newspaper was part of his morning ritual, as well. Not that he usually had time to read it. Most days he took off a couple of minutes after he brought the paper into the apartment. Like so many of his under-thirty-five generation, most—if not all—of his news came from the internet. And, on occasion, from the radio he listened to while driving in to work.
Still, he wouldn’t dream of terminating his newspaper subscription. He considered it a tragedy that the written word was dying out. A great many newspapers around the country had already permanently closed their doors, ending, in his opinion, a fine old tradition. He was not about to add to that and help bury that longtime industry by withdrawing his support from the local Aurora paper. Though basically not an optimist, he did still hang on to the very clichéd belief that every little bit helped.
Alex had a soft spot in his heart for newspapers. He always had. For a while, when he was about ten or so, he had delivered newspapers to people’s doorsteps in an attempt to earn some money of his own.
Honest money.
Even then, honest money had been a rarity in his family.
But he’d tried.
Alex poured himself a travel mug’s worth of thick black liquid, guaranteed to wake up every fiber of his body whether he wanted it to or not. The people he worked with in the department claimed it could probably also be used to fix the cracks in the street asphalt.
Preoccupied, he wound up filling the mug too high. Some of the coffee escaped as he screwed on the top of the mug. Slipping down the sides of the steel-gray thermos, the black liquid began leaking onto the front page of the newspaper.
Swallowing a few choice words that normally didn’t get voiced until he was already a couple of hours into his shift, Alex reached for the dish towel hanging off the handle on his stove.
With quick movements he tried to wipe away the coffee before it blurred the front headline.
Which was when he read the words.
And how he wound up reading the article instead of leaving for work right at that point.
The headline that fairly screamed across the front page this morning was about a robbery. Specifically, a break-in in one of Aurora’s high-end developments. Apparently, according to the journalist covering the local story, it was the third such robbery of its kind in a short period. The owners of the house had been away in Europe and returned to find that their priceless art collection had been stolen.
Nothing else had been taken.
Alex read the article from start to finish, carefully taking in every word. A wave of nausea came over him as he read.
“Oh God,” he muttered under his breath as he came to the end of the article, no more reassured now than he had been when he’d started reading. “This isn’t you, is it?”
The question was addressed to a man who was not there.
Alex’s voice, and the question he’d asked, echoed about his small kitchen, haunting him with the possible implications.
Alex tossed the newspaper back on the counter. This was supposed to be behind him, he angrily thought.
Who are you kidding? It’s never going to be behind you.
The words, coming from deep inside him, taunted Alex.
The pinched, sick feeling he had been experiencing in the pit of his stomach accompanied him all the way to the precinct.
With luck, he’d catch a case and be distracted.
Alex crossed his fingers.
Brian Cavanaugh, chief of detectives of the Aurora Police Department, was well aware of the very fine line that existed between nepotism and utilizing the right person for the right job. He’d walked that line countless times since assuming his present position.
To his own satisfaction, he had never been guilty of nepotism, although there were those who would swear differently. They were the ones whose potential did not measure up to the job and they found it easier to point fingers and complain than to undertake the hard work of evaluating and improving themselves.
Brian didn’t much care when the insults, born of bruised egos, were directed at him. After all his years on the force and in this chair, he’d become used to fielding the ones that needed to be dealt with and ignoring the ones that would die of their own accord. But he was always extra judicious because he did mind if the person he was singling out for a special assignment came under fire through no actual fault of his or her own, other than having the same surname as he did.
Granted there were a great many Cavanaughs spread through the different divisions within the police force, but as a rule, Cavanaughs worked twice as hard as the person beside them to do the job and prove that they had earned the right to be where they were. Not a single Cavanaugh had ever been promoted without first demonstrating that he or she not only had the necessary potential to do the job—whatever it might be—but also knew how to use it.
As was the case with the blonde, blue-eyed patrol officer who was currently standing, looking somewhat uneasy, before him in his office.
“You can sit, you know, Officer Cavanaugh,” he told the young woman.
“If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to stand.”
Standing made Valri Cavanaugh feel just a little more in control and slightly less vulnerable than if she were sitting, although in this particular situation, the petite blonde had a feeling that the nervousness wouldn’t abate even if she were hanging from the ceiling like a circus trapeze artist.
“I don’t mind,” Brian assured her in his easy, deep baritone voice. “But if you’re worried, I can guarantee that there won’t be any need for a quick getaway on your part.”
In response, Valri offered him a quick, somewhat embarrassed smile and then slowly lowered herself into one of the two chairs situated before his desk.
He couldn’t help noticing that his cousin Murdoch’s youngest daughter made contact with the seat as if she were anticipating being forcefully propelled out of it at any second. In what he could only assume was an attempt for stability, he observed her fingers wrapping around each of the armrests in what looked to be a death grip.
Her attention, however, appeared to be focused entirely on him.
“Do you know why I asked to see you, Officer Cavanaugh?” he asked gently, although ever mindful of the positions that separated them. Privately, he was family, but professionally, he was the chief of detectives and her ultimate superior. It was as the chief of Ds that he was presently speaking to this unusually gifted officer.
“No, sir,” Valri answered honestly, then added, the corners of her mouth curving ever so slightly, “but I think it might have something to do with computers.”
“It not only ‘might’ have something to do with computers, it most definitely does. The head of the computer lab recently brought your considerable skills to my attention.”
It was a known fact that the head of the computer lab was an absolute wizard with computers. She was also Brenda Cavanaugh, married to Detective Dax Cavanaugh and one of the chief’s daughters-in-law.
“She said that you were invaluable, taking on some of the overflow from her desk last month. She also mentioned that you recently helped get the goods on those two women who were killing senior citizens.”
The case had been an involved one that seemingly had no connection at first. These were older people with no families who were dying from what at first appeared to be heart attacks. After some considerable cyberdigging, it turned out that each of these people had crossed paths with two seemingly kindly volunteers who ingratiated themselves to the senior citizens and offered to take out and pay for insurance