Cavanaugh's Woman

Moira nodded. The detective’s reply had an air of finality to it. Which meant he wasn’t going to gush.

Which meant he was perfect.

She still had doubts about his partner, though, but that could be handled. Worst-case scenario, she could get Chief Cavanaugh to reassign the shorter detective to another partner for the time being.

She wanted the stubborn one. In her gut, she knew he’d be the one to show her the ropes, the one who wouldn’t sugarcoat things. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Flashing another brilliant smile, Moira turned toward the chief of detectives. “You’re right. He’s perfect.”

Shaw didn’t like the sound of this. Wary, feeling like someone who’d just been blindfolded and pushed out onto a very thin tightrope, he looked from the movie star to his uncle.

“Perfect for what? What’s going on here, Chief?” For the first time he saw that the woman had a small, thick spiral notebook on the desk in front of her. She was making notations in it. “Why’s she doing that?”

“Ms. McCormick is about to make a movie dealing with an inner-city vice squad,” Brian said cautiously.

“Good for her,” Shaw bit off.

His uncle looked at him sharply and Shaw inclined his head by way of a minor apology. It was just that he didn’t see the point of making movies about the kinds of thing he and Reese dealt with on a daily basis. At best, his work could be described as long spates of monotony interrupted by pockets of adrenaline-rushing moments comprised of sheer danger and terror. If portrayed accurately, no one would come to see the movie because the kind of life they led was boring ninety-seven percent of the time. If not portrayed accurately, why bother making the movie at all? In his experience, movies such as the one his uncle was describing were just excuses to blow up a lot of things.

He had no use for that kind of so-called entertainment.

Shaw turned his attention back to the woman who was watching him so intently. Was she expecting him to perform tricks? He wasn’t about to be anyone’s trained monkey or stooge.

“You know, I’m a huge fan,” his partner was saying, taking Moira’s small hand in his and shaking it again. “I’ve seen all your movies.”

Very carefully, she managed to extricate her hand without giving offense. That, too, was training from way back when.

“So you’re the one.” She laughed.

Reese looked at her, his face a mask of confusion. Moira McCormick’s movies broke records. There was even talk of there being an Oscar nomination for her last role as a turn-of-the-century Irish freedom fighter. How could she downplay attendance?

“What? Oh, that’s a joke?” And then Reese laughed as if he’d just caught the humor of it. He looked up at her much like a puppy looked at its master.

Shaw struggled not to scowl. He’d never seen Reese like this. Just showed you never really knew a person. His impatience began to break through.

“So you want to do what? Ask us questions? Pick our brains?” He glanced at his partner. “Such as they are,” he added.

Moira exchanged looks with the chief. It was clear that she wanted to take the lead here. “Actually, I’d like to do more than that.”

He really didn’t like the sound of this. He especially didn’t like the fact that his uncle had obviously yielded center stage to this Hollywood bit of fluff.

“More?” he echoed. “More as in how?”

“As in riding along with you for the next week or so.” She uttered every word as if it were a sane request.

If granted at all, ride-alongs were usually conducted by patrol officers along routes they knew ahead of time were going to be safe, or as safe as could be hoped for. He and Reese did not patrol fantasyland. They went where the action was.

This time, he scowled darkly at her. “During work hours?”

Moira had a feeling she was being challenged. Nothing made her feel more alive. It reminded her of the old days. “That would be the point.”

“Oh, no, no. Sorry, out of the question. We don’t do taxi service.”

Brian took a step forward, his message clear. Shaw was to toe the line.

“Shaw—” Brian began, then looked surprised as Moira held up her hand, unconsciously silencing him. Ever since she could remember, she was accustomed to fighting every battle for herself. She’d come here looking for resistance, because only a real, dedicated detective was going to be of use to her.

“You wouldn’t be driving me around. I’d be an observer. You wouldn’t even know I was there,” Moira assured him.

The way she looked at him made Shaw feel as if there was no one else in the room. He supposed that was part of her attraction. And her weapon. He shook himself mentally free.

“I highly doubt that.”

