Cavanaugh on Duty(4)

He had no idea what he was going to do with himself from here on in. Getting justice for his family had consumed all his time and energy for so long—ever since Julio’s overdose more than three years ago—he had no clue where his mission ended and he began. At this point, they were one and the same, and without this single-minded purpose, it was as if someone had sucked all the air out of his lungs...depriving him of the very will to breathe.

Now what? he silently demanded of the darkness around him.

The police department didn’t want him to work undercover anymore—and he knew why. They didn’t want him getting killed on their watch.

But he himself had no such concerns, no such worries shackling him. Death didn’t scare him. Inactivity was what scared him.

He had to be doing this, making a difference where it counted, doing everything in his power to bring down the cartel and its brethren, so that no one else’s brother or child would be discovered dead on the floor of their room after OD’ing on drugs.

And, by extension, he was doing this so no one else’s father would be grief-stricken enough to go out, half-crazed, and hunt down the dealer responsible for the overdose, killing him in cold blood and suffering the consequences of that action: prison for twenty years.

Maybe, Esteban thought as he poured himself another two fingers’ worth of whisky from the bottle he’d unearthed earlier, he could just become a crusader, fight these bastards on his own.

He didn’t need the police department’s blessings to do this, he mused, urging himself on. Fact of the matter was, he could accomplish this mission without them. He had a little money saved up and didn’t really require very much to live on.

The idea appealed to him.

He’d become an avenging angel.

“No,” he corrected himself out loud, “an avenging devil.” Because men like the one his stepfather had shot dead only understood a show of force. In this case, the show of force would be put on by a man whose soul was as black as theirs.

Maybe, in its own way, blacker.

“That’s it,” Esteban decided with a firm nod of his head, “I’ll be an avenging devil.”

He laughed, relishing the sound of that.

The next second, the laughter died in his throat as he froze. Immediately, his hand covered the hilt of the service revolver—his backup piece—that he’d tucked into his waistband before he and the bottle of whiskey had sat down together.

He’d heard something.

Someone was knocking on his door—the bell had long since given up the ghost and he’d had no reason to fix it. Visitors weren’t welcome.

Instantly alert, he stealthily made his way over to the front door in the dark. He saw no point in switching on any of the lights and giving whoever was on the other side of the door enough illumination to target him. The fact that his potential killer would announce himself by knocking on the door seemed completely plausible to him. Acting in a normal fashion was meant to throw him off, to quiet any of his suspicions that might arise.

At the door now, Esteban held his breath, anticipating whatever might happen next. He slowly drew his weapon out, holding it at the ready so that if his unexpected “caller” decided to break in, he’d be right here, waiting for him—

“Fernandez?”

His eyes narrowed as he stared at the door, as if that could somehow help him see whoever was on the other side.

The voice clearly belonged to a woman, but that could still be some sort of a trick, a way to get him to relax his guard—

“Fernandez? Are you inside there? It’s me. Cavelli-Cavanaugh, or just Cavelli...if that makes you more comfortable. Are you in there?” she asked again.

Kari had already circled the perimeter of the forty-year-old home once, and she had seen the car that she’d identified as the detective’s. It was parked over on the next block rather than in front of the house—by force of habit, no doubt.

But whether or not it was habit didn’t matter. What did matter was that the hood was still warm, but not hot. That meant that Esteban had driven it over sometime after he’d left the precinct.

That in turn meant that he was here.

“I come bearing gifts, Fernandez,” she informed him in a tone that was infinitely sweeter than the one she typically used day-to-day. “C’mon, open the door,” she coaxed, then added, “unless you want me to pick the lock, of course—because I do know how to do that.”

Of course she did, Esteban thought darkly. He’d intended to wait her out, but that course of action was quickly aborted when he saw the doorknob jiggling.

Muttering a curse under his breath, Esteban quickly released the locks and yanked open the door. His weapon was not only out, but ready, in case the woman the Chief of D’s was trying to push on him was here under duress.

But when he opened the door, he saw no one else but her. The shimmering moonlight, out in full force, had turned her skin almost a golden hue.

She belonged in someone’s dream, not on his doorstep, he thought in annoyance.

And it looked as though she was doing this of her own free will. It figured, he groused to himself. They weren’t even going to let him quit in peace.

Seeing a drawn weapon, Kari’s immediate reaction would normally have been to pull out her own service revolver, but she had no desire to exchange fire with the potently sexy man she’d come to coerce.

With effort, she managed to silently talk herself down and keep her own weapon holstered.

There was absolutely no light coming from inside the house. Had the streetlamp behind her been out and with a new moon in the sky, she wouldn’t have been able to see her unwilling partner at all.

“Are you raising bats or orchids in there?” she quipped, crossing the threshold. “Or did you just not pay your electric bill?”

From the surly look on his face, she could tell he wasn’t in the mood to exchange banter. He clearly wanted to be left alone.

“What are you doing here?” Esteban bit off, making no effort to hide his hostility. After all, the woman was invading his space, a space she wasn’t even supposed to know about.

Can’t trust anyone these days, the former undercover detective fumed.

“Not being welcomed for one,” she answered glibly.

His eyes narrowed. “Then go home. No one’s stopping you.”

“And turn my back on such a charming invitation?” she deadpanned. “No way.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. Somewhere, he was convinced, a village was searching for their idiot. Just his luck, she’d turned up here.

“What charming invitation?” he muttered.

Kari remained blissfully unfazed by the daggers his eyes were shooting at her.

“The one you silently extended to me back at the precinct. You know, indicating that you wanted me to share a drink with you,” she answered. As if to reinforce her point, she held up the bottle of expensive whiskey she’d thought to bring with her. “I even brought the bottle in case you didn’t have any—or started without me and ran out.”

That, she felt, was a pretty safe bet. Leaning slightly forward, she gave him her best, most innocent smile. “But I see that you did remember to pick up a bottle on your way home.”

He was not about to get sucked into this mindless babble. He just wanted to be left alone, to get drunk out of his mind, pass out and not think for a while. This highly annoying Pollyanna was interfering with his plans.

“Look,” he ground out, “I don’t have time for crazy women—”

“Good, neither do I,” she concurred. Feeling her way around the room, she found a light switch and turned it on. Illumination instantly flooded the room.

“Turn it off!” he ordered.

But she didn’t. Instead, she informed him blithely, “Just looking for another glass.” She opened one cabinet, then another. Both were empty. This man lived worse than a hermit. “You do have another one, right?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him. “Otherwise, one of us is going to have to drink out of the bottle.”

Esteban stared at the woman in his house, feeling like someone who had just been slammed by a runaway train that had come barreling out of nowhere. She still hadn’t answered his question.

“How the hell did you find out where I live?”

“I’m a very resourceful person,” Kari told him with a wide grin. “You’ll find that out when we start working together.”

“We’re not going to be working together,” Esteban snapped. This was like some bad dream that refused to fade. Did he have to bodily carry her out of his house to get rid of her?

“Of course we are,” Kari countered brightly. “Fighting the inevitable is just a waste of time and energy. You like being a cop, I like being a cop and right now, the Chief of Detectives wants us to be cops together.” She looked at him as if he should have known that he couldn’t win this battle. “He always gets what he wants.”