Becoming a Cavanaugh

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Do you feel up to giving us a formal statement?” Jaren asked the woman kindly.

  Roxanne pressed her lips together and nodded. Her breath was shaky when she released it. “Yes, I—I think so.”

  “Good, I’d like you to go with this officer,” Jaren beckoned over the policeman who was closest to her, “and tell him everything you can think of that happened last night before you left.” Jaren raised her eyes to the tall officer. “Would you mind taking Ms. Smith’s statement, please?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but the officer nodded in compliance. For a flicker of a second, a grin curved his mouth until he seemed to realize that his reaction was totally out of sync with what was going on. He sobered quickly.

  As she ushered the personal assistant toward the officer, Jaren glanced toward Kyle. Her partner was silently watching her. It didn’t take her long to realize why.

  She’d usurped him. Again.

  “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” It wasn’t intended as a real question. “I’m sorry. I’m used to being the primary on cases,” she confessed. “It’s going to take a little adjusting for me to hold back.”

  He watched her for another long moment, his eyes holding hers. He couldn’t picture her in a position of authority. Just what kind of a homicide division did they have back in Oakland? And then he said, “Work on it.”

  “Absolutely,” she promised.

  Kyle squatted down beside the body to get a closer look at the victim and the wooden stake that had ended his life. He’d just begun his hands-off survey when he heard the M.E. arriving. In his wake were the other crime-scene investigators.

  Wayne Carter had opted to become a medical examiner because the patients on his table didn’t argue with him, and didn’t challenge his rulings. He felt the peace and quiet was worth the knowledge that he would never be able to cure anyone.

  Walking into the suite, the M.E. wrinkled his large Roman nose. “What is that smell?”

  “Something we hope your people’ll process quickly.” Kyle addressed his remark to Hank Elder, the CSI team leader who entered directly behind the M.E.

  Dr. Carter sighed when he got a good look at the latest victim.

  “Another stake through the heart?” He looked up at Kyle. “Has everyone lost their minds?”

  “Looks that way.” Kyle rose to his feet. As he did so, he noted that Jaren had gone wandering through the room. She seemed to be taking everything in, like the personification of a mobile, roving camera. “Anything strike your fancy, Rosetti?” Kyle asked, raising his voice.

  “Come here,” she requested in a subdued tone that seemed completely out of character for her.

  Jaren was standing by the chairman’s desk. A number of papers were scattered about, but in general it appeared rather neat. Which was why Jaren saw it. The book that lay on the corner of the desk looked out of place.

  “What?” Kyle demanded impatiently.

  “You have to see this,” she told him. And then she turned around to see if he was coming. “Guess what Cummings was reading?”

  That got Kyle’s attention. Because of the stake through the man’s heart, he immediately thought of the book they’d found in the surgeon’s office.

  Kyle was at her side in a minimum number of steps. “You’re kidding.”

  Jaren shook her head. She held up the bestseller. “I never kid about a murder.”

  He took the book from her and looked at the cover in disbelief. “This is a hell of a way to get publicity for a book,” he commented.

  She looked at him, stunned. “You don’t really think the author is behind this?”

  “One thing I’ve learned is that you don’t rule out anything automatically. But it would be pretty stupid of him—”

  “Her,” Jaren corrected.

  He looked down at the book he was holding. “It says ‘Mackenzie Carrey’ on the cover.”

  Jaren smiled. She had a feeling that he was only tuned in to police work. Everything outside of that, including pop culture, didn’t exist for him. “In this case, Mackenzie is a woman.”

  He merely sighed and shook his head. “All right, whatever. Right now, we’ll go see Mrs. Cummings and go from there.”

  “So, we’re finished here for now?” she asked.

  He glanced toward Cummings’s assistant. The woman appeared a little more composed than she had a few minutes ago. “See if you can get a list from his assistant of people Cummings might have stepped on in his ascent to the top.”

  “I’m on it,” she said, crossing to Roxanne Smith’s desk.

  Unlike the neurosurgeon’s ex-wife, Jane Cummings all but came unglued right before their eyes when she finally accepted the fact that this wasn’t some elaborate hoax that her husband, a habitual practical joker, had instigated.

  Jaren sat down beside the woman, putting her arm around her as if she were a friend. Watching her, Kyle silently acknowledged that he didn’t have that kind of capability. He’d always had trouble relating to people, preferring to keep a safe emotional distance between himself and them. Made things far less complicated.

  “Did your husband do that often?” Kyle finally asked Mrs. Cummings when her sobs had quieted down. “Play practical jokes?”

  She nodded. The tissue in her hands was completely shredded. Jaren leaned over and pulled another out of the box on the coffee table. She handed it to the woman.

  “I used to tell him that they’d backfire on him someday. Edward would only laugh. But he had been tapering off this last year, hoping to present a more serious image of himself to Mr. Massey.”

  “Because he’d been promoted to chairman?” Jaren guessed. The woman nodded. Fresh tears gathered in her eyes.

  “With your husband gone, who’s next in line?” Kyle asked.

