Cavanaugh Reunion (4 page)

“That it was. On the heels of a tough day,” she added. She hated not being able to come up with an answer, to
have unsolved cases pile up on top of one another like some kind of uneven pyramid.

Captain John Lawrence looked at her with compassion. “Why don’t you go home, Kansas?”

“I’m almost done,” she told him.

His eyes swept over her and he shook his head. “Looks to me like you’re almost done
in
.” Lawrence nodded toward the building they’d just walked out of. “This’ll all still be here tomorrow morning, Kansas. And you’ll be a lot fresher. Maybe it’ll make more sense to you then.”

Kansas paused to look back at the building and sighed. “Burning buildings will never make any sense to me,” she contradicted. “But maybe you’re right about needing to look at this with fresh eyes.”

“I’m always right,” Lawrence told her with a chuckle. “That’s why they made me the captain.”

Kansas grinned. “That, and don’t forget your overwhelming modesty.”

“You’ve been paying attention.” His eyes crinkled, all but disappearing when he smiled.

“Right from the beginning, Captain Lawrence,” she assured him.

Captain Lawrence had been more than fair to her, and she appreciated that. She’d heard horror stories about other houses and how life became so intolerable that female firefighters wound up quitting. Not that she ever would. It wasn’t in her nature to quit. But she appreciated not having to make that choice.

Looking down, she realized that she was even more covered with dust and soot than before. She attempted
to dust herself off, but it seemed like an almost impossible task.

“I’ll have a preliminary report on your desk in the morning,” she promised.

Lawrence tapped her on the shoulder, and when she looked at him quizzically, he pointed up toward the sky. “It already is morning.”

“Then I’d better go home and start typing,” she quipped.

“Type later,” Lawrence ordered. “Sleep now.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a nag, Captain Lawrence?”

“My wife,” he answered without skipping a beat. “But then, what does she know? Besides, compared to Martha, I’m a novice. You ever want to hear a pro, just stop by the house. I’ll drop some socks on the floor and have her go at it for you.” He looked at her. “I don’t want to see you until at least midday.”

“‘O, Captain! my Captain!’” Throwing her wrist against her forehead in a melodramatic fashion, Kansas quoted a line out of a classic poem by Walt Whitman that seemed to fit here. “You’ve hurt my feelings.”

He gave her a knowing look. “Can’t hurt what you don’t have.”

“Right,” she murmured.

She’d deliberately gone out of her way to come across like a militant fire investigator, more macho than the men she worked with. There was a reason for that. She didn’t want to allow
anything
to tap into her feelings. By her reckoning, there had to be an entire reservoir of tears and emotions she had never allowed herself to access because she was sincerely afraid that if she ever
did, she wouldn’t be able to shut off the valve. It was far better never to access it in the first place.

Heading to her car, she put her hand into her pocket for the key…and touched the cell phone she’d discovered instead. She took it out and glanced down at it. She supposed that she could just drop it off at O’Brien’s precinct. But he
had
looked concerned about losing the phone, and if she hadn’t plowed into him like that, he wouldn’t have lost the device.

Kansas frowned. She supposed she owed O’Brien for that.

She looked around and saw that there was still one person with the police department on the premises. Not pausing to debate the wisdom of her actions, she hurried over to the man. She was fairly certain that the chief of detectives would know where she could find the incorrigible Detective O’Brien.

“I could drop it off for you,” Brian Cavanaugh volunteered after the pretty fire investigator had approached him to say that she’d found Ethan’s cell phone.

She looked down at the smoke-streaked device and gave the chief’s suggestion some thought. She
was
bone-tired, and she knew that the chief would get the phone to O’Brien.

Still, she had to admit that personally handing the cell phone to O’Brien would bring about some small sense of closure for her. And closure was a very rare thing in her life.

“No, that’s all right. I’ll do it,” she told him. “If you could just tell me where to find him, I’d appreciate it.”

“Of course, no problem. I have the address right here,” he told her.

Brian suppressed a smile as he reached into his inside pocket for a pen and a piece of paper. Finding both, he took them out and began writing the address in large, block letters.

