Becoming a Cavanaugh

by Ferrarella, Marie

  That terrain was sensitive. And there no longer was a way to ever resolve this, now that her mother was gone. “Maybe she wasn’t all that sure about Kyle,” Jaren speculated.

  A knowing look came into Greer’s eyes. “How long did you say you’ve been my brother’s partner?”

  “This is my first day.”

  And rather than run off screaming, she had come here with Kyle. To a family gathering. There just might be hope for her brother yet, Greer thought. God knew she’d come close to giving up on him more than once.

  “You just might last,” Greer told her, a glimmer of admiration in her very blue eyes. She pulled out a card from her pocket. “Here, this is my cell number on the bottom. Feel free to call me if he gets to be too much of a pain in the butt for you.”

  Although she’d been fighting her own battles now most of her life, Jaren decided to play along. There was no need to turn Greer down and hurt her feelings.

  Taking the card, Jaren tucked it away in her pocket. “Thanks. I just might take you up on that.”

  She liked them, Jaren thought as she watched Greer weave her way back into the crowd. She liked each and every one of the Cavanaughs that she’d met.

  That was reason enough for her to be determined to make her partnership work. The challenge would help her get over the gnawing loneliness that she sometimes felt inside when she considered her own situation. Alone was a terrible way to be.

  “Thanks for letting me tag along last night,” Jaren said to her partner the following morning as they headed out to begin the first wave of interviews with the dead neurosurgeon’s patients.

  He hated to be thanked, hated to be in the position of having someone feel beholden to him. It made him as uncomfortable as hell.

  “No big deal. You looked like you had a rough day and could stand some good food. It’s no secret that Andrew enjoys taking people under his wing.”

  Jaren noticed that he talked about her rough day as if he wasn’t responsible for it. But then, maybe bringing her with him to the birthday party had been his way of making up for it.

  In either case, she wasn’t about to get into a discussion with him about that, certainly not first thing in the morning. They needed a good working relationship in place before she felt confident enough to raise contrary points. So instead, she merely smiled appreciatively. After all, Kyle O’Brien was certainly under no obligation to make any kind of amends.

  “The Cavanaughs seem like really nice people,” she commented.

  Getting into his Crown Victoria, he waited for her to get in on the passenger side. “They’re a decent lot,” he allowed.

  Jaren wondered if that was a ringing endorsement in Kyle-speak. Getting in, she buckled up and adjusted the shoulder strap.

  “I met your sister. Greer,” she added in case he thought she was talking about his half sister, Patience. “She told me that she was debating changing her last name.”

  Although he was grateful for the hospitality that Andrew Cavanaugh and his younger brother, Brian, had shown him and his siblings, Kyle felt it was a little too early in the game to think about changing the name on the top of his dance card.

  “Yeah, well, Greer always was the one who was quick to forgive and forget.”

  “But you’re not like that?” She raised her voice as he started the car. The question was rhetorical.

  “Like I told you, I’m a realist.” His tone tabled the discussion.

  They drove the rest of the way in relative silence—his, not hers. Nothing, he was beginning to believe, stopped this woman from chatting away. He missed his old partner more than ever. The two of them could spend almost the entire day in silence and it didn’t get old.

  Pulling up to a closed gate, Kyle identified himself and his partner to the disembodied voice that came over the callbox. The gates parted and they drove on through until they reached the building in the distance.

  The word mansion would have been an understatement, he thought, bringing the sedan to a halt in the winding driveway. This was home, or at least one of them, for Jackson Massey, the wealthy founder of Massey Enterprises, a corporation that had holdings in a dozen and a half international companies around the globe.

  “Wonder what it costs to run this place,” Jaren murmured.

  “Like the man said, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” Kyle rang the bell and heard what sounded like a funeral dirge come through the door. A moment later, the door was opened by a solemn-faced older woman with white hair and a pale complexion.

  Kyle held up his ID. “Detectives O’Brien and Rosetti to see Jackson Massey. Is he in, ma’am?”

  “No, Mr. Jackson’s not in,” the housekeeper replied, her voice quavering.

  “When will he be in?” Kyle pressed.

  “Never, I’m afraid.” The woman paused to dab at her eyes. A huge sigh escaped her lips. “Mr. Jackson’s gone,” she added.

  “Gone?” Kyle echoed. Dr. Barrett’s former patient had houses and offices all over the world. Had he decided to suddenly move? “Gone where?” he asked her.

  “Why, to God, of course. Mr. Jackson died a little more than a week ago,” the housekeeper answered, her eyes welling up. Tears began to slide down the soft face.

  Well, that gave Jackson Massey an airtight alibi, Kyle thought. But he believed in tying up loose ends. “Is there anyone in his family we could speak to?”

  The woman pressed her lips together, clearly struggling to regain control over herself. “There’s Mr. Finley, his son. But I’m not sure if he’s up to having visitors.”

  “We’ll be quick,” Jaren promised. It earned her an annoyed look from Kyle, but her reassurance seemed to put the housekeeper at ease.

  The woman took a deep breath before nodding. “All right, but please be gentle with him. Mr. Finley’s always been rather fragile.”

