She sounded beat, he thought. As were they all. “Look, why don’t we knock it off for the day?” he suggested. “Grab some dinner somewhere and start fresh in the morning?”
Charley shook her head. She just wanted to keep going. She could catch a few winks, if necessary, right at her desk. “I want to see if I can find that autopsy report.”
“Why?” he asked her. The car ahead of him was traveling well below the speed limit. He sped up to go around the rather noisy vintage Dart.
“Because I can’t think of anything else to do right now, except go back to looking through the academy’s washed-out candidates’ files and HR’s files of termination notices,” she replied, a touch of frustration entering her voice.
“You’re not going to solve the case tonight,” he said.
She stared straight ahead at the dark road. “No, but maybe I can get one step closer to solving it.” That was all she could logically hope for—one step at a time. “I just want to be able to get this guy before he gets anyone else.”
“You’re making it sound personal again,” he said.
She saw no point in denying it. But she broadened the base. “Well, it is, isn’t it? Personal to all of us? We’re all cops, we could all be this nut-job’s next target.” She turned in her seat to look at him—or at least his profile. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way. Everyone in your entire large family is a potential next target.”
“Why are you shouting?” he asked her mildly.
“I’m not shouting,” she denied, even though she knew she was. “I’m articulating loudly.”
“You are doing that,” Declan said, looking at her pointedly.
She could almost feel his eyes probing her, looking for something. “What?” she asked sharply.
It made her feel like squirming at the same time that she felt heat igniting within her, beginning in her chest and spreading out from there to all points beyond until she was almost fighting an urge to open a window and stand in front of a floor fan. What was going on with her? she silently demanded. Was she having some sort of a breakdown? Because, damn, she’d never felt quite this way before. This
had
to be the way Superman felt, exposed to kryptonite, she decided, searching for a glimmer of humor within the situation.
With effort, Charley continued blocking these thrusts and parries into her inner sanctum, but it was really getting harder and harder to do that, to remain strong and unaffected.
He debated saying something, but he wanted to be able to phrase it better than the words that were going through his head at the moment. So instead, taking a sharp right turn at the end of the block, he said, “We’re going to dinner.”
She glared at him. Did he think he could order her around like this? “What if I’m not hungry?”
Unfazed, he had an answer for that. “You can watch me eat.”
“Yu or Callaghan might have found something,” she said, which was a good argument for returning to the station first, not a fast-food place.
He took her protest in stride. “They have my number, they’ll call. Anything else?”
Okay, they were clearly waltzing around something, but what? “Yeah, what’s bothering you?”
Declan stopped at a red light, which gave him a chance to look at her for a long moment. Okay, maybe now
was
the time to ask.
Silence all but pulsed within the sedan before he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Drop it, Charley. Don’t ask, don’t ask. This can’t be good.
But she had always been like a junkyard dog with a bone and she
couldn’t
just drop the matter. “Tell you what?”
“That Officer Matt Holt was your brother?”
Chapter 12
C
harley considered playing dumb, but it was too late for that.
She also thought—fleetingly—of denying it, of saying she didn’t know what Declan was talking about, that Matt wasn’t her brother. But she just couldn’t bring herself to deny Matt. To her way of thinking, Matt was the very reason why she was still here, why she was alive at all. He was also the reason why she had become a cop.
“How did you find out?” she asked Declan, her voice almost hollow sounding.
As hollow as she felt at times.
He brushed her question aside. They were partners and a partnership, however short, had to be built on trust or it just didn’t work. “That doesn’t matter. The point is I know and you didn’t tell me.”
Charley gauged her words carefully. She only had one shot at making him understand and she knew it. “If I had told you in the beginning that Matt was my brother, would you have even
considered
letting me work the case?”
He didn’t hesitate. “No.”
Her point was made. “Well, there you have your answer.”
The look he gave her was flat and unreadable. Had she lost him? “And what makes you think that I’ll let you work it now?”
Passion filled her as she pleaded her case. “Because you’re a Cavanaugh. Because you know what family means. Because you can’t sit there and tell me that if it was you in my place and some sick lowlife had killed your brother, shot him dead in his home, that you wouldn’t do everything in your power to find the person who did it and that no rules, no person in charge could bar you from the investigation because
nothing
in the world was going to make you go home and sit on your hands, waiting for someone else to solve the crime.” She was almost shouting when she finished.
He wondered if Charley was aware of how compelling she looked when emotion fueled every word she uttered. The word
magnificent
echoed in his head.
But when he spoke, he spoke quietly. “You sound very sure of yourself.”
She didn’t want him thinking she was conceited. That wasn’t why she’d said what she had. “No, in the long run, I’m sure of you.”
“If you were so sure of me, why didn’t you tell me the truth when I asked how you knew Holt? Why the games?”
