This Cavanaugh detective guards his ready-made family

A brand-new Top Secret Deliveries thriller

Delivering a stranded woman’s baby? All in a day’s work for Detective Dugan Cavanaugh. But the new mother is investigative reporter Toni O’Keefe, who’s hot on the trail of the drug cartel Dugan is tracking. Now with infant Heather and Toni in the cartel’s lethal sights, Toni’s fragile trust in Dugan is their only shot to get Cavanaugh justice!

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

Also by Marie Ferrarella

Mission: Cavanaugh Baby

Cavanaugh on Duty

A Widow’s Guilty Secret

Cavanaugh’s Surrender

Cavanaugh Rules

Cavanaugh’s Bodyguard

Cavanaugh Fortune

How to Seduce a Cavanaugh

Cavanaugh or Death

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Cavanaugh’s Secret Delivery

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07911-2

CAVANAUGH’S SECRET DELIVERY

© 2018 Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To

Tiffany Khauo-Melgar

With Love

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Man, he’d really needed this night out, Detective Dugan Cavanaugh thought. He loved his job, no question about it, but after putting in what felt like three weeks straight to get all those slippery little ducks in a row, it really felt good to unwind and blow off some steam tonight, even for a little while.

However, the problem with blowing off steam was that sometimes time did manage to get away from him. Like tonight. It was ten after midnight.

He really hadn’t intended to be out this late.

“And tomorrow is a school day,” he chuckled to himself under his breath. That meant that he couldn’t sleep in—not that he even knew how at this point in his life. “Time to get you home, Detective Cavanaugh, before you suddenly turn into that pumpkin that your mama used to read to you about way back when.”

Dugan grinned to himself. Anyone overhearing him would have thought he was three sheets to the wind. Truth was, he wasn’t even quite one sheet. Despite coming out to Malone’s and hoisting a few beers, he wasn’t drunk, just feeling very good.

And relaxed.

But he wasn’t intoxicated. Dugan knew better than to get behind the wheel of his car if he were. The beers, both of them, had been consumed over the course of six hours, and given the fact that he was six-three and had a physique that would have made a bodybuilder envious, those beers had less than no effect on him. It just felt good to get together with a number of his friends and family.

This was what it was all about for him, Dugan thought. Friends and family. And keeping the world safe for those friends and family—as well as the public at large.

But right now, it was time to go home and get some very well-deserved sleep so that tomorrow morning, he could get up and do it all again. For him, as well as most of the members of his family, that meant finding ways to put the bad guys away—the faster the better. In his particular case, that involved getting the goods on drug dealers.

He stifled a yawn. Man, he was more tired than he thought, Dugan realized. He’d also parked his car farther away than he’d thought. But when he’d arrived six hours ago, the parking lot behind the bar was packed and there were cars lining both sides of the street. It turned out that there was an impromptu bachelor party being held at the bar, so the place was really packed. That made the owner quite happy, Dugan thought, remembering the wide grin on the former police officer’s face as the man tended bar. But the extra customers had made parking a particular challenge.

“Maybe I’ll walk off some of those calories from the beer,” Dugan murmured as he crossed what was normally a busy intersection. At the moment, the streets were totally deserted.

His upbeat attitude was due to the fact that he’d been taught to always look at the bright side of things, even when things appeared to be dark and bleak. It was something his late mother, Eva, had instilled in him, as well as in his three younger brothers, and while none of them could be accused of being mindlessly happy-go-lucky, her philosophy had helped all of them weather the personal storms that came their way.

There it was, Dugan thought, finally sighting his pride and joy, an old 1965 Mustang he had personally rebuilt and restored over the course of three summer vacations in between juggling part time jobs while he was going to college.

A warm feeling filled him the way it always did whenever he looked at the cherry-red product of all his hard work.

“I’m almost there, old girl,” he said, as if the car could hear him. “Almost—”

A screeching sound suddenly disrupted the otherwise still April night.

Dugan stopped short, instantly alert—just in case. Turning his head toward the sound, he listened, trying to discern where it was coming from and, more importantly, what it was.

Was that awful noise coming from a cat being attacked or—

The sound came again, louder this time and definitely filled with agony. It wasn’t a cat, it was human—of a sort.

It was the kind of sound that, had he been lost in the Alaskan wilderness, he would have attributed to coming from a Yeti, a mythical creature sometimes equated with the equally mythical Big Foot.

All this was going through Dugan’s head at lightning speed as Dugan broke into a run, heading toward the source of the unearthly screeching.

In short order, he realized that the gut-wrenching noise was coming from a car that was pulled up, askew, against a curb in an alley that was a block away from where his own car was.

The car’s lights were on, but the engine appeared to be off.

Another scream, even more powerful this time, ripped though the air. Dugan pulled out his weapon just before he reached the vehicle.

Cautiously, not knowing what he was about to find, he looked into the car and saw a woman, gripping the steering wheel. Her face was contorted with pain and she was screaming. There was a gun lying on the passenger seat beside her.

She also had to be the most pregnant woman he had ever seen.

* * *

Dugan knew he was taking a chance.

Ordinarily, a gun on the scene demanded that certain protocol be adhered to. But unless the woman was smuggling a double order of watermelons, she appeared to be in just too much pain to be a threat. She certainly didn’t look like any drug dealer he had ever come across.

So, taking a breath, he lowered his weapon and rapped on her partially opened window to get her attention.

“Ma’am? Do you need help?”

The woman instantly jerked at the sound of his deep male voice, looking his way. Fear telegraphed through her with the speed of a lightning bolt.

She was not about to die in this car tonight, she thought.

Working her way through the searing pain, she reached toward the gun on the passenger seat, stretching and groaning.

Dugan reached in through the open window even though it was tricky and managed to grab the gun before the woman could get her fingers around it.

“Give...me...that!” she managed to grind out. She was breathing hard now and every word took effort. She felt as though her dark blond hair was plastered against her forehead. Even the top of her head felt as if it was coming off at any second.

“Look, lady, I heard you shrieking and I came to see if I could help, but I’d like not to get my head blown off while I’m doing it.” Dugan saw the terror in her face. It was after midnight and she was alone. He couldn’t really blame her. “I’m a cop,” he added, hoping that would reassure her.

She definitely didn’t believe him. “No...you’re... NOT!”

The woman had one hell of a set of lungs on her, Dugan thought, opening the passenger door. Rather than argue with her, in the interest of expediency, he took out his badge and showed it to her.

“See?” he asked her.

She still wasn’t convinced. “You...could have...gotten...that...in any...toy store,” she bit off.

“Fair enough.” He took out his ID next and held it up almost in front of her face. The woman was sweating profusely, he noted. This had to hurt like hell, he thought. “Okay?” he asked, nodding at his wallet.

“O...kay,” she panted. Her eyes widened as she saw him get in and reach over to her seat belt, releasing it. She was wary again and there was nowhere to retreat. “What...are...you...doing?” she demanded with as much indignation as she could manage.

Before he could answer, she shrieked again, pushing against the floor with her feet as she arched back in the seat now that she was no longer restricted by the seat belt.

It didn’t help. Nothing helped. The pain just couldn’t be escaped.

“I can’t help you from outside the car,” Dugan told the woman.

“Get...away!” she ordered, panting so hard she was getting dizzy. It took everything she had to keep from passing out.

“Don’t worry,” he told her, “neither one of us wants to be here, but you need help and I’m the only one around.” He weighed his options, then shook his head. “I don’t think I can get you to the hospital in time. If it’ll make you feel any better, my aunt drives an ambulance.”

He was talking about Aunt Maeve and she actually owned the company at this point, but he didn’t think the pregnant woman was in any condition to listen to any lengthy explanations. Not the way she was screaming and certainly not the way she was arching her back and moving from side to side. The simplest explanation was the best one.

“She taught all of us a few basic emergency procedures,” he told the pregnant woman in a calm, friendly voice. “One of which was what to do when a woman went into intense labor.”

There was still skepticism in her eyes. “You...swear?” she demanded.

He told himself that she was scared and that made him feel for her. “I swear,” he told her with all the solemnity he could manage.

“O-KAY!” she screamed.

Her contractions were coming closer and closer. There was hardly any time between them at this point. And this time, because he was close, she grabbed his hand and held on to it so hard Dugan thought his fingers were going to snap off.

When the contraction passed and she breathed a little more regularly, she released his hand.

Dugan flexed his fingers, surprised that he still could. “Hell of a grip you have there. What is your name, anyway?” he asked.

He could tell by the way she was breathing that she was bracing herself. The next second, she was being seized by yet another massive contraction.

“Scarlet,” she managed to say just before she was once again writhing in pain.

She’d grabbed his hand again. This time he tried to go with it, waiting it out and hoping he still had use of his fingers when she finally let go. He felt really awful for her, and not too keen for himself, either.

