Cavanaugh Rules (18 page)

“Why?” she wanted to know. “Were you planning on using a secret weapon to put the fire out? Maybe huff and puff until you blew it all out? Or did you have something else in mind?” she asked, her eyes dipping down so that they took in the lower half of his frame. Her meaning was clear.

He didn’t have time for this, Ethan thought in exasperation. He didn’t have time to argue with a bull-headed woman who was obviously braver than she was smart. His guess was that she probably had a firefighter in the family. Maybe her father or a brother she was attempting to emulate for some unknown reason.

Ethan frowned. Why was it always the pretty ones who were insane? he wondered. Maybe it was just nature’s way of leveling the playing field.

In any case, he needed to start asking questions, to start interviewing the survivors to find out if they’d seen or heard anything suspicious just before the fire broke out.

And he needed, he thought, to have the rest of his team out here. While his captain applauded initiative, he frowned on lone-ranger behavior.

Moving away from the woman who was giving him the evil eye, Ethan reached into his pocket to take out his cell phone—only to find that his pocket was empty.

“Damn,” he muttered under his breath.

He remembered shoving the phone into his pocket and feeling it against his thigh as he’d started to run into the burning shelter. He slanted a look back at the woman. He must have dropped it when she’d knocked him down at the building’s entrance.

Kansas frowned. “What?”

Ethan saw that she’d bitten off the word as if it had been yanked out of her throat against her will. For a second, he thought about just ignoring her, but he needed to get his team out here, which meant that he needed a cell phone.

“I lost my cell phone,” he told her, then added, “I think I must have lost it when you ran into me and knocked me down.”

Ethan looked over in the general direction of the entrance, but the area was now covered with firefighters running hoses, weaving in and out of the building, conferring with other firemen. Two were trying to get the swelling crowd to stay behind the designated lines that had been put up to control the area. If his phone had been lost there, it was most likely long gone, another casualty of the flames.

“You ran into me,” she corrected him tersely.

Was it his imagination, or was the woman looking at him suspiciously?

“Why do you want your cell phone?” Kansas asked him. “Do you want to take pictures of the fire?”

He stared at her. Why the hell would he want to do that? The woman really was a nut job. “What would anyone want their phone for?” he responded in annoyance. “I want to make a call.”

Her frown deepened. She made a small, disparaging noise, then began to dig through her pockets. Finding her own phone, she grudgingly held it out to him.

“Here, you can borrow mine,” she offered. “Just don’t forget to give it back.”

“Oh, damn, there go my plans for selling it on eBay,” he retorted. “Thanks,” he said as he took the cell phone from her.

Ethan started to press a single key, then stopped himself. He was operating on automatic pilot and had just gone for the key that would have immediately hooked him up to the precinct. He vaguely wondered what pressing the number three on the woman’s phone would connect him to. Probably her anger-management coach, he thought darkly. Too bad the classes weren’t taking.

It took Ethan a few seconds to remember the number to his department. It had been at least six months since he’d had to dial the number directly.

He let it ring four times, then, when it was about to go to voice mail, he terminated the call and tried another number. All the while he was aware that this woman—with soot streaked across her face like war paint—was standing only a few feet away, watching him intently.

Why wasn’t she getting herself checked out? he wondered. And why was she scrutinizing him so closely? Did she expect him to do something strange? Or was she afraid he was going to make off with her phone?

No one was picking up. Sighing, he ended the second call. Punching in yet another number, he began to mentally count off the number of rings.

The woman moved a little closer to him. “Nobody home?” she asked.

“Doesn’t look that way.”

But just as he said it, Ethan heard the phone on the other end being picked up. He held his hand up because she’d begun to say something. He hoped she’d pick up on his silent way of telling her to keep quiet while he was trying to hear.

“Cavanaugh,” a deep voice on the other end of the line announced.

Great, like that was supposed to narrow things down. There were currently seventeen Cavanaughs on the police force—if he, Greer and Kyle were included in the count.

