Cavanaugh Encounter

She was alone.

Stop it, damn it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That isn’t going to bring Kris back and it sure as hell isn’t going to help you solve her murder. Get a grip.

She saw that O’Bannon was still waiting for an answer. If they were going to work together, she had to attempt to be civil to the detective—no matter how annoying she found him.

“My name is Detective Francesca DeMarco,” Frankie informed him. “And, as I told you, I’m from Major Crimes.”

The major crime here, Luke thought, was that he had never noticed her before. The building wasn’t that big. He made up his mind to make up for lost time when the opportunity arose.

“The detective part was a given,” he acknowledged. “Francesca, huh?” Luke rolled the name over on his tongue as if he was tasting the first slice of a rich, homemade chocolate cream pie—his favorite. “Pretty,” he commented, and she couldn’t tell if he was referring to her name—or, given his reputation, to her. “You don’t seem like a Francesca.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“Just an observation,” he responded mildly. “Francesca belongs to a lady in some ivory tower. You look more like you’re a go-getter. A Frannie or a Fran or—”

She winced at both names, names she’d been taunted with as a child.

“Frankie,” she told him, unwilling to listen to a further litany of possible nicknames he could come up with carving up her formal name. “People call me Frankie.”

The moment she said it, bells went off in his head. He’d heard some of the detectives referring to a Frankie—except that he’d thought the name belonged to one of the guys. This, he thought, regarding her again, was not one of the guys.

“That wouldn’t have been my third guess,” Luke admitted glibly, and then he shrugged, “But if you like that name—”

“I like it better than Fran or Frannie,” she informed him coolly.

Luke nodded. The first rule of working with another detective, as far as he was concerned, was getting along with them, and if that meant calling an out-and-out knockout by the unlikely name of Frankie, then so be it. He wasn’t about to argue the point and create tension. It wasn’t worth it.

“You’re right. You don’t look like a Frannie. Okay, Frankie it is,” he told her agreeably, with a smile that definitely lit up his entire chiseled face.

Looking at him, Frankie experienced a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t help thinking that by asking to work on this case with O’Bannon, she had just voluntarily sold her soul to the devil.

Chapter 2

“Looks like you get to talk to the head guy himself after all,” Luke said to her the next moment.

Frankie looked at him, confused and not sure where he was going with this. “I thought you were the head guy.”

A tall, imposing man with straight blue-black hair gave the chair he was sitting in a swift push with his boot, sending it closer to Luke’s desk. Rick White Hawk, Luke’s partner, had been listening to the exchange in silence for several minutes now.

“Don’t flatter him. His head’s already too big to fit into the elevator car when it’s crowded,” he told the detective from the Major Crimes division.

Luke ignored his partner’s crack. “I was just telling Major Crimes here that the lieutenant walked in through the door,” he pointed out.

Frankie turned to see the man O’Bannon was referring to. Lt. Mike Handel, a tall, gaunt-looking man with a perpetual two days’ growth of beard was just entering the squad room. Because Frankie was five-one, everyone had a tendency to look tall to her.

Handel, a twenty-one-year veteran of the Aurora Police Department, looked neither to the left nor to the right as he crossed the room. He appeared focused on reaching his office, preferably without being engaged in conversation.

His scowl was meant to put people off and to guarantee swift passage across the room. To a great extent, it worked. But his ploy failed as O’Bannon rose to his feet.

“Lieutenant,” O’Bannon called out. “You got a minute?”

“No,” Handel answered curtly as he continued crossing to his office.

Not one to be brushed off, Luke told him, “You might want to hear this.”

Handel’s scowl looked as if it went clear down to the bone. He stopped, retraced the last five steps and glared at Luke as he retorted, “Fine,” then barked, “What?”

Luke gestured toward the rather petite detective who had approached him about another victim. “This is Detective DeMarco from Major Crimes,” he told his lieutenant by way of an introduction.

Handel bobbed his head in quick, dismissive acknowledgement. The scowl never lifted. “And?” he asked impatiently.

O’Bannon played out the line. “And she’s brought us something.”

