“Careful, your libido is showing.”

“And I was trying so hard to hide it.”

“What’s the matter, Josh, no new woman in your life?”

“Not in the usual sense, no.”

Bridget’s throat had gone very dry. “Then in what sense?”

He needed to leave before he did something stupid. And yet he wasn’t moving.

And then he was. But he was moving to close the tiny bit of space between them.

The only way she was going to save herself was through bravado, and she knew it.

“You’re in my space, Youngblood,” Bridget informed him hoarsely, trying to sound annoyed.

“What are you going to do about it?”

He half expected her to shove him back. The one thing he hadn’t expected was for Bridget to grab him and press her mouth urgently against his.

And just before she did, he could have sworn that she’d whispered, “Damn you!”

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to the newest branch of the Cavanaughs, the one belonging to Sean, Brian and Andrew’s long-lost brother. This time the story is about Sean’s oldest daughter, Bridget, who finds herself grappling with what she views as a brand-new identity. This while becoming aware of feelings for her partner of three years, Josh Youngblood, feelings she has been trying to ignore because, after all, the man’s relationships have the life expectancy of a fruit fly.

But Josh surprises her by being the one who is there for her while she’s trying to sort out how she feels about this new family connection that has suddenly cropped up in her life as well as the lives of her immediate family members. And all this is played out while Bridget and Josh desperately try to bring down The Lady Killer, a serial killer who surfaces every February to kill as many redheaded women between the ages of twenty and thirty as he can in that short month. Interested? Then please keep reading. I promise to try to entertain you as best as I can.

With all my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

Until the next time,

Marie Ferrarella

About the Author

MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author, has written more than two hundred books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

Cavanaugh’s
Bodyguard

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Charlie,

who turned the month of February

into something special

all those years ago.

Chapter 1

Finally.

The thought flashed through Detective Bridget Cavelli’s mind at the same time that she glanced up to verify that the movement she’d detected out of the corner of her eye was her partner and no one else. She’d been waiting for her sexier-than-should-be-legally-allowed partner, Detective Joshua Youngblood, to walk into the squad room for the last half hour. This was precisely the amount of time she’d been going over the notes she had taken a year ago this month.

Her partner wasn’t late. He was on time. She was the one who was early, but that didn’t help to assuage her impatience. She needed to share this with him.

Now.

She struggled to rein in her impatience. It could have been worse. He could have been coming off a forty-eight-hour marathon date and running late rather than coming in right on time.

“He’s back,” Bridget announced to her partner, raising her voice in order to catch his attention.

Detective Joshua Youngblood said nothing in response as he continued walking to his desk. His green eyes were hidden behind exceptionally dark sunglasses. His measured, rhythmic gait brought him to the desk that had been assigned to him for the last three years.

After setting down the extra large container of ink-black coffee, Josh set himself down as well. His chair groaned. It needed oiling.

Once he was seated opposite her did he even acknowledge that he’d heard what Bridget had said by asking in a monotone voice, “Who’s back?”

Bridget, who’d been his partner for as long as he’d been at this desk, leaned back slightly in her chair as she studied his expressionless face. The fact that Josh was still partially hidden behind the sunglasses told her all she needed to know. It was Monday and more likely than not, Josh hadn’t amassed enough sleep over the weekend to keep a squirrel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed or even moderately functioning.

Temporarily forgetting the very cold chill that had gone zigzagging down her spine when the new acting lieutenant had told her the news earlier, Bridget asked her zombie-channeling partner a personal question, taking care not to show the slight spike of jealousy she suddenly experienced. “So, what’s this one’s name?”

For the time being, Josh left his sunglasses on. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He was focused on removing the lid from the newly purchased, life-affirming black liquid. Josh absolutely hated tasting plastic when he drank his coffee and no matter how careful he tried to be, if he left the lid on, he could taste plastic with each sip.

This morning his hands felt like clumsy bear paws. This was what he got for going to bed ninety minutes before he was due in to work, he silently upbraided himself.

With a suppressed sigh, Bridget rose from her desk and made her way around to his. With a flick of her wrist, she made quick work of the coffee lid, tossing it into his waste paper basket. A thin plume of steam rose up from the inky sea.

“So, this one evaporated your brain as well as your energy?” she asked glibly, deliberately sounding chipper as she commented, “Busy little bee.”

“I was up with a sick friend,” Josh informed her after he had taken an incredibly long sip of his coffee. He could feel it winding through his system. Ever so slowly, he began to feel human again.

“I’ve never known you to make a woman sick, Josh. A little nauseous maybe, but not sick.” Leaning her hip against his desk, Bridget crossed her arms before her and shook her head as she pinned him with a penetrating look. “Don’t you think you should start acting your age, Youngblood? Partying and staying out all night all weekend is great when you’re in college or in your early twenties, but all that’s supposed to be out of your system by the time you start approaching thirty.”

Josh appeared not to be paying any attention to her. Then he surprised her by sighing. “If you’re going to lecture me—” he began.

She pretended to hang on his every word. “Yes?”

He took in a huge fortifying breath before warning her, “Don’t.”

A thousand little devils with tiny hammers pounded and danced around in his head. He was in no mood to listen to a lecture or any so-called words of wisdom his overly talkative partner might want to impart. From the first moment he’d seen her, he’d been of the opinion that she was exceptionally easy on the eyes, but definitely not always so easy on the ears.

“I’m just trying to look out for you, Partner,” Bridget told him, deliberately smiling brightly at him. “Because whatever you do reflects on me.” With that, she removed the black sunglasses from his face and gingerly placed them on his desk next to his computer. She did a quick assessment of his face. The last three days had left their mark. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him this exhausted, and that included the time they had pulled a double surveillance shift.

Bridget told herself that it shouldn’t bother her that he spent all his free time with women whose bust sizes were higher than their IQs—but it did.

Just sisterly concern, nothing more, she silently insisted.

“I suppose you don’t look so bad—for a hungover Peter Pan,” she commented.

“I’m not hungover,” Josh protested, although without much verve. “For your information, I had the flu this weekend and I’m trying to get over it.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. That hadn’t taken long. She’d caught him in a lie already. “I thought you said you were up with a sick friend.”

Josh never hesitated or wavered. “Where do you think I got the flu?”

He sounded almost indignant, but she wasn’t buying it, not for a second. She knew him too well. Joshua Youngblood, second-generation cop and handsomer than sin, was a consummate ladies’ man from the word go. The verb was also his rule of thumb whenever things began to look even remotely serious. The second a woman stopped viewing him less as a good time and more as husband material, Josh was gone. To his credit, he made no secret of it, made no promises that took in a month from now, much less “forever.”

“You know,” Bridget said glibly, “you might think about becoming a writer. I hear a lot of cops with a gift for fantasy start spinning stories on paper in their free time. Who knows? You might find your name on the binding of a book someday.”

A third big gulp came precariously close to draining his container despite its large size. Josh set the cup down and did his best to focus his attention on Bridget. The woman was smart as well as a damn good detective. There was no one who he would rather have watching his back than her, but at times he could easily strangle her as well.

Like now.

All he wanted was to have his coffee in peace and then slowly ease into his day. Hopefully accomplishing both with a minimum of noise and pain until he could focus not just his mind but his eyes.

