She wouldn’t have to go through that tonight. Not that she was even close to falling asleep this time. She had all manner of questions bouncing around in her head. They’d been bouncing around ever since she’d seen that odd look on Kane’s face when she’d told him to think of her as family.
She needed answers and she had a feeling that asking Kane questions only would have made him clam up even more than he normally did.
The man could have auditioned to play a sphinx, she thought grudgingly, zipping through the yellow traffic lights.
* * *
The second Kelly let herself in the front door, she headed straight for the landline in the living room. At times the reception on her cell wasn’t all that great and the signal cut in and out. She was in no mood to have interference get in her way.
Kelly paused only long enough to remove her service weapon and leave it within easy reach near the front door before she picked up the telephone receiver and started dialing.
The phone on the other end rang four times, then went to voice mail.
Valri wasn’t home.
Swallowing an oath, Kelly debated hanging up and trying again at a later hour, but at best that would be hit and miss. If her younger sister, the best computer wizard she knew, came home sometime before midnight, she wanted Valri to call.
She wanted Valri to call even if it was after midnight, she decided.
Kelly said as much in the message she left.
“So call me,” Kelly concluded. “I don’t care what time you get in,” she reiterated. “I need to talk to you, ASAP.”
She blew out a breath and was just about to hang up the receiver when she heard the line on the other end being picked up.
“What’s so urgent?” she heard Valri ask her. She sounded concerned.
“You’re home,” Kelly said happily.
“Apparently,” Valri answered. “Now what’s the emergency?”
“Why are you screening your calls?” Kelly asked.
There was a long pause and then she heard her younger sister say, “Could be because I’m doing something more important than talking to my sister.”
That was an odd thing for Valri to say, Kelly thought. “What could be more impor—” And then it hit her. “Oh. You’re not alone, are you?”
“And they said you weren’t the bright one,” Valri laughed.
It was obvious she wasn’t about to identify who was with her—not that she really needed to.
“It’s Alex, isn’t it? He’s the one with you,” Kelly concluded, referring to her sister’s fiancé.
Valri relented, giving up the pretense. “Two for two, not bad. Now, if you called just to shoot the breeze or complain about your new partner—”
“How do you know about my new partner?” Kelly asked, surprised.
“You forget, we Cavanaughs have our own special little network that spreads information faster than even the internet,” Valri reminded her. “Okay, either talk fast, or I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
“I need some information on him,” she said quickly. “My new partner. Kane Durant,” she threw in for good measure, just in case Valri didn’t know everything.
“So, ask him,” Valri prodded.
“Ha!” Kelly dismissed that so-called option. “I’d have better luck getting a statue to talk. Besides, I’ve got a feeling this is pretty personal.”
“And you have the right to pry because...?” Valri asked.
“Don’t get holier than thou on me, Valri,” Kelly warned. “I need to know this so I don’t accidentally say something to him that I’ll wind up regretting.” No way she wanted to trample on the man’s feelings. Or accidentally unearth some deep, dark family secret.
“You know that’s going to happen sooner or later no matter what kind of information I pass along to you. That kind of thing is just in your nature.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Kelly bit off. She wasn’t about to give up until she had what she wanted. “Look, Val, I need to know about the man’s family,” she insisted. “It’s important to me.”
There was silence on the other end and Kelly knew she was getting to her sister.
“And you’re sure he won’t tell you if you ask nicely?” Valri asked.
“I’m sure. Trust me,” Kelly answered. She stretched out on the sofa as she talked. “I told him that he should regard me as family and he got this really strange look on his face, like I’d just opened the door to something deep and dark. When I asked him if there were any girls in his family, he immediately changed the subject.”
“Did you ever think that maybe he just didn’t want you to pry?” Valri asked her. “There are people like that, you know. People who don’t want to give you their life history in the first ten minutes that they know you. Sometimes these things take time—like building up trust. That can’t be rushed.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Kelly insisted. “I can feel it.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Can’t beat a scientific method like that,” Valri quipped.
“Does Alex know what kind of smart mouth you have?” Kelly asked her.
“I’ll have you know that Alex is very keen on my mouth, thank you very much.” The next moment, Valri got down to business. “Okay, give me this guy’s full name,” Valri instructed with a resigned sigh. “I’ll see what I can come through with.”
“Thanks, Val. I knew you’d come around,” Kelly said with enthusiasm and more than a little gratitude. “His name is Kane Durant. Detective, first class. I can hold on while you look him up,” she volunteered.
“That’s great, but you’ll be listening to a dial tone eventually,” Valri warned her. “The information I need to access is on the computer at work.”
That didn’t sound right to her. Valri could make a computer sit up, beg and roll over. This kind of thing should constitute a walk in the park for her.
“Since when has a little thing like proximity stopped you?” Kelly asked. “Might I remind you that you’re the one who hacked into—”
“Please, no trips down memory lane,” Valri requested rather quickly, shutting down her sister.
