Andrew avoided making eye contact with his wife. “He’s breathing,” he answered, heading toward the stairs. He loved having Rose with him under any circumstances, but he wanted to spare her this. His father was a strong man, but age had a way of eroding strength. Andrew had no idea what he was in for.
“Dad hasn’t regained consciousness since they found him.” Sailing down the staircase’s seventeen steps, he was at the front door in seconds. “I’m going to the hospital,” he told her.
Rose was just a beat behind him. “Not without me you’re not.”
He turned toward her. “There’s no point if he’s still unconscious. Maybe you should just stay here, hold down the fort,” Andrew gently suggested.
The stubborn look he knew and loved so well came into Rose’s eyes. “The fort can hold itself down. I’m not letting you face this alone, Andrew Cavanaugh,” she informed him in no uncertain terms.
This was one of the many reasons he loved her, but even so—or maybe because of it—he didn’t feel right about dragging her with him like this, Andrew thought. “People are going to be calling here, asking questions about what happened.”
He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already considered. “I’m sure they will. Don’t worry about it, we have call forwarding. They’ll find us,” Rose assured him. “After all these years of marriage, that old man is as much my father as he is yours and I’m not about to stay here like a good little soldier, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for word that he’s all right—and he will be all right,” she told her husband in a no-nonsense voice. “Now, let’s just stop wasting time debating this and let’s go,” Rose ordered.
Andrew’s heart swelled with affection as well as gratitude. Sparing himself one moment, he caught his wife up in his arms and kissed her.
Hard.
The next second, he let her go again. “If I haven’t mentioned this to you lately, I love you, Rose McGee Cavanaugh.”
Rose briefly touched his face and smiled at Andrew, all the love she felt for this man who was her entire universe shining in her eyes.
“I know,” she replied. “Now, let’s get moving!” she urged again, pulling open the front door.
“Yes, ma’am,” Andrew answered, utterly grateful that this was the woman who was sharing his life.
Rose had always managed to give him hope.
* * *
Rose sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle she had surprised him with last Christmas as they sped off to the hospital. To ensure that they would get there as quickly as possible, Andrew had placed his police lights on the roof. Though he didn’t believe in abusing any of the privileges that were at his disposal, this situation negated his natural impulse for caution.
While the lights on his roof flashed and the siren blared, Rose was busy calling various members of their family to tell them that the man who was responsible for starting the family was very possibly fighting for his life in the hospital. Rose knew that nobody would want to be left out of the loop under the guise of being “spared” the news until morning. Everyone loved and respected the crotchety patriarch and would have been distraught if they weren’t able to be on the premises, pulling for Seamus and adding their prayers to the rest.
This was the sort of thing that transcended everything else. This was about family.
* * *
Despite the hour, Aurora Memorial Hospital’s parking lot was teeming with vehicles. Andrew gunned his SUV up and down the aisle, searching for a place to park. As he searched, he spared Rose a glance. “How does it feel being a modern-day Paul Revere?”
“I would have preferred just inviting people to one of your parties instead of telling them to come to the hospital because Seamus has been the victim of some psychopathic thief,” Rose answered grimly. She reached for her husband’s hand and squeezed it. “He’s going to be all right,” she promised, her voice thick with emotion. The words were meant to hearten her as much as they were to encourage her husband.
“Of course he is,” Andrew agreed in a voice that was as emotional as his wife’s. “Dad’s too ornery to just give up and...retreat,” he said, finally finding a word he could use without having his voice break.
“There,” Rose said suddenly, pointing over to the side. “There’s a space.”
“Good eye,” Andrew said, temporarily taking refuge in the minutia of ordinary banter.
He angled his vehicle into the rather tight space and was out of the driver’s side in a matter of seconds. He heard the passenger door slamming shut and paused, waiting for Rose to join him.
“Don’t wait for me,” his wife said, waving him toward the ER entrance. “Just go!”
Nodding, Andrew made his way to the rear ER doors quickly. How many times had he been here over the course of his career and then some? Far too many to count, he thought. Once, years back, he’d even been brought here himself.
It never got any easier, he decided.
It took Rose two beats to catch up and be at his side.
“You move fast for an old man,” she told him, trying to tease Andrew and lighten the huge weight that she knew had to be weighing down on him.
“Not that old,” Andrew replied.
Just then the young woman behind the registration desk turned toward them. A look of mild recognition crossed her face.
The next moment the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. “You’re here about Seamus Cavanaugh, aren’t you?”
Under ordinary circumstances, Andrew might have said something light in response, but these were not ordinary circumstances. They were scarier than he could ever remember them being. His father had been beaten, possibly shot. Add to that the man had age working against him. Despite trying to keep a positive attitude, this was not the best of scenarios.
Andrew got down to business immediately. “Yes, we are. How is he?”
“Grandpa’s a hearty warhorse, Dad. You know that,” his oldest daughter, Callie, said as she hurried up to join him.
She was not alone. Behind her was her husband, Benton Montgomery, as well as her two brothers, Shaw and Clay, and her sisters, Teri and Rayn, along with each of their spouses.
