Loe raamatut: «Cavanaugh Stakeout»

Chapter 1

Former police chief Andrew Cavanaugh immediately thought the worst whenever a phone rang, the shrill noise elbowing its way into his sound sleep, especially whenever it happened after midnight. It was at that time more than any other that icy fear would grip his heart even before he was fully awake. Because of the nature of his job and the jobs held down by so much of his family, half-formed dire scenarios would flood his mind the instant the phone began to ring.

Andrew was groping around on the nightstand, searching for his phone before his eyes were even open or his brain was fully engaged.

His wife, Rose, shared the very same feelings. And fears.

“Who is it, Andrew?” she asked, turning toward him in their queen-size bed.

Andrew didn’t answer her. Fully awake now, he focused on listening to what the voice on the other end of the call was telling him.

The intense look on his face had Rose grasping his forearm, as if that would somehow help her assimilate what the caller was saying to him. Or, at the very least, allow her to share with him whatever burden those words might be creating.

What she was hearing from Andrew’s side of the conversation only fueled her dread.

“When?” Andrew asked, his usually genial face a mask of concern. “How bad? Is he—?” Rose saw her husband exhale a shaky breath, dragging his hand through his hair. For a split second, the man everyone leaned on so heavily looked almost lost. “What hospital?”

By now Rose’s adrenaline had escalated to an exceptionally high level. She quickly got out of bed and, rather than throw on a robe, automatically began to get dressed. Quickly.

The second she was finished, she was laying out her husband’s clothing. She knew Andrew inside and out. She knew that the moment he hung up, they would be on their way to whatever hospital the person that this call was about was in.

With children, brothers and sisters-in-law, as well as an entire extended collection of family members, almost all involved in some capacity of law enforcement, there were many potential candidates for whom that path might have very well ended tonight—or had come very close to ending.

There was no other reason why a call would have suddenly shattered their night this way, or why her husband looked so distressed.

Without knowing whom this call was about or what the actual damage was, all Rose could do was pray as she moved quickly to get Andrew’s clothes ready for him. It was her form of “busywork,” something to keep her occupied so that her mind wouldn’t go to that awful place that it was wont to go thanks to this middle-of-the-night call.

It just went with the territory because she was the former police chief’s wife. A peaceful night’s sleep wasn’t always part of the equation.

Rose had laid out all of Andrew’s clothing as well as his shoes and had just pulled out a pair of socks when her husband hung up the phone.

The moment that he did, she whirled around to face him.

“Who?” she asked breathlessly.

Throwing off the rest of the covers, Andrew’s bare feet hit the cold floor. The change in temperature hardly registered. His mind was racing, unearthing a dozen memories at once. But mainly Andrew was praying. Praying every bit as hard as he had when he had gone looking for his missing wife all those years ago when her car had driven off the road, into the lake.

It had taken him years to find Rose again, but he had, he reminded himself. Finding her when she’d been suffering from amnesia had been, admittedly, an incredible long shot, but he had never given up looking, despite the odds. And, in the end, he had found her.

This was going to be another kind of long shot, but just like before, he had every hope that it was going to work out.

It just had to.

Rose caught hold of her husband’s arm, pulling him and his attention back from wherever it had drifted to and toward her.

Startled, Andrew blinked, as if suddenly remembering that his wife was there.

“Who is it?” Rose asked point-blank.

The answer hurt, and it took him a second to actually form the words to tell her.

“It’s Dad,” Andrew answered, shrugging into his pullover sweater.

Of all the names that had gone rushing through Rose’s anguished, feverish brain, her father-in-law’s name hadn’t been among them.

Armed with this piece of information, Rose’s mind went in an entirely different direction.

“Heart attack?” she guessed quietly as she watched Andrew slip on his shoes.

Grabbing his wallet from the nightstand and putting his cell phone into his pocket, Andrew shook his head. “It wasn’t a heart attack.”

“Then what?” Rose asked, confused.

Andrew drew in a deep breath, as if to insulate himself from the fears that went with what he was about to say.

