“Where are you going?” Kane asked.
“To your car,” she answered. She saw the quizzical, albeit unvoiced, question in his eyes and answered that, as well. “I just figured that since your car was accessible, you’d want to drive.”
“And you’re not challenging that?” he asked, surprised. He had her pegged as a control freak. Was he wrong?
“You’re the lead on this,” she replied mildly. “It’s your right to make the final decisions regarding everything about the case, including who drives what as well as where,” Kelly told him calmly.
“I’m impressed. You actually managed to say all that with a straight face,” he observed, opening the driver’s side door.
The other locks were released. Kelly opened the door on her side of the vehicle. “Why wouldn’t I?” she asked him innocently. “The captain made you the lead, didn’t he?”
That was beside the point, or so he had thought. “I really didn’t think you let little things like that get in your way.”
She looked at him as he started up the car. The engine all but purred in response.
“My way?” she questioned.
“Your way,” he repeated, then illustrated what he meant. “You just plow straight through until you’ve done whatever it is that you think needs to be done. And even then you don’t retreat. You stand guard, making sure no one else messes with your project.”
She had a strong hunch that her “plowing” days were behind her now.
Kelly shrugged. “Being partnered with someone means having to make certain adjustments. The bottom line is to solve the cases and make sure that the crime rate is contained at an acceptable number.”
“When it comes to crime, there is no acceptable number,” he informed her.
“In an ideal world,” she agreed readily. Then she reminded him, “But this isn’t an ideal world we’re dealing with.”
The very thought had Kane laughing. Kelly felt as if she and her partner had somehow changed their basic beliefs. Without fully realizing it, she had become the realist while Kane had somehow turned into what passed for an idealist.
The latter was obviously having the same thought. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that I was having a nightmare.”
His interpretation surprised her. “What makes you say that?”
“Because this is one hell of a role reversal for us,” he told her.
“Maybe you just always wanted to be an idealist, and since I really can’t honestly be one, you jumped right in to fill the position.”
“How come you can’t be an idealist?” Given her personality he really found that hard to believe.
“With my entire family involved in law enforcement, and a large number of them serving right here in Aurora, I am acutely aware of the fact that conditions out in the real world aren’t exactly ideal—no matter how much I wish they were.”
He still didn’t think that made actual sense, but for the time being he refrained from pointing that out. “For the record, nobody could ever accuse me of being an idealist,” he told Kelly.
“Maybe a closet idealist,” she suggested.
Again he laughed, the sound so dry it was almost physically irritating. “Not in a closet, not even in a cave,” he told her with finality.
Raising her hands in surrender, Kelly backed off. “Okay,” she told him. “I stand corrected. You’re not an idealist. Never were. Never will be. How’s that?”
She noticed that didn’t seem to satisfy him. He was frowning. What he said next didn’t seem like a fitting reason for him to look the way he did.
“You’re being amicable,” he told her.
Why did he sound so annoyed when he made that observation? Most people would have appreciated the gesture—and the effort it involved.
“I’m trying,” she answered.
“Well, stop it,” he ordered, completely surprising her. “It’s like waiting for an ax to fall,” he told her. “And the suspense will wind up killing me.”
A normal person would have applauded the effort, she thought, not found something negative about it.
“You’re making it very hard to get along with you. You do realize that, don’t you?” she asked.
“Then stop trying to get along with me,” he retorted dismissively.
“Do you want people not to like you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I really don’t care one way or the other.”
Stunned, Kelly glared at her cantankerous partner for a long moment before loudly declaring, “Bull!”
“What did you just say?”
She gladly repeated it for him. “I said bull. If you didn’t hear that, then you’re deaf as well as thickheaded—not to mention terminally stubborn.” She wasn’t finished yet. “And I’m not buying into the act.”
Judging from his profile, his scowl had deepened by several degrees. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There is no act,” he informed her with finality.
She still didn’t believe him. “If you honestly think that, then you’ve managed to fool yourself. But you haven’t fooled me.” Before he could contest what she had asserted, Kelly gave him her reasons for believing as she did. “No one is as indifferent to what people think and feel about them as you pretend to be. Like it or not, on some level people care about what other people think about them. Even you.”
He snorted, showing his contempt for her theory. “No, I don’t.”
“Then you’d be the first,” she told him. “Even serial killers care. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be doing things that would net them the kind of attention that they get,” she pointed out. “And good or bad, they view attention to be a way of validating their existence.”
“With all this so-called insight you seem to have into people, why did you become a cop? Why didn’t you become a psychiatrist?” Kane said sarcastically.
Kelly didn’t have to think about her answer. “Too much sitting involved. I’d wind up spreading out. Besides, I like taking an active part in life, not sitting on the sidelines, commenting on it.”
