The Strong Silent Type

by Marie Ferrarella

  She wasn’t talking.

  For once, the car wasn’t filled with her endless, ebullient rhetoric. The car was silent, except for occasional static from the scanner.

  Hawk frowned.

  Cavanaugh had been like this since he’d first seen her this morning. Atypically quiet, withdrawn into herself the way he’d never seen her.

  And it was driving him crazy.

  It surprised him that he didn’t find comfort in the silence. He’d always liked silence. But having it all but surrounded him except for an occasional word seemed almost unnatural. Not to mention disturbing.

  They’d been on the road all day, going from one burglary victim on their list to another, asking them to try to remember their habits from five or four years back. Some had been more than a little surprised to be contacted after all this time. A few took it to mean that at least some of their things had been recovered. All had seemed irritated by what they obviously deemed irrelevant questions.

  He’d left the smoothing out of ruffled feathers and sympathy up to Cavanaugh. She always handled that kind of thing well, a hell of a lot better than he could have. But as he watched her, as he listened, he had the definite impression that she was just going through the motions. That she was really somewhere else even as she mouthed the right words.

  It didn’t quite click into place the way it normally did.

  As he began to listen more closely, Hawk thought he detected something in her voice, in her manner. It should have bothered him a great deal that he found himself so in tune to a person he was trying to keep at arm’s length. But he told himself he was just being a good detective and noticing things like that was all part of the job.

  If the excuse was somewhat thin, he pretended not to notice.

  As the day progressed, it only got worse, not better. Cavanaugh hardly said a word over the quick sandwiches they grabbed at a take-out window. There was no annoying chatter the way there usually was, no using him as a sounding board. Nothing. She sat and ate her lunch, her eyes a million miles away.

  And now, on their way back to the precinct, she made no comment that they had discovered each and every one of the victims they had visited had used a valet service to park their car within a month of the burglaries. Ordinarily, she would have been hooting over that. After all, it was her theory they’d just substantiated.

  “You seem a little off today,” he finally said. “Something wrong?”

  She looked at him, stunned, despite her mental stupor. She didn’t think there was much that Hawk could do to surprise her, but she was wrong. This definitely came under that heading. She would have bet that she could have come to work naked and as long as it didn’t have any bearing on the case they were working, he wouldn’t have noticed.

  “No.” She could feel him looking at her, as if he knew she wasn’t telling him the truth. As if he expected her to own up. She wouldn’t have thought that he’d cared one way or another.

  “Some people are born liars.” He looked back at the street. “You’re not one of them.”

  She stared straight ahead at the darkened road. “What makes you think there’s something wrong?”

  He laughed at the absurdity of the question. Anyone who had ever met her would have known there was something wrong. “Well, for one thing, you’re not talking a mile a minute. You’re not talking at all.”

  More surprises. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said he sounded annoyed. “I thought that was what you wanted.”

  He wished she’d stop blocking him like this. “Not when it means there’s something wrong.”

  She turned to look at him, resentment coming out of nowhere and taking hold of her. “Since when do you care if there’s something wrong or not?”

  “Since you’re my partner. As my partner, you’re supposed to have my back and I have yours. That’s not going to go according to plan if your head’s somewhere else.”

  “My head’s right here,” she snapped at him.

  If he hadn’t thought something was wrong before, he would have now. “I thought you were the poster girl for sharing.”

  Why was he doing this to her, pretending as if he cared? “I thought you burned posters like that.”

  Never a patient man, he seemed to have an incredibly small supply of patience available to him at the moment. It went up in smoke. “You don’t want to tell me, fine. But work out whatever’s bothering you fast because right now you’re deadweight.”

  She set her mouth hard. What else could she have expected from him? “Very compassionate of you.”

  That did it. Hawk pulled the car over to the side and threw it into park. He turned to face her. “I asked. You wouldn’t tell. What the hell do you want from me, Cavanaugh?”

  The temptation to haul off and hit him came galloping out of nowhere and it took everything she had not to act on it. What she wanted was for the world to stop tilting on its axis and straighten up again. What she wanted was to have her world back in order.

  What was going on inside of her now felt just like it had when she’d heard that her mother had died. Except now the woman had been resurrected.

  But not completely.

  Afraid she was going to explode, Teri suddenly undid her seat belt and bolted out of the car. She went running down the block, no clue as to where she was going, only that she wanted to get away from him. From everything.

  Stunned, Hawk couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What the hell are you doing? Where are you going?” he called after her.

  When she didn’t answer, didn’t even turn around, Hawk jumped out of the car and followed her. He was concerned—more than he realized he could be. It wasn’t difficult catching up to her. For one thing, his legs were a lot longer. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he spun her around to face him.

  About to shout at her, he felt the words dying in his throat. There were tears shimmering in her eyes. The woman just didn’t play fair.

