Cavanaugh Watch (11 page)

She noticed the black stretch limousine at the same time that the sound of her footsteps mingling with someone else’s registered. It took her a second to remember that she no longer had a shadow. Sawyer wasn’t there to haunt her every move.

The second she turned around, a big, burly man with a lived-in face and in a rumpled dark suit took hold of her arm. He smelled faintly of onions when he spoke.

“Mr. Wayne would like a word with you.”

Startled, she looked at him. He had enough lines on his face to qualify him as an honorary shar-pei. Another man seemed to materialize out of the darkness, taking her other arm. Between them, she was hustled over to a waiting black limousine.

“We’re not that far from the police department,” she warned them, adding, “I’m not on the case anymore.” She might as well have been reciting the Korean alphabet. Her words seemed to bounce off the two men. Neither even indicated that they heard her.

The door to the limousine opened and she was deposited roughly inside. The next second, the door closed and she found herself sealed in with the other occupant in the rear of the vehicle.

The air-conditioning was on in the car. The man sitting at the opposite end of the richly upholstered seat had on a camel-colored topcoat. It was unbuttoned and the suit beneath would have probably paid the salaries of five uniformed policemen for a month.

She’d heard that Marco Wayne liked nothing but the best. Tolerated nothing less. He had a full head of silver hair and the look of a man who had long since stopped trusting anyone.

Still, time had been kind to him. He didn’t look his age. She’d done her research on him last night, finding out all she could. Knowledge was thought to be power. Janelle didn’t feel like someone in power, but she did her best not to show it.

Janelle met his gaze dead-on, knowing that to look away would be an indication of fear. Marco Wayne did not respect people who feared.

“I’m not on the case anymore, Mr. Wayne.”

His head inclined ever so slightly. His voice was rich when he spoke. “I know.”

How had it become public knowledge so fast? Or did he have someone on the inside? The news media hadn’t approached her for a comment. They would have if the story had been broken. So that meant that Wayne had someone reporting to him from inside the D.A.’s office. Which in turn meant they were all vulnerable.

She’d think about that later. Right now, she needed to get out of this limousine in one piece. She took solace in the fact that the car wasn’t moving. “Then you know there’s nothing I can do.”

“Now that, I don’t know,” Wayne contradicted. There was a smile on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m told that you are very resourceful. That you don’t just go with the flow, take someone else’s word for things. You examine, dissect.”

“Meaning?”

He leaned forward just an inch. “Meaning that Tony was framed. Someone else’s words put him behind bars.”

She wasn’t going to bring out the violins just yet. “That and the kilo of coke found in his possession,” she reminded him.

Wayne’s dark eyes narrowed into slits. “That was planted.”

“Why?” Janelle asked. “By who?” If he wanted her to believe him, then he was going to have to come up with something better than just his word. She needed evidence to the contrary, motive, something to work with.

Wayne nodded, as if he expected nothing less from someone with his blood. This time, the smile she saw take hold looked genuine. As if she’d passed some unknown test and he approved of her.

“Tony’s a good boy,” he told her. “I’ve kept him as far away from my business as possible.”
Business,
she thought, what an odd term for extortion and trafficking in flesh peddling and drugs. “I’m sure you know that I’m number two in the organization.”

Was he trying to impress her? Scare her? Flatter her? “I’ve done my homework on you,” she responded.

“Backbiting and the elimination of competition doesn’t just happen in the corporate world,” Wayne informed her.

She tried to make sense of what he was telling her. “Are you saying someone has it in for you, so they’re trying to destroy your son?”

“I wouldn’t stay down.” She saw anger color his face even though he never raised his voice. “Tony is being used to keep me in line.”

She wondered what would happen if she suddenly opened the door and ran. The man who had “escorted” her into the limo was undoubtedly standing right outside her door. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”

The answer came without hesitation. “Charlie Wentworth. He wants to be number one when the old man passes.”

That would be Salvatore Perelli, she thought. “And the ‘old man’ favors you.”

Again Marco inclined his head. “We’re from the same neighborhood.”

“Then he should help you settle it.” She raised her chin, refusing to be intimidated. “In any event, I’m out of it. I can’t help you, Mr. Wayne.”

Wayne’s voice was low, confident. “You’re far from out of it, Janelle.” His smile was one of reminiscence. “You remind me a lot of your mother.”

