The Woman Who Wasn't There

by Marie Ferrarella

  “But what about my daughter? If she gets into the system—” Her voice broke for a second, then returned, stronger than before. And filled with anxiety. “I know what happens in the system. I won’t be able to get her back.”

  “Do you have any relatives?” Delene asked her. If worse came to worst, maybe she could take temporary custody of the little girl, she thought. “Someone you could leave her with?”

  “I don’t have—” Kathy began brokenly.

  “I’ll take her.” They turned to see Louise Patton in the doorway. She was still wearing the same bold housecoat. She was also wearing a kindly expression. Stepping forward, she said to Kathy, “I raised two of my own. They’re doing okay. I can look after Rachel until you know what’s going on.”

  Pressing her lips together, Kathy nodded. “Thank you.”

  Troy nodded toward the officer to take the young woman away.

  ***

  “She’s going to need a good lawyer,” Delene commented to Troy as he drove her back to her apartment. The patrolman had taken Kathy to the precinct, with instructions to remain with her until he could arrive. Troy had vetoed Delene’s offer to accompany him. Delene knew it was against regulations, but she’d hoped they might be bent a little. They’d bent a lot of personal rules in the past few hours.

  Daylight slowly moved in, sending the shadow of night on its way.

  “I’ll talk to my sister, see who she can recommend,” he told her. They were less than a block away from her apartment. “Maybe she knows someone who’s willing to take the case pro bono.”

  There was only a small chance of that, Delene thought. “I’ve got some money put away—”

  He shook his head at the offer, amazed by the woman who made it. The cool, removed act was just that, he thought. An act. Beneath the bravado and tough words was a woman who cared. Maybe too much.

  But that was all right, he thought. Given a choice, he’d rather she cared than not. “Let’s see what I can do before you crack open your piggy bank.”

  Stopped at a light, Delene looked at him incredulously. Kathy was no one to him, just another “suspect.”

  “You’d do that for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He wasn’t used to explaining himself. People usually just let him do what needed doing without wanting the reasons behind it.

  “Because she looks like she could use someone in her corner. And because I don’t like the idea of a kid being put into the system if she has a mother who loves her.” He turned the tables around. “You?”

  “Same.”

  A woman of few words, he thought, amused. “I guess we’re really not that different after all.”

  She saw the smile on his face and realized that it struck a chord within her. “Guess not.”

  Troy guided his vehicle into the apartment complex, pulling into a vacant spot close to her door. “Congratulations.” He put out his hand.

  She just looked at it for a second. “For what?”

  She’d gotten so tangled in the woman’s case, she’d lost sight of the bigger picture. “You just solved Clyde’s murder.”

  The way she saw it, he’d solved it, not her. She’d only been there because of the little girl. “Right back at you.” She grinned, putting her hand in his.

  The next moment, he’d tugged her over to his side of the vehicle. Before she could offer a protest about the gearshift being an insurmountable obstacle, his lips covered hers.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  The kiss deepened, threatening to spiral out of control if she didn’t so something. Now.

  “Mmmm.”

  The deeply appreciative sound seemed to escape from her of its own volition. At the last possible moment, before oblivion descended over her brain, Delene put her hands against his chest. With effort, she managed to wedge a place between them. Reluctantly she pulled her head back even though she wanted nothing more than to go on kissing him, to go on savoring this wildly exhilarating feeling that galloped through her veins.

  Delene dragged in a lungful of air. “I’ve got to get ready for work. And you’ve got a ‘suspect’ to walk through the system,” she reminded him when he was about to offer a protest.

  “Right.” Exhaling a deep sigh tinged with resignation, Troy sat back in his seat. His eyes swept over her face. Held her prisoner. “See you later?”

  “We’ll see.” But even as she uttered the blasé phrase, she knew there wasn’t a single damn blasé thing about her right now, not when it came to him. If Troy called back or appeared on her doorstep, she knew she’d be available. Because she wanted to be.

  “What are you doing a week from this Saturday?”

  One hand on the car handle, a hint of a smile graced her mouth. “I don’t know. What am I doing a week from this Saturday?”

  “My uncle’s giving a party.” To those who knew retired Chief of Police Andrew Cavanaugh, it was a fairly common statement. Not a month went by when there wasn’t something Andrew felt needed celebrating, needed being commemorated by his cooking and the company of his family and friends. “It’s one of the kid’s birthdays,” Troy told her, although even as he said it, he wasn’t a hundred percent certain that was the reason behind the event, or if it was, which child would be blowing out candles. He didn’t keep track of family birthdays the way Janelle did. “Why don’t you come?”

  Her eyes crinkled a little as the smile on her lips deepened. “Why don’t you pick me up?”

  He looked into her eyes and she felt her knees get weaker. “Done.”

  If she hadn’t been holding on to the door handle, she wouldn’t have remembered that she needed to get out of the car.

  This wasn’t good, she told herself as she finally opened the door and got out. She should be retreating from Cavanaugh, not moving toward him. She didn’t trust relationships, didn’t trust her judgment when it came to them.

  Reaching the stairwell, she turned. Troy waved to her before pulling away. Damn it, she was behaving like an adolescent. The last time she did that, it landed her in big trouble.

