Cavanaugh In Plain Sight (Cavanaugh Justice Book 42)

by Marie Ferrarella

  Morgan shook his head, at a loss. “I still don’t hear the problem.”

  Right now, she was angry enough to spit. “If that CEO was the one who issued the statement—voluntarily—and apparently he did—then he couldn’t have been the one who tried to have me killed so that he could stop me from bringing this thing to the public’s attention.” She all but spit the words out.

  Shifting in his seat, he considered the basic reasons that would make a man call off something that he had pinned all his hopes on—not to mention the company’s projected skyrocketing profits.

  “Maybe he had no choice. It’s one thing to try to silence one annoyingly pushy journalist—his thoughts undoubtedly, not mine,” Morgan told her with a wink. “It’s an entirely other thing when it involves other board members bringing it to his attention and worrying about how this would affect the company stock, not to mention the company’s portfolio and reputation if it really did fail to deliver.”

  She looked at Morgan, feeling frustration all but throbbing through her. She knew she didn’t have to say this. He knew this just as well as she did. It was just taking all the wind out of her sails.

  “Nobody profits if the company is backing a bad drug, or a drug that fails to deliver on its promise,” she stated flatly.

  “However,” Morgan pointed out, “if that particular shortcoming wasn’t brought to light, it would take a while, possibly even a long while, before people would find out that the drug wasn’t everything that it was saying it was, that it didn’t deliver or help maintain the status quo the company had led everyone to believe that it did. In other words, that it didn’t keep the cancer from progressing the way the company had initially promised that it would. They were undoubtedly hoping for enough of a gray area to make people believe that the drug was helping them.”

  She nodded her head, stating the bottom line here. “What you’re saying is that Jacobs could have still been trying to get rid of me, but when other people raised the same point, he realized that he just couldn’t silence everyone and so instead, to look innocent of any wrongdoing, he came up to the podium and issued a statement saying that the company was holding off further production until such time as they could be satisfied that the drug was doing what it claimed it could do.”

  That was it in a nutshell, Morgan thought. “Exactly.”

  While she was glad that the company had backed off rather than capitalizing on selling false hope to the public, this still left her wondering if her initial premise had been wrong or had been abandoned out of necessity.

  “Okay,” she said gamely, “so now what?”

  He thought for a moment before answering. “Now I have Valri or one of her minions check Jacobs’s financials to see if there have been any unusual withdrawals made recently—just in case he did try to have you killed. Plus we also pay Jacobs another visit.”

  Morgan looked at Krys as he rose from his desk. “And this time, I plan to go to his office as a police detective and not as your faithful assistant,” he informed her. “That should rattle the CEO’s cage a little—although I’d say that of the two of us, you probably are the one who’s more capable of striking fear into his heart,” he speculated.

  Fredericks, who had been eavesdropping, took this break in the conversation to ask Morgan, “You want me to do anything?”

  “Yes, I want you to go on looking for that so-called mystery woman who disappeared from the hospital,” Morgan instructed.

  Fredericks looked rather disappointed. “Can’t we close that case yet? The guy’s dead and from all indications, he worked alone. This ‘mystery woman’ didn’t have anything to do with those deaths.” It was obvious that Morgan’s partner thought pursuing the case seemed like a lost cause, especially since the serial killer was dead.

  “Maybe not,” Morgan agreed. “But something about this just doesn’t feel right.”

  Fredericks sighed and shook his head. “You Cavanaughs and your ‘gut’ feelings,” he complained. The fact that some cases were solved strictly because of a Cavanaugh’s gut feeling was practically legendary in some circles. But that didn’t mean Fredericks had to like it.

  Morgan looked at his partner. “Humor me.”

  The other man frowned, but it was clear he wasn’t going to be the one who raised a protest. “Do I have a choice?” Fredericks asked his partner.

  Morgan grinned. “Knew I’d get you to see things my way,” he said as he headed for the doorway. “Okay, let’s go and talk to your favorite person, Kowalski,” he said to Krys.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” she said, pasting a tolerant smile on her face.

  * * *

  Lawrence Jacobs appeared far from happy to see her when she and Morgan entered his office.

  “If you’re here to hound me, Ms. Kowalski, you’re too late,” he informed her. “I just made my statement to the press.”

  Ivy, his secretary, entered breathlessly right on their heels. The woman looked distressed. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Jacobs. I told these people that you weren’t to be disturbed.” She looked obviously afraid of her boss’s reaction because his office had been invaded this way. “I’m calling security immediately,” the petite woman told Morgan and Krys, hoping that this would make them back off.

  “Don’t bother,” Morgan told her as he held up his badge and ID. “I’m a police detective with the Aurora Police Force.”

  “Moonlighting?” Jacobs asked with a smirk. It was obvious that the CEO didn’t believe Morgan was what he claimed to be. Jacobs picked up his phone, his manner indicating that he was going to place the call to security himself.

