Cavanaugh Stakeout

What she was hearing from Andrew’s side of the conversation only fueled her dread.

“When?” Andrew asked, his usually genial face a mask of concern. “How bad? Is he—?” Rose saw her husband exhale a shaky breath, dragging his hand through his hair. For a split second, the man everyone leaned on so heavily looked almost lost. “What hospital?”

By now Rose’s adrenaline had escalated to an exceptionally high level. She quickly got out of bed and, rather than throw on a robe, automatically began to get dressed. Quickly.

The second she was finished, she was laying out her husband’s clothing. She knew Andrew inside and out. She knew that the moment he hung up, they would be on their way to whatever hospital the person that this call was about was in.

With children, brothers and sisters-in-law, as well as an entire extended collection of family members, almost all involved in some capacity of law enforcement, there were many potential candidates for whom that path might have very well ended tonight—or had come very close to ending.

There was no other reason why a call would have suddenly shattered their night this way, or why her husband looked so distressed.

Without knowing whom this call was about or what the actual damage was, all Rose could do was pray as she moved quickly to get Andrew’s clothes ready for him. It was her form of “busywork,” something to keep her occupied so that her mind wouldn’t go to that awful place that it was wont to go thanks to this middle-of-the-night call.

It just went with the territory because she was the former police chief’s wife. A peaceful night’s sleep wasn’t always part of the equation.

Rose had laid out all of Andrew’s clothing as well as his shoes and had just pulled out a pair of socks when her husband hung up the phone.

The moment that he did, she whirled around to face him.

“Who?” she asked breathlessly.

Throwing off the rest of the covers, Andrew’s bare feet hit the cold floor. The change in temperature hardly registered. His mind was racing, unearthing a dozen memories at once. But mainly Andrew was praying. Praying every bit as hard as he had when he had gone looking for his missing wife all those years ago when her car had driven off the road, into the lake.

It had taken him years to find Rose again, but he had, he reminded himself. Finding her when she’d been suffering from amnesia had been, admittedly, an incredible long shot, but he had never given up looking, despite the odds. And, in the end, he had found her.

This was going to be another kind of long shot, but just like before, he had every hope that it was going to work out.

It just had to.

Rose caught hold of her husband’s arm, pulling him and his attention back from wherever it had drifted to and toward her.

Startled, Andrew blinked, as if suddenly remembering that his wife was there.

“Who is it?” Rose asked point-blank.

The answer hurt, and it took him a second to actually form the words to tell her.

“It’s Dad,” Andrew answered, shrugging into his pullover sweater.

Of all the names that had gone rushing through Rose’s anguished, feverish brain, her father-in-law’s name hadn’t been among them.

Armed with this piece of information, Rose’s mind went in an entirely different direction.

“Heart attack?” she guessed quietly as she watched Andrew slip on his shoes.

Grabbing his wallet from the nightstand and putting his cell phone into his pocket, Andrew shook his head. “It wasn’t a heart attack.”

“Then what?” Rose asked, confused.

Andrew drew in a deep breath, as if to insulate himself from the fears that went with what he was about to say.

“As near as the patrolmen who found him can tell,” Andrew said, “Dad was the victim of a mugging. At least that’s the working theory. His car is missing, and he was found lying facedown in the North Tustin Industrial parking lot.”

Horror flashed across Rose’s face. The next moment, she managed to regain control over her emotions.

“But Seamus is all right, isn’t he, Andrew?” she asked, willing her husband to give her a positive reply.

Andrew avoided making eye contact with his wife. “He’s breathing,” he answered, heading toward the stairs. He loved having Rose with him under any circumstances, but he wanted to spare her this. His father was a strong man, but age had a way of eroding strength. Andrew had no idea what he was in for.

“Dad hasn’t regained consciousness since they found him.” Sailing down the staircase’s seventeen steps, he was at the front door in seconds. “I’m going to the hospital,” he told her.

Rose was just a beat behind him. “Not without me you’re not.”

He turned toward her. “There’s no point if he’s still unconscious. Maybe you should just stay here, hold down the fort,” Andrew gently suggested.

The stubborn look he knew and loved so well came into Rose’s eyes. “The fort can hold itself down. I’m not letting you face this alone, Andrew Cavanaugh,” she informed him in no uncertain terms.

This was one of the many reasons he loved her, but even so—or maybe because of it—he didn’t feel right about dragging her with him like this, Andrew thought. “People are going to be calling here, asking questions about what happened.”

He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already considered. “I’m sure they will. Don’t worry about it, we have call forwarding. They’ll find us,” Rose assured him. “After all these years of marriage, that old man is as much my father as he is yours and I’m not about to stay here like a good little soldier, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for word that he’s all right—and he will be all right,” she told her husband in a no-nonsense voice. “Now, let’s just stop wasting time debating this and let’s go,” Rose ordered.

Andrew’s heart swelled with affection as well as gratitude. Sparing himself one moment, he caught his wife up in his arms and kissed her.

Hard.

The next second, he let her go again. “If I haven’t mentioned this to you lately, I love you, Rose McGee Cavanaugh.”

Rose briefly touched his face and smiled at Andrew, all the love she felt for this man who was her entire universe shining in her eyes.

“I know,” she replied. “Now, let’s get moving!” she urged again, pulling open the front door.

“Yes, ma’am,” Andrew answered, utterly grateful that this was the woman who was sharing his life.

Rose had always managed to give him hope.

Rose sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle she had surprised him with last Christmas as they sped off to the hospital. To ensure that they would get there as quickly as possible, Andrew had placed his police lights on the roof. Though he didn’t believe in abusing any of the privileges that were at his disposal, this situation negated his natural impulse for caution.

While the lights on his roof flashed and the siren blared, Rose was busy calling various members of their family to tell them that the man who was responsible for starting the family was very possibly fighting for his life in the hospital. Rose knew that nobody would want to be left out of the loop under the guise of being “spared” the news until morning. Everyone loved and respected the crotchety patriarch and would have been distraught if they weren’t able to be on the premises, pulling for Seamus and adding their prayers to the rest.

This was the sort of thing that transcended everything else. This was about family.

Despite the hour, Aurora Memorial Hospital’s parking lot was teeming with vehicles. Andrew gunned his SUV up and down the aisle, searching for a place to park. As he searched, he spared Rose a glance. “How does it feel being a modern-day Paul Revere?”

“I would have preferred just inviting people to one of your parties instead of telling them to come to the hospital because Seamus has been the victim of some psychopathic thief,” Rose answered grimly. She reached for her husband’s hand and squeezed it. “He’s going to be all right,” she promised, her voice thick with emotion. The words were meant to hearten her as much as they were to encourage her husband.

“Of course he is,” Andrew agreed in a voice that was as emotional as his wife’s. “Dad’s too ornery to just give up and…retreat,” he said, finally finding a word he could use without having his voice break.

“There,” Rose said suddenly, pointing over to the side. “There’s a space.”