It was Sean who answered him. “Because Andrew really pulls out all the stops. That includes coming up with new recipes, new ideas. Everything to make the holiday even bigger and better than the year before. I haven’t been a member of the family for all that long, but I’ve never known him to disappoint.”
“Wait, aren’t you a Cavanaugh?” Esteban asked. “The former chief of police’s younger brother?”
At least, that was what he’d heard—not that he paid strict attention to anything that wasn’t directly related to his own survival. But everyone seemed to either be friends with a Cavanaugh or have a story about them.
“Yes, but due to a mix-up at the hospital many years ago, I came on the scene rather late,” Sean explained.
Kari saw the befuddled expression whisper across Esteban’s ruggedly handsome features before it disappeared. He had obviously learned to keep his thoughts locked away for the most part. She leaned over in his direction and murmured, “I’ll explain later.”
The promise intrigued him. Her breath, warm and enticing along his cheek and neck, intrigued him more. He succeeded in keeping his reaction from being evident. No one looking at him would have guessed that he was actually reacting to the woman next to him rather than listening to the man standing in front of him.
“But I didn’t call you both down here to talk about my pending nuptials,” Sean announced, suddenly looking serious again. “The M.E. finished his preliminary exam and thought you might be interested in seeing what he found folded up and stuffed into the victim’s mouth.”
“His mouth?” Kari echoed. “The killer put something into Hays’s mouth?” The guy really was sick, she thought. “Why?”
“It’ll make more sense once you see what he stuffed into the victim’s mouth,” her father promised. So saying, he produced an eight-by-eleven flat plastic envelope. Inside was a colorful sheet that had obviously been torn out of a magazine. The page had been crumpled and some of the wording was ruined because of moisture, most likely saliva.
“My best guess would be that it was an act of hostility,” Sean told them.
“An act of hostility,” Esteban repeated. “You mean over and above savagely slashing the guy’s throat?” he asked.
Sean chuckled to himself. “Point taken. We’re dealing with one very angry individual,” he told the two detectives as he nodded at the sealed piece of evidence.
“So you do think it’s the same guy,” Kari said, watching her father’s face.
Sean indicated the magazine page on the table with his eyes. “What do you think?”
Kari looked down at the photograph on the magazine page. Though not as clear as it could have been because of the damage done by the saliva, it was a photograph of a Greek goddess holding up the scales of justice.
“Well, it’s official,” Kari sighed.
Esteban quirked a dark brow in her direction. “What is?”
“Our guy’s a serial killer. Three’s the magic number. And this makes three.” She looked at her father. “Anything else?”
“Not right now,” he answered. Kari turned toward Esteban. “Okay, back to the drawing board,” she said, resigned. “See you later, Dad. Destiny—” She gestured toward the young woman.
Esteban said nothing, only nodded at the head of the lab before falling into step beside Kari as they retraced their steps back to the squad room.
Only when they had gotten back to their desks and to the bulletin board that was the source of frustration to them both did he finally say anything at all.
“Maybe there’s something in the third victim’s life that’ll lead us back to the other two.”
Kari’s mouth dropped open as she looked at him in surprise. “That’s the most optimistic thing I think I’ve heard you say so far. Way to go,” she said, cheering him on.
He was afraid of that. He’d noticed that she had a habit of expecting more of the same once something went her way.
“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it,” he warned.
“I’ll try to contain myself,” she promised, not even bothering to try to hide her amused grin. And then, after a beat, she decided to do a little reinforcement. “He was serious, you know.”
He was busy trying to put the pieces together and her comment came out of nowhere, disorienting him. “Who was serious about what?”
“My father. About inviting you to the wedding,” she reiterated.
His brows drew together. She was kidding, right? “Why would your father, the head of the department’s crime lab, want me at his wedding?”
“Why not?” Kari countered. He still didn’t get it, did he? Her family didn’t operate by the usual rules. They made friends, not acquaintances—especially when it appeared that a person needed a friend.
“Because he doesn’t know me from Adam,” Esteban emphasized. That seemed like more than enough reason to him.
“I think he knows you a little better than that,” Kari said. “Besides, you’re my partner. That’s enough for my father.” She searched his face, trying to see if any of this was getting through to him. How closed off was this man, anyway? “Didn’t anyone tell you that we’re all one big, happy family here?”
“I must have missed that memo,” he snickered. He didn’t want to get pulled in with these people. Something told him that there was a chance they could actually get to him, actually form a crack in his wall. Which was dangerous. Because cracks allowed things to seep in—and inevitably, that left room for colossal pain. He’d been there, done that.
He didn’t want to go through it again.
