Cavanaugh Rules (6 page)

So, for now, she remained evasive. “I just like to know the kind of person I’m working with, that’s all,” she said in the most innocent voice she could muster.

“Wouldn’t you figure that out after a few days of interacting with him?” Tom asked, putting the logical assumption out there.

For that, at least, she had an answer. “You know I’m the impatient type.”

Tom grinned. “Which is why this new partner of yours gets more of my sympathy than you do,” her brother told her.

Kendra eyed him impatiently. “So you’re not going to help?”

“I didn’t say that.”

No, she had to admit that he hadn’t. And that relieved her. For a second. “You just like to yank my chain.”

Tom didn’t bother suppressing the laugh. “Something like that.”

Nothing new there, she thought. And then she remembered something else. Something she had jumped the gun on. Was this going to create problems now, she wondered uncertainly.

Kendra took a breath, then said, “Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.”

She pressed her lips together, then pushed ahead. “Think that the chief would mind my bringing two guests with me to his Saturday brunch thing this week?”

“Which chief?” he asked for form’s sake, although only one of them really cooked. Brian just put up the tables. “We’ve got two of them in the family now,” he reminded her, tongue in cheek. “It might be clearer if you refer to them as Uncle Andrew and Uncle Brian.”

She couldn’t bring herself to do that just yet. They were people she respected and in Brian’s case, was honored to work with. But they weren’t her uncles. Maybe in time they would be, but not yet. Not now.

“Doesn’t feel right, yet,” she told her brother. “And you know I’m talking about the brunches the former chief has in his house—Andrew, all right?” she tagged on, exasperated as she used the man’s name.

Tom ignored her irritated tone. There was a more interesting question here than why her temper kept spiking. “What guests?”

She would rather not have said anything until later, but since he asked, she had to tell him. There was no easy way around it. “Abilene and his mother.”

“So you’re getting along with him, then,” Tom assumed.

She wasn’t about to launch into any long explanations right now. “One thing doesn’t have anything to do with the other,” Kendra countered.

Tom crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “All right. Educate me.”

She sighed. “Abilene got a call at the office from his mother today. She was upset. From what I could gather, her boyfriend walked out on her. Abilene said it wasn’t the first such occurrence. That it’s a pattern.” She recited the facts as she recalled them. “She sounds like a good woman who’s made a lot of bad choices because she’s afraid of winding up alone. Apparently, there’s no other family. I just thought...”

Kendra let her voice trail off. Tom was the smart one here, she let him fill in the blanks.

“—that being subjected to the Cavanaugh family might help her feel less alone?” he guessed.

“Something like that,” she acknowledged. “But I don’t want to do something that’ll make the chief think that I’m taking advantage of the so-called family connection.”

Tom shook his head. “It’s not a ‘so-called’ family connection,” he corrected her. “It
is
a family connection.
Our
family connection. Like it or not, Kenny, Dad’s a Cavanaugh. And so are we.”

“Yeah, I know. But—” She paused for a moment, searching for words that didn’t seem to want to materialize. “What do we do about...you know...the
other
family?”

“We don’t ‘do’ anything about them. The way I see it, Kenny, we just got more family, we didn’t trade one bunch in for another. You can’t close your eyes to over twenty years of life and pretend it never happened. We thought they were our aunts and uncles,
they
thought they were our aunts and uncles. No reason for anything to change.”

He was missing the huge elephant in the room—and she knew he was too smart not to see it. So why was he taking this stand?

“Except that they’re
not
our aunts and uncles,” she insisted.

“Just a technicality, Kenny. Finding out about the hospital mix-up doesn’t suddenly erase them, or make all those memories of Christmases past disappear. It sure doesn’t erase them from our lives. They wouldn’t want it and
we
wouldn’t want it.” He leaned forward in his chair, his voice gaining enthusiasm. “Life just got better, Kenny. And you don’t have to choose between one camp or the other. This is one of those times when you can have it all and it’s really okay.”

He smiled at her as he rose. When she did as well, Tom gave her a quick, hard hug. “Give yourself permission to be happy again, Kenny. The rest of us are worried about you.” And then he glanced at his watch. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a very sexy lady waiting to light up my life and I don’t want to keep her waiting any longer.”

