Marie Ferrarella - How to Seduce a Cavanaugh

“Were the paintings down here, too?” Kelly asked.

Judith bobbed her head up and down in response to the question.

“They were the first thing anyone saw when they came into the house,” Osborn answered bitterly, gesturing to the vacant spaces on the wall. The only things that testified to the paintings’ existence were two nails in the wall.

“Did he take anything else?” Kelly asked the angry home owner.

“No.” He shook his head. “Just the paintings and the revolver.”

She realized the man hadn’t been outside to see his vandalized automobiles. Just as well right now, she told herself.

Despite Osborn’s answer, Kelly went down a list of popular items to steal—and fence. “No jewelry or expensive bottles of wine or—”

She didn’t get to finish her list. Osborn was glaring at her as he rudely interrupted. “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand, Detective?”

She was tempted to say something cutting that would put the man in his place, but considering the trauma he and his wife had just gone through, Kelly decided to cut him a little slack.

She turned toward her partner and bounced a theory off him. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to take the paintings and the antique gun and disappear without bothering to wake up Mr. and Mrs. Osborn?” It seemed to her a far easier way to proceed as well as to avoid possibly getting overpowered and caught.

“Yes,” Kane agreed thoughtfully. After a beat, he added, “Unless—”

“Unless he wanted them to be alerted to what he was doing. He wanted to rub their noses in it,” she concluded, excited about this possible twist and its implications. Turning back to the home invasion victims, she asked Osborn, “Is there someone who would want to watch your reaction to the robbery? Maybe even take some pleasure in it?”

“The people at the club are all a bunch of jealous bastards,” Randolph spat out. “Any one of them could have done this.”

“No.” The nervous denial came from his wife. “They’re our friends.”

Osborn shot his wife a furious, disgusted look. “If you believe that, you stupid cow, you’re even more pathetic than I thought.”

“There’s no need to get abusive, Mr. Osborn,” Kane coldly informed the man, stepping between Osborn and his wife.

“I can get whatever the hell I want with my wife. I’ve just been robbed, and I sure as hell am not going to be lectured to by one of the Keystone Cops.”

It was Kelly’s turn to step in. She was beginning to realize it was going to be hard narrowing down the list of people who hated Osborn’s guts and wanted to see him humiliated. Undoubtedly, it was a nonexclusive, fast-growing club.

“I’d be very careful if I were you, Mr. Osborn,” Kelly warned the man in what sounded like a very deceptively mild voice. “Or you just might wind up reaping exactly what you sow.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Osborn angrily demanded.

Kelly didn’t bother explaining. “You’re a very smart man, Mr. Osborn. I’m sure you’ll figure it out on your own eventually. Now then, we’ll need a list of all these ‘unfriendly’ friends you think might be capable of breaking into your home for the opportunity to torture you by robbing you. Also an exact accounting of everything that was stolen.”

It was clear that Osborn was about to say something less than cooperative, but Kane cut him off before he could speak.

“When you finish with the list, you can give it to Officer Riley,” Kane told the man, pointing out the officer to him. He was fairly certain that although the officer had undoubtedly introduced himself to Osborn when he’d arrived on the scene, the latter had taken no note of his name, or even thought the man had a name.

The officer was now standing guard just inside the foyer.

“And where are you going to be?” Osborn demanded in less than genial tones. He sounded like an employer wanting an accounting from a lowly lackey.

“We’ll be off working your case,” Kane replied, the picture of restraint.

The only telltale sign of inner fury was that Kane’s breathing pattern had grown just a little bit shorter.

Kelly held her tongue until after they’d taken their leave. The minute they were outside the front door, Kelly’s words came rushing out.

“Wow. For a minute there I thought you were going to strangle him,” Kelly told him. “Not that anyone in the immediate world would have blamed you. That man was some piece of work.”

“If I strangled him, I might have done the world a favor,” Kane speculated. In his opinion, Randolph Osborn was a colossal waste of flesh.

“No argument,” Kelly agreed. “It’s just that you might have had to fight me for the honor of bringing about the man’s demise.” She shook her head as she looked over her shoulder at the twenty-room house. “Makes me think that this so-called robbery was definitely not just a random act of chance.”

Kane sounded her out. “You think someone targeted him?”

She couldn’t tell by Kane’s tone if he agreed with her or not. All she could do was tell him how she felt about the crime.

“With every fiber of my being,” she said with enthusiasm. “It only makes sense.” Her voice picked up speed. “Whoever did it wanted to see Osborn agonize over losing his precious treasures. There’s no other reason why he would have deliberately woken Osborn and his wife up, tied them up and then dragged them downstairs to bear witness to the robbery. It was most likely someone Osborn belittled or stiffed in some deal—or both. I’d bet my pension on it,” she concluded.

“Which probably amounts to fifty dollars a month at this point in your career,” Kane said dismissively. “As to it being someone Osborn had wronged somehow, it looks like that club includes everyone over the age of three. That’s a hell of a lot of people to question,” Kane concluded.

“There has to be a way to narrow down the list,” she told him.

Kane frowned as he reached his vehicle. Offhand he couldn’t think of a way to accomplish that. He glanced in her direction as he sat behind the steering wheel. “I’m open to suggestions if you have them.”

Getting into the passenger side, Kelly shook her head. “Right now all I can think of is that I’d like to strangle the condescending, smug, giant creep myself.”

For a second, Kane allowed himself to be amused. She was almost cute when she got angry. Now there was a word that shouldn’t ever be paired with the word partner . He knew without being told that if he said as much to her—that she was cute when she got angry—there would be hell to pay. Something to think about, he mused, “Tell me, does that go above or below the part that says protect and serve?” he asked.

She took no offense at his so-called question.

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” She turned her attention to another detail in the investigation. “Those marks on Mrs. Osborn’s wrists looked pretty deep,” she commented. “You think that whoever is responsible for this has a grudge against her, too?”

He shrugged. “It’s possible,” Kane allowed. “Or maybe, for our suspect, it’s a matter of guilt by association. She’s married to the miserable reptile, so in the burglar’s mind she’s every bit as bad as her husband is.”

She nodded. “Could be that, too,” she agreed.

“Let’s see what their so-called friends at the club have to say about the Osborns,” he suggested, then Kane looked at her. They were currently missing one little detail. “Did Osborn happen to mention what club he belongs to?”

She shook her head. “There are four clubs in Aurora that a man like Osborn might want to belong to. My vote is with the one that’s the most exclusive—and the most snobbish.”