Not for a second had he doubted that that was going to be her answer.

“Here you go,” he said, handing her the paper.

This, he thought, was going to be the start of something lasting.

E
than wasn’t a morning person, not by any stretch of the imagination. He never had been. Not even under the best of circumstances, coming off an actual full night’s sleep, something that eluded him these days. Having less than four hours in which to recharge had left him feeling surly, less than communicative and only half-human.

So when he heard the doorbell to his garden apartment ring, Ethan’s first impulse was to just ignore it. No one he knew had said anything about coming by at a little after six that morning. and it was either someone trying to save his soul—a religious sect had been making the rounds lately, scattering pamphlets about a better life to come in their wake—or the neighbor in the apartment catty-corner to his who had been pestering him with everything from a clogged drain to a key stuck in the ignition of her car, all of which he finally realized were just flimsy pretexts to see him. The woman, a very
chatty brunette who wore too much makeup and too little clothing, had invited him over more than a dozen times, and each time he’d politely but firmly turned her down. By the time the woman had turned up on his doorstep a fifth time, his inner radar had screamed, “Run!” Two invitations were hospitable. Five, a bit pushy. More than a dozen was downright creepy.

When he didn’t answer the first two rings, whoever was on his doorstep started knocking.

Pounding was actually a more accurate description of what was happening on the other side of his door.

Okay, he thought, no more Mr. Nice Guy. Whoever was banging on his door was going to get more than just a piece of his mind. He wasn’t in the mood for this.

Swinging the door open, Ethan snapped, “What the hell do you want?” before he saw that it wasn’t someone looking to guide him to the Promised Land, nor was it the pushy neighbor who wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was the woman he’d met at the fire. The one, he’d thought, whose parents had a warped sense of humor and named her after a state best known for a little girl who’d gone traveling with her house and a dog named Toto.

“To give you back your cell phone,” Kansas snapped back in the same tone he’d just used. “Here.” She thrust the near-fried object at him.

As he took it, Kansas turned on her heel and started to walk away.
March away
was actually more of an accurate description.

It took Ethan a second to come to. “Wait, I’m sorry,” he called out, hurrying after her to stop her from leaving. “I’m not my best in the morning,” he apologized.

Now there was a news flash. “No kidding,” she quipped, whirling around to face him. “I’ve seen friendlier grizzlies terrorizing a campsite on the Discovery Channel.”

With a sigh, he dragged his hand through his unruly hair. “I thought you were someone else.”

She laughed shortly. “My condolences to ‘someone else.’” Obviously, it was true: no good deed really did go unpunished, Kansas thought.

But as she started to leave again, her short mission of reuniting O’Brien with his missing cell phone completed, the detective moved swiftly to get in front of her.

“You want to come in?” he asked, gesturing toward his apartment behind him.

Kansas glanced at it, and then at him. She was bone-weary and in no mood for a verbal sparring match. “Not really. I just wanted to deliver that in person, since, according to you, I was the reason you lost it in the first place.”

Ethan winced slightly. Looking down at the charred device, he asked, “Where did you find it?”

“It was lying on the floor just inside the building.” Because he seemed to want specifics, she took a guess how it had gotten there. “Someone must have accidentally kicked it in.” She looked down at the phone. It did look pretty damaged. “I don’t think it can be saved, but maybe the information that’s stored on it can be transferred to another phone or something.” She punctuated her statement with a shrug.

She’d done all she could on her end. The rest was up to him. In any case, all she wanted to do was get home, not stand here talking to a man wearing pajama
bottoms precariously perched on a set of pretty damn terrific-looking hips. Their initial encounter last night had given her no idea that he had abs that would make the average woman weak in the knees.

The average woman, but not her, of course. She wasn’t that shallow. Just very, very observant.

With effort, she raised her eyes to his face.

Ethan frowned at the bit of charred phone in his hand. They had a tech at the precinct who was very close to a magician when it came to electronic devices. If anyone could extract something from his fried phone, it was Albert.

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” he told her.

