Cavanaugh Judgment

by Marie Ferrarella

  She flashed him a serene smile. “About as much chance as my growing two feet and playing on the Lakers by next season.”

  “What about my father?” He nodded at the elder Kincannon, fairly certain that he finally had her. “He doesn’t go to court with me. How are you going to guard him and me? Even you can’t be two places at the same time.”

  If he thought he was baiting her, he was going to be disappointed. “I am aware of that, Judge. I passed high-school physics with flying colors,” she replied. “I have someone coming to stay with your father while we’re at the courthouse.”

  She heard her former ally groan behind her. As she turned around, he said, “No offense, O’Brien, but I don’t take kindly to being handed off.”

  Glancing at her watch, she noted the time. Taylor should be getting here at any moment. “I know, which is why I requested Taylor McIntyre for the job.” She’d called the chief last night, right after the Kincannons had gone to bed. She had a feeling that Taylor would have more luck handling Gunny. The ex-marine might grumble about having women in charge, but he definitely responded to the female touch.

  The doorbell suddenly rang. The cavalry had arrived. “And there she is.”

  “She?” Alexander echoed, instantly perking up.

  She’d made the right decision, Greer thought. She glanced at the man over her shoulder, doing her best to suppress an amused grin. “Oh, didn’t I mention that Taylor was a woman?” she asked innocently. “She’s also the chief of detectives’ stepdaughter.”

  “Anyone on the police force not related to Chief Cavanaugh?” Blake wanted to know. It seemed like the entire force was peppered with his relatives.

  “There’s got to be a couple of people,” she deadpanned as she went to the door.

  Greer opened it cautiously, acutely aware that even though she was expecting her step-cousin at this time, it still might be one of Munro’s lackeys standing on the doorstep.

  Fortunately, it was just Taylor.

  The other woman did her best to summon a smile, or at least one that generally resembled one in passing. It took obvious effort.

  “I’m not a morning person,” Taylor warned by way of a greeting as she walked in.

  Greer glanced at the judge. Taylor wasn’t the only one, she thought. “There’s a lot of that going around,” she commented under her breath, then said with more feeling, “You should feel right at home.”

  Turning to the two men she’d spent the night with, Greer made introductions. “Taylor, this is Judge Blake Kincannon and his father, former gunnery sergeant Alexander Kincannon, retired marine,” she added, knowing that the reference would put the older man in a good, hopefully cooperative mood. “Gentlemen, this is Detective Taylor McIntyre—” she looked deliberately at Alexander “—soon to be Detective Taylor Laredo.”

  “That’s Cavanaugh-Laredo,” Taylor corrected with a yawn. “I’ve decided to get my name legally changed.” She saw the other woman looking at her in mild surprise. “Seems only right since Brian was more of a father to me, my brothers and sister than the guy who lent us his gene pool,” she explained. Not waiting on ceremony, she purloined Greer’s mug. There was still approximately four ounces of coffee in it.

  Taylor drained it in less than five seconds. Putting the cup down, she asked Greer belatedly, “You didn’t want that, did you?”

  “Not half as much as you did,” she assured the senior detective.

  “You’re getting married?” Alexander asked the new woman, interested.

  Taylor beamed, her thoughts clearly straying to the man she was engaged to. Her devotion to her future husband was no secret. In fact, she’d once even confided that her fiancé could instantly raise her body temperature by five degrees with just a promising look. “As soon as we can set a date,” she told the judge’s father.

  As if foiled, Alexander turned his attention back to Greer. “Looks like I’m just going to have to wear you down, O’Brien.” He chuckled.

  He wasn’t going to stand here while his father all but made a fool of himself. “Time to go,” Blake announced. “Nice meeting you, Detective.” He nodded at the woman he was leaving with his father. She had his full sympathy, he thought.

  “The pleasure was all mine,” Taylor assured him. She stepped back beside her assignment for the day. “See you tonight,” she told Greer. The glint in her blue eyes told Greer that she considered her new step-cousin’s assignment the better one by at least a country mile.

  Greer pretended she didn’t notice.

  With the Munro trial bumped indefinitely, Judge Kincannon’s administrative assistant was forced to reschedule all the other cases and move them up on the calendar. Consequently, this morning, the judge found himself facing a child molester whose lawyer actually provided the defense that when his client indulged in recreational drugs, they turned the man into a completely different person. And it was that person who was the child molester. A stint in rehab, the lawyer declared, should clear everything all up.

  It was all Blake could do to keep his ever increasing disdain for the defendant and his alleged crime from showing on his face. But at his core, Kincannon was a firm believer that everyone deserved their day in court and that they also deserved to be represented by competent counsel.

  He was well aware of cases where the wrong man or woman was sent away for a crime they didn’t commit. To his knowledge, his cases didn’t number among them. He’d like to think that it was because he tried to keep proceedings as fair as possible, but he knew that there was also a good amount of luck involved.

  He hoped to God that his luck never ran out.

  It had been an extremely long day, broken up only by a quick recess for lunch, part of which was spent mediating a point of conflict for yet another set of counselors. When Blake finally got around to eating, he sent out for sandwiches from a local sandwich shop and had them brought to his chambers.