Handel still seemed annoyed at being delayed. He glanced impatiently toward his office. “Like what?” he demanded. “Homemade cookies she baked?” Then, sparing the young woman under discussion a quick, appraising glance, he told her, “No offense meant.”

Frankie highly doubted that, but she needed to be part of this investigation, so, against her will she replied, “None taken. And I’m not bringing cookies, I’m bringing you another homicide.”

If possible, Handel’s scowl deepened, all but etched into his bones. “Just what I needed.” He glared at the woman. “Why is Major Crimes bringing me another homicide?”

“They’re not,” Frankie corrected. “I am. I believe that this victim was murdered by your serial killer.”

Handel looked at O’Bannon, seeking a contradiction. “Is this true?”

“I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet,” Luke answered, “but on the surface, it sounds like it might be one of his.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Handel asked. “Go! Check it out. And then get back to me.”

“You got it,” Luke said. He pulled his jacket off the back of his chair and shrugged into it. “White Hawk, you’re with me,” he said to the imposing man he’d been partnered with for the last three years.

Frankie blinked. It felt as if everything was suddenly whirling around her and she was being left behind. That wasn’t why she had come to them with the case, and if O’Bannon and his superior thought that, then they were sadly mistaken. She had no intention of being left behind.

“Lieutenant,” she called out to the man’s back as he was walking away. “There’s one more thing.”

Exasperation etched lines into Handel’s sallow complexion as he turned to her. “What?” He all but bit off the question.

“I come with the case,” she informed him in a no-nonsense voice.

It was obvious by the look on Handel’s face that this was not something he had expected to hear. He wasn’t accustomed to being given conditions. “How’s that, again?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that O’Bannon and his partner had stopped moving and were listening, as well. And they appeared to be amused.

They were probably curious to see if Handel was going to have her for lunch was her guess.

Not likely.

“Major Crimes wants me to follow through on this. I was the first responder on the scene,” she told the scowling lieutenant.

Frankie braced herself for an argument and she was ready to hold her own if it came to that. Instead, Handel waved her on her way.

“Sure, fine. The more the merrier. Knock yourself out,” he told the woman invading his squad room. “Whatever gets this case off my plate.”

Moving again and picking up his pace, Handel hurried across the now-short distance to his office. He quickly closed the door before anyone else had a chance to further annoy him.

“Nicely done,” Luke commented as he walked over to her side. “You do realize that we have to take you with us because you’re the one who knows where the body was found, right?” he asked her, clearly amused.

They were walking now. Frankie hurried to keep up as they entered the hallway. She had gotten so caught up in trying to convince the lieutenant to allow her to take part in the case, she’d forgotten about that small, practical matter.

“I know that,” she lied, her mind working fast. “But I thought Handel would appreciate being asked for permission.”

A glimmer of appreciation entered Luke’s green eyes. “So I take it that you’re not a newbie,” he said with an approving nod.

“No, I’m not.” Frankie answered him in no uncertain terms, insulted by the mere suggestion that she could be seen as a novice.

The elevator arrived and all three of them got in. They had the car to themselves. White Hawk took the opportunity to lean forward and whisper to her, “Don’t mind O’Bannon. He likes getting under people’s skin, but he’s not nearly as bad as he pretends to come off.” Extending his hand to her, he went on to introduce himself. “Rick White Hawk.”

“Nice to meet you, Detective White Hawk.” She shook his hand. “I’m—”

“Frankie DeMarco, yes, I heard,” White Hawk said, smiling at her.

“Okay, now that we’re all acquainted, let’s get back to the business at hand—checking out the crime scene and catching a serial killer—unless anyone has some objections,” Luke prodded just as they reached the ground floor.

“You’re the lead detective,” White Hawk told him agreeably.

Frankie suppressed the sigh that seemed to automatically rise to her lips. For the most part, she worked cases in Major Crimes on her own.

“What he said,” she murmured as agreeably as she could.

When they walked out of the rear of the building and headed for the parking lot, Frankie began to go in a different direction than the other two detectives.