“That’s me, thoughtful,” Kansas retorted. It was too early for him to process sarcasm, so he just let her response pass. “Well, I’ll see you—”

Ethan suddenly came to life. Shifting again so that he was once more blocking her path, he asked, “Have you had breakfast yet?”

Kansas blinked. “Breakfast?” she echoed. “I haven’t had
dinner
yet.” She’d been at the site of the women’s shelter fire this entire time. And then she replayed his question in her head—and looked at him, stunned. “Are you offering to cook for me, Detective O’Brien?”

“Me?” he asked incredulously. “Hell, no.” Ethan shook his head with feeling. “That wouldn’t exactly be paying you back for being nice enough to bring this over to me. No, I was just thinking of taking someone up on a standing invitation.”

And just what did that have to do with her? Kansas wondered. The man really wasn’t kidding about
mornings not being his best time. His thought process seemed to be leapfrogging all over the place.

“Well, you go ahead and take somebody up on that standing invitation,” she told him, patting his shoulder. “And I’ll—”

He cut her off, realizing he hadn’t been clear. “The invitation isn’t just for me. It applies to anyone I want to bring with me.”

She looked at him. Suspicion crept in and got a toehold. Ethan O’Brien was more than mildly good-looking. Tall, dark, with movie-star-chiseled features and electric-blue eyes, he was the type of man who made otherwise reasonable, intelligent women become monosyllabic, slack-jawed idiots when he entered a room. But she’d had her shots against those kinds of men. She’d been married to one and swiftly divorced from him, as well. The upshot of that experience was that she only made a mistake once, and then she learned enough not to repeat it.

Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“It’s easier to show you. Wait here,” Ethan told her, backing into the apartment. “I’ve just got to get dressed and get my gun.”

“Now there’s a line that any woman would find irresistible,” she murmured to herself, then raised her voice as she called after him, “If it’s all the same to you, Detective—” not that she cared if it was or not “—I’ll just be on my way.”

Ethan turned from his doorway, still very much underdressed. It was getting harder and harder for her to focus only on his face. “The invitation’s for breakfast
at my uncle’s house,” he told her. “Dozens of chairs, no waiting.” The quote belonged to Andrew.

She had to admit that O’Brien had made her mildly curious. “What’s he run, a diner?”

He had a feeling Andrew would have gotten a kick out of the question. “Very nearly. I’ve only been a couple of times,” he confessed. “But the man’s legend doesn’t do him justice.”

“I’m sure,” she murmured. Ethan had the distinct feeling he was being brushed off. Her next words confirmed it. “But all I want to do right now is crawl into bed. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just take a rain check.”

Where this tinge of disappointment had come from was a complete mystery to him. He was only trying to thank her for reuniting him with his phone, nothing more. Ethan chalked it up to having his morning shaken up. “If I tell him that, he’ll hold you to it. He’ll expect you to come for breakfast sometime soon,” Ethan added when she made no comment.

Like she believed that.

Kansas knew she should just let the matter drop, but it annoyed her that this walking stud of a detective thought she was naive enough to believe him. She deliberately pointed out the obvious.

“Your uncle has no idea who I am.” And it was mutual, since she had no idea who this “Uncle Andrew” and his so-called legend were.

“Uncle Andrew’s the former chief of police,” O’Brien informed her. “He makes a point of knowing who
everyone
is when it comes to the police and fire departments.”

This was something she was going to look into, if for no other reason than to be prepared in case she ever bumped into Detective Stud again.

“I consider myself duly warned,” she replied. “Now, unless you want me falling asleep on your doorstep, I’m going to have to go.”

Maybe not the doorstep, Ethan thought, but he certainly wouldn’t mind finding her—awake or asleep—in his bed. He had a hunch, though, that she wouldn’t exactly appreciate him vocalizing that right now.

“Sure. I understand. Thanks again,” he said, holding up the phone she’d brought to him.

Kansas merely nodded and then turned and walked quickly away before O’Brien found something else he wanted to talk about. She headed toward the vehicle she’d left in guest parking.

Closing his hand over the charred phone, Ethan watched the sway of the fire investigator’s hips as she moved. It was only when he became aware of the door of the apartment cattycorner to his opening that he quickly beat a hasty retreat before his neighbor stepped out and tried to entice him with yet another invitation. Last time she’d come to the door wearing a see-through nightgown. The woman spelled trouble any way you looked at it.

