“Other than a nagging partner?”
He’d called her his partner again. He was getting used to her. That was both good and bad, depending on what side of her guilt she was standing on. “Goes without saying.”
Maybe two heads were better than one. At the very least, maybe he could use her as a sounding board. Just thinking of that surprised him. The whole concept of sharing his thoughts was foreign to him because he’d always gone it alone, always relied on his own instincts.
But maybe this time he was too close, too involved to be impartial. He cared about Ramirez, and about the welfare of the man’s family. “Okay, I’ll take you up on that beer.”
Score one for the home team.
“Great. Do I get to choose the place this time?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” She nodded toward his car. “You drive, I’ll follow.”
He was already getting in. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Maggi bit her tongue to keep from commenting.
Chapter 11
T
his time Patrick took her to a place with more light, more noise, more anonymity. If she was interpreting body language correctly, no one here seemed to know him by name or by sight. The noise around them guaranteed their privacy.
She was secretly grateful he hadn’t brought her back to the bar they’d been to last night. What had happened there was still very fresh in her mind and the velvety darkness would have only aided and abetted the desire that still hummed through her. A booth with a proper-sized table between them was a lot better.
She was also secretly disappointed.
Maggi waited until the waiter brought over their beers, bottles again, before she said anything. She had a feeling that if she didn’t initiate the conversation, Cavanaugh would go on sitting there, not a syllable leaving his lips, until he decided it was time to get up and go.
“All right, I’m all ears.”
She saw the way his eyes swept over her. For a second, she could almost feel them touching her as they passed. Her mouth grew a little drier. She felt less like a partner and a great deal more like a woman.
“Figuratively speaking,” she felt bound to add. “Something’s been bothering you since we were in Ramirez’s house. What is it?” When he didn’t begin to speak, frustration raised its head faster than she knew it should have. The man really knew how to press her buttons. A lot of them. “Talk to me, Cavanaugh. That’s what I’m here for.”
Even as she uttered the words, Maggi couldn’t help wondering if the man she was sitting opposite had any idea how true those words were. That was what she was here for, to get him to talk to her. To wheedle into his confidence, not as a partner but as a spy.
She felt an unwanted shiver creeping through her system and banked it down.
Patrick sat for a long moment, regarding the neck on his bottle of beer. He hated what he was thinking. He wasn’t outgoing, but his late partner had gotten to him, gotten his trust. Facing the possibility that he’d been fooled wasn’t easy for him.
Finally he looked up. “He didn’t have that kind of money.”
“Ramirez?” she guessed.
He nodded slowly. “He always needed money. He was always into something that would get him rich, quick. Anytime he did anything right, anytime something panned out for him—and it wasn’t often—” Patrick emphasized “—he told me about it. Told everyone about it. That man couldn’t keep his mouth shut. That was just his way.”
He needed to believe in his partner, she realized. It made Cavanaugh a little more real to her, a little less like some remote, two-dimensional being. It also made her want to help him hang on to his memory of the man.
“Maybe his wife’s not asking for anything because of pride.”
Patrick shook his head. “Alicia’s not like that.”
“You’d be surprised how much pride someone can have when it comes to preserving the reputation of someone they love.” Patrick looked at her sharply. She’d only been throwing out words.
What are you thinking, Cavanaugh? Have I set off something in your head?
“A man’s not a good provider for his wife and kids,” she continued, pretending she hadn’t noticed his reaction, “that brings his stock down.”
He wasn’t convinced. Something felt wrong. “It wouldn’t have been something she would have kept from me.” He thought of Ramirez. The first thing he remembered was the man’s wide grin. The second was the sound of his voice, going on incessantly. Not unlike the woman in the booth with him now. “Partners get close. They spend a lot of time together—it’s hard not to.”
“And the two of you got close.” It was hard picturing him getting close to anyone, Maggi thought. Maybe that was why he was resisting the idea they were silently waltzing around, because he’d gotten in close and put his faith in someone. And that someone had died.
He looked at her. “As close as I’ve ever gotten to someone who’s not a member of my family.”
His steady gaze held her prisoner. Needing to pull back, Maggi tried to lighten the moment. “So I’ve got something to live for.”
“Maybe.”
There was no way to know what he was thinking now, she noted. His clear blue eyes gave nothing away.
