Free Cavanaugh Watch by Marie Ferrarella

rest of the things to be dealt with at a later date. Periodically, she would go through the room and clean it out. Currently, however, it looked like the nesting ground for abandoned creatures who found shelter beneath bridges and inside collapsing cardboard boxes.
    Fighting a sense of mounting desperation, Janelle walked out of her father’s house. She locked the front door and pocketed the key before finally looking at the man she now regarded as her own personal albatross.
    “You don’t have to come with me,” she insisted. “I won’t tell if you don’t tell.”
    It didn’t work that way for him. You weren’t guilty only if you were caught. You were guilty if you did something wrong. Witnesses didn’t count.
    He looked at her for a long silent moment, wondering if she was just talking or if her moral foundation was built on lies. “But I’ll know.”
    “And honor is that important to you.”
    “Shouldn’t it be?”
    Normally, yes, she thought. But not in this instance. “Terrific, I draw Dirty Harry with a conscience.” Well, she might as well make the best of it, she supposed as she opened the driver’s side door. “You can have the sofa.”
    Woman certainly jumped around from topic to topic, he thought. “To do what on?”
    “Sleep.”
    Sawyer laughed shortly, shaking his head. “I don’t intend to sleep.”
    Janelle stopped just short of getting into her car and stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?” When he made no effort to confirm her supposition, she felt compelled to point out a glaring fact of life. “Everyone sleeps, Detective.”
    He’d been in the marines and seen fighting. He’d been an LAPD officer and seen more. Somewhere along the line, he’d developed the ability to sleep sitting up with one eye open. That way, he rested, but the slightest noise would instantly wake him up.
    “If you say so.”
    His “agreeableness” was anything but. She didn’t like his patronizing attitude. But she was too tired, too edgy, too stressed to debate this situation any further.
    Taking one last look around the area to see if her father’s cream-colored sedan was approaching, Janelle did her best to suppress her frustration and got behind the wheel of her car. She didn’t even remember turning on the ignition. As far as she was concerned, it was all automatic pilot from door to door.
    The roads were empty. She did sixty all the way. Sawyer kept up with her. He wasn’t that far behind her when they pulled up into her apartment complex. Janelle drove straight into her carport without so much as a backward glance in her rearview mirror, leaving her shadow to find a space in guest parking if he could. What with many of the apartments having at least two occupants if not more, this time of the evening there were usually very few empty spaces to be found.
    His problem, not mine, she thought.
    Maybe if he couldn’t find a place to park, he’d go away. At least it was something to hope for.
    For a very short time.
    Sawyer was only two steps behind her when she reached her front door. She pressed her lips together to keep from ordering him home. It wouldn’t accomplish anything, except make her unstable. She was determined not to appear weak around him.
    Inserting the key into the lock, she opened the door and entered.
    “You know, you could have gotten a ticket back there.”
    Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Lucky for me there were no dedicated police officers around.”
    She switched on the light in her apartment. For the first time she found herself wishing that she’d listened to her father when he’d suggested she get an attack dog after she’d first moved out. Her reasoning against it had been that she didn’t have enough time to properly take care of a pet. But right now, she would have loved to see Sawyer’s reaction if a snarling dog came lunging at him.
    He’d probably shoot it, she realized suddenly. The man struck her as the type to shoot first, ask questions