Andrew smiled to himself when he looked up to the oven door and saw the reflection of the man entering his state-of-the-art kitchen through the back door.

“C’mon in, little brother.” Andrew turned from the tray of French toast he’d just drizzled a layer of powdered sugar on. His smile widened. He knew better
than anyone how hectic and busy the life of a chief could be. “It’s been a long time since you dropped by for breakfast.” Maybe he was taking something for granted he shouldn’t. “You
are
dropping by for breakfast, aren’t you?”

Brian moved his shoulders vaguely, trying to appear indifferent despite the fact that the aroma rising up from his brother’s handiwork had already begun making him salivate—and food had never been all that important to him.

“I could eat,” he answered.

“If breakfast isn’t your primary motive, what brings you here?” Andrew asked, placing two thick pieces of toasted French bread—coated and baked with egg batter, a drop of rum and nutmeg—onto a plate on the counter and moving it until it was in front of his brother.

Brian took the knife and fork Andrew silently offered. “I wanted to see if you’d gotten over it.”

Andrew slid onto the counter stool next to his younger brother. “‘It’?” he repeated in confusion. “Someone say I was sick?”

“Not sick,” Brian answered, trying not to sigh and sound like a man who’d died and gone to heaven. His wife, Lila, was a good cook, but not like this. “Just indifferent.”

Rather than being clarified, the issue had just gotten more muddied. “What the hell are you talking about, Brian?”

Brian’s answer came between mouthfuls of French toast. He knew it was impossible, but each bite seemed to be better than the last.

“About not answering when someone calls to you.”
He paused to look at his older brother. The brother he’d idolized as a boy. “Now, my guess is that you’re either going deaf, or something’s wrong.”

Andrew frowned slightly. None of this was making any sense to him. “My hearing’s just as good as it ever was, and if there’s something wrong, it’s with this so-called story of yours.”

Putting down his fork, Brian looked around to make sure that his sister-in-law wasn’t anywhere within earshot. He got down to the real reason he’d come. Lowering his voice, he said, “I came here to tell you to get your act together before it’s too late.”

This was just getting more and more convoluted. “Explain this to me slowly,” he instructed his brother. “From the top.”

Brian sighed, pushing the empty plate away. “I saw you with that woman.”

“Woman?” Andrew repeated, saying the word as if Brian had just accused him of being with a Martian. “What woman? Where?” Before Brian could elaborate, Andrew cut in, concerned. He knew how hard Brian worked. “Brian, maybe it’s time to start considering early retirement. We both know that this job can eat you alive if you let it. You have a lot to live for. Lila, your kids, Lila’s kids—”

This time Brian cut Andrew off. “This has nothing to do with the job, and I’m well aware of my blessings. I’m just concerned that maybe you’re taking yours for granted.” He hated being his brother’s keeper. Andrew was always the moral standard for the rest of them. But after the other day, he knew he had to say something. “I know what I saw.”

Andrew sighed. “And what is it that you
think
you saw?”

He’s actually going to make me say it,
Brian thought, upset about having been put in this position. “You, walking into the Crystal Penguin, with another woman.”

“The Crystal Penguin?” Andrew repeated incredulously. The Crystal Penguin was an overpriced restaurant that didn’t always deliver on its promises of exquisite dining experiences. “Why would I go to a restaurant? And if I did go to one, it certainly wouldn’t be a restaurant that overcharges and undercooks.”

That’s what he would have thought if someone had come to him with this story. But he’d been a witness to this. “I saw you, Andrew.”

Andrew didn’t waste his breath protesting that it wasn’t possible. “And just when did this ‘sighting’ occur?”

Brian had been sitting on this for several days now, and it was killing him. “Last Friday evening. At about seven-thirty.”

“I see.” His expression was unreadable. “Why didn’t you come up and talk to me?”

He almost had, then decided to restrain himself. “Because you’re my older brother and I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

And then Brian delivered what in his estimation was the knockout blow.