Cavanaugh on Duty(17)

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

After clearing his throat a couple of times, Esteban tried again. “You said you were surprised to find out that I still had some compassion in me. The word ‘still’ would mean that you thought you already knew me.”

“I did.” She could see that wasn’t the answer he wanted. “Want to go somewhere and pick up a late lunch?” she asked.

Until she’d mentioned it, he hadn’t realized that as of yet, they hadn’t stopped to eat and it was getting closer to dinnertime than to lunch. “What about Anne Daniels?” he asked, referring to the victim’s traumatized granddaughter.

“Have you been to a hospital lately?” she asked him. “I’m sure she’ll still be there in an hour when we get there.”

With a shrug, Esteban said, “Okay, why not?” and assumed that the subject of his so-called recognition was being tabled. Which was just as well, he decided. It would only complicate things.

Kari asked softly, “You don’t remember me, do you?”

For now, Esteban intended to play it very close to the vest. “Should I?”

She answered his question with a question of her own. “What high school did you go to?”

Accustomed to covering up every detail of his life and keeping it hidden at all costs, his immediate reaction was to go on the defensive. “What difference does that make?” he contested.

“Plenty,” she told him with feeling. “I went to Aurora High. The quarterback there my first two years was this Adonis with an incredible throwing arm. To watch him play football was like watching poetry in motion.”

She watched him carefully, waiting to see if there was any kind of reaction to her words. He remained as stoic as a statue. “He had midnight-black hair that was a little on the long side, and I knew of several girls who would have killed just to run their fingers through it...or simply have him smile in their direction.”

“Does that include you?” The question came out of the blue and succeeded in catching her off guard for a second time.

She felt a wave of heat pass over her. Since it was a mild spring day, the weather was not a factor in the abrupt change in temperature. “I had a crush on him,” she admitted, knowing she had to answer him honestly. “But I could never get myself to be part of a crowd. Because I was already one of seven at home, I was always trying too hard to be noticed as an individual.” She kept on studying his facial features, waiting for a glimmer, for some sort of an indication that she was right. “His name was Steve Fernandez.”

He shrugged indifferently. “Fernandez is a common last name.”

“So you’re saying that wasn’t you,” she challenged.

He stared straight ahead. The teenager he had been seemed like someone from another lifetime. His world had undergone drastic changes since then. And he had had to struggle every day to keep on putting one foot in front of the other.

And maybe the answer to healing was shedding his identity altogether. “I’m saying that wasn’t me.”

She saw the minuscule way his jaw tightened, saw the lone nerve along his cheek move spasmodically. That was her answer, not the words he said.

“It was you,” she said quietly.

He shot her a look. “If that’s an indication of your detective instincts, I’d say as a team, we’re in big trouble and I’m within my rights to ask for another partner.”

“Think another partner would put up with you any better than I would?” she wanted to know, her tone deceptively mild.

Esteban blew out a breath.

Rather than answer her question or even acknowledge it, he quoted an old adage he knew: “I guess better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”

Kari laughed shortly, amused despite herself. “First time I’ve been referred to as the devil. You’d be a big hit with my brothers, you know.” Pausing for a moment, she looked at him just before she started up the car. “So we’re good?”

“We’re good, Hyphen,” he said, slanting a glance in her direction.

She still wasn’t warming up to the nickname, but she supposed that things could be a lot worse. “Okay, slight change in plans,” she announced. “Let’s go see how the victim’s granddaughter is doing first, then pick up some takeout and bring it to the station. This way we can eat and go over what we’ve learned so far.” She paused for a second, then added, “Steve.”

He looked at her sharply then. She could see that he wanted to say something in response, maybe even chastise her for addressing him by a name he’d clearly disavowed. But she also knew that her new partner couldn’t have survived undercover for the length of time that he had by allowing his temper to get the better of him.

What he did say to her when he finally spoke was “I’m not your quarterback.”

She smiled at that, thinking how, back in the day, the very idea that he was hers would have had her walking at least three inches off the ground.

“I never said the quarterback was mine,” Kari pointed out.

Esteban said nothing. She had a feeling that was because he really didn’t know what to say.

Score one for the home team, Kari thought.

His beautiful, feisty partner had managed to hit far too close to home and that made him uncomfortable. As far as he was concerned, the life he’d had before he’d gone undercover was dead and gone and bringing it up now after all this time just succeeded in exhuming all the hurt, all the pain that he’d buried almost four years ago.

All the hurt and pain that had to remain buried in order for him to function at least moderately well as a cop.

He gave serious consideration to asking for a new partner, but he needed a reason and citing something as inane as irreconcilable differences was beyond ridiculous. And he couldn’t very well tell the Chief of D’s that his niece recognized him from their school days, blowing the last of his carefully constructed cover, because that sounded worse than lame.

So, for now, he knew he had no other choice but to ride it out, and stay confident that keeping to himself would eventually push her to ask for a new partner. He just hoped that the confounding feeling bedeviling him—the one he was doing his best to ignore—wouldn’t trip him up and wreak havoc on the life he’d worked so hard to strip bare.

Yet even as he tried not to think about it—about her—he found that it was far easier said than done.





Chapter 9



“That’s not hers.”

Tears flowing freely, the woman propped up in the hospital bed pushed away the photograph that Kari and Esteban were showing her.

Kari held the photo of the charm in front of Anne Daniels again, not entirely convinced that the woman was thinking clearly.

“You’re sure?” she pressed. “Look at the picture carefully.”

“I don’t have to. My grandmother didn’t like jewelry.” The young woman angrily pushed the photograph away again. “She didn’t own any. She thought it was a waste of money that could be spent in better ways, like supporting children’s charities.” Her voice shook as she spoke. “She was always doing things like that...volunteering her time to help mentor kids from underprivileged neighborhoods, starting up food drives and collecting toys around the holidays. People are really going to miss her.” Anne pressed her lips together to keep a sob back as fresh tears fell.

When she was in control again, the bereaved woman nodded at the photograph and asked, “Where did you find that?”

“The charm was clutched in your grandmother’s hand,” Esteban explained, stepping up beside Kari to make his presence known

Confusion crept across Anne’s features as she looked from one detective to the other. “That doesn’t make any sense.” And then a possible explanation seemed to dawn on her. “Maybe the killer was wearing it and she managed to snatch it from him while she was struggling. Oh, God.” She covered her mouth as she tried to stifle a fresh wave of sobs.

“Maybe,” Kari allowed. That could be one theory, she supposed. As good as any other so far.

A hopeful look entered the woman’s brown eyes. It was obvious she wanted nothing more than to find her grandmother’s killer. “Then that makes the charm a clue, right?”

“We can hope,” Kari told the other woman as gently as she could.

Taking the bull by the horns, Esteban had some questions of his own to ask the victim’s granddaughter. “Do you know if anyone ever threatened your grandmother? Vowed to get even with her for some slight they thought she had committed against them?”

Anne vehemently shook her head to each question, and then insisted, “No, no. My grandmother went out of her way to be nice to everyone. Everyone loved her,” she repeated. Unable to stop the tears that kept coming, she wiped them away with the edge of her sheet.