Was that just an innocent comment? Or his way of intimating something more? Her stomach tightened as she deliberately baited him. “They say my stubbornness comes from my father.”

The short laugh was just a little cruel. “Brian Cavanaugh is a good man. I always liked him, even after he took your mother away from me.” He paused a moment, as if debating something, then continued. “I knew she’d have a better life with him, even though materially, I could give her more.” He paused again, studying her. She could almost feel his eyes passing over her. “Brian told you, didn’t he?”

To play dumb seemed pointless. “He told me.”

Wayne nodded. “He doesn’t know that I know. Keeping quiet was my gift to Susan. No one else knows.”

But they would, if it served his purpose, she thought. “For now.”

“Ever,” he assured her. “That’s not a weapon in my arsenal.” The statement was firm. A promise. “But Anthony
is
your half brother. And he’s being framed.” His eyes held her prisoner. “Help him.” It was half a plea, half an order.

Before she could protest, or say anything further, Wayne rapped once on his window. The next moment, the door on her side opened and the same man who’d ushered her in was helping her out of the limousine. Gently this time. She stared at him.

Without saying a word, he got into the vehicle in her place.

Janelle watched as the door closed again. A moment later, the black limousine sped away, leaving her standing alone in the parking lot.

Chapter 11

“W
hat the hell did you think you were doing?”

A scream throbbed within Janelle’s throat but she managed to bite it back. Her heart pounding, she swung around even as she pressed her hand to her chest, physically reassuring herself the organ hadn’t just jumped out of her body.

Sawyer was almost right on top of her, and she hadn’t even heard him approach. “Don’t you make any noise?” she demanded.

“I left my brass band in my other pants. What the hell were you doing, getting into that limousine with those thugs?”

He’d come out of the building just in time to see her emerging from the stretch limo. Between the street lamps and the moon, there’d been enough light for him to make out the two men who had been standing guard on either side of the black vehicle. He’d recognized both as being Wayne’s henchmen. Sawyer had been about to call for backup when he’d seen the taller of the two men opening the rear door. The next second, Janelle had been helped out of the vehicle.

“I didn’t exactly have much choice,” she retorted. “One minute, I was leaving the building, the next, these two goons are making like silent bookends, blocking my way. The one that looked like a rumpled pile of clothing said that Marco wanted to see me.”

“And?” Sawyer pressed.

Janelle gestured dismissively. She was still somewhat shaken, but she didn’t like Sawyer’s tone. “And he saw me.”

“And?” he demanded again. When she looked up at him almost defiantly, he struggled to hold on to his temper. He didn’t need this. You’d think the woman being part of the D.A.’s office, knowing the kind of man Wayne was, would play by the rules no matter
what
her relationship to the man. “Look, Cavanaugh, this is no time to suddenly start limiting your vocabulary. In case it escaped you, Marco Wayne doesn’t exactly spend all his time playing chess with the pope and working on his needlepoint.”

Her eyes narrowed. If he’d acted concerned, she could have put up with his questions, but he was behaving as if this was all one hell of an inconvenience for him. She was just inches away from turning on her heel and walking away from him. “Your point, Boone?”

“The man’s dangerous,” he told her between clenched teeth.

Okay, maybe he was concerned and he just had lousy communication skills. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt.

“He didn’t threaten me,” she told him, some of the anger leeching out of her voice. “And he knows that I’m his daughter.” Mild surprise creased Sawyer’s brow. “He more or less indicated that he never tried to make any contact because he knew my mother wanted to try to work things out with my father. It was his ‘gift’ to her, to pretend that he didn’t know about me.”

Sawyer could think of a dozen different reasons, all a great deal more selfish, why the man had never got in contact with his daughter before. “But he’s reaching out to you now.”

She was beginning to read Sawyer like a book. He didn’t trust Wayne. Not that she blamed him. She wouldn’t have either. Except that she had seen the crime lieutenant’s face just now, seen his eyes when he’d spoken of his son. “Because he’s afraid for his son. He also has a theory.”

Sawyer laughed shortly. “I just bet he does.”

She began to walk toward her car. Sawyer had no choice but to fall into place. “Wayne thinks that one of the other lieutenants in the organization is trying to gain control over him. This ploy with Tony is to show him what can happen if he steps out of line.”

