Cavanaugh Encounter

by Marie Ferrarella

  White Hawk nodded. “She’s—”

  “You say she’s got a point and I swear you’ll be looking for a new partner,” Luke warned the other detective, even as he knew that Frankie was ultimately right about this. She was far better equipped to take on this serial killer than someone new being read into the case.

  White Hawk looked at his partner without saying a single word, but he didn’t have to. His expression said everything for him.

  Luke sighed, turning toward the building’s entrance. “Okay, we’ll review the profiles of the men who got in contact with our victims and then see where we go from there,” he said cautiously, walking into the building.

  With her biggest obstacle removed, eager and hopeful, Frankie’s mood became buoyant. “I’ll start working up a profile I can use.”

  No matter how he sliced it, he just didn’t like her putting herself out there like this. “One step at a time,” Luke reminded her.

  “I’m just getting ready for the next step,” Frankie told him cheerfully, heading through the double doors first.

  “Thanks a lot for backing me up,” Luke murmured to his partner as they both followed Frankie into the building.

  “You know she’s right,” White Hawk told him.

  Luke frowned. “Doesn’t make it any easier to go along with,” he grumbled through gritted teeth.

  * * *

  Frankie spent the next couple of hours sifting through the various profiles she pulled up from The Perfect Date’s website. The profiles represented all the men who contacted either one or both of the two victims whose laptops were confiscated. To cover all their bases, she also went through all the men that the two women had gotten in contact with themselves—just in case.

  “Why the latter group?” Luke asked, curious about her reasoning. “We’re looking for the guy who singled his victims out.”

  She was doing her best to spread the net, the better to entangle the killer.

  “Maybe he singled them out after they singled him out. Maybe when they got in contact with him, it wound up triggering something for him. We don’t really know anything about this guy except that he has a vendetta against petite, twentysomething, dark-haired women who happened to be former drug addicts. We don’t even know why.”

  She frowned as she looked at the list. There were a daunting number of names on it.

  “He could have fallen for someone who matched the description and she turned him down or dumped him for someone else,” Luke theorized.

  “Or maybe he worked with her. He got her clean—like a rehab counselor—and she dumped him once she went back to her old life and felt she didn’t need him,” White Hawk volunteered, adding his voice to the discussion.

  One theory was as good as the other, but it got them no closer to the actual killer.

  “We can sit here and toss around theories until the cows come home. Meanwhile, the serial killer could be out there, looking for his next victim,” Frankie reminded the other two detectives.

  Luke knew she was eager to get her cousin’s killer, but he wasn’t about to condone her rushing in to tackle this.

  “Being reckless isn’t going to help you get this SOB,” he reminded Frankie. “Getting yourself killed isn’t going to help us get this guy, either. Now, we’re going to do it my way or we don’t do it,” Luke told her, pinning her with a look. “Agreed?”

  She pressed her lips together and sighed. “Do I have a choice?”

  He was not about to dance around the answer. “No.”

  “Then agreed,” Frankie replied grudgingly.

  Luke’s cell phone buzzed and he immediately swiped it open. Looking at the caller ID he saw that the call was coming from Sean.

  “O’Bannon,” Luke said, following protocol. “Do you have anything for us?”

  “I’ve had a chance to review the video on the victim’s nanny cam. You might want to come down and have a look.”

  “Be right there,” Luke responded. Ending the call, he put away his phone.

  Frankie’s attention had instantly been piqued the moment she heard Luke’s phone ring. “Be right where?” she asked.

  “Sean has something he wants to show us that he found on the victim’s nanny cam. Interested?” he asked, keeping a straight face.

  He knew damn well that she was all but jumping out of her skin in her eagerness to go along with him to the lab.

  “Interested?” Frankie echoed incredulously. “Just try and keep me away.”

  Luke laughed dryly. “Don’t tempt me.”

  He was only half kidding.

  The further they got into the case, the more Luke found himself wanting to keep her clear of it. Logically, he knew that he couldn’t. He was more than aware of the fact that Frankie was a police detective and that all this was part of her job. But the night they had spent together had changed everything for him, even though he knew it shouldn’t, knew it wasn’t supposed to.

  But it did.

  In all honesty, he wanted to keep all his people safe, the ones who worked with him as well as his family. The latter group were all intricately woven into the tapestry of the police department. The sad, frustrating truth of it was that he could only be there for his people, lend them his support—and have their backs.

  And pray that that was somehow enough.

  All of this was why, when they got into the elevator and headed for the basement, he turned to Frankie and told her, “You’re going to be wearing a wire.”

  Staring at him, she said, “Excuse me?”

  “When you go out to meet these characters that you’re finding on the website, you’re going to be wearing a wire. Not only that, but I intend to be close by.”

  “You could stick yourself to my side and we can tell whatever guy we’re setting up that we’re twins who were never separated at birth.”

  He scowled at her. “This isn’t funny, Frankie,” he told her curtly.