He thought for a moment, trying to remember the first name of the Cavanaugh who had been appointed head of this task force. Dax, that was it. Dax.

Ethan launched into the crux of his message. “Dax, this is Ethan O’Brien. I’m calling because there’s just been another fire.”

The terse statement immediately got the attention of the man he was calling—as well as the interest of the woman whose phone he was using.

Chapter 2

“G
ive me your location,” Dax Cavanaugh instructed. Then, before Ethan had a chance to give him the street coordinates, he offered, “I’ll round up the rest of the team. You just do what you have to do until we get there.”

The chief had appointed Dax to head up the team. Calling them was an assignment he could have easily passed on if he’d been filled with his own importance. But Ethan had come to learn that none of the Cavanaughs ever pulled rank, even when they could.

Ethan paused for a moment as he tried to recall the name of the intersection. When he did, he recited the street names, acutely aware that the woman to his right was staring at him as if she were expecting to witness some kind of a rare magic trick. Either that or she was afraid that he was going to run off with her cell phone.

“You want to call the chief, or should I?” Dax was asking, giving him the option.

Ethan thought it just a wee bit strange that Dax was referring to his own father by his official title, but he supposed that just verified the stories that the Cavanaughs went out of their way not to seem as if they were showing any favoritism toward one of their own.

“You can do it,” Ethan told him. “The chief’s most likely home by now, and you have his private number.”

Ethan shifted to get out of the way. The area was getting more and more crowded with survivors from the shelter and the firemen were still fighting the good fight, trying to contain the blaze and save at least part of the building.

“And you don’t?” Dax asked in surprise.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ethan saw the woman moving in closer to him. Apparently, she had no space issues. “No, why should I?”

“Because you’re family,” Dax said, as if Ethan should have known that. “My father lets everyone in the family have his home number.” To back up his claim, Dax asked, “Do you want it?”

Dax began to rattle off the numbers, but Ethan stopped him before he was even halfway through. “That’s okay, I’m going to have my hands full here until the rest of the team comes. You can do the honors and call him.”

The truth of it was, Ethan didn’t want to presume, no matter what Dax said to the contrary, that he was part of the Cavanaugh inner circle. Granted, he had Cavanaugh blood running through his veins, but the way he came to have it could easily be seen as a source of embarrassment, even in this day and age. Until he felt completely comfortable about it, he didn’t want to assume too much. Right now, he was still feeling his way around this whole new scenario he found himself in and wanted to make sure he didn’t antagonize either Andrew or Brian Cavanaugh.

Not that he would mind becoming a real part of the family. He wasn’t like Kyle, who initially had viewed every interaction with their newfound family with suspicion, anticipating hostile rejection around every corner. He and his sister, Greer, secretly welcomed being part of a large, respected family after all the years they’d spent on the other side of the spectrum, poor and isolated—and usually two steps in front of the bill collector.

But he wanted to force nothing, take nothing for granted. If Brian Cavanaugh wanted him to have his private number, then it was going to have to come from Brian Cavanaugh, not his son.

“Will do,” Dax was saying, and then he broke the connection.

The moment Ethan ended the call and handed the phone back to her, the blonde was openly studying him. “You a reporter?” she asked.

Damn, she was nosey. Just what was it that she was angling for? “No.”

The quick, terse answer didn’t seem to satisfy her curiosity. She came in from another angle. “Why all this interest in the fires?”

He answered her question with a question of his own. “Why the interest in my interest in the fires?” he countered.

Kansas lifted her chin. She was not about to allow herself to get sidetracked. “I asked first.”

Instead of answering, Ethan reached out toward her hair. Annoyed, she began to jerk her head back, but he stopped her with, “You’ve got black flakes in your hair. I was just going to remove them. Unless you want them there,” he speculated, raising a quizzical eyebrow and waiting for a response.

Something had just happened. Something completely uncalled-for. She’d felt a very definite wave of heat as his fingers made contact with her hair and scalp. Her imagination?

