Читать книгу Cavanaugh Stakeout - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 16

Glaring down the bar at the woman who Devin had pointed out, Finn made his way over to her. Without thinking, he automatically brought the glass with him.

Once he reached her, Finn asked her point-blank in a low voice, “Are you stalking me?”

Granted Malone’s was open to the general public, but it was a known fact that this was where law-enforcement officers gathered. By definition, that meant that this was supposed to be a haven for cops, not the place where he could be confronted by someone from the outside.

Finn watched as the woman’s lips curved. She obviously saw some humor in this, but he certainly didn’t, he thought.

“Well, considering that I was already here when you walked in, if anything, I could ask you that question.” Nik cocked her head as she looked up at the detective innocently. “So, are you stalking me, Detective Cavanaugh?”

Finn gritted his teeth. “You know the answer to that.”

“Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that I don’t,” she answered. “Why don’t you pull up a stool and we’ll talk about it?” Nik gestured toward the empty stool next to hers. “Or about any subject you want, really. It doesn’t have to be about our mutual interest,” she told him.

Dark eyebrows drew together over the bridge of his nose. “We don’t have a mutual interest,” Finn informed her.

“Well, now, that’s not entirely true and you know it,” Nik pointed out sweetly. She paused then, fascinated as she studied his face. “Are you aware that your eyes shoot sparks when you hear something that annoys you?”

Finn laughed dryly as he assured her with feeling, “Oh, lady, I’m tired and frustrated and I am way past being annoyed.”

Nik shook her head. “You know, harboring feelings like that is really bad for your health, Detective,” she began, “if you want my advice—”

“I don’t,” he interrupted sharply.

Rather than back off, Nik continued as if he hadn’t said a thing, “I’d say that you should think about doing something about that.”

“Oh, I’m definitely thinking about it,” Finn assured her. “But unfortunately, what I’m thinking is against the law.”

Nik grinned as she lifted her glass to him, making another silent toast. “It’s reassuring to know you have a sense of humor,” she said.

There wasn’t even a hint of humor evident in Finn’s voice as he told her, “I wasn’t trying to be funny, Ko-val-ski.”

Nik nodded, as if she was evaluating his response to her. “Good deadpan, too,” she commented. Taking another sip of her drink, she waited until it wound down into her system, giving Finn enough time to relax a little—if that was even possible. “So, have you had time to think over my proposition?”

Just then, Miles Crawford, a detective with almost twenty years on the job, came up to the bar to get another refill. It was obviously not his first refill of the evening.

Crawford stumbled a little as he leaned against the counter and fixed Nik with a look. “If he doesn’t take you up on it, I’m free,” he told her.

Finn scowled at him. “Why don’t you try that again when you haven’t had a few too many, Crawford?” he suggested.

Crawford turned his head, then waited as his surroundings came back into focus. “Sorry, didn’t mean to tread on your territory,” he said, addressing Finn. “You Cavanaughs always do get the best pickings.”

That was not the impression he was trying to project. The scowl on Finn’s face intensified. “Nobody’s picking anybody and you owe the lady here an apology,” he informed Crawford.

“Yeah, yeah.” Crawford waved his hand at Finn. Leaning into Nik, he said, “Sorry you wound up with him.” Pushing his empty mug to the very edge of the counter, the older detective raised his voice and called out, “Fill her up, Devin.”

Finn pulled the empty mug over to his side. When Crawford glared accusingly at him, Finn said, “I think you’ve had enough for one night, Crawford. Why don’t I just call you a cab? You’re in no shape to drive anywhere.”

The other detective instantly took offense. “Who the hell died and made you boss of the world?”

“I did,” Devin informed his inebriated customer as he came up to Crawford’s end of the bar. “From where I’m standing,” he continued, “a cab sounds like a really good idea.”

Crawford’s scowl just grew deeper. “Don’t like other people driving me home, putting their hands all over me getting me in and out of the back seat of some guy’s cramped little car,” the police detective grumbled.

Devin spoke up. “It’s either that or sleeping it off on my sofa in the back office.” The bartender looked Crawford over, as if sizing him up. “You look a little big for the sofa.”

Resigned, Crawford sighed dramatically. “Okay, okay,” he said, surrendering. “Cab it is.”

“Smart. Hey, Dan, call this man a cab,” Devin called out to the man he had clearing off the tables.

“Sure thing, boss,” Dan McGuire answered. At six foot five, with a frame to match, it was easy to see that Devin had him doubling as a bouncer whenever the occasion arose. Luckily for Devin, it rarely did.

