didn’t matter. He was a hell of a lucky man and he knew it.
He—
Andrew’s breath caught in his throat as he made out something up on the road just ahead.
The slight fog was beginning to settle in more intensely now, and visibility was definitely being challenged.
Damn, what was that, anyway?
Andrew felt for his shirt pocket. It was empty.
Where had he put his glasses? He should have worn them driving home tonight, but they made him feel old.
Hell, you are old, a voice in his head pointed out. As always, he ignored it. He wasn’t twenty-nine anymore, but he was still in the prime of life. Old was destined to be fifteen years older than he was.
Always.
Andrew squinted. He was almost certain he saw someone staggering up ahead in the road. Not wanting to take any chances, he swerved at the last minute to keep from hitting it. As his car spun to the left, he struggled to regain control of it.
Andrew was so busy trying to steer into the spin, he didn’t see the person in the middle of the road raising a gun until it was too late.
The single, resounding shot went into his windshield, shattering it.
The last thing Andrew Cavanaugh was aware of was the windshield glass falling inside his vehicle like so many bits of fragmented snowflakes.
The pain in his chest consumed him, blotting out the entire world.
* * *
The bent, ragged, homeless man, who had appeared to have been so preoccupied with pawing through the overflowing trash cans that were lined up in the alley like so many drunken revelers, came to attention at the first sound of squealing tires. The vacant look on his face vanished as if it had never existed.
Eyes on the fishtailing white sedan in the middle of the deserted road, the undercover DEA agent heard the gunshot screaming through the night air and then saw the shooter hurrying toward the immobilized vehicle.
By then Brennan Cavanaugh stopped pretending that he was just a hapless spectator, interested only in his own survival, and was galvanized into action. He began sprinting toward the car and, more important, toward the victim he glimpsed inside it.
That was when the shooter obviously realized there was someone else in the vicinity besides the driver who had been presumably taken out by the well-aimed bullet.
Biting off what sounded like a livid curse, the shooter turned around and ran back into the shadows, seeking the cover of night. Undoubtedly focused on survival, the shooter didn’t turn around one last time and so wasn’t able to see the ragged man dragging the former chief of police from his car. Consequently, there was no second shot piercing the night air to finish the job.
Only the sound of running feet growing fainter.
* * *
Brennan checked for a pulse the moment he felt he and the victim were far enough away from the car in case it burst into flames.
It took him two tries, but he finally detected a pulse. An extremely faint one.
“Hang in there, mister,” he told the unconscious man. “Don’t die on me. Don’t let me blow my cover and just possibly my whole career for no reason.”
Feeling around in the deep pockets of his filthy khaki-colored hoodie with his left hand—his right was busy trying to stem the victim’s flow of blood—Brennan pulled out his cell phone and called for an ambulance.
As he did so, he couldn’t shake the strangest feeling that he was watching a chapter of his life slam shut.
And maybe, just maybe, another one creak open.
Chapter 1
“You’ve been nursing that beer for the last hour. Something bothering you, son?”
Brennan Cavanaugh was lost in thought as he leaned against the cool white stucco wall and watched people who constituted his newly discovered family enjoying themselves. It took him a moment to zero in on the man asking the question.
Brennan had an aptitude for names and faces—in his line of work, or former line of work, he corrected himself, he’d had to. He knew the man speaking to him to be Brian Cavanaugh, the Aurora police department’s chief of detectives, younger brother of the man whose life he had saved, an act that had, as he’d silently predicted, terminated an active part of his own career, since he had to blow his cover in order to save Andrew Cavanaugh—his long lost uncle. He couldn’t help thinking that truth could be a lot stranger than fiction.
“Not really,” he replied.
It was the easiest answer to give. In his experience, when people asked how you were doing, or if something was wrong, they really didn’t want to know and certainly not in detail.
But Brian obviously did not fall into that general category, because he pressed a little. “Fakely, then?” Brian asked with an understanding smile.
Brian knew all about people’s reluctance to talk. He’d witnessed it initially from his early days on the force when he questioned victims and suspects. He was aware of it currently because of the office he’d held for a number of years.
Since becoming the chief of detectives, he had come across more than one person who was afraid to share his private feelings because he thought it might affected his work life adversely. Brian’s gift was that he knew instinctively how to separate the two and how much weight to give to what he heard in both capacities: as the chief of detectives and as a relative/friend.
“All right, let’s just say, for the sake of hypothetical argument, that there was something causing you some minor concern. What would that be?” he asked when Brennan made no response to his earlier joking comment.
Because he wasn’t quite ready to talk about it, Brennan went with the most obvious answer. “I’ll be the first to admit that I grew up in a crowd scene. Every holiday, birthday or miscellaneous celebration, there were always acres and acres of family—but this, well, this gives a whole new meaning to words like overwhelmed. I’ve heard of family trees, but this, this is damn near a family forest,” Brennan quipped with a grin that took its time in forming.
Brian laughed. “You have that right,” he readily agreed. “But at the risk of harping, that’s not what’s bothering you.” He saw the suspicious way Brennan looked at him. “Don’t look so surprised, boy. I didn’t get to where I am on good looks alone.” The statement was accompanied by another, this time deeper, laugh. “I’m a fair hand at reading people.” And there was definitely something bothering this young man who had saved his older brother’s life. Brian intended, eventually, to get to the bottom of it. “Now, if you don’t want to talk, I understand. But if you do,” Brian continued, “I am a good man to talk to. I listen.”
Brennan shrugged as he stared down at the light that was being reflected in what was left of his beer. The overhead patio light shimmered seductively on the liquid surface, as if it were flirting with him.
“It’s nothing, sir,” he finally said. “I was just wondering what I was going to do with myself come Monday morning, that’s all.”
Brian appeared slightly puzzled. “I thought you were working undercover for the DEA. Something to do with drug smuggling.”
Brian left the statement vague despite the fact that he knew exactly what the young man next to him had been up to when he rescued Andrew. The moment he’d done that, Brian had made it his business to find out everything he could about the tall, strapping DEA agent with the same last name.
Brennan nodded, avoiding his eyes. “I was.”
“Was,” Brian repeated as if he was trying to see if he’d heard the word correctly.
At the last moment, Brennan withheld a sigh. “Yes,