Kansas took a step back and did the honors herself, carelessly brushing her fingers through her long blond hair to get rid of any kind of soot or burnt debris she might have picked up while she was hustling the children out of the building. She supposed she should count herself lucky that it hadn’t caught fire while she was getting the children out.

“There,” she declared, her throat feeling tight for reasons that were completely beyond her. She tossed her head as a final sign of defiance. And then her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “Now, why are you so interested in the fires, and who did you just call?”

She was no longer being just nosey, he thought. There was something else at work here. But what? Maybe she was a reporter and that was why she seemed to resent his being one, as per her last guess.

If that was what she was, then she was out of luck. Nothing he disliked more than reporters. “Lady, just because I borrowed your phone doesn’t entitle you to my life story.”

She squared her shoulders as if she were about to go into battle. He braced himself. “I don’t want your life story. I just want an answer to my question, and it’s Kansas, not ‘lady.’ ”

Ethan’s eyebrows lifted in confusion. What the hell was she talking about? “What’s Kansas?”

Was she dealing with a village idiot, or was he just slow? “My name,” she emphasized.

Ethan cocked his head, trying to absorb this meandering conversation. “Your last name’s Kansas?”

She sighed. She was fairly certain he was doing this on purpose just to annoy her. “No, my
first
name is Kansas, and no matter how long you attempt to engage in this verbal shell game of yours, I’m not going to get sidetracked. Now, who did you call, and why are you so taken with this fire?” Before he could say anything, she asked him another question. “And what did you mean by ‘there’s been another one’?”

“The phrase ‘another one’ means that there’s been more than one.” He was deliberately goading her now. And enjoying it.

She said something under her breath that he couldn’t quite make out, but he gathered it wasn’t very favorable toward him.

“I know what the phrase means,” she retorted through gritted teeth. “I’ll ask you one more time—why are you so interested in the fires?”

“What happens after one more time?” Ethan wanted to know, amused by the woman despite himself. Irritating women usually annoyed the hell out of him—but there was something different about this one.

She drew herself up to her full height. “After one more time, I have you arrested.”

That
surprised him. “You’re a cop?” He thought he knew most of the people on the force, by sight if not by name. He’d never seen her before.

“No. I’m a fire investigator,” she informed him archly. “But I can still have you arrested. Clapped in irons would be my choice,” Kansas added, savoring the image.

“Kinky,” he commented. Damn, they were making fire investigators a hell of a lot prettier these days.
If
she was telling the truth. “Mind if I ask to see some identification?”

“And just so I know, who’s asking?” she pressed, still trying to get a handle on his part in all this.

It was a known fact that pyromaniacs liked to stick around and watch their handiwork until the object of their interest burnt down to the ground and there was nothing left to watch. Since she’d begun her investigations and discovered that the fires had been set, Kansas had entertained several theories as to who or what was behind all these infernos. She was still sorting through them, looking for something that would rule out the others.

“Ethan O’Brien,” he told her. She was still looking at him skeptically. He inclined his head. “I guess since you showed me yours, I’ll show you mine.” He took out his ID and his badge. “Detective Ethan O’Brien,” he elaborated.

Like his siblings, he was still debating whether he was going to change his last name the way Brian and his brother Andrew, the former chief of police and reigning family patriarch, had told them they were welcome to do.

He knew that Greer was leaning toward it, as were Brian’s four stepchildren who’d become part of the family when he’d married his widowed former partner. Kyle was the last holdout if he, Ethan, decided to go with the others. But he, Greer and Kyle had agreed that it would be an all-or-nothing decision for the three of them.

As for himself, he was giving the matter careful consideration.

“
You’re
a cop,” she concluded, quickly scanning the ID he held up.

“That I am,” Ethan confirmed, slipping his wallet back into his pocket. “I’m on the task force investigating the recent crop of fires that have broken out in Aurora.”

“They didn’t just ‘break out,’ ” she corrected him. “Those fires were all orchestrated, all set ahead of time.”

“Yes, I know,” Ethan allowed. He regarded her for a moment, wondering how much she might have by way of information. “How long have you been investigating this?”