That would be the detective who’d transferred from New Mexico after working with her brother on her niece’s kidnapping case. Kaitlyn Two Feathers. Their family would become larger by one very soon. Kendra was happy for Tom, even as she felt an unexpected pang in her heart for what she no longer had. And maybe never did. Jason’s suicide, despite all her efforts to help him, was evidence of that.

“Say hi to Kait for me. Tell her to treat my big brother well.”

He grinned. “Will do.”

She stood there, watching her brother leave and then, quietly, she doubled back to the Homicide squad room. She made her way through the nearly deserted room until she reached her desk.

Taking a deep breath, Kendra sat down and started to go over all her notes on the current case from the beginning.

Again.

Chapter 6

S
abrina Abilene’s impressively unlined, heart-shaped face lit up when she saw her son walking toward her booth.

She’d been sitting there for the last half hour and was thinking about leaving. She knew that Matthew’s career didn’t always remain between the lines. Sometimes he was forced to work around the clock. And while she worried about him a great deal because of his chosen career, she was also incredibly proud of him.

“You came,” she cried once Matt was within earshot. Surprise and pleasure were evident in equal parts in her voice. “I didn’t think that you were going to.”

Matt slid into the seat opposite his mother. This was where they came whenever they wanted to celebrate an occasion. Or just to get away and talk.

It was the latter he was faced with now.

Somewhere along the line, their roles had gotten reversed and he’d become the parent while she was the child, at least when it came to matters of the heart.

“When have I not come?” he asked. Then, before she could reply, he said quietly, “You’re getting me confused with all those other men in your life, Mom. The ones who keep disappointing you and running out on you.”

“No, I’m not,” she protested with a sad smile. “I just expect you to get fed up with holding my hand whenever I wind up having this happen to me,” she told him honestly. Her eyes smiled as she looked at him. “I’d never confuse you with anyone else.” Sabrina looked down at the one glass of wine she allowed herself to have whenever she came here. There were no answers in the light pink liquid. “Why do they keep running out on me, Matthew? What’s wrong with me?” she asked in a very small, defeated voice.

Matt didn’t bother with the menu. He knew what the restaurant had to offer by heart. The people who ran Haven knew when not to mess with a good thing and had left it unchanged for the past few years.

When the waiter approached their table, Matt ordered the lemon chicken. His mother echoed, “Make that two.” Once the waiter retreated, only then did Matt answer his mother’s question.

He hated seeing her like this. And hated what he had to tell her, even though they both already knew this. “You have lousy taste in men,” he told her honestly. “And a good heart,” he added to temper the harsher remark. “No matter how many times this happens to you, no matter how many men take everything you have to give and then disappear, you just can’t seem to make yourself believe that not everyone is like you, that someone could actually be cruel on purpose.”

His mother laughed shortly. “I guess that makes me a sucker.”

“No,” he told her carefully, “just a good-hearted person who really needs to be a little more cautious about opening up.”

She began to speak, then waited until the waiter who’d returned with the basket of lemon chicken pieces that was to be their dinner left again.

“It’s just that I get so lonely sometimes,” she confessed quietly. Bright blue eyes looked up at him. “I miss your father.”

“I don’t think he’d be too happy about what you’re going through, either, Mom,” Matt pointed out patiently. “Listen, I have an idea. Why don’t you do some volunteer work at the local hospital?” he suggested. “They could use the help and it’ll make you feel as if you’re doing something useful for people. That’s a plus. You also might run into a better class of people than you do at your present job. Definitely another plus.”

But Sabrina shook her head. “I can’t do that and work,” she protested. “My job takes up a great deal of my time.”

The place where she worked—a bar named Sparky’s—was not the place where he wanted his mother. It was the last in a long line of less than A-list places where she’d worked.

“Waiting tables at that...club—” he finally settled on the word rather than calling it a bar “—also puts you right out there with a whole unsavory class of people. Men just looking for women to take advantage of.”

She pressed her lips together. “Meaning me.”

