“It figures,” she murmured under her breath, resigning herself to the ordeal ahead.
*
“Satisfied?” Suzie demanded.
She was still in the ER, but finally back in her own clothes. The doctor on call had given her an exam and put her through a battery of tests, before telling her that aside from a few minor cuts and bruises, she had suffered no real adverse effects from her ordeal and was free to go home.
She had addressed her rhetorical question to Chris. “The doctor says I’m fine and I can leave now.”
Chris glanced over his shoulder to make sure the curtains were securely pulled around her small enclosure. Seeing that they were, he moved closer to her. Rather than saying anything in response, he just took Suzie in his arms and kissed her.
Long and hard.
Kissed her until she could feel her knees threatening to give out again the way they had earlier, but for an entirely different reason.
Just in case, she braced herself against him as he drew his head back.
“Now are you satisfied?” she asked breathlessly.
He continued holding her. There was a smile in his eyes that radiated down to his lips. “Oh, I’m just getting started, Suzie Q.”
She didn’t know what to think, or what Chris was capable of, under the circumstances. They’d both been through the wringer in the last few hours.
“Not here,” she half protested, half pleaded.
“No, not here,” he agreed. Very gently, Chris framed her face with his palms. “This is going to take a lot longer than just an afternoon—or an evening,” he added, when he saw the question in her eyes.
“What are you saying?”
Since he had already signed all the necessary papers to check her out, Chris threaded his fingers through hers and led her from the cubicle. “What I’m saying is that I think I’m going to need a lifetime.”
She felt like she was just stumbling along behind him, down the hall. “What?”
He’d pulled up his vehicle to the hospital doors. Shayla had driven it to the ER for him. He brought her over to it now and held the passenger door open for her as she got in.
“You know how some things take a long time to develop, while other things just come right at you, riding a thunderbolt?” he asked, getting in on his side. He paused to look at her. “You’re my thunderbolt, Suzie Q.”
After reaching for her seat belt, she winced as she pulled it into place. “I was the one getting oxygen-deprived in that ratty trunk, not you. But you’re the one not making any sense.”
“Yeah, I am.” Starting up his car, he pulled away from the hospital. “Think about it,” he told her. Then he repeated the phrase with emphasis, as if giving her something more to consider. “Think about it. I don’t need an answer today, or tomorrow, or anytime soon. I need an answer whenever you feel like giving it.”
“An answer,” she repeated uncertainly.
“An answer.”
She thought she knew what he was saying, but this was one time she didn’t want to jump to a conclusion—especially if it was the wrong one. “Might help if I had a question to go with it.”
He spared her a quick glance. “You already know the question.”
She wanted it spelled out. “Pretend I don’t.”
“Okay, Suzie Q, I’ve just been to hell and back, thinking that maniac killed you. It made me realize that nothing else matters if you’re not here to go through it with me.” He didn’t even pause to take a breath. “Suzie Q, will you marry me?”
“Okay.”
Just like that? He stared at her, then realized he was driving and needed to watch the road. “Okay, you’ll marry me?”
“No, okay, now I have something to think about.”
She was yanking on his chain. “I left myself open for that.”
“Yup.”
He could hear the grin in her voice. She was alive and he could forgive her any one of a number of things because of that. “That’s all right, I can wait. You take all the time you need.”
“And you don’t care?” she asked him suddenly.
He was having trouble keeping up with her. “That you take all the time you need?” he questioned.
“No, you don’t care about who my father is?” She needed to get this cleared up once and for all.
“As long as he doesn’t come on the honeymoon with us, no, I don’t care who your father is,” Chris said in no uncertain terms. “You’re not your father, Suzie. You’re you and that’s all I care about.”
She realized that she believed him. “And you’re willing to wait for any answer?”
“As long as it takes,” he assured her—and then added with a grin, “As long as we can fool around now and again while I’m waiting.”
She knew for a fact that it was too late to go in to the precinct. Which made her think about going home—and what that meant. “How about now?”
Chris grinned again. “Works for me.”
“Me, too.” So saying, she reached up and turned on the siren.
They ran the siren only in an emergency. “What are you doing?”
“Drive faster,” she told him. “Otherwise, I can’t be held accountable for my actions, and I might just jump you right here in the car—which in turn might cause a collision and a possible multi-car pileup. And that’ll be all your fault.”
She really was going to be all right, he thought, relieved. “You do have a way of painting a picture,” he told her with a laugh.
“You want a picture painted? How about this one?” she asked, just before she leaned in to whisper into his ear. She told him, in detail, exactly what she intended to do the minute they reached her apartment.
