at her, not surprised that she had caught on, only that she had done it so quickly. But one of the things he’d always liked about her was that she was sharper than any woman he’d ever been with.
“Because Janelle and Captain Reynolds seem to think you’re in danger.”
“The only thing I seem to be in danger of is running into people from my past who I don’t want to see.”
Though tempted to make a flippant reply, Clay was more interested in the small boy whose hand she held. The one looking up at him with big blue eyes and a thousand-watt smile so like his mother’s.
He nodded at the boy. “Is this your son?”
Ilene placed her hands protectively on the boy’s shoulders as he stood in front of her. “Yes, this is Alex.”
Not standing on ceremony, Alex tugged on Clay’s shirt and said, “Hi.”
He spared the boy a smile in kind. “Hi.” Clay raised his eyes to Ilene. The boy’s existence raised a host of questions in his mind, questions he should have been able to bank down. “When did you get married?”
She felt her back stiffening. “That is none of your business and neither am I. Go away, Detective Cavanaugh. Before I call a cop.”
He couldn’t resist. “Half the force is related to me.”
“Then I’ll find someone who isn’t,” she said over her shoulder as she hurried away with her son.
This time Clay remained where he was.
Chapter 3
“Leaving already?”
On his way through the crowded bar where he and other members of the police department gathered at the end of a long, hard day, Clay stopped several feet short of his goal, the front door. Even with the din cranked up an extra decibel or two, he still recognized the familiar voice. He’d been hearing it for all of his twenty-seven years.
The bar was extra crowded tonight with retired as well as active police personnel taking up much of the available space. They’d come together to throw a party for one of their own. After several false starts at retirement, Detective Alvin “Willie-Boy” Jenkins was finally leaving the force. The older, florid-faced man had been a fixture with the department for as long as Clay could remember, having even gone six years partnered with his father until Andrew had been promoted to chief of police.
It was Andrew Cavanaugh who had cleared up the mystery behind Willie-Boy’s nickname. It derived not from a familiar form of a name given him at birth, but from the fact that the police detective had become enamored with the old Robert Redford movie, Tell Them Willie Boy Was Here. He had seen it more times than even he could remember and could spout off lines of dialogue at the drop of a hat. No one knew why he was so fascinated with that particular piece of celluloid and no one wanted to ask. Willie-Boy tended to be very long-winded once he got started.
Clay had toyed with the idea of saying good-night to the members of his family who were still in attendance, then decided that slipping out unnoticed was the better way to go. He’d underestimated his father’s eagle eye. At an age when most men were squinting to make out the written page or see beyond the reach of their hand, his father’s vision was still twenty-twenty.
“Keeping tabs on me, Dad?” Clay turned to face the older man.
Andrew raised a mug of dark brew and took a small sip before answering. “No, just wondering what’s up. You’re usually one of the last to go.”
Clay shrugged, looking away. “I’m starting a new trend.”
The hell he was, Andrew thought.
Andrew wasn’t one to pry into his children’s affairs. Or so he liked to claim. In reality, the complete opposite was true. He took his role as father to heart and it had only intensified ever since his wife had disappeared fifteen years ago.
That was the way he saw it. Rose had disappeared. Which meant that someday she would reappear. He refused to accept the fact that she had walked out of his life with heated, hurtful words hanging in the air between them, and then died. Everyone else outside of the family had long since taken the scenario as a given. Rose Cavanaugh had died in the river where her car was discovered. But since neither her body nor her purse had ever been recovered, to Andrew the case was still open.
Rose was still his wife and she was out there somewhere, waiting to be found.
And Clay was still his son, one of two, and always would be no matter what his age. Being a father meant being concerned. Rose would have wanted it that way.
He studied his younger son closely now. His instincts, rather than mellow, had only grown sharper with age. “Something eating at you, Clay?”
Yes, something was eating at him, Clay thought. And had been ever since he’d seen Ilene this morning. It had only increased while he’d watched her at the park with her son. Seeing her playing with the boy, laughing, had created an incredible ache in his chest, one he didn’t know how to handle.
But he wasn’t about to talk about it, at least not until he worked it through in his system. “You mean other than those spicy meatballs?”
Clay nodded toward the large tray of browned meatballs that were still waiting to be plucked up from their perch. The bartender’s wife, Greta, had made them. They smelled a great deal better than they tasted, at least to those who were accustomed to better fare.
“The woman tried her best,” Andrew said, then grinned. “Can’t hold a candle to mine, can they?”
“Nope.” Clay watched his father do further justice to the beer he was holding. “And might I add that your modesty is blinding.”
“No reason for modesty.” Finished, Andrew set down the mug on a nearby table already littered with empty mugs. “Just the facts.”
About to comment, Clay held his finger up, stopping his father from continuing. His cell phone was vibrating in his back pocket.
“Hold it, Dad, I’m getting a call, Dad.”
Andrew sighed, waving him away to take the call. “No getting away from technology these days, is there?”
“Price you pay for progress.” Clay made his way out of the bar to take the call.
“See you at breakfast,” Andrew called after him before turning back to the party and the very inebriated guest of honor.
While Callie and Shaw dropped by the house for breakfast with a fair amount of regularity, Clay, like his twin sister Teri and Rayne, had only to come down the stairs. He’d moved out of the family house with fanfare at twenty-one and grudgingly moved back in approximately six months ago. Circumstances had necessitated it.
The apartment he’d been subletting had been reclaimed by its owner who’d decided to come back to Aurora in order to pursue his career. That left Clay pursuing apartments, not an easy task for a police detective on call most of his days and nights. Especially when his funds were of the limited variety.
Clay was always being generous with his money, an easy touch for friends, or even acquaintances,
