Cavanaugh Watch by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page A

into her palms in an effort to sound calm.
    “Try.” It wasn’t a request; it was an order.
    After a beat, with a slight incline of his head, he obliged her. “With so many members of your family on the force, if there was dirt, it might rub off on one of them.” He made it sound elementary. “So you pretend there isn’t any.”
    Janelle opened her mouth to retort, then shut it without saying a word. He was putting her on the defensive. One of the first lessons her father had ever taught her was to keep her opponent from backing her into a corner. The best way to do that was to go on the offensive. Growing up with her brothers and cousins had given her a great deal of practice.
    She took a long, deep breath, then exhaled before asking, “How long have you had this dark view of the world, Detective Boone?”
    If she meant to rattle him, she didn’t succeed. “Ever since I could remember.”
    It was a lie, because he vaguely remembered a time when there had been hope. When the world had not come in dark colors. But then his parents had gone their separate ways and he’d been shipped off to his mother’s mother, a woman who was far more interested in strange men than in raising him. Except for the small space of time when Allison had been in his life, he’d been alone for a very long time.
    Janelle studied him. He meant it, she realized. The thought almost made her shiver. The man had to be hollow inside. She would have felt sorry for him—if he didn’t make her so angry. “And you anticipate the worst.”
    There was just the slightest nod of his head. “That way I’m never disappointed. And I’m not.”
    What an awful way to face life. She wasn’t like her cousin Patience, who had this overwhelming desire to fix every hurt animal that limped across her line of vision. But she hated seeing a tortured soul and that was what she was looking at, Janelle thought. A soul that had been through torture. He’d said something about being this way ever since he could remember. There was only one reason for that.
    “What kind of a childhood did you have, Detective Boone?” she asked him.
    His eyes met hers. He bit off the inclination to tell her to mind her own business. Instead, he said, “I didn’t.”
    She nodded, as pieces moved into place. “That would explain it.”
    Janelle was surprised to see his mouth curve ever so slightly into a smile. But by no means was it a warm smile, nor did it involve any part of him other than the skin on his lips. His eyes didn’t smile. They remained detached, cold. Analytical.
    Robots had eyes like that, she thought. In high-tech science-fiction movies. Intelligent, but without a soul, without compassion—because they had no frame of reference available against which to measure feelings. Was that the case with him?
    The cold smile faded as if it had never existed. “Don’t try to analyze me, Cavanaugh. Your talents would be best used elsewhere.”
    There was another knock on the door. A firm one this time. Before she extended an invitation to come in, the door was opened, bringing with it a smattering more air, not exactly fresh, but every little bit helped right now, she thought.
    Janelle drew in a lungful, as if that would somehow help her deal with Sawyer and his all-encompassing disdain. She looked at the sensibly dressed young woman in the doorway. “Yes?”
    Another one of the assistants. Marcia Croft had been there three weeks longer than Janelle had and was still trying to direct Stephen Woods’s attention over in her direction. It was no secret that she wanted him to view her not as an up-and-coming assistant, but as a wealthy graduate of Cornell University who had set her cap not so much on an illustrious career in the D.A.’s office as on the A.D.A.—seeing as how the D.A. was taken. To Marcia it was all about connections.
    “Woods wants us all in the conference room,” she told Janelle. Belatedly, she seemed to take note of the fact that Janelle was not