Exercising great care for a man his size, Dan slipped his arm around Crawford’s tilting form.

As Dan took the swaying detective in hand, Devin looked at Nik and aimed his apology at her. “Look, I’m sorry about that. The people here are usually a lot better behaved.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Nik assured the owner. “Trust me, I’ve been subjected to a great deal worse.” For a split second, she saw a look of mild interest flash in Finn’s dark green eyes, but then it receded as if it hadn’t existed at all. He was going to be a hard nut to crack, Nik thought.

Devin nodded in response to what she had just said. “Still, these are on me,” he told the woman and Finn, indicating the two tall foamy drinks before them on the bar.

With that, Devin moved away to give them the privacy he naturally assumed they were looking for.

Nik turned back toward Finn. “So?” she asked, waiting.

“So?” Finn questioned. Because of Crawford’s interjecting himself into the scene, he had lost the thread of whatever it was that she was asking him—and he was content to let it remain that way.

Because of the previous misunderstanding, Nik decided to reword her question. “Have you thought about what I said regarding our working together?” Before he could answer, she added, “Two heads are better than one, you know.”

Yeah, he’d thought about it, Finn thought. And he’d totally rejected the idea from the get-go. He knew she had to be bright enough to pick up on that. “You are annoyingly persistent, you know that?” he said to the woman.

Again, she smiled, as if they were sharing some sort of inside joke. “I think the word you mean is stubborn. Polish women are known to be very stubborn,” she told Finn. Before he could say anything, she added, “And if you think that I’m stubborn, you really should meet my sister.”

“I think I’ll just pass on that,” Finn told her in a flat tone. He hadn’t wanted to meet her, much less any other stray family member, he thought. All he wanted right now was just to get rid of her.

“Stubbornness really is an asset in my line of work,” Nik assured him. Hoping he might be weakening, she added, “You’ve got nothing to lose if we work together…and everything to gain.”

Finn finished off his beer in one long draw. It was clear to him that he was not about to get that peace of mind he’d come in for so he might as well leave.

“I’m not in the market for a hundred-pound headache,” he told her, putting his empty mug squarely down on the bar.

Nik considered his remark. He obviously was referring to her. “Flattering,” she called out to his back. “But I’m actually a hundred and twenty pounds.”

“Even worse,” Finn said over his shoulder as he walked out of Malone’s.

For a moment Nik thought about following him out and continuing to try to win him over, but although she was every bit as stubborn as she claimed, it wasn’t in her to try to wear him down by making a pest of herself. She was fairly confident that Cavanaugh would come around eventually.

And if he didn’t, she had other contacts to turn to. Contacts who would let her know if and when Finn Cavanaugh and his team made any headway in the search for Marilyn and why she’d been part of that carjacking.

She remained where she was, nursing her drink until she was certain that Cavanaugh had driven away, and then she left Malone’s.

The phone rang at a little after two o’clock in the morning, jarring Finn out of an unusually sound sleep. Focusing on the light his cell phone emitted, he was almost tempted to ignore it, thinking that that pushy woman had somehow gotten his phone number.

But being a cop was too ingrained in him to let his phone ring without answering it.

He picked up the cell and swiped open the screen. “Finn Cavanaugh,” he all but barked into the phone.

“Yeah, I know,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep, Cavanaugh, but I think you’re going to want to hear about this.” Recognition sank in. The voice belonged to the man who was sometimes his partner, Joe Harley.

Sleep instantly evaporated from his brain. Instincts honed on the job, as well as at family gatherings, told him this had to be about his current case.

“Go on,” he urged.

“It looks like that woman who carjacked the chief’s father’s car might have just added murder to her list of offenses,” Harley told him.

Maybe he was sleepy, Finn thought. He wasn’t processing what Harley had just told him. Taking a breath, he waited for the information to make sense. “Start from the beginning,” he insisted.

“Okay.” Harley paused, then said, “A homeless guy looking for food in a Dumpster behind a restaurant found more than he bargained for.”

Impatience flared. “Harley, I’m not in the mood for games.”

“You’re even less fun after midnight than you are before,” his occasional partner complained. Enunciating very slowly, Harley told him, “A homeless guy found the body of a woman. She’s been dead for less than a day,” he added.

The way Harley had worded it, the body didn’t belong to their suspect. So why—? “And you’re telling me this because—?”

“The dead woman was clutching a piece of paper in her hand,” Harley said. “CSI managed to get a print off it.” He paused dramatically. “Guess who that print matches?”

At this point, Finn was really having trouble holding on to his temper. “Surprise me,” he said between gritted teeth.