  Ordinarily, he ate alone, usually at his desk. Most of the time, he would also be reviewing something that required his attention.

  Today, though, he’d had to share his precious so-called free time with his bodyguard. It didn’t sit that well with him. He valued the moments he was alone with his thoughts. With Greer, there was no such thing as being alone.

  There was also no such thing as silence.

  The woman seemed to actively have something against the latter because any time silence threatened to break out, she began talking again, filling the air with words to the point that Blake felt as if he was literally under attack. Occasionally, she came up for air, but that hardly seemed to last more than a couple of minutes at a time, and then she launched yet another verbal discourse.

  Court was over for the day and they were now on their way home—and still she continued prattling on.

  There was a headache behind his eyes that threatened to take over at any moment. He turned toward the woman in the driver’s seat and asked, “Have you ever tried yoga, Detective?”

  She wasn’t into sitting quietly in a twisted position. Weight-lifting and cross-training were far more her style. “Once,” she admitted, unaware that a slight frown slipped over her lips. “I didn’t like it.”

  Blake sighed. It figured. “I had a feeling,” he said, more to himself than to her.

  “I’m not the type to sit around and mediate.” She suspected he’d already guessed that, but she said it anyway. “I’m more of a doer.” She extended it to her job. That was, after all, what she was doing here. Her job. “I like being out in the field, rounding up dealers—”

  He had a feeling that this current assignment was going to drive her crazy if it extended beyond a couple of days. That made two of them.

  “Then what are you doing here?” Blake asked her, slowly becoming aware that the scent of lavender and jasmine were subtly registering within the interior of the vehicle.

  Greer chose her words slowly. The terrain before her could become uncomfortable territory at any moment. “The chief felt I was the b
est for the job because I was the one who’d studied Munro’s habits and because…” Her voice drifted off as she searched for the right way to say this. The least hurtful way to say this.

  This time, the momentary silence made him uneasy. “Yes?”

  Greer slanted a quick glance in his direction. Could it really be that Kincannon didn’t remember her? He seemed far too sharp for that, but maybe he’d blocked it all out. Not all survival mechanisms kicked in on conscious levels.

  She took a breath and then continued. “Because you and I have a history.”

  She’d said the last part softly as she drove away from the courthouse. Slowing down, she slanted another glance toward the judge to see if there was any sign that he knew what she was referring to. His expression remained identical to the one he’d worn a few moments ago.

  “A history,” Kincannon repeated. There was neither feeling nor a quizzical note evident in his voice. She had no clue if he did actually recognize her.

  Okay, she supposed she had to ask, although, in asking, she was aware that she was bringing it all up for him again. Part of her really didn’t want to do that. She hated seeing anyone in pain. But as long as she felt in the dark as to whether or not the judge remembered that she was the one who’d been first on the scene of his wife’s fatal accident, she was going to constantly feel as if she was walking on eggshells, afraid of the information coming out at the wrong time.

  It was a Band-Aid she had to pull off. Now.

  “Is that what they call it these days?” Kincannon finally commented.

  She took a breath. This time his voice said everything she needed to know. “Then you remember.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, the events of that dark day coming at him like a lethal assault on all fronts.

  He could never think of that day without bitterly tasting the loss. He and Margaret were just coming back from dinner. It was their second anniversary and he couldn’t wait to get her home. Couldn’t wait to make love with her and count his blessings that he had found his soul mate so early in his life.

  He never got to do either.

  “That you were the one who cut my seat belt and dragged me out of the car wreck? That you worked over my wife for fifteen minutes, until the paramedics came? Yes, I remember.”

  Greer frowned to herself. How had Kincannon known how long she’d labored over his wife? When she’d finally sat back and silently admitted to herself that death had won, she’d seen that the man she later learned was a sitting judge in her area had slipped into merciful unconsciousness.

  Looking at him now, she realized that she was sitting beside a man who made it a point to know as much as he could about everything. “You tracked down the responding paramedics and talked to them, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. It had cost him to do it. Had cost him even more to listen to the two men recount their own futile efforts to resuscitate his wife, but he’d hoped that if he did, if he knew everything that had been done, the very knowledge would somehow begin to usher in closure for him and he could start to heal.

  He was still waiting.

  Chapter 9

  A movement at the back of the courtroom caught Blake’s attention despite the fact that the defense attorney pacing before the bench was actively questioning a witness.

  For just a split second, his focus shifted away from the proceedings and onto the man in the back of the room. Blake felt his heart rate increase enough to be noticeable. It was then that he admitted, if only to himself in the privacy of his own mind, that the shooting incident had actually spooked him.

  He’d already been well aware of how tentative life could be. One moment you were here, the next you were gone. Just like that.

  His brother had been larger than life with an aura of tremendous energy about him. Scott had embraced life and wanted to do great things. Margaret was the very definition of sunshine, lighting up his life every moment she was in it. Everyone who knew her loved her. And in what amounted to a blink of an eye, they were both gone. Forever.

  Even so, there was a part of him that still felt bulletproof. He felt as if he would go on forever, no matter what.