A man would have to be dead three days to be oblivious to her. He saw amusement play along her lips. Shaw deliberately shifted his eyes toward his uncle, who seemed rather amused by the whole exchange. Had everyone gone crazy? Shaw shifted, his body language asking for a private audience with his uncle.

“With all due respect, sir, wouldn’t she be better off observing another woman?” He thought of his sister. Now there was someone who wouldn’t mind serving as tour guide. She had the patience, the temperament for it. “Callie, for instance—”

Brian shook his head. “None of the female detectives are in Vice and Vice is what Ms. McCormick wants to observe.”

“Then team her up with another pair of detectives,” he suggested firmly.

Reese made a strange, protesting noise that sounded like the gurgle of a castaway going down for the third time.

Moira hardly heard the other man. Her attention was focused on Shaw. It was this man or no one.

“I don’t want another pair of detectives,” she told him, rising to her feet and looking up into his eyes. She wasn’t a short woman, but he made her feel like one. Was he protesting because this arrangement would make his girlfriend jealous? “I want this pair.”

“No offense, ma’am,” he said evenly, “but what you want really doesn’t concern me.”

Ma’am, she thought. If she tried hard, she could almost see him tipping the brim of an off-white Stetson. Because this man was off-white, not the pure hero type, not quite the black-hearted loner he made himself out to be.

It’s going to be fun, getting under your skin, Detective Cavanaugh, she thought. And fun was part of the reason she was in this business. The money was the other, because without money, she wouldn’t be able to take care of those who needed caring for.

“It does this time, Detective,” Brian told his nephew sternly. “Ms. McCormick requested a detective who wasn’t going to get bowled over by the fact that she earns her living making films.” He looked at Reese. “I’m assuming that you’ll be able to pull yourself together and do the department proud by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Moira repeated. She was clearly disappointed. At least that was something, Shaw thought. “I was hoping we could get started today.”

Brian shook his head. He hadn’t gotten to where he was by being unreasonable. “I think Detective Cavanaugh would appreciate a day’s head start to prepare for this ‘role’ himself. Wouldn’t you, Detective?”

“At least,” Shaw muttered. That gave him a little less than twenty-four hours to come up with an excuse, he thought.

Moira had learned long ago to take disappointment well. It was in her nature to roll with any punch that was thrown. A nomadic life with a con-artist father who was always one step in front of the law had taught her that.

She nodded, glancing at her perfect candidate’s partner. She knew if it was up to Detective Reese, they would get started this moment. But Detective Cavanaugh was the one who piqued her interest.

“Fine. Bright and early tomorrow morning, then?” she asked Shaw.

“Bright and early,” Shaw responded. The words squeezed themselves out through teeth that were tightly clenched.

Damn it. Why him? Why, of all the available candidates in the precinct, had he been the one to have gotten the short straw? He hadn’t even picked it, it had been thrust into his hand. Any one of the others would have been happy about having this motivation-seeking pain-in-the-butt riding around with them. His uncle had only to look around to know that.

For the remainder of the day, from what Shaw could see, Moira McCormick stayed at the precinct, initially getting a grand tour from his uncle, then being handed off to another beaming detective, Ed Rafferty. The latter, usually the personification of grumpiness, was beaming from ear to ear as he took her from one department to the other. Ordinarily, Rafferty spent his time behind a desk since a bullet had found him one dreary twilight, giving him a permanent limp and an overwhelming desire to remain among the living.

From the sound of it, Moira McCormick had an unending supply of questions. Great. Just what he needed, Shaw thought miserably.

Shaw steered clear of the traveling circus with its growing audience. For most of the day, he wasn’t even in the precinct. A snitch known to him only as Barlow had called offering up for sale a tiny piece of the current puzzle he and Reese were pondering. Shaw had bought the information from him, telling Barlow to secure more. He and Reese were following up on what had started out as a simple prostitution bust and was turning out to be a rather intricate sex-for-hire ring that dealt with underage prostitutes.

There were days when the good guys won and days when the bad guys did. This, Shaw thought, stretching out his legs before him as he sank into his chair, was one for the bad guys.

