Cavanaugh Pride

“I don’t know you personally.”

And he knew better than to think that just because the woman was beautiful she’d gotten ahead on her looks. If he would have so much as hinted at something like that, his sisters—along with all the female members of the Cavanaugh family—would have vivisected him.

So he was saying that his beef with her was professional? She took just as much offense at that as she would have had he said it was personal.

“Professionally, I worked my tail off to get to where I am.” Her eyes darkened, turning almost a cobalt blue. “And you don’t need to know me personally not to like me ‘personally.’” She set her jaw hard. “I’ve run into that all my life.”

Prejudice was something he’d been raised to fight against and despise. “Because you’re Native American,” he assumed.

“You don’t have to be politically correct,” she told him. “Indian will do fine.” The term had never bothered her, or any of the other people she’d grown up with. She didn’t see it as an insult. “Or Navajo if you want to be more specific.”

“Navajo,” Frank repeated with a nod. He’d bet his badge that there was more than just Navajo to her. Those blue eyes of hers didn’t just come by special delivery. “And you won’t find that here,” he informed her.

“Other Navajos?”

“No, prejudice because you happen to be something someone else isn’t. I don’t care if you’re a Native American—”

“Indian,” she corrected.

“Indian,” he repeated. “What I don’t like is not having a say in who works for me.” But even that could be remedied. “But you prove to me that you can pull your weight, and we’ll get along fine.”

That sounded fair enough. “Consider it pulled,” Julianne told him.

With that out of the way, he nodded at her desk. “I’ll look at that folder you brought now.”

Julianne held the folder out to him. It was thin compared to the ones that Riley had given her. There was a folder complied with random notes and information on each victim posted on the board.

“You know, all that information was input on the computer,” he told her. He indicated the small notebook computer Riley had managed to mysteriously produce for the new detective. It had to have come from one of the other squad rooms, but he wasn’t about to ask which one. This was a case where “Don’t ask, don’t tell” applied particularly nicely. “You can access it easily enough.”

Rather than draw the notebook to her, she moved the folders closer. “I like the feel of paper,” Julianne told him. “If the electricity goes down, the paper is still here.”

Frank laughed shortly. He didn’t hear that very often, and never from anyone under thirty. “Old-fashioned?” he guessed.

She’d never thought of herself in those terms, going out of her way not to have anything to do with the old ways to which grandmother had clung.

“I prefer to say that I like the tried and true.” With that, she lowered her eyes and got back to her reading.

Frank knew when to leave well enough alone.

Julianne was still going through the files and rereading pertinent parts at the end of the day, making notes to herself as she went along.

She did her best to remain divorced from the victims, from feeling anything as she reviewed descriptions of the crime scenes. She deliberately glossed over the photographs included in each file.

The photographs posted on the board showed off each victim at what could be described as her best, before the world—or the killer—had gotten to her. The photographs in the files were postmortem shots of the women. Julianne made a point of flipping the photographs over rather than attempting to study them.

“Pretty gruesome, aren’t they?” Riley commented.

Julianne looked up, surprised to find Riley standing in front of her desk. She’d gotten absorbed in the last folder, Polly Barker, a single mother who made ends meet by turning tricks. Her three-year-old daughter, Donna, had been taken by social services the day after the woman’s body was discovered. Despite her best efforts, Julianne’s heart ached, not for the mother, but for the child the woman had left behind.

She closed the folder now. “Yes.”

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to look at them, but I really think you should.”

Julianne glanced at Riley, somewhat surprised though she made sure not to show it. She’d sensed that the other woman was watching her, but more out curiosity than a of desire to assess the way she worked.

“Why? I’ve got all the details right there in the files.” She nodded at the stack.

“You’re supposed to be the fresh pair of eyes,” Riley reminded her. “Maybe you’ll see something we didn’t.”

Taking a deep breath, Julianne flipped over the set of photographs she’d just set aside. It wasn’t that she was squeamish, just that there was something so hopeless about the dead women’s faces. She’d fought against hopeless-ness all of her life and if given the choice, she would have rather avoided the photographs taken at the crime scene.

But Riley was right. She was supposed to be the fresh set of eyes and although she doubted she would see something the others had missed, stranger things had happened.

The first thing she saw was a tiny cross carved into the victim’s shoulder.

Just as there had been on Millie’s.

In his own twisted mind, was the killer sending his victims off to their maker marked for redemption? Was he some kind of religious zealot, or just messing with the collective mind of the people trying to capture him?

After a beat, she raised her eyes to Riley’s. “How long?”

Riley looked at her, confused. “How long what?”

Julianne moved the photographs away without looking down. “How long before you stopped seeing their lifeless faces in your sleep?”

Riley nodded. She knew exactly what the woman meant. “I’ll let you know when it happens,” Riley told her. And then she smiled. “The trick is to fill your life up so that there’s no time to think about them that way. And to find the killer,” she added with feeling, “so that they—and you—can rest in peace.” Riley glanced at her watch. It was after five. “Shift’s over. Would you like to go and get a drink?”

While she appreciated the offer, getting a drink held no allure for her. Her father had been an alcoholic, dead before his time. Her uncle, Mary’s father, while not an alcoholic, was a mean drunk when he did imbibe.

Julianne shook her head. “I don’t drink.”

“Doesn’t have to be alcohol,” Riley told her. “They serve ginger ale there. And coffee.” It was obvious that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer easily. “I just think you need to unwind a little. And it wouldn’t hurt to mingle,” she added. “Might make the rest of this experience tolerable for you.”

What would make the experience tolerable would be finally finding Mary, but, having kept everything to herself for most of her life, she wasn’t ready to share that just yet. For a moment, Julianne debated her answer. Turning Riley down would make her seem standoffish and she didn’t want to generate any hard feelings beyond the ones Frank seemed to be harboring.

“All right.” She rose, closing her desk drawer. “I’ll follow you.”

“Great.” Riley grinned, moving over to her desk to grab her purse. “I’ll drive slow.”

“No need. I can keep up,” Julianne told her.

Riley nodded. “I bet you can.”

Rafferty’s was more a tavern than an actual bar. While it was true that on most nights, members of the Aurora police force went there to unwind and shed some of their more haunting demons before going home to their families, the establishment just as readily welcomed spouses and their children. In many cases it was a home away from home for detectives and patrol officers alike.

And Rafferty’s was also where, on any given evening, at least several members of the Cavanaugh family could be found.

This particular evening there were more than a few Cavanaughs in the bar and Riley made a point of introducing Julianne to all of them, as well as her older brother, Zack.