I be?”
Declan began to enumerate the reasons that occurred to him. “Well, for one thing, you look like you’re a million miles away.”
Charley shrugged. She had that one covered. “That’s not exactly a pretty sight to emboss on my brain,” she replied flippantly, indicating the dead body on the sofa.
There was more going on here than that and Declan knew it. Moreover, he was fairly certain that she knew he knew it. But now wasn’t the time to get into it. He had to give her a little time to collect herself—while he did a little digging on the side into her background.
Keeping her close would turn out to be a good thing, Declan decided. Other than the fact that—strictly speaking as a man—she was even more of a knockout now than she had been back in the academy, she was obviously mixed up in this somehow. Whether merely innocently because she was acquainted with the victim or if there was more to it than that, he’d yet to decide, but she figured into all this somehow and he intended to use that to his advantage.
He was fairly confident he could sell this to the lieutenant. The man trusted his judgment and more important than that, he wanted to stay on the good side of the chief of detectives, Brian Cavanaugh, and Brian took a personal interest in all his detectives, especially those bearing the same surname as his.
All that remained for him to figure out, once the dust settled and he—or they—found the killer, was what he intended to get in exchange for letting her come on board and work with him.
This was going to be very interesting, he decided as he heard the sound of what he presumed was the crime-scene investigative unit’s vehicle approaching.
Chapter 3
Sean Cavanaugh was the first crime-scene investigator in through the doorway.
Nodding at his son and the unfamiliar woman with him—was it him, or did it seem like there was always a woman with Declan?—the head of the day investigative unit looked grimly down at the body on the sofa. The dead man appeared to be in his late twenties, early thirties. Strong, well built and undoubtedly with a good future in front of him until a bullet ended all that.
What a waste, Sean thought, setting down the case he always carefully checked and restocked after every crime-scene investigation. It was time to get to work and find answers.
“So the victim’s one of our own,” Sean said sadly, addressing the remark to both of the occupants within the room.
Charley answered first. “Yes, sir, he was. Sergeant Matthew Holt,” she told the head of CSI.
Oh, Matt, Matt, what have you gone and let happen to you? Why’d you let your guard down like that? You always told me to be careful. Why weren’t you?
Charley felt her throat closing, suddenly clogged with tears. She fought them back.
Sean nodded, taking in the information. “And you are?” he asked.
“Detective Charlotte Randolph, sir.” Charley focused strictly on answering the questions put to her. Her voice sounded almost robotlike. “I was the one who called it in.”
Sean unlocked his case and lifted the lid. “Well, Charlotte—”
“Charley,” she corrected him, forcing a faint smile to her lips. “People call me Charley.”
Matt had called her Charley when she was a little girl and the name had stuck, she thought now. Damn it, she couldn’t tear up, she couldn’t, Charley ordered herself, digging her nails into her palms.
Think of something else. Think of anything else.
Sean looked at the woman, quietly studying her. This wasn’t just a casual acquaintance of the victim. His death was affecting her.
“Well, Charley,” Sean amended. “How did you happen to be here?” he asked gently.
“I already asked her that,” Declan interjected.
“Yes, but I didn’t,” his father pointed out calmly. Both his voice and his expression were sympathetic as he continued to regard the young woman.
Behind him, two more members of his investigative team came in, both well entrenched in what their particular duties were at a scene like this. They got to work quickly and quietly, moving as smoothly as the timing belt on a well-oiled engine.
Charley took a breath before reciting her answer. “I heard he hadn’t shown up for work for a couple of days and that he hadn’t even bothered calling in. I knew that wasn’t like him, but I also knew that he was going through a rough patch—”
“What kind of a rough patch?” Sean asked.
“He’d just broken up with a woman he was certain was ‘the one.’” Someone should have strangled Melissa a long time ago, she thought angrily. Before the witch ever came into Matt’s life.
Guided by her tone, Sean made the only logical assumption. “But she wasn’t ‘the one,’ was she?”
“Not unless we were talking about barracudas, sir,” Charley replied, deliberately staring straight ahead, past the CSI chief’s head.
“No need to call me sir,” Sean said. That sort of thing created a formal atmosphere and right now, he was striving for the exact opposite. Nodding his head to indicate Declan, he added, “He never does.”
“I do, too. You just don’t listen,” Declan told his father.
“All too well, Declan,” Sean said, glancing at his son knowingly. “All too well. All right, if you two want to stand over there and wait until I finish processing the crime scene, it shouldn’t be all that long.” He glanced at the opened bottles of vodka and Kahlua on the coffee table. “A little early in the day to be getting into that right now. Was that his drink of choice?” he asked. “A black Russian?”
It hadn’t been, initially. All Matt ever drank—if he drank at all—was a beer, maybe on rare occasions, two. He hadn’t been very big on anything that allowed him to lose the tight rein he had over his control.
“It was a habit he picked up from Melissa,” Charley told him.
Declan scanned the room as if that could somehow answer his questions by the very nature of the vibrations that had been left behind. “Then maybe she was here, too,” he suggested.
“Only one glass,” Charley pointed out. “It was the first thing I checked for.” Once she could bring herself to leave Matt where he lay, she added silently. “Besides, there’s no lipstick on the glass.”
“Big on makeup, was she?” Declan asked, curious. This detective seemed to know a lot about the woman in question. Why?
“It helped to cover up her physical flaws,” she explained.
He laughed at the way she worded her answer. “Not a big fan of the woman in question, I take it.”
Charley saw no reason to deny or cover up how she felt about the woman who had deliberately broken her brother’s heart. What did it matter? Matt was gone and his feelings were