Maybe it would be better tomorrow.

And then he remembered. Tomorrow Miss Hollywood would be in his car. Tomorrow would definitely not be better. The only thing he could hope for was that she would quickly tire of playing the role of researcher. He’d given one more try at talking his way into a reprieve, but his uncle wasn’t about to grant it.

“Look, it’s for the good of the city,” Brian had said. “They’re going to be filming a lot of the outdoor shots here. That’s going to bring in a great deal of money, Shaw. Money’s good for the local economy, good for the force. Salaries don’t come from the tooth fairy.”

The discussion, Shaw knew, had been doomed from the get-go.

Contemplating tomorrow, his mood hadn’t been the best. It got decidedly worse in the afternoon when he’d walked into the precinct and saw her standing in the middle of a wide circle of his fellow officers. She signed autographs and behaved like a benevolent queen bestowing favors on her subjects.

As he’d gone toward his cubicle, Moira McCormick had turned her head in his direction and their eyes had met over the heads of the officers around her. She smiled at him, directly at him, and something had stirred inside his gut.

Probably the chili he’d grabbed for lunch.

He had to get something better than lunch wagon fare, Shaw told himself as he’d sunk into his chair.

Reese, he noted, stayed behind with the throng around Moira.

There had to be a way to get out of this.

But even as he thought about it, Shaw knew it wasn’t possible. Once his uncle made up his mind, that was it. Brian Cavanaugh didn’t say things just to hear himself talk. And there was the matter of the extra revenue to the city coffers. Times were tough. No one was going to turn his back on money.

A week. It would be over in a week. He had to keep telling himself that.

“Hey, Shaw, I just heard about your new assignment.”

He didn’t have to look up to know that the gleeful voice belonged to his brother. Clay dropped into the chair beside his desk, grinning broadly.

“Always said that Uncle Brian liked you best.” Clay glanced over his shoulder toward the movie star and the ever-increasing crowd around her. “Just never thought you’d hit the jackpot like this.”

He didn’t bother asking where Clay had gotten his information about the ride-along. Rumors flew around the precinct faster than a hummingbird gathering breakfast and there had been over eight hours for the news to get out. If he didn’t miss his guess, it had probably been all over the precinct within the first ten minutes.

“No jackpot,” he told Clay evenly. “It’s just a damn annoying baby-sitting assignment.”

“Some baby.” Clay hooted with the proper amount of appreciation. “Moira McCormick can play at being my baby anytime.”

Before Clay had settled down and lost his heart to Ilene, he’d been involved with more women than could be found in the population of any given Alaskan town. Now that he thought of it, this kind of assignment was definitely more up his brother’s alley than his, Shaw decided, but he knew there was no use in suggesting it to his uncle.

Picking up a paper clip from a caddy on his desk, Shaw began to straighten it out. “I’m sure Ilene will be thrilled to hear that.”

At the mention of his fiancée’s name, Clay sobered ever so slightly. Shaw knew that there was no way his brother would jeopardize what he had for something as insignificant as a fling with a movie star, or anyone else, no matter how tempting—and this woman gave the word temptation a whole new, deeper meaning. However, Clay’s wild-oat-sowing days were now behind him.

Unlike him, Shaw thought. Wild-oat sowing had never been in his makeup. He vaguely wondered if he was missing something, then dismissed the thought.

“Hey,” Clay protested, “don’t get me wrong—”

Shaw laughed, tossing aside the wavy paper clip. “Easy, stop sweating. I’m not going to tell Ilene you became a drooling moron like Reese, at least not until there’s something in it for me.”

He flashed his brother a grin, then looked over toward where Moira was still holding court. The crowd around her just kept getting larger and nosier. He knew that some of the men had called their wives, who promptly put in an appearance. So far, Moira was taking it all with good grace, but then, wasn’t that what movie stars liked? Adulation?

Shaw blew out a breath. “Look, what’s the big deal? So she’s beautiful, so what? Beauty is only skin deep. Take that away and what do you have?”