Granted these were private lines they were on, but a little bit of paranoia was a healthy thing. It kept her, and the people who mattered, on their toes. The last thing Valri wanted was to have Kelly make a reference to her time as a successful hacker and possibly have that information go viral. Nothing good could possibly come of that.
“Besides,” Valri went on, “that was then, this is now.”
“Lovely title for a song,” Kelly cracked. And then she sighed, relenting. “Okay, little sister. How long do I have to wait for the information?”
“Depends on how accessible it all is and how much I find,” Valri told her. “I’ll get started tomorrow morning. Good enough?”
“Guess it’ll have to be.”
“Why are you so curious about your partner’s family, anyway?” Valri asked.
She was proud of hers, but not every family took its cues from Norman Rockwell’s paintings. In some cases, family was the very last thing a person wanted to talk about.
Even if that person was a police officer.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she told Valri. Before her sister could mount some sort of a protest, she added, “You had to have been there.”
“That’s what people say when they don’t want to go into detail about something,” Valri told her.
“It’s complicated,” she said.
“Okay,” Valri said, accepting her sister’s answer since she had no other option. “Just as a side piece of information, how are you getting along with him?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Kelly said honestly. “I’ll let you know more once you get back to me about his family and
I get to know him a little better—if that’s possible.” She laughed softly to herself, shaking her head. “I don’t mind telling you that right about now I’m really missing Amos. With all of his strange quirks—needing to carry five coins in each of his pockets leaps to mind—the man was still an open book. This guy I want you to look into is more like a mystery—with all the pages glued together.”
“Might be fun to unglue them,” Valri told her. When Kelly sighed, her sister merely said, “I’ve seen what he looks like. Oh, and Brennan said the two of you were at Malone’s earlier. You bought the drinks for you and this partner you’re researching. That means you’re bonding, right? He wouldn’t have willingly gone with you if you weren’t bonding.”
“If by willingly you mean that I went after him, giving him no choice and then dragging him to the old ancestral stomping grounds here, then, yes, he came willingly.”
“Unless the man is a ninety-pound weakling—and I know for a fact that he’s not—you didn’t drag Kane Durant anywhere that he didn’t want to go. Some partnerships take time to establish,” she reminded her sister. “You know that.”
“Yeah, I know that,” she agreed. But this was something that she just couldn’t patiently stand around and wait for Kane to eventually reveal. She had a feeling that she needed to understand his background if this partnership between them was going to have a prayer of working. “Just get me as much of his background as you can, okay?”
“Shouldn’t be that big a deal,” Valri assured her. “I’ll get back to you tomorrow morning. Fast enough for you?” she teased.
“It’ll have to be,” Kelly replied.
Valri sighed. “Good night, Kel.”
“Good night,” Kelly echoed. “And tell that good-looking guy next to you that I said hi.”
“Maybe later,” Valri replied in a very husky voice.
Kelly smiled wistfully to herself, envying Valri just a little as she hung up.
Chapter 8
A persistent, annoying buzzing scissored its way into her consciousness one jarring, pulsing disturbance at a time. It started out as a distant noise in the background, growing louder and louder until it felt as if the intruding sound was going to swallow her up.
Wrapping a pillow around her head, or at least managing to just barely cover her ears with it, didn’t help to block out the noise. If anything, holding her pillow in that position woke her up instead of allowing her to drift back to sleep.
With a reluctant sigh of surrender, Kelly released her pillow and opened her eyes.
Darkness was still embracing the world, or at least it seemed that way in her bedroom. She was exhausted beyond words. It felt as if she’d just fallen asleep. Rolling over to her side, she looked at the blue digital numbers on her alarm clock.
Two a.m.
She had just fallen asleep, Kelly realized, feeling just the slightest bit justified for feeling lethargic.
But at least the buzzing had stopped. Had it been part of her dream or...?
The next moment, her question answered itself. The buzzing had started again.
It was her cell phone.
She glared at the culprit. Since this was obviously the second go-around, the odds of whoever on the other end of the call going away was slim to none.
Picking up her cell, she pressed Accept and mumbled a thick “Hello?” feeling more dead than alive right about then.
“We’re up.”
It took her a second to recognize the voice.
Durant.
Why would he be calling her in the middle of the night? Was this his clever way of getting even with her for some unknown transgression? Because her brain felt as if it had grown a layer of fuzz all over it, she couldn’t connect the dots just yet.
But she would, Kelly silently promised herself. She would. And when she did, Durant was going to pay for this.
“No, we’re not up,” she responded. “You’re talking in my sleep. Stop it.”
“Would if I could, Cavanaugh. But we just caught another home invasion and, due to circumstances beyond my control, you’re my ride, remember?”
The mention of another robbery, especially so soon after the first one, had Kelly sitting up and banishing all remnants of sleep from her brain.