“As near as the patrolmen who found him can tell,” Andrew said, “Dad was the victim of a mugging. At least that’s the working theory. His car is missing, and he was found lying facedown in the North Tustin Industrial parking lot.”

Horror flashed across Rose’s face. The next moment, she managed to regain control over her emotions.

“But Seamus is all right, isn’t he, Andrew?” she asked, willing her husband to give her a positive reply.

Andrew avoided making eye contact with his wife. “He’s breathing,” he answered, heading toward the stairs. He loved having Rose with him under any circumstances, but he wanted to spare her this. His father was a strong man, but age had a way of eroding strength. Andrew had no idea what he was in for.

“Dad hasn’t regained consciousness since they found him.” Sailing down the staircase’s seventeen steps, he was at the front door in seconds. “I’m going to the hospital,” he told her.

Rose was just a beat behind him. “Not without me you’re not.”

He turned toward her. “There’s no point if he’s still unconscious. Maybe you should just stay here, hold down the fort,” Andrew gently suggested.

The stubborn look he knew and loved so well came into Rose’s eyes. “The fort can hold itself down. I’m not letting you face this alone, Andrew Cavanaugh,” she informed him in no uncertain terms.

This was one of the many reasons he loved her, but even so—or maybe because of it—he didn’t feel right about dragging her with him like this, Andrew thought. “People are going to be calling here, asking questions about what happened.”

He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already considered. “I’m sure they will. Don’t worry about it, we have call forwarding. They’ll find us,” Rose assured him. “After all these years of marriage, that old man is as much my father as he is yours and I’m not about to stay here like a good little soldier, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for word that he’s all right—and he will be all right,” she told her husband in a no-nonsense voice. “Now, let’s just stop wasting time debating this and let’s go,” Rose ordered.

Andrew’s heart swelled with affection as well as gratitude. Sparing himself one moment, he caught his wife up in his arms and kissed her.

Hard.

The next second, he let her go again. “If I haven’t mentioned this to you lately, I love you, Rose McGee Cavanaugh.”

Rose briefly touched his face and smiled at Andrew, all the love she felt for this man who was her entire universe shining in her eyes.

“I know,” she replied. “Now, let’s get moving!” she urged again, pulling open the front door.

“Yes, ma’am,” Andrew answered, utterly grateful that this was the woman who was sharing his life.

Rose had always managed to give him hope.

Rose sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle she had surprised him with last Christmas as they sped off to the hospital. To ensure that they would get there as quickly as possible, Andrew had placed his police lights on the roof. Though he didn’t believe in abusing any of the privileges that were at his disposal, this situation negated his natural impulse for caution.

While the lights on his roof flashed and the siren blared, Rose was busy calling various members of their family to tell them that the man who was responsible for starting the family was very possibly fighting for his life in the hospital. Rose knew that nobody would want to be left out of the loop under the guise of being “spared” the news until morning. Everyone loved and respected the crotchety patriarch and would have been distraught if they weren’t able to be on the premises, pulling for Seamus and adding their prayers to the rest.

This was the sort of thing that transcended everything else. This was about family.

Despite the hour, Aurora Memorial Hospital’s parking lot was teeming with vehicles. Andrew gunned his SUV up and down the aisle, searching for a place to park. As he searched, he spared Rose a glance. “How does it feel being a modern-day Paul Revere?”

“I would have preferred just inviting people to one of your parties instead of telling them to come to the hospital because Seamus has been the victim of some psychopathic thief,” Rose answered grimly. She reached for her husband’s hand and squeezed it. “He’s going to be all right,” she promised, her voice thick with emotion. The words were meant to hearten her as much as they were to encourage her husband.

“Of course he is,” Andrew agreed in a voice that was as emotional as his wife’s. “Dad’s too ornery to just give up and…retreat,” he said, finally finding a word he could use without having his voice break.

“There,” Rose said suddenly, pointing over to the side. “There’s a space.”

“Good eye,” Andrew said, temporarily taking refuge in the minutia of ordinary banter.

He angled his vehicle into the rather tight space and was out of the driver’s side in a matter of seconds. He heard the passenger door slamming shut and paused, waiting for Rose to join him.

