Cavanaugh’s Woman

by Marie Ferrarella

  Before he’d retired, Andrew Cavanaugh had worked his way up through the ranks to become chief of the entire Aurora Police Department. It was a known fact that he thought of all the officers on the force as members of his extended family. His door was always open and his table was always available.

  Reese paused. They were standing right in front of the chief’s door. Sobering somewhat, he glanced at his taller, handsomer partner.

  “You sure you didn’t do anything that would get us called out on the carpet?”

  Shaw’s eyes met his. There was barely a hint of amusement in them as he said, “Other than have you for a partner, no.”

  Never one to hesitate, Shaw knocked on the door once, then opened it. He didn’t bother waiting for an invitation.

  Shaw was fortunate that the man wasn’t in the middle of talking, or else he might have been in danger of swallowing his tongue.

  Or, at the very least, gagging on it.

  His uncle Brian was not alone.

  Rather than sitting at his desk, surrounded by piles of papers, Brian Cavanaugh, considered more than passingly handsome and a great deal younger-looking than his fifty years of age, stood on the far side of his desk, talking to a striking-looking blonde, who sat opposite him.

  Even as Shaw took in the scene, the blonde turned and looked directly at him with the greenest pair of eyes he’d ever seen.

  The second before he collected himself, Shaw felt as if a four-hundred-pound linebacker had just jumped on his chest before grabbing the game-winning football away from him.

  The woman wore a light blue, two-piece suit. Powder-blue, he thought it was called by people, such as his sisters, who had more than six colors within their mental repertoire. Whatever the color was called, it appeared that most of the material had been used up making the jacket because there was precious little left over for the skirt.

  Not that he would have registered a complaint with anyone. The less skirt there was, the more leg was visible. And he had to admit that the woman had the longest, shapeliest legs he’d ever seen.

  Belatedly, Shaw realized that his saliva had completely disappeared. Which made up for the fact, he supposed, that Reese stood beside him, almost visibly drooling.

  A vague feeling buzzed around in his slightly disoriented brain that he recognized the woman from somewhere, although for the life of him, Shaw couldn’t have said where. He supposed if it mattered, his uncle would fill him in. If it didn’t matter, he didn’t need to be wasting time trying to remember.

  Like a five-star general who finally saw the key members of his army come into view, Brian Cavanaugh clapped his hands together.

  “And here they are now,” the chief said, although it was obvious that while he said “they,” he was looking at only one of them. He was looking at Shaw.

  Shaw nodded a respectful greeting toward his uncle, then let his eyes move back toward the woman.

  Was this a personal case his uncle wanted to be handled discreetly?

  It didn’t seem very likely, but stranger things had turned out to be true. Since he and Reese were assigned to Vice and Narcotics, he wondered just what this woman’s connection was to the shady world that he was sometimes required to travel through. The mistress of an up-and-coming drug lord, ready to turn state’s evidence in exchange for immunity and a new identity?

  Or was there a more personal connection?

  He stopped speculating and decided to wait out his uncle, who was smiling wider than ever.

  Shaw then became aware that his venerable partner, the man he relied on to guard his back and be the other set of eyes to sharply watch the mean streets, had stopped breathing. Reese had sucked in one long breath and then nothing.

  Shaw turned to look at him and saw that Reese’s brown eyes were all but riveted to the blonde. Turning his back ever so slightly toward her, Shaw lowered both his head and his voice as he asked, “Reese, you okay?”

  All Reese could manage was a slightly wooden nod. His eyes never left the woman’s face.

  Shaw heard his uncle clear his throat and realized the man was doing it to hide a laugh. Brian was laid-back, but ordinarily all business during working hours.

  Just what the hell was going on here?

  He noted that the woman looked a little concerned, rather than amused, by the obvious effect she was having on Shaw’s partner. Maybe she wasn’t as accustomed to men becoming tongue-tied, drooling and breathless around her as he’d thought.

  “Would you like some water?”