“Listen.” He leaned in closer. “You can quit that job. I have some money put away—”

“No, no, no, that’s out of the question.” She was his mother, Matthew wasn’t supposed to have to take care of her. “I won’t have you spending your hard-earned money on me—”

“My money, Mom,” he told her. “I get to spend it the way I want to.” He smiled at her, remembering the good times—and there had been good times. She’d tried very hard to give him a decent upbringing and he’d never doubted that she loved him. The rest of it was hard to take. “Can’t think of a better way than helping you out.”

“I can,” Sabrina told him firmly. She placed her hand over his and patted it. “Your taking time out of your busy day to see me is all I want from you. That’s already more than a lot of sons would do,” she insisted. And then she forced a smile to her lips, putting up a brave front for him and trying at the same time to convince herself that from now on, it was going to be different. “I’ll try to do better,” she promised.

He nodded and pretended as if he believed her, but this was nothing new. His mother had made the same promise before, time and again, and she’d meant it.

But each and every time she’d wind up losing her soft heart to the first charismatic con man who crossed her path.

It was as if there was some kind of electronic bulletin board with her picture on it. The note beneath it urged anyone with larcenous tendencies to come find her because she was the perfect mark.

His mother had good intentions, but this pattern of hers wouldn’t change unless he found a way to do something about it.

What he needed, Matt told himself, was to find a way for his mother to mingle with a better element of people, he thought. That was when he suddenly remembered the invitation his partner had tendered. He had his doubts if the cocky detective actually meant it once she had the time to think it over, but whether or not she meant it, he decided he needed to take her up on it.

Or rather, his mother needed him to take her up on it.

“By the way,” Matt said casually as he selected another piece of chicken from the basket—he favored drumsticks—“we’ve been invited to the former police chief’s house on Saturday.”

Sabrina’s light green eyes widened in surprise. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“If something was wrong,” Matt answered, doing his best not to laugh at his mother’s dazed expression, “we’d be going to the precinct, not his house. Turns out that my new partner’s one of his nieces and the former chief of police has a real penchant for having a lot of people over to his house for brunch and other get-togethers. Word has it that the man’s one hell of a cook.” A deep fondness filled his eyes as he grinned at his mother. “He probably can’t hold a candle to you, but we might as well give the guy a chance. So what d’you say? Will you go with me?”

When Sabrina didn’t answer right away, he prodded her a little. “Could be a lot of fun, being around a house full of honest people for a change—and me, of course,” he winked.

As if he had a dishonest bone in his body, Sabrina thought with a gentle laugh. She was and always had been very, very proud of him. Matthew was the very best part of her.

Sabrina leaned over the table and their basket of communal chicken and kissed his cheek. “You always could make everything all better just by talking to me, Matthew.”

“Maybe I should tape-record my voice, leave you with that to listen to when I’m not around.”

The smile on her lips was also reflected in her eyes. When she looked like that, his mother was downright beautiful. But, beautiful or not, she didn’t deserve to be taken advantage of the way she was. And she certainly didn’t deserve to have it happen to her over and over again. Maybe some time with the Cavanaughs would help her break that pattern, let her see the way decent people treated one another. Who knew—it might even help to build up her confidence.

“It’s worth a try,” she laughed, referring to the tape.

“Yeah, maybe it is, at that.” Matt was only half kidding.

* * *

“’Morning, Good,” Abilene said cheerfully as he slid into his chair and took his place behind his desk. “By the way, my mother says thank you for the invitation. She’ll be very happy to attend the chief’s brunch this Saturday.”

About to get started with the files he’d left on his desk last night, Abilene took a sip of his coffee. That was when he took a good look at his partner for the first time.

He wasn’t much on noticing a woman’s clothes, but he was fairly certain that he’d seen his partner wearing this same outfit yesterday. In his experience, most women didn’t wear the same thing two days in a row unless they hadn’t been home the night before.

He eyed her over the rim of his container. “Did you go home last night?”

Kendra looked up ruefully. It wasn’t something she was happy about acknowledging. Sleep last night had come when she’d least expected it and she’d wound up with her head on the desk, getting about four hours, perhaps less. It hadn’t been restful. Her neck was killing her this morning and she was pretty sure that beneath her sandy bangs was the imprint of a staple.

None of that put her in a good mood, or even a tolerable one. The edges of her temper were already pretty frayed. And it was still early.