  Following the housekeeper through the huge residence that could have easily contained several families whose paths never crossed, Jaren turned toward Kyle. “Would you like me to handle this?” she offered. “No disrespect intended, but I really don’t see you having the patience to coddle someone.”

  He didn’t bother disputing that with her. He had plenty of patience, but not when it came to men with no backbones. Besides, it might be interesting to see the woman in action.

  “Go ahead,” he told her. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”

  Finley Massey was in the study. Grief over his father’s death had left his eyes red-rimmed and his wheat-colored hair in disarray. Of medium height and slight build, he appeared to have slept in his clothes and gave the impression of a man struggling to rise above his grief with only partial success.

  Greeting them, Finley apologized for his appearance. He gestured for them to take a seat on the sofa, then proceeded to answer their questions.

  “Your father was one of Dr. Barrett’s patients,” Jaren began.

  “He was,” Finley replied, a haunted look in the man’s bloodshot eyes.

  There was no genteel way to put this. “Dr. Barrett was found murdered in his office yesterday.”

  “Murdered?” Finley repeated, as if chewing on the word. “What happened?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to piece together,” she said, deliberately omitting the detail about the stake being driven through the surgeon’s heart. Finley Massey didn’t look as if he could handle that kind of information well. He’d paled at the mention of the surgeon’s murder.

  “Maybe it was karma,” Finley volunteered.

  “Karma?” Kyle asked uncertainly.

  Finley nodded. “He wasn’t a very nice man. Despite his exorbitant fees, he acted as if he was doing you a favor by taking on your case. He wasn’t very nice to my father. His receptionist told me he was like that with everyone.” He blew out a breath, as if talking tired him. “Maybe someone took offense at his attitude.”

  “It’s possible,” Kyle agreed.

  Several times during the short interview, Massey’s son appea
red to drift away. This was, he explained, his father’s study and contained a great many memories for him.

  “I wish you could have known him. He was larger than life,” Finley said proudly. “And I’m not ashamed to say that he was always my hero.” He looked down at his hands. “I’m not sure just how to get along without him.”

  “Take it one day at a time,” Jaren advised. “It’s all you can do.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Finley sighed, then glanced up from his folded hands. “Are there any other questions I can answer for you?”

  “None that we can think of right now,” Kyle replied, rising. “If we do, we’ll be in touch.”

  The minute they walked out, Jaren eyed her partner. “Where do I know his name from?”

  “Jackson Massey? He was a big deal with—”

  “No,” she stopped him. “I mean his son. Finley Massey. His name is really familiar. Like I’ve heard it or read it somewhere before.” Jaren pressed her lips together, thinking as they walked back to the car. And then she shrugged. “It’s probably nothing,” she admitted. “But I know that it’s going to drive me crazy until I remember where I came across it and figure it out.”

  Kyle spared her a look. She’d be the one to know about crazy, he thought. “Welcome to the club,” he murmured.

  Chapter 5

  The following day, Kyle and Jaren were walking away from their first interview of the morning when his cell rang.

  Digging the phone out of his pocket, he flipped it open. “O’Brien.”

  Lengthening her stride to keep up, Jaren slanted a glance at her partner. It was impossible to gauge the conversation just by looking at his face. The man had to be one hell of a poker player, she surmised. She stopped next to the passenger side of the car.

  “No, we’re not that far away. Right. We should be able to get there within the half hour.”

  “What’s up?” she asked the second he ended the conversation. She had to wait until he closed his phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

  Opening his door, Kyle got in behind the steering wheel. “Looks like vampire slaying seems to be in season.”

  Jaren was quick to get in. “Come again?”

  “Someone found the chairman of the board of Massey Enterprises in his corporate suite this morning. Edward Cummings was lying on the floor—”

  “—With a stake driven through his heart?” Jaren cried in disbelief.

  Turning his key in the ignition, Kyle pulled away from the curb. “Not much on letting people finish their sentences, are you?”

  Jaren let his comment slide. Something a lot bigger was going on here. She tried to wrap her mind around the concept. Everyone talked about serial killers, but in actuality, they were relatively rare. This killer had the makings of one.

  “Do you think that we have a serial killer on our hands?”

  Kyle laughed shortly as he got onto the freeway ramp. “What, a vampire slayer?” he asked, repeating the term he’d glibly used.

  His tone made it sound like a grade B movie made around a forgotten comic book or video game. “Not a real vampire slayer, there’s no such thing,” she said, in case he thought she believed in something so preposterous. “But if the M.O. is the same…”

  Kyle refused to go down that road. He tended to be conservative in his thinking. Less mistakes that way and less embarrassment.

  “Most likely, whoever did this read about the first murder in the paper and decided to make use of the publicity—which is why I have absolutely no use for the media,” he added with feeling. Signaling, he sped up and got in front of a produce truck. “Or maybe the same person killed both, but only wanted to kill one of them and used the other for cover,” he theorized.

  Stranger things had happened and that was still more likely than jumping to the conclusion that a deranged serial killer was loose, determined to rid the world of vampires.