  Her voice was lyrical.

  He’d half expected her to have a grating voice. It would have been nature’s way of balancing things out. Someone as beautiful as this woman couldn’t possibly have the voice of an angel. But she did. An angel who originated from somewhere in the deep South if his ear served him right. There was just the smallest hint of a Georgia lilt to her tone.

  Or maybe he was just hallucinating. What the hell had gotten into him today?

  When his partner made no response to her question, she pulled her lips back in a quick grin. Shaw had seen lighthouse beacons that possessed less wattage.

  And then, as if by some miracle, Reese came back from the dead. “Are you—? Are you—?”

  Shaw snorted in abject disgust. His partner, known for his interrogation skills, couldn’t even complete a simple four-word sentence.

  The green-eyed goddess-on-earth apparently understood his garbled attempt at communication. She smiled again and said, “Yes, I am.”

  Well, that cleared up nothing, Shaw thought, beginning to get annoyed.

  He took police work very seriously. Every moment he was here, watching an episode of High School Confidential unfold was a moment he wasn’t sending the bad guys to jail.

  Just what was it they were doing here? Shifting impatiently, Shaw looked to his uncle for a logical explanation.

  “My nephew doesn’t get to the movies very much,” the chief told her.

  What did going to the movies have to do with anything?

  And then it hit him.

  Shaw suddenly remembered where he’d seen the woman’s face before. Not in some covertly taken photograph of a drug lord with his high-priced mistress, but looking down at him from the giant screen of his local movie theater. Callie had dragged him there a little more than a month ago to view some romantic comedy whose name and plot escaped him at the moment.

  Beside him Reese had returned from the land of the living zombies and rediscovered his tongue. His partner hit his shoulder with the back of his hand, as if that would make him return to his senses.

  As if he’d been the one to leave them, Shaw thought, regain control over himself. She was a woman, a mortal woman, even if she did look like a goddess.

  “Don’t you know who this is, Cavanaugh?” Reese demanded. “This is Moira McCormick.”

  And that and two dollars, Shaw thought, singularly unimpressed, would get him a ride on the bus.

  Chapter Two

  He wasn’t impressed by her.

  Good, Moira thought.

  She didn’t want him to be impressed. While the reaction of the man standing next to the chief of detectives’ nephew was sweet and more than a little flattering, ultimately it would only get in the way of what she wanted. She needed to get inside her character, and to do that, she needed a clear, unobstructed view of what life was like for a member of the vice squad. Moira McCormick believed in doing her homework and this was homework. Homework was never effectively dealt with when you were busy having a good time.

  She’d spent a good deal of her life focusing on becoming exactly what she was, a highly regarded film star who was, thankfully, in great demand. That wasn’t something that had come easily. She certainly hadn’t arrived at her present position in life by sitting around, allowing others to fawn on her while she lapped up well-meaning but, for the most part, empty compliments.

  Making her dream a reality took work. She worked hard to make it all look easy, effortless. And she had a f
eeling that it was going to take a lot of effort to make this unsmiling detective with the piercing blue eyes come around to her side of the table.

  “You haven’t heard of me,” she concluded.

  “I’ve heard of you.” In the last seven years, he’d seen maybe five movies. He believed in other forms of diversion. If he needed to knock off some steam, he turned to sports. He loved basketball and baseball the most, but almost any sport, other than golf, would do. To him, playing golf seemed too much like standing on the sidelines. Maybe that was why movies seemed such a waste of time to him. Plunking down money for a two-hour vicarious experience had never really sat right with him.

  But he knew who she was. He would have had to be living in a cave not to.

  Still, if she was expecting him to turn into a puddle of pulsating semisolid flesh, the way Reese apparently had, she was in for a disappointment.

  Moira nodded. The detective’s reply had an air of finality to it. Which meant he wasn’t going to gush.

  Which meant he was perfect.

  She still had doubts about his partner, though, but that could be handled. Worst-case scenario, she could get Chief Cavanaugh to reassign the shorter detective to another partner for the time being.

