Well, go easy on whoever the new partner they send up is. The department’s only got so many detectives to go around.” Hollis put his hand out to Declan. “It’s been an experience, Declan. Keep in touch—and let me know if you ever want to start keeping regular hours. I’m sure the old man can find something for someone like you.”
Declan supposed that was meant to flatter him. It failed, through no fault of his well-intentioned about-to-be-ex-partner. “Not me. I like things to be unstructured,” Declan told him. “Listen, I’ll buy you a drink after hours—provided something else doesn’t come up.”
Hollis nodded. “You’re on.”
The acting lieutenant for Major Crimes stuck his head into Declan’s tiny cubicle. “Hey, Cavanaugh, we got a call just now. Some officer got shot inside his own house.”
“Domestic dispute?” Declan asked, saying the first thing that came to mind. He was already reaching into the drawer for the weapon he’d placed there.
“No details yet, just that another one of our detectives went to check on him and found the body in the living room. Check it out. And when you come back, come see me. We’ve got to look into getting you a new partner now that this one’s making a break for it.” He jerked a thumb in Hollis’s direction.
“Just making plans to live the good life, Lieu, just making plans to live the good life,” Hollis told his superior innocently.
“Yeah, well, come tell me that in six months,” the lieutenant said. He stopped listening to the exchange between the two men the moment he turned away from them and headed back to his office.
“Looks like he’s not going to be throwing you any farewell parties,” Declan quipped. “Guess it’s all up to me—if I can find anyone who knows who the hell you are,” he added with a laugh.
Hollis could only shake his head. But he knew his limitations. Knew, too, that he might have very well invited a viper into his home space. With this in mind, he shook his head and proclaimed, “Nice, Cavanaugh, real nice.”
Declan spread his hands wide, accentuating his innocent shrugs. “Hey, I just tell it the way I see it, man.”
“Give my condolences to your new partner,” Hollis called after him.
Declan nodded, then stopped short of the doorway and made a prediction as he shrugged into his jacket. “You’ll be back.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Cavanaugh,” he chuckled, heading in the opposite direction. “You’ll get old, waiting.”
Declan shook his head. Had to be some kind of an epidemic, he decided. Some kind of a bug that was inducing people he knew—including his own siblings—to abandon their single existence, an existence that was highlighted by freedom and a myriad of choices in all directions—just to be yoked to another person, presumably for life.
And while he had to admit that he really liked and got along with the people that his brothers and sisters chose to become their “other halves,” the very hint of marriage, at least in his case, sounded far too much like a prison sentence, he thought.
And that was definitely not for him.
Chapter 2
The sound of raised voices greeted Declan the minute he got out of his car, thanks to the wide-open door leading into the victim’s house. Someone was having an argument, he thought, listening closely as he made his way up the walk.
“Look, Detective, there’s no pulse,” the paramedic with the two days’ growth on his face argued. He gestured in exasperation toward the body on the sofa. “The officer’s dead. There’s nothing we can do for him. You’ve already made us apply the paddles once. There is no jump-starting this guy,” he enunciated. “He’s gone. You don’t need an ambulance for him, you need the coroner’s wagon. He’s dead.”
Declan looked from the two frustrated paramedics to the woman they were arguing with. The woman who, with her back to the entrance, was deliberately blocking the paramedics’ exit.
“Try the paddles again,” she ordered.
There was something vaguely familiar about the voice and the woman’s stance, even though she had her back to him. Declan had the feeling that he knew her or, at the very least, that their paths had crossed once.
“He’s gone, Detective,” the other, older paramedic insisted, although his voice was gentler, more understanding than his partner’s.
The woman rested her hand on the hilt of the weapon holstered at her side. The inference was difficult to miss.
“Just one more time,” she told them evenly. “You can’t be in that much of a hurry to leave.”
The two paramedics exchanged looks, and then the younger one saw him standing in the doorway behind the detective. A silent appeal went out to Declan.
Declan inclined his head as if to say, “Humor her.” The hope was that she would be easier to deal with if she was humored.
With a sigh, the taller of the two paramedics took out the defibrillator again, set it up to three hundred and held the flat surfaces out so that his partner could apply gel to the paddles. The first paramedic waited for thirty seconds, then cried out, “Clear!” just before applying the paddles to Matt’s chest.
The officer’s lifeless body jolted macabrely, rising an inch or so from the sofa, then fell back again, as devoid of any spark of life now as he had been the first time the paddles had been applied.
Still holding the paddles, the paramedic looked at her. “See?” he asked.
“Satisfied?” the other paramedic asked, more than ready to wrap things up and be on his way.
Charley closed her eyes, struggling to keep the hot tears back. She wasn’t going to cry over Matt until she was alone, away from any prying eyes. She owed her brother that much, to conduct herself with dignity in public. Matt hated scenes.
“No,” she said in what amounted to a strangled whisper. She wasn’t satisfied at all. “But you can go.”
The voice finally registered, setting off a chain reaction in Declan’s head. He knew who she was now.
“Charlotte?” Declan asked, coming around to look at the detective’s face. “Charlotte Randolph?” he asked for good measure, although he was fairly certain that he’d guessed correctly, identifying the powerhouse of a detective as the rookie he’d met while attending the academy. She’d been a go-getter back then, too—and married as he recalled. She was the one unattainable goddess all the male rookies fantasized about.
Charley looked up, climbing out of the temporary mental haze she’d descended into as the two paramedics made their way out of her brother’s house, pushing the empty gurney before them. It took her a second to clear the fog from her brain.
Once she did, she immediately recognized the man who’d said her name. Declan Cavelli. Tall, gorgeous, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped Declan Cavelli. Best-looking would-be rookie cop at the academy. She vividly remembered wondering what it would have felt like, slipping her fingers through his thick, midnight-black hair, touching the silky straight strands. There probably wasn’t a woman who crossed his path who didn’t have fantasies about the man. And she was no exception.
Because routine was all she had now, she nodded her acknowledgment of his presence. “Cavelli.”
Declan grinned. Thanks to his father, Sean, Declan and his siblings had discovered that due to a mix-up at the hospital where his father was born, they were actually Cavanaughs and not Cavellis as they had previously thought. It took some getting used to, but he was fine with it now. They all were.
“It’s Cavanaugh now.”
“You get married?” she deadpanned, doing her best to divorce herself from the very real body that was still on the sofa, waiting for proper