Cavanaugh Pride

Julianne saw his face darken as he listened. His eyes went flat.

“We’ll be right there,” he said grimly before hanging up. “C’mon,” he told her, putting the photograph down on her desk. For now, it was going to have to wait. “They just found another body.”

Chapter 4 (#u7ad631fd-baf9-5d91-9a07-00fb602b3c7b)

The Dumpster was clear across town behind a popular restaurant that served Chinese cuisine, buffet style.

Gin-Ling’s was a popular food source for the homeless. Confronted with the all-you-can-eat philosophy, more than half the patrons who came to Gin-Ling’s had a tendency to overload their plates. Discovering that their stomachs weren’t really as large as they’d surmised usually followed shortly thereafter. Since the restaurant didn’t provide doggie bags, most people left the uneaten portions on their plates.

Most evenings, the twin Dumpsters behind Gin-Ling’s were filled to overflowing.

This time, one of them was more “overflowing” than the other.

Parking his Crown Victoria sedan at the end of the alley bordering the crime scene, Frank got out. As he began to make his way to the Dumpster where the newest gruesome discovery had been made by a homeless man with, it turned out, a very weak stomach, he pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket and started to put them on.

Mentally, Frank wished he had coveralls on instead of the suit he was wearing. But when he’d dressed this morning, he hadn’t been planning on undertaking a safari through a Dumpster.

Just before he reached the Dumpster under scrutiny, Frank glanced toward Julianne and saw that she was putting on her own pair of plastic gloves. He noted that her mouth was set grimly and recalled what Riley had told him last night. The detective from Mission Ridge wasn’t used to homicides.

“You up to this?” he asked her suddenly.

Busy taking in everything around her, significant or otherwise, it took Julianne a second to realize that McIntyre was talking to her.

“Excuse me?”

He stopped walking. “Riley said that you mentioned that the woman who was killed in Mission Ridge was your first dead body.” These things could be pretty unsettling and he didn’t want to be sidetracked by a detective throwing up her breakfast.

Julianne wasn’t sure where the detective was going with this, only that she probably wasn’t going to like it. “So?”

“So,” he continued patiently, “if you’d rather sit this out—until at least the rest of the team gets here—I understand.”

Right. He understood. And then he’d use that against her to send her back. She didn’t need those kinds of favors. She was here and she planned to remain here until she found Mary and, oh yes, helped to find the serial killer as well.

“Thank you but there’s no need to worry about me,” she told him coolly. “And Millie Klein wasn’t my first dead body,” she informed him. “Just my first homicide.”

Her uncle had been the first dead person she’d seen. And that scene had been made that much more brutal because he was dead by her hand. Blood had been everywhere. She could still see him staring down at the knife, anger and shock on his face as the life force fled from his veins.

But there was no way she was about to go into that now.

Frank could sense she was holding something back. He had a feeling that if she were drowning, White Bear’d throw the life preserver back at his head, determined to save herself on her own. Pride was a good thing, but there was such a thing as too much of it. For the time being, he let it go.

“Okay.”

As he approached the Dumpster, he saw that the crime scene investigators had already been called in. A slight, younger man was busy snapping photographs of the area directly surrounding the one Dumpster, while another man, older and heavyset, was inside the Dumpster. Wrinkling his nose involuntarily against the pungent smell, he was taking close-ups of a woman who could no longer protest.

Overturning a wooden crate that, if the image painted on the side was correct, had once contained bean sprouts, Frank pushed the box next to the Dumpster and used it as a step to facilitate his getting into the Dumpster. The thought of just diving in seemed somehow repugnant.

The smell of death and rotting food assaulted him. Still, a job was a job. The first thing he noticed, before he climbed in, was the wig. A blond wig, obviously belonging to the victim, had slipped halfway off her head.

The second thing he noticed was the woman’s face.

He’d seen that face before. Less than an hour ago.

Stunned at the way fate sometimes toyed with them, he turned to see that Julianne was gamely about to follow suit, waiting her turn to use the wooden crate as a stepstool.

“Stay back,” he ordered.

The barked commanded caught her off guard. “Why? I said I can handle it.”

Not this. “I don’t think so,” he told her tersely. There was no arguing with his tone.

Except that she refused to be browbeaten. Nor would she accept any special treatment that he could later hold over her head.

“Why don’t you let me decide that?” It was a rhetorical question and she didn’t wait for an answer. Bracing her hands on the front of the Dumpster, she was about to vault in.

“Might get crowded in here,” the investigator speculated.

“White Bear, I said get back,” Frank ordered angrily.

He shifted, trying to block her view, but it was too late. Because that was when Julianne saw her. Saw the face of the serial killer’s latest victim.

She could almost feel the blood draining out of her face.

“Mary.”

Frank jumped down from his perch in time to catch her as her knees gave out.

Julianne vaguely felt arms closing around her even as fire and ice passed over her body. For a split second, the world threatened to disappear into the black abyss that mushroomed out all around her.

Only the steeliest of resolves enabled her to fight back against the darkness, against the overwhelming nausea that almost succeeded in bringing up her hastily consumed dinner from last night.

Sucking in air, Julianne struggled against the strong arms that held her prisoner.

“I’m all right,” she insisted, hot anger mingling with hot tears she damned herself for shedding. “I’m all right,” she repeated, almost shouting the words at Frank.

The sound of an approaching car had Frank looking down the alley. He recognized Riley’s vehicle. “Look, why don’t I have Riley take you back?” he suggested kindly.

She bristled at what she thought was pity. “No.” The word tore from her throat like a war cry. Shrugging out of Frank’s hold, willing her legs to stiffen, Julianne moved back to the Dumpster. “I’m not going anywhere,” she cried defiantly.

“You’re off the case, White Bear,” he told her tersely.

Her head snapped around and she glared at him. “No, I’m not,” she insisted. “You can’t do that.”

Oh, but he could. And he had to. “You’re related to the victim.”

Her eyes blazed and she took out all the pain she was feeling on him. “You wouldn’t have known that if you hadn’t invaded my privacy.”

He wasn’t going to get sucked into nitpicking. “Doesn’t change anything. You can’t—”