“Let’s get one thing straight. You’re my temporary partner, not my guardian angel,” she told him.

“Temporary, huh?” he repeated. “Is that what you think?” If it was, that explained a lot, he reasoned.

She shrugged, not about to discuss it when she felt so overwhelmingly underarmed. Her mind fuzzy, she was still having trouble focusing.

“Everything’s temporary one way or another. Who knows?” She threw the ball into his court. “Things might not work out and you might be the one asking for another partner.”

She was a Cavanaugh. He wouldn’t jeopardize his career like that. You didn’t get very far by complaining about the chief’s niece.

“Or you might.” And that, he knew by the way she’d said the word
temporary,
was a far more likely scenario in this case.

“There’s that, too,” Kendra agreed with a dismissive sigh he couldn’t quite interpret. “What was that you said about your mother?” she asked, looking for a way to change the subject.

“I said she wanted me to thank you for the invitation to the chief’s house.” Had the woman been here all night? he wondered. Working on the case? She certainly didn’t look as if she’d found anything for her trouble. He doubted she’d be quite this surly if she had.

Why was it so hard for her to think clearly? Kendra wondered, annoyed with herself and the fog that had set in on her brain. She used to be able to get by on four hours’ sleep—just not four hours grabbed on top of a desk, she reminded herself.

What had Abilene just said about his mother? Oh, right. That the other woman had extended her thanks. She stitched together the rest of the conversation, then, just to be clear, asked, “Then she’s coming?”

“Took a little persuading—my mother really doesn’t like to feel as if she’s imposing—” he explained, to forestall any further misunderstanding.

“Trust me, from what I know about Andrew Cavanaugh’s get-togethers, she’s not,” Kendra assured him.

“But she is coming,” he said, finishing his sentence despite the fact that they seemed to be talking over one another here. He paused for a second, then asked, “You were serious, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Right now, given her present state of nonclarity, she wondered what had possessed her to invite Abilene, but then she recalled that he’d told her about his mother’s penchant for getting taken by the men she let into her life. She supposed, in a way, Abilene’s mother and she had something in common. The men in their lives had ultimately disappointed them.

Except that in her case, it wasn’t so cut-and-dried. She was disappointed because, on some existential plane, she had failed Jason. If she hadn’t, she would have been able to make him come around and renew his hold on life. Instead, he’d gone ahead and romanced a gun, using it to end his life, rather than fighting his way back from the depths of the black hole he’d slipped into.

“So how do you want to work this?” he was asking as she distanced herself from Jason and the memory of that awful day, of finding him like that, lifeless and bleeding.

She took a breath, then focused her attention back on the case. “Well, right now I’m having a lot of photos of Burnett printed up so that we can show it around in all the train and bus stations and at all the airline terminals at the local airport. This way, if he’s leaving town any other way than by car, we’ve got him.”

“Great.” He nodded, but that wasn’t really what he was asking. “But I meant on Saturday. At your uncle’s house.” She really wasn’t here, was she, he thought, looking into her eyes again. He couldn’t help wondering what was going on in her mind.

Kendra blinked. It took her a second to refocus her thoughts, shifting them away from the case and reluctantly onto her personal life. She almost corrected him about Andrew being her uncle—except that, when she came right down to it, she really couldn’t. He
was
her uncle. Not in name only, but in actuality.

It was just going to take a lot of getting used to.

“Oh, that. Well, I could meet you at your place, or you could—”

She was about to say that he and his mother could meet her at her place, but then that meant she’d have to give him her address and she wasn’t in a place emotionally where she was willing to give out that kind of information to him just yet. She preferred doling out personal information slowly. When she knew Abilene better—
and
he was her partner of record for a while—
then
she’d let him know where she lived.

Maybe.

“Why don’t I swing by your place, pick you and your mother up and we’ll go from there?” she suggested pleasantly.

“All right.” He wasn’t about to ask her why she’d doubled back so abruptly. He had a feeling he knew. The woman was very guarded and she didn’t immediately “work well and play well with others,” as they used to say on grade-school report cards from decades gone by. “Give me an approximate time so I can pick up my mother first and have her back in time for when you do your ‘swinging by,’ Good.”