Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh Encounter

Snapping to attention, Amanda hurried to make the call.

“C’mon, Kris, open your eyes!” Frankie begged as she continued pushing against her cousin’s chest. “Do it for me. Please!”

All sorts of thoughts charged in and out of her head. The last words she and Kris had exchanged. The time she had bullied her cousin into rehab. Teaching her cousin how to ride a bike. All that and more whisked through her brain with the speed of a bullet, all while she worked over her cousin’s prone body.

She was still pushing down on Kristin’s chest when the high-pitched whining sound of an approaching siren registered.

The ambulance was here!

Frankie realized that there were tears in her eyes. Maybe the paramedic would be able to save Kris.

Would be able to bring her around.

Drained and wired at the same time, Frankie moved out of the way as the paramedics took over for her. The taller of the two attendants did compressions.

After several moments, he turned to look at her.

Frankie knew why he had stopped the compressions and why her cousin wasn’t being placed on the gurney in order to be taken to the ambulance.

Frankie could feel her heart constricting. There wasn’t going to be an ambulance ride to the hospital. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” Frankie asked in a low, hoarse voice.

“Yes.” The attendant was kind. “You’re going to need to get the coroner out here,” he told her. Taking out his cellphone, the attendant offered, “I can call him for you.”

Frankie put up her hand to stop the man from placing the call. “That’s all right. I’m a detective with the Aurora Police Department. I’ll call the coroner and tell him it’s a homicide,” she told him.

“Homicide?” the second attendant echoed. “This looks like a drug overdose to me,” the man said. He pointed over to the side. The syringe had come out and was lying near the body.

This just wasn’t right, Frankie thought. Yes, Kristin had had a drug problem, but that was years ago. She’d sustained an injury, dislocating her shoulder while playing soccer in high school. Prescription drugs had helped her put up with the shooting pain. Gradually that had led to her becoming dependent on other ways to numb the misery, but all that had been years ago. Kristin had dealt with her demons and finally vanquished them.

It hadn’t been easy for her, but she did it.

Frankie refused to believe that after fighting her way back to the point where she could finally enjoy a normal lifestyle, Kristin would have just thrown it all away for a weekend binge.

“No,” Frankie said fiercely, addressing the attendant. “This was not a drug overdose, accidental or otherwise. It was staged to look that way. This is a homicide,” she declared in no uncertain terms, her sweeping gaze taking in the attendants and her cousin’s sobbing roommate. The way the syringe was positioned would have indicated that Kristin had used her right hand. Kristin was left-handed. “And I intend to prove it.”

Even to her own ears, it sounded more like a vow than a statement.

And maybe it was, but she still intended to do it.

Chapter 1

“I want you, O’Bannon.”

Lukkas Cavanaugh O’Bannon looked up from the report on his desk. It was an autopsy, and it made for grim reading. It was the information on the latest victim who had been discovered only a day ago. A young kindergarten teacher was found dead by her mother in the house they shared.

The autopsy was one of six and only confirmed Luke’s suspicions. Someone was out there, preying on young, intelligent professional women, capitalizing on their apparent loneliness and cutting their lives short before they ever had a chance to really experience life to the fullest.

It was only ten o’clock in the morning, but Luke already felt as if he could use a break. He just hadn’t thought that his break would materialize in such a shapely form.

“Words I’ve been waiting a lifetime to hear,” he quipped, smiling at the petite blue-eyed brunette standing before his desk. He had no idea who she was, but he certainly intended to find out. The fact that she had just said she wanted him certainly sounded promising.

“Well, you can continue waiting,” she informed him coldly, “because I didn’t mean them that way.” She was going to have to learn to pick her words better, Frankie admonished herself. It was just that right now, she was extremely agitated and she felt as if she was walking across a tightrope.

One misstep on her part and she wasn’t going to be allowed to work this case.

O’Bannon was flashing a wide, brilliant grin aimed right at her, and she did her best to ignore it.

Detective Lukkas Cavanaugh O’Bannon had a reputation for being a ladies’ man. The reputation reached all corners of the police department, even Major Crimes, which was where she worked. The problem was that O’Bannon had the looks and the charm to back up his bravado.

But none of that mattered to her. What did matter was that O’Bannon was also a damn good detective. And, most important of all, he was lead detective on a case that involved homicides that were eerily similar to her cousin’s.

“And just what way did you mean them?” he asked her. His smile only grew wider.

Luke leaned back in his chair and his eyes slowly passed over her, taking careful measure of every attractive inch. No doubt about it. She was the best-looking woman he had seen in a long time. The annoyed expression on her face just made her that much more of a challenge as far as he was concerned.

“Word has it that you’re working on a case that might involve a serial killer killing young, dark-haired women.” Frankie kept her voice neutral, professional. She couldn’t afford to have O’Bannon suspect just how important this case was to her.

Luke shrugged. “You know how rumors fly around the precinct...”

Although his voice trailed off, his eyes never left her face. It wasn’t difficult to see that this case was important to her. Why? She didn’t remind him of a reporter, searching for an in. And she definitely wasn’t part of Sean Cavanaugh’s CSI unit. He knew every face in his uncle’s department, both the day and the night shift.

“Don’t toy with me, O’Bannon.”

The corners of his mouth curved deeper as he leaned slightly forward. “Is that a dare?”

This was getting her absolutely nowhere and it was just wasting time. Given the man’s reputation, she should have known better than to approach O’Bannon directly with anything.

“Maybe I’d be better off going to Lt. Handel with this,” Frankie said, already turning on her heel. Handel’s office was in the back.

“Wait,” Luke called after her.

Frankie spared the detective a cold glance over her shoulder. “Why?”

“Well, for one thing, you’ll wind up talking to yourself,” he pointed out. “The lieutenant’s not in his office.”

Was he playing her? She was tempted to look in the general direction of the lieutenant’s glass-paneled office, but she refrained. For now, she gave O’Bannon the benefit of the doubt. She actually did need the man on her side, which meant that she had to build up some sort of rapport.

“Where is he?” she asked him, trying to control her impatience.

“At a meeting with the new chief of police,” Luke replied, referring to his cousin, Shaw Cavanaugh, who had recently assumed the position after the previous chief had suffered a heart attack in his sleep and died. “No telling when he’ll be back.” He watched the woman when she reluctantly turned around again to face him. “So you might as well finish filling me in on why you’re asking questions about my case.”

“Because I think I might have...stumbled across another victim,” Frankie said.