Dugan looked toward the backseat. It looked relatively empty. If he could just get this woman to go into the back, it would be better for both of them, given the situation.

“Ideally, we should get you into the backseat. There’s a little more room to work with—”

By the time the words were out of his mouth, she was arching her back again and definitely trying to get away from the pain, even as she tried not to scream at the top of her lungs.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Dugan rethought the situation. He had to work with what he had. “Okay, I need you to lie on your back.”

She was huffing, trying not to push. She didn’t want her baby born in a rental car. That wasn’t right. It was bad enough that it had been conceived in one. Her eyes shifted toward the cop.

“That’s...how... I...got...this...WAY!” she ground out.

He could tell that she wasn’t very happy with him. “You know, if this was just eight hours from now, that scream of yours would have brought a whole bunch of people running, but right now, I’m all you’ve got, so let’s see if we can get this done as painlessly as possible.”

Too late Dugan realized what he’d said. “Sorry, wrong choice of words. Just lie back,” he told her again. “Please.”

This time, she listened.

He left the passenger door open so that he had some space to do what he needed to do. She didn’t even seem to notice.

“Okay, I apologize ahead of time,” he told her.

She was moaning loudly, trying her best not to scream, and he doubted if she’d really heard him, but that didn’t matter. He’d said it just to make sure he was covered.

As swiftly as possible, he got rid of her underwear, pushed back the oversized blouse that was covering her swollen belly and took a closer look at what he was up against.

“Good news, you’re crowning,” he told her.

Her eyes felt wet and there was a ringing noise in her ears. She tried to concentrate on what he was telling her.

“What’s...that?”

He looked up and tried to smile encouragingly at her. “It means that you’re going to be a mama soon,” Dugan said.

That wasn’t good enough. This pain was ripping her in half. “HOW... SOOON?”

“Very soon,” he assured her. “As a matter of fact, it won’t be long now,” he said, feeling almost as amazed as he figured she probably was right about now. Hope you were right, Aunt Maeve. “Okay, Scarlet, when I tell you to push, I want you to push. Push!” he ordered.

The woman grabbed on to part of the steering wheel with one hand and the back of the headrest with the other. Breathing hard, she arched and pushed down hard for all she was worth.

Mentally, Dugan counted up to five.

“Okay, stop. Stop!” he ordered her again when she didn’t. “Scarlet, I know this is hard, but you have to stop when I tell you to stop,” Dugan told the frazzled woman.

The look she gave him said a lot more than she was able to at this point. It didn’t take him much to fill in the blanks.

“Yes, I know, it’s your body, you’re in pain and I’m just the jerk issuing orders. But if you push too hard, you’re going to wind up tearing things I can’t repair here,” he warned her. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Her eyes were on him and then she finally nodded.

“Okay, ready?” he asked. She looked at him with wide eyes and he told her, “Push!”

“I...am!” she cried, squeezing her eyes closed as she pushed down for all she was worth.

She fully expected this to be it—but it wasn’t.

She fell back against the seat cushion, breathing hard and ready to give up.

As if sensing what was going on through her head, Dugan told her, “You can do this, Scarlet. You know you can. C’mon, just one more time.”

“I...don’t...believe...you,” she whimpered, panting and trying very hard to catch her breath.

Her head was spinning, making her feel as if she was going to go on like this forever, in pain and pushing until she died.

“C’mon, Scarlet, you’re made of better stuff than this. Just one more time,” Dugan urged her, repeating the words he’d already used.

“I...hate...you!”

“I can live with that,” he told her. “Now push!” he ordered.

She had no choice. It was as if the baby had taken control of her instead of the other way around. The baby was pushing its way out.

“It’s...coming!”

“It sure is,” Dugan agreed, excited. “One more push,” he told her. “Just one more—that’s it,” he encouraged. “That’s it!”

And then, just like that, he found himself holding a baby in his hands. For a second, Dugan was in complete, mind-numbing awe.

Despite everything he’d told her, he had never been in this position before. He’d never actually had to put his training—which was far from recent—to use like this before.

And then Dugan came to life.

“Here,” he told the brand-new mother, placing the baby on her stomach. “Hold her and don’t move,” he ordered.

“It’s a girl?” the woman asked him, relief highlighted in her face.

“Oh, yeah,” he answered, realizing that he hadn’t said that before. “It’s a girl.”

The next moment, he was taking out a knife from his pocket. It had been a gift from his mother for his fourteenth birthday, the last gift she had ever given him and he was never without it.

“Do you have a paperclip?” he asked the new mother.

She was holding the baby in her arms, totally stunned and totally in love with the baby girl she was holding. She blinked as she looked up at him.

“A what?”

“A paperclip,” he repeated. “I’m going to need something to temporarily stem any blood that might start flowing from the cut.” Dugan was already several steps ahead in his mind.

“What blood?” she asked, looking at the baby, panicking. “Is there blood?”

“No, but there will be when I cut the cord,” he told her.

“Oh.” She thought for a moment, then asked, “Will a hairclip do?”

He put his hand out. “It might. Let me see it.”

“It’s in my hair,” the woman told him. She was still having trouble catching her breath. “You’re going to have to get it out,” she told him, almost apologizing. “My hands are full.”

He grinned at her. “Right.”

Leaning over the baby and looking closely at the new mother’s head, he saw the hairclip. She’d had it loosely holding back her dark-blond hair. He took it out as best he could, trying not to pull. He failed.

“Sorry,” he apologized for the umpteenth time. “Got it,” he told her. “Okay, now for the last part.”

She eyed the knife, her apprehension growing again. “Is this going to hurt her?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Dugan said it in such a way that she felt she could believe him. “Okay,” she said tentatively.

Taking the knife back in his hand, he quickly cut the cord, then swiftly placed the hairclip just at the baby’s end of it. Once he was sure the clip would hold—he watched it for a minute—he stripped off his hoodie.

“Now what are you doing?” the woman asked him, not sure what to think.

He had delivered her baby, but she knew nothing about this man, other than he’d said he was a cop. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. But even if he was one, that still wasn’t enough to convince her that everything else was all right.

She looked up at him now, wondering if she could get away with her baby if she had to.

“It’s chilly,” Dugan told her. “The baby’s going to need something wrapped around her while we wait for the ambulance,” he explained.

“The ambulance?” she repeated. She’d forgotten about that. Forgotten about everything except for this baby she was now holding.

“Unless you’d rather stay here for a while,” Dugan told her, looking perfectly serious.

No, it was definitely better for her to be around other people. “No, I—”

“I’m kidding, Scarlet,” he told her, waving away his previous words. “Just hang on. We’ll get you and your girl to the hospital and all of this will seem like just one bad dream,” he promised.

“No, I didn’t mean that—” the woman began, but Dugan was already on the phone.

Holding up his hand as a silent request that she should hang on to her thoughts until he was able to get off the phone, he started to talk to the person on the other end.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a female dispatcher asked.

“This is Detective Dugan Cavanaugh,” he said, then gave the woman on the other end of the phone his badge number. “I need a bus sent out right away to the corner of Dyer and Santa Rosa. I’ve got a mother and a baby here.” He smiled at them as he said it. “The city just gained a new citizen about three minutes ago. Mother and baby seem to be doing fine, but I’ll leave that up to you to determine,” he told dispatch.

“Very good, detective. I can have an ambulance out there within the next ten minutes. Will you be there, as well?” she asked.

“Got nowhere else to be,” he answered, still looking at the woman and the baby he had helped to bring into the world.

“Fine. Ten minutes,” the woman repeated, then ended the call.

“Are you coming with me?” the new mother asked, looking at him above her mewling baby.

“Unless you’d rather end our beautiful friendship right here,” he said, giving her the option.

“No,” she answered. And then, in words that had been entirely unfamiliar to her these last few years, she said, “I’d like you to come.”

“Then I will,” he told her. Cocking his head, he listened for a second, then said, “I think the ambulance’s already coming. Must be a slow night,” he told her with a wink.

Just then, as the baby began to cry, he felt his phone ringing. “I think I spoke too soon,” he said as he took out his cell phone and looked at the call number on the screen. “Yup, I spoke too soon.”

The number on the screen was one he knew very well.

Chapter 2

“Dugan Cavanaugh,” Dugan said as he answered the phone.

“We’ve got a problem, Cavanaugh,” the voice on the other end of the line told him. It was the detective he’d been partnered for over the last year and a half, Jason Nguyen.

Dugan watched as he saw the ambulance pulling up into the alley. “Now?”

“No, tomorrow,” Jason answered. “Of course now. Look, tell the honey you’re with you’ll get back to her as soon as you can, but that something’s come up and you need to go.”

“For your information,” Dugan informed the other detective, “I’m not with a ‘honey.’”

