Mission: Cavanaugh Baby (5 page)

Shane shrugged his shoulders carelessly. “If you like that sort of thing,” he agreed.

The deliberate nonchalant reply had Sean looking up at his son. “You
always
like that sort of thing,” Sean reminded him. “At least, you used to,” he amended.

For the past eight months, his son had been engaged to be married—until she’d broken it off last month after his partner had been shot on the job. For a while, it had been touch and go for Shane, but after what he’d just witnessed, Sean felt that his son was definitely on his way to recovery.

“Not when they’re mouthy,” Shane countered.

Sean was really intrigued now. “She’s a challenge. Good, you could use one. And cute or not, the ladies are always far more interesting when they don’t just fall at your feet in complete surrender. I noticed that you used to lose interest when women looked at you with those puppy-dog eyes.”

Shane shrugged. All he wanted now was a good time. Getting serious just led to complications he didn’t want anymore. “What’s wrong with that?”

“There’s no lightning, no lasting attraction,” his father pointed out. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“I’d tell you, but I’m not sure you’re old enough to hear that kind of stuff.”

Sean saw through his son’s words and his attempt at diverting him. “Is this one getting to you?” he asked.

The grin faded as Shane’s expression became deadly serious. “Why would you say that?”

“Because instead of shrugging off what I say, you’re making denials, protesting. That usually means only one thing—”

“Okay,” Shane said, cutting him off. “This is me shrugging. Watch.” He raised and lowered his wide shoulders in an exaggerated fashion.

But Sean wasn’t buying any of it. “Too late for that,” he told his son.

“Too late for
what?
” Shane demanded, completely at a loss as to where this complicated conversation was actually headed.

The look in Sean’s eyes all but shouted, “You know, the die has already been cast, my boy.” Out loud, Sean said, “Go, observe. Be a detective. Detect.”

Shane shook his head. Ever since his father had gotten married again, to the mother of his sister’s fiancée, he seemed determined for all of his offspring to be harnessed in a similar tether. Well, that might work for the others—it seemed as if everyone except for himself and Declan, his brother, seemed to be dropping like flies at the marriage altar—but he’d tried to go that route and gotten kicked in the teeth by cupid. Life had decreed that he was going to remain single, just like Declan. Currently, in their immediate family, they were the last two men standing.

He intended to remain “standing” for a very long time to come.

Putting his father and his father’s less-than-subtle hints out of his head, Shane looked around the bedroom. Aside from a small bureau and a double bed, every other stick of furniture and random item in the room all but shouted baby.

This woman had been getting ready for her unborn child.

He couldn’t help but feel sorry for the dead woman. The next moment he upbraided himself. Feeling sorry for the woman wasn’t going to help solve the case. He was going to have to work at hardening his reaction if he hoped to get a permanent transfer to Homicide.

Donning a pair of disposable gloves, Shane carefully handled the contents of a fancy shopping bag. The bag was light blue on one side, light pink on the other. The words
Baby Mine
were written in fancy lettering on both sides.

“It’s an expensive baby boutique,” Sean told him when he noticed him staring at the bag.

Shane looked at him, puzzled. That was an odd piece of information for a man his father’s age to have. “How would you know that?”

“I know a lot of things,” Sean answered, amused at his son’s attitude. “I don’t just go home at the end of the day and crawl into a shell, pulling the door closed after myself.”

Shane shrugged. “I just figured that things like babies and all the stuff that goes with them are way in your past by now.”

Sean glossed over the comment about his age. “Maybe so, but grandkids aren’t.”

It took a second for his father’s words to replay themselves in his head. At that point, it was as if his brain did a double-take. “What grandkids?” he asked.

“Show up a little more often at those Sunday dinners your uncle Andrew likes to throw, and maybe you’ll find out,” Sean told him mysteriously.

It still felt strange calling someone he’d grown accustomed to knowing as the former chief of police his uncle. It was going to take more getting used to, he thought—just like his last name. Half the time he still wanted to say “Cavelli” when he introduced himself for the first time to someone.

“I’ve shown up at a few,” Shane told his father defensively.

“Show up at a few more,” his father countered, then, glancing up, he waved him off. “You’re in my light, Shane.”

Shane stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding bumping into a pile of stuffed animals, all still with their price tags on.