  She wanted the stubborn one. In her gut, she knew he’d be the one to show her the ropes, the one who wouldn’t sugarcoat things. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Flashing another brilliant smile, Moira turned toward the chief of detectives. “You’re right. He’s perfect.”

  Shaw didn’t like the sound of this. Wary, feeling like someone who’d just been blindfolded and pushed out onto a very thin tightrope, he looked from the movie star to his uncle.

  “Perfect for what? What’s going on here, Chief?” For the first time he saw that the woman had a small, thick spiral notebook on the desk in front of her. She was making notations in it. “Why’s she doing that?”

  “Ms. McCormick is about to make a movie dealing with an inner-city vice squad,” Brian said cautiously.

  “Good for her,” Shaw bit off.

  His uncle looked at him sharply and Shaw inclined his head by way of a minor apology. It was just that he didn’t see the point of making movies about the kinds of thing he and Reese dealt with on a daily basis. At best, his work could be described as long spates of monotony interrupted by pockets of adrenaline-rushing moments comprised of sheer danger and terror. If portrayed accurately, no one would come to see the movie because the kind of life they led was boring ninety-seven percent of the time. If not portrayed accurately, why bother making the movie at all? In his experience, movies such as the one his uncle was describing were just excuses to blow up a lot of things.

  He had no use for that kind of so-called entertainment.

  Shaw turned his attention back to the woman who was watching him so intently. Was she expecting him to perform tricks? He wasn’t about to be anyone’s trained monkey or stooge.

  “You know, I’m a huge fan,” his partner was saying, taking Moira’s small hand in his and shaking it again. “I’ve seen all your movies.”

  Very carefully, she managed to extricate her hand without giving offense. That, too, was training from way back when.

  “So you’re the one.” She laughed.

  Reese looked at her, his face a mask of confusion. Moira McCormick’s movies broke records. There was even talk of there being an Oscar nomination for her last role as a turn-of-the-century Irish freedom fighter. How could she downplay attendance?

  “What? Oh, that’s a joke?” And then Reese laughed as if he’d just caught the humor of it. He looked up at her much like a puppy looked at its master.

  Shaw struggled not to scowl. He’d never seen Reese like this. Just showed you never really knew a person. His impatience began to break through.

  “So you want to do what? Ask us questions? Pick our brains?” He glanced at his partner. “Such as they are,” he added.

  Moira exchanged looks with the chief. It was clear that she wanted to take the lead here. “Actually, I’d like to do more than that.”

  He really didn’t like the sound of this. He especially didn’t like the fact that his uncle had obviously yielded center stage to this Hollywood bit of fluff.

  “More?” he echoed. “More as in how?”

  “As in riding along with you for the next week or so.” She uttered every word as if it were a sane request.

  If granted at all, ride-alongs were usually conducted by patrol officers along routes they knew ahead of time were going to be safe, or as safe as could be hoped for. He and Reese did not patrol fantasyland. They went where the action was.

  This time, he scowled darkly at her. “During work hours?”

  Moira had a feeling she was being challenged. Nothing made her feel more alive. It reminded her of the old days. “That would be the point.”

  “Oh, no, no. Sorry, out of the question. We don’t do taxi service.”

  Brian took a step forward, his message clear. Shaw was to toe the line.

  “Shaw—” Brian began, then looked surprised as Moira held up her hand, unconsciously silencing him. Ever since she could remember, she was accustomed to fighting every battle for herself. She’d come here looking for resistance, because only a real, dedicated detective was going to be of use to her.

  “You wouldn’t be driving me around. I’d be an observer. You wouldn’t even know I was there,” Moira assured him.

  The way she looked at him made Shaw feel as if there was no one else in the room. He supposed that was part of her attraction. And her weapon. He shook himself mentally free.

  “I highly doubt that.”