  Jane Cummings looked up at him blankly and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice hollow. “Edward never liked me asking about his work. Said as long as his position fulfilled my every wish, I didn’t need to be made aware of all the tedious details.” The thin, angular woman shrugged, as if the arrangement had been fine with her. “I don’t really have a head for business, anyway. Oh, God.” Jane Cummings covered her mouth with her hands to keep back a fresh sob as a new thought occurred to her. A frantic look entered her eyes. “What am I going to tell the children?”

  “How old are they?” Jaren asked.

  Dazed, it took the woman a moment to remember. She looked, Jaren thought, as if she was going into shock. “Matthew is ten and Edward, Jr. is twelve.”

  “Try to break it to them as gently as possible. The media is going to be all over this by the evening news,” Jaren warned her.

  “The media?” Jane repeated numbly, as if her thoughts hadn’t taken her that far yet.

  “Are you aware that Dr. Barrett was killed in the exact same fashion?” Kyle asked.

  The expression on her face told them that he might as well have pulled any name out of the air. “Dr. Barrett?” she repeated without comprehension.

  “Richard Barrett,” Kyle elaborated, studying her face. Either the woman was an accomplished actress, or she really had never heard the name before. “Did your husband know him?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. He knew a lot of people, but we never entertained the man socially. I do know that there was no Dr. Barrett on the board. I know all the people on the board.” Fresh tears were sliding down her cheeks again. “They come to our parties,” she explained.

  They remained with Mrs. Cummings a little longer, asking a few more questions. But for now, Kyle decided that they’d gotten as far with the woman as they could. She wasn’t telling them anything that shed any light on the crime.

  She did, however, give them one piece of information that could possibly be relevant. The bestseller they took from Cummings’s desk belonged to her, not him. She’d met her husband for lunch yesterday afternoon and had accidentally left the book behind.

  Because of the way Cummings had been k
illed, Mrs. Cummings looked nervously from Jaren to Kyle. “You don’t think that book had anything to do with my husband being killed, do you?”

  “No, of course not,” Jaren was quick to assure her. “We’re just tying up loose ends, that’s all.”

  They left Jane Cummings sitting on her sofa, looking more like a lost child than the wife of the late head of one of the most influential corporations in the country.

  “You seemed pretty sure of yourself back there,” Kyle commented as they walked out of the custom-built house. “Saying the book had nothing to do with it. Changed your mind about it?”

  “No, I still think there’s some kind of connection. What I said was for her benefit—and for her kids. If that woman thought that her leaving the book behind was in any way responsible for her husband’s death, she would have completely fallen apart.” Jaren found herself heading for the driver’s side. Habit, she thought, retracing her steps and coming around to the passenger side. “So, until we find out otherwise, why make her suffer?”

  He thought of his old partner. Rosetti didn’t have a thing in common with Castle. Compassion had never been one of the retired detective’s failings. As for him, well, he found that compassion could get in the way.

  “Just what made you become a cop?” he asked out of the blue as he got into the vehicle.

  She thought for a moment. “My father was a cop and I like helping people.”

  He didn’t look at his job that way. He thought of it as a chance to put away the bad guys. “You’re a little too touchy-feely for this kind of work, don’t you think?”

  She gave him one of those smiles that were beginning to get under his skin and definitely on his nerves. “The way I see it, people like me balance out people like you.”

  He decided it was better all around if he just kept silent as they drove to interview the first name on the list of people Cummings’s assistant had given them. He knew a no-win situation when he saw one.

  There was no shortage of people to talk to. Most of the people on the list Roxanne Smith had put together had an alibi for the previous evening. The ones who didn’t went on a short list that Kyle thought was none too promising.

  No tangible connection existed between the two murders, other than the method used and the book found at both crime scenes. Initially, Kyle had guessed that the killer was leaving a calling card. But since the second book had belonged to the victim’s wife, that possibility was ruled out.

  They saw twelve more people that day, some connected to the neurosurgeon, some to Cummings.

  They even went back to reinterview Finley Massey since his father had founded the corporation that Cummings had briefly headed, but Jackson Massey’s heir could shed no more light on the chairman’s murder than he could on the surgeon’s. About the only information the younger man could offer was to point them to the next possible successor to the deceased Cummings.

  “How about you?” Kyle asked Finley before they left. “Don’t you figure into the setup somehow?”

  Finley laughed as if the idea struck him as absurd.

  “I just cash the checks when they come. My father was the thinker, the one who could make things work. He always called me the dreamer.” When he spoke of his father, there was a fond note in his voice, a softness that was hard to miss. “He didn’t want me in the business. He wanted me to find my own destiny, said he didn’t care what I was doing or what I became, as long as I was happy.” There was the soft sheen of unshed tears as he looked at them and concluded, “He was that kind of a man.”

  “And were you?” Jaren asked. “Happy?” she added when he didn’t answer.

  “I was.” There was a heaviness in his voice, a sadness that sounded as if it would never leave. “Until he died. Now I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to find my way again. He was my compass.”