He picked one up to look over. Since he was wearing latex gloves, he couldn’t feel the toy’s furry texture, but he had a feeling that it was exceedingly soft. He shook his head as he put the stuffed animal back, feeling exceptionally sorry for the victim again.

“It looks like she was really looking forward to being a mother,” he commented to his father.

“Yes, she was,” Sean agreed.

Shane shook his head over the waste of it all. “Shame she’s never going to get the chance.”

Sean agreed with his son completely. “Make it up to her.”

He didn’t even know the victim. Just how was he supposed to do something like that?

“And just how do you propose I do that, seeing the woman’s present condition?” he asked his father.

“Catch her killer,” Sean said simply.

“Right.” With a nod, Shane left the bedroom. He had just caught his very first homicide case, he thought, still trying to get used to the idea.

He needed to get busy.

Chapter 4

“S
orry about the accommodations.”

Ashley directed her apology over her shoulder. It was for the four-footed passenger riding inside the van portion of her police vehicle. With slots located on all four sides to allow for the flow of air into the rear of the official vehicle, she knew that Albert could hear her voice, and hopefully, it would calm him down a bit.

At the moment, though, she could hear the dog moving around all four corners of the area that was accessible to him. He was obviously looking for a way out, an escape from his confinement.

“They just want to make sure that you don’t have anything embedded in your fur that might have been accidentally left behind by your mistress’s killer.” Easing to a stop at the crosswalk as she waited for the light to turn green, she turned her head so that her voice would carry to the rear of the van. “And they probably want to swab your paws, too, even though you did do a lot of running around. The problem is that you ran through that poor woman’s blood, you know.”

In response to her low-key voice, she heard the animal continue to whine. And maybe it was her imagination, but he did seem to slow down a little—or at least he didn’t seem to be bouncing off the walls of the van as much as he initially had.

“I’ll be with you the entire time,” she promised the terrier. “And I’m not sure exactly what they’re planning on doing in the way of taking evidence, but I do know that it’s going to be totally painless. I promise,” Ashley added.

Mindful of the stressed-out animal, she kept up a steady, low, soothing monologue for the entire trip back to the precinct.

Once there, she parked in a completely different area than she ordinarily did when she returned the vehicle for the night. Rather than the hidden side lot, she turned her vehicle in toward the much larger front lot. The front entrance was closer to the elevator she needed to use to get to the crime scene unit’s lab. The entire facility was located in the basement of the building.

“We’re here,” she announced to the terrier as she opened the van’s rear door.

The second she did, the red-pawed terrier tried to bolt out of his temporary prison. Acting on instinct, Ashley made a quick grab for the animal’s dark green collar. Her quick reflexes caught the dog off guard and he wound up tripping over his own paws, falling backward.

She winced as she felt the poor dog’s unfortunate jolt telegraph itself through her arm.

“Now you see, if you just took it easy, that wouldn’t happen. Are you all right?” she asked, taking the small animal into her arms. He resisted at first, then seemed to surrender again, leaning against her and taking some solace from her warmth. “See? Much better, right?”

“You always talk to things that can’t answer you?”

Startled, she swung around only to find the detective she’d left behind in the apartment walking up to her. How had he gotten here so fast, and why was he so intent on harassing her?

“Number one, it’s a dog—a living, breathing entity—not a thing,” she pointed out. “And number two, there are ways to communicate other than talking.”

“He’s communicating with you via mental telepathy now?” Shane asked, not bothering to hide the amused, mocking note in his voice.

“Like with people,” she stubbornly pointed out, “a dog’s actions tell me a great deal about what he’s feeling.”

This was growing more and more unbelievable to him. Was this petite fireball really serious?

“So now we’re dealing with a dog’s feelings?” he asked sarcastically.

Instead of answering the detective’s question, Ashley had one of her own to ask him. “Don’t you have some suspect to harass, or some clues to follow up on? I wouldn’t want to take you away from your important work, Detective.”

“Right now, the best clues might very well be on that ill-tempered dog you’re holding on to,” he informed her glibly. And then he became serious. “Why don’t you drop off the mutt in the lab downstairs, and then I’ll take your official statement?”

She had no intention of complying since she’d already decided on another path. “Number one, Albert’s not a mutt, he’s a Jack Russell terrier.”