  But then, he had a feeling she wasn’t playing at all. His grip on her shoulders lessened. “What’s going on, Teri?” he asked in a voice that was a lot softer than what he’d just used.

  She didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to tell anyone. Because this wasn’t the answer to a prayer. This was an extension of a nightmare. She’d lost her mother once, and now it looked as if she was still losing her.

  The words came out in a hoarse whisper. “My father found my mother.”

  So that was it. He felt something strange, a protectiveness uncurling inside of him. “He found her body?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head. The tears she was valiantly trying to hold back spilled. “No, he found her. She’s alive.”

  He didn’t understand. Everyone knew about what had happened to the chief’s wife. Her car had been fished out from the bottom of the river. Enough time had passed to declare her legally dead twice over. “I thought she was dead.”

  Teri swallowed. The ache wouldn’t leave, not from her throat, not from her stomach. “I thought so, too. I didn’t want to, but I finally did.”

  He didn’t understand why she wasn’t jumping up and down for joy. “Where did he find her?”

  “In some diner upstate someplace. She works there, I think.”

  “Is he sure?”

  “He’s sure.”

  Very gently, he turned her around and started to usher her back to the car. She offered no resistance. He’d seen people suffering from shock. Now that he thought of it, she had a great many of the signs. But why? “I don’t get it. If he found her, why are you like this? Why aren’t you happy?”

  She stopped walking just shy of the car. “She doesn’t know us. Doesn’t know him.” There was confusion tempered with anguish in her eyes as she looked at him. “I don’t know how to feel.”

  Now it was beginning to make sense. “Numb,” he told her. He knew that would be the way he’d react if something like this had hit him.

  Maybe it would be better that way, Teri thought. Better if she di
d just shut everything down until she could go and see her mother for herself. There was no way she was going to just leave this in abeyance, even if that was what her father wanted. It wasn’t what she wanted.

  What she wanted was to have her mother back. Whole.

  He saw the look in her eyes. It was a look he’d once felt in his own soul. It’d been so long ago, it was almost hard to remember. But he did. It was a feeling of being so lost he’d felt that no one could ever find him. After a while, it had ceased to matter if someone would.

  He held the car door open for her, waiting for Teri to get in. When she did, he closed the door and then got in on his side.

  He paused for a moment, weighing his words before he made a decision. “Look, we’re done for the day. Why don’t we clock out and go somewhere for a drink?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to go to the Shannon, wasn’t up to trying to pretend that everything was fine.

  “Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check.”

  That was really not like her, and he was starting to get worried. For all the reasons he’d cited to her and more. “Dinner, then.”

  She blinked, looking at him. She couldn’t have heard him right. “What?”

  It took effort, but he couldn’t just leave her like this. “Come have dinner with me. We can talk.”

  The offer coaxed out the first smile he’d seen on her lips all day. “I’d like to see some ID please. My partner doesn’t do dinner.”

  “He does when his back’s on the line. Now shut up and don’t argue. You’re having dinner with me. And we’ll talk.”

  “Meaning you want me to talk.”

  “Yeah.” Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her cock her head. “What are you doing?”

  “Listening for the sounds of hell freezing over.”

  He figured he was on the right trail. The light had just appeared at the end of the tunnel.

  Hawk smiled.

  Chapter Ten

  I t was too early for the late crowd, too late for the early crowd. As a result, the small Mexican restaurant Hawk had brought her to was thinly populated. Only a third of their tables were in use.

  She’d ordered a quesadilla. Because food was of no consequence to him one way or another, he’d ordered the same. He wasn’t here to eat, but to listen.

  Except that there was nothing to listen to, beyond the mild buzz of the conversation from the other tables.

  Hawk gave her the first ten minutes, then said, “Okay, talk to me.”

  The smile that blossomed on her face stirred something within him. It was like seeing the sun come out after a long storm. She was a very pretty woman, but when she smiled, she was the closest thing to beautiful that he had ever seen. Not the kind of model-perfect beautiful that could be found on the covers of popular magazines, but a kick-in-your-gut kind of beautiful.

  It took him a beat to come around. “Did I say something funny?” he asked.

  “Yeah, you did.” Her smile widened as she looked at him. The man was full of surprises today. “I just never thought I’d hear you say that to anyone besides a suspect—least of all me.”

  He shrugged, turning his attention to the cheese that oozed out from around the outer edges of the quesadilla. It was a lot safer right now than looking into her blue-gray eyes.

  “Some people need to talk or they explode. You’re one of them.”

  “Very perceptive of you.” And ordinarily, he’d be right. She did feel like something was exploding inside of her, but she hadn’t a clue as to how to put it into words, or even explain what she was feeling. She didn’t grasp it enough to reduce it to a succinct description.

  “It’s called a survival mechanism.” He paused, taking a bite, before continuing. “I don’t want you exploding all over me.”

  She knew that wasn’t the reason he was willing to listen to her pour out her heart now. He was doing it because beneath the gruff exterior, he was decent and kind. “Why do you act so tough?”