“Good, then that’ll make it easier for you to get over here,” Jason said. Dugan could hear noise in the background, but he refrained from asking what was going on. Jason had a habit of leaving no detail untold if he could possible help it.

“Look,” Jason was saying, “I don’t like getting up out of a dead sleep, either, but you need to have gotten your tail out here at least five minutes ago.”

The ambulance had arrived and the paramedics were getting out. Dugan silently waved the two men over toward the woman’s car even though he was still on the phone.

“Why?” he asked, asking Jason. “What won’t keep until tomorrow morning?”

“Mitch Gomez was just fished out of the lake twenty minutes ago,” Jason answered flatly.

“That’ll do it.” Dugan didn’t have to ask if the man was dead. Nguyen wouldn’t be calling him if he wasn’t. “Where are you?” He paused as the other detective rattled off the address. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Dugan said grimly.

He terminated the call and put the phone back in his pocket.

Meanwhile, the two paramedics were bringing around the gurney. “You the father?” the paramedic closest to him, Jeff, asked.

Still in the vehicle, the woman cried, “No, he’s not!”

Dugan shook his head. “Just a Good Samaritan in the right place at the right time,” he told the paramedic.

“Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ll get you and your baby to the hospital quickly,” the other paramedic, Nathan according to his tag, was saying to the woman. Before he tried to get her and her baby out of the car, he looked back toward Dugan. “Are you coming with her, Good Samaritan?” he asked.

The next moment, he handed the baby over to his partner and then he took the woman gently into his arms. With a minimum of effort, he transferred her carefully to the gurney.

“Something I have to do first,” Dugan answered the paramedic. When both the new mother, now on the gurney, and the paramedic looked at him, Dugan explained, “I’m a cop. Something’s come up.” Turning his attention toward the woman he’d just aided, he told her, “But I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding.

Dugan had a feeling she didn’t believe him, but there was nothing he could do about that right now. All that mattered was that she was in safe hands and that was all that really counted, anyway.

“I’ll see you later,” he told the new mother as he watched the paramedics place her gurney in the back of the ambulance.

“Right, later,” she replied, then added, “Don’t worry about it.”

Dugan frowned. He should have called his aunt’s ambulance, he thought as he watched the paramedics close the doors and then round to the front of the vehicle. He knew all the drivers there. But there was nothing he could do about that now.

Dugan sprang into action. He quickly closed up the woman’s car and then, finally, ran to his own a block away.

Starting it up, he took out the detachable light and stuck it on top of the roof. He didn’t like doing it to the Mustang, but the situation was dire and he needed to get there ASAP.

He still couldn’t believe that Gomez was dead. He’d only managed to finally talk the guy into being his confidential informant less than a month ago.

* * *

“I don’t think he ever knew what hit him,” Jason said as he stood there, looking down at the sprawled-out body lying before him.

Dugan had managed to get there in record time. Luckily, at this time of night, most of Aurora’s citizens were asleep and traffic was close to non-existent except for a few hotspots. As it was, this had happened near the lake that was located in the next town. By the time he had gotten there, Mitch Gomez’s body had not only been fished out, it was now about to be taken away by the medical examiner.

Dugan had arrived just in time to see the ME begin to zip up the black body bag. Stopping the man, he looked down at Gomez’s lifeless face.

“Three shots to the back of the head,” Jason told him. “Execution style.”

Dugan blew out a breath. “Damn. Any chance we can get jurisdiction over the body?” he asked.

The medical examiner didn’t answer him. Instead, he just finished closing up the bag, then with the help of his assistant, he took it away.

Jason was left to answer the question. “Hey, it happened here, away from Aurora, but I don’t think they’re going to fight you for it if you want to claim the body as ours. Just remember, it becomes our unsolved murder,” the detective told Dugan. “Not exactly brownie points for that as far as I can see if we don’t solve it.” He looked at Dugan closely. “You sure you want to do this?”

“He was my CI,” Dugan said, looking at the body as it was being taken away. “Hell, he wasn’t even old enough to legally drink,” he added, shaking his head. The next moment, he went after the ME and said, “Leave it here. We’ll take the body.”

The medical examiner shrugged his shoulders. “Suit yourself. I’ve got more than enough bodies in the morgue as it is,” he told Dugan. “Leave it,” he said to his assistant.

“He wasn’t legally old enough to do any of the things he did, but that didn’t keep him from doing it,” Jason told his partner. “Hey, it’s not your fault,” he said, seeing the look on Dugan’s face.

“I know that. But it still seems like a huge waste. I can’t help but feel being my CI was what got him killed,” Dugan murmured. He took out his phone in order to call their medical examiner and tell her that they had another body.

“Yeah, well, he knew what he was doing,” Jason argued.

“Doc? Sorry to get you up at such an ungodly hour, but we’ve got a body for you.”

“Flowers would have been nicer,” the voice on the other end of the line mumbled. He heard another voice in the distance asking something. “I think it’s one of your cousins,” Kristin, the head medical examiner said, answering the other voice. “He’s trying to cull my favor with a body.” Returning to phone, she said, “Okay, give me the address. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Dugan gave the woman the address then terminated the call. Tucking the phone away, he looked back at the body, hidden now beneath the black body bag.

He had caught the one-time college student on a possessions charge and managed to flip him when Gomez said he had current intel he could trade. It turned out to be good information. Better than Dugan had thought, at first. So good, apparently, that it had wound up costing his confidential informant his life.

“I don’t think he did know what he was doing,” Dugan said thoughtfully, referring to what Jason had said before he called Kristin. “I think that he thought it was all going to go his way and turn out the way he wanted in the end.”

Looking at the black body bag, Jason shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it now.”

“Except catch the son of a bitch who killed him,” Dugan pointed out, saying the words with such a passion it caused Jason to look at him uncertainly.

“Yeah, there’s that, too,” Jason agreed, trying to lighten the mood. “Hey, I really didn’t roust you out of the arms of some nubile young woman?” Jason asked, curious.

“Actually, I had just finished delivering a baby when you called me,” Dugan answered, turning away from the body.

Rather than say anything, Jason just started to laugh. “Yeah, right.”

“No, I’m serious. When you called, I had just finished delivering this woman’s baby and there was an ambulance on its way to take her to Aurora Memorial,” Dugan said, mentioning the name of the closest hospital to that particular place, which was also known as the best one in the county.

Jason began to laugh again, but this time, his laughter was very short-lived. He paused, looking at his partner. Dugan wasn’t even smiling. Dugan usually smiled by now if he was putting him on.

Jason eyed his partner. “You’re serious.”

“You already asked me that,” Dugan pointed out. In the back of his head, he couldn’t help thinking that one life had just ended while another life had just started. He supposed that was what real life was all about, but somehow, it still didn’t really feel like things equaled out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think—damn, a baby,” Jason repeated, shaking his head and grinning. “So? How did it feel?” he asked.

“Well, it all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to think or feel anything,” Dugan admitted. “And by the time I could, I was already on my way to the scene of the crime.”

“And she’s no relation? Not a girlfriend or a...?” Jason let his voice drift off as he looked at Dugan, waiting for the other detective to fill in the blank about the woman’s relationship to him.

“No, not a girlfriend or a...” Dugan repeated. “I was going toward my car when I heard this unearthly scream. I looked to see where it was coming from. This woman was sitting in her car, looking like she was about to pop at any second.”

“So you delivered the baby?” Jason asked, as if he was trying to wrap his head around the whole scenario.

“Well, I started out to do that,” Dugan answered. “But she actually wound up delivering the baby on her own for the most part.”

“Wow.” Jason shook his head, envious of the experience. “All I did after I left the bar tonight was finish up the puzzle I was working on for the last week and a half,” he admitted quietly. “You going to go there now? To the hospital?” Jason prompted when Dugan just looked at him blankly.

“No, not until we file all the paperwork on this,” Dugan answered. “He was my CI.”

“Nobody else knows that yet,” Jason pointed out. “You don’t have to do that part right now.”

“I know that,” Dugan said pointedly. “But I will. It’s only right.”

Jason sighed, shaking his head. “Are all you Cavanaughs such sticklers for honesty when it comes to crossing your T’s and dotting your I’s?” the other detective asked. “Don’t any of you ever kick back?”

“Not where it counts,” Dugan answered, then added with a grin, “Lucky for you.”

Jason laughed. He saw the point. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Okay,” Dugan said, taking a breath and telling himself that they were going to need a fresh start here. “Let’s see what we can find out about this murder. Before homicide starts horning in on our case.”

Jason looked almost hangdog. “So much for going home tonight.”

Dugan paused to look at the other detective. “Hey, you called me, remember?”

