Cavanaugh Watch (10 page)

Sawyer took it all in. He’d heard worse. A hell of a lot worse. But this obviously upset her, so he tried to be sympathetic. “And you didn’t know?”

“Do I act like I knew?”

“No, you act like somebody just set fire to your whole world.”

That was exactly the way she felt. As if everything had just gone up in flames before her very eyes. Janelle laughed softly to herself, although there was no humor in the situation or in the sound of her laughter. As far as she was concerned, there was no humor in anything anymore.

And then her curiosity rallied, getting the better of her. She looked at him, wondering if he was just giving her lip service, or if there was more to it. “You sound as if you know what that’s like.”

Sawyer watched her for a long moment, then turned back toward the windshield. The taillights of passing cars gleamed like jewels in the night, winking at him, then going dormant.

“Yeah, I know what it’s like.”
And wish to God I didn’t.

Something in his voice got to her. Still, she didn’t think he was above using a ploy.

“How?” she asked. “How could you possibly know what it’s like suddenly not to be who you thought you were?”

“I don’t,” he agreed, his voice flat. “But I do know what it’s like to have your whole world incinerate right before your eyes.”

This was something he didn’t talk about. Not ever. Back in Los Angeles, the men he’d worked with knew what had happened only because of the incident report. Because of the crime stats.

The first officers on the scene had known that the twisted, broken body riddled with bullets they’d discovered in the car was his fiancée, Allison. Until some wild-eyed kid, out for revenge, had picked just that minute to drive by and spray the air with bullets.

Cutting short the life of the sweetest person he had ever known.

“Go on,” she urged, daring Sawyer to find a way to equate his pain to hers.

Sawyer heard the challenge in her voice, but it didn’t work on him. He wasn’t the type that needed a challenge, or felt triumphant when he won, which was often. Winning was just something that he did as a matter of course. And yet he would only get through to her by showing her how she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t the only one life had kicked square in the face with a cleated combat boot.

“My fiancée was killed in a drive-by shooting.”

She stared at him. Hearing the words but not quite absorbing them. “You were engaged?”

“Yeah.” For all of three weeks. Happiest three weeks of his life. The only happy three weeks of his life, he amended. “She was a lawyer. Like you,” he added, his tone ironic. “Except she represented the other side. Legal aide was her passion, her cause. Like her father.” And if it hadn’t been for that old man instilling all that in her from the time she could walk, Allison would still be alive today. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

For the first time, Janelle connected the sadness she’d seen in his eyes to an event. Despite the ache in her chest, she felt her sympathy being aroused. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” Sawyer said nothing more than that. The subject was closed and he wasn’t about to revisit it. After a beat, he turned the key to the right and started up the car again. “You never had a clue about your…the truth?”

Janelle didn’t have to review her life; she knew it by heart. There’d never been anything to indicate that she was anyone other than Brian Cavanaugh’s daughter. She’d never been treated any differently.

She shook her head. “None.”

Sawyer went to the next piece of the puzzle. “When Marco Wayne called you that first day in your office, did he—”

“No. He didn’t hint at anything. I was just asking my father—the chief,” she amended. God, this was going to be hard for her. “For advice. I told him that Wayne called, which was when he said he wanted to see me outside the office because he had something to tell me. I never dreamed…” Her voice trailed off. Clearing her throat, she continued. “He said he thought I should take myself off the case because if the defense ever got wind of this…” Again, her voice trailed off and she laughed softly to herself. “I thought he was talking about the phone call.”

“But the chief never mentioned anything about you not being his daughter before?” Sawyer pressed. “Never hinted at it?”

“No,” she cried. This had come out of the blue, hitting her right between the eyes.

“How did he treat you?”

“What do you mean, how did he treat me?” she asked sharply.

He made a quick left just as the light began to turn red. “When you were growing up under his roof, how did the chief treat you? Did he ignore you, yell at you, make you into his whipping post—”

Janelle took offense for the man she had loved from the first breath she ever took. “No, he did not make me his whipping post.”

Sawyer continued his line of questioning as if he didn’t hear the annoyance in her voice. “Did you feel he loved you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, which made everything that much more painful.

He nodded, taking it all in. “So, what’s your problem?” he asked.

“My problem is that he lied to me.”

“No,” Sawyer corrected, “he didn’t tell you. That’s different.”

“That’s what he said.” Maybe it was a male thing. “But the truth was buried.”