Hugging her father, she said, “When Mom called to tell me what happened, I got the word out. Most of the family’s either already here or on their way.”
Rose smiled at her husband when he turned toward her. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a first floor full of Cavanaughs praying for Seamus’s recovery. God can’t ignore this many like-minded people all asking for the same favor.”
Though he tried to mask it, the breath he released was shaky. “Well, that would explain the crowded parking lot. Let’s hope you’re right,” Andrew said to his wife. It was obvious to Rose that he was afraid to be too confident about the outcome.
“I’m always right,” Rose informed him with a confidence she really didn’t feel. She looked around the immediate area. “Anyone know where your granddad’s doctor is?” she asked the ever-growing sea of people.
Dax Cavanaugh spoke up first. “He was here a minute ago,” he told his aunt.
Brian Cavanaugh, Aurora’s chief of detectives, came up behind his son and put his hand on Dax’s shoulder as he addressed his sister-in-law. “I’ll have him paged, Rose.” Turning, Brian spotted an official-looking nurse and headed straight for her. When he saw that she was about to turn away, he called out to get her attention. “Ms.? Excuse me, Ms.!” Brian sped up his pace.
Marsha Williams, whose newly bestowed official title was head nurse of the ER, stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around. The pasted-on friendly smile quickly turned into a wary expression. Before she could stop herself, she murmured, “Oh, lord, they warned me about this.”
Brian cocked his silvery head. “Who warned you about what?” he asked in an amicable voice.
“The last head nurse. Rachel Rubin.
She told me that sooner or later—most likely sooner—there would be a flood of you people in here because one of your own was hurt in the line of duty and that you wouldn’t leave until you were absolutely sure that the law-enforcement person was going to pull through.” She had a tablet with her and scrolled through it now, checking on new admissions and recent patients who had been brought into the ER. “But no one like that was brought in.”
“Try again, dear,” Brian’s wife, Lila, instructed the head nurse. There was no mistaking the authority beneath the friendly voice. For the woman’s benefit, the recently retired detective began to fill her in. “Seamus Cavanaugh was brought in unconscious less than—”
Recognition entered the head nurse’s eyes as they came to rest on a recent entry.
“Oh, here he is,” the woman declared. Marsha raised her head. “Dr. Iverson is overseeing his case,” she reported.
“And what’s the name of the doctor who’s actually doing something for my grandfather?” Detective Troy Cavanaugh asked, a note of impatience in his voice.
Marsha Williams’s somewhat high-handed attitude receded. “I’ll go get the doctor,” she replied, moving away.
Having quietly slipped into the circle gathered around the woman, Andrew smiled at the head nurse. “Thank you,” he said in a subdued, civil-sounding voice.
The former chief of police turned toward the rest of his family as the nurse hurried away to find the missing physician.
“Anyone have any more information on what happened than what we already know?” Andrew asked the various members of the family around him.
“Sounds like a mugging gone bad,” his younger brother Sean answered. Several other heads nodded. “Not much to go on yet,” Sean concluded.
“Who found him?” Brian asked, throwing out the question to anyone who could answer it.
“A guy walking his dog,” his daughter, Riley, volunteered. “He called a patrolman.”
“Who was the detective who was first on the scene?” Andrew asked.
“That would be me,” Detective Finley Cavanaugh said, raising his hand as he stepped forward to the front of what was quickly becoming a very large crowd. “I caught the case and I was hoping to have a few words with your father, Uncle Andrew.”
“So are we, Finn,” Andrew replied with feeling. “So are we.” He looked around, hoping to see the ER doctor cutting through the growing gathering of his relatives.
Rose tugged on her husband’s arm. When he looked quizzically in her direction, she pointed toward a rather young-looking man in hospital scrubs quickly walking toward them.
“Looks like maybe the doctor’s finally going to tell us what’s happening,” she said.
Dr. Joshua Logan had recently transferred to Aurora from a hospital located on the opposite coast. He was still getting acclimated to the mild weather. His easygoing manner belied that he was a top-notch emergency-room physician.
Dr. Logan quickly assessed the crowd, then introduced himself. “The good news,” he continued after shaking the hands of the people nearest him, “is that there doesn’t seem to be any internal bleeding or a skull fracture.”
“And the bad news?” Andrew asked since the doctor’s tone clearly indicated that there was a downside as well.
“I’m afraid that your father’s pride was badly wounded.”
Chapter 2
“Wait,” Andrew responded suddenly as the doctor’s words registered. “Does that mean that my father’s conscious now?” There was no missing the eager hope resonating in his voice.
“He was for a few minutes,” Dr. Logan qualified. “But when I told your father that I wanted to keep him here overnight for observation, he started to become very agitated. I thought that it was best if I gave him a sedative.”
Brian wanted the ER doctor to realize that their father wasn’t just being difficult. “The problem is our father doesn’t really like being in a hospital,” he explained.