Looking over his shoulder, Luke called to her, “Hey, DeMarco, where are you going?”

She assumed that the answer to that was self-explanatory. “To get my car.”

“Since we’re all going to the same place, why don’t we all go there in one car?” O’Bannon suggested.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was speaking to her as if he was addressing a child. Doing her best not to lose her temper, she said, “Okay, we’ll use my car since I’m the one who knows where we’re going.”

Luke gave this temporary addition to his team a tolerant look. “I’m assuming this isn’t some secret location where we’ll have to be blindfolded before we can go there.”

“Of course not.”

“Good,” Luke declared. “Then we’ll go in my car and you can give me directions,” he told her. “You do know how to give directions, right, DeMarco?”

Frankie gave the man a withering look. She might have to mind her Ps and Qs while talking to him, but he had no control over the thoughts going through her head.

“Yes. I’m giving you some right now,” she told O’Bannon.

White Hawk nearly choked, trying not to laugh out loud.

“Good thing I’m not a mind reader,” he responded. Hitting a button that opened all four of the car doors, he said, “Okay, let’s go.”

Frankie got in on the passenger side. “The crime scene investigators have already been there,” she told him.

Luke opened the driver’s side door and got in. “I kind of figured that out when you said that your victim was in autopsy,” he told her. “But I like looking around the crime scene for myself. Humor me,” he added.

“You’re the lead,” she replied tersely, just before giving him the address where her cousin’s body had been found.

Luke heard the less-than-happy note in her voice and assumed it referred to the fact that he had taken over the case.

“Any time you want to jump off the merry-go-round, go right ahead. You’re more than welcome to do so,” he told her. He glanced in his rearview mirror to see if White Hawk had gotten in and buckled up yet.

“Understood,” she told O’Bannon in the same tone of voice.

Having secured his seatbelt, White Hawk took a moment to lean forward in his seat. “Don’t worry. He’ll grow on you,” he promised the sexy detective.

“Maybe that’s why I’m worried,” she responded, then explained, “so does fungus.”

“Luckily, they’ve got medications for that,” O’Bannon told her as he adjusted his side mirrors before putting his key in the ignition.

Shifting ever so slightly in her seat, Frankie looked at the lead detective pointedly and said, “I sincerely hope so.”

White Hawk sighed quietly. It was obvious that he felt called upon to act as a referee in this verbal sparring match. He spoke up, trying to distract the new member of the team by asking her a simple question.

“How did you happen to catch this case? I missed that part.”

Frankie knew the other detective was just asking her that in order to try to keep the peace. But she found him rather easygoing and likeable, so she answered his question.

“I know the woman who was the victim’s roommate, Amanda Culpepper.” She recited the story that she had memorized for O’Bannon’s benefit—and in order to be allowed to work this case. “When Amanda found Kristin unconscious on the floor and couldn’t revive her, she panicked and called me.”

“Found her how?” White Hawk asked. “Did she wake up in the morning and walk in to find the victim just lying there like that?”

“No, Amanda had gone away for the weekend. She told me that she had gone to Las Vegas with her boyfriend and spent three full days there.”

As Frankie recited the details for what felt like the umpteenth time, she could literally feel O’Bannon listening to her every word despite the fact that she had already told him all of this. She had a feeling that the lead detective was paying such close attention to what she was saying because he expected her to trip herself up and confuse the details.

Frankie couldn’t help wondering if she had suddenly become a suspect by bringing her cousin’s murder to the department’s fair-haired boy. She found herself wishing that the detective in the backseat was the lead on this multiple murder case instead of O’Bannon.

White Hawk didn’t make her feel uneasy. O’Bannon did. She felt as if, despite his laidback manner, O’Bannon was scrutinizing every word out of her mouth and comparing them to every other word she’d already said.

“When did this happen?” White Hawk asked.

“I got the call early this morning.”

“So the crime scene’s not that fresh,” O’Bannon said, whether for her benefit or for his partner’s, she wasn’t sure. In either case, she did her best to take the remark in stride and not view it as a criticism that she’d been remiss in not bringing the matter to Homicide’s attention immediately.

