The Woman Who Wasn't There

Wearing pale plastic gloves, Troy switched on the light. Rather than illuminate, it added to the overall sense of darkness and gloom within the room.

He was grateful he’d had the good fortune to be born into the life that he presently enjoyed.

Squatting down beside the pile closest to the door, Troy began poking through the crumbled papers, crushed paper cups and greasy bags. He was searching for that certain “something” they might have overlooked when they’d first gone through this room hours ago. The “something” that just possibly might be able to lead them to the penny-ante dealer’s killer when all the obvious trails led nowhere.

All it took was one thing. That serial killer in New York back in the seventies had been caught because of unpaid parking tickets, Troy mused, working his way to the floor. Anything was possible.

Besides, he did some of his best work when it was quiet. When he could think. He and Kara had conducted a canvas of the area and now she and her clown car were back at the squad room, following up on information given by the woman who lived across the parking lot. After an intense two hours, Sam, the crime scene investigator, had retreated to his lab with his odd collection of fibers, cigarette butts and whatever to examine, tag and match.

Troy glanced at the watch his father had given him when he’d graduated from the academy. Right about now the M.E. was taking the victim apart. Literally.

Troy rose, absently dusting off one gloved hand against another as he scanned the room. More than sifting through the dead dealer’s possessions, he was trying to fit into the man’s emaciated skin. To think the way Clyde might have thought in the last few hours of his life. And maybe, just maybe, he was also trying to prove to the world at large that he wasn’t just chief of detectives Brian Cavanaugh’s youngest, indulged son.

He was proud of who he was, who he belonged to. The Cavanaugh name stood for something in Aurora, but there was no denying that it also carried a significant weight with it. You couldn’t really slack off if you were a Cavanaugh. At least, not for very long. People expected you to behave as if you were a little larger than life. Of course, some were waiting to see if you fell on your face.

He had no intention of falling. He had brothers and cousins to compete against, he always had had.

Troy walked over to the closet and opened the door. It creaked. More fast-food wrappers were inside, as if Clyde had actually made a halfhearted attempt at cleaning his living quarters before giving up.

“Would have been easier to throw it all away, Clyde,” he said under his breath. He began to move around the wrappers, one by one.

Granted, the competition between him and the other members of his family was a friendly one, but he still had to prove himself. He was the youngest of the Cavanaugh men. Only his sister and Rayne, Uncle Andrew’s daughter, were younger, and not by all that much. There was a stigma attached to being the youngest. Family didn’t really expect you to measure up.

Though he never said it out loud, sometimes didn’t even admit it to himself, he wanted to make his father proud. Wanted the whole family to be proud of him. The only way that happened—to his satisfaction—was to be the best damn cop, the best damn detective he knew how.

He knew that his family would love him, would stick by him no matter what he did. But he had seen that look of pride rise up in his father’s eyes when he’d told him that he was going into “the family business” and becoming a cop, the way the rest of them had. The way his father, Uncle Andrew and Uncle Mike had, following in their father’s footsteps. It was a look he wanted to see over and over again.

The sudden, small noise behind him had Troy whirling around, his gun instantly drawn. Aimed.

The next moment, blowing out a breath, he raised the gun’s barrel up toward the ceiling, putting the safety back on.

Though her expression never gave her away, Delene could feel her racing heart slowly sliding down from her throat.

“How many hours of practice did it take you to get that fast?” She lowered the hands that she’d automatically raised the second he’d pointed the gun at her. Leaving the doorway, she crossed into the room.

Saying something unintelligible under his breath, Troy holstered his weapon, then readjusted his Windbreaker over it.

“Enough,” he replied, then asked a question of his own. “What are you doing here?” She’d left here hours ago and had no authority to be in the motel room. It was still a crime scene. “Forget something?”

For a second, Delene debated retracing her steps and leaving. She could always come back later tonight. She knew how to bypass locks. One of the fringe benefits of her earlier life. But to leave now would mean that she’d allowed someone to chase her off, and that just wasn’t going to happen. That, too, belonged to her past.