  Probably because it no longer meant anything to him. Those who wanted nothing more than to go on living didn’t. Those who didn’t care one way or another, leaning toward not, went on interminably.

  But being fired at the other day had made him jumpy, if only because he didn’t like having the unexpected sprung on him. He liked things mapped out, liked knowing what was coming.

  Court had been in session for the past three hours and the defense attorney had only begun to cross-examine the witness who was currently seated in the witness box. There was no reason for anyone to enter the courtroom at this point, no sequestered witness being summoned to give his or her testimony.

  Yet someone had entered.

  That someone was leaning over, saying something to O’Brien. Blake focused and noticed that the man in the gray sports jacket seemed, at least at this distance, to have the same coloring and features as his bodyguard. Except that he had dark hair and O’Brien was a blonde.

  Whatever the man had said to her had O’Brien vacating her seat in the last row, where she’d been ever since court had begun today. The next moment, the man slid into the row, taking her place.

  Before he could even form the question in his mind, O’Brien left the courtroom.

  Had something happened?

  Had Munro been caught? Or had whoever decided these things called off the bodyguard detail?

  And who the hell was this new player in the back of his courtroom?

  Curiosity he didn’t think he possessed anymore rose to bedevil Blake. He wasn’t going to get any answers now, not unless he called a halt to the proceedings and inconvenienced everyone but himself.

  His curiosity would keep.

  Blake forced himself to focus on what was going on in front of his bench. That was, after all, what they were paying him for.

  The moment Blake brought his gavel down, declaring recess for lunch, he was on his feet. But rather than retreat to his chambers as was his habit, he stepped down from behind his desk and crossed to the back of the room. He had questions.

  The man he wanted to question was coming right toward him. The closer the man came, the more Blake thought that he bore a striking resemblance to O’Brien. One of the Cavanaughs?

  And then it hit him a split second before the man reached him.

  “You’re one of her brothers, aren’t you?”

  Humor quirked Ethan’s mouth as he pretended to look down at himself. “Does it show? I thought I hid the battle scars pretty well.”

  The other man was cracking jokes. Blake had his answer. “That would make you Ethan.”

  The amused smile widened. “That it would, Your Honor. What gave me away?” he asked, curious. A lot of people who knew them managed to confuse him with his brother and the judge was a complete stranger.

  “You’re smiling,” Blake answered. “Detective O’Brien said that your brother Kyle was the more somber one.”

  “Not anymore,” Ethan confided with genuine pleasure. “Kyle’s been smiling a lot lately. Mostly due to Jaren,” he added. “Jaren Rosetti is another detective on the force. Homicide.”

  This was far more information than he needed or wanted, Blake thought. What was it about the O’Briens—or the Cavanaughs for that matter—that seemed to compel them to feel that they were somehow responsible for maintaining the mental well-being of the world at large?

  “Why are you here, Detective? And where’s your sister?” For half a second, hope flashed through him. But then, oddly enough, it was followed by a strange hollowness. He instantly dismissed it, attributing the feeling to the fact that he was hungry. “Am I to assume by her absence that she’s not required to hover around me any longer?”

  “Sorry to be the one to tell you, but Greer’ll be hovering for a while longer. I’m just here to spell her so that she can go home, pack a few c
hanges of clothing and tie up a few loose ends. Specifically one important one.”

  He knew he shouldn’t ask, knew he shouldn’t care. Whatever the woman was up to didn’t concern him. Except that he was curious.

  Blake didn’t have a clue where all this curiosity was suddenly coming from, but it prompted him to ask, “What sort of loose ends?”

  All around them, people were emptying out the courtroom. Ethan stepped to one side to get out of the assistant district attorney’s way. He offered the woman a quick smile. It was a purely ingrained reflexive action, brought on whenever he was in the proximity of an attractive woman.

  “Greer needs to find someone to take care of Hussy for her.” He chuckled softly. “Doesn’t trust either me or Kyle to do it.”

  The name meant nothing to him. Did it refer to a car—he knew people who named their cars. A child? A cat? “What’s a hussy?”

  Ethan struggled not to laugh. “You’re lucky you asked me and not Greer because that’s a straight line she wouldn’t be able to resist,” he told the judge.

  “Lucky,” Blake repeated with absolutely no feeling. “So enlighten me.”

  The bailiff who had been sent in to fill the vacancy left by Tim Kelly’s murder looked toward him, a silent question in his eyes. Blake nodded, giving the man permission to leave.

  “Hussy is the dog my sister rescued,” Ethan was saying.

  “From a shelter?” Blake asked even as he told himself he really didn’t care to be inundated with details about her life away from the job. What difference did it make to him where the animal had come from? Yet he was curious.

  “From two coyotes that had decided Hussy would make an adequate breakfast. Skinniest thing you ever saw when Greer brought her home. She had to work really hard to get that dog to trust her.”

  Their eyes met and Blake couldn’t shake the feeling that O’Brien’s brother was telling him more than his words suggested.

  “You should see Hussy now. Doesn’t even look like the same animal. Don’t tell her I said so, but Kyle and I think Greer’s got a gift,” Ethan said, lowering his voice. “She ‘loves’ things back to health.”