“Whatever.” He shrugged it off. To him, dogs came in just three varieties. Small dogs, medium dogs and large dogs.

“Number two, I have an alternate suggestion for you. How about I take Albert to the lab, have them do their tests and then, when they’re finished with him, I’ll come back and talk to you afterward.”

“Are you just trying to be difficult?” he asked.

The way she saw it, she was doing her best to be cooperative. “I promised Albert that I wouldn’t leave him alone at the lab.” And then she smiled innocently at Shane. “Making things difficult for you is just an added bonus.”

“You
promised
Albert,” he repeated incredulously, fairly certain—although, given who he was dealing with, he wasn’t positive—that she
had
to be kidding.

“Yes. And I don’t want him not to trust me,” she told him. She could tell by his expression what Cavanaugh thought of that, but then, the detective really wasn’t her first concern. The traumatized dog was. “If I break my word, Albert will just become that much harder to deal with.”

He stared at her, stunned. “Do you actually believe what you are saying?”

So now he was accusing her of making things up as she went along? “Of course I do,” she answered firmly. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because,” he responded, “for one thing, you make that mutt sound as if he had more intelligence than the average person.”

“I told you, he’s not a mutt,” she informed him tersely. “He’s a Jack Russell terrier, and as for having more intelligence than the average person, he probably does.” She punctuated her statement with a toss of her head. This man obviously knew
nothing
about dogs. “Jack Russell terriers are extremely intelligent canines. They’re also rather temperamental—” she shot Shane an accusing look “—also like some people I know.”

Shane let her walk to the building entrance ahead of him, then reached around her to hold the door open for her. He saw the suspicious look that immediately crossed her face.

The woman probably thought he was trying to make a move on her.

“Don’t worry, I’m just holding the door open for you, Officer St. James, nothing else. Speaking of being trusting, you’re not, are you?” Shane asked, his eyes meeting hers.

Ashley met his scrutinizing glance head-on just before she walked into the main lobby. “No, I’m not.”

He took a guess at the most logical reason she’d be distrusting. “What happened, you found out your boyfriend was cheating on you?”

There was no way she was about to let him know a single personal thing about her life. “I just haven’t found people in general to be trustworthy,” she replied coolly. “That’s why I like animals better. They don’t lie.”

There was something about the way she said it that caught Shane’s attention. He found his curiosity aroused. “Who lied to you, St. James?”

Her eyes narrowed. He could tell that it took everything she had not to tell him to butt out, that her personal life was none of his business. Instead, she apparently decided to play along. “Do you want that chronologically, alphabetically or arranged by height?”

He assumed she was just exaggerating, but there was no way he was going to accuse her of that. “Ouch, that many?”

“That many,” she confirmed, her expression remaining impassive.

Ignoring the detective, Ashley was about to sweep past the front desk and head directly to the elevator.

“Hold on a minute,” the sergeant manning the front desk called out. He looked uncertainly at the terrier in her arms and directed his question to Ashley. “Shouldn’t you be using the rear entrance, heading toward Animal Control with that mutt?” He nodded his head toward the terrier.

She could actually
feel
Cavanaugh’s grin as the sergeant referred to Albert as a mutt, just as he had. She ignored him.

At the sound of the new voice, the terrier became agitated and began to bark again.

“Shh, it’s okay, Albert,” she whispered softly to the dog before answering the sergeant. “I’m supposed to take him down to the crime lab.”

Shane intervened. “It’s okay, Murphy, she’s with me.”

She looked at Shane, surprised by his statement. “No, I’m not,” she contradicted.

“I’m taking you to the crime lab,” Shane informed her. “So that makes you with me.”

“I can find it on my own,” she retorted. “So that makes me with
me.
”

He looked at her for a long moment, then took a guess. “Ever been there before?”

She didn’t see what that had to do with it. It was just another department in the building. “No, but—”

“I have,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ll be your guide.”

Exactly how incompetent did he think she was? “It’s in the basement,” she pointed out, “not somewhere in the Northwest Territory, Sacagawea. I think I can find where I’m supposed to go.”