Didn’t look as if that would happen. What he needed to do since he couldn’t strangle her—at least not in a building full of cops—was deflect Bridget’s attention away from him.

“You said something about someone being back,” he reminded her. The coffee, strong enough to be used as a substitute for asphalt in a pinch, was beginning to finally work its magic. All he needed was another half hour or so before last night, Ivy Potter and the now empty bottle of Southern Comfort were all securely behind him.

“Yes, I did.”

He sighed. Obviously she was going to make him work for this. “Okay, who’s back?” he repeated.

“Who do you think?” Bridget crossed back to her desk and, for the moment, sat down. Or rather, she perched on the edge of her chair, too much tension dancing through her body for her to sit down properly.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?” Josh retorted with more than a trace of irritability in his voice.

As he spoke, he began to go through his drawers, opening one after another and rifling through them. He was searching for a bottle of desperately needed aspirin. If he didn’t find it soon, he was damn near certain that the top of his head would come off.

Instead of answering him, Bridget asked, “What month is it?”

Frustrated, Josh raised his eyes to hers for a moment. “More tough questions?” he quipped. When she didn’t say anything, he sighed, clearly exasperated as he continued with his up to this point fruitless search.

Damn it, there’d been a huge bottle of aspirin here just the other day. It couldn’t have just disappeared. Where is it? he silently demanded.

“February,” Josh bit off. “What does that have to do with—” And then he stopped and raised his eyes to hers again. The answer came crashing back to him. He fervently hoped he was wrong. Very fervently. “February,” he repeated.

“February,” Bridget echoed grimly with a nod of her head.

On her feet again, she went back to his desk. Moving him out of the way, she opened the bottom drawer, which was deeper than the rest, and, reaching in, she pushed aside several folders. Extracting the white and green bottle she knew he was looking for, she placed it on Josh’s blotter in front of him without a word. She didn’t need to talk. Her meaning was clear. Even though he was a great detective, there were times when the man had trouble finding his face when he was looking into the mirror.

What went unsaid, and she would have gone to her grave denying it, was that the trait was somewhat endearing to her.

Grabbing the bottle the second she’d produced it for him, Josh twisted off the top, shook out two rectangular pills and popped them into his mouth. He downed them with the last few drops of coffee lingering on the bottom of the giant container. Now all he could do was wait for the aspirin to take effect.

With a deep breath, he leaned back in his chair and fixed his partner with an incredulous look. “I was really hoping he was dead.”

Bridget nodded. “Weren’t we all,” she readily agreed.

“You sure it was him?” Josh asked grimly. Before her eyes, he seemed to transform from the exceptionally handsome playboy who thought a long-term relationship meant one that lasted from one weekend to the next, into the razor-sharp investigator with keen instincts she both enjoyed and looked forward to working with.

Bridget answered him by reciting the details she’d just read of the latest victim’s description. “Pretty redhead in her early twenties. Her hands were neatly folded just above her abdomen and she had a big, gaping hole in her chest where her heart used to be. Yeah, I’m sure.”

She sighed, shaking her head as she picked up the folder the lieutenant had given her and brought it over to Josh for his examination. After his last spree, the serial killer, whimsically dubbed the Lady Killer by a label-hungry media, had disappeared for almost a year and they had all nursed the hope that this time it was because he was dead and not because he seemed to have a quirk about the month when Cupid was celebrated.

“You know, I’m really beginning to hate Februaries,” she told him.

Preoccupied with scanning the report submitted by the initial officer on the scene, Josh read that the policeman had found the body laid out in an alley behind a popular night club. Belatedly, Bridget’s words registered in his head.

He glanced up and spared her an amused, knowing look. “I bet you were the little girl in elementary school who always got the most valentines dropped off at her desk on Valentine’s Day.” Bridget was the kind of woman the label “hot” had been coined for and there were times that he had to stop and remind himself that she was his partner and that he couldn’t cross the lines that he ordinarily stepped over without a second thought. There would be consequences and he liked working with her too much to risk them.

“Then you would have lost that bet,” Bridget told him matter-of-factly. “I was the girl in elementary school who never got any.” She could vividly remember hating the approach of the holiday each year, her feelings of inadequacy ballooning to giant proportions every February fourteenth.

Josh looked up from the folder, surprised. “None?” he questioned suspiciously.

Bridget had to be pulling his leg for some strange reason of her own. Blond, with incredibly vivid blue eyes and a killer figure that not even a burlap sack could disguise, she had to have legions of guys drooling over her since she had first emerged out of her crib.

And, he thought again, he would have been among them if fate hadn’t made them partners in the field.

“None,” Bridget confirmed with a sharp nod of her head. It was still painful to recall those days and the way she’d felt. There were times now, when she looked into the mirror, that she felt as if that insecure little girl were still alive and well inside her. “I was a real ugly duckling as a kid,” she told him. “I absolutely hated Valentine’s Day back then. It always made me feel awkward, like everyone was looking at me and knew that I didn’t get a single card from anyone. I thought it was a horrible holiday.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Josh said, closing the sparse report and watching her.

Bridget looked at him, curious. She’d obviously missed something. “What’s ‘it’?”

“Maybe the killer is some psycho getting even,” he suggested. As he spoke, it began to make more and more sense to him. “Our guy asked this redheaded goddess out on a date for Valentine’s Day and she turned him down, maybe even laughed at him for daring to ask her.” As he spoke, Josh’s voice grew louder and more resonant. “His pride wounded, he doesn’t step aside and lick his wounds like most guys, he gets even. Really gets even.

“Now, every February, he’s relives that—or maybe relives what he wanted to do but didn’t at the time—and takes out his revenge on girls who look like the one who rejected him.”

Bridget turned what Josh had just said over in her head, studying it. “So what are you telling me? That you think our killer is Charlie Brown?” she asked him, amused despite the gruesome details of the case.

It seemed almost absurd—except for the fact that it did keep on happening. In the last two years, nine redheads, their hearts very neatly cut out, had been found in alleys throughout Aurora.

Josh surprised her by explaining why her tongue-in-cheek theory didn’t hold. “No, Charlie Brown never got his nerve up to ask the little redheaded girl out, so she couldn’t reject him. She’s just his eternal dream.”

His eternal dream. That was almost poetic, she thought.

Bridget eyed her partner, amazed—and amused. Every time that she was about to write him off as being shallow, there’d be this glimmer of sensitivity that would just pull her back in.

She supposed that was one of the reasons women always flocked to him. That, a small waist and a rock-solid body that showed off his active gym membership.

“My God, Youngblood, I’m impressed,” she told him after a beat. “I had no idea that you were so sensitive.”

Josh stared at her for a long moment. And then his smile, the one she’d dubbed his “bad boy” smile, which could melt the heart of a statue, curved the corners of his mouth. “There’re lot of things about me that you don’t know.”

Now he was just trying to jockey for leverage and mess with her mind, Bridget thought. There was just one little flaw with his allegation.

“I grew up with four brothers.” She loved all of them dearly, but at times, when she’d been growing up, the verbal fights had been brutal. “They’d more than held their own, but I really doubt that there’s very much about a living, breathing male that I can’t second-guess,” she told Josh with a smile.

