Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh Undercover

“Hang in there, mister,” he told the unconscious man. “Don’t die on me. Don’t let me blow my cover and just possibly my whole career for no reason.”

Feeling around in the deep pockets of his filthy khaki-colored hoodie with his left hand—his right was busy trying to stem the victim’s flow of blood—Brennan pulled out his cell phone and called for an ambulance.

As he did so, he couldn’t shake the strangest feeling that he was watching a chapter of his life slam shut.

And maybe, just maybe, another one creak open.

Chapter 1

“You’ve been nursing that beer for the last hour. Something bothering you, son?”

Brennan Cavanaugh was lost in thought as he leaned against the cool white stucco wall and watched people who constituted his newly discovered family enjoying themselves. It took him a moment to zero in on the man asking the question.

Brennan had an aptitude for names and faces—in his line of work, or former line of work, he corrected himself, he’d had to. He knew the man speaking to him to be Brian Cavanaugh, the Aurora police department’s chief of detectives, younger brother of the man whose life he had saved, an act that had, as he’d silently predicted, terminated an active part of his own career, since he had to blow his cover in order to save Andrew Cavanaugh—his long lost uncle. He couldn’t help thinking that truth could be a lot stranger than fiction.

“Not really,” he replied.

It was the easiest answer to give. In his experience, when people asked how you were doing, or if something was wrong, they really didn’t want to know and certainly not in detail.

But Brian obviously did not fall into that general category, because he pressed a little. “Fakely, then?” Brian asked with an understanding smile.

Brian knew all about people’s reluctance to talk. He’d witnessed it initially from his early days on the force when he questioned victims and suspects. He was aware of it currently because of the office he’d held for a number of years.

Since becoming the chief of detectives, he had come across more than one person who was afraid to share his private feelings because he thought it might affected his work life adversely. Brian’s gift was that he knew instinctively how to separate the two and how much weight to give to what he heard in both capacities: as the chief of detectives and as a relative/friend.

“All right, let’s just say, for the sake of hypothetical argument, that there was something causing you some minor concern. What would that be?” he asked when Brennan made no response to his earlier joking comment.

Because he wasn’t quite ready to talk about it, Brennan went with the most obvious answer. “I’ll be the first to admit that I grew up in a crowd scene. Every holiday, birthday or miscellaneous celebration, there were always acres and acres of family—but this, well, this gives a whole new meaning to words like overwhelmed. I’ve heard of family trees, but this, this is damn near a family forest,” Brennan quipped with a grin that took its time in forming.

Brian laughed. “You have that right,” he readily agreed. “But at the risk of harping, that’s not what’s bothering you.” He saw the suspicious way Brennan looked at him. “Don’t look so surprised, boy. I didn’t get to where I am on good looks alone.” The statement was accompanied by another, this time deeper, laugh. “I’m a fair hand at reading people.” And there was definitely something bothering this young man who had saved his older brother’s life. Brian intended, eventually, to get to the bottom of it. “Now, if you don’t want to talk, I understand. But if you do,” Brian continued, “I am a good man to talk to. I listen.”

Brennan shrugged as he stared down at the light that was being reflected in what was left of his beer. The overhead patio light shimmered seductively on the liquid surface, as if it were flirting with him.

“It’s nothing, sir,” he finally said. “I was just wondering what I was going to do with myself come Monday morning, that’s all.”

Brian appeared slightly puzzled. “I thought you were working undercover for the DEA. Something to do with drug smuggling.”

Brian left the statement vague despite the fact that he knew exactly what the young man next to him had been up to when he rescued Andrew. The moment he’d done that, Brian had made it his business to find out everything he could about the tall, strapping DEA agent with the same last name.

Brennan nodded, avoiding his eyes. “I was.”

“Was,” Brian repeated as if he was trying to see if he’d heard the word correctly.

At the last moment, Brennan withheld a sigh. “Yes, sir.”

Brian was about to tell the younger man not to call him sir, but he knew it would be a wasted effort, so he let it pass. “But you’re not anymore.” It was now an assumption.

Brennan frowned, though he thought it hid it. “No, sir.”

“Case over?” Brennan asked. Obviously his digging hadn’t turned up the whole story.

Brennan shook his head. “No, sir.”

“I see,” Brian replied quietly. And he did because all the pieces suddenly came together. “You blew your cover saving my brother.”

Brennan didn’t want any accolades. He’d done what needed doing. That it cost him wasn’t the victim’s fault. “I had no choice.”

“Some people might argue that you did have a choice.”

At bottom it was an argument that debated the responsibilities of a cameraman. Does he or she watch a scene unfold and film it as it happens no matter what that might be or interfere if what is being filmed depicts something immoral or illegal? Some felt it was their duty to record events as they happened; others felt duty-bound to come in on the side of right.

Brennan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what anybody argues. Way I see it, I didn’t have a choice. He would have been dead if I just stood and watched.”

Brian smiled and nodded. “Good answer—for all of us. So, does this mean you’re currently out of a job?” he asked.

“Change of venue,” Brennan corrected. “They put me on desk duty.”

“Until we can trust you to keep your assignment foremost on your ‘to-do’ list and not play superhero, you stay behind a desk,” Lieutenant Lisbon, his direct superior, had shouted at him. As fair skinned as they came, Lisbon had a habit of turning an almost bright red whenever he was angry and he had been very angry the day he’d thrown him off the case.

Brian looked at him knowingly. “Let me guess. You’re not a desk duty kind of guy.”

“Nope.”

Brian didn’t even pause before asking, “Have you given any thought to having a different sort of change of venue?”

Was the chief of Ds being philosophical, or—? “What do you mean, ‘different’?”

Brian felt him out slowly, watching Brennan’s eyes for his true response. “Let’s just say going from the DEA to being a police detective on the Aurora Police Department?”

Brennan’s electric blue eyes narrowed as he stopped taking in the people in the immediate vicinity and focused completely on the man he was talking to.

“Are you offering me a job, sir?” he asked a little uncertainly.

The politely worded question almost had him laughing out loud. “Boy, after what you did, you can write your own ticket to anything that’s within this family’s power to give, so yes, I am offering you a job. As a matter of fact, something recently came to my attention that you would undoubtedly be perfect for, given your undercover background.”

Brennan could feel himself getting hopeful. He needed to nip that in the bud if this wasn’t going to pan out. “You’re not just pulling my leg, are you, sir?”

“I have been known to do a great many things in my time, singularly or on an ongoing basis. However, leg pulling does not number among them, so no, I am not pulling your leg.”