Dr. Logan nodded, curtailing the need for any further explanation. “I completely sympathize, but I still want to keep your father for twenty-four hours, just to make sure he’s all right before I discharge him.” His expression turned serious. “Your father did sustain a severe blow to his head,” he told the family gathered around him. “I’m sure none of you want any unpleasant surprises suddenly coming up if he goes home too soon.”
“Do what you need to do, Doc,” Andrew told the emergency physician, speaking on behalf of the entire family. “We want to be sure to keep that annoying old man around for a lot more years to come.”
Dr. Logan seemed to take Andrew’s words seriously. “Well, barring any more unforeseen incidents like this one, I’d say that you should probably get your wish. Except for being banged around and getting a number of cuts and bruises, your father appears to have a very strong constitution.”
Andrew blew out a breath. “That’s definitely reassuring. When can we see him?” the former chief of police asked.
While hearing everything that Dr. Logan had just said was definitely making him feel more hopeful, Andrew still felt a very strong need to see his father with his own eyes before he could begin to rest easy.
“Tomorrow morning,” Dr. Logan replied automatically.
As the ER physician turned on his heel to leave, Rose quickly moved directly into the man’s path.
“Doctor, please,” she said, then looked toward her husband.
Logan read between the lines. The woman’s meaning was clear. “All right. But just one of you,” he asserted, raising his voice so that it carried in order for everyone to hear. “And just for five minutes, is that clear? If Mr. Cavanaugh should come to, I don’t want him getting any more agitated.”
“Understood,” Andrew responded solemnly.
Logan nodded. “All right then. You’ll find him in the third bed.” Since all the beds were hidden behind individual curtains, the ER physician offered, “I’ll take you to him.”
Andrew hesitated, looking back at his two younger brothers, silently asking if either of them wanted to go in his place.
But no one contested the decision. “You’re the head of the family,” Brian told him.
“Go on in before the doctor changes his mind,” Sean urged.
With a grateful nod, Andrew quickly followed Dr. Logan out of the area.
They went down a long corridor and then the doctor abruptly stopped.
“He’s right in here,” Logan said, parting the curtain just enough to give Andrew a glimpse inside the interior. “Remember, five minutes,” the doctor cautioned again and then left in order to give Andrew some privacy with his father.
Drawing closer, Andrew very gently took his father’s hand in his. For the very first time that he could remember, his father’s ordinarily strong hands somehow looked and felt almost fragile. They weren’t the powerful hands he recalled, that seemed capable of lifting up and holding anything.
Hands that seemed almost inconceivably strong and incredibly capable.
Andrew squeezed his father’s hand, but Seamus didn’t squeeze back.
When he thought of what might have happened, Andrew felt tears spring to his eyes. He blinked hard to keep them from falling. This wasn’t the time to fall apart, he thought.
“You gave us one hell of a scare, old man,” Andrew whispered thickly to the unconscious man in the hospital bed. The sight of a bandage wrapped around his father’s head, all but covering his right eye, hurt to look at. What if the damage had been worse? “What did those lowlifes do to you?” Andrew asked, trying to control his mounting anger. “And why were you even there at this time of night? You have people for that,” he insisted almost angrily. This didn’t make sense and it didn’t have to happen. “Young people,” Andrew stressed. “Haven’t you learned how to delegate yet?”
Andrew sighed, answering his own question. “Of course you hav
en’t. You’re a Cavanaugh and you feel you have something to prove—to yourself if not to the rest of us.”
There was no answer forthcoming from his father even though Andrew would have given anything to have heard his father’s voice as the older man attempted to explain his actions.
But he just continued being unconscious.
“I sure hope you can tell us who did this when you come to, because you know that you’ve got every single member of the family dying to make that person pay for hurting you.”
For a second, he could have sworn he saw his father’s eyes flutter. But then they were still and his father continued sleeping.
“Chief?” Logan said respectfully, peering in between the curtains.
Andrew knew that his time was up. “I’ve got to go, Dad.” He leaned over his father’s bed and pressed a kiss to the older man’s forehead. “I’m happy you’re still with us. Happier than you’ll probably ever know.”
Andrew went to retrieve his father’s cell phone from the plastic bag where his clothes and possessions had been placed. Finding it, the former chief of police stepped away from the hospital bed and reentered the corridor.
Despite the fact that his father was unconscious and couldn’t help provide any leads, it was time to get this investigation started. In his experience, there was always someone, whether they knew it or not, who had seen something.
The trick was to find that someone.
With renewed purpose, Andrew went back out to where the rest of his family was waiting. He looked around for Brenda, one of Brian’s daughters-in-law. Brenda was the head of the IT section in the crime-scene investigation lab. He needed the young woman’s expertise at the moment.
Spotting her next to her husband, Dax, Andrew headed over to them. Brenda and Dax were instantly alert the second he approached them.
“How is he?” Dax asked before his wife could.
“Still unconscious. He looks pretty banged-up,” Andrew admitted. “But he’s a tough old bird. He’ll be issuing orders by morning,” Andrew said confidently.
Cavanaugh Stakeout Page 2