Jason looked resigned—for now. “I guess I’ve got nobody else to blame but myself for being here,” he replied. Then his eyes glimmered a little. “But even so, I can still try to put the blame on you for my sleepless night.”

Dugan laughed. “Okay. Whatever floats your boat, Nguyen.”

* * *

Dugan didn’t get to the hospital that morning. Nor did he managed to get there the whole day. The investigation into Gomez’s murder kept him and Nguyen busy.

It wasn’t until the following morning that he finally managed to scrape together a little time for himself. He used it to swing by the hospital.

On his way over to Aurora Memorial Hospital, he decided to give himself a total of fifteen minutes there. Twenty at the most.

Despite the fact that it was only eight in the morning, finding somewhere to park was a bit of a challenge—at least, if he wanted to park somewhere close to the front. The hospital always seemed to be busy.

He wound up parking toward the very back of the lot. Because he was short on time, he decided to sprint. He told himself that a quick sprint would be good for him. It was either that or drive around a few times until someone decided to free up a spot and leave. He didn’t have time for that.

The city had too many people, he thought, getting out of his car. Used to be, according to his uncles—at least, the ones who had been born in this city—that Aurora was so small it hardly warranted a hospital at all, much less two.

It had been a huge deal when the second hospital, Aurora Memorial was finally opened. At the time, the hospital was half the size it was now and there had been empty beds on occasion. But that was because the city hadn’t done all the growing that it had of late. Back then, it was more like a one-horse town than a city.

He smiled to himself. According to his uncles, there’d been three lights down the main drag. One at one freeway, one at the other and one that was halfway in between.

There’d been cows here instead of all these people, and crime had been almost nothing. Now the cows were gone and crime was on its way up, although he and the rest of the Aurora Police Force were definitely trying to do something about that.

Okay, this is supposed to be your downtime, Dugan, remember? No shop talk, just a nice, quick visit. Something to remind you that you’re capable of doing good deeds once in a while and you’re not just a police detective, but a human being as well.

Approaching the main doors, Dugan waited until they sprang open. He preferred opening his own doors, but progress seemed to have other ideas, so he waited. Once the doors had pulled apart, slowly, he walked into the hospital.

The last time he had been here, everything had looked different. But the hospital had gone through a new wave of building again, or modernizing, as it were. For one thing, the lobby didn’t look the way it used to.

It took him a moment to get his bearings. Looking around, he finally spotted the information desk. Relieved, he approached the two people who were sitting there—a man and a woman—looking more than a little bored. They both came alive when they saw him.

“May we help you?” the attendants asked almost in unison.

“I need to get to the maternity floor,” Dugan told them.

“That would be the third floor,” the young woman said, smiling at him.

As he began to walk away, the male attendant called after him. “If you give us the patient’s name, we can tell you which room she is in. It’ll make it go faster for you.”

“Okay.”

Backing up, Dugan returned to the desk and then looked for a way to say this that didn’t make him look like some kind of mindless fool.

“Well, this is a little awkward because I just know her first name.” He saw the two attendants exchange looks and he could almost guess what they were thinking. “No, it’s not like that,” he assured them. “I’m a cop. She went into labor in her car. I happen to be passing by so I helped her give birth.”

“All right,” the male attendant, Dale, said guardedly. “What’s the woman’s first name?”

“Her name’s Scarlet,” Dugan told him.

Dale skimmed down the screen, then looked up, a slightly dubious expression on his gaunt face. “I’m sorry but there’s no one named Scarlet registered at the hospital.”

“Look again,” Dugan instructed, feeling exasperated. “She was admitted with her baby a little after midnight two days ago. The ambulance brought her here.”

Looking really skeptical at this point, Dale skimmed over the names a second time. “Sorry,” he announced. “No Scarlet.”

“Let me look,” the second attendant, Rita, said, taking over the screen. Her superior attitude vanished quickly. Looking up, she shook her head. “I’m sorry but he’s right. There is no one named Scarlet on the maternity floor.”

Dugan frowned at the two attendants at the reception desk. “That doesn’t make any sense. Maybe she had complications and she was admitted to another division,” he suggested. “Look to see if there was anyone admitted to any other section of the hospital by the name of Scarlet.”

“That is highly irregular,” Dale informed him, taking umbrage. However, the look that Dugan shot at him had the attendant quickly skimming through the records. Finishing, he shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. There was no Scarlet admitted to the hospital in the last two days on any of the floors.”

“All right, maybe they made a mistake with her name,” Dugan said. “Was there anyone admitted a little after midnight two days ago to the maternity floor? She had a newborn daughter.” He knew that at least that much was right.

Glancing at the screen, Rita did a quick search and then announced, “Yes.”

“Finally,” Dugan cried. He needed to get away from these two people before he lost his temper. “What room is she in?” he asked as he began to walk to the elevator.

“She’s not,” Dale called out after him. “She checked herself out yesterday.”

Chapter 3

“You’re serious?” Dugan asked the attendants. This just wasn’t adding up. “She just had a baby,” he said. “Aren’t you people supposed to keep them here for at least three days?”

“This isn’t a prison, officer,” Dale told him, obviously taking offense at the implication that they or the hospital had failed in some way. “Patients are free to go home at any time.”

“What about the doctor?” Dugan asked. “Wouldn’t he or she have ordered against something like that? And by the way, it’s detective, not officer,” he said, pointedly correcting the man.

“Well, detective,” Dale said with an exaggerated bow of his head, “the doctor can make a recommendation, but if the patient chooses to disregard that recommendation, the patient is free to just sign herself out and leave whenever she wants to. Unless, of course, if she’s being restrained,” he added, glancing toward the woman beside him to make sure he was right. Rita nodded. “But that’s a whole different story.”

“Bottom line, detective,” Rita told him in a far more polite voice than Dale was using, “the woman you’re looking for isn’t here any longer.”

Dugan blew out a breath, then shrugged. “Well, I tried,” he said, addressing his words to the woman. He’d already used up the twenty minutes he’d allotted himself. He needed to be getting to the precinct. “That’s all a man can do.” Dugan offered her a smile. “Thanks for your help.”

And with that, he turned away and walked out of the hospital lobby.

He had no doubt that the woman wasn’t there anymore. There was no reason for either of the people, even the irritating idiot, to have lied to him. What bothered Dugan was why the woman from the other night wasn’t there any longer.

And why she had given him—or the hospital—a phony name.

Not your problem, Dugan, he told himself as he made his way back toward his car. You gave it your best shot, which is more than a lot of other guys would have done. And apparently, for whatever reason, the woman had no desire to stick around longer than she has to.

Still, he had to admit as he crossed the lot, the detective in him was really curious about why someone like Scarlet—or whatever her real name was—would just leave the hospital so quickly after having given birth. The experience had to have exhausted her. Wasn’t a stay at the hospital supposed to help her get back on her feet?

Maybe, Dugan thought as he finally reached his vehicle and got into it, it was just a simple matter of not having any insurance coverage. She couldn’t pay her bill, so she gave them a phony name and decided to pull a disappearing act before anyone in the administration office had a chance to check her out.

But if that was the case, then why hadn’t she tried to talk the hospital into letting her pay her bill off over time? People did that sort of thing. Sometimes the hospital would just write off a patient’s charges.

“You’ve got a legitimate case to work on,” he told himself out loud. “You don’t have any time to try to figure this out.”

Pushing the thought out of his mind, he started up his car. Puzzles were for people who had time on their hands to try to solve them. He, on the other hand, had a dead CI whose murder he was trying to solve. Someone obviously felt that Mitch Gomez had known too much and that was the mystery that took precedence over everything else, not some missing mama who had checked out of the hospital too early.

A missing mama with a gun, he reminded himself as he drove to the precinct.

When he’d first attempted to come to her aid, he recalled that the woman had tried to reach for a gun. Had she not been tied up in knots because of those contractions, he had no doubt that she probably would have shot him.

What—or who—was the woman afraid of? Dugan wondered.

“Later, damn it,” he ordered himself sternly. “Think about this later. Not now.”

The rest of the way to the precinct, he did the best he could to push all the other thoughts aside. He was a detective first, a man with a mystery woman to pursue second.

A far second he reminded himself.

The answer didn’t satisfy him, but for now, it was going to have to do.

* * *

They were getting nowhere.

Eight weeks later they were no closer to finding out who had put that bullet into Mitch Gomez’s head than they had been when the body was first found.

He and Jason had canvassed the area, talking to more people in the last two months than he probably had in the last six months, and still nothing. People talked, but in the long run, they said nothing.

Oh, he had a few suspicions about who might have been responsible—Michael Oren, a higher-up who represented the Juarez cartel in California—but suspicions had never won a case.

Not only that, but now he was currently down a partner, as well. Jason had broken his tibia and it looked as if he was going to be sidelined for the next few weeks if not longer.