“Don’t wait for me,” his wife said, waving him toward the ER entrance. “Just go!”

Nodding, Andrew made his way to the rear ER doors quickly. How many times had he been here over the course of his career and then some? Far too many to count, he thought. Once, years back, he’d even been brought here himself.

It never got any easier, he decided.

It took Rose two beats to catch up and be at his side.

“You move fast for an old man,” she told him, trying to tease Andrew and lighten the huge weight that she knew had to be weighing down on him.

“Not that old,” Andrew replied.

Just then the young woman behind the registration desk turned toward them. A look of mild recognition crossed her face.

The next moment the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. “You’re here about Seamus Cavanaugh, aren’t you?”

Under ordinary circumstances, Andrew might have said something light in response, but these were not ordinary circumstances. They were scarier than he could ever remember them being. His father had been beaten, possibly shot. Add to that the man had age working against him. Despite trying to keep a positive attitude, this was not the best of scenarios.

Andrew got down to business immediately. “Yes, we are. How is he?”

“Grandpa’s a hearty warhorse, Dad. You know that,” his oldest daughter, Callie, said as she hurried up to join him.

She was not alone. Behind her was her husband, Benton Montgomery, as well as her two brothers, Shaw and Clay, and her sisters, Teri and Rayn, along with each of their spouses.

Hugging her father, she said, “When Mom called to tell me what happened, I got the word out. Most of the family’s either already here or on their way.”

Rose smiled at her husband when he turned toward her. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a first floor full of Cavanaughs praying for Seamus’s recovery. God can’t ignore this many like-minded people all asking for the same favor.”

Though he tried to mask it, the breath he released was shaky. “Well, that would explain the crowded parking lot. Let’s hope you’re right,” Andrew said to his wife. It was obvious to Rose that he was afraid to be too confident about the outcome.

“I’m always right,” Rose informed him with a confidence she really didn’t feel. She looked around the immediate area. “Anyone know where your granddad’s doctor is?” she asked the ever-growing sea of people.

Dax Cavanaugh spoke up first. “He was here a minute ago,” he told his aunt.

Brian Cavanaugh, Aurora’s chief of detectives, came up behind his son and put his hand on Dax’s shoulder as he addressed his sister-in-law. “I’ll have him paged, Rose.” Turning, Brian spotted an official-looking nurse and headed straight for her. When he saw that she was about to turn away, he called out to get her attention. “Ms.? Excuse me, Ms.!” Brian sped up his pace.

Marsha Williams, whose newly bestowed official title was head nurse of the ER, stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around. The pasted-on friendly smile quickly turned into a wary expression. Before she could stop herself, she murmured, “Oh, lord, they warned me about this.”

Brian cocked his silvery head. “Who warned you about what?” he asked in an amicable voice.

“The last head nurse. Rachel Rubin. She told me that sooner or later—most likely sooner—there would be a flood of you people in here because one of your own was hurt in the line of duty and that you wouldn’t leave until you were absolutely sure that the law-enforcement person was going to pull through.” She had a tablet with her and scrolled through it now, checking on new admissions and recent patients who had been brought into the ER. “But no one like that was brought in.”

“Try again, dear,” Brian’s wife, Lila, instructed the head nurse. There was no mistaking the authority beneath the friendly voice. For the woman’s benefit, the recently retired detective began to fill her in. “Seamus Cavanaugh was brought in unconscious less than—”

Recognition entered the head nurse’s eyes as they came to rest on a recent entry.

“Oh, here he is,” the woman declared. Marsha raised her head. “Dr. Iverson is overseeing his case,” she reported.

“And what’s the name of the doctor who’s actually doing something for my grandfather?” Detective Troy Cavanaugh asked, a note of impatience in his voice.

Marsha Williams’s somewhat high-handed attitude receded. “I’ll go get the doctor,” she replied, moving away.

Having quietly slipped into the circle gathered around the woman, Andrew smiled at the head nurse. “Thank you,” he said in a subdued, civil-sounding voice.