Before Josh could say anything in response, their acting lieutenant, Jack Howard, came out of his office, saw them and immediately came over. Howard, a rather self-centered man who enjoyed hearing the sound of his own voice, had been the one to hand Bridget the case this morning once he saw that she and Youngblood had worked on it a year ago.

He looked from Bridget to Josh. “You two solve the case yet?” he asked in what appeared to be genuine seriousness.

Bridget knew better than to think he was kidding when he asked the question, but she played along, uncertain where this was going. She had a gut feeling that wherever it was, neither she nor Josh were going to like it. There was something very pompous about the man. Added to that, she had a feeling that he resented the fact that she was related to the police department’s well-respected hierarchy.

“No, sir, not yet,” she answered, allowing her voice to be neither submissive nor combative. She merely gave him the respect that his position was due. It had nothing to do with the man.

She and Josh had originally heard about the case two years ago, after the second body had been discovered. None of the clues at the time had led the investigating detectives anywhere substantial. Four bodies had turned up and then the killer seemed to just vanish into thin air.

Until last February when he surfaced again.

This time, the case became theirs and the killer wound up leaving five women in his wake, five women who were all left in the same pose as this latest one. Hands neatly folded below where their hearts should have been. All in all, it made for a very gruesome picture.

“Then why are you just sitting around?” Howard demanded, his voice no longer friendly. He turned on Bridget. “Just because you suddenly found out that your uncle’s the chief of detectives doesn’t give you any extra points in my book or cut you any extra slack. Do you understand Cavelli—Cavanaugh?” Flummoxed, he glared at her. “What the hell do you want me to call you?” Howard demanded.

Bridget squared her shoulders like a soldier who had found herself under fire and was making the best of it. She didn’t like Howard, and his harping on her recent situation just underscored her negative feelings for the man.

God, would this tempest in a teapot never be resolved? It was bad enough that Josh had teased her about it. But he at least didn’t seem jealous of this brand-new status she found herself struggling with, a status she’d never sought out or wanted in the first place.

But here it was, anyway.

Ever since the five-decades-old mix-up in the hospital had come to light, uncovering the fact that her father and some other infant male had accidentally been switched at birth and that her father—and so, consequently affecting all the rest of them—was not Sean Cavelli but Sean Cavanaugh, brother to both the former police chief and the current chief of detectives of the Aurora Police Department, she and her siblings had had no peace.

They were assaulted with questions, innuendos and their share of jealous remarks on a regular basis. They were no longer judged on their own merits but on the fact that they were all part of what was considered by others to be the “royal family” of the police department.

Now that she actually thought about it, it seemed as if there was at least one Cavanaugh in almost every branch of the department. Despite the fact that it was completely without a basis, nepotism and favoritism were words that were constantly being bandied about when it came to talk about their jobs and she for one was sick of it.

She’d gotten here by her own merit long before she’d ever been made aware of her surprising connection to the Cavanaughs.

It was enough to make a woman bitter, Bridget thought, eternally grateful that she at least had a large, thriving optimistic streak coupled with healthy dose of self-esteem—now.

“‘Detective’ will do fine,” Bridget informed the lieutenant with a deliberate, wide smile that might have been called flirtatious under somewhat different circumstances.

Josh wasn’t fooled. He knew she’d flashed the smile on purpose, to throw Howard off and confuse him. If he didn’t miss his guess, his partner would have rather eaten dirt than be even remotely coupled with the new lieutenant and the fact that Howard was married had nothing to do with it. He’d only been on the job for a day before it became apparent that Jack Howard had an ego the size of Pittsburgh.

“Well, ‘Detective,’” the lieutenant said curtly, giving her a withering glance, “you and your sleepy-looking partner can get off your butts and do some honest police work and catch this son of a bitch before he louses up my record for cleared cases!” Howard snapped.

With that, the lieutenant turned on the heel of his Italian leather, three-hundred-dollar shoes, and marched back into his office, confident that he had made a dramatic impact on not just the two detectives but the rest of the squad room as well.

Josh glanced over toward Bridget and saw the way her hand closed over the stapler on her desk—like she was debating hurling it.

He put his hand over hers, keeping the stapler where it was. “Not worth it, partner,” he murmured.

She took a deep breath and nodded, doing her best to ignore the momentary warm feeling that zipped through her and then vanished the second Josh removed his hand from hers.

Chapter 2

“His record,” Bridget bit off angrily, struggling not to raise her voice loud enough for the retreating lieutenant to hear her. “That jerk couldn’t clear a case if it was lying on the floor and he had a broom in his hands. We’re the ones who clear cases,” she declared hotly, referring not just to herself and Josh, but to the other detectives who were in their division as well. They were the ones who did all the work, not Howard. He turned up at the press conferences to grab the recognition, but he was never there for the hard work.

“Don’t work yourself up,” Josh advised mildly. “Like I said, it’s not worth it. And, while you’re at it,” he continued, leaning in so that his voice was even lower than it was a moment ago, “don’t raise your voice.”

She glared at Josh. How could he remain so calm around that preening peacock? “It isn’t raised,” she insisted.

“No,” he agreed. Her eyes narrowed into blue slits of suppressed fire that he found arousing. “But it will be,” he pointed out. “And this headache is still killing me.”

Bridget looked over her shoulder toward Howard’s office and at the man inside the glass enclosure. He was watching them. It just made her temper rise to a dangerous level.

“Speaking of killing …”

On his feet, Josh came up behind his partner and placed both hands on her back. With a gentle push, he guided her toward the doorway. “Let’s go, Cavelli, before I suddenly find myself having to break in a brand-new partner. You know how much I’d hate that.”

Forcing herself to calm down, Bridget spared Josh an amused glance as she doubled back to get her jacket. He really did look out for her, and she appreciated it. He was a hell of a lot more thoughtful than some of the guys she’d dated.

Too bad circumstances weren’t different, she mused as she deposited something into her pocket before slipping on her light gray jacket.

“Breaking in a new partner,” she echoed. “Who are you kidding?” she asked. “Nobody would be able to put up with you and your quirks for more than a week.”

“And I’d find myself missing that unabashed, ever-flowing flattery of yours,” Josh cracked as he led the way to the elevator. “By the way …” He turned toward her. “Exactly where are we supposed to be going?”

She’d stuffed the details of this year’s first murder into her jacket and pulled it out now as they waited for the elevator to arrive. Pointing to the pertinent addresses, she held the sheet up for her partner to see.

“We can either go to the scene of the crime or go to break the news to the victim’s boyfriend. Take your pick.” Folding the sheets again, she slipped them back into her pocket. “I’m guessing that the ME hasn’t had a chance to do the autopsy yet, otherwise, that would be my first pick.”

Josh made his choice. As he saw it, it was the lesser of two evils. “Scene of the crime,” he said as they stepped into the elevator. After a beat, he made a confession, which was rare for him. “I absolutely hate breaking that kind of news to people. They’re never the same after that.”