Chris pressed down on the accelerator as far as it would go. “Driving faster,” he announced.
The sound of her laughter warmed his heart.
Epilogue
Suzie caught herself clutching the armrests of the chair she was sitting in. A chair that was facing the chief of detectives’ desk, while he sat on the other side.
Part of the problem was that she had no idea what she was doing here or why she had been summoned. It helped a little that Chris was already here, sitting in the other chair, but it still didn’t clear up the matter of why for her.
She’d already met Brian Cavanaugh informally, at the family gathering she’d attended, and of course she knew the man by sight. Most of the people who worked at the precinct did. But that still didn’t explain why he’d asked to see her.
Had Warren Eldridge made good on his threat and had his legion of lawyers sue the police department?
It had been only three days since the psychopath had locked her in that steamer trunk, but things had moved fast. The DNA results had come back a match and she had had to tell Mrs. Wilson that the unidentified “Jane Doe” had turned out to be her daughter. Then had held the woman as she cried. If Suzie hadn’t hated Eldridge before, she did now.
Had the bastard called in favors to get the chief of d’s and everyone else connected to this case fired?
She hadn’t a clue.
“You know, you don’t have to hold on to the armrests so hard. The chair’s not going anywhere,” Brian told her gently.
She loosened her grip, but it took effort. “Yes, sir. I mean no, sir.”
Brian laughed kindly, clearly doing his best to put her at ease. “Relax, Agent Quinn, you’re not facing a firing squad. And by the way, breathing is not optional.” He turned toward his nephew. “Tell her to breathe, Detective O’Bannon. Your mother will have my head if I have to call the paramedics.”
Chris smiled. “Better do as the man says, Suzie Q. He’s usually right about things.”
Her eyes never leaving the chief, Suzie took a deep breath, then slowly released it. Her pulse was still tap-dancing in her wrists, but the tempo was beginning to slow a bit.
“That’s better,” Brian said with approval. “Now, do you know why you and Detective O’Bannon are here?”
&nb
sp; She took a stab at it. She’d found that meeting things head-on was the best way. “You’re firing me?”
By his expression, she realized that she’d taken the chief by surprise.
“Good Lord, no,” he said. “Why would I want to fire you?”
Then he wasn’t firing her, she thought, still confused even as she answered his question. “Because I’m responsible for Warren Eldridge suing everyone in the department.”
“Threatening to sue everyone,” Brian corrected. “Big difference. No, you’re here because I wanted you and Detective O’Bannon to be the first to know that because of you, the grand jury has just indicted Warren Eldridge on over thirty counts of murder.”
“How many?” she cried, stunned. She’d come up with eleven victims on last count.
“Thirty, but the number is still growing,” Brian told her. “Turns out that our local philanthropist has been at this a long time, not just here but on the East Coast, as well as everywhere in between. Apparently every place that Warren Eldridge held a fund-raiser or gave a sizable donation to some foundation, he left that area with one less person in their midst. Thanks to one of his assistants turning state’s evidence in exchange for a reduced sentence, we’re finding bodies everywhere.”
She didn’t even want to picture that. It was her father all over again—with one notable exception.
“But he has all those lawyers on retainer,” Suzie reminded the chief. “They’ll be able to explain away anything.”
“I’m not so sure. The judge issued us a search warrant for all of Eldridge’s homes. Seems that in his panic room in the house up in Lake Tahoe Eldridge had a wall safe where he kept the souvenirs he collected from each kill.”
“Souvenirs?” Chris echoed. “What did he take?”
Brian smiled at Suzie. “Actually, Agent Quinn directed our attention to it.”
She had no idea what the chief was referring to. “I did?”
The man nodded. “Unlike the other victims, Eldridge hadn’t taken your clothing yet, but he had already taken something. You accused him of stealing the cross your mother gave you. Turns out that each of his victims wore a cross—a cross that he subsequently kept after he killed them.”
Brian paused to reflect for a moment. “Maybe that was what set him off to begin with. They all resembled the mother who never had any time for him, and they wore a small gold cross, just as she did. To him that cross represented the last word in hypocrisy. It was his ‘trigger’ so to speak. That safe of his in the panic room was filled with the crosses he collected from his victims.”
Brian rose and came around to the other side of his desk, taking Suzie’s hands in his. “I’m sorry you had to get banged up in the process, but nice work, Agent Quinn. Very nice work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Releasing her hands, he leaned against the desk at his back. “Now I want you and Detective O’Bannon to take the rest of the week off. I think after what you’ve both been through, you two more than deserve a little downtime.”
She didn’t want to be singled out, although she appreciated why he was doing it. “Just doing our jobs, sir,” Suzie told him.