Clay looked over his shoulder again and sighed. When he looked back at Shaw, there was a slightly lopsided smile curving his lips. “A damn sexy skeleton, I’m willing to bet.”

“Any way you can ask Brian for this assignment?”

Clay vehemently shook his head. “Oh, no, that’s all I need—to tell Ilene I’m going to be riding around in my car with Moira McCormick at my elbow.”

He thought of his brother’s fiancée. “Why should that be a problem? Ilene’s a gorgeous woman.”

“No argument, but she’s not a movie star.”

Shaw laughed shortly, picking up another paper clip and going to work on it. “Thank God.”

“You know what I mean.” The sound of Moira’s laughter floated back to them, somehow managing to rise above the din. Shaw’s frown only deepened as Clay said, “There’s an aura around them.”

“They’re people, same as you and me. Two hands, two feet, one head, a torso in between. Same parts.”

“But they look better.”

If he didn’t know better, he would have said that Clay was smitten with the paper person at the other end of the room.

“That’s lighting, nothing more. And without it, they fall apart. Actors tend to be illusions. You want to know why the good ones are so good at what they do, why they can take on other roles so easily?” Warming to his subject, Shaw leaned forward. “Because they have no substance of their own, nothing to rework. They’re shape-shifters, Clay, as interesting as the parts they play—nothing more.” He paused. A strange look flashed across Clay’s face, half amusement, half unease. “What’s the matter with you? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

And then he felt a hand on his shoulder and knew the reason for Clay’s odd expression before he ever heard her say a thing. “Not a ghost. A shape-shifter, I think you called me.”

Shaw slowly turned his chair around. Moira McCormick was standing behind his desk. The entourage that had been hovering around her had melted into the background, watching the exchange like an audience in search of entertainment.

By the looks on their faces, he’d delivered, big-time.

“I was talking in general terms,” Shaw said.

“I think it was an apt description,” she replied cheerfully. “Shape-shifter.” Moira rolled the word on her tongue, as if testing how it felt. “I like it.” She lowered her voice as she nodded toward the others behind her. “And I like the fact that you didn’t join in back there.”

“I’m not a joiner.”

“I sensed that.” She made herself comfortable on the edge of his desk. “A rebel, right?”

“No, just an average Joe, out to earn a living.”

“That’s not what your uncle said.” Brian Cavanaugh had nothing but glowing words for the man he’d coupled her with. There were a number of good things to be said about Steven Reese, as well, but to an extent, the latter had negated it with his clear case of adoration.

“The chief says a lot of things.” Shaw rose, taking care not to brush against her as he did. For once, he was going home early. He couldn’t get anything done here, not with these hyenas hovering about, ready to burst out laughing. “Good night.”

“Good night.” As she watched him leave, she couldn’t help thinking that the man she’d selected had a very nice posterior. She was going to enjoy watching him walk away. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Shaw said nothing. It was a prophecy he really wished he could avert.

As he left the room, he heard Moira saying something to his brother. Clay began to laugh in response.

It was going to be a long week.

Chapter Three

If he had any intention of dwelling on the scene he’d just left, or on the woman who was going to be disrupting his life for the next week, Shaw found he had no time. His cell phone was ringing before he reached his car in the lot.

Digging it out of his pocket, he flipped open the lid. “Cavanaugh.”

“Shaw, I need you to come home.”

Twilight began to whisper along the fringes of the tree-lined parking lot. Shaw stopped walking, stopped thinking about how much Moira McCormick was going to impede his current investigation. His father was on the other end of the call and there was definitely something wrong. His father rarely, if ever, called during working hours.

Shaw couldn’t begin to fathom his tone. He could usually read his father like a well-loved book. Concern nudged at the edges of his mind. “Dad, is there something wrong?”

There was a pause, but no explanation followed. “Just come home. Now.”

Shaw didn’t waste time asking any more questions. He knew his father wasn’t given to drama. Whatever was going on, it was important.

“I’ll be right there,” he promised. Shutting his cell, Shaw was in his car and on the open road in less time than it took to think through the process.