Bridget laughed shortly. “Haven’t found anyone yet who didn’t mind it, never mind enjoyed it.” She clearly remembered each time she’d had to go to a loved one to break the tragic news. The experience never became routine. Her heart hurt every time. “Okay, scene of the crime it is.” She leaned forward and pressed for the ground floor. “You realize that putting it off doesn’t make telling the boyfriend any easier.”

He knew that, but he was hoping for another option. “And nobody else caught this case?” he asked just before the doors opened again on the ground floor.

Bridget made an elaborate show of searching the small aluminum-walled enclosure. “You see anyone else here?”

“Nope,” he answered, resigning himself to the fact that they were working the gruesome case solo as they got off. “But that’s only because you’re so dynamic you make everyone else fade into the background.”

Bridget stopped just short of the rear doors that exited out onto the parking lot. Turning, she looked at Josh quizzically. “What’s with you this morning?” she asked.

Wide shoulders rose and fell in a noncommittal shrug. Since she wasn’t going through the doors, he did. And then he held them open for her.

“Nothing,” he responded dismissively.

Bridget slipped through the doors quickly. She wasn’t about to give up that easily.

“Yes, there is,” she insisted. They were on the same wavelength, she and Josh. Something was off. She could feel her protective side being roused. “Now spill it. Your latest main squeeze hounding you for a commitment?” she guessed, deliberately keeping her voice upbeat and light. The idea of her partner committing to a single woman was as far-fetched as Prince Charming actually turning out to be a skilled day laborer. And, if she were being utterly honest with herself, she rather liked it that way.

Why should that matter? she silently upbraided herself. The guy’s your partner, not your lover, remember?

It annoyed her that the word “lover” had even popped into her head in reference to Josh. What was with her lately?

Josh paused, gazing out on the parking lot. He wasn’t looking for his car—he knew where that was—he was looking for his patience, which seemed to be in short supply this morning.

“No, not her,” he finally said.

Bridget heard things in his voice that he was leaving unsaid.

Not for long, she thought.

“Then who is?” she asked. Josh merely frowned in response and went down the cement steps, heading toward the vehicle they were using for the day. Bridget followed quickly.

But, getting into the passenger seat, she paused for a second and offered to switch places with him. Whether hungover, coming down with something or disturbed, he wasn’t himself today.

“You want me to drive?” she asked.

“Nope.” Josh buckled up. “I’m not ready to die today,” he told her.

Bridget was quiet for a moment, trying to get to the bottom of what was eating at him. And then it hit her. Belatedly, she finally buckled up.

“It’s your mother, isn’t it?” she guessed just as he turned the key in the ignition. The car came to life and he slowly backed out of his space.

“It’s my mother what?” he asked shortly, straightening out the wheel and then heading out onto the main thoroughfare.

She ignored the shortness of Josh’s response. “It’s your mother who’s hounding you to make a commitment, isn’t it?”

Damn it, he thought irritably, the woman was like a pit bull once she latched onto something. She just wouldn’t let go. “Not sure how things are done in your world, Cavelli, but in this state, mothers and sons can’t get married.”

She was right, Bridget thought. She could tell by the set of his jaw. “You know damn well what I’m saying, Youngblood.” This wasn’t the first time his mother, a really affable woman, had been on his case. “Your mother’s after you to settle down, isn’t she?”

He gave up trying to get her to back off. “Grand-kids,” he declared, annoyed. He really loved his mother. They had gotten extremely close after his father had been killed in the line of duty and as far as mothers went, she was rather sharp and with it—except for this one annoying flaw. “She says she wants grandkids. I told her she was too young for that.”

“Flattery.” She nodded her approval. “Nice. Did it work?”

He laughed shortly and shook his head. “Nope. She says there’re a lot of young grandmothers around these days. According to her, she’s the only one of her friends whose kid is still single.”

“She’s lonely,” Bridget guessed, feeling for the woman. She’d met Eva Youngblood a number of times and found her to be extremely affable. They got along really well. The woman would make someone a really nice mother-in-law someday. “That’s what you get for being an only child.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault,” Josh pointed out. “After my dad died, lots of his buddies on the force came around to make sure we were all right. They took turns bringing me to ball games, coaching my team, helping me study. They did what they could to be there for her, too. I know that more than one of them really wanted to get serious with her.”

He frowned, remembering what it was like, hearing his mother cry late at night when she thought he was asleep. It broke his heart and made him promise to himself that he would never love someone so much that he couldn’t breathe right without them.

“But Mom swore up and down that Dad had been the love of her life and she was not looking to get married again. Ever. And even if she was, it wouldn’t be to another policeman. She said she couldn’t go through that kind of pain again. Couldn’t stand there and be on the receiving end of a condolence call.”

Bridget supposed she could understand that. Once hurt, twice leery. “So, instead of building a second life,” she surmised, “your mother is after you to finally build yours.”

He sighed. “That’s about it.”

Parents, she knew, could be exceedingly stubborn when it came to their kids. Her father was laid-back, thank God, but her late mother had been fairly intense. Looking back, she realized it was all out of love, but at the time it had driven her crazy.

“So, what are you going to do?” Bridget asked, slanting a glance in his direction.

He’d already looked into this solution. “I’m going to get her a dog.”

Bridget laughed, pretending to study his profile for a moment. “I can see the resemblance, but I really don’t think that’s what your mother actually has in mind.”

Whether she did or not, this was the plan for now. He was stalling for time until something better occurred to him. “I’ll tell her it’s just a placeholder until I find the girl of my dreams.”

Surprised, Bridget shifted in her seat. This was a side of Josh she hadn’t expected. In the three years they’d been partnered, Josh had only gotten serious about their work, not about any of the myriad women he’d gone out with in that time.

She caught herself holding her breath as she asked, “You actually have a dream girl?”

“Yeah.” Josh spared her a quick, meaningful look. “One who doesn’t ask me any questions or make any demands of me.”

For a minute there, she’d thought he was serious. She should have known better. Bridget laughed, shaking her head. Feeling relieved more than she thought she should. “Then I’m afraid that you’re doomed to being alone, Youngblood.”

“I’m not going to be alone,” he told her. They came to a stop at a light. He took the opportunity to turn toward her and flashed a wide, brilliant grin. “I have you.”

The very first time she’d seen that smile, it had gotten to her. She hadn’t grown immune to its effects, but at this point she knew that he meant nothing by it. He was just charming. And while she caught herself wondering what it would be like to be with Josh, really be with Josh, who could have been the living, breathing poster child for the words “drop dead gorgeous,” she told herself that she didn’t want to ruin a good thing. She and Josh worked well together, anticipated one another and for the most part, thought alike.

At times they wound up completing one another; what one lacked, the other supplied. Partnerships like that were exceedingly rare, not worth sacrificing in order to scratch an itch.

She’d been quiet too long, she realized. To deflect any kind of suspicions or possible questions on Josh’s end, she got back to the reason they were out here in the first place. “Yeah, well, if we don’t come up with some kind of answers for the narcissistic fool they made our acting lieutenant, Howard might wind up splitting us up out of spite.”

He sincerely doubted that would ever happen. When they had first been paired, all he saw was what one of his late father’s friends had described as a “hot babe.” It didn’t take Bridget very long to set him straight. She might have killer looks, but it was her brain power that he actually found sexy. The fact that she didn’t trade on her looks was another plus in her favor.