“And I’m just doing mine,” he countered. “Go home, both of you,” he told them. “I don’t want to see either one of you until Saturday.”
“Saturday?” Chris questioned.
“Yes, at the former chief of police’s house. We’ve just brought down one hell of a notorious serial killer. If that’s not something to celebrate, then I don’t know what is. Well, actually, knowing my brother, I do, but this is still definitely worth celebrating and he’ll want you to be there,” he said, looking directly at Suzie.
She knew there was no way out of it, and surprisingly, she didn’t want there to be. “Yes, sir.”
“Now go,” Brian ordered.
They were quick to comply.
*
“So, you haven’t been to my place yet,” Chris said as they got out of the elevator on the first floor. “How about you come over and I’ll make you dinner?”
Exiting the building, she looked at him in surprise. “You cook?”
He’d promised himself that he would always be truthful with her. “Not exactly, but I microwave with the best of them.”
Suzy nodded. “Okay, you talked me into it.”
*
Dinner wasn’t spectacular, but it was quick, which was just as well, since she was no more interested in eating than it turned out that Chris was.
Dessert held a far greater allure.
“You know, woman, if we keep doing this on a regular basis—and I sincerely hope we do—I’m afraid you’re going to wear me out before the year’s over,” Chris told her as he struggled to catch the breath she had taken away from him. Lovemaking with Suzie was a constant surprise. She not only kept up, half the time she took the lead.
He was struck again by the fact that he had never met anyone quite like her.
Rather than curl up next to him, the way he’d thought she would, Suzie drew herself up until her torso was against his and she was looking down into his face.
He had no idea what to expect. When he looked at her with an unspoken question in his eyes, she said, “Yes.”
“Yes?” Chris repeated uncertainly.
She nodded and said yes again.
Still no clue, he thought. He refused to take anything for granted. “Okay, yes what?”
“You asked me a question in the hospital,” she reminded him.
He stared at her, momentarily drawing a blank. And then, just like that, it came back to him. Chris scrambled into a sitting position, almost throwing her off balance. Did she possibly mean...?
“Are you talking about when I asked you to marry me?”
She reminded him of the circumstances. “You said I could take all the time I wanted to answer you.”
“Not in those exact words, but yes, that was the gist of it. Is that your answer?” he asked, trying not to sound as if he was pushing her, but at the same time anxious for the wait to be over. He’d never thought of himself as the possessive type, but he did want her exclusively to himself.
Had she waited too long? She wasn’t sure if she was on stable ground. “Unless you’d rather that it wasn’t,” she said, giving him a way out.
Chris sighed. “I’m going to have to take you back to the hospital and make sure they didn’t miss any signs of a concussion,” he told her. “Right after I finish showing you what’s in store for you on our wedding night.”
Suzie slid back against the bed. “I can hardly wait,” she breathed.
He gathered her into his arms. “Lucky for you, my mother taught me never to keep a lady waiting.”
She grinned. “I think I love your mother.”
“And I love you,” he told her, his voice growing very serious.
“I love you more,” she said, just as he was about to kiss her.
“Oh, good,” he declared, the serious moment gone. “I love a competition.”
And then he proceeded to show her just how much.
*
Don’t forget previous titles in the
CAVANAUGH JUSTICE series:
CAVANAUGH COLD CASE
CAVANAUGH OR DEATH
HOW TO SEDUCE A CAVANAUGH
CAVANAUGH FORTUNE
CAVANAUGH STRONG
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Her Alpha Marine
by Karen Anders
Chapter 1
Death will come for you on swift wings.
Looking over her shoulder, especially an injured one, wasn’t a walk in the park. Neve Michaels had been chafing at the restrictions ever since she fractured her clavicle and bruised two of her ribs during a rescue mission gone wrong.
But someone stalking her made it ten times worse.
Her doctor was impressed at her dedication to PT and the amount of flexibility and strength in the injured arm, and told her that the healed break was now the strongest bone in her body.
She was now ten weeks into recovery after surgery and feeling almost back to normal, but still had six weeks left on her recommended medical leave. The terrible bruises from her shoulder to her elbow and down her torso had faded. She was back in the pool, even doing the crawl. Getting back to her crew aboard the Jayhawk helicopter and performing her Search and Rescue swimmer duties for the United States Coast Guard was all she thought about...
With the exception of the rescue that haunted her. She’d been reprimanded in the past for bucking protocol, and her commander wasn’t happy about her broken collarbone. He’d had a thorough investigation conducted on her, and she’d been cleared of any blame in the rescue.
Cavanaugh in the Rough Page 20