“When?” she asked, kicking off her covers and getting out of bed as quickly as she could.
“As soon as you can get here,” he told her.
“No, when did the home invasion happen?” she asked, clarifying her question.
Stumbling to her closet, she grabbed the first thing she could find. In this case, it was a pair of jeans and a sweater. The night air had a habit of getting chilly, with temperatures dropping by a full twenty degrees or more on occasion.
“Dispatch said the victim thought it was some time around eleven o’clock. It took the victims this long to untie themselves so they could call 9-1-1. How soon can you get here?” he asked.
“Fifteen minutes after I throw on some clothes,” she told him, pulling fresh underwear out of her bureau drawer.
“You sleep naked?” It was meant to be a joke. He didn’t expect the answer he received.
“Yes. Now the sooner we terminate this call, the sooner I can get to you.” With that, she hit End and hurried into her undergarments and the jeans and sweater she pulled out of her closet.
Locating her shoes—she had a tendency to step out of them whenever the mood hit her, so they could be in any one of half a dozen places—took her a bit longer.
Dressed and ready in what still amounted to record time, Kelly spared one longing glance at her coffeemaker. The machine was programmed to brew at sixty-thirty and, consequently, was now standing silent and dormant.
Maybe Durant would have coffee ready, she thought.
Who was she kidding? Durant didn’t strike her as someone who could sufficiently serve himself, much less someone else. And at any rate, it was highly doubtful he would be that thoughtful.
But at least it was something to hope for, Kelly told herself as she got into her car.
She dreamed about a large cup of coffee all the way to Kane’s apartment.
* * *
“Quick enough for you?” she asked Kane twelve minutes later as he opened the door in response to her knock.
He hadn’t expected her to show up this quickly. “How close to me do you live?” he asked.
“Let’s just say I caught every light.”
“Did you?” he asked, curious. He’d never managed to hit the trifecta when it came to quickly going from point A to point B.
“I said, let’s just say I did,” Kelly replied evasively. And then she saw what he had in his hands. “Are you planning on drinking both of those?” she asked, nodding at the two travel mugs he was holding.
“Forgot I was holding these,” he confessed, somewhat embarrassed to come off so absentminded. “Here.” He handed her one of the mugs. “I didn’t know how you liked it so I didn’t do anything to it. I’ve got milk and sugar in the kitchen if you need either.”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I need straight sludge to kick-start me this morning. Black is fine,” she told him. Pausing to take a sip, she immediately shivered as the mouthful made its way down. “Okay, maybe I’ll take you up on that milk and sugar,” she said, changing her mind. She felt as if she’d just swallowed a mouthful of pitch.
“This way.” He opened the door further to allow her to enter his apartment. The kitchen was right next to the front door. “Help yourself,” he told her, gesturing toward the refrigerator.
Opening the refrigerator, she saw a small container of milk, a white carton she assumed had some sort of leftover take-out food in it and nothing else.
“Don’t eat much, do you?” It was a rhetorical question.
S
he took out the milk carton and was just about to pour what little there was into her coffee, when her nose saved her.
After being assaulted by a pungent, stomach-turning smell, she quickly closed the carton again. What there was of the liquid was beyond spoiled. “I take it you’re conducting a science experiment.”
Kane appeared baffled. “What do you mean?”
“The milk smells positively rancid.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he protested. But when he opened the spout to see for himself, he quickly changed his mind. “Yes, it does. Sorry about that,” he added a tad apologetically.
“I’ll settle for some sugar—as long as there aren’t any tiny black bugs cavorting in it,” Kelly qualified just in case.
Kane kept a small bowl of sugar in the center of the kitchen table. She approached it guardedly, then stirred in two spoonfuls of sugar. After tasting the results, she was satisfied that it was the best she could do.
She looked at her partner. “Okay, if you’re ready, then let’s go.”
After following her out of the apartment, Kane locked the door behind him. He said nothing as he made his way to her car. Getting in, he buckled up and then focused on the travel mug in his hand.
When Kelly put her key into the ignition but didn’t turn it to start up the engine, he looked at her quizzically.
“I can’t go until you tell me where we’re going,” she pointed out.
He banked down feeling stupid at the oversight. Instead, he immediately rectified it. “Twenty-two Coriander.”
Kelly started the car, then slanted a glance at her partner. “If I hadn’t asked for the address—let’s say I’m psychic and the address just came to me—were you just going to sit there, silent, the whole trip?”
“Not that much of a trip,” he told her matter-of-factly.
“The silence has a tendency to make it longer,” she informed him.
He had kept quiet about this for as long as he could. The question seemed to all but erupt out of his mouth. “You really sleep naked?” he asked her. The image had been feeding on his brain since she’d inadvertently confirmed what he had so flippantly asked.
How to Seduce a Cavanaugh Page 8