There was only one way to answer that. “Longer than you,” she promised.

She seemed awfully cocky. He found himself itching to take her down a peg. Take her down a peg and at the same time clean the soot off her bottom lip with his own.

Careful, O’Brien,
he warned himself.
If anything, this is a professional relationship. Don’t get personally involved, not even for a minute.

“And you would know this how?” he challenged her. How would she know what was going on in his squad room?

“Simple. The fire department investigates every fire to make sure that it wasn’t deliberately set,” she answered him without missing a beat. “That would be something you should know heading into
your
investigation.”

He’d never been one of those guys who felt superior to the softer of the species simply because he was a man. In his opinion, especially after growing up with Greer, women were every bit as capable and intelligent as men. More so, sometimes. But he’d never had any use for people—male or female—who felt themselves to be above the law. Especially when they came across as haughty.

“Tell me,” he said, lowering his voice as if he were about to share a secret thought. “How do you manage to stand up with that huge chip on your shoulder?”

Her eyes hardened, but to his surprise, no choice names were attached to his personage. Instead, using the same tone as he just had, she informed him, “I manage just fine, thanks.”

“Kansas!” The fire chief, at least a decade older than his men and the young woman he called out to, hurried over to join them. Concern was etched into his features. “Are you all right?”

She flashed the older man a wide smile. “I’m fine, Chief,” she assured him.

The expression on the older man’s face said that he wasn’t all that sure. “Someone said you ran into the burning building.” He gestured toward the blazing building even as he leaned over to get a closer look at her face. “They weren’t kidding, were they?”

She shrugged, not wanting to call any more undue attention to herself or her actions. “I heard kids screaming—”

Chief John Lawrence cut her off as he shook his head more in concern than disapproval. “You’re not a firefighter anymore, Kansas,” he pointed out. “And you should know better than to run into a burning building with no protective gear on.”

She smiled and Ethan noted that it transformed her, softening her features and in general lighting up the immediate area around her. She was one of those people, he realized, who could light up a room with her smile. And frost it over with her frown.

It was never a good idea to argue with the fire chief. “Yes, I do, and I promise to do better next time,” she told him, raising her hand as if she were taking an oath. “Hopefully, there won’t be a next time.”

“Amen to that,” the chief agreed wholeheartedly. He had to get back to his men. The fire wasn’t fully contained yet. “You stay put here until things are cool enough for you to conduct your initial investigation,” he instructed.

The smile had turned into a grin and she rendered a mock salute in response to the man’s attempt at admonishing her. “Yes, sir.”

“Father?” Ethan asked the moment the chief had returned to his truck and his men.

Kansas turned toward him. He’d clearly lost her. “What?”

“Is the chief your father?” The older man certainly acted as if she were his daughter, Ethan thought.

Kansas laughed as she shook her head. “Don’t let his wife hear you say that. No, Captain Lawrence is just a very good friend,” she answered. “He helped train me, and when I wanted to get into investigative work, he backed me all the way. He’s not my dad, but I wouldn’t have minded it if he were.”

At least, Kansas thought, that way she would have known who her father was.

His curiosity aroused, Ethan tried to read between the lines. Was there more to this “friend” thing than met the eye? Lawrence was certainly old enough to be her father, but that didn’t stop some men. Or some women, especially if they wanted to get ahead.

“Friend,” Ethan echoed. “As in boyfriend?” He raised an eyebrow, waiting to see how she’d react.

She lifted her chin. “Unless you’re writing my biography, you don’t have the right to ask that kind of question,” she snapped.

Ethan’s smile never wavered. He had a hunch that this woman’s biography did
not
make for boring reading. “I’m not writing your biography,” he clarified. “But there are some things I need to know—just for the record.”

She bet he could talk the skin off a snake. “All right. For the ‘record’ I was the first one on the scene when the shelter began to burn—”

He’d already figured that part out. “Which is why I want to question you—at length,” he added before she could brush the request aside. “I need to know if you saw anyone or anything that might have aroused your suspicions.”