Maggi struggled to keep her mind on the object of all this. “You do know how to put someone in what you think is their place, Cavanaugh.” Maggi leaned forward, playing out her line, trying to reel him in a little closer. Ignoring the slight spasmodic twinges running up and down her conscience like a short circuit. “Okay, so if you were privy to everything Ramirez did that was aboveboard, maybe this wasn’t.”
“What are you saying?”
The man looked as if he could shoot lightning bolts from his eyes. She suddenly felt sorry for anyone on the wrong side of his temper. “That maybe Ramirez was getting something on the side. It’s not the kind of thing he’d share with a partner.”
Anger flared like unguarded flames. “You’re saying he was dirty?”
She kept her voice light, low. “I’m spinning theories, not trying to get in a fight.”
Patrick sucked in his breath. His voice had a dangerous ring to it as he said, “He wasn’t the type.”
Maggi didn’t budge. “Everyone’s the type if the situation is dire enough.”
“Now you sound like Wiley.” There was no missing his disgust.
“No,” she insisted, “I sound like a realist.”
Patrick started to leave the table. She grabbed his wrist. If looks could kill, she figured the one he shot her would have left her mortally wounded. But now that she’d gotten on to something, she was not about to back away.
“Follow me on this. The man had three kids, a wife, a mortgage, maybe a shoe box full of other debts. You said he was always getting into things that didn’t pay off.” Reluctantly Patrick sat down again. She continued holding his wrist. “Somebody offers to give him a little money to look the other way. He’s a good guy but he’s got creditors breathing down his neck, that kind of thing. So he does it.” Seeing that she had his attention, Maggi slipped her hand from his wrist. “It’s a onetime thing. Or so he tells himself. Except that once he’s in, he’s in. Like you said, he had no more control over the situation. It had control over him. So he goes along with it, putting aside money for the kids’ college funds, a vacation, something pretty for his wife. And all it takes is not saying anything.
“But his conscience eats at him until he says ‘that’s it, I’ve had it.’ Now whoever slipped Ramirez that money gets nervous. They know they’ve got a liability on their hands—”
“They?” He looked at her closely. Did she know something she wasn’t telling him? After subjecting him to days of useless information and endless rhetoric, was there actually something useful she was holding back?
“Or he,” Maggi allowed. “She, whatever. Bottom line is Ramirez has to be eliminated before he talks.”
He hated to admit it, but the scenario fit. “And he gets killed.”
“And he gets killed,” she echoed.
He gazed at her intently. “So you think this is an inside thing?”
She raised her hands from the table, palms up. “I’m only spinning theories,” she repeated. “But it does make sense.” And it did, she thought, now that she’d put it out on the table. She only had to prove it. And then she had to see if perhaps Cavanaugh was a hell of a lot better actor than he let on and was actually part of all this. Damn, but this job was making her paranoid. “Puts a different light on ‘friendly fire,’ doesn’t it?”
The theory put McKenna in a whole different light as well, he thought. “You’re a lot darker than I thought you’d be.”
“It’s the lighting,” she cracked, taking a drag from her bottle.
Why did she do that? he wondered. Why did she say something flippant to throw him off, keep him off balance? He didn’t like it. “You know damn well what I mean.”
Maggi sobered. “Yes, I do. I’m just not sure if it’s a compliment or not.”
“Neither am I.” Leaning back, he contemplated the mouth of the empty bottle. He didn’t like what she was saying, but he was too good a cop not to admit that, at least from the outside, it made sense. “We’d need proof. Evidence.”
“Definitely.”
He didn’t know whether he wanted to dig deep and ruin a man’s reputation because of principles. Ramirez had been one of the few people he’d allowed himself to call friend.
She saw the doubt on his face as he warred with his thoughts. Was he worried that an investigation would lead to his own dirty hands? Or was he just concerned for a man he’d privately considered a friend?
Instinct told her that if Patrick was dirty, he wouldn’t contemplate shining a light on someone else so close to him.
But maybe that was what she wanted to think.
She hated admitting the possibility that her personal feelings were obstructing what she had to do. She needed distance here, at least for a few hours.
“Look, we’re not going to settle anything tonight,” she pointed out. “You can think about it and tomorrow, if you still agree there’s some chance Ramirez was killed to keep him quiet, I’ll help you dig.”
He raised his eyes from the bottle. “You?”
