Cavanaugh or Death

by Marie Ferrarella

  They let them mill around wherever they chose. Most lined the halls outside the operating room.

  To placate the hospital staff, Rose and Lila, the wives of Andrew and Brian respectively, came to the ER bearing warm cinnamon rolls. The number was on a scale that could have fed the masses gathered to hear the Sermon on the Mount. The gesture went a long way to smooth hurt feelings and also to fill the empty stomachs of those who waited.

  Moira, now surrounded by her brothers and sisters as well as her extended family, ate nothing. All she did was watch the operating room door where they had taken Davis. Watched it and prayed as time simultaneously stood still and somehow managed to drag by, as well.

  “How are you doing, kid?” Malloy, the last to arrive, asked.

  She looked at him, her face and voice completely drained. “Ask me that when they wheel him into Recovery.”

  Malloy exchanged looks with Valri and Kelly. They all knew their sister meant it. Her existence and mental well-being all hung on Davis’s condition when he came out of surgery.

  Or if he came out of surgery.

  Chapter 20

  “Here.”

  Brian Cavanaugh handed his grandniece a smartphone before taking a seat beside her in Davis’s hospital room. Close to twenty hours had passed since the latter had been rushed to the hospital for surgery. The detective, he’d been told, had yet to open his eyes.

  And Moira, the chief was willing to bet, had yet to close hers. Though she was doing her best to disguise it, she was worried as well as tired.

  Caught off guard, Moira looked at her granduncle and then at the smartphone he’d handed her. It was on, but the screen was dormant.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Well, I know you would have wanted to interrogate the woman you arrested in person,” Brian explained. “By the way, she actually does go by the name of Sylvia Elliot,” he interjected before continuing with his explanation. “But I also know from experience that Cavanaugh women cannot be dynamited away from the bedside of someone they care about if that someone has just been on the wrong end of a bullet.

  “So, in the interest of fair play and closure—after all, you were the one who pressed for this investigation to be undertaken in the first place—I brought the interrogation to you. We filmed it,” he told her, “with the suspect’s full understanding and knowledge that it was being filmed,” he added, just so that there was no question of impropriety.

  “Once she realized that her brother, the janitor, was dead, she was more than happy to try to pin everything that had happened—now and twenty-one years ago—on him, saying he forced her to do everything.”

  Moira shook her head. She was trying to follow what the chief was telling her, but her general lack of sleep, not to mention the fact that Davis still wasn’t out of the woods, made her feel as if her brain was slightly scrambled.

  “I’m sorry, Chief,” she apologized. “My head feels a little foggy. I’m not really sure what you’re telling me.”

  Brian smiled sympathetically. She’d been through a lot and no one knew it better than he did.

  “The whole interrogation is all there, on the smartphone. You hold on to it and play it later, when you feel you can fully take it in. But the gist of it is, you were right,” he told her with a satisfied smile.

  “There was money hidden in those five caskets. Sylvia’s brother, Dean, and a friend of his, Mike Calderon, pulled off the bank robbery twenty-one years ago. Calderon was killed and her brother didn’t want to be caught with the money, so he gave it to Sylvia to bury.

  “Turns out he was caught, arrested and convicted. The sentence was for thirty years, but he got out in twenty for good behavior. You can figure out the rest of it—actually, you did figure out the rest of it.”

  Finished, Brian looked over at Davis and then back at her again. “I suppose it won’t do any good to tell you to go home. That someone from the hospital will contact you the second he wakes up.”

  Moira merely shook her head. “No.”

  Brian laughed to himself. “I didn’t think so.” Even so, he’d had to try. “Well, I just wanted to drop that off with you,” he told her, indicating the smartphone.

  Brian rose to his feet. “Good job, Detective.” His eyes shifted toward Davis. “Both of you,” he added.

  Moira forced a smile to her lips. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be sure to tell him when he wakes up.”

  Brian nodded. He decided to give it one last try. Stubbornness was not the exclusive province of the younger generation. He was, after all, a Cavanaugh. “At least try to grab a catnap, Detective.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” Moira promised, settling back in her chair.

  “You always do,” Brian told her, making no effort to hide the pride that he felt for the detective she had become.

  With that, he closed the door behind him as he left the hospital room.

  Moira slipped the smartphone the chief had given her into her pocket and shifted again in the chair, doing her best to get more comfortable.

  Maybe if she just closed her eyes for a second, as he had suggested, she could grab a few winks and ultimately feel a little more like herself.

  Stretching her legs out in front of her, Moira sighed and closed her eyes.

  “Is he gone?”

  Moira’s eyes flew open, certain that she’d imagined the voice.

  Imagined Davis talking to her. He hadn’t regained consciousness yet.

  Bolting upright, she looked at him, expecting to see Davis just as he’d been a moment ago, eyes closed and body inert.

