Cavanaugh Cold Case (15 page)

Nodding, Malloy made another notation. “Anything else?”

But Rachel shook her head. “Sorry. That's all I can remember.” She hesitated for a moment, then timidly asked, “They didn't suffer, did they?” She paused, as if the words were sticking in her throat. “Abby and Zoe, they didn't suffer when they died, did they?”

“Death was instantaneous,” Kristin told her, quickly answering the woman's question before Malloy had the chance.

Rachel exhaled a shaky breath. “I'm glad. I mean, I'm not glad that they died,” she corrected quickly, “but if they did die, I'm glad they weren't tortured.” She pressed her lips together. “Am I making any sense?” she asked the couple.

“Yes,” Kristin answered with understanding.

“Here's my card,” Malloy said, handing it to Rachel. “It has my cell number on it as well as my work line. If you can remember anything else,
anything
at all, call me,” he instructed.

Rachel nodded. “I will.”

They left the college professor still sitting on the bench in front of the library, looking at Malloy's card.

It wasn't until they were back in his car and he had buckled up that he turned to Kristin and said, “You didn't tell me that death was instantaneous.”

“That's because I don't know,” she admitted, securing her own seat belt.

He put his key into the ignition. Her actions caused questions to arise in his mind.

“But you just told that professor it was instantaneous. Did you lie?” He wouldn't have thought her capable of that, no matter what the reason. The woman was obviously a lot more complicated than she seemed to be at first.

Rather than look at Malloy, Kristin stared straight ahead. “I told her what she needed to hear. Why should she have to suffer visualizing images of those two young women having their last breaths wrenched from them? It's better if she just believes that they died quickly and painlessly. There's no need for the woman to torture herself.”

Starting the car, he pulled out. “You're a fraud, Dr. Alberghetti. You do realize that, don't you?”

Kristin instantly took offense. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

His mouth curved. “You pretend to be this tough, hard-nosed woman, but on the inside, Doc, you're just this big softie.”

Was he mocking her? “I wouldn't go betting the farm on that.”

“I don't need to,” he told her. “I just witnessed it with my very own eyes. Don't be embarrassed, Doc,” he told her. “You just did a good thing. I like it.”

Did he think that was the only thing that mattered to her? His approval? “And I don't care
what
you like,” she retorted.

She heard him laugh softly under his breath. “If you say so.”

She'd never met anyone who could make her so angry so fast. “Yes, I say so.”

“Uh-huh.” He kept his eyes on the road, as did she, but she could hear a smile in his voice.

She opened her mouth to say something twice, and shut it twice. There was no point in talking to the man. He had a gift for twisting words.

Dead silence accompanied them the rest of the way back.

Chapter 14

“C
an I come?”

Malloy looked at the woman in his passenger seat quizzically. Not a single word had passed between them for almost ten minutes, constituting the rest of the ride from the UCA campus back to the police precinct. And then, just as he had pulled into one of the numerous spaces available in the lot at this late time of the day, Kristin had suddenly deigned to ask a question.

A rather obscure question at that, as far as Malloy was concerned.

“You're going to have to be more specific than that, Doc,” he told her as he pulled up his hand brake. “Come where?”

Taking a short breath, Kristin began from the beginning of her request.

“When you go to interview the detective who investigated Abby Sullivan's disappearance, can I come with you?”

Kristin was well aware of the fact that Cavanaugh was within his rights to refuse to let her come along. After all, she was a medical examiner, not a police detective. But at this point of the investigation, she really felt invested in this cold case they were piecing together, and waiting on the sidelines for Cavanaugh to get in contact with her with any bits and pieces of information he found was frustrating as well as totally unacceptable, as far as she was concerned. Aside from the remains that had been dug up at the nursery—remains that were still waiting to be identified—things at the morgue had ground to a halt. She really had nothing to do at the moment now that the last autopsy was completed for that unrelated case. That gave her the option to go out into the field if the opportunity to do so suddenly came up—and it most obviously had.

“It's late. I'm not going today,” he told her, evading her question.

Kristin was not about to be sidelined. “I rather thought you wouldn't, but when you do go, I'd like to come with you.” She decided to skip asking for his blessings outright.

“And I'd like to be police chief,” he replied flippantly, “but we don't always get what we want.” Getting out of the car, he looked at Kristin over the roof of his vehicle. Her expression looked stern to him. “You're serious, aren't you?”

“I wouldn't have asked you if I wasn't.” Didn't he know that by now? “Maybe you haven't noticed, but it's hard for me to ask for a favor.”

He laughed dryly. “Oh, I've noticed.” He paused, playing the moment out a tiny bit longer. “All right, once I find out who the investigating detective was, I'll let you know.”