  “No, that was undercover work previously,” Morgan informed the CEO. “And if this turns out the way I think it will, you’ll be entitled to one phone call. You really want to use it up checking out my identification?” he asked the older man.

  Jacobs looked at the two people in his plush office with belittling disgust, but it was also obvious that he believed Morgan. Or, at the very least, he didn’t want to take a chance that he had made a mistake.

  So instead of calling security, he replaced the telephone receiver in the cradle and glared accusingly at Krys.

  “Why are you here?” he demanded angrily. “I said what you wanted me to say. We’re holding off putting the drug on the market until further testing can be done. That should have you dancing in the aisle,” he told her with contempt. “As for that woman you were so sure was going to lead you to the promised land—and didn’t—” he underscored “—her death wasn’t my fault, either. Her crazy ex-boyfriend confessed to killing her.”

  The expression on his face turned positively ugly in Krys’s opinion.

  “The way I see it, you’ve got nothing except egg on your face, so get out of my office before I have you arrested on harassment charges,” he threatened Krys, his complexion turning red.

  “I’d watch my threats if I were you,” Morgan informed the CEO. “Someone who came within inches of hoodwinking a vulnerable public and making a profit on their very real fears is in no position to threaten someone who has just been doing her job by trying to keep a very vulnerable group of people safe.”

  Jacobs’s small brown eyes grew into dark slits as he focused them on Morgan. “Careful, Detective. I pay your salary.” The threat he was issuing was more than just implied.

  But Morgan was not about to back down and he refused to be intimidated by a man he considered to be a weasel.

  “So do all those people you did your very best to deceive,” Morgan pointed out, curbing his anger. But it was coming very dangerously close to the surface—and erupting.

  Jacobs looked as if his head was about to explode. “I believe we’re done here,” the CEO informed the duo standing in his office, his voice growing hoarse with fury. “Ivy, see these people out of my office!” he cried, his voice cracking.

  * * *

  �
��I liked seeing his face turn colors,” Krys confessed. “I’ve never seen anyone turn red and then white all within a few minutes. What do you call that color anyway?” she asked Morgan as they left the spacious office. “I believe that’s what they mean by a lighter shade of pale, isn’t it?”

  Morgan laughed as they headed toward the elevator. “Something like that.”

  “So that’s that?” Krys asked, disappointment clearly in her voice. “Are you letting him off the hook?”

  “I’m not ‘letting’ him off anything, not until Valri finishes checking out his financials,” he answered her, pushing for the Down button. “If there have been any unexplained large checks paid out in the last month, Jacobs is going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do,” he promised Krys.

  Krys mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that Valri was successful.

  “If Valri can actually find something, that would be terrific. It would really be worth a lot to me to be able to watch that man be put in the position to sweat bullets,” she told Morgan. “But what if it turns out that there is no paper trail?” she asked. “What if there are no checks written for large amounts—or a whole bunch of little checks, all written out to the same person? What then?”

  “Then it looks as if Jacobs wasn’t the one who has been trying to kill you, which is all I care about,” Morgan concluded.

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “Well, then it’ll be back to the drawing board—again,” Morgan emphasized. “But it’s nothing that either one of us hasn’t been through before,” Morgan reminded her.

  If they weren’t out in public, he would have given in to the urge to put his arm around her and comfort Krys. But they were out in public, and he knew that she wouldn’t appreciate any public displays of affection.

  She slanted a glance in his direction as they came out of the elevator. “Granted, but all those other times, nobody was out to kill me the way they obviously are now,” she said, searching her mind for answers.

  That started Morgan thinking. He stopped just before they left the building. “Could it all possibly be a mistake?”

  She wasn’t following him. “What do you mean?”

  “Could it all be an awful coincidence?” he asked. “A terrible, terrible coincidence where on one day you were the victim of a senseless drive-by shooting and then the next day, you just turned out to be the wrong person in the wrong place and someone almost sideswiped you with their car?”

  She stared at him. “Do you honestly believe that?” Krys asked.

  “No, not really,” Morgan admitted. “But I did want to run it past you and give you some food for thought,” he told her.

  “That ‘food’ isn’t even palatable and ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I was taught to believe that there were no such things as coincidences,” she told him.

  He nodded. “Well, when it comes to that, I do tend to believe you’re right.”

  She smiled. “Thank heaven for small miracles,” she told him. “Now, let’s go talk to Valri and see if she can find something for us to sink our teeth into. Otherwise, we still have a killer out there who wants to have my head on a platter and at this point, we don’t even have the slightest idea who it is or why they feel this way,” she said with just the slightest touch of despondent hopelessness.

  He nodded, leading the way to the elevator. “Next stop, the basement,” he announced.

  And hopefully, some answers, Krys thought.

  Chapter 22

  That night Krys curled up against Morgan in her bed, loving the way his warmth felt as it radiated along her bare skin. She hated the fact that practical thoughts insisted on interfering with the happy glow she felt. But try as she might, she couldn’t seem to be able to shut down her mind.