“Tripping over your eighteen-month-old daughter, who does that?” Dugan demanded when he went to see Jason at his home to see how his partner was coming along.

“Apparently I do,” the detective answered almost morosely. Fighting with his crutches, he managed to make it over to an easy chair. The whole adventure had left him exhausted. Three days and he still hadn’t gotten the hang of maneuvering the crutches.

“I mean, she’s not that tiny a baby. How could you have missed seeing her?” Dugan asked, shaking his head.

“Believe me, when you’re not looking for an eighteen-month-old baby, they’re easy enough to miss—and trip over,” Jason grumbled.

His mother-in-law, who was babysitting the little girl, looked as if she was less than thrilled to also act as a part-time nurse for Jason. The look on his face showed that he felt the same way.

Jason lowered his voice so that only Dugan heard him. “Look, I’m sorry that this leaves you high and dry right now. I should be able to get around with crutches pretty soon.”

Dugan had seen Jason attempting to maneuver into the room. He didn’t hold out much hope.

“Right,” Dugan replied sarcastically. “Just do me a favor. Stay home and get well. Fast,” he underscored.

Jason glanced over toward his mother-in-law. “As fast as I can, trust me,” he responded.

“I’ll check back with you in a few days,” Dugan promised.

And with that, he left.

Dugan had some thinking to do, and right now, he was better doing it alone. Granted, he and Jason had been a team for the last year and a half, but now that Jason was home for what looked to be some time, for now he was on his own in this investigation. He was not about to tackle the investigation and break in a new partner.

Granted, he could walk and chew gum at the same time, but at the moment, all his energy was concentrated on unraveling the massive drug connections that were involved here.

Factions of the Juarez Cartel had brought their territory fight against the Sinaloa Cartel up here. He didn’t have time for anything else. Besides, he’d worked alone before and he was more than willing to do it again. It was definitely preferable to putting up with a new partner. Besides, if he needed backup, there were always Patterson and Ryan to call in.

His mind was made up. Until things changed, he was going to be working alone.

* * *

“Cavanaugh, get in here,” Lieutenant Jerry Daniels called out the moment Dugan walked back into the Vice squad room.

He didn’t like the sound of that, Dugan thought. But he couldn’t very well pretend not to have heard the lieutenant and walk out again, not when he was certain that the man had seen him come in.

With a sigh, he braced himself and then walked into the lieutenant’s office.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked.

The words dribbled out of his mouth. He was aware of her the moment he walked in and was doing his best not to stare.

Even though she had her back to him, the tall, stately blonde sitting in the other chair would have been hard to miss. He could only hope that the woman didn’t have anything to do with his assignment. Maybe she was involved in some kind of a goodwill gesture on the lieutenant’s part, or—

She turned around to look at him. Recognition was immediate.

“It’s you.”

Dugan hadn’t even realized that he’d said the words out loud until the lieutenant looked at him, obviously curious.

“You two know each other?” the lieutenant asked uncertainly.

There was no sign of recognition on the woman’s face whatsoever. Either she was one hell of a poker player or she was the victim of a sudden case of amnesia, because it was her, the woman in the alley. He would have known her anywhere. She was the woman he’d helped to give birth...

If he stood here and insisted that he had been there eight weeks ago, hovering over her in that back alley, coaching her as she pushed out her baby daughter, and she didn’t say anything to back him up, he was going to come across like a complete idiot who was on his way to a nervous breakdown.

So, for now, he was going to deny that he knew her—or how.

“No, my mistake, sir,” Dugan said formally. “I thought I recognized your guest here, but I obviously don’t.”

Daniels nodded, accepting the explanation. “All right, then. If you’re through interrupting me, we can get on with this. Since your partner is temporarily out on medical leave and the two of you weren’t getting anywhere in your investigation anyway,” he said crisply, his words cutting like a knife, “I thought that maybe another angle in this investigation might prove useful.”

He was getting that feeling again, Dugan thought. That feeling where the back of his neck began to prickle, getting itchy. It happened every time that he felt something was going wrong.

He told himself he was overreacting.

“And what angle might that be, sir?” he asked in the calmest, most virtuous voice he could summon, even though he could feel his stomach beginning to tie itself up in knots.

The look that Daniels shot him told Dugan that his superior thought his tone was a little too innocent. But because there was someone else in the room and he wanted to come off at his best, Daniels was forced to keep his temper.

So, instead, Daniels just continued with his introduction. “That would be where Ms. O’Keefe would come in.”

“Ms. O’Keefe,” Dugan repeated. Was that finally her real name or was this just another alias? At this point, he couldn’t be sure. “That would be you?” he asked the woman sitting in the other chair.

The woman smiled at him. The smile was polite, distant and showed absolutely no sign of any sort of recognition in any manner, shape or form.

Leaning forward, she extended her hand to him and introduced herself.

“Toni O’Keefe, investigative journalist,” she told him in case he thought she was part of the police department.

Dugan never took his eyes off hers. “Detective Dugan Cavanaugh.”

“Pleased to meet you, Detective Cavanaugh,” Toni said, still smiling that impenetrable smile.

Daniels looked from his detective to the extremely attractive woman in his office. It was obvious that he seemed to be trying to understand if there was something going on here other than just an exchange of introductions.

“Ms. O’Keefe, it turns out, is an expert on the history and dealings of the Juarez drug cartel,” Daniels told him.

“Is that a fact?” Dugan said, pretending that this piece of information was actually interesting to him. “I’m sure it must make for fascinating reading, but right now, I think figuring out what their next move is might be a little more to the point than reading about where they’ve been.”

He began to get up, but the look on the lieutenant’s face had him silently taking his seat again.

“Sorry about that,” the lieutenant apologized to Toni.

Her smile in return was brighter than sunshine. “No offense taken, lieutenant.”

It became clear to Dugan that the lieutenant was attempting to cull favor with the woman.

“Ms. O’Keefe’s father was Anthony O’Keefe,” Daniels told Dugan. The name meant nothing to Dugan, but the lieutenant went on as if it should. “There wasn’t a place in the world that journalist wouldn’t go to, a lead he wouldn’t chase down. He was fearless—”

Dugan was feeling restless and he had no idea just what his part—if any—was in this exchange. “I’m sure he was, lieutenant,” he finally said, gripping the armrests as he got up for a second time, “but I have got work to do—”

That was when the lieutenant hit him with a line he really wasn’t expecting. “And you’ll do it with Ms. O’Keefe.”

Dugan looked at Daniels, dumbfounded. While it was true that the lieutenant wasn’t at the top of his field, he wasn’t exactly an idiot, either. What was the man doing?

“Excuse me, sir?”

Everything in the rule book said that police work was done by members of the police department. Nowhere did it say that they were to defer to a newshound, or whatever it was that this person wanted to call herself—if she was even who she said she was. He was beginning to have his doubts.

There was one thing he did know. “She’s not a police officer, sir.” He looked at Daniels, waiting for the man to relent his position.

“She’s anything I say she is,” Daniels retorted, angry at what he felt was a challenge to his authority. “And right now, she has the clearance to be here and to help us in our investigation, so until such time as I decide it’s no longer beneficial to this department, she is going to be working with you. Have I made myself clear, Detective Cavanaugh?”

“Perfectly,” Dugan replied, doing his best to remain civil rather than to challenge the man.

It wouldn’t do him any good anyway. The lieutenant, for reasons he could only begin to guess at, had made up his mind about including Toni O’Keefe in the case. He’d never been all that close to Daniels, who had only been heading up Vice for the last nine months, so maybe there was something he didn’t know about the man—or this woman, for that matter.

For all he knew, maybe the lieutenant was the father of that baby she’d just had two months ago. Dugan was vaguely aware of the fact that the man was married, but that sort of thing might not have mattered to Daniels in this case.

At any rate, he was not about to waste time trying to figure out what was going on.

Instead, he was just going to get out of here and ditch this woman, whatever her game was, the first chance he got.

“All right,” Daniels was saying. “Are there any questions you might have for me?” He was looking directly at the journalist when he asked the question.

On an absolute basis, Dugan could see why the lieutenant might be acting the way he was. The woman, whoever she really was, was a stunner now that he actually looked at her. There was no other word for it. At approximately five foot seven, with long dark-blond hair and eyes the color of the sky at midday, she was gorgeous enough to catch anyone’s attention and make them forget everything, including the end of their sentence.

But they weren’t just “anyone,” they were members of the police department, and as such, they had a duty to perform, one that came before everything else. Or so he liked to believe.

Didn’t matter. All that mattered now was to get out of this room and get on with what he’d been about to do when the lieutenant had called him in. Granted, he wasn’t getting anywhere with his investigation, but he hadn’t given up yet. He certainly wasn’t going to get anywhere by following around a so-called newshound, no matter what Daniels wanted him to do.