  A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, but when Delene turned to look, there was no one there. Even if there had been, so what? People lived here, for heaven’s sake. People came and went. They lived. They moved. Why shouldn’t she see something?

  The shiver wouldn’t release her, though, wouldn’t go away.

  She was letting her paranoia sprout again. But that was because for maybe the first time in a long time, she felt happy and that made her nervous. She didn’t trust the feeling. Didn’t trust it to remain.

  Her trust had been MIA for so long, she wasn’t sure if she would have been able to recognize what trust felt like even if she stumbled across it.

  ***

  “It’s really nice to meet you.” The statement was uttered with effusion.

  Before she could respond and say something along the same lines, Delene found herself caught in a very warm embrace.

  Andrew Cavanaugh, the former police chief of Aurora, was hugging her. After a beat, she returned the hug. The awkwardness she normally experienced at such contact was strangely absent. Andrew Cavanaugh made her feel at ease, as if he’d known her for a long time instead of just a few seconds.

  Well, if nothing else, she was safe for a few hours, Delene thought in amusement as Andrew released her. Quickly scanning the living room she saw that there had to be at least eleven law-enforcement agents within a stone’s throw. And that was only one room. The whole house and backyard seemed filled to capacity with people of all sizes and shapes, at least half of whom were with the police force.

  Well, Troy had told her to brace herself when he’d rung the doorbell. She just hadn’t realized how seriously he’d meant that warning.

  Andrew Cavanaugh looked with approval at the young woman his youngest nephew had brought to his grandson’s first birthday party. After some initial adjustments, she would fit right into their little
family. There was a slightly wary look about her eyes and she gave him the impression she was on her guard against something, but that would pass in time.

  Slipping his arm around her shoulders, Andrew inclined his head toward her ear and said, “Don’t be afraid. The family tends to be overwhelming at first glance. At second and third, as well,” he confessed, “but they’re harmless and they grow on you.”

  She offered the man what she hoped passed for a smile. He was making it sound as if he expected her to be a returning guest. Her eyes shifted uncertainly toward Troy. Had he said something to the older man?

  Taking his cue, Troy stepped up, gently extracting her from the man they all looked to as the family patriarch. “Don’t scare her off, Uncle Andrew,” he warned. “It took a lot of convincing to get Delene to come here and mingle with all of you in the first place.”

  Not a lot, Delene thought. Just very effective convincing. He’d laid his blueprints out the previous week. From the time he’d invited her to attend the party, he’d been coming over to her apartment every evening. Sunday, he turned up at ten in the morning. And stayed.

  It had gotten to the point that she no longer involuntarily stiffened when she heard a knock on her door or the doorbell ring. Besides, she told herself, Russell wouldn’t knock or ring. That kind of behavior was polite; it expressed a supplication to gain admittance. Russell didn’t supplicate. He just barged in, as if he had a right to entrance. And to her.

  Not anymore, she promised herself.

  But she was thinking less and less of Russell these days and more and more about the man who made her heart skip several beats and her body heat by his very presence.

  Though she refused to put it into so many words, deep down she knew she was moving on with her life.

  Finally.

  “Then we’ll try to be worthy of the pleasure of her company,” Andrew promised. Like a monarch who took pride in his kingdom, he looked out toward the throng. “Have the others met her yet?”

  Just in case his uncle wanted to take it upon himself to do the honors, Troy took hold of Delene’s arm. “Not yet.”

  Andrew stepped back, magnanimously gesturing toward the teeming room. “Then you’d better get to it.”

  As Troy began to walk to the heart of the living room, Delene turned her head toward him. “I’ve seen less people at Star Trek conventions.”

  He stopped to stare at her. “You go to Star Trek conventions?”

  She didn’t know if he was about to laugh at her or celebrate the fact. Either way, she could only tell him the truth. She shook her head. “No, but I’ve seen them on the news.”

  That made more sense. Try as he might, he couldn’t picture her being impassioned about dilithium crystals. “Don’t worry, there are no Klingons here.” With effort, he bit back a laugh. “Although my brothers used to do a damn good imitation of Klingons during one of their numerous battles.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about, but she never got a chance to ask him to explain. One second they seemed to be on the outside fringe of the throng, the next, the throng had converged to swallow them up. She was surrounded by several tall, imposing men, each one handsomer than the last. And all of them bearing more than a fleeting resemblance to Troy.

  “Hi, I’m Dax.” Bright blue eyes flashed at her, accompanying a Troyesque grin as Dax extended his hand to her.

  At the same moment, another hand crossed over his, taking hers as a second dark-haired, blue-eyed man, slightly shorter than Dax, said, “I’m Jared.”

  “My brothers,” Troy explained. There was no missing the affection despite the frown that graced his lips. “And these two Neanderthals—” he continued as two more joined the number “—are my cousins Shaw and Clay. Uncle Andrew’s sons.”

  Shaw smiled at her while his younger brother grinned and nodded his head in approval. “Nice,” he told Troy.

  “They’ll engulf you if you’re not careful.” The warning came from directly behind her, delivered by yet another dark-haired man who could have been a dead ringer for Troy.