“Well, I’m giving you the audio version,” Kari informed him. “The police department is actually one big family and the Cavanaughs are considered a subset of that. Although, to be honest, I think we’d probably be one big, happy family even if we were a bunch of farmers and not part of the police department.” She added speculatively, “But being part of law enforcement probably works better for us....” Finished for the moment, she waited for Esteban to respond. When he didn’t, she had no choice but to press, “So, is that a yes?”
His thoughts already elsewhere, he looked at her distractedly. “Yes to what?”
“You have got to do something about your attention span, Fernandez,” she insisted. “You sound like a husband in training.” She reworded her question more completely, enunciating each word. “Are you going to come to my father’s wedding next Saturday?”
She wasn’t going to give him any peace until he agreed, although why it mattered to her one way or another he hadn’t a clue. Still, to get a little respite he said, “Yeah, sure, why not?”
It was the kind of answer that someone gave when they meant no but didn’t want to get into a discussion over it, Kari thought. She was not about to let the matter drop. “You want me to pick you up?”
Esteban switched tactics. “Why? You don’t trust me to show up?”
She thought about denying the truth, about letting all this go for the time being. But that only meant that the subject had to be revisited at some point—and since they weren’t getting anywhere with the serial killer investigation at the moment, she wanted to be able to clear up at least this one thing.
Besides, they could use the break. Or at least she could, she amended.
“Actually, no, I don’t,” she admitted.
He went on the offensive. There apparently was no other way with this woman, he thought.
“What does it matter to you if I show up or not?” he wanted to know.
The look in her eyes told him she was digging in. For a gorgeous woman, she could be one hell of a pain in the butt. Why that would make her even more attractive to him was a mystery he didn’t think he could solve.
“Because I think it would do you good,” she said.
“And you know this for a fact,” he
jeered.
Kari held her ground, raising her chin defiantly. “Pretty much.”
Her chin made for one hell of a tempting target. Lucky for her, she was a female. Not so lucky for him. “How?” he challenged.
“Because, like that old song said, people need people. Socializing is healthy,” she insisted when he waved a dismissive hand at her and turned away. She sidestepped him and literally got into his face again. “It forces you to get outside yourself and talk to people, instead of just dwelling on whatever it is that’s bothering you.”
What was bothering him was her, and right now there seemed to be no way around that. Maybe he should have stayed underground and taken his chances with the cartel. At least death would have been reasonably quick, without any of this subtle torture he kept encountering.
“I had no idea you had a degree in psychology,” he grumbled.
She didn’t bat an eye, or rise to the insult she knew he meant to get under her skin.
“I don’t. I have a degree in people. When you grow up around six brothers and sisters, you tend to pick up a few things—unless, of course, you’re a rock.”
And she, he caught himself thinking as his eyes slid over the damnably soft, inviting curves of her body, was as far from being a rock as possible.
“I’d said I’d be there,” he reminded her.
“And I said that I’d pick you up.”
“You don’t have to go through that trouble,” he reiterated through gritted teeth. “Just give me the address where all this is taking place.”
“No trouble,” she stubbornly assured him, not giving an inch.
“You don’t trust me,” he accused again. They’d come full circle in less than five minutes, he couldn’t help thinking.
She smiled complacently at him, forbidding her headache to move forward. She needed to win this argument. “No further than I can throw you—and I’m strong, but not nearly that strong,” she told him.
This was getting him nowhere and he had no idea how long he could resist wrapping his hands around her pretty little neck—or wrapping them around other parts of her delectable anatomy, for that matter. For some reason, verbal confrontations just upped the stakes and made him want her more.
He nodded toward the bulletin board. “Why don’t we get back to what they’re paying us for?”
“Good point,” she answered. Break was over, time to get on with it.
Putting her thinking cap back on, she took in a deep breath, scrutinizing the bulletin board. “Okay, from the top,” she announced. “We’re going to see if we can find something else that these three people had in common. The same club, the same church, the same doctor—there has to be some kind of a tie. Since God knows they don’t look alike, the killer’s not picking them because they’re a certain type.”
“Sounds like that means a lot of banging on closed doors,” he commented.
Kari arched a brow. “I thought you were the one who liked doing legwork,” she couldn’t help reminding him.
“Alone,” he told her. “I like doing it alone.”
Her smile never faded. “Well, we can’t all have what we want. The trick is to want what you have.”
He stared at her. That sounded like some sort of brain teaser. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Think on it, Fernandez,” she told him cheerfully. “Tell me what you come up with.”
Suppressing a groan, Esteban raked a hand through his hair. He didn’t know which was worse. That she tempted him or that she was driving him crazy. “I’ll tell you what I come up with—that I need a new partner.”
She pretended to gasp in surprise. “I thought you didn’t want a partner.”