“Just one,” Toni said, her voice sounding remarkably like Marilyn Monroe for someone who wanted to be taken seriously.

“And what’s that?” Daniels asked, turning almost into a schoolboy right before his eyes.

“What do I do about Detective—Cavanaugh, is it?” she asked, looking at Dugan with wide eyes.

Before he could answer her, she had turned her attention back to the lieutenant and continued, “If he suddenly decides to ditch me and take off?”

“He won’t do that,” Daniels answered. “Because there would be consequences to pay if he did that and he knows it.” The lieutenant looked at Dugan pointedly. “Right, Cavanaugh?”

“Right, sir.”

“Well, then, I guess we’ll get out of your hair and get started,” she said brightly.

“Remember,” Daniels said to her as he ushered her out of his office. “Any trouble at all, please don’t hesitate to get back to me.”

“Oh, I won’t,” she told him. Then, looking directly at Dugan, she smiled as she added, “As a matter of fact, Lieutenant Daniels, you can count on it.”

Chapter 4

The moment he was out of the lieutenant’s office, Dugan headed straight for the outer doorway leading out of the squad room. He had no particular destination in mind, other than to get away from the woman he had just been saddled with.

But if he’d meant to leave her behind, he found that she had other ideas about that.

The moment he stopped by the elevator to push the down button, she was right beside him.

He decided to ignore her. But that was before she said what she said.

“You didn’t come to the hospital the way you said you would.”

That stopped him cold. Turning to look at her, he saw a completely different expression on her face. It wasn’t that vacant, cheerful look she’d worn in Daniels’ office. The woman from the alley was back.

“Then you do remember.”

“The most important night of my life?” she asked, surprised that he would think otherwise. “Yes, of course I remember. How could I forget?”

“Then why did you just act as if you didn’t know me back there?” Dugan asked.

She looked around. For the moment, they were alone, so she explained her reasoning. “Because I wanted to do this story and I didn’t think your lieutenant would have put us together if he thought we had a history.”

Dugan didn’t have to think about that. “You’re right, he probably wouldn’t have.” Daniels tended to be the type who always had to be on top of everything, otherwise he was jealous.

Dugan got on the elevator. Toni was quick to follow. He moved back, giving her space—although part of him didn’t want to. The thought of getting closer was extremely appealing. “But we don’t have a history,” he pointed out, pressing for the first floor. “We had about forty minutes together in less than perfect circumstances—Scarlet.”

The elevator doors closed. They were alone but that could change at any moment. She talked quickly. “It’s not Scarlet,” she told him.

“I already know that,” he said, annoyed. There was no point in raising any recriminations. But he did want to know one thing. “Why did you lie to me?”

That was simple enough. “Because I didn’t know you from Adam and for all I knew, you weren’t a cop the way you said you were.”

He supposed that was fair enough. He thought of something else. “And that gun on the passenger seat, that was for protection?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Midnight’s kind of a strange time to be out joyriding,” he told her, skeptically.

“I wasn’t joyriding,” she informed him. “I was driving myself to the hospital. The baby decided she didn’t want to wait any longer and was earlier than anticipated.”

They had arrived on the ground floor, but he didn’t get out right away. “Why didn’t the baby’s father drive you?” he asked.

Toni walked passed him, getting out of the elevator. “I think you’ve used up your allotment of free questions for the time being,” she told him.

“One more question,” he said, holding up his index finger. “What’s your real name?”

So he thought she was lying to the lieutenant. She supposed she had that coming. Besides, even if she was lying, if he was the detective she thought he was, it wouldn’t have taken him much to find out the truth.

“It’s Toni. Toni O’Keefe, just like your lieutenant said,” she answered.

“And just what are you supposed to do?” he asked. “Shadow my every step while I collect intel and try not to get shot by anyone associated with the drug cartels?”

They were in the police station lobby and the person at the reception desk was looking over at them, obviously curious. Toni ignored him.

“You’ve already asked your one question, but I’m feeling magnanimous so, yes, that’s the general idea.”

Dugan frowned. That was just stupid seven ways from sundown, he thought. “And whose bright idea was it for you to play Lois Lane?”

She raised her chin. “Mine.” He started walking, so she quickly fell into place beside him. Or tried to.

“Does this mean that you think you’re Clark Kent?” she asked.

“Hell, no.” He laughed at the idea. “If I’m going to be anybody, it’d be Superman.”

She smiled at him. “Okay, Superman, where do we go first?”

She could smile all she wanted to, but he wasn’t some idiot to be led around by the nose by a beautiful woman. “We’re not going anywhere until you explain to me why I would take you with me.”

“Because your boss said so,” Toni answered innocently.

Too innocently as far as he was concerned. “Not good enough,” he told her. “I answer to a higher boss than Daniels.”

Okay, so he was one of those, she thought. Someone who felt he had a connection to another, out-of-this-world power. “Oh, you mean like—”

“The chief of detectives,” Dugan told her before she could make a guess. “Who also happens to be my uncle, but don’t let that get in your way.”

She’d seen that look before on other people. He was digging in and he wasn’t about to give an inch until she convinced him otherwise. Luckily, this was not her first encounter with a man like this.

“Look, can we go somewhere for a cup of coffee and talk?” she asked him.

“We could,” he said in a voice that told her he wasn’t about to.

She made a quick decision. Leading the way out of the lobby to the police parking lot, she said, “What if I told you that that night you came to my aid, I had the gun with me because I was afraid someone from the cartel was after me?”

“I’d say you were really reaching.” Although, he had to admit, he wasn’t dismissing what she’d just said altogether.

“Then you’d be wrong,” she informed him flatly, daring him to say otherwise.

He did a quick calculation. “Okay, let’s go get that cup of coffee and you see if you can convince me I’m wrong,” he told her, adding, “I’ll drive.”

“Fine with me.” They’d gone down the back stairs and were at the edge of the lot. “Is that your car?” she asked, pointing toward the red Mustang one row over.

“Yes.” He hadn’t been in his car that night when he’d come across her. He’d left the Mustang parked a block away. Dugan look at her quizzically. “How did you know?”

“I remember passing it that night on my way to the hospital. Just how much do you get as a vice detective, exactly?” Toni asked as she stopped by the car.

He wasn’t sure what was going through her head, but he didn’t want her laboring under any misconceptions. “I rebuilt this car before I ever joined the force,” he told her.

“You did this yourself?” she asked, clearly impressed with the end result of his efforts.

“Took me three years.” He opened the doors. “Why?”

“And it runs?” she asked.

“Yes, it runs,” he answered. “I didn’t push it here. Why all the questions?”

“Sorry, occupational habit,” she told him. She got into the car. “But if I had a car like this, I certainly wouldn’t risk driving it around on the job. Don’t people shoot at you?”

“Hardly ever,” he told her.

That didn’t make sense. “Doesn’t Vice attract bad guys?”

She was getting sidetracked, he thought. “You want to go get that cup of coffee and convince me why I should let you come watch me for a couple of days or not?”

“The former,” she told him.

Nodding, he started the car. “By the way, how’s the baby?”

She looked at him, and for the first time, he saw a wary look in her eyes. “Why?”

“No reason. I helped bring her into the world—” he began.

“Technically,” she said, cutting him off.

“And technically,” he continued, “I’d just like to know how she’s doing.”

Toni looked straight ahead of her at the scenery, her expression impassive. “She’s fine.”

Dugan glanced at her profile. “Aren’t you supposed to be with her?”

“What is it with you and all these questions?” she asked. “I’m supposed to be the investigative reporter here, not you.”

He shrugged. “I just like to know who I’m going to be working with—if I’m going to be working with you,” he qualified.

Sighing, Toni looked up at the roof of the car, as if seeking some sort of guidance. “I’m Toni O’Keefe. I write for the San Francisco Times as well as several online blogs. My father was Anthony O’Keefe and he taught me everything I needed to know about what it takes to be a good reporter. He taught me not to give up until I had my story and I never have.” She looked at him now. “I don’t intend to start now.”

“Fair enough,” he answered.

Dugan drove to the next block and pulled into an strip mall. It had an upscale grocery store on one end and a hardware store on the other. The coffee shop, along with a couple of other small restaurants as well as a pizzeria, were in the middle. He parked his car close by and got out.

“Best coffee in the city,” he told her once they reached the coffee shop. He gestured for her to go in first.

After getting their coffees, he took her over to a small indoor table. It was only when she sat down that he asked, “What if I don’t want you to work with me?”

She didn’t even hesitate. It was as if she was expecting this question, even though there had been a seven-minute break in between her statement and his.

“It’ll take me longer to get my story,” she informed him, her eyes meeting his. “But I’ll still get it.”