Sawyer stopped walking and put his hand on her shoulder to stop her in her tracks. “And if Marco decides to cooperate with this other lieutenant, the ‘evidence’ will suddenly disappear?”

“Could be,” she allowed and then she shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine—except that I don’t really believe that Wayne will actually give in to anyone. His life won’t be worth a counterfeit nickel if he allows anyone around him to think that he’s weak.”

Sawyer regarded her for a moment, thinking. Playing out scenarios in his head. “So you’re supposed to be his only hope.”

She tried to gauge what Sawyer was thinking. “You make it sound as if that’s impossible.”

“I didn’t say that.” They resumed walking. Her vehicle was only a few feet away. “But if you’re going to blow holes in your own case, and soon—” they both knew that the beginning of the trial was only a couple of weeks away “—you’re going to need help.”

“It’s not my case anymore.”

“Right. Then I guess you can blow holes in it all you want,” he said sarcastically. “It’ll only mean your career in the D.A.’s office. Someone aims to get brownie points with this conviction,” he reminded her. To lose the high-profile case before a public that was addicted to continuous media coverage would be an embarrassment to both Woods and the D.A. Neither was likely to forget who was responsible if that occurred.

Stopping by her car, Janelle ignored the obvious. “You said something about help.” Her eyes held his. “Are you volunteering?” When he made no effort to deny it or set her straight, she had her answer, or at least part of it. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I’d feel guilty, leaving you dog-paddling for your life in the middle of a stormy ocean.”

The image was far from flattering, but she let it go. “Kleinmann’s a stickler for honesty, but he’s out of town. Woods is a good man, but he has his eye on the prize—which is getting Kleinmann’s seat one day.” She said what they were both thinking. “If he convicts the mob lieutenant’s son—”

Sawyer nodded. “He might be a shoo-in. Yeah, I know.”

She wouldn’t have thought of Sawyer as being altruistic. Or an ally. It left her doubting her own powers of evaluation. It also left her with a warm feeling. “So you’re throwing in your lot with me.”

He shrugged as if it was of no consequence. “Looks like.”

“And when do you plan to do this?” It wasn’t like him to be illogical. She’d learned that much about him. “Now that you don’t have to be my bodyguard, they’ll reassign you.” A thought occurred to her. “Maybe even to guard whoever Woods decides to replace me with.”

Guarding someone else would have him on the premises, but would definitely get in the way of what he wanted to do. Which was a little investigating on his own. There were strings to pull and a few favors to call in. He told himself it was in the interest of justice, but if he were being really honest with himself, he’d have to admit that it also had something to do with eyes the color of clover in the spring.

“I have a month and a half of vacation time coming to me,” he told her casually.

“A month and a half?” she echoed incredulously. She was lucky if she could scrounge up four extra days at Christmas.

He nodded. “That’s after I lose the five I carried over from two years ago.”

She did a quick tally in her head. That meant that Sawyer hadn’t used
any
of his time. “Don’t you take vacations?”

Taking vacations, packing to go to some strange place he’d never been to before just to say he’d done it, had never appealed to him. “To do what?”

“Something you enjoy.”

There was a half shrug involving one shoulder that carelessly rose and fell. “I enjoy being a cop.”

And right now, she was glad of it. But that only went so far in a person’s life. She began to think of him in more human terms. “But there’s more to life than that.”

He’d had more. And it had been taken away from him. He didn’t need to go through that again. “Not that I’ve noticed.” He didn’t want anything that remotely passed for pity. “Look, do you want my help or not?”

“I want it, I want it,” she assured him with feeling. “I just feel a little guilty taking away your time, that’s all.”

“Don’t.” It was more of a command than a suggestion or request. “I don’t do what I don’t want to do,” he told her.

“Except act as a ‘babysitter,’” she recalled the sentiment he’d expressed the first day on the job.

Sawyer made no comment, except for the flicker of annoyance in his eyes. He nodded toward her vehicle. “Now stay there until I get my car and come back around to your side of the lot.”

“Yes, sir.” She saluted. And saw a hint of a smile flirt with his lips as he turned away to head back to get his own vehicle.