Sawyer approached it from the other side. “Ever think that maybe he didn’t like to think about the truth?” This time, rather than pressing down on the accelerator, he came to a stop at the light. “That he loved you despite everything? Takes a big man to do that. To treat you like his own flesh and blood when you weren’t. I’d stop feeling sorry for myself if I were you and count my blessings.”

He thought of his own childhood. He’d essentially grown up without parents. Without love. “Not all of us have fathers who act as if they give a rat’s behind about our welfare. Even if we do happen to share the same DNA code.”

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, drying the tears. Though she was angry at Sawyer’s intrusive questions, she was even more angry that she had fallen apart in front of him. And angriest of all because, underneath the hurt, she knew he was right. It still hurt with the searing pain of a new wound, and only time would make that go away. And only time would help her come to terms with who she was in the scheme of things.

Would Brian Cavanaugh even want her around now that she knew? Now that the secret was finally out?

She glanced at the rocklike profile of the man to her left. He was abrupt, brash and direct. And for some reason, she couldn’t fault him for it. But that didn’t mean she had to like the way he went about things. “Anyone ever tell you that you belong in the diplomatic corps?”

“There’s been talk,” he told her with a completely straight face as he turned her car into her apartment complex.

It started to rain.

Chapter 10

B
y the time they reached her door, they were close to drenched. The sky had just opened up and poured.

As she raced for her door and shelter, Janelle couldn’t help thinking that this rain was a metaphor for her life. The forecast had made no mention of rain and the sky had been clear all day.

The downpour had come out of nowhere. Just like her father’s revelation.

Her father. What did she call him now? Brian? Chief? He wasn’t really her dad anymore. And yet, in the truest sense of the word, in the truest spirit, he really was.

Damn, she had never been this confused in her entire life.

After getting the door open, she walked in and immediately flipped on the light switch. Without thinking, she shook her head, sending raindrops flying from her hair.

“I’ll get a towel,” she volunteered as she hurried over to the small linen closet just outside her bedroom door.

Sawyer shucked his jacket and threw it over the back of the closest kitchen chair. His jeans adhered to him like a second skin. “Make it a big one.”

It took her a second to realize what he was saying. Of course, she hadn’t meant they’d be making use of the same towel at the same time.

“I’ll get two towels,” she corrected. Once she pulled them out, she crossed back to him and handed Sawyer a large, light blue bath towel. “You should have gone to your car,” she told him as she rubbed the towel against her hair.

Sawyer did what he could with the towel, but it was clear they were both going to have to change their clothes. He looked over toward her, trying not to notice that her blouse became transparent when wet.

“Don’t like me dripping on your rug?”

“It’s not that.” She rubbed the towel against her face, then retired it. “But you could be on your way home by now.”

He had a change of clothes here, and there was no reason for him to leave tonight. He supposed that she was too upset to see the situation logically. “Nothing at home that won’t keep.”

Finished for now, Sawyer draped the towel around his neck, wrapping his fingers around the ends. It amazed him how wet they’d gotten in just a short hundred yards. Especially her. Janelle’s clothing was sticking to her torso in ways that fired a man’s imagination. He would have been less than human not to notice. And superhuman if it didn’t affect him.

He allowed himself a moment, then raised his eyes to hers. “I’d better change into something dry. You, too,” he advised.

She shrugged. Right now, it was all she could do to concentrate on breathing. Anything else seemed like too much of an effort. It took several seconds for her brain to catch up and process what he’d just said. Sawyer was going to change clothes. But he’d only get them wet again when he went to his car.

The light dawned. “Aren’t you going home?”

He looked at her patiently, an adult allowing a child to prattle on. “No.”

There was no reason for him to stay any longer, although she had to admit that the prospect of being alone with her thoughts was not nearly as desirable as it had been half an hour ago.

“But I don’t need a bodyguard anymore,” she reminded him. “I’m going to ask the D.A. to take me off the case.” With any luck, citing “personal” reasons would be enough for Kleinmann. She was not about to tell him the real reason.

Damn, but he wished she’d go and change already. Or stand where the light didn’t bathe over her body that way. “Wayne’s men don’t know that,” Sawyer replied mildly. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Except for everything,” she whispered. Her knees felt like soggy cotton and she sank down on the sofa.

Sawyer watched as a damp imprint formed on the cushion around the perimeter of her thighs. He doubted she was even aware of it. But he was. Damn, but he was.