She seemed sure of herself, he’d give her that. “And if I let you work with me, exactly what is it that you bring to the table besides a great pair of legs?”

“I know people who you would want to know. People who could be very helpful to you. People who know things,” she told him. “On their own, what they know doesn’t amount to very much. But you start to put it all together, you just might have something.”

She was dealing in suppositions and possibilities, Dugan thought. It could all be just a bunch of nothing. But she had guts and a certain style he found himself admiring.

Just as he was about to tell her that he’d take her on—on a trial basis, she surprised him by asking, “You think I have great legs?”

Ah, vanity, you had to love it. “Absolutely. They’re probably the best pair of legs I’ve seen in a long, long time,” he said.

“Oh.” Realizing that she’d allowed herself to be distracted for a moment, Toni murmured, “Thank you.” Then she turned her attention back to what they had been talking about. Clearing her throat, she asked him, “So, do we have a deal?”

He was silent for a moment and it was very obvious that he was looking at her legs. After a moment, Toni drew them farther under the table, shifting so that they were now on the other side of the chair rather than closer to him.

Raising his eyes to her face, he said, “I’ll give you a week, see where it goes. But the first minute I find that it’s not working, or you’ve done something to jeopardize the operation, it’s over.”

“You have an operation?” Toni asked, leaning forward as if she expected him to let her in on a secret. He saw interest flash in her eyes. She seemed to come alive right in front of him. “What is it?” she asked.

“All in due time, O’Keefe,” he told her evasively. “You’ll find out all in due time.”

She watched him for a long moment, as if she was trying to discern just what it was that he had. And then she gave him a knowing look.

“You don’t have anything. You’re just doing this by the seat of your pants, winging it, if you will.” Having caught him, she still wanted verification. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Now who’s asking too many questions?” Dugan countered.

“I am right,” she declared. “That’s okay. There’s no shame in winging it. Some of the best plans are the ones that people have come up with on the fly,” Toni told him with a smugness he should have found irritating—but didn’t.

“Were you always an annoying little girl or did you grow into the role?” he asked.

She grinned and he found it annoyingly endearing. He was going to have to be careful around this one.

“I guess I’ve been like this my whole life,” she told him.

“Huh. Remind me to send your mother a condolence card,” he told her flippantly.

He saw her face cloud over for a moment. “That might prove hard to do,” Toni said as she finished her coffee.

He indicated the cup with his eyes. “Refill?” he asked.

“No, I’m good,” she answered.

Dugan heard the distance in her voice. Ordinarily, that would have been enough to make him back off, but for some reason, it didn’t. Instead, he returned to his previous comment about sending her mother condolences. Her expression had changed at that point, he thought. What had he said wrong?

“Why would that be hard to do?” he asked. “Send your mother a condolence card,” he prompted when she said nothing.

She thought about getting up and walking out. She also thought about telling him it was none of his damn business. Neither option really worked for her. At the very least, neither would get her what she wanted and she wanted that story. A huge drug bust as it was happening.

So she told him the truth.

“She died when I was born. She insisted on being with my father while he went after stories no one else would. She had the bad luck of being one of those women who didn’t look pregnant when she was, so nobody told her she shouldn’t fly late in the pregnancy.” Her voice was almost robotic, as if she was reciting a narrative that belonged to someone else. “She went into labor on the flight home. There were complications. She didn’t make it. At least Dad was with her when she—didn’t make it,” she concluded in a voice that was far too cheerful for the subject she was narrating.

Tossing her head, she asked him, “So, do I really get to work with you, like you said, or are you going to make my life more complicated by making me shadow you for every piece of information I want?”

For just a moment, Dugan understood what she was going through and what she had to be feeling. “My mother died, too.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not what I asked you,” she informed him almost coldly.

He didn’t know if she was trying to push him away or if he had managed to embarrass her somehow just now by cracking a wall he hadn’t realized she had up around her. For that matter, he reminded himself, he really didn’t know if she was on the level. For all he knew, she could have just made that whole thing up to get on his good side because she knew that his mother had died when he was young and highly impressionable. After all, his life wasn’t exactly a secret.

“No,” he replied, his eyes on hers. “It isn’t.”

“So do I?” she asked him again. “Do I get to work with you for a week while you make up your mind whether or not having me around is beneficial to your trying to break up the Juarez drug cartel?” she asked him again.

“And if I said no, you really would wind up shadowing me?” he asked.

There was no hesitation on her part. “Yes,” she answered.

“Well, then, I’d better save us both some grief and just say yes,” he told her. “Temporarily,” he added before she could say anything to either thank him—or tell him that he had made a wise choice.

Either way, he felt he had no other option. And he had learned a long time ago that it was better to have the source of his problem with him at all times than somewhere behind him.

There was less chance of being shot that way.

Chapter 5

“This is what you have?” Toni asked, looking at the bulletin board.

They had returned to the precinct and were now in the Vice squad room. There were close to a dozen photographs pinned to the bulletin board, arranged in a staggered tier formation, with the current head of the Juarez Cartel in the US located at the top.

All the photographs were of men. In addition, there were a few sheets of white eight-by-ten paper posted amid the photographs. These blank sheets represented the key figures in the organization who had not been identified, men within the cartel in different positions of importance who were able to make things happen, to have shipments sent out or received, but hadn’t been named.

Yet.

Whether this was because they were so important that their names were kept secret, or because the people who had been questioned previously didn’t know their names was unclear to Toni at the moment.

“This represents over eighteen months of work,” Dugan told her. It had taken that much time and effort—and more—to compile these names and faces.

“And these?” Toni asked, tapping one of the empty pages. “How long did it take you to put these up on the board?”

Unfazed, Dugan told her, “Those represent works in progress. The people exist, we just don’t know their names yet. We thought perhaps we were getting close to finding out some of their identities, but our latest CI turned up floating in a lake just around the time you gave birth,” he said grimly. “The one before that disappeared off the face of the earth.” He sighed. “We’ll probably find him in a shallow grave sometime in the future. The life expectancy of a CI who’s associated with this particular cartel isn’t exactly what you might call long.”

“Maybe that other CI you mentioned decided that it was healthier for him not to play both sides against the middle and just disappeared,” Toni guessed.

But Dugan shook his head. “Even when they stop giving us information, it’s only a matter of time before something gives them away to a superior. The cartel has a lot in common with a school of piranha. If they have nothing to feed on, they turn on their own. The trick is not to give them a reason to feed on you,” he said.

Toni shivered and ran her hands up and down her arms. “Makes you wonder why anyone would ever get into that way of life.”

He considered her question. “Other than stupidity, for some it’s the promise of money. A great deal of money,” he underscored. “For others, it’s an easy pipeline—at least at first—to something that they think that they can’t live without.”

She could see supposed informants clamming up, refusing to talk to the police. She tried to understand how any of the Vice detectives ever managed to get anyone to volunteer any actual information.

“Given that, how would you hope to be able to cultivate a CI?” she asked.

That was simple enough from where he was standing. “Some people are smart enough to realize that they’re standing in quicksand and they feel that making a deal with us—i.e., trading us information for a reduced sentence, or at times no sentence at all, is their only hope of keeping out of jail.”

Toni eyed him rather skeptically. “And you let them believe that?”

Dugan frowned slightly. He didn’t see a problem with the method and rather resented her insinuation that he was lying.

“We let them believe that because it’s true. We’re their last hope,” he told her. “At least we won’t put a bullet in their heads,” he added.

“Not directly, anyway,” she countered.

His eyes narrowed as he regarded her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Didn’t you say that your last CI won’t be making any more reports about possible shipments because he wound up going for a swim he hadn’t counted on—with a bullet in his brain?”

Dugan became a little wary. “I didn’t tell you that,” he said.

“Sorry,” she apologized offhandedly. “Must have been in the report I read.”

“That happened on the day you gave birth,” he said. “That was the phone call I got so I couldn’t go to the hospital with you,” he told Toni, looking at her. “How did you...?”

Toni shrugged, passing it off. “Like I said, I must have read it,” she admitted. “I’ve been boning up on the cartel,” she reminded him. “I didn’t want to come to the party empty-handed.”

“So far, you’re only offering me leftovers,” he told her, far from pleased at the way this investigation—and her part in it—was going. He still didn’t see an advantage to having her working with him. As a matter of fact, he could see it going the other way very quickly. To his way of thinking, journalists were not known for their caution.

She nodded, taking in what he had just said. “Then I guess I should tell my people to get busy and bring me something you can use.”

That caught him off guard. “What people?” he asked.

“People-people,” she answered.

He gave her a skeptical look. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

But this time, she wasn’t about to try to win him over. She became serious. “Sorry, Cavanaugh. You know I can’t give up my sources or else they won’t give it up to me. All I can do is pass whatever I get on to you when I get it,” she told him.