  Jaren’s heart went out to Finley. She knew what it was like to feel alone.

  Chapter 6

  They were asking too many questions.

  Were they agents sent to lure him out and kill him the way they couldn’t all those years ago? They would have succeeded back then, if it hadn’t been for his Protector.

  The Protector didn’t come in time to save you, D, but he saved me.

  But now, there was no one. Not the Protector, not D. No one.

  He was alone and defenseless. Who would be there to save him when they came again?

  And they would come. They already had. They’d killed his Protector and they would kill him. Unless he killed them first.

  Oh, but there were so many of them. So very many. For each one he destroyed, another came.

  He had to keep fighting.

  With a deep, shuddering sigh, he looked out at the darkness beyond the window. This was their time.

  He was tempted to stay inside and bar the doors. But they would find a way to get in. To get at him.

  He had to keep moving.

  To fool them.

  To stay alive until the dawn so that he could be safe for another day.

  They were afraid of the light. His Protector had told him so when he’d rescued him.

  Even though it was dark, he needed to get out. To clear his head. To think even though it was getting harder and harder to do. Thoughts didn’t want to penetrate the wall of pain that wrapped around him.

  It was almost unbearable.

  Arming himself against the forces that seemed always just a heartbeat away, he went out the front door.

  Praying.

  Jaren simply didn’t remember closing her eyes—she really didn’t.

  The last thing she recalled was staring at the chart she’d compiled. A chart comparing the two victims’ vital statistics. She grew steadily disheartened because she found far more differences between the two than commonalities. The only thing that linked the two victims was that both had higher degrees from prominent universities. And both were worth a great deal of money.

  Was that what it was about? Jaren couldn’t help wondering as she struggled to focus. Money? Was there someone out there with a vendetta against rich people in this time of tense economic strife?

  But then why these two men and not some other two? she silently asked as she looked at the photographs she’d laid side by side.

  And what in heaven’s name did the stake through the heart mean? It had to mean something. People just weren’t killed that way.

  Jaren spent the better part of the night trying to wrap her mind around the question or more precisely, the lack of an answer. And then suddenly, she found herself tuning in on a sharp ache at the back of her neck. A cottony, sickeningly sweet taste exploded in her mouth and an annoying noise came from directly behind her.

  Lifting her head, Jaren discovered that she was the not-so-proud owner of a killer headache shooting out from her jaw to the top of her head via her right temple.

  She also found she could place the annoying noise. It came from Kyle.

  Somehow, it had gotten to be morning without her knowing it.

  As she blinked away the cobwebs from her eyes, she saw Kyle moving around to stand directly in front of her. The detective was laying claim to a section of her desk with his very tight butt.

  When had she noticed that he had one of those?

  “Didn’t you go home last night?” Kyle asked, looking at her face.

  She didn’t respond right away. Feeling just this side of warmed-over death, she took a breath, then asked him, “What time is it?”

  “Eight.”

  “In the morning?” It was a rhetorical question. The sun had moved into the squad room full force, causing her to squint.

  “Yes,” Kyle answered patiently.

  “Then I guess I didn’t.” Why was he asking her dumb questions?

  Shifting so that several parts of her back whispered protesting noises, Jaren took another deep breath and then looked down at the papers and photographs spread out haphazardly on her desk. She’d slept on two of them and was fairly sure they’d left their imp
rint on her cheek.

  She dragged her hand through her hair. “I was looking for some kind of connection between our victims and I guess time just got away from me.”

  “Did you find a connection?” he asked, pretty certain he knew the answer. If she had found one, she would have called him no matter what time it was. It was just something that he sensed about her.

  Jaren shook her head, fighting off a feeling of frustration. “Not unless being rich is a connection.”

  Kyle tried not to notice how her hair seemed to swing back and forth rhythmically. And hypnotically.

  “Some recently laid-off person taking out his frustrations on strangers?” he guessed. “Might have worked if our killer had indiscriminately sprayed the crowd with a shotgun, but he didn’t. He picked them out one by one and then drove a stake through their hearts.” Kyle looked down at the two photographs, each taken at the scene of the crime. They were chilling and yet macabrely comical at the same time. “Some nerd trying to make the world safe from vampires?”

  “Right, that’ll fly in court,” Jaren cracked wearily.

  She ran her hand along the back of her neck, trying to will away the crick she felt there. The next moment, she stiffened as Kyle’s strong fingers moved beneath her hand and began kneading the tight knots. She tried to turn around and found she couldn’t. He had very strong fingers.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Being nice?” He made his answer sound like a question.

  Jaren managed to pull back, shifting her chair around quickly so that she wound up facing him. She pushed aside his hand. “I’m okay.”

  He made no attempt to continue to massage her. “The jury’s still out about that one.” Straightening, he moved over to his own desk. “You look like hell, Rosetti. Why don’t you go home and catch a few hours’ sleep? I’ll cover for you.”

  That was all she needed, to go home at the start of the day. She knew how it would look, accepting preferential treatment after being here only a few days. Her butt would be out on the street in a matter of hours.