  He raised his eyes toward her only for a moment. “Maybe because I am.”

  “A tough guy wouldn’t have sprung for the special of the day and sat down waiting for me to spill my guts.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe because I don’t know what to say.”

  Hawk laughed shortly. “That’s a first. You’ll find a way to go on talking even when they bury you.”

  She put down her water glass, wrinkling her nose at his comment. “There’s a pleasant thought.”

  “I don’t do pleasant thoughts, Cavanaugh. That’s your department.” He was almost finished eating. This was taking longer than he thought it would. And he didn’t want to be at it all night. “Now you want to get this off your chest, or not?”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely—”

  And then she stopped, because she didn’t know how to start, didn’t know how to get rid of this lost feeling that had taken up residence inside of her. She felt not unlike a child who had been somehow left behind when her family moved to another city.

  She switched subjects so quickly, he nearly got whiplash. “You know, in nine months, I never heard you call me Teri, except today.”

  That had been a slip, really. First names put them on a footing he didn’t want. But she was looking at him as if she expected him to give her some kind of an answer. “Maybe because today, you looked like a Teri instead of a Cavanaugh.”

  Her smile deepened. So did the reaction in his gut. “And what does a ‘Teri’ look like?”

  He said the first thing that came into his head. “Vulnerable.”

  “Pretty analytical for a guy who doesn’t usually talk.”

  He moved his shoulders carelessly. “Just because I don’t talk doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

  Had she insulted him? She didn’t mean to. Teri set her glass down on the table. It was nearly empty. A waitress appeared to refill it and flash a generic smile. “How is everything?” the young woman asked as if she was preprogrammed.

  “Fine,” Teri assured her, then waited until the waitress retreated before looking back at Hawk. “I would have never called you stupid even if you’d never said a word.”

  “Then how would you know I wasn’t?”

  “Your eyes. You have very perceptive, probing eyes.” They were also the lightest shade of ice blue she’d ever seen. And they were incredibly unsettling. Incredibly sexy. Like the man himself, something whispered inside of her. “They look as if they would see right through walls.”

  The image brought a half smile to his lips. “X-ray vision?”

  Good, he was smiling. That meant they were out of the woods. More than half-finished with her meal, she slowed down to a crawl. She found herself not wanting the moment to end. Not wanting to leave here. Or him.

  “Something like that.” Tilting her head slightly, she studied him, as if she could get a better handle if she allowed her view to get off kilter. “What do you do at night, Hawk? When you walk away from the police precinct and go home for the day, what do you do?”

  “This is about you, not me.”

  “Humor me,” she urged with a smile that balanced out his frown. “It helps.”

  He sighed. Okay, why not? He’d opened the floor to dialogue by asking her to come here, so he had no one to blame but himself. His voice slipped into a singsong pattern “I go home. I go through the mail. I eat. I go to bed and get up the next day.”

  That sounded awful. “And that’s it? Don’t you want more?”

  They were approaching the portion of the pond that was covered by thin rather than thick ice. “I have more. Between the time I come in and the time I go home, if I’m lucky, I catch bad guys.” He blew out a breath, as if that signaled an end to the discussion. “Now can we get this back around to you?”

  She didn’t have to go into a long, linear recitation about what was bothering her to feel better. But then, he probably didn’t understand that. He operated under a different se
t of parameters than most of the world.

  “We are. Maybe you don’t know this—because you think talking’s a waste of time—but you don’t have to talk about what’s bothering you in order to feel better about it. Sometimes it just helps to kick back and be with a friend.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” She had friends, a whole boatload of friends. He saw the way people gravitated to her whenever they were working. She attracted people like honey brought in flies. And no doubt just as indiscriminately. But that wasn’t any business of his.

  “Being with a friend,” she replied simply. Before he could say anything, she cut him off. “And don’t deny it. If you weren’t my friend, you’d be home now—” her mouth curved “—going through all that mail.”

  The last thing he wanted was for her to make a big deal out of this. “I already told you, as long as we’re partners, I can’t afford to have you mentally balancing on the hairy edge. You never know when I might actually need you.”

  She sighed, shaking her head. “Why is it so hard for you to accept the fact that you can be nice, that you can be normal?”

  Finishing his meal, he threw his napkin onto his empty plate. “Well, my work here is done.”

  She didn’t follow. “What?”

  “You’re back.” He gestured toward her as if that underscored his point. “You’re working at trying to pull me over to your side of the light. That means you’re back on track. As annoying a pain as you ever were. Now, I’ve got to get home.”

  She made no move to rise. “Why? Junk mail calling to you?”

  His cell phone rang before he could come up with an appropriate answer. For once, he was relieved to hear it ring. He heard her sigh as he flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Hawkins.”

  Teri tried to hear what the voice on the other end of the line was saying, but although it was loud enough for the sound to register, the words did not. She saw Hawk frown as he listened.