It also allowed him the freedom to tease her now. “You could always go and complain about Howard to your ‘Uncle Brian.’”

Bridget sat up a little straighter as she gave him a withering look. “Hello, possibly we haven’t been introduced yet. My name’s Bridget Cavelli and I fight my own battles.”

“So, you’re keeping it?” Josh asked, picking up on the name she’d used. “You’re not changing it?”

“Changing what?”

“Your last name. Technically, you are a Cavanaugh, you know. You have no real ties to that moniker you’ve been sporting around for the last thirty years—”

“Twenty-eight,” she corrected tersely. “I’m twenty-eight.”

He knew exactly how old she was—knew a great many other things about her as well—but he liked getting under her skin. It helped to keep things light. It also helped him deflect other feelings he was having. Feelings that had no place on the job and would only get in the way of a working relationship.

“And you don’t look a day over twenty-seven and a half,” he deadpanned.

Bridget sighed and settled back in her seat. It was going to be a very long morning, she thought. She could tell.

“Andrew, are you all right? You look a little pale,” Rose Cavanaugh said to her husband, stopping short.

She’d just walked into the state-of-the-art kitchen to get a glass of juice. This was where the former chief of police and the love of her life spent a great deal of his time each day. He could be found here creating or re-creating meals for any one of a vast number of relatives who had a standing invitation to drop by whenever the occasion allowed, or they were in the neighborhood. She’d never known anyone who loved cooking—and family—as much as Andrew did.

But it was obvious that right now, he had more on his mind than cooking. Like the person he’d just finished talking to.

“Who was on the phone?” she asked him as Andrew hung up the receiver.

He tried to offer his wife a smile, but he was still sorting out the news he’d just received. “That was my father.”

The family patriarch, Seamus Cavanaugh, was the first of the family to join the police department and work his way through the ranks, back when Aurora was unincorporated and considered an off-shoot of Sacramento. For the last dozen years or so the retired police chief had been living in Miami Beach, Florida, enjoying the company of some of his old friends from the force who had also migrated there.

Rose smiled fondly. Her father-in-law liked to check in from time to time. He did it in order to keep his sons from worrying, although he insisted that he was perfectly capable of looking after himself.

“What’s he up to?” she asked, wondering what had prompted this particular call. If she knew Seamus, the man was probably in love—again—and asking Andrew what he thought about getting a new “mother.”

“About thirty thousand feet,” Andrew answered matter-of-factly.

Rose cocked her head, trying to make sense out of what her husband was saying. “Come again?”

“He is,” Andrew confirmed. “Coming back again.” After taking a fresh cup from the cabinet next to the sink, Andrew poured himself some of the coffee he’d just brewed right before the phone had rung. Holding the cup in both hands, he sat down before he attempted to clarify his statement. “Dad’s flying back to Aurora right now, even as we’re having this conversation.”

Sitting down opposite him, Rose placed her hand on top of her husband’s in a mute display of unity.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, concerned. They had been trying to get Seamus to come back out for a visit for years now. But he had always been very adamant about not flying. Because of that, the senior Cavanaugh had missed out on a host of weddings and births.

He’d even passed on what Andrew felt had been a major event in his life: finding Rose again after his wife had gone missing and had been presumed by everyone—everyone but him—to be dead. He never gave up working the case, never gave up looking for the mother of his five children. And eventually, his persistence had paid off. The only thing that remotely came close to spoiling the event for him was that his father had sent his hearty congratulations instead of turning up to celebrate with the rest of the family.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” Andrew told her. “He said he suddenly just got tired of doing nothing with the rest of his life but shooting the breeze with a bunch of old men who were living in the past. He’s decided to turn over a new leaf. Part of that involves flying out here. And, I suspect that he’s anxious to meet his new son.”

Rose smiled. “At his age, Sean can’t exactly be called ‘new,’” she pointed out, amusement curving the generous corners of her mouth.

He looked at it in another way. “Considering the fact that Dad’s never seen him, I think the word ‘new’ could be applied in this case.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Pushing aside the empty juice glass, Rose got to her feet. “Well, I’d better get myself to the store,” she announced. She caught her husband arching his eyebrow in a silent query, which surprised her. “If there’s going to be another one of Andrew Cavanaugh’s famous parties in the very near future, I’ve got a lot of grocery shopping to do. Do you have a list ready for me?”

Instead of producing one, Andrew caught her hand and pulled her over to him, stopping his wife from leaving the room.

“No, no list and no famous party,” he told her. “I think that this time around, Dad meeting his son for the first time will be a private occasion.”

He could have knocked her over with a feather. “Really?” she asked incredulously.

In all the years that she had been part of Andrew’s life, she’d found that absolutely everything was an excuse for a family get-together and a party. “One for all and all for one” wasn’t just a famous phrase written by Alexander Dumas in The Three Musketeers, it was a mantra that she strongly suspected her husband believed in and lived by.

“Dad’s got a pretty tight rein on his emotions,” Andrew explained. Friendly and seemingly outgoing, there was still a part of Seamus Cavanaugh that he kept walled in, strictly to himself. That part grieved over loss and mourned over victims who couldn’t be saved in time. “But this kind of thing can just blow a man right out of the water. If, once he meets Sean, Dad loses it, he definitely won’t appreciate it happening in front of a room full of witnesses.”

Rose laughed. “Since when have we ever been able to fit all our relatives into just a room?” she asked.

“All right, I stand corrected. A house full of witnesses,” Andrew amended. “This is definitely one case of the less people being around for the grand reunion, the better.”

Rose pretended to be disappointed—but the hint of a grin gave her away. “And here I was, planning to sell tickets.”

“C’mere, woman.” Andrew laughed.

He gave her hand a quick tug and swept her onto his lap. He liked having her there just fine. In his mind, because he’d been given a second chance after doggedly searching for her all those years she’d had amnesia and been missing without realizing it, he still felt like a newlywed.

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a fresh mouth?” he asked Rose, doing his best to sound serious.

Rose laced her fingers together behind his neck as she made herself comfortable in her favorite “chair.” “Not that I recall,” she answered with a straight face. “Why? Do you want to sample it?”

The former chief of police grinned and looked every bit the boy whom she had first fallen in love with in second-period American English all those very many years ago.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said just before he kissed her and rocked her world.

Again.

Chapter 3

The good-looking man behind the bar whose biceps were more impressive than his brain cells frowned as he stared at the photograph Josh had placed on the counter in front of him. It was a photograph of the woman who had been found in the alley behind the club where he worked and even though the more gruesome aspects of the murder weren’t detailed, it was obvious that the woman was dead.

Shaking his head, the bartender, who claimed his name was Simon Quest, looked up at the two detectives.

“I’m a lot better with regulars,” he protested. “But yeah, I think she was here last night.”

My kingdom for a witness who actually witnessed something, Josh thought. The bartender sounded far from convincing. For now, he left the photograph on the bar, hoping that it still might jog Quest’s memory.

“Was anyone bothering her?” Josh asked the other man.

Quest shrugged, as if to dismiss the question, but then he stopped abruptly and pulled the photo over to study it.

Josh’s hope sank when he shook his head. “Not that I can recall. It was a happy crowd last night.”