She slowly shook her head. “No, I’m looking for something.”

Troy’s dark eyebrows drew together over his nose in a puzzled, wavy line. Talking wasn’t this woman’s strong suit, he decided. Considering what he was accustomed to from the women in his family, reticence was a pleasant change. But not when he wanted information. “Mind telling me what?”

Yes, she minded, Delene thought. She minded having to explain herself to anyone. It brought back too many bad memories. She was trying to forget about endless months of explaining herself, of justifying every move she made, every second she was away from the house.

But Detective Cavanaugh wasn’t asking out of personal curiosity. This was all part of his job.

“You did see the yellow tape, didn’t you?” Troy prompted when she didn’t immediately respond.

Delene could feel that old familiar flash of temper coming on. “Vision’s twenty-twenty the last time I had my eyes checked.”

The flippant answer was as mechanical as breathing for her. Being flippant was the defense mechanism Delene employed to keep people from asking her too many probing questions. She banked down a lot of other words, as well. After all, the man was just doing his job.

And what you’re doing is going above and beyond the call of duty. But she knew she had to at least try, she thought.

There was more to the woman’s eyes than twenty-twenty vision, Troy caught himself observing. Her eyes were a deep, dark shade of green. So green, he felt as if he’d fallen into the center of an emerald mine. So green that they could very easily mesmerize him and dissolve his thoughts if he allowed it.

Troy cleared his throat. “Nice to know. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

Her mouth rose in an amused smile that took him prisoner. “I thought you gave me a choice.”

He didn’t follow. “A choice?”

“Yes.” She raised her head to look up at him. “You said, ‘Mind telling me what?’ That would indicate if I do mind, I don’t have to answer you.”

Troy moved in a little closer, although he wasn’t completely aware that he had taken a step. She liked to argue. Maybe she wasn’t all that different from the women in his family.

“Which automatically puts you on my list of people to look at more closely.”

The way he said it, Delene got the distinct feeling the detective wasn’t just talking about the murder. That he meant something more intimate than that.

For just the barest instant a wave of heat passed over her, spreading out all through her body. That same funny, silly, overwhelming sensation experienced by teenagers during the “did-he-notice-me-or-didn’t-he?” ritual from years gone by.

Get a grip, Dee. You’re not sixteen anymore.

She told herself she was just hallucinating, that what she felt was merely a by-product of countless nights with too little sleep because of the damned nightmares.

It had been years since she’d reacted to a man. Any man. And she intended to keep it that way.

“Then you’d be wasting your time,” she told him softly.

Her voice, low, sexy and intoxicating, got under his skin. He was having some very unprofessional thoughts right now. “My time to waste.”

She drew back, shifting gears. That had been a dangerous road she’d just touched on. Dangerous for her. “Not when the department is paying you. Daddy wouldn’t like it.”

She had the pleasure of watching the handsome detective stiffen. Obviously she’d stumbled across a button she could press if needed. She wondered if there was friction between the older and younger Cavanaughs.

The grin on Troy’s lips hardened ever so slightly. “Are we going to play this game all evening or are you going to tell me what made you come back to the motel room where Petrie was killed? As far as I understand the duties of a probation officer, your business here is over.”

He was putting her in her place. She didn’t like that. Delene took the upper hand. “Relax, Cavanaugh, this isn’t an old-fashioned melodrama. The killer isn’t coming back to the scene of the crime.” Shoving her hands into her back pockets, she shifted slightly on the balls of her feet. It was a habit she had when she was searching for a way to calm down. “Clyde has a daughter.”

“All right.” Troy drew the words out, waiting for the woman to follow up the statement with more concrete information. “So he has a daughter. What’s that got to do with you?”

Nothing. Everything. Because I was cursed with a conscience.

She ignored his question. “Her name was tattooed on his forearm.”