He wouldn’t allow his mind to explore possibilities. The closest his father had ever come to sounding so urgent was when Uncle Mike had been fatally shot.

But no one at the precinct had said anything. If there was an officer down, much less a member of his own family, word would have gotten to him by now. Uncle Brian would have called him into his office immediately.

The more Shaw thought, the more he realized that the only other time his father had sounded so somber was when he’d gathered the family together to tell them that their mother’s car had been found at the bottom of the river. His father had gone on to say that there was every hope in the world that she had somehow managed to survive the accident.

That was his father, an optimist to the end even though he wasn’t usually vocal about it.

Even as the years went by and no clue of Rose Cavanaugh’s survival came to light, his father had never, ever given up hope that someday she would come walking through the front door to take back her place in their lives.

Waiting at a stoplight, Shaw scrubbed his hand over his face. Hell of a man, his father. Shaw didn’t know how he would have handled losing his wife that way and being left to raise five kids to boot. Shaw smiled to himself. He had to hand it to the old man—they didn’t make ’em like that anymore.

He wondered if Andrew Cavanaugh knew that he was his kids’ hero. Probably not.

As he approached his father’s house, Shaw saw that other cars were ahead of him. A quick scan told him that Callie, Rayne and Teri had gotten there ahead of him. One glance in his rearview mirror indicated Clay’s vehicle was right behind him.

Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have disturbed him. His father used any excuse to get them all together beyond the call to breakfast that he issued every day. Like as not, most mornings would find him making a pit stop at the family house, not so much for the food, which was always good, as for the company. Granted, he and his siblings all went their separate ways—his father encouraged that. But something always pulled them together no matter how independent they were.

His father had taught them that roots were by far the most important things in life. If you had deep enough roots, you could withstand any kind of storm that came your way.

Shaw couldn’t help wondering if there was a storm coming, or if it had already arrived.

After parking beside the mailbox, just behind Callie’s vehicle, Shaw got out of his car just as Clay pulled up behind him.

His brother was quick to climb out, slamming the door in his wake. One look at his brother’s face told him that Clay was as puzzled as he was for this sudden summons to return home.

“You have any idea what this is all about?” Clay asked.

Shaw shook his head. “Only that Dad said to come home.”

“Not like him to be so dramatic,” Clay speculated, frowning and falling into place beside him.

Because he was the oldest and the others looked to him to set the tone, Shaw remained deliberately low-keyed. “Maybe Teri’s changed her mind about Hawk,” he deadpanned, then nodded toward the door. “Only one way to find out.”

Neither one of them bothered to knock. They all had their keys, something their father insisted on. This had been their first home and it would remain their home no matter how far away they went. For Andrew, it was as simple as that.

“Okay, Dad, what’s the big mystery?” Clay called out, following Shaw into the living room.

Clay stopped dead right behind his brother.

His sisters were already in the room along with their father. They all sat on the sofa, smiling but looking far more subdued than Shaw ever remembered seeing them. The reason was seated rigidly on the recliner their father favored.

A ghost from the past.

The polite but strained conversation stopped the moment he and Clay entered the room.

For a single second, Shaw’s heart stopped beating as he was thrown back in time, then pushed forward to the present again. Hardly daring to breathe, he looked from the woman to his father, who nodded.

He wasn’t a police detective anymore, he was a son. A son whose missing mother had turned up in his living room.

They were already aware that Rose Cavanaugh was alive. His father had told them of Rayne’s discovery, of going up and seeing for himself the woman who answered to the name of Claire. He had wanted to persuade her to come home with him. Shaw also knew that the woman claimed not to have any memory of them.

Shaw could see a great deal of unresolved emotion in his father’s eyes. He could also see that while she was looking straight ahead at them, trying to smile, the woman who didn’t appear to know she was his mother was digging her fingertips into the leather armrests.

“And these are your sons, Shaw and Clay,” Andrew told her.

The woman inclined her head, rising slightly from her seat, and succeeded in smiling at them. At him. Smiling at him with his mother’s smile.

Shaw had no idea what to feel, what to think.