This was all before his time. Twenty years ago, he was just entering middle school and setting his sights on Jenny Gallo, an eighth grader.

“The man's definitely retired from the force by now—for all we know, he might be dead or living somewhere in the Caribbean—but if he's breathing and accessible, I'll let you know,” he promised. And then he smiled. “Now you have to do something for me, Doc.”

“What?” she asked warily.

The guarded tone in her voice did not go unnoticed. “Are you always going to look at me as if you expect me to drag you into an alley and have my way with you?”

“I know you wouldn't drag me into some alley and have your way with me.”

“Thank you for that.”

“Because I know martial arts.”

He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “And that's the only reason?”

“No,” she told him rather flatly. “You don't drag, you seduce.” She drew a breath. “But I still know martial arts.”

He laughed, getting a kick out of the fact that she never gave up. “Fair enough, I guess.”

“What was it?” she asked him suddenly.

“What was what?” Malloy asked, locking his car's doors. He'd lost the thread of whatever it was that she was saying.

She pressed her lips together, certain he was deliberately drawing this out for his own enjoyment. “The ‘something' you wanted me to do for you.”

Again he paused, aware that she was building this up in her mind, not knowing what to anticipate. And then he said simply, “I was going to ask you if you felt like grabbing a bite to eat with me after we clocked out. I could use the company.”

She wasn't sure if she believed him. There had to be more. “And that's it?”

“Yeah.” And then his eyes shone with humor. “Unless you want to top off the evening with hot sex after dinner.”

“No.” She said the word so quickly, he could have felt the breeze it created.

“Then grabbing a bite to eat it is,” he announced simply.

Cavanaugh was assuming things again. The detective seemed to really enjoy wrenching control out of her hands, she couldn't help thinking. “When did I say yes?” she asked.

“Well, I didn't hear ‘no,'” Malloy countered.

Kristin frowned. He had her there. “I guess you have a point.”

The wicked smile was back.

“I usually do.” Malloy glanced at his watch, doing a quick calculation. “I clock out in less than half an hour. You?”

Kristin didn't need to look at her watch. “I could already be gone if I wanted to be.”

Malloy nodded. “All right, we'll meet out here in half an hour. Any place special you want to go?” he asked, politely leaving the choice of the restaurant up to her.

Kristin had nothing to offer. She didn't frequent restaurants in general. She either prepared something on the simple side for herself at home or, more than likely, she either ate at her mother's or had meals that her mother—on occasion her grandmother—had made and then sent home with her.

Kristin shrugged. “Wherever you were going to go is fine.”

“You're on,” he told her as they walked into the precinct.

* * *

Against her better judgment—not because she didn't want to, but because she
did
—half an hour later found her back in the parking lot, sitting in her car, waiting for Malloy to show up.

When she saw him coming down the steps that led to the parking lot, her survival instincts made one last rather urgent plea for her to run.

She didn't.

Instead, she got out of the car and waited for Malloy to cross to her.

“Part of me didn't think you'd show,” he told her honestly once he was close enough to her not to have to shout.

“Part of me didn't want to,” she freely admitted. “But I said I would, so here I am.”

Malloy already knew that her word meant a great deal to her. It was one of the things he really liked about her.

Glancing at the car she was leaning against, Malloy said, “I can drive us to the restaurant and then bring you back later.”

She made him a counteroffer. “I can just as easily follow you to the restaurant, and when we're done, we can both drive home—to our separate homes,” she emphasized deliberately.

Malloy pretended to be wounded. “When are you going to trust me, Doc?”

“When you make me feel safe,” Kristin answered without hesitation. “Right now, you make me feel like I'm walking on a tightrope stretched out across Niagara Falls on a very windy day.”

His eyes held hers. His were unfathomable. “The smart thing to do in that case,” he told her, “would be
not
to walk the tightrope.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. She refused to look away, even though she wanted to.

And then, ever so slowly, the corners of his mouth curved again. He'd never had anyone resist him before, let alone to this extent. He began to wonder things about Kristin in earnest.

“You have nothing to worry about, Kristin,” Malloy told her, his voice low, sultry. “I'd never do anything you wouldn't want me to do.”

He sounded earnest, but Kristin wouldn't allow herself to believe him. “Said the man with the hypnotic eyes.”

“Really?” he asked, amused. “You think my eyes are hypnotic?”

She sighed. She was not about to stand here and say things that he took as compliments. Kristin shook her head. “Let's just go before they start serving breakfast at this restaurant you picked.”

“We'll save breakfast for another time.”