“Because, if at all possible, I wanted to give you plausible deniability, so if it came to light that he was my brother, no one could chew you out for letting me work the case. The fault would be mine alone.”
Declan laughed shortly. “Got an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“No,” she told him quietly, “I still don’t have an answer for who killed him and why—and I’m not going to stop until I find out.”
Silence descended over the inside of the sedan, falling like an asbestos curtain for the second time tonight.
As each second ticked away, Charley felt edgier. Finally, she had to ask, had to know, “Are you going to tell the chief?”
Declan didn’t answer right away. Blowing out a breath, he ran one hand along the back of his neck, as if that could somehow help knead out the kinks in his mind. The other hand remained on the steering wheel, guiding the vehicle to a favorite restaurant of his. He still intended to get something to eat, was still determined to have Charley eat something, as well.
“Hell of a spot,” he admitted.
“That’s why I didn’t tell you anything,” she said. “I didn’t want you to have to wrestle with this. You need your mind free to concentrate on finding the killer.”
He wasn’t
that
gullible, Declan thought. “And you also didn’t want me barring you from the investigation.”
Charley inclined her head. “And I also didn’t want you barring me from the investigation,” she conceded. She looked around. The area they were driving through didn’t seem familiar to her. “Aren’t we going back to the office?” she asked.
“We’re going to get dinner, remember?”
He was still willing to eat with her? Charley was surprised. She’d been positive that it would take Declan time to get over being duped. He was acting as if what she’d done was of no consequence to him. Was that possible? Could he be that thick skinned?
“I thought after I told you I was withholding information,” she said, “you’d want to deposit me next to my car as soon as possible.”
Granted, annoyance had flashed through his veins, but it came and went, especially when she pointed out how he would feel in her place. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” he countered.
Charley smiled, more than willing to agree—and to be grateful that she was wrong about him, that Declan wasn’t just out for himself. The man could actually empathize with someone, something that she wouldn’t have thought him capable of.
“You’ve come a long way since the academy,” she acknowledged.
“How would you know about that?” he asked. “With your nose buried in a book, studying whenever you were actually around and not running home to that invisible husband of yours, you never really mingled with anyone, especially not me.” And then he shook his head incredulously, laughing at himself. “I can’t believe that I was actually taken in by your charade about being married.”
They arrived at the restaurant. It was built out of large, rounded stones, and when Charley saw it, she thought it looked very much like the cottage where Snow White found the seven dwarfs. Easing the car into one of the parking spaces in front of the restaurant, Declan got out and waited for her to do the same.
“What would you have done if I’d tried to persuade you to hang around for a bit back then? If I’d tried to coax you into loosening up and having some fun?” he asked, curious and wondering if he’d allowed opportunities to slip through his fingers.
Was
that
why he found her so attractive? Because she was the one who got away and he hadn’t even realized it back then?
She smiled at him, remembering a time or two when she had been sorely tempted to give up the charade and make herself available to him—but then, he’d always had some woman or other on his arm. Women seemed to flock to him and he certainly made no effort to hold them at bay. And she had never been one to settle for being part of a crowd.
“I would have told you that my husband was expecting me to be home when he got there and that I didn’t want to mess up a good thing just to have one drink with you. But you didn’t press,” she reminded him.
It wouldn’t have been just for one drink, Declan thought. It would have been for a memorable interlude. “I should have,” he said, feeling a twinge of regret as he looked back at that period of time.
“No, you not pressing was one of the things I found appealing about you. You pursued me but didn’t try to cross the line.”
One of the things. She’d said “one of the things.” Were there more?
he wondered. Out loud he asked, “Others did?”
“A couple,” she allowed.
The wide smile on Charley’s lips told him there was more to the story than she was telling. “What happened to them?”
A fond note slipped into her voice as she referred to her brother and the close relationship they’d shared. “Matt taught me a few very good moves in self-defense. He wanted to make sure I could protect myself if the need ever came up.”
As they walked into the restaurant, he could see her face better. She seemed very content with the story she was recalling. “And I take it that it did?”
“Just once,” she admitted. “Ken McCarthy thought I’d change my mind if he dazzled me.”
It took him a moment to recall the rookie she was talking about. McCarthy left the force after his first year, moving to Sacramento and joining the police department there. After that, he’d lost track of the other man, but it was no loss. There was something a little off-putting about the guy.
“And did he?” Declan asked. “Dazzle you?” he supplied in case she didn’t understand what he was asking.
“He most certainly did not,” she replied as they approached the hostess’s desk.
After Declan held up two fingers, the hostess picked up two menus, flashed a smile at them and told them to follow her. She led them into the dining area and their table.
“Besides,” Charley continued once she was seated, “McCarthy was too in love with himself for there to be room for anyone else in his world.”