This made him think that the woman had seen one procedural too many. She obviously thought this was a game. He had no patience with games.

“Look, any tip we get, we’re going to have to vet,” he told her.

Rather than back off, the way he thought she would, or just give up altogether, Toni said, “Then I guess it’s going to be a long time between tips, at least on my end.” She pressed her lips together for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Look, how about if I promise that whatever I do pass on to you is legitimate? I’m not about to do it for brownie points, Cavanaugh. If what I give you turns out to be bogus, I know that you’d dump me.”

Dugan never hesitated. “In a heartbeat.”

That only proved what she was saying. “I know that, you know that, so there won’t be any phony leads just for the sake of leads.”

Dugan felt his patience beginning to slowly evaporate. He sighed. “So, after all that, do you have anything?”

He still half expected her to lie. Instead, she spread her hands wide. “No, not right now. But you’ll be the first to know when I do.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and then something occurred to him. “These leads that you get...” he began.

“Yes?”

He watched her expression the entire time as he asked, “Do they have anything to do with that gun you had on the passenger seat that night?”

The wide smile she’d had up until that moment faded. A serious expression came into her eyes. The whole tone of the discussion changed.

“They might have,” she told him guardedly.

“Anything you want to talk about?” he asked her, waiting for her to give him something to work with.

Instead, she said, “No.”

He tried another line of questioning. “Are you still carrying that gun?”

Dugan saw her raising her chin defiantly. He had his answer before she said another word. “I have a permit.”

“So I take it that’s a yes?” Whether or not she said anything, he knew that it was.

There was silence between them for a moment. And then Toni changed the subject. “Why don’t you tell me what you plan to do next with this investigation?”

He had questions he wanted to ask her. Questions that had to do with why she was doing something so ultimately dangerous when there were so many other things she could be writing about. Questions about why someone as savvy as she seemed to be would have gotten herself into a situation where she had wound up trusting the wrong man, as she obviously must have done, given the fact that he’d found her in an alley, about to give birth, instead of somewhere with her husband or boyfriend being taken care of.

Questions filled Dugan’s head that had absolutely nothing to do with why she was standing here beside him right now.

But she was standing here with him right now and he had to deal with that first and everything else, no matter how curious it made him, second.

He forced himself to focus on the case he’d been working on for over eighteen months. “We round up the people caught in the most recent drug busts and talk to them to see if they’d heard anything about the next shipment.”

“Just like that?” Toni asked him incredulously. Was he that naive?

“Well, I might be leaving out a couple of steps,” Dugan granted. “Like maybe their little brother or sister was picked up on drug charges, too. And maybe we could make that go away. Or make their second possession with intent to sell be knocked down to a misdemeanor if they have anything to trade.”

All right, now he was talking, Toni thought. It was beginning to make sense to her. “Do you have anything like that?”

“I’d have to check my roster,” he told her, unwilling to say yes or no. He continued looking at her for a moment, then he shook his head. “Do you realize that you’re about to salivate?”

Rather than be embarrassed or say that he was imagining things, she boldly told him, “Just looking forward to seeing you in action, Cavanaugh.”

His smile was slow, making her heart flutter once it was out in full force. “Well, if that’s the case,” he told her, “maybe we can see what we can do about that after my shift’s over.”

Just for the slightest second, there was a zap of electricity that traveled between them. She could hardly move. But then she rallied, backing away—gracefully, she hoped.

“Sorry, I have a baby to see to once I’m through here.”

He was wondering when she would get around to mentioning the baby. He’d started to think that maybe she’d given the baby to someone to watch over while she was on this assignment. She certainly didn’t act like any new mother he’d ever come across.

“Maybe I could drop by to see her,” he said, inviting himself over without a hint of embarrassment. “She’s got to be what, two months old now?”

Toni had to admit that he’d surprised her. Most men didn’t keep track of anything but their favorite team’s standing in whatever league they were in. When it came to anything else—babies, occasions, the women they’d gone out with—their minds were, for the most part, blank slates.

This made him different, she thought.

“Two months,” Toni repeated with a nod, then almost as an afterthought, added, “Maybe someday,” regarding his request to see the baby.

“Sure,” he answered. “Just name the day, I’ll be there.”

Okay, she had to ask. “You’re serious,” Toni said, more in wonder than to confirm what he’d just said.

“Sure,” he answered. He didn’t understand her question. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

She thought of her daughter’s father. The moment he had found out that she was pregnant—and that she wasn’t about to terminate the pregnancy—he had dropped out of the picture completely. He’d made it clear that he preferred not to know anything about the details, including if she’d had a girl or boy or a cockatiel. As far as he was concerned, they’d never even been together. She hadn’t heard from him in almost a year.

“Most men aren’t interested in babies,” she finally said.

To her surprise, Dugan laughed, then really laughed. Not at her, but at her statement.

“What’s so funny?”

He’d almost had tears in his eyes. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he said, “I was just thinking that I was going to have to introduce you to the men in my family.”

Right, like that’s going to happen, she thought. The only time men talked was when they talked about women.

“Let’s start out with something simple,” she told Dugan, changing the subject for the second time in less than half an hour. “Like one of those drug arrests you mentioned.”

There was more to her than just being an annoying investigative journalist, he thought. There were layers to this woman. Layers he was going to enjoy peeling back when the time came.

But for now, she was right. His case had been stalled for over a week and it was time to shake a few trees and see what fell out.

“Okay,” he told her, writing down a couple of things in a very battered notebook he took out of his pocket, “Let’s get to it.”

* * *

“I need a hit, man,” the jittery woman told Dugan.

Scrawny and unkempt, she looked older than her years. She had long since stopped caring if her hair was combed and her makeup was on correctly or even at all. A one-time picture of perfection, now Linda Tanner only cared about finding her next score and the sooner she found it, the better.

Her window of comfort had come and gone and she was desperate now. A ring of perspiration circled her hairline and she was rocking in her seat as she talked to him, as if the perpetual motion would somehow help soothe her.

It didn’t.

“You wouldn’t have anything on you, would you?” she asked. She knew he didn’t, but she was hoping against hope anyway. Hazel eyes darted toward the woman sitting beside the cop. “How about you? You have anything? I just need a taste, just a little taste, that’s all. I’m going crazy here,” she told Dugan, her attention shifting back to him since he was the one she knew. Her fingertips turned almost pale as she dug them into his arm. “C’mon. Please,” she begged, looking from one to the other. “Just a little taste to see me through.”

Toni had seen junkies before, some up close and personal, like this one. But there was something about this woman that seemed to hit closer to home than the others.

Toni shifted uncomfortably, looking at Dugan. They were sitting opposite the woman in a communal room at the city jail.

Toni turned her head so that only he could hear her. “Can’t you do something for her?” she asked.

“Are you suggesting that I get her drugs?” Dugan asked, wondering just what it was that she wanted him to actually do.

“I’m suggesting that you do something to help her get past this point. Something to tide her over,” Toni said. Otherwise, all they’d hear was her lamenting her situation.

“Is that what you want, Linda?” Dugan asked, looking at the wild-eyed young woman. “You want something to tide you over?”

“Yes,” she cried, saying the word with such emphasis her eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of her head if she squeezed them any more.

Toni wasn’t sure what to expect. Part of her thought he’d tell the woman no. Instead, she heard Dugan say, “You know the game, Linda. You have to give me something to get something.”

Toni looked at him. Then he was going to give the woman something?

He’d done this before, she realized. It made him no better than some of the people he was looking to put away, but she supposed there was some sort of justification for what he was doing. In his place, she wasn’t sure just what she would do, especially if she had something in her possession to give to the woman.

“I don’t have anything to tell you!” Linda cried, desperate.

“Think, Linda,” Dugan said calmly, his voice a direct contrast to hers. “You haven’t heard of anything going down? No shipments supposedly coming in now or at a later date?”

“Later, maybe,” Linda said, her eyes really wild now as she seemed to struggle to think. “Later,” she repeated. “Out of Baja,” she added. “The fifteenth of next month. Maybe the twentieth.” She licked her lips as she scratched her arms. She continued scratching, all but taking the skin off.

“Is it a small shipment?” Dugan asked.

She shook her head, her matted head moving like a separate entity about her head. “No, not small. Large. I overheard them. They said it was a large shipment.” Her breathing grew a little more shallow. Whether it was the excitement of what she was saying or the idea that she was going to get something to alleviate the awful craving she was experiencing wasn’t clear. “When they saw me, they stopped talking, but I heard what I heard,” she maintained.

“I’m going to have to check it out, Linda,” Dugan said.

“I’m not lying,” Linda cried. “You know me. Please,” she begged. “You said if I told you something, you’d get me something.”

“And I will,” he told her.

There were tears in her eyes as she clutched his arm. “Now!

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