Free Internal Affair by Marie Ferrarella

Cavanaugh.
    A sense of urgency hovered over her as she hurried up the stairs into the building.

    Patrick walked into his apartment, pushing the door shut. It slammed behind him, shuddering in the jamb. He stood in the dark for a moment, absorbing the solitude. And the quiet.
    Especially the quiet.
    Any way he looked at it, the week had been very long. He and McKenna had canvassed most of the people on the fund-raiser list as well as all those in the victim’s address book.
    Fortunately, that list had turned out to be a great deal shorter.
    Unfortunately, although some of her girlfriends knew she was involved with someone, no one had a name for the mystery man. For all her perky, former cheerleader appearance, Joanne Styles chose to be rather closemouthed when it came to her love affair.
    All he and McKenna could gather was that the mystery man had been relatively new in the young woman’s life. So new she was afraid to talk about him because of the fear she might jinx it.
    At least, that was what she’d told her friends. His money was still on the congressman. In that case, Styles might have been afraid to name him because Wiley had threatened to end the affair if anyone found out about the two of them. After all, he was the family values poster boy.
    There was something about the man’s wide smile that just rubbed him the wrong way.
    He was letting his personal prejudice color his thinking, Patrick upbraided himself. But maybe it wasn’t prejudice. Maybe it was a gut feeling. Like the gut feeling that he’d be a whole lot better off without McKenna as his partner.
    As his thoughts shifted to her, he turned the light on. It just seemed wrong to have thoughts about her in the dark. McKenna was still working with Styles’s computer, but so far, all the e-mail she’d managed to pull up was unenlightening. If Styles had communicated with her lover/possible killer, it wasn’t from her own laptop. The mail there represented communications from and to former college friends and her family, all of whom lived back East somewhere.
    He and McKenna had met with the member of the family who had flown out to claim the body. He had to admit that McKenna was better at talking to the distraught older sister than he was. It wasn’t the dead that made him uncomfortable; it was the living.
    The body had been released earlier today. There was no more information coming from the coroner’s office. They’d learned as much as they could there. Besides the victim’s own DNA, there was no one with whom to match the fetus’s DNA. They had possible motive, but so far, no suspect they could remotely pin down. Everyone, according to her friends and co-workers, liked Joanne.
    Except for one person, he thought grimly, making his way out of his tie and into the kitchen. The father of Styles’s baby. The man who had terminated them both.
    Tossing the tie onto the back of a chair, Patrick opened his refrigerator. There was nothing except beer in it, but that was all right. Beer was all he wanted. Beer and some peace and quiet.
    Going back into the living room, he sat down in front of the television set and left it off. He was vaguely aware of the sounds of cars beyond his window, tires passing through puddles as they made their way somewhere. Concentrating, he could block out the sound.
    He couldn’t block out the phone.
    When he heard it ring, he stiffened. Taking another long gulp from the bottle, he debated letting the phone ring. Most of his work-related calls came through his cell phone. The telephone might mean telemarketers. Lately they had no shame, calling from early until late and invading the weekends. He told himself he needed to get caller ID.
    But the telephone was also reserved for family or if there was some kind of an emergency. He stared at it, willing it to stop.
    When the ringing went to the count of four, he yanked up the receiver. If it was a telemarketer, he promised himself one hell of a venting session. He could use