A Cavanaugh Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

  Kait stopped eating. Her eyes met his. Well, that certainly didn’t take long.

  “I’m not,” she informed him firmly.

  He realized how she must have misinterpreted his offer. “Not that way,” he told her. “Interested as in interested in saving time and money. I’m house-sitting for a friend. The place is located not too far from the precinct, and there’s plenty of extra room.”

  “House-sitting,” Kait repeated. That seemed to indicate that he had no place of his own, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. “All right, where do you normally live?”

  Another slice found its way to his plate. “Currently, I’m in between places. The apartment complex I was living in raised its rates. I didn’t think the place was worth the price at the lower rent, much less what they raised it to. I was looking for somewhere else to rent when a friend of mine asked me to watch his place while he was away on assignment. He’s a photojournalist and his boss was sending him to the Middle East for six months. I said yes and bought myself a little time. I know he wouldn’t mind if you crashed there.”

  Since she was pursuing this case on her own time, all the expenses she was incurring would have to come out of her own pocket. This would be a way to cut a few corners, and it was tempting. Still, she didn’t like being in debt to anyone—and she certainly didn’t want to be put in a compromising situation if Cavelli took her agreement to mean she was agreeing to other things, as well.

  “To be honest, I was actually planning on going back to the precinct after dinner. I thought I’d start sifting through those surveillance tapes, see if we can get a clearer picture of the guy who rented the van to pass around.”

  Okay, so maybe the roundabout method wasn’t going to work so well in this case. Maybe he needed to be more blunt, Tom decided.

  “You’ll be of more use to that little girl if you get some decent sleep—something that you won’t be getting with your face pressed against a desktop,” he assured her. When he saw that she’d started vacillating, he pushed his advantage. “The bedrooms all have locks on the doors and like you’ve said, you’ve got a gun,” he reminded her. “And if you need any more assurance, I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure.”

  The last part was an out-and-out lie, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t get her to agree to his offer if she thought he might take advantage of the situation.

  Not that she wasn’t attractive, but right now, he was more interested in saving that little girl than having a one-night stand, no matter how gorgeous that stand was.

  Kait appeared to be mulling it over as she chewed thoughtfully on her third slice of pizza. “I suppose it would be simpler than trying to get a room at a hotel at the last minute—and I hate settling for staying in a motel,” she added. Most of the ones that were in her price range were rundown and seedy. And the rooms were little better than oversized bacteria-incubating petri dishes.

  Tom did his best not to look triumphant. “All right, we can go straight there whenever you’re ready,” he told her, nodding at the slice in front of her. It was all but gone at this point.

  “We can go straight there after we go back to the precinct and I get my car,” Kaitlyn corrected him pointedly.

  Tom thought of that as an unnecessary step since they were both going to be heading back to the precinct in the morning. He was about to say so when his sixth sense stopped him. She probably saw the car as synonymous with independence. So rather than debate the point, Tom decided that it would be a lot simpler to just agree with her. He coupled his words with a genial smile.

  “Whatever you say, Detective.”

  Rising and picking up the box, he slanted a glance toward Kait. For a moment, he debated saying anything, then decided that he had nothing to lose. The worst that could happen would be for her to tell him to mind his own business.

  “Mind if I ask you a question?” he asked as they wove their way out of the restaurant.

  She spared him a glance. Was it his imagination, or was that wariness he saw in her eyes? “Go ahead.”

  “I get the feeling that this case is really important to you.”

  More probing. Didn’t the man ever let up? Was this some kind of a game to him?

  “I don’t know how it is around here, but a missing little girl isn’t something we take lightly back in New Mexico,” she informed him tersely.

  If she was trying to goad him into losing his temper, she would have to do a lot better than that, he thought. It took more than that to get under his skin.

  “We don’t take it lightly around here, either,” he told her. “But I get the feeling that more is going on here.”

  She shrugged, looking away. “I can’t help what you feel.”

  He held the door open for her as they walked out. Common sense told him to back away from the subject. After all, this was just a temporary arrangement. With a good dose of luck, they’d find the little girl alive and then the detective with the improbable last name and soul-penetrating eyes would be on her way back to where she’d come from.

  And even if the case wasn’t resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, Two Feathers would still be gone soon enough. There was no reason to trouble himself with the enigmas that she so clearly seemed to represent.

  But, for reasons he didn’t fathom and—for now—chose not to explore, he didn’t want to go on as if it was business as usual. He wanted to understand exactly what was driving her. Was this personal? Did she know the woman whose child had been taken? Had they once been best friends who had lost touch until this horrible tragedy had brought them back in contact?

  What, exactly, was it that made this case so personal for her?

  And it was personal for her. He could see it in her eyes, in the way she conducted herself. Everything about her body language told him that this case was very personal to her.

  He was surprised at his own reaction to this. Ordinarily, he wasn’t the kind who needed to have answers to everything unless it had to do with a case. But this went beyond that.