  If anything, it was going ninety miles an hour.

  “You know, we’re running out of time,” she said to the man who seemed to be able to make her heart sing so easily.

  She felt his chuckle in his chest, rippling along her body.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I could go again,” Morgan told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Just give me a few moments to catch my breath.”

  Balling up her fist, Krys punched his shoulder. “I’m not talking about that, wise guy,” she laughed.

  “All right, what are you talking about?” he asked. He became fully engaged with anointing her shoulder, spreading a wreath of kisses along the length from one side to the other.

  It was hard for her to think when he was doing something like that, but she gave it her best.

  “Nik and Finn are...coming back from their...honeymoon soon and...we still haven’t—haven’t found...out who wants to eliminate...me and...perhaps...by accident...her.” Because she was quickly losing her train of thought, Krys had to put her hand up against his mouth and stop Morgan from continuing to play havoc with her thought process.

  Morgan raised his head and looked at her. “Well, there haven’t been any more attempts on your life for almost two weeks, right?”

  “Right,” she was forced to agree.

  “Maybe whoever it was has given up. Or,” he said, “maybe I was right when I said that those two attempts were actually just terrible coincidences.”

  It was a possibility, but she felt that they were taking too much of a chance going with that. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not bet my sister’s life on that theory.”

  Morgan propped himself up on his elbow and looked into her face. “Well, neither would I, which is why I’ve arranged for Nik to have a protective detail the second she gets off the plane.”

  She knew Morgan meant well, but she viewed his solution from a woman’s point of view. “Just what Nik needs, a squadron of police officers around her and Finn. Perfect way to start off her married life.” Before he could say anything more, another thought occurred to Krys. “Besides, isn’t there some sort of a time limit on this?” She saw him raising a puzzled brow so she explained, “Someone within the department must be balking at what this is all costing the city of Aurora.”

  “There isn’t any cost limit,” he told her.

  That just didn’t make any sense. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “Everything costs these days. I imagine police protection has to cost a fortune in overtime pay.”

  “It would,” Morgan agreed. “But not when it’s all off hours.”

  She didn’t understand. “Off hours?” she questioned. What was he talking about?

  “That’s right. This is family business,” Morgan explained, “not police business.” He smiled broadly. “That’s one of the benefits of being a Cavanaugh,” he told her. And then he drew her closer to him. “Now, don’t you have anything better for your mouth to be doing than talking?” he asked her. “Because if you don’t,” he said, lowering his voice, “I can think of at least one thing—possibly two,” he added as he returned to lacing a wreath of kisses along her neck.

  He was doing it again, Krys thought. He was pulling her back into the enticing vortex of heat and dizzying passion that he was so very capable of creating for her.

  Krys gave up voicing her concerns and just allowed herself to become totally wrapped up in the heady, mind-blowing reality that was Morgan.

  * * *

  Come morning, Krys was once again acutely aware of the lack of time she was currently dealing with. She wished she could buy into the theory that Morgan had voiced, that whoever had been out to kill her, for whatever reason had first prompted him, had given up or just called it a day. She tried to believe that she, and consequently Nik, were in no more danger now than they normally were.

  But something in Krys’s gut made her feel that this wasn’t over yet. That there was another verse of this melody that still needed to be played out. Moreover, she didn’t have any idea of where or when the melody would start up again. Or just how intense it would wind up
being.

  A deep dive into not just Lawrence Jacobs’s financials but the financial dealings of anyone close to Jacobs turned up nothing.

  “If the guy was paying off a hired killer, he found a new source of currency to do it, or he had someone else paying for it.” Morgan leaned back in his chair, staring at the information he had waded through that was on his screen.

  So much information and he had gotten nowhere.

  “If you ask me, if Jacobs was paying someone to eliminate you, he lost faith in the assassin and decided to call the whole thing off.” He waved at the screen. “There’s no paper trail and, don’t forget, no more evidence of any further attempts on your life.”

  “Then what? You’ve decided to call off the protective detail?” Krys asked. She wasn’t worried about herself, but she was worried about her sister.

  “No, not yet,” Morgan told her, not wanting her to worry. “We’ll give it a few more days once Nik comes back to Aurora.” He thought for a moment. “Say a week after Nik and Finn get back. If at that point there are no indications that she—or you—are in any danger, then maybe we’ll think about packing up our tents and slipping off into the night.”

  He looked at Krys to see how she felt about this latest school of thought.

  Krys felt that she had to agree with him. Morgan was right and she was undoubtedly just being paranoid.

  She forced herself to say as much. “You’re right.” But even as she said the words, she could feel her gut tightening—for more than one reason.

  “Does this mean you won’t be camping out in my house anymore?” she asked. She did her best to sound blasé about it, but the truth was that the thought of his not being with her was upsetting. She had gotten very used to having him around.

  “Why don’t we just take this one step at a time?” he suggested. “There’s no sense in rushing anything, right?”