Bridget glanced at the victim’s pale face. “I know at least one of them who didn’t stay that way,” she commented grimly.

“Can you remember anything at all about this woman?” Josh prodded Quest one last time. “Was she the life of the party? Was she in a corner, drinking by herself? Anything at all?” he stressed.

The bartender thought for a long moment; then his expression brightened. “I saw her talking to the people around her. They acted as if they all knew each other.” Pausing, he appeared as if he was trying to remember something.

When the silence went on too long, Bridget urged the man on. “What?”

“There was this one guy,” Simon responded slowly, as if he was envisioning the scene again. “He just kept staring at her.”

“Did he come up and talk to her?” Bridget asked eagerly.

Quest shook his head helplessly. “Not that I saw. It was big crowd,” he explained, then added, “and we were shorthanded last night.”

“What else can you remember about this guy?” Josh asked, hoping they could finally get something to go on.

“Nothing.” The bartender went back to drying the shot glasses that were all lined up in front of him like tiny, transparent soldiers. “He left.”

Maybe they could get a time frame, Bridget thought. “When?”

Quest set down another glass, then shrugged again. “I dunno. Around midnight. Maybe one o’clock. I remember she was gone when we closed down,” he volunteered, then ruined it by adding, “Can’t say when, though.”

This was getting them nowhere, Bridget thought. “Did she leave with anyone?”

The look on Quest’s face said he had no idea if the victim did or not. He lifted his wide shoulders and then let them drop again. “She was just gone.”

Ever hopeful, Bridget tried another approach. “This guy, the one who was staring at her, what did he look like?”

Quest exhaled a frustrated breath. It was obvious that he was regretting he’d ever mentioned the starer. “Just an average guy. Looked like he hadn’t cracked a smile in a real long time.”

Josh tried his hand at getting some kind of useful information out of the vacant-headed bartender. “Was he young, old, fat, skinny, long-haired, bald, white, black—polka dot,” he finally bit off in exasperation when the bartender made no indication that anything was ringing a bell.

“Just average,” Quest repeated. “Maybe he was forty, maybe not. He did have hair,” he recalled. “Kinda messy, like he was trying to look cool but he didn’t know how. And he was a white guy. He wasn’t a regular,” Simon emphasized proudly. “Or I would’ve recognized him.”

Well, he supposed at least it was something, Josh told himself. He took out one of his cards and placed it on the counter, even as he collected the photograph and tucked it back into his inside pocket.

“You think of anything else you forgot to mention, anything comes back to you—” he tapped the card with his finger “—call me.”

Quest shifted his glance toward Bridget. “I’d rather call her.”

Information was information, Bridget reasoned. Inclining her head in silent assent, she placed her card next to Josh’s on the shiny bar.

“Fine. Here’s my card. Just remember,” she informed the man cheerfully as she stepped back, “we’re a set.”

“He was trying to hit on you,” Josh told her as they walked out of the club three minutes later. The fact that it bothered him was only because he was being protective of his partner. Or so he told himself. Bridget seemed unaware that she had this aura of sexuality about her and it was up to him to make sure no one tried to take advantage of that.

Right, like she can’t take care of herself, Josh silently mocked himself.

He blew out a breath. Maybe he needed more aspirins to clear his head a little better.

Bridget headed straight for the car. “He’s lucky I didn’t hit him back,” she retorted, then complained, “I thought bartenders were supposed to have such great memories.”

“Sometimes they’re paid not to have them,” Josh speculated, aiming his remote at the car. It squawked in response as four side locks sprang up at attention.

Bridget paused beside the vehicle. “You think he knows more than he’s saying?”

Josh laughed shortly. He looked at her over the car’s roof. “It would be hard for him to know less. Let’s talk to her boyfriend and find out if he knows who she was partying with last night.”

She nodded. “Maybe one of them remembers something about this guy who was staring at her.”

Getting into the front passenger seat, Bridget buckled up and then let out a loud sigh. After Josh pulled out of the area and back onto the road again, she turned toward him and asked, “So, what kind of a dog?” When he didn’t answer and just looked at her as if she had lapsed into monosyllabic gibberish, she added, “For your mother. You said you were getting a dog for your mother, remember?”

Now her question made sense. But he’d mentioned the dog over an hour ago, before they had gone in to question the bartender.

“Boy, talk about your long pauses.” Josh laughed. “That almost came out of nowhere.”

It was all connected in her head. She didn’t see why he was having such a hard time with it. “Well, talking about the dog in your mother’s future didn’t exactly seem appropriate while we were questioning that bartender about a homicide right behind the club where he works,” she told Josh, then got back on track. “So? Have you decided what kind you’re getting?”

He hadn’t gone much beyond the fact that he was getting his mother a canine companion sometime in the near future. If she had a pet to take care of, she wouldn’t have as much time to nag him about settling down and giving her grandchildren.

“I thought maybe one of those fluffy dogs,” he answered.

Off the top of her head, she could think of about twenty breeds that matched that description. “Well, that narrows it down.”

She’d managed to stir his curiosity. “Why are you so interested in what kind of dog I’m going to wind up giving to my mother?”

She was just trying to be helpful. “A couple of the Cavanaughs actually don’t strap on a gun in the morning. One of them is a vet who also works with Aurora’s canine division, does their routine checkups, takes care of them if they get hurt, things like that. I think her name’s Patience. Anyway, I thought you might want to talk to her, ask her some questions about the best kind of dog for your mother.”

That didn’t sound like a half-bad idea, he supposed since he didn’t really know what he was doing. When he was a kid, he’d never owned a dog, never wanted to get attached to anything after his father’s death.

“Maybe I will.” He flashed Bridget a grin as he sailed through a yellow light. “When I talk to her, can I tell her that her ‘Cousin Bridget’ sent me?”

If he was going to use every topic to make another joke about her new family, then she shouldn’t have even bothered making the suggestion.

She waved a dismissive hand at her partner. “Forget I said anything.”

He was silent for a moment, as if content to let the quiet in the car prevail. But he’d been chewing on something for a while now. This last display of irritation on Bridget’s part told him that his observation over the last two months was probably right. Ever since his partner had learned about the mix-up in the hospital nearly fifty years ago, a mix-up that made her a Cavanaugh instead of a Cavelli, she’d seemed somewhat preoccupied and not quite her usual self.

“This really bothers you, doesn’t it?” he asked in a voice devoid of all teasing.

“You getting a dog for your mother instead of growing up and having a meaningful relationship with a woman that lasts longer than a half-time program at the Super Bowl?” she asked glibly, deliberately avoiding his eyes. “No, not really.”

She’d used a lot of words to describe a topic that she supposedly didn’t care about, but that was a question to explore some other time, Josh thought. Right now, he was more concerned about Bridget’s state of mind regarding the recent change in her immediate family. He might get on her case from time to time, but his three-year relationship with Bridget was the longest one he’d ever had with a woman, besides his mother. Beneath the barbs, the quips and the teasing, he really did care about Bridget. Cared about her a great deal. Sometimes more than he should, he told himself. He definitely didn’t like seeing her like this.