Janelle got into her car and waited. Funny how things worked themselves out. When he had first been assigned to her, she would have never thought she’d be in this position. She needed him. Needed him because she felt that this—digging into the evidence against Tony Wayne one more time to make sure that it was all above board—was something she had to do and no way was she going to ask anyone in the family—or what had been her family up to a day ago—to put their careers, much less themselves, on the line for her in order to see this through.

Sawyer, on the other hand, was volunteering. Insisting was more like it. He seemed to thrive on the idea that a wrong move would put him in seven kinds of jeopardy. And she did need someone to help her because no way could she do her own work and this on the sly. Asking for a short leave of absence would get her nowhere since they were short-handed right now. Last month two of their assistants had quit to go into private practice, where the hours might have been just as long, but the financial rewards were far greater and, for many, that was the bottom line. Mortgages were rarely paid by an esthetic feeling of having done the right thing.

Janelle cracked a window. It was getting warm in the car. Finally, she saw Sawyer’s dark blue vehicle emerge out of the parking structure. He leaned out and gestured for her to leave the lot first. She couldn’t shake the image of a sheep being herded to another pasture. Maybe that was his intent.

Damn, but she wished she could turn to someone else. But in reality, she couldn’t. This was something she felt she had to do. She couldn’t even put a well-defined reason to it, other than the fact that she didn’t want to be responsible for convicting someone on falsified evidence. That he was supposedly her half brother had nothing to do with it.

Half brother.
The term mocked her. She wanted the three whole ones she’d known and loved since birth. She wanted her old life, her old confidence back, she thought as she drove into the night.

True to his word, Sawyer followed her all the way home. The guest parking spaces were all filled and she saw him pass her carport as he went in search of somewhere to leave his vehicle. She knew he’d want her to wait for him, but she didn’t have the patience to sit in her car any longer. A restlessness ate at her.

Janelle pulled her car into her space and got out. Holding on to her keys, she hurried to unlock her door. As she was about to step over the threshold, she looked down and saw that someone had slipped a note under her door.

In this day and age of e-mail, text messaging and answering machines, a note under the door seemed old-fashioned.

The moment the thought occurred to her, she knew who the note was from.

Stooping down, she picked it up, turned on the light and opened the note. Janelle smiled to herself. She was right.

Nelle,

I’m giving you your space for now. I know finding out about Marco Wayne at this point in your life was a huge shock. I realize now that I made a mistake keeping this from you. But you have to know that I did it only because I didn’t want to lose you. You are, and always have been, very precious to me. You are my daughter in every meaningful sense of the word and always will be. Whether or not you want to have anything to do with me right now, I’ll still be here, waiting, to talk to you whenever you feel like talking.

Love, Dad.

Janelle sighed as she stood there in the doorway, holding the note against her chest. She felt torn, confused. Wanting nothing more than never to have found out, never to have her world rocked this way.

And yet, ignorance had never been the path she’d chosen.

Janelle blew out a breath, shaking her head.

The next moment, she found herself being roughly pushed into her apartment. The door slammed loudly behind her. Sawyer flipped the lock, then turned to glare accusingly down at her.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Her temper snapped. “You know, I’m getting a little tired of your attitude,” she stormed, refusing to be cowed. “Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe you’d better just go home.”

“You were standing there, the door opened, the light on, an open invitation to any maniac who thinks there’s a contract out on you. The only thing you were missing was a big red arrow suspended from the roof, pointing at you.” Janelle began to protest, but he cut her off. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing she could say in her defense. “Just because you took yourself off the case, Cavanaugh, doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods. No pun intended,” he tagged on. “If Wayne’s right and this is being done to control him, maybe whoever’s doing it knows that he’s gone to you asking for help in clearing his son. If you’re eliminated, there will be no help coming from your quarter.”

He made it hard to argue with him, even though she wanted to. Temporarily surrendering, she said, “Maybe I should call in the others.”

“Others?”

“My family.”

Despite his annoyance, he couldn’t help noticing that the term had rolled off her tongue. She still thought of them as her family—and should.

She was coming round, he thought. The hurt, the wild, disoriented look was all but gone from her eyes. He wondered if it was because of what he’d said to her earlier, or if the note she was holding had anything to do with her change of heart.

In either case, she’d forgotten something. “You don’t want to risk any of them,” he reminded her. That had been her reasoning for accepting his offer to help.