  “You could try leveling with me,” he told her mildly. The wind had picked up and he turned up his collar to keep it from finding its way down his jacket and along his already chilled spine.

  She stopped walking and turned to look at him. Her eyes were blazing. The phrase “beautiful when angry” suddenly popped up in his head. He’d always thought it was a stupid line—until now.

  “What is it exactly that you want from me?” she demanded, her voice low but nonetheless heated.

  His eyes held hers for a moment and then he studied her face, looking for something he wasn’t quite sure of yet. “The truth,” he answered without hesitation. “Nothing more.”

  Kait laughed softly at his words. The laugh had no humor to it.

  Nothing more.

  Oh, but it was. It was so much more. More than she was willing to talk about, to volunteer. She could hardly bring herself to even think about it. Because there was a very real, near-paralyzing chance that that poor little missing girl could even at this very moment be being sold. Sold the way she had almost been sold by a grandmother who was so desperate for a fix, she was half out of her mind and willing to peddle her innocence away to the highest bidder—or any bidder at all.

  Kait pressed her lips together. This detective she’d had the misfortune to be paired with wasn’t going to back off until she gave him some kind of plausible answer. While it rankled her to be forced to render any sort of an explanation for her actions, Kait reminded herself that he had saved her life.

  In her book—the book that had been symbolically passed to her by Ronald Two Feathers—that meant she owed him, which in turn dictated that she provide him with answers to whatever questions he had. Just because he asked them.

  She took a deep breath and then released it. Braced, she surrendered a fragment, hoping that would satisfy the inquisitive detective and he’d back off. “I promised Megan’s mother that I would bring her home by Christmas,” she told him quietly.
>
  Tom looked at her for a long moment, hiding his surprise. As cops, they weren’t supposed to make promises like that. Promises that in all likelihood they couldn’t keep, not through lack of desire or trying but because these kinds of situations never lent themselves to an easy resolution. A promise like that unnecessarily raised hopes and then cut a person’s heart out when it fell through.

  As if reading his mind, Kait squared her shoulders defensively. “The woman was literally falling to pieces before my eyes and she needed something to hold on to. I gave it to her.” In her voice, a host of things went unsaid as her tone challenged him to find fault with what she’d done.

  He put a very simple question to her. “What happens when Christmas comes and you’re not able to keep your promise?”

  Kait drew herself up and raised her chin in what seemed to him to be the most sensual movement he could recall seeing in a very long time. “I don’t intend to find out.”

  The woman had bravado, he’d give her that, Tom thought. It wasn’t her ego talking right now, but something else. Exactly what, he wasn’t sure yet, but he intended to be along for the ride so that he could find out just what it was.

  They’d reached his car by now and he put his key into the lock on the driver’s side. Turning it, all four locks sprang open and stood at attention. He opened the rear door directly behind him and placed the half-filled pizza box on the backseat.

  Getting in on his side, he buckled up and then waited for her to do the same. After a beat, the detective from New Mexico sank into her seat and then snapped the seat belt harness into place.

  “Anything wrong?” he asked as he started up his vehicle.

  “No, just reviewing my options.”

  He slanted her a look. He couldn’t help wondering just what sort of options she was reviewing. But when she didn’t elaborate any further, he knew it was futile to try to get anything out of her. Maybe she’d be more forthcoming once she trusted him more. He wondered absently how many more times he was going to have to save her life before that happened.

  “I’ll take you back to the precinct,” he told her as they hit the main thoroughfare. “Then, once you have your car, if you want to take me up on that offer of using one of the spare bedrooms to crash, you’re welcomed to follow me.”

  She still didn’t say anything one way or another. But this time, she smiled.

  He took that as a good sign.

  When they reached the precinct and he parked next to her dust-covered vehicle—it looked as if she’d brought a part of New Mexico along with her—he still had no idea if she was planning on taking him up on his offer or if she planned to travel another road.

  Operating under the assumption that she wasn’t going to follow him to his place, when she got out of his car he offered her the contents of the box sitting on the backseat.

  “Why don’t you take the rest of the pizza with you?” he suggested. “In case you get hungry later on.” He began to twist around in order to get a better grasp on the box.

  “No,” she protested, putting her hand on his arm to stop him. “Leave it where it is.” Withdrawing his hand from the edge of the box, he looked at her quizzically. “This way if I lose sight of your car, I’ll just follow the aroma, instead.”

  She probably was just stubborn enough to manage that. But he wasn’t about to take any chances. “Why don’t I just give you the address?” he suggested, then qualified why he’d said that. “Just in case the wind shifts.”

  “All right.” She waited as he wrote it down, then glanced at the paper he handed her. It looked like a bunch of squiggles square dancing.

  When she frowned, Tom wondered if for some reason she had objections to the area. “Anything wrong?”

  Squinting at the paper didn’t help, either. It was like trying to read hieroglyphics. “You ever consider being a doctor?”

  He took a guess as to what was behind her question. “You can’t read it?”

  Kait shook her head. “Doesn’t look like any alphabet I’ve ever seen.”