  His eyes were open.

  “You’re awake!” Moira cried, stunned, relieved and overjoyed all at the same time. It took everything she had to restrain herself from hugging him, but she was afraid of loosening one of the IV tubes.

  It was obvious that he was still rather weak, but he was conscious. “Uh-huh.”

  “How long have you been awake?” she asked in disbelief.

  As best as he could piece it together, the sound of the chief’s voice, talking to Moira, had seeped into his consciousness by degrees, rousing him.

  “I heard what the chief said,” he told her. “At least most of it, I think.”

  “Then why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.

  He tried to shrug and found the various lines and monitors attached to him prevented him from doing so.

  “I wasn’t up to talking, at least not to anyone official.”

  “But you’re up to talking to me?” she asked, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

  “With you, all I’m doing is listening,” he told her, his speech still a bit labored. The corners of his mouth curved ever so slightly.

  When she thought of what had happened at the funeral home, what could have happened if Davis hadn’t gotten to the hospital in time, her stomach twisted into a huge knot. He could have died because of that one reckless action.

  Emotions close to the surface, she lashed out at him in anger. “What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded as wave after wave of terrifying thoughts washed over her, almost making her break down.

  “Saving your life comes to mind,” Davis answered weakly.

  “By doing what? Sacrificing your own?” she retorted hotly. Didn’t he understand what that would have done to her? Didn’t he care about her just a little? On her feet now beside the bed, she fisted her hands impotently at her sides. “Oh, God, I could just beat on you!”

  The knowing smile that slipped over his lips just fueled her frustrated anger. “You wouldn’t hit a man when he’s down.”

  “For you, I’d make an exception,” she snapped. “Just who the hell do you think you are? Superman?”

  Davis looked at her as if her question had sparked a revelation. “
You mean I’m not?” His voice sounded raspy as he asked, “What am I going to do with all those red capes?”

  “How about if I strangle you with them?” she suggested. She felt as if she’d just fallen into an emotional blender, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time.

  The closest look to innocence she’d ever seen on Davis crossed his face. “Have you always been this violent?”

  “No,” she snapped. “You just bring out the worst in me.”

  He smiled knowingly at her again. “Ditto,” he responded.

  And then it felt as if everything had been drained out of her: the anger, the fear, not to mention every last ounce of energy. She feathered her fingers along his face—at least there she couldn’t disturb any tubes or monitors.

  “Seriously, you shouldn’t take chances like that,” she told him. “You almost died.”

  His eyes met hers and she had never seen him looking this serious, this solemn. “If that lowlife had shot you, I would have,” Davis said quietly. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

  Words escaped her as she looked at him, stunned. Collecting herself, Moira took a breath and told him, “Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to that. That’s just the painkiller talking. You probably won’t even remember saying that tomorrow morning.”

  But she planned to hold that to her heart for the rest of her life, Moira silently told herself.

  Davis tightened his fingers around hers, or tried to as best he could. “That’s the painkiller letting me talk,” he corrected.

  He felt as if a barrier had been lifted, taken out of the way, allowing his feelings to take possession of him. Allowing him to express those feelings to the woman who had somehow, through her dogged perseverance, made him remember that he still had feelings, even though they had been held in abeyance for so long he’d forgotten about their existence.

  Embarrassed for going on that way, he changed the subject. “So, we got ’em, huh?”

  Moira beamed at him, still holding on to his hand. “We got ’em,” she echoed.

  And then something occurred to him. “I guess that means we’re not partners anymore.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. The deal had been that he was on loan for the duration of the investigation. Now that the case was solved, there was no need for him to stick around.

  No need for them to be partners.

  Unless...

  “That all depends,” she intoned after a moment of frantic calculation.

  “On what?” he asked, puzzled.

  Davis realized he was more than willing to be up for anything she had in mind. He didn’t want to see their partnership dissolve. At least, if they were working together, he had an excuse to see her on a regular basis. He didn’t want that to end.

  “Is there an opening in Major Crimes?” she asked him out of the blue.

  “Why? Are you thinking of switching?” Though he would have welcomed having her, that didn’t make any practical sense to him. “You just solved a major cold case for your department.”

  “Exactly—and I did it by going over the lieutenant’s head after he told me to drop the investigation. No matter how toothy his grin gets over the plus in his Solved column, he’s going to have it in for me for ‘showing him up.’ The man is petty like that,” she told Davis as she pulled the chair closer to his bed and sat again. “It’s not an atmosphere I like working in...

  “Your captain seems like an okay guy without an ax to grind. If there is an opening in your department, I think I could talk my way into it.”

  Davis laughed and immediately pressed a hand against his chest.