  “No, it’s not.” She sighed. Maybe she should be looking at the bright side of this. “I guess I should be touched.”

  “You are touched,” he retorted angrily, hating that she had gotten to him like this. “Touched if you think you’re going to do this without a wire.”

  Reluctantly, Frankie nodded. “All right, I’ll wear a wire,” she told him. “But nowhere obvious.”

  “All right,” he agreed. “Nowhere obvious.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “But I get to be the one who puts it on your body.”

  She gave him a wicked smile in response. “Deal. Now can we get on with this?”

  Even as she asked the question, the elevator came to a stop in the basement and the doors opened.

  “Absolutely,” Luke responded. One hand on the door to keep it from closing, he let her get off the elevator car first.

  Walking into the CSI lab, they found it almost eerily unoccupied. Sean and Destiny appeared to be the only two occupants, each working at their stations, examining the evidence that they had collected at the latest crime scene.

  Sean was working in the video bay. Seeing them enter, he gestured for his nephew and the young woman to come over.

  “Did you get a shot of the serial killer?” Frankie asked him eagerly.

  “Yes—and no,” Sean replied.

  That did not sound as good as he had hoped. “Elaborate on yes,” Luke requested.

  “Lucky for us, we got the guy on video administering the fatal overdose to our victim,” Sean said grimly. “We got the whole thing.”

  It was clear from Sean’s expression that viewing what was on the nanny cam, despite all his years in the crime lab, had affected him.

  “Then we’ve got him,” Frankie cried, unable to believe their good luck.

  “Well,” Sean told them, “that’s where the no part comes in. A
pparently this piece of filth has a keenly developed sense of self-preservation. He kept his back to the nanny cam the entire time.”

  Luke scowled. “Could he have somehow known about it and averted his face on purpose?”

  “I really can’t say—maybe it was just a sixth sense,” Sean suggested.

  “So, what do we know about him?” Luke questioned. “Anything?”

  “Well,” Sean replied, “we know approximately how tall he is and his hair color—neither of which is remarkable.” To prove his point, he played the video for them. “He never shows his face to the camera.”

  So near and yet so far, Frankie thought, doing her best to suppress the huge wave of disappointment and frustration she felt.

  Chapter 20

  “Did we get any hits?”

  Luke’s question was directed at Valri as he walked into the computer lab.

  First thing Monday morning, Valri, with input from Frankie, had fashioned a profile for Frankie that was similar enough to the profiles of the last three victims to, they hoped, attract their elusive serial killer.

  Initially, they’d believed that only two of the victims had turned toward the dating service, but it turned out that Martha, the very last victim, had also posted her profile on The Perfect Date website. Presumably, it had been answered by the man whose back had been captured on the nanny cam.

  Frankie’s profile had been up for less than twenty-four hours and he wasn’t expecting too much activity on it yet, but just to play it safe, he thought he’d check with his cousin.

  “Apparently Frankie is a very popular lady.” Valri turned her monitor in his direction so he could see the number of hits Frankie had gotten for himself. “She got more than a dozen—and counting.” Turning her monitor back around to face her, she noted the expression on Luke’s face. “What’s wrong? You don’t look very happy about this.”

  “No,” Luke denied firmly. “This is what we want.”

  And, as a police detective, he was delighted with the way this was going. But as someone who had found himself extremely attracted to Frankie, he was less than thrilled about this development.

  Valri frowned. “Luke, you may not be my brother, but I can still spot a Cavanaugh lying a mile away.” She gave him a penetrating look. “Level with me, Luke. Is something going on between you and Frankie?”

  “I think your nesting instincts are making you imagine things,” he told her dismissively. “Review all the profile photos attached to those hits and rule out anyone with blond or red hair,” he told her, thinking of the nanny cam video. “Make a list of the ones who are left and send that list to me.”

  “How about to Frankie?” Valri asked. “After all, this is her profile,” she pointed out.

  “And I’m lead on this case,” he reminded her. In his opinion, that trumped Valri’s point. “Send the list to me,” he instructed firmly.

  Valri inclined her head obediently. “As you wish, Detective O’Bannon,” she said, deliberately sounding subservient. “It’ll be on your computer as soon as I look over the profile photos.”

  “Then I’d better be getting back to my desk,” Luke said, adding, “Thanks, Val,” as he exited the computer lab.

  * * *

  The first thing he saw when he walked into his squad room was Frankie. She was standing over his desk, looking at his computer monitor. Lengthening his stride, he quickly crossed over to his desk.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, even though it was more than obvious that she was looking at the email Valri had just sent.

  She appeared to be somewhat overwhelmed. “Wow, I got this many hits?” Frankie glanced at him over her shoulder, sharing her surprise with Luke. “Are there that many men out there looking to connect?” she marveled.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Luke answered with a dismissive shrug. “I never needed a computer to be my wingman.”