“You know damn well I’m talking about the fact that your father found out that he’d been switched at birth with another male newborn and that he—and consequently you and those brothers and sisters of yours—are really Cavanaughs.”

Bridget blew out a breath as she stared straight ahead at the road. “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about, I was just hoping you’d take the hint and back off.” She spared him a frown. “I should have known better.”

Yeah, she should have, Josh thought. “So why does this bother you so much?” he wanted to know. “I know people in the department who’d give their right arm to wake up one morning and find out that they’re related to the Cavanaughs. The very name carries a lot of weight in the department. I mean, think of it, they’re an entire family of law enforcement agents and not a dirty one in the lot.” He wasn’t saying anything that they both didn’t already know. “Hell, it’s like the city’s own personal branch of Camelot.”

“So what’s your point?” she asked, annoyed.

Driving into the parking lot of an apartment complex, Josh brought the car to a stop in the first empty space he saw.

“My point is, what’s the problem you seem to be having with this?” he asked.

He was a guy. She didn’t expect him to understand. Hell, she could barely understand all the tangled emotions herself. This unexpected twist made her life seem so confused, so jumbled up. There were times when she didn’t know what to think, what to feel.

“The problem, oh insensitive one, is what do I do about my ‘old family?’ Uncle Adam, Uncle Tony, Aunt Angie, Aunt Anna.” She went down the list of the people she’d believed until two months ago were her father’s brothers and sisters. “Are they just strangers to me now? What are they to me and to the others?” she demanded with frustration. “Not to mention what are they to my dad? How am I supposed to regard them now that I know we’re not blood relatives?” she asked, frustrated.

Everything had turned upside down for her. She couldn’t be laid-back about the whole thing, the way her older brother Tom was. For her, all this had brought up real questions, real concerns. Moreover, it had left her with a dilemma on her hands that she had no idea how to resolve. Who was her family?

Josh still didn’t really see what the problem was. Maybe because, in a remote way, he’d found himself in the same sort of position, except that in his case, the positions had been reversed. He’d lost his real father and found himself on the receiving end of a whole handful of generous “fathers.”

“Well, speaking for myself, the word ‘family’ doesn’t strictly refer to people with the same blood in their veins as you. After my dad was killed, a lot of his old buddies made it a point to come around to check on my mom and me to see if we were okay. The lot of them took turns looking out for us. After a while, it was like having five surrogate fathers around. They weren’t my dad and they couldn’t take my dad’s place, but they did help to fill the void he left. They were the ones who got my mother through those dark times. I loved the lot of them and I think of all of them as family.

“The uncles and aunts you started out with before all this came to light are still your uncles and aunts in spirit if not in the strict definition of that according to the law. And let’s face it, the way you feel about a person is all that counts.”

Bridget looked at her partner for a long, silent moment, more impressed than she wanted to let on. “That’s pretty profound coming from you. I guess even a stopped clock has to be right twice a day.”

He grinned. Now that was the Bridget he knew and loved. “I have my moments,” he acknowledged.

“Yeah,” she agreed with a half smile. “Every twenty years or so, you do.”

“Have you thought about talking to your Uncle Adam about how you feel about this? I mean, he is a priest and all and they’re supposed to be able to offer guidance when one of their ‘flock’ has an emotional crisis to deal with.” He raised his eyebrows in a unified query. “Right?”

She shook her head, vetoing the idea. “It might feel a little weird for both of us, considering that he’s part of that crisis.”

“He might surprise you.”

“Two surprises in one day? I don’t think I could handle that,” she said flippantly. “Having you actually make sense is earth-shaking enough for me to try to come to terms with. Going for two might be asking for trouble. Who knows, the next thing that might happen is I’ll be hearing the hoofbeats of the four horsemen.”

Getting out of the car, he looked around the sprawling, newly upgraded complex. “I’d rather settle for that than what we’re about to do next,” he murmured under his breath.

They’d arrived at the apartment complex that was listed as Karen Anderson’s last known residence. A residence the serial killer’s latest victim had shared with her boyfriend.

Remaining beside the car, Josh scanned the area more intently, searching for apartment number 189. He was in no hurry to find it and in less of a hurry to do what he had to do.

His feet felt glued to the asphalt.

“Poor guy doesn’t know what’s about to hit him,” he muttered grimly. Spotting a map of the area posted behind glass and next to the mailboxes, he made his way over to it. Bridget followed. “His girl goes out without him for a night out on the town and comes back dead.”

“Ordinarily, if this didn’t have the Lady Killer’s MO all over it, I would have reminded you that your ‘poor guy’ would most likely be considered a person of interest. First rule of thumb in a homicide investigation, remember?” she said glibly.

“Thanks,” Josh said with a touch of sarcasm. “I didn’t know that.” And then he grew a little more serious. “He still might be a person of interest, you know,” Josh speculated.

That caught her by surprise. “You think this guy’s our serial killer?”

“No.” He doubted if they would get this lucky this early in this year’s cat-and-mouse game with the Lady Killer. “But I think he might have taken advantage of the fact that there was a Valentine serial killer on the loose the last two years, done his homework and done away with his freewheeling girlfriend by copying the serial killer’s MO. It’s not like that hasn’t been done before,” he reminded her, “hiding a murder in the middle of a bunch of other murders.”

Bridget nodded. The theory did make a lot of sense—as if they needed the extra confusion. “Just when I start to think of you as just another handsome face, you actually have a thought and blow everything out of the water,” she pretended to lament.

“I am another handsome face,” he acknowledged teasingly, “but I also like keeping you on your toes, Cavanaugh.” The moment the surname had slipped out of his mouth, he slanted a look at her face, waiting to see—or hear—her reaction.

As expected, she frowned—but not as deeply as he thought she might.

“Don’t call me that yet,” she requested. “Not until I get used to the sound of it. Deal?”

“Deal,” he echoed. “Whatever you want.” And then he pretended to be feeling her out. “Is it okay to call you Bridget?”

Bridget laughed and shook her head. Leave it to Josh to lighten the moment. It was a quality she really liked in him. “That’s not about to change, so yeah, you can call me Bridget.”

“The apartment’s over in that direction,” he announced, pointing to an area to their left. “It’s just after the duck pond.”

“Duck pond?” she echoed.

“That’s what it says on the map. Looks more like a duck puddle if you ask me,” he declared as they walked by it. “One way or another, we need to get this over with sooner than later.”

She completely agreed. She never liked putting off anything just because she found it unpleasant to deal with. “Man after my own heart.”

Leading the way, Josh turned and looked at her over his shoulder and winked. “You should be so lucky.”

The wink sent a ripple through her that she deliberately ignored. “Ha! The luck,” she fired back, happy to be bantering with him again, “would be all yours.” What they did, day in, day out, was dark enough. A little lightness was more than welcome.

He probably would be the lucky one in this, he thought. If he were in the market for something stable and permanent—

Which he wasn’t, he reminded himself firmly before his mind could go wandering.

This wasn’t the time.

They stopped in front of the ground-floor garden apartment door with the appropriate numbers affixed on it and rang an anemic-sounding bell.

When no one answered, they rang it again.

Bridget raised her hand to try ringing the bell for a third time when the door suddenly opened.