“It belongs to that girl you’re looking for in connection with your granddad’s mugging.”

Since this investigation had started, he had already corrected Harley three times, explaining that Seamus was his grandfather’s brother, not his grandfather. He decided that there was no point in restating that fact to Harley again. Besides, that wasn’t the important part.

“Where’s the dead woman now?” Finn asked, throwing off his covers and getting out of bed. There was no way he was going to be getting back to sleep at this point.

“They just took her body to the medical examiner for an autopsy.”

So far, that was standard procedure. “And where are you?” Finn asked.

“Still at the crime scene.” There was a pause and Finn assumed that the man was checking with someone, or looking at a street sign. “McFadden and Adams,” Harley added.

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Finn said, walking toward his closet to get his clothes.

“The CSI night-shift team is almost finished collecting all the data they found near and around the body,” Harley told him.

“Still want to see the crime scene for myself,” Finn said, juggling his phone against his ear as he pulled on his slacks. They might have overlooked something. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened, Finn thought.

Harley sighed. “Knew you’d feel that way. I’ll stay here.”

Almost dressed, Finn looked around for his shoes. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he promised.

“That’s about the only good thing about coming out at this time of night,” Harley responded. “There’s no traffic to hold you up.”

That didn’t mitigate the fact that he would have much rather slept through the night. “I’ll try to remember that,” Finn said just before he terminated Harley’s phone call.

Jake Newman, the head of the night-shift team, was just about to finish packing up so he and his people could leave, when Finn arrived. Newman’s perpetually pained look deepened as he looked up to see who had pulled up.

“Can I help you, Detective Cavanaugh?” the rather nondescript, slightly hunched man asked.

“Did you find out the victim’s name yet?” Finn asked as he came toward Newman.

Instead of answering him, Newman had a question of his own. “Things rather slow in the robbery division, I take it?” he asked as he snapped shut his kit.

Finn didn’t care for the man’s attitude, but he wasn’t about to get into an argument with him if he could help it. “I have reason to believe that this is tied into Seamus Cavanaugh’s carjacking case.”

Newman sighed. He knew when to back off. “I won’t have any answers for you until I’ve had a chance to go over everything. I’ll leave anything I find for your uncle on the day shift.” Newman couldn’t help himself and let off one zinger. “Or do you people just operate by using mental telepathy?”

“No telepathy,” Finn replied in a voice that was completely devoid of any emotion. “Just the regular forms of communication.”

Newman frowned, picking up his case. “I’ll try to remember that,” the night-shift CSI leader said coldly.

Finn bit his tongue to keep from uttering a retort. Mainly he did it because he realized that the somewhat belligerent night-shift leader was using some of the same chip-on-his-shoulder comments that he had used when he’d talked to that stubborn insurance investigator.

He didn’t care for being on the receiving end, he thought.

And she probably didn’t care for it, either, Finn admitted. He supposed that he owed her some sort of an apology.

Later.

It took him until five in the morning to finish going over the crime scene to his own satisfaction, and also to stop wrestling with his conscience. He found the business card that the insurance investigator had given him. At the time, to keep from littering, he had shoved the card into his pocket. And then promptly forgot about its existence.

Because he’d changed his clothes, it had taken him a little while to locate the card. When he finally did, he called the number printed on it, expecting to talk to a recorded announcement at best. He was prepared to leave a message.

He wasn’t prepared to hear the phone on the other end ring only once before it was picked up. And he definitely wasn’t prepared to hear her voice breathing huskily in his ear. Nor was he expecting to feel that warm shiver dancing down his spine in response.

“Hello?” He had woken her up, he thought. Why that threaded a warm, sexy feeling through him was completely beyond him—and definitely not welcome.

Recovering, he asked, “Is this the pushy pain in the neck?”

Any trace of sleep on Nik’s end vanished instantly. “Detective Cavanaugh, how lovely to hear from you. What can I do for you?” she asked.

He heard rustling on the other end and assumed that she was getting out of bed. He instantly shut down that image and forced himself to focus on the reason he was calling. “You can wipe that smile off your face for openers.”

Nik grinned. “I’m not smiling, Detective.”

There was no way he was going to believe that. “Yeah, you are.”

“And what makes you say that?” she asked, looking for her clothes. She wasn’t the neatest person when it came to her own things.

“Because you know I’m calling you because I—” He paused as he forced himself to form the words. She deserved to know why he was calling.

“Because?” she prompted, waiting.

It took him another minute before he could get the words out without choking on them. “Because I might need your help.”