If she felt that way about it, then why was she dispensing all this so-called insight into his psyche? “And yet, here you are, commenting on mine. You’re contradicting yourself, Cavanaugh.”
“No, I’m not,” she maintained. “In this case it’s called trying to help.”
“It’s called meddling,” he said.
She expected no less from him. He was fighting dirty, but he also seemed to be fighting for what was left of his professional life.
“Potato, po-tah-to,” Kelly countered.
“You got anyone special in your life?” he asked.
Coming out of nowhere, the question almost threw her. It took her a moment to summon her composure. “Everyone’s special in my life.”
He stared at her. “Are you trying to get me to upchuck right here?” he asked.
“I’m just answering your question,” she said, pretending innocence. But then her curiosity got the better of her. “Why are you asking me if I have someone special in my life?”
“Because if you did I was going to send him the best bottle of scotch money could buy—along with my condolences.”
“Well, you can save your money and your condolences,” she told him. “Because there is nobody.”
He had to admit that sounded a little hard to believe, not because she was so damn pretty, but because she was part of the Cavanaugh family.
“How come?” he asked. “Aren’t you Cavanaughs supposed to be nesters?”
She had a sudden image of birds flocking around, searching for a place to land and homestead. It almost made her laugh.
“When the right person comes along to make that nest with, then, yes, we’re nesters,” she allowed. “Unfortunately, nobody
ever came around who measured up to my standards.”
“Big surprise there,” Kane murmured under his breath. “You have any particulars on the first home invasion victim?” he asked, deciding to completely change the subject.
The discussion they’d been having was getting far too heated for his comfort despite the seemingly pointed verbal exchange. And, despite his best efforts to the contrary, Kane could feel himself getting stirred up in a way that completely disquieted him.
The matter, he felt, was best dropped and left alone.
He watched as Kelly checked with the notes she’d transferred to her smartphone.
“Only that he lives alone, is considered a real catch according to some exclusive, snobbish magazine, and the night of his home invasion, Daniel Wilcox was entertaining—as he seems to do a good many school nights. Wilcox and the lucky lady who was his choice for the evening had both been asleep—as usual—when the invasion took place. They were dragged out of bed at gunpoint, tied up with the same kind of twist ties that were used on the two couples in Aurora, and the thief seemed to take extra pleasure in humiliating Wilcox in front of his so-called girlfriend or whatever she was supposed to be.”
Kane was listening to her and processing his own thoughts on the matter at the same time. And then he sat up straighter as a stray observation suddenly occurred to him.
“How old is Wilcox?” he asked Kelly.
She paused for a moment, looking that information up in her notes. “Thirty-eight. Why?”
Kane didn’t answer her, but asked her another question. “How old were the first home invasion victims in Aurora?”
“In their later thirties. So was the second couple,” she told him before he could ask. “You think that’s the connection? Their similar ages?” she questioned incredulously.
“What I’m thinking,” Kane said, going a step further than dwelling on the age, “is that they might all know each other. Or at least that they did know one another at one point.”
“So we’re back to the idea that our thief is after some kind of revenge instead of actually just doing this for monetary gain?” She liked the former rather than the latter.
“I think that it’s a distinct possibility,” he told her.
She saw no reason to quibble with that. Durant very well could be right. “I’ll get someone in the squad to take a picture of the photographs we’ve got on the bulletin board so we can show them to the first victim.”
And maybe, just maybe, she added silently, they could finally get somewhere.
* * *
Daniel Wilcox, a thrice married and divorced multibillionaire—the latter thanks to his late father’s investment efforts—looked far from happy to be interviewed by police detectives from another city about what he freely told them was “the worst possible night of my life.”
“Look, as far as I’m concerned the whole damn experience is all behind me—and I want it to stay there.” He gestured around what could only be termed as a mansion. “I’ve had a brand-new, state-of-the-art security system put in and, in addition, I’ve hired a bodyguard.” With a studied shrug, he dismissed the incident that had happened to him previously.
“These things happen, but I’ve taken the proper precautions to keep it from ever happening again.” Obviously to Wilcox that was the end of it. Kelly almost felt sorry for the man’s incredible naïveté.
“I don’t see what more I can tell you that I didn’t already tell the detectives who originally came out to take my statement,” Wilcox said impatiently.
“Well, for starters, could you please just take a look at these two photographs?” Kelly requested, holding up her cell phone directly in his line of vision. She slowly went from one couple’s photograph to the other. “Do you recognize either one of these couples?”
Kelly went on to recite all four of the victims’ names, including the women’s maiden names. She thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in the man’s face, but the next moment it was gone and he shook his head.
“No, sorry, don’t recognize any of them.” With an innocent look that was almost too innocent, Wilcox asked, “Why?”
