Cavanaugh Hero by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online

she snapped, rubbing at a spot on the bar that wouldn’t give up its stain. “It’s not my fault he thought it was serious between us.”
    “Right. He should have realized that the only serious affair you could have was with money,” Charley murmured under her breath.
    She knew better, and ordinarily she would have refrained from saying something like that, but she wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the moment and her temper had gotten away from her.
    “You can’t talk to me like that!” Melissa cried indignantly.
    “Actually, she could probably talk a lot worse to you than that, so I wouldn’t push it if I were you,” Declan warned her, completely surprising Charley. Whether he realized it or not, he’d just helped her regain control over her temper.
    All Melissa seemed to be aware of was being insulted. “Look, you give Matt a message for me. You tell him I don’t care who he sends over, we’re not getting back together and that’s final.”
    Declan inclined his head. “I’m afraid it is.”
    The bartender looked somewhat perplexed. For the moment, her confusion paralyzed her. “You mean you think he’ll back off?”
    “Sergeant Holt can’t do very much of anything anymore,” Declan informed her. “He’s dead.”
    The woman behind the bar appeared stunned, as if the person she’d just been talking to had lapsed into a language she couldn’t comprehend. “What?” she asked hoarsely, staring at Declan.
    “He’s dead,” Charley repeated, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. Her eyes darted to Declan to see if he noticed her momentary shift in tone, but he seemed only focused on Melissa.
    Was that because he still thought of the woman as a suspect, or because the vest Melissa was wearing set off her breasts to their best advantage, emphasizing her cleavage?
    Charley couldn’t decide.
    “This is a joke, right?” Melissa asked, glancing at her and then Declan, waiting for one of them to tell her she was right.
    Charley took out her phone and showed her the photo she’d taken of her brother at the crime scene, the cryptic note still pinned to his chest. “This isn’t a joke,” she said.
    Melissa stared wide-eyed at the picture on the cell phone, then turned her head away. “Oh, God, he’s dead in that, isn’t he?” she asked, directing the question to Declan. Upset or not, she never lost her focus, which meant playing to the best-looking man in the room.
    “Yes, he is,” Declan replied patiently, knowing that if he left it to Charley to answer her, he couldn’t be sure just what would come out.
    Anyone paying minimal attention could see that she didn’t like the woman. Was that because she felt Melissa had treated Holt badly—or because she was jealous of the connection, however brief, the two had had?
    “How did it happen?” Melissa asked. “Was it the bullet that killed him?” Her eyes strayed back to the photograph and the hole in Matt’s chest.
    “Well, it didn’t help,” Charley snapped.
    Then, to her surprise, she saw tears shining in the other woman’s eyes. Given what she knew about their relationship, she wouldn’t have thought Melissa capable of any genuine grief or any real emotion whatsoever. There was a chance that she had misjudged the woman—but she tended not to believe that.
    “I’m sorry,” Melissa said. “I’ve got to go sit down somewhere.”
    Coming around the bar, rather than take a seat the way she’d indicated, Melissa went straight to Declan and leaned heavily against him, her chest heaving with supposedly trapped sobs.
    Making eye contact with him, Charley didn’t even try to hide her disdain. She rolled her eyes, letting him know exactly what she thought of this little performance.
    “Who did it?” Melissa asked.
    “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Declan replied, looking around for a likely place to deposit the woman who at this point was all over him. Under different circumstances, it might have even been a