He forced his thoughts elsewhere. “If the chief hadn’t told you about it, nothing would have changed,” he told her.

“But he did tell me.”

“That’s the only thing that’s changed,” Sawyer pointed out. “Your knowledge of the situation. The chief isn’t going to suddenly treat you differently, your brothers aren’t. Nobody’s going to step out of the equation if you don’t take yourself out of it first.”

She supposed it made sense. She wanted to believe what he was saying to her. But she just felt so shell-shocked, it was hard to hang on to any sort of stabilizing thought.

Janelle looked at him, wondering why he was being so nice to her. He’d always acted as if he couldn’t wait for this assignment to be over; now he was comforting her. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” he replied simply. “I just don’t like illogical behavior.” And he liked the lost look in her eyes even less. He supposed he might still react to the human condition. There was no other reason why he was trying to get her to come around. “Now get up off the sofa and get out of those wet clothes.”

He watched the smallest hint of a smile bloom on her lips. “Are you coming on to me, Detective?”

Sawyer shoved his hands into his back pockets. They were wet and made the relatively innocuous movement more difficult.

“When I do, Cavanaugh, you won’t have to ask,” was all he said.

When.
Not
if, when.

Janelle had no idea why, in the midst of all the turmoil swirling around her, that single word somehow made her feel better. She was punchy and tired. And hollow beyond belief.

With a nod, Janelle rose to her feet. She noticed he made no effort to back away, no effort to either give her her space, or take it over. He remained where he was. Watching her walk out.

She paused and turned around just before she opened her bedroom door. “Detective.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Was it her imagination or was his voice softer somehow? Gentler. Right now, she doubted every single thing she’d thought she once knew. She needed an anchor and there wasn’t one. But he’d been kind when it wasn’t in his nature, and she appreciated this.

“Thank you.” She closed the door to her room before he could respond.

Stephen Woods looked at her incredulously. She would have rather gone to Kleinmann with this, but there’d been a sudden personal emergency. Something about the D.A.’s mother taking a turn for the worse. Janelle knew that the woman had been ill for some time. Kleinmann and his wife had left for New York on a predawn flight, forcing Janelle to seek out Woods instead.

“You want to be taken off of the Wayne case?” Woods asked.

Want
was the wrong word, she thought.
Need
was more like it. “Yes.” She nodded.

Woods leaned over his desk, alert and concerned. He was a nice man beneath the pompous veneer, she thought. “Did something happen, Janelle? We can double the number of people guarding—”

“No, nothing happened.” At least not in the sense that Woods meant it. No one had shot at her. She would have actually preferred that to learning what she’d learned.

And then a knowing look came over his thin, sharp features. “It’s that detective, isn’t it? Boone. Really raw and rough around the edges.” He nodded his perfectly coiffured head. “He’d be hard for anyone to deal with. We could request someone else for you.”

“It’s not him,” she said. Damn, she hated asking for a favor, no matter what the reason behind it was. “This is personal.” Woods looked at her. She could almost see his mind working, trying to puzzle things out. She decided to go with a lesser truth. Who would have known the very thing that had caused her world to blow up would turn out to be her saving grace? “Marco Wayne called me.”

Woods’s jaw dropped as if it had suddenly become unhinged. “He what?”

“Marco Wayne called me. Here at the office.” She knew numbers would be checked. They needed to be above reproach on this, above any appearances of wrongdoing or impropriety. “Said that his son was innocent, that he wanted a fair trial for the kid.” She pretended to shrug carelessly. “You know, the usual things a father would say.”

Woods snorted. “Except that he’s a major crime figure.”

“He’s still a father,” Janelle insisted. Wayne had sounded sincere when he’d spoken to her. Maybe it was all part of an act, but having been raised in an atmosphere where family came first, she could understand even an organized-crime lieutenant feeling concerned. “Anyway,” she continued, “even though nothing improper was said, the very fact that he did call me might be something the defense will want to use against the case we have. So, I thought that in the interest of making sure that this isn’t thrown out of court on some shaky, fabricated technicality, I’d take myself off the case.”

Woods leaned back in his chair and blew out a breath, his small brown eyes never leaving her face. “I don’t know what to say, Janelle. This is the biggest case of your career.”

It was, she thought. Until everything had been turned upside down. “I know.”