  A man would have to be dead three days to be oblivious to her. He saw amusement play along her lips. Shaw deliberately shifted his eyes toward his uncle, who seemed rather amused by the whole exchange. Had everyone gone crazy? Shaw shifted, his body language asking for a private audience with his uncle.

  “With all due respect, sir, wouldn’t she be better off observing another woman?” He thought of his sister. Now there was someone who wouldn’t mind serving as tour guide. She had the patience, the temperament for it. “Callie, for instance—”

  Brian shook his head. “None of the female detectives are in Vice and Vice is what Ms. McCormick wants to observe.”

  “Then team her up with another pair of detectives,” he suggested firmly.

  Reese made a strange, protesting noise that sounded like the gurgle of a castaway going down for the third time.

  Moira hardly heard the other man. Her attention was focused on Shaw. It was this man or no one.

  “I don’t want another pair of detectives,” she told him, rising to her feet and looking up into his eyes. She wasn’t a short woman, but he made her feel like one. Was he protesting because this arrangement would make his girlfriend jealous? “I want this pair.”

  “No offense, ma’am,” he said evenly, “but what you want really doesn’t concern me.”

  Ma’am, she thought. If she tried hard, she could almost see him tipping the brim of an off-white Stetson. Because this man was off-white, not the pure hero type, not quite the black-hearted loner he made himself out to be.

  It’s going to be fun, getting under your skin, Detective Cavanaugh, she thought. And fun was part of the reason she was in this business. The money was the other, because without money, she wouldn’t be able to take care of those who needed caring for.

  “It does this time, Detective,” Brian told his nephew sternly. “Ms. McCormick requested a detective who wasn’t going to get bowled over by the fact that she earns her living making films.” He looked at Reese. “I’m assuming that you’ll be able to pull yourself together and do the department proud by tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Moira repeated. She was clearly disappointed. At least that was something, Shaw thought. “I was hoping we could get started today.”

  Brian shook his head. He hadn’t gotten to where he was by being unreasonable. “I think Detective C
avanaugh would appreciate a day’s head start to prepare for this ‘role’ himself. Wouldn’t you, Detective?”

  “At least,” Shaw muttered. That gave him a little less than twenty-four hours to come up with an excuse, he thought.

  Moira had learned long ago to take disappointment well. It was in her nature to roll with any punch that was thrown. A nomadic life with a con-artist father who was always one step in front of the law had taught her that.

  She nodded, glancing at her perfect candidate’s partner. She knew if it was up to Detective Reese, they would get started this moment. But Detective Cavanaugh was the one who piqued her interest.

  “Fine. Bright and early tomorrow morning, then?” she asked Shaw.

  “Bright and early,” Shaw responded. The words squeezed themselves out through teeth that were tightly clenched.

  Damn it. Why him? Why, of all the available candidates in the precinct, had he been the one to have gotten the short straw? He hadn’t even picked it, it had been thrust into his hand. Any one of the others would have been happy about having this motivation-seeking pain-in-the-butt riding around with them. His uncle had only to look around to know that.

  For the remainder of the day, from what Shaw could see, Moira McCormick stayed at the precinct, initially getting a grand tour from his uncle, then being handed off to another beaming detective, Ed Rafferty. The latter, usually the personification of grumpiness, was beaming from ear to ear as he took her from one department to the other. Ordinarily, Rafferty spent his time behind a desk since a bullet had found him one dreary twilight, giving him a permanent limp and an overwhelming desire to remain among the living.

  From the sound of it, Moira McCormick had an unending supply of questions. Great. Just what he needed, Shaw thought miserably.

  Shaw steered clear of the traveling circus with its growing audience. For most of the day, he wasn’t even in the precinct. A snitch known to him only as Barlow had called offering up for sale a tiny piece of the current puzzle he and Reese were pondering. Shaw had bought the information from him, telling Barlow to secure more. He and Reese were following up on what had started out as a simple prostitution bust and was turning out to be a rather intricate sex-for-hire ring that dealt with underage prostitutes.