“We were hoping there was some sort of a connection. They were all victims of home invasions similar to the one that you were forced to go through,” Kane told him.
“You people better up your game, then,” was the victim’s comment. “Now, if there’s nothing further, I have a young lady waiting to receive the pleasure of my company.” He turned to a tall, beefy man who was never more than a heartbeat away. “Show these people out, Ryan,” he instructed the bodyguard.
“That’s all right. We can show ourselves out,” Kane assured the hulking man. “We know the way,” he added for good measure.
In what amounted to a protective gesture, Kane put his hand lightly on the small of his partner’s back and guided her to the front door.
The contact surprised her. The fact that she felt her stomach muscles tighten ever so slightly, as well as her pulse quicken, surprised her even more.
For a second she completely forgot about the uncooperative robbery victim and his paid shadow.
Chapter 11
“Well, that turned out to be a colossal waste of time,” Kane bit off once they had walked out of Daniel Wilcox’s palatial house. Kane continued to keep his hand against her back until they reached his sedan.
The case, think about the case, not the fact that Durant’s hand feels so right against your back, idiot, Kelly kept telling herself.
It didn’t really help.
“Maybe not,” she told her partner, doing her best to focus on what he was saying and not what he was doing.
Dropping his hand, Kane was instantly alert. “Did he say something to you?” he asked.
How had he missed an exchange between the two, he wondered. Wilcox hadn’t been out of his sight the entire time.
“Not in so many words—” Kelly began.
Okay, false alarm, Kane thought darkly. “Did he say something to you in any words?” he asked.
Kelly got into the car and buckled up. “There was a look of recognition on his face. Just for a second,” she qualified.
“Oh. A look. Great.” He made no effort to hide his sarcasm.
She ignored the dismissive note in Kane’s voice. “I just think that he knows more than he’s saying.”
“It would be hard for him to know less. We could take him in for questioning, but if he doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t want to talk,” Kane emphasized. “And when you get down to it, the guy’s a victim, not the guilty party.”
“I know, I know,” Kelly answered, frustration pulsing in her voice. “But this does fit in with your idea that whoever’s conducting these home invasions knows his victims and is robbing them of their most prized possessions out of some sense of revenge, not because he’s out for the money.”
Though it was his theory, he was still on the edge about it. However, there were procedures to follow.
“Maybe we need to dig deeper. See if these victims belong to the same health clubs, church, took a vacation together, frequent the same restaurant, invested in the same stocks—anything that would connect them in any way possible.”
She nodded. It would be tedious, but perhaps fruitful.
“Are we going to talk to the other victim now?” she asked. It was getting kind of late in her estimation, but since Durant was the lead on this case, he had to make the call.
Kane glanced at his watch, then shook his head. There was some place he wanted to be and it didn’t involve questioning another victim who most likely would have no useful information to give them.
“It’s late,” he told her. “We can drive back up tomorrow.”
Kelly studied her partner for a long moment. Something in his voice told her he wasn’t as focused
as he normally was.
“You have somewhere to be?” she asked, seemingly casual. In reality, she was anything but.
“Why?” he asked suspiciously.
“You’ve looked at your watch a few times in the last couple of hours. That’s not like you,” she observed. “You usually don’t seem to care what time it is.”
“We haven’t been working together long enough for you to use the word usually,” he told her. “Maybe I just don’t want to wear you out.” His tone was flippant.
“Like I believe that,” she scoffed. “Just how dumb do you think I am?” she challenged. “And before you answer that, consider the question carefully.”
“With an army of relatives at your disposal, I wouldn’t think of touching that comment with a ten-foot pole.”
She tried not to take offense, but she wanted to make sure he understood how she operated. “I fight my own battles, Durant. If you pick a fight with me, me is all you’re going to get.”
To her surprise, Kane smiled, apparently amused by what she had just said. “I guess that’s more than enough.”
“You’d better believe it.” Kelly paused for a moment, debating whether to put herself out there and deciding she had nothing to lose. Overtures of friendship ultimately never were wasted. Sometimes it just took more than a single effort. “You want to stop for dinner?” she asked him.
She saw the detective glance at the digital clock on the sedan’s dashboard. “Can’t,” he told her.
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Can’t,” he repeated. “And before you say anything, I do know the difference,” he emphasized, shooting her a pointed look.
“Okay. Is there anything I can help with?” she volunteered. The only way she would get any real answers from Durant was if she could crack that no-trespassing exterior of his and find out just what was going on inside.
“You could check that database again to see if there were any more home invasions that fit our thief’s MO. The more people we question, the more likely that something is going to come to light that ties these invasions together.”
How to Seduce a Cavanaugh Page 11