  Frankie’s eyes were still glued to the computer monitor as she continued scrolling through the names. She blew out a low whistle. “It sure looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

  “We,” Luke corrected tersely. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.” And he didn’t want her to forget that. “I’m coming along on those dates, remember?”

  “In spirit,” she reminded him. “You’re coming along in spirit, not in body.”

  He was not about to have an argument over this, especially not in the middle of the squad room.

  “Okay, this is how it’s going to work,” he told her, sounding far more like the team’s leader than the man she had slept with. “We’re going to run a background check on these characters so we know what we’re up against. Once that’s done, you’re going to get in contact with these jokers and arrange to meet them in a coffee shop. White Hawk and I will be nearby at a table—”

  “Separate tables?” she questioned with a smile. “Not like you two were out on a date?”

  “Yeah, separate tables,” he snapped. She was just trying to sidetrack him, and he intended to be there with her every step of the way. He didn’t want to chance anything happening to her.

  “What if my ‘date’ doesn’t like coffee and wants to meet somewhere else, like for an intimate dinner in his apartment?” she asked, giving him an alternate scenario.

  “No intimate dinner, no apartment,” he said, shooting down her suggestions. “Your game, your rules. Tell him you feel better meeting him in a public place. Considering the times we’re living in, that’s not an unreasonable request.”

  Frankie sighed. “Okay, so he agrees to meet me in a coffee shop,” she conceded. “Then what?”

  “Then you use your spidey senses to tell you whether or not this guy’s a few cards short of a full deck.”

  She tried again. As far as she was concerned, she was going with real-life scenarios. “What if the guy comes across like a perfect gentleman and after having coffee with me wants to go out on a ‘real’ date?”

  “You order more coffee and keep him talking,” Luke told her decisively.

  She knew he was trying to protect her, and part of her was grateful for that. But she was also a police detective and she couldn’t do her job if she was being protected. She needed to make him understand that.

  “I think if we’re going to catch this guy, I’m going to need to be a little more...accommodating first,” she finally said, “in order to draw him out.”

  “Let’s just get through this part first, okay?” Luke answered. He looked over toward White Hawk, who seemed obviously amused as he was taking all this in. He pulled him into the discussion. “I’m sending you and our bait here,” he nodded at Frankie, “a copy of the list of potential dates that Valri put together. She narrowed it down to a dozen names. We each take four,” he told them. “I’ll take the top four. You take the next four and Frankie gets the last four.”

  “And what is it you want us to look for?” White Hawk asked.

  “The usual,” Luke told them. “Any prior arrests, any restraining orders, any complaints about stalking. In short, anything that indicates the guy doesn’t play well with others,” Luke specified. And then he thought of one additional thing. “Oh, and any indication that he might have tortured animals.”

  Frankie raised her hand as if this was a classroom setting. Now what, he wondered, trying not to lose his temper.

  “What?”

  “Seems to me that those are the kind of traits we’d put at the top of our list. At bottom, our serial killer is not a well-adjusted guy and the only way we’re going to get him to come out of his so-called shell is to present him with another victim. The guy’s not about to kill me in a crowded coffee shop,” she pointed out.

  “No,” Luke agreed, “but he might just let something slip and give himself away if you keep him talking long enough.”

  “And if that do
esn’t pan out?” Frankie asked, playing devil’s advocate.

  “Then we’ll strip you naked and dangle you in front of him like a piece of meat,” Luke snapped in exasperation. “Satisfied?”

  Frankie knew when to back away. Feigning contrition, she inclined her head and told him, “We’ll shoot for a happy medium.”

  “The key word here being shoot,” he murmured under his breath. Best-case scenario was to arrest the killer. Second-best case was to take him down before he could harm Frankie or anyone else. “Okay, start investigating,” he ordered.

  * * *

  The next four hours were spent investigating the men on the list that Valri had compiled, going as far back in each man’s life as possible.

  In a couple of cases, that led to an uncomfortable dead end.

  “This guy’s name has got to be an alias,” White Hawk said, calling Luke over to look at the photograph of a Patrick Jamison he’d pulled up on the monitor.

  “He has no history beyond ten years ago. No school records, no work records. No driver’s license. Nothing,” he marveled. “That means that the guy’s either an alien—like the ones from outer space—”

  “Or he was put into witness protection as a kid,” Frankie guessed, joining in. “Either way, he should go on the top of my dating list,” she said euphemistically. “To either be cleared or arrested,” she concluded, looking pointedly at Luke.

  “I’ve got one like that myself,” Luke said. “Bill Williams has no tax forms that go beyond eight years.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have a job before then, so there was no need to file a tax form,” Frankie suggested. “Does he have any school records prior to then?”

  “Not that I can see. There’s an out-of-state address dating back eleven years ago,” he commented. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I think I owe Valri a dinner out.”

  “You probably owe her a month’s worth of eating out,” White Hawk corrected.

  Luke wasn’t about to dispute that. He’d come to rely heavily on his cousin’s computer skills. “You’re probably right,” he told his partner.