  “Damn, that hurts,” he confessed then quickly collected himself before she got it into her head to call for the doctor. He’d had enough of doctors for a while—and not enough of her. “You, Cavanaugh, could undoubtedly talk your way past the gates of heaven if you set your mind to it.”

  Moira pretended to take offense. “Are you telling me I wouldn’t get there through merit?”

  “No,” he corrected, “I’m telling you that you probably wouldn’t want to do it that way because it would seem too tame to you. You like a challenge.”

  Moira looked at him pointedly. “That I do,” she assured him with a smile.

  “So,” she went on after a long moment, “you’re okay if I apply for a transfer to Major Crimes?”

  He’d thought he’d made his feelings about that—and her—clear. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, since you said you didn’t have a partner—didn’t want a partner,” Moira amended, “if I apply to your department and they take me, they might just partner us up.”

  “I’m okay with that,” he assured her. “In case you haven’t noticed, I broke the jinx.” To emphasize his point, he touched the bandages over his wound.

  “I noticed. Oh, God, I noticed,” she assured him, struggling not to melt against him the way she sorely wanted to.

  Because he was feeling a little better, Davis wanted a few answers while he could still process them. “What happened to that little weasel who shot me?” he asked. “Did you arrest him?”

  “I shot him,” she said flatly.

  “Dead?” There was something about her expression that answered him before she did.

  “Dead.”

  “Wow.” He blew out a breath, sorry that he had missed her in action. She must have been something to see. “Remind me not to get you mad.”

  “Too late,” she told him. “But there might be a way to avoid getting shot.”

  “Oh?”

  She nodded her head as she tried to keep a straight face. “I’m open to negotiations.”

  Davis raised an eyebrow. “What kind of negotiations?”

  “Close ones.” On her feet again, she leaned over his bed and lightly brushed her lips against his.

  “Oh, if they’re going to be effective,” he told her, “they’re going to have to be closer than that.”

  She laughed, relieved and happier than she had been in a very long time. “When you get better, Gilroy,” she promised.

  His eyes emphasized the smile on his lips. “Then I’d better get better fast.”

  She knew she’d be counting the days. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Epilogue

  “You know,” Davis began, measuring each word slowly after attempting several false starts in his head first. “I’ve been thinking about our partnership.”

  It had been another long day on the streets and at the precinct, and they were finally driving home. True to her word, Moira had applied for—and gotten—a transfer to the major crimes division the minute that Davis had been released from the hospital.

  He’d been partnered with her for a little more than six months now. Because of that, they were together at work every day and then also together after hours every night.

  So far, it had been going well. Better than she had expected. But despite her upbeat, optimistic nature, Moira never took anything for granted. The nature of her work had taught her that life could change completely in a heartbeat.

  And there was something in his voice that caught her attention and struck her as out of the ordinary.

  “Oh?” Moira asked, trying to sound nonchalant. “What about it?”

  They had used his car today, so consequently, he was the one driving. He didn’t answer her immediately, waiting, instead, until he came to a stop at a light.

  His mouth felt dry as he told her, “I think maybe it’s time to take it a step further.”

  For all intents and purposes, they were already living together, although he hadn’t given up his apartment yet. Most nights, however, they stayed at her condo. On occasion, his apartment. In the past six months, ever since she’d insisted on being his nurse until he was back on his feet again, they’d been tog
ether. As far as she could see, this was “further.”

  “Just what did you have in mind?” she asked, doing her best to keep the apprehension out of her voice, even though it was making her mouth dry.

  “Well.” He stretched out the word. “Christmas is coming.”

  That wasn’t exactly a news bulletin. “I know that. It’s on all the calendars.”

  “But I can’t wait for Christmas,” he confessed, speeding up to get through the next light.

  They barely made it through.

  This wasn’t like him, she thought. Her apprehension grew.

  “There’s no way to hurry it,” she told him, tensing as she waited for a shoe to fall or a hammer to drop. “Department stores have tried.”

  Suddenly he pulled over into a strip mall parking lot. Most of the stores were closed and the lot was close to empty. She had no idea what to expect.

  “But I can hurry this,” he told her. “I was going to save it to give you for Christmas, but it’s burning a hole in my pocket.”

  “Davis, what are you talking about?” she asked. She’d never seen him this way. He was almost nervous. The Davis she knew didn’t get nervous. Was he about to tell her that he wanted to break up their partnership?

  “This.” As he said the single word he opened his hand.

  Moira stifled a squeal.

  Her response brought a flash of relief to him. Maybe this was going to be all right, after all. “I didn’t know you squealed.”

  “Not one of my better qualities,” she admitted, unable to take her eyes off the sparkling, heart-shaped diamond ring in the palm of his hand. An overhead streetlight caught the diamond, making it gleam almost flirtatiously at her.

  Her heart was hammering in her chest the same way it had the first time he’d kissed her.