“Well, you’re going to need to get hold of bank records, information on file, things like that. We already know how proficient you are with a computer, so I figure you’re going to need help.”
There was no use protesting that he could manage alone, not when he was up against technology. Still, he didn’t want her working with him, not on this. A man had to draw the line somewhere. How did he know he could trust her? “This isn’t your concern.”
Her eyes told him that she wasn’t about to budge on this. “It’s about a cop on the police force. How
isn’t
it my concern?”
He thought of Ramirez, of seeing the life drain out of the man even as he held him in his arms, willing him back to life. “It could get ugly.”
“I can do ugly.”
“Not hardly,” he said under his breath. For now, he wanted to table the discussion. “You hungry?”
She cocked her head. “You offering to buy or taking a survey?”
Something tightened in his gut. He figured it was in protest against hunger. “The former.”
“Then I’m hungry.” Maggi settled back in her seat, not bothering to suppress the smile on her face as he signaled for the waitress to come over.
Tiny, baby steps.
The telephone was ringing when he walked into his condo over an hour later. He and McKenna had gone their separate ways after dinner, although he’d had to struggle against the urge to ask her over to his place. The pretext of a nightcap wasn’t even remotely in his thoughts. What he wanted was to find out if her skin was as smooth as it seemed. All over. If that look in her eyes hid a wildness instinct told him was there.
For a simple man, Patrick knew life had gotten incredibly complicated for him, and this bone about Ramirez was hard enough to chew on. He didn’t need more.
Except Maggi was tormenting him. Need tormented him. A basic need as old as time. That’s all it was, he told himself, taking off his holster. All he wanted was a little gut-wrenching, toe-curling, sweaty sex, nothing more.
The fact that he was contemplating having it with his partner made his mouth curve. Never thought he’d catch himself thinking that.
The phone kept ringing, an irritating noise scratching at the perimeter of his mind. Patrick thought of letting the machine get it, but his natural sense of urgency and order forced him to walk over to it and pick up the wireless receiver.
“Cavanaugh.”
“Just wanted to put in my bid early for Christmas day.”
The familiar voice drew out a smile as Patrick sank down on his sofa. The second he did, he felt as if he’d collapsed. He’d warred with a host of emotions that had made him more tired than a full day out in the field.
He put his feet up on the secondhand coffee table Patience had picked up for him at a garage sale. “You don’t have to put in a bid, Uncle Andrew. It’s a done deal, you know that.”
“No, I don’t,” the other man informed him. “I didn’t think I’d have to call and ask to see you, but apparently it looks like I have to. Your sister’s looking well. She tells me she hasn’t seen much of you, either.”
Patrick grinned. There was something comforting about listening to his uncle’s harping. He’d missed it. “Work. You know how it is.”
He heard his uncle sigh and knew there was more than a little nostalgia echoing in the sound. “Yeah, I know how it is. Still doesn’t give a man an excuse to cut out his family.”
“No cutting,” Patrick assured him, then teased, “trimming maybe.”
“If I asked to see your clock-stopping mug at the table in the next say, three or four days, what do you think my chances would be?”
“Fair to good.”
“But not perfect.”
There were no birds on his uncle’s antennae, Patrick thought fondly. Sometimes he wondered why the man opted to take early retirement. Andrew was still as sharp as ever. “No, not perfect.”
Andrew hesitated for a moment. “You know, Patrick, if a case you’re working on is giving you trouble, I’d be happy to have you bounce a few things off me. The brain still works pretty well.”
Patrick glanced at a stack of mail on the corner of the table. It was beginning to pile up. He supposed he’d have to get around to going through it one of these days, before a utility company decided to shut off something he found useful. “So I’ve heard, but I just wrapped up a case.”
Patrick could hear the trap snapping as soon as he made the admission. He’d been set up.
“Well, then, I guess you’ve got no excuse not to come over.”
The private part of him liked leaving himself a little leeway, although he did enjoy going to his uncle’s house for breakfast. His thoughts shifted to the conversation he’d had at dinner. “I’m working on something else right now.”
“A new case?”
He heard the interest in his uncle’s voice. Not being part of the force anymore, Uncle Andrew still had more connections than anyone Patrick knew. Maybe he’d heard something useful. But it was still too early to think of letting more people know about this. It chaffed him that McKenna was in on it.
“Not exactly.” He paused. “I’ll let you know if I need to ask you hypothetical questions.”