  Sitting back in her seat, Jaren exhaled. Her mind was going in twelve different directions at once. Both O’Brien’s theories made sense, as did her own thoughts on the matter.

  “Hell of a lot of possibilities,” she murmured more to herself than to Kyle.

  “You think?”

  She wasn’t sure if he was agreeing with her, or mocking her. But something had just occurred to her and right now was no time to take offense. That was for after the case was solved.

  “You think this might be a coincidence?”

  There she went again, plucking something out of the middle without a proper preamble. He didn’t know what was worse, her talking all the time, or her beginning in the middle of a thought.

  “What’s a coincidence?”

  “That the head of Massey Enterprises died last week and now the chairman of the board of directors gets killed? Do you think that someone might have it in for Massey Enterprises?”

  “Jackson Massey died of complications from his surgery,” Kyle reminded her. “This latest victim died of complications arising from having a stake driven through his heart. Besides, what you’re suggesting doesn’t take the doctor’s murder into account—”

  “It might if the doctor suspected something was wrong, or had uncovered criminal activity at Massey Enterprises and had started asking questions.”

  “Why don’t you hold off coming up with any more theories until we get a look at the scene of the crime?”

  “Okay.” Jaren did her best to curb her outward enthusiasm, but there was no way she could properly curb her mind, which continued examining the possibilities.

  The second they entered the incredibly spacious, 1800-square-foot suite that belonged to the chairman of the Massey Enterprises’ board of directors, Kyle felt his breath back up in his lungs.

  “What is that smell?” He looked around for the source and then stopped dead. Someone had thrown up next to the body.

  A short, dark-haired man in an off-green jumpsuit that identified him as one of the building’s cleaning crew was on his knees, wiping away the visual display of Edward Cummings’s personal assistant’s weak stomach. Roxanne Smith had been the one who’d walked into the suite this morning and found the body.

  “Hold it right there,” Kyle called out to the man as he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Small dark eyes looked up at him quizzically. “Don’t touch anything else,” Kyle instructed.

  “Okay,” the man replied meekly. He rose to his feet and stepped aside, waiting for further orders.

  Jaren looked at him in surprise. “You think CSI is going to want to process vomit?”

  “CSI processes everything. It’s a simple give-and-take relationship. I don’t tread on their feet, they don’t tread on mine,” he told her. “And everyone gets along.”

  The man really was full of surprises. “I didn’t think you cared about getting along.”

  Scanning the spacious office, Kyle made a few notes to himself, then flipped the small notepad closed. “When it helps solve a case, I can be the soul of cooperation.”

  She’d believe that when she saw it, Jaren thought. “Call my attention to it when it happens, please. I’d like to film that for posterity.”

  She’d gotten pretty damn cocky in the three days she’d been with the department, he thought. He hadn’t made up his mind whether it irritated the hell out of him, or amused him.

  Most likely, it was a little of both, he decided. “Who found the body?” he asked one of the two officers on the premises.

  “The chairman’s assistant. According to her, the chairman likes to have his coffee waiting for him when he arrives at exactly nine o’clock.”

  “A little anal,” Kyle commented.

  “But punctual,” Jaren added.

  “Always the bright side,” Kyle muttered under his breath. “Where is this assistant?”

  “At her desk,” the officer replied, pointing to one of the three doors that led out of the suite.

  Roxanne Smith had been at her job longer than the now-deceased chairman. Thin, with understated makeup and a s
ubdued brown suit, the assistant was still visibly shaking. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap in an effort to still them. So far, she was failing.

  “I’m sorry. I never saw a dead person before.” She looked from Kyle to Jaren, bewilderment in her eyes. “Who would want to do such a gruesome thing?”

  “That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Jaren said kindly. “Did Cummings have any enemies?”

  Roxanne swallowed to hold back the tears. “Of course he had enemies. He was a rich, powerful man. You don’t get to be the chairman of the board of such a large corporation without making a few enemies.” And then, because she seemed afraid of generating the wrong impression about her late boss, she quickly added, “But most of the people he worked with liked Mr. Cummings. As far as CEOs went, he was fairer than most.”

  Roxanne shivered and it was obvious that she struggled to hold herself together. “I’m going to have nightmares about this for the rest of my life,” she wailed.

  “Is there anyone we can call for you? A relative, a spouse, a friend?” Jaren offered.

  Roxanne shook her head as she ran her hands up and down her arms, attempting to stave off a bone-deep chill. And then suddenly, a look of renewed anxiety surfaced. “Someone has to tell Mrs. Cummings.”

  “We’ll take care of that,” Kyle told her matter-of-factly.

  “According to what we heard, he was pretty punctual, arriving at nine each morning. Do you have any idea what he was doing in the office early?” Jaren asked.

  There was confusion in the assistant’s eyes. “He wasn’t early. That was the suit he wore last night.”

  Jaren exchanged looks with Kyle. Had the man been entertaining someone after hours and the visit had gone sour? But then, they were back to the stake through the heart M.O. Would a woman have the strength to do that?

  “Do you feel up to giving us a formal statement?” Jaren asked the woman kindly.

  Roxanne pressed her lips together and nodded. Her breath was shaky when she released it. “Yes, I—I think so.”