomach dropped and her heart began to pound, making her breath come short. “He’s really dead this time, isn’t he?”
“Yes, ma’am, he is.” Olsen’s tone was dust-dry.
Mike shot a protective look at his sister. “Will my client be asked to identify the body?” he asked before Olsen could speak again.
The detective’s mouth firmed and he shook his head. “I’ve brought some photos.” He stared straight at Gemma. “Can you tell me if your husband had any identifying marks?”
Gemma held herself against the urge to flinch. If they asked that, it must have been a really bad wreck. Only it hadn’t been a wreck, had it? They said he’d been murdered. “He has a red birthmark at the back of his neck, and a tattoo of a scorpion on the back of his right shoulder. Black outline and red inside, about four inches long.”
Abernathy pulled out an envelope and extracted matte photos of a tattoo and a strawberry mark fringed by blond hair.
Tremors began to well up from deep inside her. She clutched Mike’s arm. Her hands shook badly as she stroked the photo of the birthmark. “Yes.” She couldn’t force her voice above a whisper. She lifted her eyes, swallowed to clear her throat. “What happened to him?”
“Gemma—” Mike began.
“They do this kind of preliminary ID—with photos—for air crash victims, burns,” she said. She heard her voice rising in pitch, sharpening as the reality washed through her in alternating waves of ice and heat. “Explosions. Right? When that’s all they have to go on.”
“Gemma—” Mike said again.
“Ms. Cavanagh, when was the last time you saw your husband?” Olsen inquired.
Gemma felt as if her head had filled with hot air, pressing, pressing until she couldn’t think. “I’m—last Thursday, I think. Have you told his partner?”
“Not yet,” Abernathy answered. “We try to notify the next of kin first. His partner is Doug Wheeler, right? He’s running for attorney general?”
“Yes. Ned is managing his campaign.”
Olsen tried to get the interview back on track. “You haven’t seen your husband in four days. You didn’t report him missing?”
She started to say something, but shook her head. The tears she thought wouldn’t come choked her mind and eyes now, when she needed clarity.
Mike answered. “Ms. Cavanagh and Mr. Carrow are separated.”
Olsen blinked twice. “For how long?”
Gemma did absolutely not want to talk about her marital problems in front of Brady. Not that it mattered, but still—she sniffed, willed the tears back. “A month and a half,” she said. “Nearly two.”
“He hadn’t changed the address on his driver’s license.”
It wasn’t a question, and Gemma didn’t r
espond.
“Planning to move?” Abernathy asked.
“When the house sells. It’s been on the market for almost a month. The real estate agent is Kari Werner. You can verify the date with her.”
“We will.”
Olsen took a less adversarial tone. “Ms. Cavanagh, it would be helpful if you’d let us take the clothes you wore over the weekend.”
“I’ll get them,” Gemma said before her brother could protest.
Mike glared at her.
“It’s okay, Mike,” she said just above a whisper. “I haven’t even unpacked them yet. And the whole backpack was with me at your place when whoever broke in.”
“Please.” Olsen nodded to Teng.
As the Kirkland P.D. officer moved to accompany her, Gemma took a deep breath and started up the steps to her bedroom. The smooth wooden banister felt comforting beneath her hand as she climbed, solid and cool. God. “The backpack is on the floor in the master bath,” she said. “All the clothes are in there.”
“Shoes?” Teng asked.
“In the closet—the white canvas sneakers.”
“We’ll need the jewelry too,” she said.
Gemma twisted off her wedding ring, a three-carat square cut diamond between intertwined platinum rows of channel-set stones. Her skin was white and pruney where the wide band had covered it for five years.
She rubbed the fingers of her right hand over the spot. “I didn’t know where else to keep it, until everything was final,” she said. She could just hear Ned’s attorney howling if anything happened to that diamond before the settlement was worked out. Besides, she’d never filed anything while she was actually wearing it, but no way was she going to try and explain that.
“I’ll give you a receipt for everything today,” Teng said, watching her. “You’ll get the ring back when the investigation is finished.”
Gemma wanted to say, Keep it. I should have thrown the thing away when I kicked the bastard out. She was pretty sure something showed in her expression, but she only said “Thank you.”
“Did you wear a watch or jewelry over the weekend?”
Now You See It Page 3