“I don’t, but if I have to have one—” He wouldn’t give her up and he knew it. “Oh, the hell with it.” There was no point in trying to work out a run-of-the-mill truce. That was for ordinary people, and if there was one thing that this woman fate had saddled him with wasn’t, it was ordinary. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
She grinned broadly. “Music to my ears, Esteban.” He had a feeling he’d just made a fatal error.
And there was no turning back.
Chapter 12
Doing her very best to ignore the annoying butterflies that had come out of nowhere and were currently dive-bombing inside her stomach, Kari was just about to hurry out her front door when she noticed how loose her left shoe felt. With a sigh, she dropped her purse on the floor, bent over and paused to adjust the buckle on her high-heeled sandals. If she didn’t, she just knew there would be a pratfall in her future, most likely right in front of her dour partner.
It was a week and a half later, and their investigation into the slasher murders was at a standstill, but at least no more bodies had turned up. So, just for today, the day of her father’s wedding, she was putting everything else on the back burner and just focusing on the celebration ahead.
If she hadn’t paused, she would have missed it. Missed the message that had all but silently crept onto the screen of her cell phone. Unlike an incoming call, which would have been fairly audible, the whisper-soft text message alert would have gone completely unnoticed once she was inside her car, driving toward the hub of all Cavanaugh activity...otherwise known as Uncle Andrew’s house.
And she wouldn’t have known.
With all the excitement of the day, she would have just assumed that Esteban had gotten lost in the crowd—and it was an irrefutable fact that when the Cavanaughs all got together, they most definitely did comprise a crowd. There were enough of them to populate their own small town.
In addition to family, her father and his bride-to-be had invited a ton of friends to the ceremony and reception, as well. There were absolutely enough people to form a small village. Perhaps even a medium-size one.
But fortunately, Kari had stopped to struggle with an uncooperative ankle strap, which was why she was able to hear the buzzing sound that told her she had a new text message.
The strap now sufficiently tightened, Kari picked up her small purse and began to dig through it, searching for her cell phone. As it turned out, the phone was playing hide-and-seek behind her wallet and under her rather large set of keys.
Taking it out, she brought up the screen and saw the no-frills, stripped-bare message: Changed my mind.
That was it. Three words. End transmission.
Vague though the words were in nature, she didn’t even have to look to see who had sent the message. She knew. It had come from her definitely un-loquacious partner, Esteban.
The message could only mean that he had changed his mind about coming to the wedding.
“No, you didn’t,” she informed the cell phone with finality, throwing it back into her purse.
Kari decided not to waste any time calling him and arguing about his reversal in plans over the phone. This was something she felt could be far better handled in person. So, locking up her house, she got into her car and drove like a woman possessed to his home. She was fairly certain that Esteban thought that since he’d sent this message so late and she was probably a typical female who needed absolutely every second she could spare to get ready for the wedding, there wouldn’t be any time to come get him.
“Wrong,” she announced rather loudly to the absent Fernandez. “Obviously the man does not know who he is dealing with.”
Kari absolutely hated waiting for people and, consequently, she was never late herself. Being on time was practically a second religion for her.
She was also grateful that she’d had the foresight to have gotten Esteban’s address from Brenda that first day her uncle had made them partners. Otherwise, she would have been really hard-pressed to rectify this situation...as she fully intended to do.
Making all the lights—some just barely—Kari managed to get to Esteb
an’s garden apartment complex in just over seven minutes flat. She’d driven all the way keeping one eye open for any overzealous patrol officers who might have taken exception to the mileage she was covering in an exceedingly short amount of time.
But she didn’t want to miss the ceremony, and she didn’t want Esteban to spend the day inhabiting the dark corners that she knew in her heart he had created for himself. The very best cure for that that she knew of, from all that she’d gleaned thus far, was exposure to the various members of the multigenerational Cavanaugh family. They had cornered the market on well-being and happiness, and they were more than willing to share the wealth. In fact, they acted as if it was their duty to share.
She had already discovered for herself that attending one of these family functions literally left no place to hide. No matter where a person might turn, there were Cavanaughs everywhere.
Kari smiled to herself. “You’re not winning this one, Fernandez. Even if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming, it’ll be for your own good in the long run. You’ll thank me for it someday.”
If worst came to worst, she knew that she could always call in one of her brothers to lend his muscle to the cause.
But she didn’t want it to come to that. What she really wanted was to be able to handle this on her own, to keep this just between her and Esteban. The ball, though, was in her partner’s court and it all depended on how bullheaded he intended to be.
Because no matter how stubborn a jackass Esteban was planning on being, she fully intended to outmaneuver him.
* * *
When Esteban heard the doorbell, he ignored it. Ignored it the first time it rang, as well as the second time.
And the third.
But the ringing noise was definitely getting on his nerves and he crossed to the door. He was pretty sure he knew who was on the other side of it and he was going to demand to know why the hell she couldn’t take no for an answer.
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