She opened her mouth to say, “In your dreams,” then realized that if she did, she would be guilty of reading things into his statement. After all, he never said that the breakfast he was referring to would follow a night of lovemaking. That was
her
imagination that had put that interpretation to his words.

So she pressed her lips together and said nothing. Instead, she got back into her car and, after he'd given her the address in case they were separated, she followed him to the restaurant he'd chosen.

* * *

A few short miles later, Malloy turned into a parking lot. He'd brought her to a restaurant that looked as if it had once been someone's home.

The faded sign out front told her they were stopping at “Jerry's.”

“Are you sure they're open?” was the first thing she asked as she emerged from her car after parking it next to his.

“All these other people seem to think so,” he told her, gesturing toward the other cars that were parked around them. “And the lights are on, so I think that the odds are pretty good that Jerry's is open.”

With reluctance, she locked her car. Looking at the building, she still had her doubts as to the wisdom of this venture she'd agreed to. The building appeared somewhat run down.

“What kind of food do they serve here?” she asked.

“Good food,” he answered, preceding her up the three steps to Jerry's front doors.

She followed him up the stairs, but then she went no farther, stubbornly stopping by the door and placing her hand over it to keep him from opening it, as well. She wasn't about to take another step until he stopped playing games and answered her.

“Let's try this again. What kind of food do they serve here? It's a legitimate question,” she said pointedly.

Did she think he was taking her to someplace other than what he'd just said? “And this is a legitimate restaurant. You can look it up on your smartphone. It comes with a high rating, and as to what they serve, they serve mainly steak and seafood. Anything else?” he asked gamely.

He made it sound as if she was being paranoid, but she decided not to comment on that. “No. Was that so hard?” she asked, then, unable to refrain, she had to put another question to him. “Why is it you want to play games all the time?”

“Games can be fun,” he told her with what could have only been referred to as a sexy leer.

Kristin knew she should be annoyed or indignant—or both—and probably should just walk out now, while she still had the chance. Cavanaugh, she knew, was way too charming for her own good.

But they were in a public place, and as long as they were, Kristin knew she was safe enough to relax a little and just have dinner with the man. She didn't want him thinking she was being a coward. And, she reminded herself, there quite possibly might even be some informative conversation on the agenda.

Besides, if things did start to go south on her, her car was within sprinting distance. She was confident that she could get to the vehicle quickly in order to make her getaway.

But, in all honesty, she had to admit that she doubted it would come to that.

Oh, God
,
she realized, she was beginning to actually trust him.

“At times,” she allowed, repeating what he'd just said before she added her own footnote to the words. “I don't think that this is one of those times.”

She was surprised to see him smile in response. The detective's smile told her that he knew more than she did about what she'd just said.

“That remains to be seen,” Malloy replied.

Holding the door for her, he waited until Kristin walked inside, then followed her in.

The interior of Jerry's
was not so dimly lit that patrons had trouble making out the faces of the people sitting across from them, yet definitely was not bright enough to detect any flaws, both with their food and with the person sitting opposite them.

Malloy felt it was the perfect compromise and said as much to his companion.

Kristin was quick to catch the contradiction. “I thought you said the food here was good.”

“I did and it is. But nothing's perfect,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Will this be all right?” the hostess asked, bringing them to a booth.

Rather than answer, Malloy looked at Kristin, waiting for her to respond. “It's fine,” she replied, surprised that Malloy had deferred to her. After all, the man was nothing if not a take-charge personality.

Once the hostess had withdrawn and Kristin had taken her seat, Malloy followed suit and then asked, “What's your pleasure?”

Caught off guard, Kristin could only stare at him. He wasn't blatantly saying what she thought he was—was he? “What?”

“What's your pleasure?” Malloy repeated, his smile growing just another shade wider.

The gleam in his eye made her think that she was right. So much for subtlety.

“You're asking that now?” she demanded. “Here?” She didn't bother hiding her annoyance.

“I'm talking about food,” he pointed out mildly. “What are you talking about?”

She felt like an idiot. What was wrong with her? She was usually far more in control and put together than this. She kept anticipating him putting moves on her, and he was being nothing but polite. Was this the real him—or just part of his game to get her off her guard?

“Steak,” she told him between clenched teeth. “I like steak.”

“Must be hard to chew if you keep your jaw locked like that,” he observed. Closing the menu that the hostess had given him, Malloy leaned over the table. Lowering his voice so that he wouldn't be overheard, he said, “Relax, Doc. We're just here to eat—and maybe talk a little more about the case if you'd like. Nothing else.”

The last sentence sounded as if he was giving her his word.

Even so, Kristin still looked at him uncertainly. “Nothing else?” she repeated.