He shook his head in wonder. “I must say, you Cavanaughs are an altruistic bunch.”

You Cavanaughs.
The words echoed in her head, mocking her.

“Yes,” she finally replied, “we are.”

Except that she wasn’t part of the “we” anymore, no matter what kind of arguments Detective Boone raised to the contrary.

The ache in her chest grew larger.

Sawyer wasn’t in her office when she returned from her meeting with Woods. Gone, she thought. Like a thief in the night. She would have expected Sawyer to have at least offered a civil goodbye. But, she supposed he didn’t want to waste any time putting distance between them.

Either that, or he’d gotten a call from his superior, reassigning him.

Janelle crossed over to the chair that he’d occupied for the last few weeks and stared at it. After seeing him there for so long, it seemed odd to have him gone. If she took in a deep breath, she could still smell the barest hint of his cologne. His scent.

She blew out a breath.
Get a grip, Nelle.

He’d left his jacket, she realized.

It took her only a second of debating, if that long, before she jettisoned her honorable inclination and began going through the pockets. If she was lucky, the book he’d been reading all this time would still be there.

“Looking for something?”

She was surprised she didn’t yelp. As it was, he’d startled her and she dropped the jacket as she swung around. She could feel color and heat creeping up her cheeks.

“I thought you’d left.” The statement came out surprisingly devoid of any stammering, especially considering that her insides felt as if they’d been dumped into a blender and left on high.

“I did.” Crossing to her, Sawyer picked up the jacket. She didn’t see any amusement in his eyes. No condemnation, either. “To the bathroom,” he elaborated. “Even superheroes have to go once in a while.”

She had no idea why she was happy that he hadn’t just vanished out of her life without a whisper. It shouldn’t have mattered to her one way or another. If anything, she should have felt relieved when she’d thought he was gone, not had this oddly sad sensation echoing through her.

Janelle pushed forward to the inevitable parting. Like tearing off a Band-Aid, she needed to do this quickly. “I told Woods and he’s taking me off the case.”

Still holding his jacket, he studied her for a second, then nodded. “You told him that Wayne called you.”

That shouldn’t have been his first guess and she didn’t like the fact that Sawyer seemed so confident that he could read her so easily. Especially since he could.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“Logic.” He looked down at the jacket she’d been rifling through when he’d walked in. “I didn’t take you for a pickpocket.”

She hated getting caught. This was not one of her better days. “I just wanted to see what you were reading.”

He patted the pocket, but left the book inside. “Curiosity killed the cat.”

She always thought of that as a stupid saying. “I’m bigger than a cat—and more resourceful,” she added. Then waited.

After a beat, a slow, lazy smile moved over his lips, curving it. Reaching into the right pocket, he took out a book that was close to shapeless from countless readings. He held it up to her.

“Henry V?”
Janelle read, then raised her eyes to his. “Shakespeare? You’re reading Shakespeare?” Sawyer did
not
look like the Shakespeare type.

“Man’s got interesting things to say,” Sawyer replied, answering the quizzical expression on her face. Slipping the jacket on, he shoved the book back into his pocket. “Stay safe, Cavanaugh,” he said as he made his way to the door.

She nodded. “You, too.”

He was leaving, she thought, just the way she’d wanted him to since the first moment he’d walked into her life.

The office felt empty the minute he was on the other side of the door.

In place of the Wayne case, Janelle was quickly assigned two new cases. She spent the remainder of the day acquainting herself with the particulars of both. Lunch came in; she did not go out.

The first case was a hit-and-run involving a homeless man and a female advertising executive on her way up. The woman had clearly panicked and fled the scene of the crime. Her bad fortune was that there had been an eye witness at the taco stand across the street. The other case had to do with a difference of opinion over a baseball game at a trendy sports bar. The argument had gotten out of hand and one patron had beaten the other within an inch of his life. Plenty of witnesses, lots of different viewpoints.

Her head began to ache just after one o’clock. By the end of the day, when added to her already significant caseload, the two new cases left her feeling overwhelmed. And strangely empty.

When Janelle finally made her way out of the building to the rear parking lot, it was almost eight. Only a few cars pockmarked the lot. She guessed that even the parking structure was close to empty. Most of the people who worked in the building preferred the structure. It was cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter and it protected vehicles from the elements, more importantly, from the sun. But she liked being out in the open.

Too many spooky movies as a kid, she supposed, mocking herself.