Declan thought back for a moment. “You know, now that I think about it, McCarthy sported this peculiar limp for a while. He wouldn’t talk about it when someone asked him what happened.” He looked at her, amused. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you?”
Charley inclined her head evasively. “The man wouldn’t take no for an answer,” she said. “And I was fresh out of hand puppets.”
Declan laughed heartily as he pictured the encounter. The man she was talking about was almost twice her size. “I would have paid to see that,” he told her.
Still laughing, Declan picked up his menu and glanced over it. It hadn’t changed since the last time he’d had occasion to stop by. Which meant he was getting the prime rib, as usual.
Closing the menu, he looked at her. “See anything you like?” he asked.
Charley raised her eyes to his. The question had caused a flurry of butterflies to take off in her stomach, completely surprising her. As did the spontaneous answer to his question that popped into her head.
Yes, you.
Charley told herself it was because she was just feeling vulnerable. Since she’d found Matt shot dead in his house, she’d been periodically ambushed by waves of loneliness that came out of nowhere and burst over her, making her lose her breath as well as her train of thought for a moment.
She was certain that the response had its origins in her wanting to feel less alone, to feel that she was part of someone’s life. But getting tangled up with Declan Cavanaugh was
not
an answer to anything and it would create more problems than it solved.
This unbelievably painful, lost feeling would pass, she told herself. She just had to wait it out and stay strong.
Charley forced a bright smile to her lips. “What are you having?”
It took him a moment to replay her question before he could absorb it. The look in her eyes just then when she raised them to his had temporarily blotted out his ability to think.
He could have
sworn
he felt an electrical charge shooting between them and right through him.
He told himself it was his imagination, that he’d been pushing himself and getting very little sleep since he’d been put in charge.
He could tell himself all sorts of things from morning until night, but for the most part, he knew they would be lies. Because there was just something about this woman that fate and his uncle had coupled him with, something that went beyond a simple professional partnership. Something that was far more basic and far less structured than that.
The feeling was almost primal.
And he needed to keep it in check if he wanted to satisfactorily resolve this case and if he valued his career.
Charley leaned closer. He looked like he was a million miles away. Was he thinking about the case, or had something else lured his mind away?
“Declan?”
Her voice was like a magnet, drawing him back to the present.
“Sorry,” he apologized, “got lost in thought there for a second.” He recalled her question. “I’m having the prime rib.” The second he said that, mentioning the prime rib with relish, he realized that among the things that he didn’t know about the woman sitting opposite him were her food preferences. He’d just assumed she was like him. But a growing number of people weren’t anymore. “You’re not a vegan or a vegetarian, are you?” he asked cautiously.
His tone made her laugh. “God, no. I don’t think I could make it through a week without some kind of meal involving meat every day.”
“Okay, then, you’ll really like the prime rib,” he told her with enthusiasm, something he refrained from doing normally.
That was good enough for her. “Prime rib it is,” Charley said, closing her menu just as the waitress returned with their beverages.
The young woman took their orders, promised to be back soon and then vanished.
Declan sat back in his seat, studying her for a moment before asking out of the blue, “Why’d you become a cop?”
As an afterthought, he picked up the wicker basket the waitress had left in her wake and offered it to Charley. There were rolls in the basket.
She took the smallest one and broke it open with her fingers. She took it plain. Declan, she noted, spread butter over his before taking a bite.
“Matt,” she answered simply. “He became a cop, so I wanted to be one. He was always doing selfless things and I wanted nothing more than to be just like him,” she confessed. “And to make him proud of me.” A fond expression slipped over her face as bits and pieces of memories came tiptoeing back. “He used to tell me that I didn’t have to do anything but be a good person and that was enough for him. All he wanted, he said, was for me to be happy.”
“Sorry I never got to know him. He sounds like he was a great guy,” Declan said.
“Oh, he was,” she assured him. “He was.”
And here they came again, marching out of nowhere, Charley thought. Tears. One minute she was talking to Declan, the next, she could feel tears gathering in her eyes, just like that.
Annoyed with herself, she mumbled an apology as she swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sorry. I’m not usually like this.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” he told her gently. “Holt was your brother—and your only family—it’s perfectly normal for you to feel the way you do. It’d be abnormal not to.”
She looked up at him as he offered her a handkerchief. Charley wiped her eyes quickly, then handed it back to him. “Thank you,” she murmured, embarrassed nonetheless.
Taking the handkerchief back, Declan tucked it into his pocket. “The M.E. is going to release your brother’s body sometime in the next few days. If you need any help picking out a funeral parlor, making the arrangements, just say the word. I can help,” he volunteered.
Then, in case she thought he was undermining her abilities, he told Charley, “Most people don’t have a funeral parlor picked out unless they have a large family and have gone through this before. I just thought you might want a little help.”