It left her wondering if O’Bannon actually wanted the case and had just been yanking her chain earlier about her reasons for bringing the case to him.

“It was fresh when the CSI Unit arrived to go over it a couple of hours ago,” she replied coldly.

“We’ll talk to them after we have a look around,” O’Bannon said, and it was clear to Frankie that he was addressing his partner and not her.

Even so, she was determined to work with this man. It was the only way she would find Kristin’s killer.

Frankie nodded in response to what he had just said and murmured, “Fine.”

“Glad we have your permission,” Luke replied.

“Turn right at the corner,” she directed coldly.

He spared her a glance before doing as she had prompted. Luke was deliberately trying to rattle her, to get her to squirm and lose her cool. It was his way of seeing just what she was made of and who he was actually dealing with.

Had Francesca DeMarco been just another beautiful woman who crossed his path, his approach to her would have been entirely different. But he wasn’t trying to date her—that was on the back burner for now—he was attempting to find out just what sort of a person was trying to be part of his team, no matter how temporarily.

The team was only as good as its weakest link, and he needed to evaluate just what kind of detective DeMarco was.

He was fairly sure he could ascertain this from her record on the force. There were reports on file that could be accessed, if not by him, then by his cousin, Valri, who worked in the police department’s computer lab.

A tour of social media would get him additional personal information.

He doubted if DeMarco would believe him if he told her, but he was actually rooting for her.

Still, he had to be sure before he let her sign on for this. If she messed up the investigation for whatever reason, that would be on him, and his lieutenant would be the first one to say it, despite Handel’s blasé attitude about DeMarco’s joining the investigation.

“Where’s this roommate staying?” Luke asked out of the blue.

She knew why he was asking. Amanda couldn’t stay in her apartment until the yellow tape went down. “She’s crashing on a friend’s couch until the crime scene’s been cleared.”

“Yours?” Luke asked bluntly.

“Someone else’s,” she answered, bracing herself for a barrage of questions as to why she wasn’t taking in the victim’s roommate. She decided to jump ahead of him and answer the main question before it was asked. “Wouldn’t seem right if I had her staying at my place while I’m investigating her roommate’s murder. That would look like a conflict of interest.”

Silently he congratulated her for being one step ahead of this pantomime even as he asked, “Do you always play by the rules?”

Her eyes met his as she quietly told him, “That’s all we’ve got, are the rules.”

A hint of a smile curved his lips. “Huh. You didn’t answer my question, DeMarco.”

“Why are you badgering her, O’Bannon?” White Hawk asked his partner. “She’s on our team, remember?” he pointed out.

Rick White Hawk smiled his support at the petite brunette when she turned around in her seat to look at him.

Frankie returned his smile.

“Yeah, so she is,” was all Luke said in response to his partner’s observation.

He didn’t trust her, Frankie thought, looking at O’Bannon.

Well, she didn’t need O’Bannon to trust her. She just needed him to work with her and help her find her cousin’s killer. After that, they never had to see each other again.

As a matter of fact, she preferred it that way.

Chapter 3

The yellow crime tape was still fastened across the door of the apartment where Kristin’s body had been found. Frankie silently drew in a breath as she watched O’Bannon pull aside the tape that announced to the world at large that a crime had taken place here and that no headway had been made because the investigation was obviously still ongoing.

O’Bannon unlocked the door and pushed it open, then entered the apartment. White Hawk was right behind him, but to Frankie’s surprise, the tall detective stepped back and instead waved her in ahead of him.

“Ladies first,” White Hawk said.

A small hint of a smile fleetingly graced her lips as Frankie murmured, “Thank you,” just before walking into the apartment.

It felt as if she was moving in slow motion along the bottom of a lake filled with Jell-O. She’d been to her share of homicides when she’d worked as a detective in Los Angeles before transferring to Aurora, but everything seemed eerie and unreal to her within the apartment.

Doing her best to appear unaffected, Frankie slanted a glance toward the living room floor where she’d last seen her cousin lying facedown right in front of the entrance at the rear of the apartment.

