Cavanaugh Pride

She hated being accountable to anyone. It had taken her a while before she could trust Captain Randolph and follow instructions. This was not going to be easy. But she owed it to Randolph to try. The man had put his reputation on the line and taken her side during the investigation into her uncle’s death.

“Asking questions,” she replied tersely.

His eyes never left hers. It impressed him that she didn’t flinch or look away. “Isn’t that a little in the overachiever range?”

She shrugged carelessly. “The sooner this case gets solved, the sooner I can go back to Mission Ridge—and get out of your hair.”

“Very noble of you,” he commented. She wasn’t sure she detected a note of sarcasm in his voice. And then he pressed, “So that’s all you were doing? Showing one of the victim’s photographs around?”

She raised her chin, silently daring him to disprove her. “Yes.”

His eyes pinned her. “Which one?”

Julianne blinked, her mind scrambling for a name. She stalled for time. “Excuse me?”

“Which victim?” he asked. “Which victim’s picture were you showing around? Seems like a simple enough question.” The longer she didn’t give him an answer, the less he believed her.

Damn him. She didn’t like being cornered. It took Julianne only half a beat to make a selection. He wouldn’t know the difference. Not unless he’d gotten out of the car and questioned the hookers she’d talked to after she was gone. And even then, he wouldn’t get an answer. Some of them seemed pretty out of it.

“That one.” Julianne pointed to the photograph of a somewhat bedraggled woman whose picture was heading up the third column.

He turned to look, then approached the bulletin board. “That’s Andrea Katz. She was a computer programmer for Dulles and Edwards.” He looked back at Julianne. “Why would you be asking around about her there? Andrea Katz wasn’t found anywhere near that part of town.”

Why was he pushing this? “Okay, so it was the one next to her.”

Again, he turned just to verify what he already knew. He’d gone over and over this board time and again, searching for the one connection he needed. The women’s likenesses were all embossed in his brain.

“Ramona Hernandez. Hooker. Found in a Dumpster behind a diner in the older part of the city,” he recited. “Want to try again?” he asked cheerfully.

It was getting harder and harder to hang on to her temper. “What do you want from me, McIntyre?”

“The truth, White Bear. I’d like the truth. Is that too much to ask?”

He was crowding her space. She was a very, very private person, one who had trouble filling out anything beyond her name on a form, feeling that it was her business, not anyone else’s. But what harm would telling him do, Julianne silently argued with herself. And if it would get him off her back, maybe telling him would be worth it.

“Okay,” she bit off the word. “In my off hours, I thought I’d try to find my cousin, Mary. Mary White Bear. She’s a runaway. Just before I left Mission Ridge, someone told me that they thought they saw her in Aurora.” Again Julianne lifted her chin pugnaciously. He’d agitated her and part of her was almost spoiling for a fight. “Satisfied?”

Questions about the woman before him began materializing in Frank’s head at a prodigious rate. “No.”

Her eyes narrowed into annoyed slits. “Well, there’s nothing I can do about that, is there?”

Now there they had a difference of opinion. He allowed a smile to curve his mouth. “You could tell me why you thought you had to lie about that and keep it to yourself.”

She hadn’t told Randolph about Mary and she got along with the Captain fairly well. Julianne couldn’t see herself voluntarily sharing something so personal with a stranger. She shrugged carelessly, combing her fingers through her hair and sending it back over her shoulder. She said the first thing that came to mind. “I figured you wouldn’t want me distracted.”

“I don’t,” he agreed firmly. “But what you do in your time away from the job is none of my business.” And then, because there was an aura of danger about this woman he needed to find out more about, he qualified his statement. “Unless you wind up killing someone.”

Julianne looked at him sharply, adrenaline rushing through her veins. Had he looked into her background? Did he know about her uncle?

Frank saw the heightened awareness, saw the wary look that entered her eyes. White Bear, he realized, just might be capable of anything. If she turned out to be a loose cannon, he wanted her off his task force. “Did you wind up killing someone last night?”

“No.”

Well, that was a relief. But he was still going to keep an eye on her. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have been a hardship. But her looks were distracting and he couldn’t afford to be distracted, not until the killer was caught and this case was closed.

“Okay then, I’ve got no problem with you looking for your cousin during your downtime.” Turning away from her, he began to walk toward the cubicle that served as his office. “Can I see it?”

“See what?” she asked warily.

This woman trusted no one, he thought, as more questions about her came to mind—the first being why was she so distrustful? “The photograph you were showing around. Maybe I’ve seen her,” he added when she made no effort to retrieve the photograph from her purse.

Maybe he had, Julianne thought.

No stone unturned, remember?

She was going to have to do something about her defensiveness, Julianne silently upbraided herself, taking her purse out of the desk’s bottom drawer. Opening it, she pulled out the photograph of her cousin and held it up to him.

The girl in the photograph looked like a younger version of Julianne. She had incredibly sad eyes. “Pretty girl,” he commented.

“She would have been better off if she wasn’t,” Julianne answered grimly, looking at the photograph herself.

“Meaning?”

Julianne raised her eyes to his. “Meaning that she looked a lot like my dead aunt. And the first one who noticed was my uncle.”

Her tone of voice had Frank quickly reading between the lines. Incest was a crime he could never quite wrap his head around. It was just too heinous. “So she ran away from home before he—”

“No,” Julianne contradicted angrily, “she ran away from home after he…”

She deliberately let her voice trail off without finishing the sentence, but there was no mistaking her meaning.

Frank took a breath. Maybe that was why this woman was so angry. It would have certainly made him angry to have a cousin of his violated by the very person who was supposed to protect her.

“Sorry to hear that,” he said, his voice as full of feeling as hers was monotone.

She thought he honestly meant that and it made her regret the tone she’d taken with him. When she reached for the photograph he was still holding, he didn’t surrender it immediately.

“Why don’t I have copies made of this?” Frank suggested. “Pass it around to the beat cops. Maybe one of them will see her and get back to us.”

Us. It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she hadn’t asked for his help, but she swallowed the words. She had to start trusting someone somewhere along the line or she was just going to wind up self-destructing. That wasn’t going to help Mary at all.

Julianne pressed her lips together. Time to take the hand that was reaching out to her, she silently ordered. Taking it didn’t automatically make her weak.

“That would be good, yes,” she agreed.

But just as he began to head for the copy machine, the phone on Riley’s desk rang. Since he was closer to it than Julianne was, Frank picked it up.

“McIntyre.”