  She felt a little like someone who had fallen headlong into a Xerox machine and kept seeing nothing but copies all around her.

  With a sigh, Troy inclined his head toward the newest arrival. “And this is Patrick.”

  “Are you Chief Andrew Cavanaugh’s son, too?” she asked.

  Patrick’s smile was ever so slightly more sensitive than the ones that graced his cousins’ lips. She had the feeling that Patrick Cavanaugh was less gregarious than the others. “No, my dad was Mike Cavanaugh.”

  Another new name. Delene raised a brow as she looked back at Troy.

  “I’ll have a score card made up for you,” Troy promised as he extracted her from the center of the growing mob scene.

  “You should have made up flash cards for me before we got here,” she told him. He’d mentioned names, but she hadn’t actually processed just how many cousins he had. And that didn’t even begin taking in the spouses. “How do you keep everyone straight?”

  Stopping at the open bar, he paused to pour her a glass of white wine. He handed it off to her, then took a bottle of beer for himself.

  “I never really thought about it,” he confessed. By the time he was born, all his cousins were already there. He grinned at her. “I guess I’ve always had an eye for faces.”

  She took a sip of her wine, then raised her eyes to his face. “And figures?” she guessed.

  His expression belonged to a man whose soul was innocent. “Not me.”

  Had she been drinking, she would have choked. “Oh, must have been another Troy Cavanaugh I heard those stories about.”

  Had she been investigating him the way he’d tried to do with her? Was her interest in him that aroused? He certainly hoped so. “What stories?”

  Jorge, who had several relatives on the Aurora police force himself, had brought the stories to her as if they were a basket of apples, each to be digested. “The ones that say you go through women like most people go through clean shirts.”

  He raised his free hand as if he was taking a solemn oath. “I don’t send them to the cleaners to be pressed.” And then his expression softened. “And I’ve had a great many rewarding, good relationships.”

  Well, at least he didn’t lie. But was he bragging? “I bet you had.”

  He set the beer bottle down on the table, his attention fixed only on her. “Right now,” his fingertips lightly touched the tips of her hair, “I can’t remember a single name, a single face.” For him, the room had melted away. “Just you.”

  She had to remind herself to breathe. And to lock her knees in place because if she didn’t, she just might slide down to the floor. “And if I fell for that?” she asked in a whisper.

  His eyes held hers. “Nothing to fall for. Just stating a fact.”

  Disregarding the fact that he was standing in the middle of his uncle’s house and that at least twenty people in the immediate vicinity were bearing witness, he kissed her. Lightly enough not to draw comment, deeply enough to tell her that he was serious.

  ***

  “So, have you met her yet?” Rayne Cavanaugh, Andrew’s youngest daughter, asked Janelle. The two were catching up, nursing drinks less than ten feet away from Delene and Troy.

  Troy had mentioned the woman once or twice, not enough to alert her, only to make her familiar with the name. “This is the first time I’ve gotten a look at her.” Toying with her rum and Coke, Janelle studied her youngest older brother. Pieces of previous conversations began to fall into place for her. Watching him now with Delene, she got a definite feeling that this woman was not like the others. “You notice something different about Troy?”

  Rayne cocked her head, looking at Troy, trying to discern her cousin’s meaning. “Different how?”

  Janelle shrugged. Usually words came easily to her. But not this time. “I don’t know, just different. He’s always been attentive to any woman he’s brought to one of these functions, but there�
��s just something about the way he touches Delene’s elbow, something about the way he looks at her.…”

  Rayne heard what wasn’t being said. “Think he’s finally getting serious?”

  Janelle laughed softly as she shook her head. The last male Cavanaugh was being struck down. Who would have ever thought?

  “I didn’t think it was possible, but yes. Maybe.” She sighed. “If he is falling for her, that woman had better be good to him.” She downed the rest of her drink, then set down the chunky glass on the first available surface. “Otherwise, I’ll have to kill her.”

  “That would certainly go a long way toward spoiling her day,” Rayne commented.

  Janelle laughed. “Not to mention mine. Murder doesn’t look good on an assistant district attorney’s résumé. C’mon, I need a refill.”

  Rayne looked down at her glass. It was all but empty. “Yeah, me, too.” Just then her husband approached. “And here’s my refill now,” she cracked.

  “I think she’s already had her limit, Cole,” Janelle told the man who came to join them. “I’d watch her if I were you.”

  Cole nuzzled his wife’s neck. “With pleasure.”

  ***

  Troy held his peace as long as he could. Though he didn’t talk about it, his family was very precious to him and for the first time since he could remember, approval was actually an issue. He’d seen theirs by the way they acted.

  Hers, however, remained a mystery.

  “So, what did you think?”

  It had been a long party. And she had enjoyed every minute because never once had they made her feel like an outsider. Delene was leaning back in the passenger seat, having set it to a semi-inclined position. She’d kicked off her shoes the second she’d gotten into his car.

  “I’m not sure I can think. My head’s still humming. Not to mention that my feet are aching.” She thought about massaging them, but they hurt so much she didn’t even want to touch them. “I don’t think I’ve ever spent that many hours in high heels.”