Cavanaugh on Duty(3)

Kari made a mental note to dig out her yearbook when she got home and look through it.

Right now she was still on the job. Sort of. Turning around, she faced the man whom she had recently established a personal connection with and looked into his eyes.

Never one to beat around the bush, she said, “He’s planning on turning you down, you know.”

It was nice to know that gut instinct and intuition were alive and well in the next generation, Brian thought with satisfaction.

“I know,” he replied. “I also know he doesn’t have anything else in his life.” Brian had always made it a point to know everything that was pertinent about his people and about those who were going to become his people. Detective Esteban Fernandez was no exception.

Then this couldn’t be the Steve she’d gone to high school with, Kari decided. That Steve had had a mother, a stepfather and a younger half brother he’d doted on. Julio had come to cheer him on in all the football games.

She’d only been a detective for a short while, but she had learned very quickly how to read her superiors without making it seem as if she was trying to second-guess them.

“Would you like me to see if I can change his mind for you?” she asked.

For his part, Brian did not answer yes or no. What he did was tell her simply, “I’d like you to be Kari.”

It was enough.

She smiled, inclined her head and said, “Yes, sir,” before turning on her heel and leaving his office.

She had people to see and information to gather.





Chapter 2



Kari focused on her assignment the moment she walked out of the Chief’s office. As far as she was concerned, it was unspoken but understood that she could avail herself of all the resources she needed in order to bring Detective Esteban Fernandez back into the fold.

Being a Cavanaugh certainly had its perks, Kari couldn’t help thinking with a smile. Because there were so many Cavanaughs in the actual police department, as well as various offshoots—such as the D.A.’s office—she had access to places and entities she hadn’t even known existed before she discovered her connection to the large family.

Technically, she hadn’t actually “discovered” the connection—she, along with the rest of her siblings, had been told about it by her father, who also happened to be the head of the CSI day unit. He’d called a family meeting shortly after he’d been informed by none other than Andrew Cavanaugh, the former Aurora chief of police, that he was actually a Cavanaugh.

According to Andrew, her father, Sean, had been the victim of a distraught nurse’s error. Reeling from the news that her fiancé had been killed serving overseas, she’d completed her rounds in a total emotional fog. It eventually came to light that during this time he and another male infant, born on the same day and having the same first name and the same first three letters of the last name, had accidentally been switched.

The end result was that her father had gone home with Mr. and Mrs. Cavelli, while the Cavellis’ real son had gone home with Shamus Cavanaugh and his wife.

Her father had grown up completely unaware of the mix-up, but secretly haunted by the strange feeling that something was off in his life. Not to mention that he didn’t resemble any of his four siblings.

Meanwhile, Kari and her family eventually found out that the real Sean Cavelli hadn’t grown up at all. He’d died in infancy, long before his first birthday, throwing the woman who ultimately turned out to be her grandmother into an all-consuming depression. That mental condition was compounded by the fact that even before the SIDS death had occurred, Martha Cavanaugh had maintained that the infant was not hers. That he was not the child she’d given birth to and held in her arms in the delivery room.

No one had paid any attention to her, thinking that she was just suffering from postpartum depression as well as the guilt and emotional trauma that went with losing an infant to what was then termed “crib death.” It wasn’t until more than four decades later, long after Martha had died, that she was proven right. The infant who had died wasn’t her son.

The discovery that the infants had been switched at birth threw both families into emotional tailspins. The various members on both sides dealt with the news in their own ways. The ones who were most affected, of course, were the Cavellis. Not only did the revelation create turmoil, but it also caused each of her six siblings as well as her father to suffer through their own personal identity crises.

But, unlike some of her siblings, finding out that she was actually a Cavanaugh did not throw Kari for a loop or cause her to stay up nights, questioning who she really was in the grand scheme of things. She accepted the change in status cheerfully, seeing it as an expansion of her base family.

In her heart, she was still a Cavelli—because to her, family had never just been about DNA or bloodlines, it was about a connection, a state of mind. Consequently, she only saw the upside in being related to the Cavanaughs, a large, prominent family most of whose members were dedicated to the principle of protecting and serving the citizens of the city in which they lived.

As far as Kari was concerned, one could never have too much family. A big, extended brood meant there was always someone to talk to, someone to side with you. Someone to have your back.

Happily, a large family also provided a wealth of connections to be tapped into. And that was exactly what she intended to take advantage of now in order to track down Fernandez’s permanent home address.

Or to at least find out where the man got his mail delivered when he wasn’t deeply immersed in the drug cartel. She reasoned that before he’d gone underground for the good of the department, he had to have hung up his clothes somewhere...and she intended to find out where that “somewhere” was located. Because with any luck, that was where he was now, weighing his options and contemplating his choices.

She intended to convince him that there was only one conceivable option with his name on it.

Brenda Cavanaugh, married to the Chief of Detectives’ son, Dax, was the police department’s reigning computer tech nonpareil. Though there were several other techs within the small department, if information was possibly obtainable, she was the one who could find it. To Kari’s way of thinking, even though Esteban Fernandez’s life had been off the grid for more than three years now, he’d initially lived somewhere under his own name. She was confident that Brenda would know how to backtrack and find it.

She was right.

Within twenty minutes of her inquiry, the Chief of Detectives’ daughter-in-law had discovered where Kari’s decidedly reluctant parter-to-be had lived before supposedly vanishing.

“Why didn’t you just go to HR?” Brenda asked curiously as she handed Kari the address she’d just printed out.

“Too much red tape,” she answered. Besides, as far as she knew, there were no family members in HR. Kari believed in using leverage whenever she could.

Glancing at the address, she folded the paper in half. Fernandez lived closer to the precinct than she’d thought. In fact, his place was on her way home.

Perfect.

“Besides, I don’t think I’m supposed to actually get my hands on this information without some kind of authorization,” she confessed.

“And yet, you did,” Brenda said, pointing out the obvious. “Why come to me with this request?”

“Other than the fact that you’re a freakin’ genius when it comes to finding things via the internet?” Kari asked without a hint of a smile on her lips.

Brenda’s grin was wide enough for both of them. “Other than that fact, yes.”

Kari nodded at the paper in her hand. “The Chief of D’s wants me to change this detective’s mind about handing in his shield.”

“And you’re planning on ambushing him at home, where he thinks he’s safe.”

Kari bobbed her head. “Like I said, you’re a genius.” However, despite the accolades, she could tell that the other woman wasn’t exactly gung ho about the situation.

True to form, Brenda indicated the paper she’d just handed to Kari. “As long as you know that you didn’t get that from me...” she cautioned, clearly wanting to distance herself from any possible fallout. With the ease of an unobtrusive pickpocket, using only her thumb and two of her fingers, Kari folded the paper into quarters until it disappeared entirely inside her palm. Then she unselfconsciously slid her hands into her pockets and smoothly deposited the paper with the address she’d requested.

“Get what?” she asked in complete innocence.

Brenda merely laughed and then waved her away. “Go. I’ve got work to do,” she told her unexpected visitor.

“I’m already gone,” Kari reassured her.

The next moment, opening the first door she came to, Kari made good on her promise.

* * *

Esteban frowned, mulling over his present situation and its apparent lack of options.