Damn it, snap out of it and get a grip on yourself. You’re a detective working a case, not a cousin mourning the loss of the last of her family.

“Something wrong?” Luke asked her, his deep voice disrupting her thoughts.

Rousing herself, she shook off her mood and made eye contact with O’Bannon. She would have to watch herself around him.

“No, just reviewing the crime scene, that’s all,” she answered.

He’d been watching her face since they had walked in. Something was off, Luke thought. “Something look out of place to you?” Luke questioned.

Yes. Kris shouldn’t have been killed, here or anywhere else.

“No,” Frankie said out loud. “Everything is just the way I saw it when the EMTs arrived to try to revive Kristin.”

An alert look came into his eyes. “You said she was dead.”

“She was, but Amanda called 911 and requested an ambulance before I was sure that Kristin was already dead,” she told him. Why was he trying to trip her up? “The ME was called in right after that.”

“And who called for the CSI unit?” Luke asked.

Frankie couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being grilled, but she knew it was important to keep her cool, answering his questions. There was nothing to be gained by losing her temper and telling O’Bannon to back off. “I did,” she told him.

“And you remained here while they canvassed the apartment.” It was more of a statement on his part than a question.

“Yes.”

Luke nodded his head. All the while his eyes swept over the immediate area. “Very thorough of you.”

Despite everything, Frankie could feel her temper flaring. She struggled to keep it in check.

“It’s not my first rodeo, O’Bannon. You needn’t patronize me,” she told him.

“Sorry,” he told her, raising his hands. “I wasn’t aware that I was doing that.”

“Yes, you were.” Her eyes met his. If she was going to be tossed out, she might as well speak her mind and be dismissed for a reason. “I work in Major Crimes, not the neighborhood sandbox,” she told him. “I don’t deserve to be talked down to like some kind of wet-behind-the ears novice.”

She heard White Hawk laugh, something she assumed would further anger O’Bannon.

“She’s got a point, O’Bannon,” he told his partner when Luke shot him a reproving glance for laughing at the woman’s retort.

Rather than contest the words, or give them both a piece of his mind the way that Frankie expected, O’Bannon merely shrugged.

“Sorry,” he said to her. “I didn’t mean to insult you. Just trying to be thorough on my end.” He paused for a moment, then asked her, “Do you know which is the victim’s room?”

“The second one right off the bathroom. Your uncle’s unit has already gone over the entire apartment,” she pointed out again. Not to mention that she had, as well. Exactly what did he hope to find?

“I know,” Luke replied. “But it never hurts to have another set of eyes going over the apartment—or, in this case, a fourth set,” he said, recalling that his uncle usually took at least two other members of the unit with him to go over any crime scene he was investigating. Luke turned his attention toward his partner. “Why don’t you look around and see if you notice anything out of place. Anything that might help us with the case,” he emphasized.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked O’Bannon when he didn’t give her any instructions.

“The same,” he answered. “Unless you’d rather sit in the car,” he added. Seeing the insulted look Frankie shot him, he dug into his pocket and took out a set of rubber gloves. He held them out to her. “Here.”

“I have my own, thanks,” she replied, taking a set of clear plastic gloves from the inside pocket of her jacket.

Luke smiled. “Brownie points for the new kid on the block,” he said with approval. “Okay, get busy, people. We’ve still got another crime scene waiting for us after we deal with this one.”

“Another crime scene?” Frankie questioned.

“When you came in this morning, we’d just caught another murder. Body’s with the medical examiner,” he said matter-of-factly. “Your victim’s apartment was on our way so I decided to stop here first.”

This was staggering. “How many victims did you say that this guy has killed?” she asked.

“Seven,” Luke answered. “And you’re jumping to conclusions that the killer is a man.”

She looked at O’Bannon, puzzled. “Then the serial killer’s not a man?”

“Most likely it is. But what I’m saying is that, in this modern age, nothing’s a given anymore,” Luke informed her. “There was a time when no one believed that a woman could be capable of doing something so heinous as killing one person, much less enough people to qualify being regarded as a serial killer.