Shane laughed, as if that was a common mistake almost everyone made. “Trust me, it’s better with a guide,” he told her, taking hold of Ashley’s arm. The moment he did, the dog began to growl. Rather than pull back his hand, Shane just scowled at the animal. “You want to call him off?” It was more of a command than a question.

Which was exactly why Ashley bristled at his tone. “I think it might just be simpler for him if you let go of my arm.”

For a moment Shane debated standing his ground, but it hardly seemed worth it. So after a beat—just not to seem as if he was jumping through hoops—he removed his hand from her arm. “Have it your way.”

He found the half smile that rose to her lips irritating and yet oddly intriguing at the same time. Intriguing even though he’d made a silent promise to himself that he wasn’t going to even remotely approach this no-man’s land for a very long time to come.

Not until after he’d fully recovered from what Kitty had done, and most likely, not even then.

The way he saw it, one sliced-up ego was enough for any man to deal with in one lifetime.

Granted, he’d never had to go through something like this before, but when it happened, it had caught him so completely off balance, it had taken not just his very breath away, it had also taken away a great deal of his inner confidence.

“Thanks for your ‘permission,’ Detective,” Ashley retorted icily, “but I really don’t need it.”

He wasn’t put off by her tone. Instead he looked at her very closely and asked, “Exactly what
do
you need, Officer?”

She raised her chin, and Shane caught himself thinking that it made one hell of a tempting target. A target that was almost
too
tempting to resist.

“Space,” she informed him.

“Then you’re out of luck at the moment,” he informed her. “You won’t find overly much of that downstairs,” he answered. “In fact, it’s more like one great big maze until you get used to it.”

“And you’re used to it.” It wasn’t a question; it was an assumption since he was offering to play the big safari guide. She couldn’t see him making the offer if he had a tendency to get lost.

“Yeah.”

The elevator finally arrived, and Ashley walked in first. He was right behind her.

Because of her upbringing—or more accurately, the lack of it, Ashley had learned to pick her battles. Otherwise, life became one huge battleground and after a while, she lost her perspective. That guaranteed her to be the major loser in any confrontation.

“Okay,” she said as she pressed the button on the bottom. The doors closed, and the elevator began to go down.

“Okay what?” he challenged, waiting for her to be flippant or perhaps even painfully specific. He was beginning to learn that she wasn’t as easily readable as he’d initially thought.

Rather than give him any kind of an answer he could understand, Ashley lifted one shoulder in a half shrug and said, “Just okay.”

By the time she said that, the elevator had made the short trip from the first floor down to the basement. The silvery doors slid open. Eager to put any distance she could between them, Ashley hurried through the doors before they were even completely parted.

She looked around the immediate area. She hated to admit it, but Cavanaugh was right. It
did
look like a maze down here. A narrow maze that offered her two directions to go. Which way did she go? Neither wall was labeled to make it easy for anyone not intimately familiar with the lab’s layout.

She looked at Shane, waiting for the detective to come through and tell her where the lab she needed to go to with Albert was located. After all, wasn’t that the whole reason he’d said he was accompanying her to begin with?

Guessing what was going on in her head right now, Shane savored the moment. “Don’t know which direction to take, do you?”

Wiping the smirk off a detective’s face wouldn’t be a good career move at this point of her life, Ashley thought darkly. Unlike the fine young detective, she didn’t have a family name to fall back on or a well-placed superior to take up her side.

But God, removing that smirk from his lips would feel good.

Nevertheless, mindful of the consequences, she restrained herself and answered, “Eventually, there has to be a sign, but in the interest of not wasting your precious time watching me try to find it, why don’t you just tell me which way to go?”

For two cents, he might, Shane couldn’t help thinking. But that wasn’t going to move this case along an inch—although it undoubtedly would be very soul-satisfying.

Nevertheless, when he pointed in response to her question, it was to the right. He wasn’t about to plant a red herring or to play a practical joke on this less than jovial woman.

“That way.”

Her “Thank you” in response was so cold, he thought he was in danger of getting frostbite despite the fact that it was just September, and they were in the middle of a Santa Ana condition. The devil winds were blowing in hot and merciless from the desert.

He kept a smile plastered on his lips as he replied, “Don’t mention it.”

Don’t worry, I don’t intend to do it more than once,
she silently told him, keeping her arms wrapped around the terrier to afford the animal as much of a feeling of security as she could.