Free Cavanaugh Hero by Marie Ferrarella Page A

them to Matt’s killer.
    “What do you think the note meant?” she asked Declan abruptly.
    Just at that moment, the elevator arrived. Declan waited for her to get in first, then followed on behind her. Reaching around her, he pressed for the floor they needed.
    “What note?” he asked her.
    She blew out an impatient breath. Was she paired with a detective who didn’t pay attention? “The one that was stapled to his chest.” It was hard for her even to mention that without wincing in empathy—even though she knew Matt hadn’t been alive at that point and wouldn’t have felt the sharp ends of the staples sinking into his flesh like tiny shark teeth. “Saying that this was just the beginning,” she prompted further.
    “Looks to me like we still have the same two choices—it’s either a serial killer, boasting, which means we’ve got one hell of a bumpy road ahead— or the killer is trying to throw us off by making us believe Holt was just part of a larger whole.” He regarded her for a moment. “You wouldn’t know if Holt had been part of a task force, or was with a group of people who fancied themselves in charge or responsible?”
    It sounded scattered and he knew it, but he was throwing everything he could come up with out there, trying to make something stick, something that could be vaguely connected to a motive.
    But she shook her head.
    “You don’t know, or he wasn’t?” he asked since what she meant wasn’t clear to him.
    “He wasn’t—unless he was keeping it a secret from me,” she said.
    “Why would he do that?” he asked, sensing again that the relationship between Charley and the dead officer was a lot deeper than Charley was letting on.
    They arrived at Declan’s floor and got out.
    “The only thing he belonged to was the police force,” Charley said simply. “He wasn’t a joiner.”
    There were joiners, and then there were joiners . “He didn’t belong to anyclubs, or organization, or church groups?”
    “Nothing,” she said in response to the first two things he’d mentioned, “and he wasn’t a churchgoer,” she added, addressing the third item. “Said if he ever walked in on a service, the roof would undoubtedly collapse and he was actually doing a public service by keeping away.”
    Declan was about to ask her just how close she and the dead man had been because from where he was standing, it sounded as if they were very close. But upon reflection, all he would probably get out of asking her that would be a denial.
    So he kept his peace for now, biding his time.
    She had her own theory, such as it was. “Could be someone just hates cops in general and just happened to single Holt out, figuring he would make an easy start,” she guessed, remembering the shattered glass on the floor. Had there been lipstick on the corner of the rim and she’d just missed it? Was there something she was overlooking? Maybe, in an effort to forget about Melissa, he’d brought home a woman he’d picked up at a bar and she—Charley stopped abruptly. She was just grasping at straws now.
    “In Holt’s own home?” Declan asked her incredulously.
    Charley shrugged, searching for a plausible explanation that didn’t give her away at the same time. “He either knew his killer and let them in. Or...”
    “Or...?” Declan prodded, ready for just about anything to come out of her mouth.
    “Or the killer followed him home from a bar,” she finally suggested.
    Declan inclined his head, mulling over what she’d said. “It’s possible.”
    Suddenly, the air was filled with the instrumental theme song of an action series from the late 1970s, early ’80s. Declan’s cell phone was ringing, trying to gain his attention—as if that theme song could be ignored.
    “Catchy,” Charley commented as the detective took his phone out.
    He had a reason for programming what he had into his phone. “This way I know it’s my phone that’s ringing, not someone else’s,” he told her, taking