  It wasn’t that bad, he thought, looking back at the paper himself. He rattled the address off for her. “That says 1551 Monroe Circle.”

  She examined the paper again, then shook her head. Even with the address now no longer a mystery, she still couldn’t see it in what he’d written.

  A hint of a smile crept to her lips. “If you say so. Personally, I think I’m better off following the scent of the pizza.”

  “Whatever works.”

  But just as he drove up to where she’d left her car, she asked him, “You’re sure your friend won’t mind you bringing a stranger over to stay at his house?”

  “As long as you don’t throw a wild frat party while you’re staying there, he’ll be fine with it.” In reality, there wouldn’t even be a reason for Matthew, his friend, to even know that anyone else had stayed there.

  She stared at him as if he’d just said that he landed from Mars ten minutes ago. “Why would I want to throw a wild frat party?”

  “I was being funny,” he told her.

  There wasn’t even a glimmer of a smile on her lips as she said, “If you say so.” She got out of his car and glanced at the paper again. “1551 Monroe Circle, huh?” she marveled with another shake of her head. Not a single letter even remotely resembled what he said he’d written. Crumpling the paper, she stuck it into her pocket. “I’ll see you there,” she promised as she unlocked her own car and got in behind the wheel.

  Driving out of the lot, Tom wondered if he’d just made a mistake.

  Following close behind him, Kait was wondering the very same thing.

  Chapter 6

  The house where Detective Tom Cavelli/Cavanaugh apparently lay down his head at night was located in the middle of a residential development that boasted of seven hundred and fifty one-and two-story homes, all huddled together on small lots, none of which was larger than approximately a tenth of an acre. A great many were resting on less than that, bordering on being euphemistically called “patio homes.”

  Kait couldn’t help feeling closed in as she entered the development, following closely behind the other detective’s white Crown Victoria. She was accustomed to homes that stood on sprawling pieces of property.

  She readily admitted that the houses back home might not be as fancy as what she saw here, but a person could stretch out his or her arms and take a huge breath without accidentally hitting a neighbor in the nose.

  She pulled up in the driveway a couple of beats after he had done the same and brought her vehicle to a stop right next to his.

  “So, what do you think?” Tom asked, noting the way she was slowly looking around at her surroundings after she had gotten out of her car.

  Her first impression was that this was all too rich for her blood. “I think if I lived here and came home to find a car like this next to yours, I’d call the police,” she commented honestly.

  Her twelve-year-old car, despite the fact that she did baby it, had already had two owners by the time she had gotten to it, and the odometer now had close to two hundred thousand miles on it. While she normally kept it in top running order and incredibly clean, the latter had been a casualty of the road trip she’d taken from her native state to California.

  The urgency of the case had made her forget about appearances.

  But, confronted with this pristine community, it brought the fact that her roots were from the poorest side of town back to her in glaring lights.

  “My friend’s not a snob and he’s not that shallow,” Tom assured her. “And besides, he’s not coming home for another couple of months so there’s no reason for you to worry about how anyone might react to seeing your car in the driveway.”

  He didn’t bother mentioning that when last appraised, the house had been assessed at over a million dollars. He instinctively knew that would only send her packing to the closest hotel, and she appeared too wiped out to drive down the driveway again, much less out on the main thoroughfare.


  “C’mon inside and I’ll show you to your room,” he urged.

  She expected him to open the wide front door with a key and was surprised when the detective paused to punch in numbers on the keypad mounted next to the door frame. Something else they didn’t have in her neighborhood. “Your friend’s got a security system?”

  Tom nodded. “For when he can’t get anyone to house-sit,” he explained. “He’s got a few awards and trophies he’s rather partial to and would hate to see stolen.” With the alarm disengaged, Tom unlocked the door and held it open for her. “Coming?” he asked when she didn’t immediately walk inside.

  She offered a tight-lipped smile that had more than a trace of a grimace to it. “Yeah,” she responded, coming to life.

  She crossed the threshold almost gingerly: Cinderella, not yet in her ball gown, stepping into the palace.

  The ground floor was spacious, with high ceilings everywhere and a two-story-tall cathedral ceiling in the living room. The white brick fireplace on the right seemed to extend upward about eighteen feet or so, making her feel incredibly small.

  She felt out of place here—but she could definitely get used to it, at least for a few days. As long as she didn’t venture out into the postage-size backyard.

  “And you’re sure your friend won’t mind you bringing someone else into his house?” she asked again, still skeptical.

  Kait glanced around to see if a security camera was trained on her. She’d certainly have one if this was her house. She’d have several.

  Tom laughed softly to himself. He wouldn’t have taken her to be this cautious about crashing somewhere. “I’m sure. We grew up together. He knew exactly who he was giving his house keys and security code to,” he assured her.

  Kait nodded slowly as his words sank in. “Meaning he knew you weren’t going to be a monk.” It wasn’t a question so much as a realization.

  Tom grinned, and she caught herself thinking that it was a nice grin. Probably exactly what he’d intended, she judged.