“Finally decide to come home?” a deep, humorless male voice asked. “What’s the matter, lose your key again? Or did you throw it away?”

Both questions came from a semi-wet man wearing a bath towel precariously wrapped around his rather lean hips. He was standing in the doorway and his eyes filled with wonder as he looked at them with surprise. He stopped drying his hair.

His demeanor changed instantly and his expression darkened.

“Hey, I’m not giving to anything or converting to anything so go bother someone else,” he said curtly. With that the man grabbed the doorknob and started closing the door.

Josh put his foot in the way and effectively provided an immovable object that stopped the other man from closing the door.

“We’re not selling anything,” he told the other man. “Are you James King?”

“Yeah,” the man answered, his eyes shifting suspiciously from one to the other. “Who are you?”

Bridget took out her badge and ID at the same time that Josh did.

Josh made the introductions. “I’m Detective Youngblood. This is Detective Cavelli.” He’d faltered for a second, then decided, in order to avoid any confusion, to state the name that she still had printed on her identification. “We’d like a few words with you. Mind if we come in?”

The man remained standing exactly where he was. The suspicion deepened on his face. “What’s this all about?” he demanded.

“Mr. King, really, this will be a lot easier on everyone if we step inside your apartment. You’re not going to want to hear this standing out here like this, half naked,” Bridget told him, her voice taking on a gentle note.

After a moment, the man took a step into his apartment, opening the door wider so that his unexpected visitors could enter.

Chapter 4

Looking somewhat perturbed and confused about this unexpected invasion, King turned around just as Josh closed the door to the apartment behind them.

“Look, I just got home from the gym and I was taking a shower when you started leaning on my bell,” he told them irritably. “You mind if I get dressed first before you ask whatever it is you’re here to ask?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I’d highly recommend it,” Bridget replied as the man tugged his sagging bath towel back up to his waist.

King looked slightly amused at her answer. For a moment, it seemed as if he forgot he was annoyed and transformed into a player right before her eyes. “Really? Most women don’t say that to me.”

It was Josh’s turn to be annoyed. He didn’t particularly like the way the victim’s so-called boyfriend was eyeing Bridget. He moved forward, placing himself between King and his partner. “What are you doing going to the gym in the middle of the day? Don’t you have a job you’re supposed to be at?”

King had already walked into his bedroom to get dressed. He left the door open; whether it was as an invitation or just to be able to hear better wasn’t clear.

“Not anymore,” the man bit off. “My company decided to relocate to Utah last month—without me.” There was a bitter note in his voice. “I’ve got to do something to keep myself occupied during the day so I go to the gym. I’ve got seven months left on the membership. No sense in letting it go to waste,” he retorted defensively. It was obvious that this wasn’t the first time he’d been asked about his free afternoons.

King walked back into the living room where he’d left them. He wore a pair of beige slacks and a light green golf shirt. He was still barefoot and he hadn’t bothered to try to towel dry his wet hair.

“Look, what’s this all about, anyway?” he asked, looking from one to the other. “Is this Karen’s idea of some kind of a joke?”

“Why would you think that?” Bridget asked. It seemed to her rather an odd thing for the victim’s boyfriend to think, especially since they hadn’t told him anything yet. Just what sort of a relationship did King and the dead woman have?

“I dunno. Maybe she thinks sending over two pretend cops might get me to find a job faster. Well, it can’t. I already told her, there’s nothing out there. I’ve been looking my butt off and I can’t find anything decent to even apply for,” he answered angrily.

Bridget didn’t bother pointing out that they weren’t “pretend cops.” He would realize they were real soon enough. “You didn’t go out with her last night.”

She didn’t make it sound like a question, but he answered it anyway. “We had a fight.”

“About what?” Josh asked.

“Aren’t you paying attention?” King demanded, clearly annoyed at the interrogation. “About me not working. She hates it,” he complained. “Karen earns a boatload of money at that place she works, but she wants me to be paying all the bills. She thinks that’s what a ‘real man’ is supposed to do.” He sneered at the very thought. “Well, the hell with that and the hell with her!”

Josh continued asking questions. He kept his voice mild, as if they were just having a harmless conversation instead of King just possibly painting himself into a corner. “Just how heated did the argument get between you two yesterday?”

King shrugged, as if this was nothing new. “We got a little loud, she threw a few things at me, missed, then stormed out.” And then King narrowed his eyes, asking a little uneasily, “Why? Where is Karen?”

“Didn’t you wonder that before now?” Bridget asked, curious.

King’s temper flared. He was the kind of man who didn’t like to be questioned about his behavior. “I thought she crashed at one of her girlfriends’ places. Frankly, I liked the peace and quiet for a change.”

What a bastard, Bridget thought. This was why she steered clear of relationships. It was all sweetness and fun in the beginning. And then the gloves came off and people started to be themselves—people she could very well live without. Or at least that’s the way it had been with the few relationships she’d had. Most of the time, the guys either wanted her to stop being a cop—or they wanted to handcuff her with her own cuffs. Which was why she was currently taking a break from dating altogether.

“That’s good,” she told him coolly, “because that’s something you’re going to have to get used to.” Unless the county decides you killed her and then you’ll be getting a whole bunch of new roommates.

“What are you saying?” King demanded, letting his temper flare. “Where is she? Where’s Karen? Something happen to Karen?” he asked, the tone of his voice taking on an unsteady lilt.

Bridget exchanged looks with Josh.

One of them would have to tell the annoying man the woman he’d just been ranting about was dead. She decided to spare Josh since he’d just made her realize that it brought back such harsh memories for him of the time he and his mother had been on the receiving end of those awful words.

“Mr. King, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but your girlfriend was found dead this morning in the alley behind The Warehouse Crowd,” Bridget told him. She assumed the victim’s boyfriend was familiar with the club that was predominantly frequented by an under-thirty crowd.

King looked utterly stunned as he stared at her. “Dead?” He repeated the word as if he didn’t quite understand what it meant. His breathing grew noticeably more shallow and faster as he asked, “You mean like in a homicide?”

“Exactly like in a homicide,” Josh confirmed for King.

Dark brown eyes went from one to the other like marbles pushed to and fro by the wind. King still appeared dazed, but anger began to etch its way into his features.

“Who did it?” he asked. “Do you know who did it?” This time, it was a demand.

“Not yet, but that’s what we’re trying to figure out by piecing things together,” Bridget told him, doing her best to sound sympathetic even as she was still trying to make up her mind about King. “Do you know if Karen had any enemies, any old boyfriends who didn’t take kindly to being dumped by her?”

“We’ve been together for three years. There are no boyfriends,” King said vehemently. “And she didn’t have any enemies. Karen could be a pain in the butt sometimes, but then she’d turn around and be this sweet, amazingly thoughtful woman who made you feel glad just to be alive and around her. Everyone liked Karen,” he insisted. King suddenly looked stricken, as if what he’d been told was finally sinking in. His voice became audibly quieter as he asked, “She’s not coming home?”

Bridget shook her head as sympathy flooded through her. “I’m afraid not.”

His knees giving way, King sank down on the cream-colored sofa. He dragged his hands through his hair, distraught. “Last thing I said to her was I didn’t want her coming back,” he confessed brokenly.

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